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{i}
The Catholic World.
A Monthly Magazine
of
General Literature And Science.
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Vol. VIII.
October, 1868, TO March, 1869.
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New York:
The Catholic Publication House,
126 Nassau Street.
1869.
{ii}
John A. Gray & Green,
Printers,
16 And 18 Jacob Street, New York.
{iii}
Contents.
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American College in Rome, The, 560.
Apostolic Letter from the Pope, 721.
A Legend for Husbands, 824.
Basilica of St. Saturnin, The, 101.
Bretons, The Faith and Poetry of the, 123.
Brittany, Its People and its Poems, 598.
Church of the Future, The, 143.
Catholicity and Pantheism, 181, 360, 565, 657, 811.
Curé d'Ars, Statue of, 200.
Catholic Congress? Shall we have a, 224.
Canadian Customs, 246.
Charities of New York, The, 279.
Catholicity, Creative Genius of, 406.
Christmas Gifts, 546.
Dante Alighieri, 213.
Education, Catholic View of, 686.
Earl Derby's Homer, 740.
Flaminia, 76.
Galileo-Galilei, 321, 433.
Good old Time and our own, The, 380.
Genius of Catholicity, The Creative, 406.
General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church, 461.
General Council, The Approaching, 796.
Hospitality, Legend of, 68.
Holy Grayle, The, 137.
Hyacinthe, Rev. Père, Discourse of, 188.
Hypnotics, 289.
Heremore-Brandon, 522, 663, 784.
Human Will, Teaching of Statistics concerning, 643.
Homer's Iliad, by Earl Derby, 740.
Husbands, A Legend for, 824.
Ireland's Martyrs, 838.
Kaulbach and the Era of the Reformation, 56.
Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 1.
Maria von Mörl, 32.
Marcel, The Story of, 254, 347, 494.
Middle Ages, Ignorance of the, 598.
Out of the Depths have I cried, 453.
O'Reilly's Irish Martyrs, 838.
Philosophy and Science, The Present Disputes in, 229.
Purgatory, Treatise on, 266.
Protestant Episcopal Church, General Convention of, 461.
Protestantism a Failure, 503.
Pope Pius IX., Letter Apostolic of, 536.
"Poor Mara!" 637.
Porter's Human Intellect, 671, 767.
Progress of Nations, Seaman's, 724.
Religion Medically Considered, 116.
Rings, 129.
Right Path found through the Great Snow, The, 370.
Ritualism, The Future of, 828.
St. Bartholomew, Massacre of, 1.
Sisters of the Poor, The Little, 100.
School-Room, In the, 132.
Schaff's Church History, 417.
Scientific and Revealed Truth, The Unity of, 485.
Sun, Eclipse of, in 1868, 697.
Seaman's Progress of Nations, 724.
St. Michael the Hermit, The Legend of, 853.
The Invasion, 18, 162, 301, 473, 619, 746.
Talleyrand, 88.
The Little Sisters of the Poor, 110.
The Faith and Poetry of the Bretons, 123.
Tuscany, Glimpses of, 196, 316.
The Great Snow, The Right Path found through, 370.
The Poor? Who shall take care of, 703, 734.
The Iliad of Homer, 740.
Who shall take care of our Sick? 42.
Who shall take care of the Poor? 703, 734.
Ximenes, Cardinal, 577.
----------
Poetry.
Aspirations, 222.
A Door, Inscription on, 636.
Count de Montalembert, 128.
Christmas, 471.
Dante, Sonnet from _Vita Nuova</i> of, 545.
Discipline, 641.
De Profundis, 853.
Friendships, 187.
Indian Summer, 405.
Lines, 745.
Mine Enemy, 73.
Penitence, 421.
Primrose, The Evening, 521.
Pius IX., The Volunteers for, 635.
Summer Shower, A, 40.
The Silent Clock, 733.
{iv}
New Publications.
Alton Park, 143.
A Psyche of To-day, 143.
A Becket, Life of, 428.
Asmodeus in New York, 429.
A Book about Dominies, 719.
A Few Friends, 856.
Barrington's Sketches of his own Times, 287.
Beginning German, 574.
Beginner's French, 576.
Biarnois's Theoretical French, 718.
Bottala, Rev. Paul, on the Pope, 283.
Cardinals, Lives of the English, 139.
Cradle Lands, 422.
Criminal Abortion, 573
Charlie Bell, 860.
Dalgairns on the Holy Communion, 430.
Excelsior, or Essays on Politeness, 288.
Emmet, Life and Times of, 430.
Father Cleveland, 141.
Fay's Outlines of Geography, 429.
Gropings after Truth, 429.
Gayarré's Philip II. of Spain, 570.
Greeley's Recollections, 571.
Gayarré's History of Louisana, 716.
Gray's Botany, 860.
Herbert's Cradle Lands, 422.
Hebrew Grammar, New, 426.
Historical Gazetteer of Vermont, 428.
Hopkins's Law of Love, 858.
Hayden's Light on Last Things, 838.
Illustrated Family Almanac, 572.
Kelly's Dissertations on Irish Church History, 856.
Logic for Young Ladies, 143.
Leaf and Flower Pictures, 286.
Life of Blessed Spinola, 859.
Mühlbach's Goethe and Schiller, 141.
Modern Women, 143.
Mrs. Sadlier's MacCarthy More, 288.
Mignon, 288.
Moore's Poetical Works, 431.
Moore's Memoir of Sheridan, 431.
Mark's Lessons in Geometry, 431.
New Adam, The, 427.
Newman's Verses, 574.
New Illustrated History of Ireland, 720.
O'Leary, Rev. Arthur, Works of, 287.
O'Shea's Juvenile Library, 573.
Outlines of Composition, 859.
Plain Talk about Protestantism, 288.
Plain Chant, A Grammar of, 857. 8
Roman Martyrology, The, 430.
Rural Poems, 573.
Report of New York University, 575.
Robertson's Lectures on Burke, 717.
Symbolism, by Moehler, 285.
Sunday-School Library, Illustrated, 286.
Shiel's Sketches of the Irish Bar, 287.
Sydnie Adriance, 430.
South America, A Thousand Miles across, 431.
Synodus Dioecesana Baltimorensis, 432.
St. John's Knowledge and Love of God, 573.
Sadlier's Almanac, 718.
The Works of Burns, Scott, Milton, etc., 142.
The Lily of the Valley, 287.
The Bird, 425.
Tablets, 426.
The Two Women, 432.
Taine's Ideal of Art, 572.
The Little Gipsy, 574.
Tobacco and Alcohol, 719.
The Conscript, 859.
Willson's Histories, 141.
Webster's Dictionaries, 144.
Winninger, Rev. F. X., on the Pope, 285.
----------
{1}
The Catholic World.
Vol. VIII., No. 43 October, 1868.
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The Massacre Of St. Bartholomew--its Origin And Character.
[Footnote 1]
[Footnote 1: _The Massacre of St. Bartholomew: preceded by
a History of the Religious Wars in the Reign of Charles
IX._ By Henry White. London: John Murray. 1868. 8vo, pp.
xviii.-505.
_La St. Barthélemy, ses Origines, son Vrai Caractère, ses
Suites_. Par George Gandy. _Revue des Questions
Historiques_. Tome ier, pp. 11-91, 32-391.]
Few historical events have been more persistently used in
arguments against the Catholic Church than the massacre of
Admiral Coligny, and a great number of Protestant nobles and
people, at Paris, on St. Bartholomew's day, 1572, by orders
emanating from the court.
Isolated from the religious wars in which it is but one of the
darkest episodes, this affair has been set forward as an
independent act--a deliberate scheme of the Catholic party in
France--king, nobles, and clergy--to extinguish Protestantism at
a single blow. The numbers of the victims have been exaggerated
to an extent incompatible with all contemporary statistics of
population; and the massacre of St. Bartholomew has thus been
transmitted, as if by a series of distorting mirrors, from the
pamphlets of the time to the histories, sermons, periodicals, and
school-books of our days, each reflection but a distortion of the
last, and so exceeding it in unreality that at length truth had
become utterly hopeless.
In fact, we might as well expect to have Bibles throw out the
long-sanctioned misprint of "strain at a gnat," and print,
correctly, "strain out a gnat," or omit the intrusive words at
the end of the Lord's Prayer, which all Protestant Biblical
scholars admit to be spurious, as to expect popular accounts of
St. Bartholomew's day to come down to what is really certain and
authentic.
Even among writers of a higher stamp, there seemed to be a
disposition to avoid research that would break the charm.
Historical scholars made little effort to free the subject from
the mists and fables with which it has been encompassed, and set
down only well-attested facts with authorities to sustain them.
{2}
It is, therefore, with no less surprise than gratification that
we find in the recent work of Henry White a laborious and
thorough examination of the evidence still extant as to the
originators of the dark deed, their motives and object, the
extent of the slaughter, and the reasons assigned at the moment
and subsequently. It is one of those subjects in which no work
will be accepted entirely by readers of an opposite faith,
inasmuch as it is almost impossible to avoid drawing inferences,
and ascribing motives for acts, to real or supposed modes of
thought in the religious body to which the actors belonged.
"Respecting the massacre of St. Bartholomew there are also two
theories. Some contend that it was the result of a
long-premeditated plot; and this view was so ably maintained by
John Allen, in the _Edinburgh Review_, (vol. xliv.--1826,)
that nothing further was left to be said on the subject. Others
are of opinion that it was the accidental result of a momentary
spasm of mingled terror and fanaticism, caused by the
unsuccessful attempt to murder Coligny. This theory has been
supported by Ranke, in a review of Capefigue's _Histoire de
la Réforme_; by Soldan; by Baum, in his _Life of Beza;_
and by Coquerel, in the _Revue Théologique_, in 1859."
Such is White's statement of the position of the question; and
his work has been justly styled "able and unpretentious."
In France, the anti-Christian writers of the last
century--Voltaire and his school--were all loud in denunciation
of the affair, and painted it in its worst colors. It was too
good a weapon, in their war against religion, to be easily laid
down; and it was made to do such good service that later Catholic
apologists have till recently scarcely ventured on any
examination of the question that would seem at all favorable. The
discussion by Gandy is, in extent and research, as well as in
soundness of principle, by far the best review of the subject.
Yet, as a close historical argument, the force is sometimes
destroyed by the citation of comparatively weak and undecisive
authorities.
In English, the best Catholic tract on St. Bartholomew was that
of Dr. Lingard.
Some of his positions were not well taken, and do not stand when
confronted with authorities brought forward by later research.
Yet his essay compelled a real historic investigation by
subsequent writers, and has led, indirectly at least, to the work
of Mr. White.
This writer says, not inaptly (p. 200): "It is easy to prove any
historical untruth by a skilful manipulation of documents." This
skilful manipulation need not be done with the consciousness of
guilt. It may be the result of prejudice, party spirit, bias; and
he himself is not free from objection. With an evident endeavor
to be impartial, his education and prejudices lead him to slur
over some acts and expatiate on others; to ascribe to exalted
piety all the deeds of one party, and deny to the other any real
religious feeling.
This taints all his introductory chapters on the religious wars
in France, prior to 1572, giving a false light and color to the
whole. It gives the impression that real piety, devotion,
religious feeling, were not to be found at all among the
Catholics of France, but were the peculiar attributes of the
disciples gained by the emissaries sent from Geneva by Calvin.
{3}
Biassing the reader thus, he keeps back the real exterminating,
destructive, and intolerant spirit of the Huguenots, and, while
detailing here and there excesses, treats as insignificant the
conspiracy of Amboise, Coligny's complicity in Poltrot's
assassination of the Duke of Guise, Queen Jane's ruthless
extirpation of Catholicity, the Michelade, and the fearful
butchery enacted by Montgomery at Orthez, a small place where,
nevertheless, the Catholic victims numbered, according to his own
figures, three thousand, halt what he claims as the number of
Protestant victims at Paris on the bloody day of St. Bartholomew.
Nor is he more happy in depicting the theories and ideas of the
two parties.
Compare the Protestants in France with the early Christians and
the difference will be seen. The Reformers everywhere were
aggressive and intolerant. They did not ask merely liberty to
adopt new religious views and practise them. They did, indeed,
raise the cry of religious freedom--freedom of worship--freedom
of conscience; but what did these words really mean? They meant
the suppression of the Catholic worship, the extermination of the
priesthood and religious orders, the pillage and defacing of
Catholic churches, and the destruction of paintings, statues,
relics, and crosses. When this was done, they proclaimed
religious liberty. Thus, at Lyons, in 1562, "the Mass was
abolished, liberty of conscience proclaimed," in two consecutive
clauses.
The utter absurdity of such a connection does not strike Mr.
White, nor will it strike many English readers as it does a
Catholic ear. The Protestant spirit has so falsified ideas that
we constantly hear the same inconsistency. The enthusiastic son
of New England claims that the Puritan fathers established
"freedom to worship God according to the dictates of conscience,"
when, in fact, they claimed only the right to worship for
themselves and denied it to all others; the son of Rhode Island
claims Roger Williams as the real founder of toleration, and yet
his fanatical opposition to the slightest semblance to
Catholicity was such that he exhorted the trained bands not to
march under the English flag because it had the cross on it; the
historian of New York, or the more elaborate historian of the
Netherlands, will claim for Holland the honor of establishing
religious freedom, and we read their pages with the impression
that the people of the Netherlands were Protestant, as a unit;
and that the republic established after throwing off the Spanish
yoke made the land one where all creeds met in harmony, and all
men were equal in the eye of the law in their religious rights.
Yet what is the real fact? From that time till the present nearly
one half of the people of the Netherlands have been Catholics.
The Protestants, possessing a slight numerical advantage, ruled,
and to the Catholics their rule was one of iron. They were
deprived of all churches, prohibited from erecting others,
confined to certain quarters, subjected to penal laws. Where then
was the freedom of worship? In the reformers' minds these words
had no application to Catholics.
Now, it was this aggressive, intolerant spirit of the reformers
that made the civil governments in countries which elected to
remain Catholic so severe on the new religionists. The moment a
foreign emissary from Geneva gathered a few proselytes, enough to
form a body of any size, then began coarse songs, ridiculing and
scoffing at the holiest doctrines of the Catholics; then crosses
would be broken down, crucifixes, statues of the blessed Virgin
and the saints, defaced or destroyed; as their numbers grew,
priests would be driven from their churches or shot down, and the
edifices themselves plundered and appropriated to the new creed.
{4}
That such things could be borne tamely was impossible. In France
the government was weak and vacillating. The humbler and less
instructed portions of the Catholic body retaliated in the same
measure that they saw meted out, and resisted a creed that used
abuse and violence, by abuse and violence. They had not the cant
of their antagonists, but true religion is not to be measured by
that standard.
Alarmed by the excesses of the Reformers elsewhere, the French
government attempted to repress their entrance into France by
penal laws, a course that seldom attains the end proposed. The
progress of error was to be checked by more assiduous teaching of
the people by their pastors, by zeal in reforming morals, by
institutions practically exercising the spiritual and corporal
works of mercy.
Yet, while conceding the general deficiency of power in penal
laws to check the progress of religious opinions, it must be
remembered that the destructive tenets we have alluded to made
the increase of the Calvinists a danger to the peace and
well-being of France. Beza, in his _Profession of Faith_,
(v. Point p. 119,) advised the extermination of priests. Calvin
(_Apud Becan_, t. v. opusc. 17, aph. 15, De modo propagandi
Calvinismi) declares that the Jesuits must be killed or crushed
by falsehood and calumny. The destruction of all representations
of Christ and his saints was the constant theme of the reformed
preachers, and under this war against idols, as they termed them,
they included insult and outrage to the remains of those
illustrious men of the past whose exalted virtues had endeared
them to the Christian people.
From that day to this Protestantism has sanctioned the outrages
thus advised and thus committed. The right of Protestants to
demolish, on any slight pretext, Catholic churches, convents,
shrines, monuments, or pictures, seems even now a sort of
self-evident axiom, its exercise being regulated merely by
grounds of expediency. England and the United States can show
their examples of this, even in the present century; in the last,
the outrages committed by New England troops in Canada and Acadia
whenever a Catholic church fell into their power; the careful
aiming of cannon at the monastic buildings in the siege of
Quebec; the expedition against Louisburg, with the chaplain
bearing an axe to demolish the idols; at once suggest themselves
to the mind.
That Catholics possessed any right to their own churches, their
own ideas of worship, was never entertained for a moment.
The civil law might justly repress such men, if not on the simple
ground of teaching false doctrines, at least for their claim of
right to destroy the liberty of those who professed the religion
of their ancestors.
For some years the reform gained slowly in France, the emissaries
of Calvin never relaxing their efforts, and finally winning to
their side Queen Jane of Navarre, the Prince of Condé and the
three famous brothers of the house of Chatillon, D'Andelot,
Admiral Coligny, find the profligate Cardinal Odet. By this time
the Protestant churches, true to their aggressive character,
assumed a military organization, as White (p. 23) and Fauriel, a
recent French Protestant author, admit, and aimed at the
overthrow alike of Catholicity and royalty. This secret
preparation for an armed attempt to secure the mastery of France
had, by 1560, attained its full development.[Footnote 2]
{5}
The moment had come for a grand effort which was to exterminate
Catholicity from France as utterly as it has been from Sweden,
where not even gratitude for their foremost struggle for
independence saved the Catholic Dalecarlians from annihilation.
[Footnote 2: Consult _Mémoires de Saulx Tavannes_,
p. 29; Lavallée, _Histoire des Français_, i. p. 575;
Fauriel, _Essai sur les Evénements qui ont précédé et
antené le St. Barthélemy_, p. 19-]
The position of affairs in France justified the hopes of the
reformers. There were three parties in the state--the earnest
Catholic party, headed by the Guises of Lorraine; the Huguenot
party, directed by Calvin, with Condé in France as its future
king, and Coligny as its master-spirit; and, as usual in such
cases, a third party of weak men, who hampered the Catholics, and
thus strengthened their opponents, by hesitation, uncertainty,
and fitfulness.
The queen mother, Catharine de Medicis, disliked the house of
Lorraine more than she loved Catholicity; and, jealous of the
growing power of the Guises, was not disinclined to see the party
of Condé counterbalance it. Hence, she generally threw her
influence into the third party, in which figured the Duke
d'Alençon, the Montmorencies, Cossé, Biron, and to which men like
the famous Chancellor l'Hopital gave their influence. How little
the true Catholic spirit, as we understand it now, prevailed
among the higher nobility, may be inferred from the fact that the
two great Protestant leaders, Condé and Coligny, were brothers of
cardinals, their close relationship to princes of the Roman
Church exerting no influence. One of these cardinals apostatized,
and, after defying the pope, fled to England, to be poisoned by
his valet; the other was a mere figure in the stirring scenes and
times in which he lived.
Francis II., husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, on ascending the
throne, placed the control of affairs in the hands of his uncles,
the Cardinal of Lorraine and the Duke of Guise. This meant a firm
government, not one to tolerate an _imperium in imperio_--a
power able to put in the field, as Coligny boasted, one hundred
and fifty thousand men.
Encouraged by the edict of January, 1560, the masses of the
reformed party were, everywhere that their numbers permitted it,
seizing Catholic churches and monasteries, expelling the inmates,
demolishing every vestige of the ancient faith. While they were
thus committing themselves, and overawing the Catholics, the
leaders formed the celebrated plot of Amboise to assassinate the
Guises, seize the person of the king, and, of course, the control
of the government. In spite of his disavowal, made after it had
failed, Calvin really approved of it at first. This White denies,
(p. 82;) but the letter to Sturm, cited by Gandy, (p. 28,) is
decisive; and in the very letter where he seems to condemn his
followers, he says: "Had they not been opposed, in time our
people would have seized many churches; ... but there, too, they
yielded with the same weakness." (_Bulletin de la Société de
l'Histoire du Protestantisme Français_, i. p. 250.) Coligny's
complicity is as evident. The ostensible leader was Bary de la
Renaudie, "whose enmity to Guise," says White, "probably made him
renounce his religion and join the reformers."
Protestant writers all admit that the plot of Amboise would, if
successful, have overthrown Catholicity for ever in France. The
Guises saw the danger to themselves, to Catholicity, and to
royalty, and acted with promptness and energy.
{6}
Every road and avenue leading to the place was guarded, and the
separate bands of the conspirators as they came up were met and
crushed, la Renaudie, the ostensible leader, being slain.
Then followed a series of terrible criminal proceedings. The
partisans of the rebellion were tried, condemned, and executed
with as little mercy as English rulers ever manifested to Irish
rebels. White puts the number executed at one thousand two
hundred, but cites no authorities to justify so large an
estimate.
After this affair at Amboise, "the political character of the
Huguenots," as White admits, "became more prominent, and proved
the temporary destruction of French Protestantism." The reformers
committed many outrages on the Catholics after the failure at
Amboise, especially in the districts where Montbrun and Mouvans
swept through with the hand of destruction, till the latter
perished miserably at Draguignan. Then followed a new Huguenot
plot, formed by Condé and his brother Anthony, but Francis II.
raised a considerable force, and, marching down, overawed them.
Condé and the other Huguenot leaders were summoned to appear
before him. D'Andelot fled; Condé appeared, was tried, and
condemned; but before any other steps were taken Francis II. died
in November. "Did you ever hear or read of anything so opportune
as the death of the little king?" wrote Calvin; and Beza gloried
over "the foul death of the miserable boy."
Charles IX. became king, with his mother, Catharine de Medicis,
as regent, and she sought to weaken the power of the Guises.
Condé was released from prison, his brother Anthony made
lieutenant-general of the kingdom. An assembly of the Three
Estates was convened, but dissolved without effecting any good.
Throughout the land, the Huguenots employed abuse and violence,
drawing on themselves fearful punishment.
Still, under Catharine's fickle favor, the Huguenots were
steadily gaining ground, and the Colloquy at Poissy, in 1562,
where Beza appeared in person, was, in its actual result and in
moral effect, a victory to the reformers. The countenance of the
court gave them boldness. The Catholic party saw the evident
danger and were loud in their complaints, but this only made
collisions more frequent: one party elate with hope and triumph,
the other seeing naught but treachery and violence.
It needed but a spark to kindle a conflagration; at last it came.
On Corpus Christi, in 1561, as the procession of the blessed
sacrament moved through the streets of Lyons, a Huguenot rushed
upon the officiating clergyman and endeavored to wrest the
consecrated host from his hands. So daring an outrage roused the
Catholics to fury. In an instant the whole city was in arms, and
the innocent atoned in blood for the madness of one. Even in
Paris itself similar riots took place, and fifty Catholics were
killed or wounded at the church of St. Medard, into which
D'Andelot rode on horseback at the head of the Huguenots.
The edict of January, 1562, came at last to effect a peace. By
its provisions the Protestants were to restore the churches they
had seized, to cease their abuse of the Catholic ceremonies in
print or discourse, and, in return, were allowed to hold meetings
unarmed outside the city, but their ministers were not to go from
town to town preaching.
{7}
The measure of toleration thus granted may not seem excessive,
but it was far greater than any Protestant power then, or long
subsequently, granted to such subjects as preferred not to change
their creed.
The measure, however, failed to produce tranquillity. The
Huguenots, far from restoring what they had seized, continued
their acts of violence. At Nismes the churches and convents were
attacked and profaned, while in Gascony and Languedoc the
reformers had established such a reign of terror that for forty
leagues around no Catholic priest durst show himself.
Montpellier, Montauban, and Castres beheld similar profanations
of churches.
Coligny, a prototype of Cromwell in apparent fanaticism, in
military skill, in relentless cruelty toward the Catholic clergy,
like the Puritan leader of the next century, looked beyond the
Atlantic. He had projected a Protestant colony of refuge in
Brazil; its failure did not prevent his renewing the attempt in
Florida. In the month following that in which the edict was
issued, he despatched John Ribaut to lay the foundation of a
French colony in America. He seems to have been planning a
retreat against sudden disaster in the war they were rapidly
preparing. The fate of that colony is well known. At Vassy, in
March, a Huguenot congregation came into collision with the Duke
of Guise; accounts differ widely as to the details. The duke
asserted that his men were attacked. On being struck in the face
with a stone, he cried to his men to show no quarter, and,
according to White, fifty or sixty were killed and two hundred
wounded.
In a moment the affair was taken up and echoed through France. It
was worth an army to the cause of rebellion. The military
churches rose. So complete was their organization that almost
simultaneously thirty-five cities were taken, the Cevennes, the
Vivarrais, and the Comté Venaissin were in revolt. Everywhere the
Catholic worship was suppressed, the churches stripped, the
clergy banished, while the riches torn from the shrines and
altars enabled them to maintain the war.
The shrine of St. Martin of Tours, venerated and enriched by the
piety of France during a thousand years, gave Condé, prince of
the blood, a million two thousand livres to devastate France. To
add to their strength, the Huguenots then formed the treaty of
Hampton Court with Elizabeth, and by it agreed to restore Calais
to England.
As we have seen, they took Lyons, and, after massacring priests
and religious, abolished the Mass, and with the same breath
declared that every one should be free in his religion. As the
Catholics were unprepared, city after city fell into their hands,
till no less than two hundred were swept by these devastating
hordes, fiercer than Goth or Vandal. The history of every French
city marks at this epoch the destruction of all that the past had
revered. Orleans, Mans, Troyes, Tours, Bayeux, all repeat the
same story. Everywhere priests, religious of both sexes, Catholic
laity, were butchered and mutilated with every barbarity. The
Baron des Adrets stands forth as the terrible butcher of this
period, who made his barbarity a sport, and trained the mind of
France to savage inhumanity. In the little town of Montbrison, in
August, 1562, he slaughtered more than eight hundred men, women,
and children.
The recent French historian, Martin, whose work is in process of
publication in this country, glosses over this period by merely
alluding to the profanation and pillage of the Catholic churches
and religious houses.
{8}
Every local history in France, however, attests the slaughter and
mutilation of the clergy, the last infamy always popularly
ascribed to the order of Coligny. Beza, writing in January, 1562,
admits that the Protestants of Aquitaine, though enjoying full
religious liberty, massacred priests and wished to exterminate
their enemies.
This sudden rebellion was the work of Coligny, who, with his army
of religious enthusiasts, and "all the restless, factious, and
discontented, who linked their fortunes to a party whose triumph
would involve confiscation of the wealth of the church," with
German mercenaries and English plunderers, swept through the land
with prayer on his lips and treason in his heart.
He cloaked his treason under the hypocritical pretext that he was
in arms not against the king, but against the king's advisers.
White allows himself to be deluded by this hypocritical sham, and
in several places censures the _treasonable_ conduct of the
Cardinal of Lorraine and others, who wrote to the King of Spain
soliciting his aid to save Catholicity in France, while Coligny,
in arms against his king, making treaties with Elizabeth of
England, introducing into France English and German mercenaries,
is never branded as a traitor at all. And if Condé and Coligny
merely sought to banish the Guises, how was that to be effected
by pillaging Catholic churches? They took up arms to exterminate
the leaders of the Catholic party and the clergy, suppress the
Catholic worship, and place Condé on the throne. White, too,
censures the pope for interfering, but neglects to put before his
reader the fact that part of France, the Comté Venaissin, then
belonged to the Holy See, and that in that part the Huguenots
were committing the same ravages. Meanwhile the royal armies
rallied; and, as a first step, endeavored to induce the Huguenot
leaders to lay down their arms. Condé was so far influenced by
the offers made, that he agreed to leave France if Guise would do
the same, but Beza traversed the projects of peace. He besought
the prince, says White, "not to give over the good work he had
begun, which God, whose honor it concerned, would bring to
perfection."
Negotiation failing, the royal troops began the campaign to
recover the conquered cities. Blois, Tours, Poitiers, Angers,
Bourges, and Rouen were at once retaken, and Orleans, the
stronghold of reform, besieged. In the battle of Dreux, fought on
the 19th of December, the rebels were utterly defeated, Condé
remaining a prisoner in the hands of the royal forces.
While besieging Orleans, (February 18th,) Guise was assassinated
by Jean Méré de Poltrot, a man whom Coligny aided with money, and
who had revealed to that nobleman his project of murder. White's
endeavor to exculpate Coligny is very lame. He deems it
suspicious that Poltrot was executed at once without his being
confronted with Coligny; as though the rebel general would have
come into court for the purpose, in the very heat of the civil
war. He finally, however, admits: "This leaves no doubt that
Coligny assented, if he did not consent, to the crime. He was not
unwilling to profit by it, though he would do nothing to further
it. This may diminish the lofty moral pedestal on which some
writers have placed the Protestant hero; but he was a man, and
had all a man's failings, though he may have controlled them by
his religious principles. Nor was assassination considered at all
cowardly or disgraceful in those days; not more so than killing a
man in a duel was, until very recently, among us."
{9}
As he knew the project and gave money, it is hard to see how "he
would do nothing to further it." That he had all a man's failings
is a very loose form of speech; so loose and broad that, if
assassination was not then deemed cowardly or disgraceful, the
subsequent killing of Coligny himself, "a man with all a man's
failings," can scarcely be deemed cowardly or disgraceful. In
fact, at the time, the Protestant party openly defended the
murder of Guise, and Beza, not exempt himself from suspicion of
complicity, "conferred on Poltrot the martyr's crown."
The Catholic party, thus deprived of its best military leader,
(for Montmorency was a prisoner, and St. Andre was butchered in
cold blood after the battle of Dreux,) again inclined to peace. A
negotiation, opened through Condé, resulted in the pacification
of Amboise, March 19th, 1563. This gave each man liberty to
profess the religion of his choice in his own domicile, but
restricted public worship of the Protestants more than the edict
of January had done.
The conference at Bayonne between the French and Spanish courts
has often been represented as a plot for the utter extermination
of the Huguenots. White shows that it was but a series of
festivities; and though the troubles were spoken of, neither
court counselled violent measures. Even Alva went no further than
suggesting the seizure of the most turbulent leaders.
Charles himself, favorable at Bayonne, became embittered against
the reformers, as White himself states, by what he saw as he
returned through the states of the Queen of Navarre, who had,
with relentless fury, extirpated Catholicity from her territory.
The pacification could not restore peace to the excited public
mind while the two antagonistic parties stood face to face. The
favor shown to Condé after he joined in expelling his English
allies from Havre, as well as to Coligny, whom Montmorency
summoned to garrison Paris, emboldened the reformers. The
remaining Catholic churches began to undergo the terrible
profanation that visited so many, and with this came retaliation.
The Protestant princes in Germany at this time appealed to
Charles to show lenity to their fellow-believers in his kingdom.
The French monarch rebuked their intermeddling, and added, "I
might also pray them to permit the Catholics to worship freely in
their own cities." And White admits that the Catholics there
fared no better than the Huguenots in France.
Meanwhile the Huguenot party was preparing for a new effort to
obtain complete control. A force raised to watch the Spanish
movements in the Low Countries was made the pretext. A plot was
formed to seize the king and his mother, and Coligny, to blind
the court, remained superintending his vineyards. But on the 28th
of September, 1567, all France was in flames. Fifty towns were
seized, and a strong force of Huguenot cavalry dashed upon Meaux
to seize the king. Charles, nearly entrapped by the specious
L'Hopital, reached Paris, protected by a body of gentlemen under
the Duke de Nemours, but Condé pressed so close that Charles more
than once turned on his pursuers, and fought at the head of his
little body-guard.
As before, the Catholics were without union or plan, while the
Huguenots were an organized body of secret conspirators, acting
on a well-concerted plan.
{10}
Protestant allegiance to a Catholic monarch has never been very
strong; indeed, it seems simply a creature of circumstance, not a
matter of obligation. The attempt to set aside a Catholic
sovereign after the death of Edward VI. and of Charles II. has
never been treated as a crime. In the same spirit, White sees
nothing wrong in Condé except failure: "His failure (to seize the
king's person) made him a traitor as well as a rebel." And yet,
with that strange perversity of ideas that seems inherent in his
school, he at once brands the Cardinal of Lorraine as a traitor
for inviting in the King of Spain, as Condé had Elizabeth.
The battle of St. Denis, under the walls of Paris, cost the royal
party the life of Montmorency, while it gave them a doubtful
victory. The usual horrors again desolated France. Nismes, in
1567, witnessed its famous Michelade, or massacre of the
Catholics. It was a deliberate act. White says none has attempted
to justify it. He puts the number of victims at seventy or
eighty, but cites no authority. Mesnard, in his _Histoire de
Nismes;_ and Vaissette, in his _Histoire Générale de
Languedoc_, make it from one hundred and fifty to three
hundred.
The military operations continued until Catharine visited the
Huguenot camp, and effected the treaty of Longjumeau, (March
20th, 1568.) But this peace was as hollow as the rest. White
charges that the Catholics put numbers of Protestants to death.
The Huguenots certainly continued their destruction of Catholic
churches. "Brequemant, one of their leaders," says White,
"cheered them on to murder, wearing a string of priests' ears
around his neck."
At last the Catholics saw the necessity of organizing, and in
June, 1568, a Christian and Royal League was formed at Champagne,
"to maintain the Catholic Church in France, and preserve the
crown in the house of Valois, so long as it shall govern
according to the Catholic and Apostolic religion."
This White qualifies as "a formidable league that shook the
throne, and brought France to the brink of destruction:" while he
has no such terms to apply to the military organization of the
Huguenot churches, which was endeavoring to seize the government,
and raise Condé to the throne under the name of Louis XIII.
The Catholics did not act too soon. The Huguenots were again ripe
for action. The leaders retired to Rochelle, and France was again
in arms. Elizabeth sent to Rochelle men, arms, and money; the
Prince of Orange also promised aid.
The first great battle was fought at Jarnac, March 13th, 1569,
where Condé was defeated and killed. Andelot died soon after, in
May, and Duke Wolfgang, of Deux Ponts, who brought fourteen
thousand Germans to swell the Huguenot ranks, soon followed.
Coligny gained some advantage in the action at Roche Abeille,
showing terrible cruelty to the prisoners; but in the battle of
Moncontour his army of eighteen thousand was scattered to the
winds, scarcely a thousand being left around him. Then cries for
quarter were met by shouts of "Remember Roche Abeille!"
Retreating, Coligny was joined by Montgomery, fresh from that
terrible massacre of Orthez, before which St. Bartholomew itself
pales, three thousand Catholics having been butchered, without
regard to age or sex, and the river Gave being actually dammed up
by the bodies of the Catholics. The indecisive action of Arnay le
Due led to negotiations resulting in the treaty of St. Germain,
August, 1570.
{11}
These treaties are differently viewed. The proposal for them
always came from the court, and followed every victory gained by
the Catholic party. White would make them out to be traps laid by
Catharine; Gandy seems to lean to the same solution in
attributing them to her, though he makes her object to have been
to prevent the Guises from being complete masters.
But may we not suppose the Catholic party sincere in their wish
for peace? They were never first to take up arms; they were
unorganized; the court was wavering, and always contained a
number of secret allies of the Huguenot cause. That the Huguenot
leaders, after a defeat, should through these raise a peace party
at court would be a matter of course. The peace gave them all
they needed--time to prepare for a new campaign.
Charles IX. was sincere in his wish to make the treaty of St.
Germain a reality. In the interval of tranquillity he married,
and turned his thoughts to foreign affairs, proposing to aid the
Netherlands against the King of Spain. But the Huguenot leaders
kept together in the strong city of Rochelle, ready for prompt
action. At last, however, Coligny, in September, 1571, repaired
to court, where he was received by Charles with great cordiality.
Two marriage schemes were now set on foot to strengthen the
Protestant cause--the marriage of Henry of Navarre with Margaret,
sister of Charles IX., and the marriage of his brother,
D'Alençon, to Queen Elizabeth. Even Jane, Queen of Navarre, came
to Blois to negotiate in regard to the marriage of her son.
Coligny so far gained Charles that a French force took Mons, and
an army under Genlis, marching to that place, was defeated by the
Spaniards, under Don Federigo de Toledo. The marriage of Henry
took place on the 18th of August, and seemed to confirm Coligny's
paramount influence at court.
This influence, thus suddenly acquired, is in itself a great
mystery. Why Charles should thus take to his confidence a man who
had so recently and so repeatedly organized armed treason, who
had ravaged and desolated half his kingdom, who had laid in ruins
nearly half the churches and religious establishments of France,
has never been satisfactorily explained.
That Charles was a mere hypocrite, and that his conduct was part
of a concerted plot, does not seem at all warranted by any
evidence that deserves consideration. That he could really have
conceived so sudden an attachment, confidence, and respect for
the admiral can be explained only as one of the sudden freaks of
a man whose mind was eccentric to the very verge of insanity. But
Coligny really ruled in the councils of France; the Guises were,
in a manner, banished from court. Catharine and Anjou saw their
influence daily decrease. Coligny insisted on war with Spain, and
plainly told Charles that he must fight Spain or his own
subjects--use the Huguenots to aid Holland against Philip II., or
behold civil war again ravaging France.
Catharine strongly opposed this warlike spirit, and sought means
to regain her lost power.
The arrogant attitude of Coligny was fast uniting all whom
jealousy or personal interest had divided. As often happens, it
needed but a spark to kindle a vast conflagration.
One of the great historical questions has been as to the
premeditation of the massacre of St. Bartholomew. The Huguenot
pamphleteers of the day, followed by the overrated De Thou,
Voltaire and his school, and the less temperate Catholic writers,
maintain that the plot was long before concerted.
{12}
White, by his chain of authorities, shows that it was at first
aimed at Coligny only, and that the general massacre was not
premeditated.
Anjou expressly states that, finding the influence of the admiral
dangerous to himself and his mother, they determined to get rid
of him, and to concert means with the Duchess of Nemours, "whom
alone we ventured to admit into the plot, because of the mortal
hatred she bore to the admiral," in her mind the real murderer of
her husband, the Duke of Guise.
This statement of Anjou is supported by the testimony of Michieli
(Baschet, _Diplomatie Venetienne_, p. 541) and of the nuncio
Salviati.
This makes the first move one of the court party against Coligny
personally. The Catholic party, then a recently formed
organization, had no part in it; and yet, if we may credit the
statement of Cretineau Joly, who has never deceived as to a
document he professes to possess, Catholicity in France was in
imminent peril, Coligny having, in a letter of June 15th, 1572,
to the Prince of Orange, given notice of an intended general
execution of the Catholics in September. If a general massacre
was plotted, the Catholic party were to be victims, not actors.
Coligny's death having been decided on, Henry de Guise was
admitted to the plot, and the execution assigned to him. It
needed little to stimulate him to shoot down one who had been
privy to his father's assassination. An officer, either Maurevert
or Tosinghi, was stationed in a vacant house belonging to Canon
Villemur, and as Coligny rode past fired at him, cutting off the
first finger of the right hand, and burying a ball in his left
arm.
Charles was, as all admit, not only not privy to this act, but
was deeply incensed at it. He ordered the assassin to be pursued,
and, in despatches to other parts of the kingdom, gave assurance
of his intention to adhere to the edict of pacification and to
punish all who infringed it. Accompanied by his mother and his
brother Henry, he went, that same afternoon, to see the admiral.
There a long private conversation ensued between the king and
Coligny. White gives this at length from a life of Coligny,
published in 1576, but which cannot surely be held as authority.
It rests probably on no better source than the _Mémoires de
l'Etat de France._
Charles, in his letter to the French ambassador at London, tells
him that this "vile act proceeds from the enmity between
Coligny's house and the house of Guise. I will take steps to
prevent their involving my subjects in their quarrels."
Whether the interview changed the king's mind as to the source of
the attempt, of course is only conjectural. Still acting in good
faith, he appointed a commission of inquiry, including members of
both religions, the Huguenots apparently suggested by Coligny.
Charles returned to his palace moody and incensed. He ordered
guards to protect Coligny against any further violence, and by
his demeanor alarmed his mother and Henry. The Duke d'Aumale and
Henri de Guise, foreseeing a tempest, withdrew to the Hotel de
Guise, and shut themselves up.
The position of affairs was strange enough. The admiral was not
wounded so as to excite any alarm as to his recovery; the loss of
a finger and a bullet-wound in the arm, injuries not requiring,
one would suppose, the nine physicians and eleven surgeons called
in.
{13}
But it was an attempt on the life of the leader of their party,
and the Huguenots determined to pursue it at all hazards. The
more violent of them marched through the streets in military
array, threatening not only the Guises, who were considered the
prime movers, but Anjou, the queen-mother, and even the king
himself. They passed the Hotel de Guise with every mark of
defiance, and proceeding to the Louvre, made their way to the
king's presence as he sat at supper, fiercely demanding
vengeance: "If the king refuses us justice," they cried, "we will
take the matter into our own hands."
This violence could not but have had its effect on the king. At
all events, it must have made him ready to credit any charge of
violence brought against them. Catharine was clearly overjoyed at
the false step of the Huguenots, as offering her a means of
escape from her critical position.
On Saturday, after dinner, a cabinet council was held, and here,
according to Tavannes, Anjou, and Queen Margaret of Navarre, it
was for the first time proposed to Charles to put an end to all
the troubles by cutting off Coligny and the leaders of the party.
The council was composed, it is said, of Catharine, Anjou,
Nevers, Tavannes, Retz, and the chancellor Birague. Of Catharine
and Anjou, afterward Henry III., we need say nothing. Tavannes
was little but a soldier, ready for action. The rest, strangely
enough, were Italians. Louis de Gonzaga, Duke of Nevers by
marriage, was timid and easily led; Albert de Gondi, Marshal de
Retz, foster-brother of the king, was a schemer; René de Birague
is represented by Mezeray as one who bent before every breath of
wind from the court.
Not only in this council was there no one of the Huguenot party
so recently restored to favor, but no one of the moderate party,
none even of the old French nobility. All but Tavannes were bound
to Catharine, and would naturally support her.
According to Anjou and Tavannes, Catharine urged the necessity of
the blow to prevent a new civil war, for which the Huguenots were
preparing, having sent for ten thousand Germans and six thousand
Swiss, their object being to place Henry of Navarre on the
throne. Margaret states that they made the king believe his life
in danger. The nuncio Salviati, in his despatch of September 2d,
also ascribes the king's ultimate action to the instigation of
Catharine, impelled by her fears.
Charles hesitated long, and at last yielded, crying: "Kill all,
then, that none may live to reproach me." The words of 'the weak
king, wrought to madness by his perplexities, seem to have been
accepted at once; and the scheme of murder took a wider scope.
The Huguenots were doomed.
The question arises, Had Catharine any ground for charging the
Huguenots with a plot against the king? A despatch of the Duke of
Alva had been received, announcing it. White derides the idea as
preposterous. Gandy examines the subject, and admits that the
charge lacks all requisite proof. He ascribes the whole to fear.
But this does not seem to explain it sufficiently.
The fact of a plot formed after Coligny's wound must have been
established in some degree at least, to have brought the king to
the policy of the queen-mother. The bed of justice on the 26th,
the solemn declaration of Charles, the action of the Parliament,
may have been rash and unsupported by proper testimony, but were
to all appearance sincere.
{14}
Charles was not a hypocrite. The declarations of Bouchavannes as
to what was proposed at Coligny's house were doubtless more than
justified by the loud threats of some of the leaders, like De
Pilles and Pardaillan, whose words and deeds make La Noue call
them stupid, clumsy fools.
The solution of this historical question is made the more
difficult from the speedy termination of the house of Valois.
That family and the League come down to us under a heavy cloud of
odium; the succession of Henry IV. to the throne made them the
only parties on whom all might safely lay the burden of an act at
once a crime and a blunder, while it was equally necessary to
shield the party with which Henry then acted from any charge of
conspiracy. Interest raised up apologists for him and his
associates: there was none to do reverence to the name of
Catharine or the fallen house of Valois.
Once that the council had decided on its bloody course, the
action was prompt. Guise, from being a prisoner in his house, was
summoned to command. To the leaders of the people of Paris he
repeated the charge of a Huguenot conspiracy against the king, of
Swiss and German invaders, adding the approach of a force under
Montmorency to burn the city. At four in the afternoon Anjou rode
through the streets. At ten, another council was held, to which
Le Charron, provost of the merchants, was summoned. To him the
king repeated the same charges, giving him orders to put the
able-bodied men in each ward under arms, and take precaution for
the safety of the city.
Meanwhile, Huguenot gentlemen entered the palace as usual, and
Catholics mingled with the Huguenots who called upon Coligny.
White makes an observation that must strike all: "It is strange
that the arrangements in the city, which must have been attended
with no little commotion, did not rouse the suspicion of the
Huguenots."
At midnight another council was held in the palace. Charles was
violent and wavered, but Catharine held him to his decision, and
Guise went forth to complete the work.
Between three and four in the morning, Guise, Aumale, Angoulême,
Nevers, with some German and Italian soldiery, proceeded to
Coligny's house. Admission was gained in the king's name, and
Carl Dianowitz, or Behm, ran the admiral through, others
finishing him as he fell to the floor. The body was then thrown
from the window, where Guise and Angoulême treated it
contemptuously. Petrucci cut off the head. The mob mutilated the
body, as priests had been, by the admiral's orders, and it was
finally hung on the public gallows at Montfauçon. All the
occupants of the house were slain but two, Merlin and Cornaton.
In the adjoining dwellings were Teligny, Rochefoucault, and
others, who were all slain.
Then came the signal from Saint Germain l'Auxerrois, and the
massacre became general. The Huguenot gentlemen in the Louvre
were slain before the eyes of the king to the number of two
hundred, says White in his text, although his footnote, citing
Queen Margaret's account, says her estimate of thirty or forty is
more probable.
In the city, the houses in which Huguenots lodged had been
registered, and were thus easily found. The soldiers burst in,
killing all they found; but the citizens seem to have gone too
far.
{15}
At five in the afternoon, they were ordered to lay down their
arms, although the work of blood was continued for two days by
the soldiery.
The details of the massacre would extend this article much too
far.
Among the questions that have arisen, is the alleged firing of
Charles on the drowning Huguenots thrown into the Seine. It is
asserted in the party pamphlets, the _Réveille-Matin_, 1574,
_Le Tocsin_, 1579, but rests chiefly on what Froude calls
"the worthless authority of Brantome."
A more important point is the number of victims. The estimates
differ widely:
La Popelinière, a Huguenot contemporary...1,000
Kirkaldy of Grange, in a letter to Scotland at
the time, and the _Tocsin_, a pamphlet of the
day, as well as Tavannes, a main actor in the
slaughter...2,000
Aubigné, another Huguenot author, and Capilupi...3,000
The estimates of ambassadors at Paris are higher.
Alva's bulletin...3,500
Gomez de Silva, and the Simancas archives...5,000
Neustadt letter...6,000
_Réveille-Matin_, a party pamphlet...10,000
White bases his estimate on a curious calculation. An entry in
the registers of the Hôtel de Ville states that on the 9th of
September certain persons received 15 livres for burying dead
bodies, and on the 23d the same men received 20 livres for
burying 1100. He concludes that the 15 livres represented 1500,
by what rule he does not explain, "giving," he says, "a known
massacre of 2600." Even on his basis, 35 livres would really
represent only 1925. But according to Caveirac, who first cites
this entry, 35 livres were paid for interring 1100, which would
give only about 1600 in all.
Gandy concludes his view of the matter by giving 1000 or 1200 as
the nearest approach to the truth; but the estimate of Tavannes,
an actor, Kirkaldy, a witness, and the _Tocsin_, a Huguenot
pamphlet, would seem to be most authentic.
Thus fell the great admiral, the Cromwell of France, in religion
less fanatical than hypocritical, a soldier of a high order,
aiming under Calvin's teaching to make France a commonwealth with
a religious tyranny that would brook no opposition. A man who
occupied long a prominent position as one of the high nobility
and rulers of the land, but who was simply a destroyer, not a
creator; for no great work, no line of sound policy, no important
reform, is connected with his name. His life was most injurious
to the country, and but for the cowardly and cruel circumstances
attending his death, he would occupy but a subordinate place in
French history. Few other victims were eminent: Peter Ramus, the
learned professor, Pierre de la Place, President of the Court of
Ans, and some say Goujon, the sculptor. In fact, the more able
leaders of the party had not come to Paris, and this renders the
deed indefensible even on the ground of policy. The few nobles
who hastened to bask in the sunshine of the court, were not the
men most to be dreaded. The slaughter of men and women belonging
to the lower classes could but rouse the sympathies of Europe.
The work of blood was not confined to Paris. Throughout France,
as the news spread of a Huguenot conspiracy against the king, the
scene was reenacted. Of this, White remarks: "The writers who
maintain that the tragedy of Saint Bartholomew's day was the
result of a long premeditation support their opinion by what
occurred in the provinces; but it will be found, after careful
examination, that these various incidents tend rather to prove
the absence of any such premeditation."
{16}
Were orders sent from court to massacre the Huguenots? White, on
the authority of Davila, De Thou, and expressions in certain
letters, inclines to the opinion that verbal orders were sent.
Gandy as positively asserts that no such orders were given. The
provincial registers show no trace of such orders. Yet he admits
secret orders, subsequently recalled by Charles, and gives a
letter addressed to Montsoreau, dated August 26th, which is
explicit. The massacres took place as follows: Meaux, August
25th; La Charité, August 27th; Saumur and Angers, August 29th;
Lyons, August 30th; Troyes, September 2d; Bourges, September
15th; Rouen, September 17th; Romans, September 20th; Toulouse,
September 23d; Bordeaux, October 3d; Poitiers, October 27th. They
were thus continued from time to time for two months; long after
Charles formally revoked any secret orders given on the spur of
the moment. This point is involved in as great obscurity as any
other connected with the affair.
Several letters current as to the matter, including those of De
Tende and Orthez, are manifest forgeries. As to Saumur, White
represents Montsoreau as killing _all_ the Huguenots in that
town. The only authority, _Mémoires de l'Etat de France_,
says he killed all he could, and the whole charge rests on this
feeble foundation. There is similar exaggeration elsewhere.
White, speaking of Lyons, says: "In this city alone 4000 persons
are estimated to have been killed;" but in his note adds that one
authority says that they were all killed in _one_ day,
"which is not probable." He then cites another contemporary
brochure setting down the total at Lyons at 1800; and he corrects
the error of De Thou, who asserted that the Celestine canons
allowed Huguenots to be killed in their monastery, when
Protestant authorities admit that the religious saved the lives
of those very fugitives.
What was the number slain in the provinces? The martyrologies, by
a detailed estimate, make those killed in Paris 10,000, elsewhere
5168, and names 152 as identified in Paris, 634 in the provinces;
but the estimate for Paris is of the very highest, and should, as
we have seen, not exceed 2000. The very fact that, with
researches and personal recollections, only 152 names could be
recalled, being one in a hundred out of 10,000, while elsewhere
one in eight was known, is very suspicious. Taking his figures
for the provinces, it would reduce the whole number in France to
about 7000.
After giving the calculations or guesses of various authors,
ranging from 2000 to 100,000, White says: "If it be necessary to
choose from these hap-hazard estimates, that of De Thou is
preferable, from the calm, unexaggerating temper of the man." De
Thou's estimate for all France was 30,000. Gandy thinks the
number given by Popelinière (2000) nearer the truth.
Under the examination of impartial history, the massacre of St.
Bartholomew dwindles really to far less in numbers, extent, and
brutality than the massacre of the Irish Catholics under
Cromwell; and does not greatly exceed the number of victims of
the Huguenot outbreak in 1563.
One other point remains. Charles, on the 25th, represented the
massacre in Paris as a collision between the houses of Guise and
Chatillon; but from the 26th he uniformly charges a conspiracy
against his person. This he announced to all the foreign courts
in explanation.
{17}
His letter to Gregory XIII. announced the escape of the royal
family and the punishment of the conspirators. The nuncio
Salviati, in his letters, shows a belief in the reality of the
plot. At Rome, the Cardinal of Lorraine, brother of the murdered
Guise, was high in influence. What his views and feelings would
be on the receipt of the tidings of the discovery of a plot, and
the sudden action of the king, it is easy to conceive. In his
eyes it was a triumph of justice, religion, loyalty, and law. The
pope received the same impression, and under it proceeded to
chant a _Te Deum_ at Santa Maria Maggiore. Processions
followed. A medal, well known from its frequent reproduction, was
struck. But in all this there is nothing to show that Rome knew
of the intended massacre or counselled it. Gregory XIII. approved
it, only as represented in the brief despatches of Charles IX.
and the verbal statements of Beauvillé, to which they refer.
Nor did the clergy in France take any part. No bishop shared in
the council, no priest or religious roused the minds of the
people. They figure, indeed, in romances, but history is silent.
Even in the most virulent pamphlets of the time only three are
ever mentioned, the Bishop of Troyes, Sorbin, king's confessor at
Orleans, and Father Edmond Auger, at Bordeaux. The Bishop of
Troyes is charged with having approved the massacre there, but
White does not even name the bishop in connection with the
murders at that place, and says they were done by a drunken mob,
and "filled the humane Catholics with horror."
At Orleans, White reduces the 1850 of the _Martyrologe_ to
1400, and gives details, but is silent as to any action of
Sorbin, or the terrible Franciscan who insulted the Huguenots,
received their abjuration, and said Mass for them. Evidently,
White found the charges against these clergymen too frivolous
even for a stray allusion.
He attributes the massacre at Bordeaux to the preaching of Father
Auger, but cites no authority. Fortunately, Auger is not an
unknown man. His life has long been in circulation. He was a
missionary, known for years among the Protestants, amid whom he
had prosecuted his labors. He had suffered imprisonment for the
faith; he had even been led to the gallows by order of the Baron
des Adrets. So notorious were his charity, his virtue, and his
merit, that the voice of Protestant and Catholic alike was raised
to save him. Are we to believe on the vaguest of grounds that
such a man suddenly became a monster of intolerance? White
blushed to give his authority; he should have been ashamed to
make the charge.
But it would scarcely do to let his book go forth without lugging
in at least one priest. Of the proceedings at Rome he makes more
capital. After stating what was done, and mistranslating a Latin
phrase to make Charles IX. an angel, he says: "With such damning
evidence against the Church of Rome, a recent defender of that
church vainly contends that the clergy had no part in the
massacre, and that the rejoicings were over rebels cut off in the
midst of their rebellion, and not heretics murdered for their
religion." The logic of this is admirable. The pope and cardinals
ordered rejoicings on receiving despatches from the King of
France, announcing that, having discovered a plot against his
life and throne, he had put the rebels to the sword;
_therefore_ the Catholic clergy had a part in the massacre.
{18}
Apply the same to Drogheda. Parliament thanked God for Cromwell's
massacre of the Irish after granting quarter, and rewarded a
captain for throwing prisoners overboard at sea; _therefore_
the Puritan clergy had a part in the massacre, and the evidence
is damning.
The labors of Mr. White, however, on the whole, will do good. The
wild assertions that fill our school-books and popular histories
must give place to statements that will be justified by his work.
It gives a standard to which we may appeal, and, if not all that
we would claim, is so far on the way to impartiality that we may
feel thankful for it.
It is not little to have wrung from the London _Athenaeum_
the admission that the common view of St. Bartholomew is "one of
the great historical errors which has been transmitted from
teachers to taught during a long course of years."
----------
From the French of Erckmanm and Chatrian.
The Invasion; or, Yegof The Fool.
Chapter I.
If you would know the story of the great invasion of 1814, even
as the old hunter, Frantz of Hengst, related it to me, you must
accompany me to the village of Charmes, in the Vosges. Thirty
cottages, ranged along the bank of the Sarre, and roofed with
slate and dark green moss, compose the hamlet; you can see the
gables garlanded with ivy and withered honeysuckle--for winter is
approaching--and the leafless hedges separating the little
gardens from each other.
To the left, crowning a lofty mountain, rise the ruins of the
ancient castle of Falkenstein, a fortalice, dismantled and
demolished two hundred years ago by the Swedes. It is now but a
scattered heap of stones, only approached by an old
_schlitte_, or road for transporting felled trees, which
pierces the forest. To the right, on the mountain-side, is seen
the farm of Bois-de-Chênes, with its barns, stables, and sheds,
on the flat roofs of which are placed great stones, to enable
them to resist the furious northern blasts. A few cattle stray
upon the heather, and a few goats clamber among the rocks.
Everything is silent. Children in gray trousers, bare-headed and
bare-footed, are warming themselves around little fires, kindled
near the edge of the wood, and the blue smoke curls slowly
through the air; heavy white and gray clouds hang motionless over
the valley, and far above these rise the sterile peaks of
Grosmann and Donon.
You must know that the last house of the village--that with two
glazed dormer windows upon the slanting roof, and the low door
opening upon the muddy street--belonged, in 1813, to Jean-Claude
Hullin, an ancient volunteer of '92; but since his return from
the wars, the shoe, or, rather, sabot-maker of the village, and
enjoying a large share of the esteem of the mountaineers.
{19}
He was a stout, strongly built man, with gray eyes, thick lips, a
short nose, and heavy, grizzled eyebrows. He was jovial and
tender-hearted, and unable to refuse anything to his adopted
daughter, Louise, whom he had obtained, when an infant, from a
band of those miserable gypsies who, without hearth or home
themselves, wander from door to door, soldering spoons and pans,
and mending broken china. He, however, looked upon her as his own
daughter, and never remembered her as the child of a strange
race.
Besides this, his affection for his little girl, stout
Jean-Claude had a few others. Next in order, he loved his cousin,
the venerable mistress of Bois-de-Chênes, Catherine Lefevre, and
her son, Gaspard, a fine young fellow, betrothed to Louise, but
whom the conscription had carried off, leaving the two families
to await the end of the campaign and his return.
Hullin often recalled, and always with enthusiasm, his campaigns
of the Sambre-and-Meuse, of Italy and of Egypt. He often mused
upon them, and sometimes at evening, when his day's work was
done, he would wander to the saw-mill of Valtin, a gloomy
building, formed of logs covered with the bark, which you see
yonder at the bottom of the gorge. There he would sit, in the
midst of coal-burners and wood-cutters, before the huge fire made
of saw-dust, and while the heavy wheel kept turning, the sluice
thundering, and the saw cutting, would he discourse of Hoche, of
Kleber, and of General Bonaparte, whom he had seen a hundred
times, and whose thin face, piercing eyes, and aquiline nose he
drew over and over again.
Such was Jean-Claude Hullin, one of the old Gallic stock, loving
strange adventures and deeds of heroic emprise, but bound by the
feeling of duty to his toil from New-Year's day to Saint
Sylvester's.
Louise, his gypsy daughter, was slight and graceful, with long,
delicate hands, and eyes of so tender a blue that their glance
seemed to melt their way to the depths of your soul; her skin was
white as snow, her hair a gold-shot flaxen, soft as silk, and her
shoulders drooped like those of some sweet sculptured saint at
prayer. Her guileless smile, her musing brow, her whole form,
seemed to recall the antique lay of Erhart the Minnesinger,
wherein he says: "I saw a ray of light flash by, and mine eyes
are yet dazed with its lustre. Was it the moon glancing through
the leaves? Was it morning smiling beneath the woods? No, no! It
was Edith, my love, who passed; and still mine eyes are dazed."
Louise loved the fields, the gardens, and the flowers. In spring
she eagerly listened for the first notes of the lark, or sought
the bluebells beneath the bushes, or watched for the return of
the sparrows to the corners of the windows on the roof. She was
ever the child of the wandering gypsies, only a little less wild
than they; but Hullin forgave everything; he understood her
nature, and often cried, laughing:
"My poor Louise, with the booty you bring us--your bunches of
flowers and little birds--we should all die of hunger in a week."
But she would only smile, and he, as he returned to his work,
exclaim:
"Bah! why should I scold? She is right to love the sunlight, and
Gaspard will labor for both!"
So reasoned the good man, and days, weeks, and months rolled by
in patient waiting for Gaspard's return.
But Gaspard returned not, and now for two months they had had no
tidings of him.
{20}
One day, toward the middle of December, 1813, between three and
four o'clock in the afternoon, Hullin, bent over his work-bench,
was finishing a pair of spiked sabots for Rochart, the
wood-cutter. Louise had placed her flowers near the little stove
which crackled on the hearth, while the monotonous tick-tack of
the old village clock marked the seconds as they flew, and
occasionally the tramp of clogs upon the frozen earth was heard
without, and a head covered with a hat or wrapped in a hood
passed the window. At length, Hullin, glancing through the panes
of the window, suddenly stopped his labor, and stood with both
eyes wide open, as one gazing at some unusual sight.
At the corner of the street, just opposite the tavern of the
Three Pigeons, a strange figure was advancing, surrounded by a
crowd of jumping, laughing boys, each vying with the other in
shouting at the top of his voice: "King of Diamonds! King of
Diamonds!" In truth, a stranger figure could scarcely be
imagined. Fancy a man with a grave face and red beard; a gloomy
eye, straight nose, eyebrows meeting, a circlet of tin upon his
head, an iron-gray shepherd dog-skin flapping upon his back, the
two fore-paws knotted around his neck; his breast covered with
little copper crosses, his legs with a sort of gray stuff
trousers, and his feet bare. A large raven with lustrous black
wings was perched upon his shoulder. One might think, from the
majesty of his air and gait, that an ancient Merovingian king had
come back to earth; and, indeed, he carried a short stick cut to
the shape of a sceptre, while with his right hand he gesticulated
magnificently, pointing to the skies and apostrophizing his
attendants.
Every door opened as he passed, and curious faces were pressed
against every window-pane. A few old women upon the outside
stairs of their cottages called to him, but he deigned no reply;
others descended to the street and would have barred his passage,
but he, with head erect and brows haughtily raised, waved them
aside.
"Hold!" said Hullin, "here is Yegof. I did not expect to see him
again this winter, it is contrary to his habit; and what can he
mean by returning in such weather as this?"
Louise, laying aside her distaff, ran to look at the King of
Diamonds; for the appearance of the fool in the beginning of
winter was quite an event, and the source of amusement to many
who were glad to kill time in the taverns, listening to the story
of his imaginary power and glory; others, especially women, felt
a vague fear of him; for the ideas of fools, as everybody knows,
are sometimes drawn from another world than this--to them is
confided the knowledge of the past and future; the only
difficulty is in understanding them, for their words have always
a double sense--one for the ears of the coarse and vulgar, and
one, far different, for wise and lofty souls. Moreover, the
thoughts of Yegof, above those of all other fools, were
extraordinary--not to say sublime. No one knew whence he came,
whither he went; he wandered through the land like a soul in
pain; he vaunted the greatness of long extinct nations, and
called himself Emperor of Austrasia, of Polynesia, and other
far-off places. Volumes might be written of the strength and
beauty of his castles, his fortresses, and his palaces, the
number and grandeur of which he related with an air of much
modesty and simplicity. He spoke of his stables, his coursers,
the officers of his crown, his ministers, counsellors, and
intendants, and never did he mistake their names or attribute the
particular merits of one to another; but he complained bitterly
of having been dethroned by an accursed race, and Sapience
Coquelin, the wise old woman of the village, as well as others,
wept whenever he referred to the subject. Then would he, lifting
his hand toward heaven, cry out:
{21}
"Be mindful, O women! The hour is at hand! The spirit of darkness
flees afar! The ancient race, the masters of your masters, come
sweeping on like the billows of the sea!"
Every spring he wandered for weeks among the ruins which crown
the Vosges at Nideck, Geroldseck, Lutzelbourg, and
Turkestein--former dwellings of the great ones of earth, but now
the refuge of bats and owls. There would he declaim on the long
past splendor of his realms, and plan the subjection of his
revolted people.
Jean-Claude Hullin laughed at all this, not being fond of
approaching the invisible world; but the fool's words troubled
Louise exceedingly, especially when the hoarse voice and flapping
wings of the raven added to their wild effect.
Yegof marched majestically down the street, turning neither to
the right nor the left, and the girl, seeing that his eyes were
fixed upon her habitation, exclaimed:
"Father, father! he is coming here!"
"Very likely," replied Hullin. "He, no doubt, needs a pair of
sabots in a cold like this, and if he asks them I should be sorry
to refuse."
Yegof was some fifty paces from the cottage, and the tumult
continued to increase. The boys, pulling at his strange garment,
shouted, "Diamonds! Spades! Clubs!" till they were hoarse, when,
suddenly turning round, he raised his sceptre, and cried
furiously, though still with an air of majesty:
"Away! accursed race! away--or my dogs shall tear ye!"
This threat only redoubled the cries and shouts of laughter; but
at this moment, Hullin appearing at the door with a long rod, and
promising its speedy application to the backs of five or six of
the noisiest, the band soon dispersed in terror, for many of them
had felt its weight. Then turning to the fool, he said:
"Come in, Yegof, and take a seat by the fire."
"Call me not Yegof," replied the latter, with a look of offended
dignity. "I am Luitprand, King of Austrasia and Polynesia."
"True, true, I remember," said Jean-Claude; "but, Yegof, or
Luitprand, come in. It is cold; try to warm yourself."
"I will enter," answered the fool, "for reasons of state--to form
an alliance between two most puissant nations."
"Good! Let us talk over it."
Yegof, stooping in the doorway, entered dreamily, and saluted
Louise by lowering his sceptre. But the raven refused to follow.
Spreading his broad black wings, he swept around the cottage and
then dashed against the windows, as if to break them.
"Hans!" cried the fool, "beware! I am coming."
But the bird of ill omen fastened its pointed talons in the
leaden sash, and flapped its wings until the window shook, as
long as his master remained within. Louise gazed affrightedly at
both. Yegof seated himself in the large leathern armchair behind
the stove as on a throne, and throwing haughty glances around,
said:
"I come straight from Jerome to conclude an alliance with thee,
Hullin. Thou art not ignorant that the face of thy daughter hath
pleased me. I am here to demand her in marriage."
{22}
Louise blushed, and Hullin burst into a peal of laughter.
"You laugh!" cried the fool angrily. "You will live to regret it!
This alliance alone can save thee from the ruin which threatens
thee and thine. Even now my armies are advancing; they cover the
earth, numberless as the forest leaves in summer. What will avail
the might of thy people against that of mine? Ye will be
conquered, crushed, enslaved, as for centuries you were, for I,
Luitprand, King of Austrasia and Polynesia, have willed it. All
things shall be as they were, and then--remember me!"
He lifted his hand solemnly on high.
"Remember the past. You were beaten, despised serfs; and we--the
old nations of the north--we trod your necks beneath our feet. We
burdened your backs with heavy stones that our strong castles and
deep dungeons might be built. We yoked you to our ploughs; you
fled before us like chaff before the tempest. Remember, and
tremble!"
"I remember it all well," replied Hullin, still laughing, "but
you know we had our revenge."
"Ay," said the fool, knitting his brows, "but that time has
passed. My warriors outnumber the sands of the shore, and your
blood shall flow like rivers to the ocean. I know ye, and for a
thousand years have marked ye!"
"Bah!" said Hullin.
"Yes, this arm vanquished ye when we first sought the hearts of
your forests. This hand bent your necks to the yoke, and will
again. Because you are brave, you think that you will be for ever
masters of France; but we have divided your fair land, and will
again divide it between ourselves. Alsace and Lorraine shall
again be German; Brittany and Normandy shall again belong to the
Northmen; Flanders and the South, to Spain. France will be a
petty kingdom girdling Paris, with one of the ancient race its
king, and you will not dare to murmur--you will be very patient--
ha! ha! ha!"
Yegof laughed loudly in his turn.
Hullin, who knew little of history, was astounded at the fool's
learning.
"Bah!" he exclaimed again. "Enough of this, Yegof. Try a little
soup to warm your blood."
"I do not ask for food," replied the fool; "I ask your daughter
in marriage. Give her willingly, and I will raise you to the foot
of my throne; refuse, and my armies shall take her by force."
As he spoke, the poor wretch gazed on Louise with looks of the
deepest admiration.
"How beautiful she is!" he murmured. "How her brow will grace a
crown! Rejoice, sweet maiden, for thou shalt be Queen of
Austrasia."
"Listen, Yegof," said Hullin: "I am flattered by your preference;
and it shows that you know how to appreciate beauty; but my
daughter is already betrothed to Gaspard Lefevre."
"Enough!" cried the fool, rising angrily, "we will now speak no
more of it; but, Hullin," he continued, resuming his solemn tone,
"this is my first demand. I will twice renew it. Hearest thou?
Twice! If you persist in your obstinacy, woe, woe to thee and thy
race!"
"Will you not take your soup, then, Yegof?"
"No!" shouted the fool; "I will accept nothing from you until you
have consented--nothing!" And waving his sceptre, he sallied
forth.
Hullin burst into another peal of laughter.
{23}
"Poor fellow!" he exclaimed; "his eyes turned toward the pot in
spite of himself; his teeth are chattering; but his folly is
stronger than even cold and hunger."
"He frightens me," said Louise, blushing, notwithstanding, as she
thought of his strange request.
Yegof kept on the Valtin road. Their eyes followed him as his
distance from them grew greater. Still his stately march, his
grave gestures, continued, though no one was now near to observe
him. Night was falling fast; and soon the tall form of the King
of Diamonds was blended with and lost in the winter twilight.
Chapter II.
The same evening, after supper, Louise, taking her spinning-wheel
with her, went to visit Mother Rochart, at whose cottage the good
matrons and young girls of the village often met, and remained
until near midnight, relating old legends, chatting of the rain,
the weather, baptisms, marriages, the departure or return of
conscripts, or any other matters of interest.
Hullin, sitting before his little copper lamp, nailed the sabots
of the old wood-cutter. He no longer gave a thought to Yegof. His
hammer rose and fell upon the thick wooden soles mechanically,
while a thousand fancies roamed through his mind. Now his
thoughts wandered to Gaspard, so long unheard of; now to the
campaign, so long prolonged. The lamp dimly lighted the little
room; without, all was still. The fire grew dull; Jean-Claude
arose to pile on another log, and then resumed his seat,
murmuring:
"This cannot last; we shall receive a letter one of these days."
The village clock struck nine; and as Hullin returned to his
work, the door opened, and Catherine Lefevre, the mistress of the
Bois-de-Chênes farm, appeared on the threshold, to the
astonishment of the sabot-maker, for it was not her custom to be
abroad at such an hour.
Catherine Lefevre might have been sixty years of age, but her
form was straight and erect as at thirty. Her clear, gray eyes
and hooked nose seemed to resemble the eyes and beak of the
eagle. Her thin cheeks and the drooping corners of her mouth
betokened habits of thought, and gave a sad and somewhat bitter
expression to her face. A long brown hood covered her head and
fell over her shoulders. Her whole appearance bespoke a firm and
resolute character, and inspired in the beholder a feeling of
respect, not untinged with fear.
"You here, Catherine?" exclaimed Hullin in his surprise.
"Even I, Jean-Claude," replied the old woman calmly. "I wish to
speak with you. Is Louise at home?"
"She is at Madeleine Rochart's."
"So much the better," said Catherine, seating herself at the
corner of the work-bench.
Hullin gazed fixedly at her. There was something mysterious and
unusual in her manner which caused in him a vague feeling of
alarm.
"What has happened?" he asked, laying aside his hammer.
"Yegof the fool passed last night at the farm."
"He was here this afternoon," said Hullin, who attached no
importance to the fact.
"Yes," continued Catherine, in a low tone; "he passed last night
with us, and in the evening, at this hour, before the kitchen
fire, his words were fearful."
"Fearful!" muttered the sabot-maker, more and more astonished,
for he had never before seen the old woman in such a state of
alarm. "What did he say, Catherine?"
{24}
"He spoke of things which awakened strange dreams."
"Dreams! You are mocking me."
"No, no," she answered. And then, after a moment of silence,
fixing her eyes upon the wondering Hullin, she continued:
"Last evening, our people were seated, after supper, around the
fire in the kitchen, and Yegof among them. He had, as usual,
regaled us with the history of his treasures and castles. It was
about nine o'clock, and the fool sat at the corner of the blazing
hearth. Duchene, my laborer, was mending Bruno's saddle; Robin,
the herdsman, was making a basket; Annette arranging her dishes
on the cupboard; and I spinning before going to bed. Without, the
dogs were barking at the moon, and it was bitter cold. We were
speaking of the winter, which Duchene said would be severe, for
he had seen large flocks of wild geese. The raven, perched on the
corner of the chimney-piece, with his beak buried in his ruffled
feathers, seemed to sleep."
The old woman paused a moment, as if to collect her thoughts; her
eyes sought the floor, her lips closed tightly together, and a
strange paleness overspread her face.
"What in the name of sense is she coming at?" thought Hullin.
She resumed:
"Yegof, at the edge of the hearth, with his tin crown upon his
head and his sceptre laid across his knees, seemed absorbed in
thought. He gazed at the huge black chimney, the great stone
mantel-shelf, with its sculptured trees and men, and at the smoke
which rose in heavy wreaths among the quarters of bacon. Suddenly
he struck his sceptre upon the floor, and cried out like one in a
dream, 'Yes, I have seen it all--all--long since!' And while we
gazed on him with looks of astonishment, he proceeded:
"'Ay, in those days the forests of firs were forests of oak.
Nideck, Dagsberg, Falkenstein--all the castles now old and ruined
were yet unbuilt. In those days wild bulls were hunted through
the woods; salmon were plenty in the Sarre; and you, the
fair-haired race, buried in the snows six months of the year,
lived upon milk and cheese, for you had great flocks on Hengst,
Schneeberg, Grosmann, and Donon. In summer you hunted as far as
the banks of the Rhine; as far as the Moselle, the Meuse. All
this can I remember!'
"Was it not strange, Jean-Claude?" said the old woman. "As the
fool spoke, I seemed, too, to remember those scenes, as if viewed
in a dream. I let fall my distaff, and old Duchene and all the
others stopped to listen. The fool continued:
"'Ay, it was long ago! You had already begun to build your tall
chimneys; and you surrounded your habitations with palisades
whose points had been hardened in the fire. Within you kept great
dogs, with hanging cheeks, who bayed night and day.'
"Then he burst into a peal of crazy laughter, crying:
"'And you thought yourselves the lords of the land--you, the
pale-faced and blue-eyed--you, who lived on milk and cheese, and
touched no flesh save in autumn at your hunts--you thought
yourselves lords of the mountain and the plain--when we, the
red-bearded, came from the sea--we, who loved blood and the din
of battle. 'Twas a rude war, ours. It lasted weeks and months;
and your old chieftainess, Margareth, of the clan of the
Kilberix, shut up in her palisades, surrounded by her dogs and
her warriors, defended herself like a she-wolf robbed of her
young.
{25}
But five moons passed, and hunger came; the gates of her
stronghold opened, that its defenders might fly; and we, ambushed
in the brook, slew them all--all--save the children. She alone
defended herself to the last, and I, Luitprand, clove her gray
head, and spared her blind father, the oldest among the old, that
I might chain him like a dog to my castle gate.'
"Then, Hullin," said the old woman, "the fool sang a long
ballad--the plaint of the old man chained to his gate. It was
sad, sad as the _Miserere_. It chilled our very blood. But
he laughed until old Duchene, in a transport of rage, threw
himself upon him to strangle him; but the fool is strong, and
hurled him back. Then brandishing his sceptre furiously, he
shouted:
"'To your knees, slaves! to your knees! My armies are advancing.
The earth trembles beneath them. Nideck, Haut-Barr, Dagsberg,
Turkestein, will again tower above you. To your knees!'
"Never did I gaze upon a more fearful figure; but seeing my
people about to fall upon him, I interposed in his defence. 'He
is but a fool,' I cried. 'Are you not ashamed to mind his words?'
This quieted them, but I could not close my eyes the entire
night. His story--the song of the old man--rang through my ears,
and seemed mingled with the barking of our dogs and the din of
combat. Hullin, what think you of it? I cannot banish his threats
from my mind!"
"I should think," said the sabot-maker, with a look of pity not
unmixed with a sort of sorrowful sarcasm--"I should think,
Catherine, if I did not know you so well, that you were losing
your senses--you and Duchene and Robin and all the rest."
"You do not understand these matters," said the old woman in a
calm and grave tone; "but were you never troubled by things of
like nature?"
"Do you mean that you believe this nonsense of Yegof?"
"Yes, I believe it."
"You believe it! You, Catherine Lefevre! If it was Mother
Rochart, I would say nothing; but you--!"
He arose as if angry, untied his apron, shrugged his shoulders,
and then suddenly, again seating himself, exclaimed:
"Do you know who this fool is? I will tell you. He is one of
those German schoolmasters who turn old women's heads with their
Mother Goose stories; whose brains are cracked with overmuch
study, and who take their visions for actual events--their crazy
fancies for reality. I always looked upon Yegof as one of them.
Remember the mass of names he knows; he talks of Brittany and
Austrasia--of Polynesia and Nideck and the banks of the Rhine,
and so gives an air of probability to his vagaries. In ordinary
times, Catherine, you would think as I do; but your mind is
troubled at receiving no news from Gaspard, and the rumors of war
and invasion which are flying around distract you; you do not
sleep, and you look upon the sickly fancies of a poor fool as
gospel truth."
"Not so, Hullin--not so. If you yourself had heard Yegof--"
"Come, come!" cried the good man. "If I had heard him, I would
have laughed at him, as I do now. Do you know that he has
demanded the hand of Louise, that he might make her Queen of
Austrasia?"
Catherine could not help smiling; but soon resuming her serious
air, she said:
{26}
"All your reasons, Jean-Claude, cannot convince me; but I confess
that Gaspard's silence frightens me. I know my boy, and he has
certainly written. Why have his letters not arrived? The war goes
ill for us, Hullin; all the world is against us. They want none
of our Revolution. While we were the masters, while we crowned
victory with victory, they were humble enough, but since the
Russian misfortune their tone is far different."
"There, there, Catherine; you are wandering; everything is black
to you. What disturbs me most is not receiving any news from
without; we are living here as in a country of savages; we know
nothing of what is going on abroad. The Austrians or the Cossacks
might fall upon us at any moment, and we be taken completely by
surprise."
Hullin observed that as he spoke the old woman's look became
anxious, and despite himself he felt the influence of the fears
she spoke of.
"Listen, Catherine," said he suddenly; "as long as you talk
reasonably I shall not gainsay you. You speak now of things that
are possible. I do not believe they will attack us, but it is
better to set our hearts at ease. I intended going to Phalsbourg
this week. I shall set out to-morrow. In such a city--one which
is, moreover, a post-station--they should have certain tidings
of what is going on. Will you believe the news I bring back?"
"I will."
"Then it is understood. I will start early to-morrow morning. It
is five leagues off. I shall have returned by about six in the
evening, and you shall see, Catherine, that your mournful notions
lack reason."
"I hope so," said she, rising; "indeed I hope so. You have
somewhat reassured me, Jean-Claude, and I may sleep better than I
did last night. Good-night, Jean-Claude."
Chapter III.
The next morning at daybreak, Hullin, in his gray-cloth Sunday
small-clothes, his ample brown velvet coat, his red vest with its
copper buttons, his head covered with his mountaineer's slouched
hat, the broad brim turned up in front over his ruddy face, took
the road to Phalsbourg, a stout staff in his hand.
Phalsbourg is a small fortified city on the imperial road from
Strasbourg to Paris. It commands the slope of Saverne, the
defiles of Haut-Barr, of Roche-Plate, Bonne-Fontaine, and
Graufthal. Its bastions, advanced works, and demi-lunes run
zigzag over a rocky plateau; afar off you would think you could
clear the walls at a bound; a nearer approach shows a ditch, a
hundred feet wide and thirty deep, and beyond the dark ramparts
cut in the rock itself. All the rest of the city, save the
town-hall, the two gates of France and Germany with their pointed
arches, and the tops of the two magazines, is concealed behind
the glacis. Such is the little city, which is not lacking in a
certain kind of grandeur, especially when we cross its bridges,
and pass its heavy gates, studded with iron spikes. Within the
walls, the houses are low, regularly built of cut stone in
straight streets. A military atmosphere pervades everything.
Hullin, whose robust health and joyous nature gave him little
care for the future, pushed gayly onward, regarding the stories
of defeat and invasion which filled the air as so many malicious
inventions.
{27}
Judge, then, of his stupefaction when, on coming in sight of the
town, he saw that the clock-tower stood no longer, not a garden
or an orchard, not a walk or a bush could he see; everything
within cannon-shot was utterly destroyed. A few wretches were
collecting the remaining pieces of their cottages to carry them
to the city. Nothing could be seen to the verge of the horizon
but the lines of the ramparts. Jean-Claude was thunder-struck;
for a few moments he could neither utter a word nor advance a
step.
"Aha!" he muttered at last, "things are not going well. The enemy
is expected."
Then his warrior instincts rising, his brown cheeks flushed with
anger.
"It is those rascal Austrians, and Prussians, and Russians, who
have caused all this," he cried, shaking his staff; "but let them
beware! They shall rue it!"
His wrath grew as he advanced. Twenty minutes later he entered
the city at the end of a long train of wagons, each drawn by five
or six horses, and dragging enormous trunks of trees, destined to
form a block-house on the Place d'Armes. Between drivers,
peasants, and neighing, struggling, kicking horses, a mounted
_gendarme_, Father Kels, rode grimly, seeming to hear
nothing of the tumult around, but ever and anon saying, in a deep
base voice:
"Courage! my friends, courage! We can make two journeys more
before night, and you will have deserved well of your country."
Jean-Claude crossed the bridge.
A new spectacle presented itself within the walls. All were
absorbed in the work of defence. Every gate was open. Men, women,
and children labored, ran, or helped to carry powder and shot.
Occasionally, groups of three, four, or half a dozen would
collect to hear the news.
"Neighbors," one would say, "a courier has arrived at full speed.
He entered by the French gate."
"Then he announces the coming of the National Guard from Nancy."
"Or, perhaps, a train from Metz."
"You are right. Sixteen-pound shot are wanting, as well as
canister. They are breaking up the stoves to supply its place."
Some of the citizens, in their shirt-sleeves, were barricading
their windows with heavy beams and mattresses; others were
rolling tubs of water before their doors. Their enthusiasm
excited Hullin's admiration.
"Good!" he cried, "good! The allies will be well received here!"
Opposite the college, the squeaking voice of the sergeant,
Harmantier, was shrieking:
"Be it known that the casemates will be opened, to the end that
each man may bring a mattress and two blankets; and moreover,
that messieurs the commissioners are about to commence their
round of inspection to see that each inhabitant has three months'
provisions in his house, which he must show: Given this twentieth
day of December, one thousand eight hundred and thirteen. Jean
Pierre Meunier, Governor."
Strange scenes, both serious and comic, succeeded every minute.
Hullin was no longer the same man. Memories of the march, the
bivouac, the rattle of musketry, the charge, the shout of
victory, came rushing upon him. His eyes sparkled and his heart
beat fast, and the thoughts of the glory to be gained in a brave
defence, a struggle to the death with a haughty enemy, filled his
brain.
"Good faith!" said he to himself, "all goes well! I have made
clogs enough in my life, and if the time has come to shoulder the
musket once more, so much the better. We will show these
Prussians and Austrians that we have not forgotten the roll of
the charge!"
{28}
Thus mused the brave old man, but his exultation was not of long
duration.
Before the church, on the Place d'Armes, were fifteen or twenty
wagons full of wounded, arriving from Leipsic and Hanau. Many
poor fellows, pale, emaciated, with eyes half-closed and glassy,
or rolling in agony, some with arms and legs already amputated,
some with wounds not yet even bandaged, lay awaiting death. Near
by, a few worn-out horses were eating their scanty provender,
while their drivers, poor peasants pressed into service in
Alsace, wrapped in their long, ragged cloaks, slept, in spite of
cold, on the steps of the church. It was terrible to see the men,
wrapped in their gray overcoats, heaped upon bloody straw; one
holding his broken arm upon his knee; another binding his head
with an old handkerchief; a third already dead, serving as a seat
for the living. Hullin stood transfixed. He could not withdraw
his eyes from the scene. Human misery in its intensest forms
fascinates us. We would see how men die--how they face death; and
the best among us are not free from this horrible curiosity. It
seems to us as if eternity were about to disclose its secrets.
On the first wagon to the right were two carabineers in sky-blue
jackets--two giants--but their strong frames were bowed with
pain; they seemed two statues crushed beneath some enormous mass
of stone. One, with thick red mustaches and sunken cheeks, glared
with his stony eyes, as if awakened from a frightful nightmare;
the other, bent double, his hands blue with cold, and his
shoulder torn by a grape-shot, was becoming momentarily weaker,
but from time to time started up, muttering like one in a dream.
Behind, infantrymen were stretched in couples, most of them
struck by bullets. They seemed to bear their fate with more
fortitude than did the giants, not speaking, except that a few,
the youngest, shrieked furiously for water and bread. In the next
wagon, a plaintive voice--the voice of a conscript--called upon
his mother, while his older comrades smiled sarcastically at his
cry.
Now and then a shudder ran through them all, as a man--or mayhap
several--would rise, and with a long sigh fall back. This was
death.
While Hullin stood silent, the blood frozen in his heart, a
citizen, Sôme, the baker, came forth from his house, carrying a
large pot of boiled meat. Then you should have seen those
spectres struggle, their eyes glance, their nostrils dilate; a
new life seemed to animate them, for the poor wretches were dying
of hunger.
Good Father Sôme, with tears in his eyes, approached, saying:
"I am coming, my children. A little patience, and you will be
supplied."
But scarcely had he reached the first wagon, when the huge
carabineer with the sunken cheeks plunged his arm to the elbow in
the boiling pot, seized a piece of meat, and concealed it beneath
his jacket. It was done like a flash, and savage cries arose on
all sides. Men who had not strength enough to move would have
strangled their comrade. He pressed the precious morsel to his
breast, his teeth were already in it, and he glared around like a
wild beast. At the cries which arose, an old soldier--a
sergeant--sprang from a neighboring wagon; he understood all at a
glance, and without useless delay tore the meat from the
carabineer, saying:
"Thou deservest to have none. Let us divide; it will make ten
rations."
{29}
"We are only eight," said a wounded man, calm in appearance, but
with eyes glistening in his bronzed face. "You see, sergeant,
that those two there are dying; it is no use to waste food."
The sergeant looked.
"You are right," he replied. "Eight parts."
Hullin could bear no more. He fled, pale as death, to the
innkeeper, Wittmann's. Wittmann was also a dealer in leather and
furs, and cried, as he saw him enter:
"Ha! it is you, Master Jean-Claude; you are earlier than usual. I
did not expect you before next week." Then, seeing him tremble,
he asked: "But what is the matter? You are ill."
"I have just been looking at the wounded."
"Ah! yes. The first time it affects one; but if you had seen
fifteen thousand pass, as I have, you would think nothing of it."
"A glass of wine, quick!" cried Hullin. "O men, men! you who
should be brothers!"
"Yes, brothers until the purse gives out," replied Wittmann.
"There, drink, and you will feel better."
"And you have seen fifteen thousand of these wretches pass," said
the sabot-maker.
"At least; and all in the last two months, without speaking of
those that remained in Alsace and on the other side of the Rhine;
for, you know, wagons could not be procured for all, and it was
not worth while removing many."
"Yes, I understand. But why are those unfortunates there? Why are
they not in the hospital?"
"The hospital! Where are there hospitals enough for them--for
fifty thousand wounded? Every one, from Mayence and Coblentz to
Phalsbourg, is crowded; and, moreover, that terrible sickness,
typhus, kills more than the enemy's bullets. All the villages in
the plain, for twenty leagues around, are infected, and men die
like flies. Happily, the city has been for three days in a state
of siege, and they are about to close the gates, and allow no one
to enter. I have lost my uncle Christian and my aunt Lisbeth, as
hale, hearty people as you or I, Jean-Claude. The cold has come,
too; there was a white frost last night."
"And the wounded were in the street all night?"
"No; they came from Saverne this morning, and in an hour or
two--as soon as the horses are rested--they will depart for
Sarrebourg."
At this instant, the old sergeant, who had established order in
the wagon, entered, rubbing his hands.
"Ha, ha!" he said, "it is becoming cooler, Father Wittmann. You
did well to light the fire in the stove. A little glass of cognac
would not be amiss to take off the chill."
His little, half-closed eyes, hooked nose, separating a pair of
wrinkled cheeks, and chin, from which a red tuft of beard hung,
all gave the old soldier's face an expression of good humor and
jollity. It was a true military countenance--hale, bronzed by
exposure, full of bluff frankness as well as of roguish
shrewdness--and his tall shako and gray-blue overcoat,
shoulder-belt, and epaulettes seemed part of himself. He marched
up and down the room, still rubbing his hands, while Wittmann
filled him a little glass of brandy. Hullin, seated near the
window, had, in the first place, remarked the number of his
regiment--the sixth of the line. Gaspard, the son of Catherine
Lefevre, was in the same. Jean-Claude would, then, have tidings
of Louise's betrothed; but when he attempted to speak, his heart
beat painfully. If Gaspard were dead! If he had perished like so
many others!
{30}
The old sabot-maker felt strangled. He was silent. "Better to
know nothing," he thought.
Nevertheless, in a few moments he again tried to speak.
"Sergeant," said he huskily, "you are of the Sixth?"
"Even so, my burgess," replied the other, returning to the middle
of the room.
"Do you know one Gaspard Lefevre?"
"Gaspard Lefevre? Parbleu! that do I. I taught him to shoulder
arms; a brave soldier, i' faith, and good on the march. If we had
a hundred thousand of his stamp--"
"Then he is alive and well?"
"He is, my citizen--at least he was a week ago, when I left the
regiment at Fredericsthal with this train of wounded; since then,
you understand, there has been warm work, and one can answer for
nothing--one might get his billet at any moment. But a week ago,
at Fredericsthal, Gaspard Lefevre still answered roll-call."
Jean Claude breathed.
"But, sergeant, can you tell me why he has not written home these
two months back?"
The old soldier smiled and winked his little eyes.
"Do you think, my friend, that a man has nothing to do on the
march but write?"
"No; I have seen service. I made the campaigns of the
Sambre-and-Meuse, of Egypt and of Italy, but I always managed to
let my friends at home hear from me."
"One moment, comrade," interrupted the sergeant. "I was in Italy
and Egypt too, but the campaign just finished was in every
respect peculiar."
"It was a severe one, no doubt."
"Severe! Everything and every one was against us; sickness,
traitors, peasants, citizens, our allies--all the world! Of our
company, which was full when we left Phalsbourg the twenty-first
of January last, only thirty-two men remain. I believe that
Gaspard Lefevre is the only conscript left living. The poor
conscripts! They fought well, but exposure and hunger did their
business."
So saying, the old sergeant walked to the counter and emptied his
glass at one gulp.
"To your health, citizen. Might you, perchance, be Gaspard's
father?"
"No; I am only a relative."
"Well, you can boast of being solidly built in your family. What
a man he is for a youth of twenty! He held firm while those
around were sent by dozens to mount guard below."
"But," said Hullin, after a moment's silence, "I do not yet see
what there was so extraordinary in this last campaign, for we,
too, had our sickness and traitors--"
"Extraordinary!" cried the sergeant; "everything was
extraordinary. Formerly, you know, a German war was finished
after a victory or two; the people then received you well; drank
their white wine and munched their sauerkraut with you; and, when
the regiment departed, every one even wept. But this time, after
Lutzen and Bautzen, instead of becoming good-natured, they grew
fiercer than ever: we could obtain nothing except by force; it
was like Spain or La Vendée. I don't know what made them hate us
so.
{31}
But if we were all French, things would after all have yet gone
well; but we had our Saxon and other allies ready to fly at our
throats. We could have beaten the enemy, even if they were five
to one, but for our allies. Look at Leipsic, where in the middle
of the fight they turned against us--I mean our good friends the
Saxons. A week after, our other good friends the Bavarians tried
to cut off our retreat; but they rued it at Hanau. The next day,
near Frankfort, another column of our good friends presented
themselves, but we crushed the traitors. If we only foresaw all
this after Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland, Wagram!"
Hullin stood for a moment silent and thoughtful.
"And how do we stand now, sergeant?" said he, at length.
"We have been driven across the Rhine, and all our fortresses on
the German side are blockaded. All Europe is advancing upon us.
The emperor is at Paris, arranging his plan of campaign. Would to
heaven we could get breathing time until the spring!"
At this moment Wittmann arose, and, going to the window, said:
"Here comes the governor, making his tour of inspection."
The commandant Jean-Pierre Meunier, in his three-cocked hat, with
a tri-colored sash around his waist, had indeed just made his
appearance in the street.
"Ah!" said the sergeant, "I must get him to sign my marching
papers. Excuse me, messieurs, I must leave you."
"Good-by, then, sergeant, and thank you. If you see Gaspard,
embrace him for Jean-Claude Hullin, and tell him to write."
"I shall not fail."
The sergeant departed, and Hullin emptied his glass.
"Do you intend to start at once, Jean-Claude?" asked Wittmann.
"Yes, the days are growing short, and the road through the wood
is not easily found after dark. Adieu!"
The innkeeper watched the old mountaineer from the window, as he
crossed the street, and muttered as he gazed at the retreating
figure:
"How pale he was when he came in! He could scarcely stand. It is
strange! An old man such as he--a soldier too! I could see fifty
regiments stretched in ambulances, and not shake so."
----------
{32}
Translated From The Historisch-politische Blätter.
Maria Von Mörl.
In the beginning of this year a remarkable human life came to a
close. That wonderful being whose name and fame travelled from
South Tyrol all over Germany, and made her residence become a
frequented pilgrimage without her will--but for the great
consolation of multitudes during a whole generation--that
extraordinary woman is no more. Maria von Mörl died on January
11th, 1868, in the fifty-sixth year of her age, and in the
thirty-sixth of her ecstatic life.
It is now over a score of years since the masterly pen of Görres
sketched, in his _Mystik_, so striking a portrait of Maria
von Mörl, and still the attention of the believing world is
attracted to the life of the ecstatic virgin. Since then
thousands have gone to the South Tyrol markets to behold as a
reality what would sound legendary to read or hear, and to bear
testimony to the truth of what Görres wrote about the stigmata of
that holy woman. All the pilgrims found his statements perfectly
correct. Although Görres, in describing the phenomena, abstained
from a definitive judgment regarding her sanctity, according to
the rule that no one must be called a saint before death, we are
not restrained any longer from expressing our convictions, now
that she is no more. Her happy and holy death is the strongest
confirmation of her unimpeachable life.
We have now all the necessary documents to form a correct
estimate of her holiness. Let us glance at the most interesting
events in her life, and sum up briefly and simply the chief
traits of her inner and exterior character.
Three miles south of Botzen, in a charming landscape, with a
prospect extending over a wide and smiling valley, lies the
vine-crowned spot in which Maria Theresa von Mörl first saw the
light of day, on October 16th, 1812. She was the daughter of a
reduced, but noble, vine cultivator in Kaltern, [Footnote 3]
Joseph von Mörl, of Mühlen and Lichelburg, who was blessed with a
very large family, but not with sufficient means to raise them as
became their blood.
[Footnote 3: Kaltern is the German for the Italian
Caldaro.--Tr.]
Maria received from her good, sensible mother, whose maiden name
was Selva, a pious and simple education; and the young girl grew
up in virtue, modest and gentle, affectionate and obliging to
all, of good understanding, but with no great powers of fancy.
She was an expert little housewife, and aided her mother in the
management of their domestic affairs. Frequent illness, which
began to trouble her as early as her fifth year and continued to
affect her through life, as it had its seat in her blood,
rendered her, even at an early age, rather grave, and increased
her zeal in prayer, which showed itself especially in her love
and veneration for the Blessed Sacrament. This was her character
until, in the year 1827, her beloved mother was taken from her by
death; and she, at the age of fifteen, was left in sole charge of
the family, her father being unable to provide better for the
care of her eight younger sisters.
{33}
Maria undertook the task of their bringing up with courage and
readiness. She sought among her increasing labors and
responsibilities, more than ever, consolation in religion, and in
the frequent reception of the sacrament of the altar.
But the burden was too heavy for her young shoulders, and she
sank under it. In her eighteenth year she fell into a wearisome
sickness, which was increased in painfulness by reason of violent
cramps, which broke down her constitution. Only by slow degrees
was her pain alleviated, without the disease having been
completely driven out. She never became perfectly sound again.
Yet she bore all her afflictions with heroic resignation,
although to her physical torments mental struggles were often
added temptations of the devil; and troubles of soul which we
cannot dwell upon here. [Footnote 4]
[Footnote 4: Görres describes them fully in his _Christliche
Mystik_, band iii.]
Such was her condition during about two years, when her
confessor, Father Capistran, a quiet, prudent man, and for years
a true friend of the distressed family, observed "that at certain
times, when she was interrogated by him, she did not answer, and
seemed to be out of herself." When he questioned her nurses and
others on this point, they informed him that such was always the
case when she received the holy communion. This was the first
symptom of her _ecstatic_ state, into which she entered in
her twentieth year, and which soon became more and more striking.
On the feast of Corpus Christi, 1832, which in Kaltern, as
throughout the whole Tyrol, is celebrated with unusual solemnity,
Father Capistran, for special reasons, gave her the holy
sacrament at three A.M., and immediately she fell into an ecstasy
which lasted, to his personal knowledge, for several hours! He
left her to attend to other duties; and when he returned, at noon
on the following day, he found the ecstatic still kneeling in the
same place where he had left her thirty-six hours before; and
heard, to his astonishment, that she had remained the whole time
thus undisturbed in contemplation. The good Franciscan now
comprehended for the first time that ecstasy had become almost a
second nature to her; and undertook the regulation of this
supernatural condition of his saintly penitent.
The power of the perceptive faculties increased wonderfully with
her ecstasies, as several presentiments and prophecies
demonstrated in a surprising manner. Her fame was soon noised
abroad. The report of her ecstatic kneeling and prayer spread
through the Tyrol, and great excitement was created throughout
the whole land. Crowds of people flocked to see her, and to be
edified by the sight. From different and distant places numbers
came as pilgrims to Kaltern. During the summer of 1833, more than
forty thousand persons, of all classes, visited her, without the
slightest disorder or scandal, although sometimes two or three
thousand people in a day passed through the room of the rapt
maiden, kneeling undisturbed in contemplation. Many sinners were
moved and converted by the spectacle.
No one could explain the sudden and extraordinary commotion
excited in a whole people. The civil and ecclesiastical
authorities wished to prevent the concourse; so it was announced
that no further pilgrimages would be allowed. They gradually
ceased. The priests, however, bore testimony to the good results
which had flowed from those pilgrimages.
{34}
In the autumn of the same year, Francis Xavier Luschin,
Prince-Bishop of Trent, caused an investigation to be made, and
the witnesses to be examined on oath, regarding the state of the
ecstatic virgin, to prevent any further proceedings and
annoyances on the part of the police, but especially to remove
all suspicion of pious fraud. The prince-bishop, who was
impartial enough not to give a final decision, informed the civil
authorities "that the sickness of Maria von Mörl was certainly
not holiness, but that her undoubted holiness could not be called
a sickness."
All this excitement was unknown to the cause of it, who remained
undisturbed by the throngs who came to see her. Her inner life
seemed to be completely developed in the year 1834, when she
received the _stigmata_. How this happened is best told in
the words of Görres himself: "In the fall of 1833, the
father-confessor occasionally remarked that the centre of her
hands, where the wounds appeared at a later date, began to fall
in, and the places became painful and troubled with frequent
cramps. He suspected that _stigmatization_ was about to
happen, and the result justified his expectations. At early Mass,
on February 4th, of the year 1834, he found her wiping her hands
with a cloth in childish astonishment. When he perceived blood on
it, he asked her what was the matter. She answered that she did
not well understand what it was; that she must have cut herself
in some strange way. But it was the stigmata, which from that day
remained unchangeably in her palms, and soon appeared in her feet
also, as well as in her side. So simply did Father Capistran act
in the whole affair, and so little desirous of wonder-seeking did
he show himself, that he never asked her what were her interior
dispositions or phenomena immediately before the reception of the
wounds. They were almost round, slightly oblong, about two inches
in diameter, and appearing on both the upper and under parts of
her hands and feet. The size of the lance stigma in the side,
which only her most intimate female friends saw, could not be
determined. On Thursday evenings and on Fridays, clear blood
flowed in drops from the wounds; on the other days of the week, a
dry crust of blood covered them, without the slightest symptoms
of inflammation or the slightest traces of pus ever appearing.
She concealed most carefully her state, and all that might betray
her interior emotions. But on the occasion of a festive
procession, in 1833, she fell into an ecstasy in the presence of
several witnesses. She appeared like an angel, blooming like a
rose. Her feet scarcely touching the bed, she stood up, with arms
outstretched in the shape of a cross, and the stigmata in her
palms manifest to all beholders." [Footnote 5]
[Footnote 5: _Christliche Mystik_, ii. 501.]
Maria von Mörl became a sister of the Third Order of St. Francis,
and, in virtue of the obedience due to him, her confessor
undertook to keep her ecstasies within due bounds. She promised
him complete obedience. A word from him recalled her to herself.
But his experience was very little. No one at home paid much
attention to her. She was left very much alone. Her confessor was
a sensible man, but very simple and not at all inquisitive. The
circle of her spiritual phenomena rolled round within the
ordinary limits of the feasts of the church. Father Capistran did
not interfere at all in the singularities of her interior
condition, or even try to investigate their nature with
curiosity.
{35}
"If she is not questioned," wrote the good and simple confessor
to Görres, "she says very little, and seldom speaks at all; thus,
for instance, it is only to-day that I learned completely her
vision of St. Paul--on the feast of his conversion. Only now and
then does she tell a particular circumstance, which I listen to
quietly; and if she says nothing, I do not trouble her with
questions. She sometimes says to me, 'I cannot properly express
what I see by word of mouth or by writing; and perhaps I might
say something false.' My direction is extremely plain: I want her
to be always humble and devout to God; and I am satisfied when
she prays so fervently to God, and intercedes for others, for
sinners as well as for the just. It always seems to me that it is
not the will of God that I should inquire too curiously about her
visions and revelations, as Brentano did with Emmerich." Thus
wrote Father Capistran, who describes himself in his letter
better than our pen could do it.
In September, 1835, Görres came to Kaltern, in the Southern
Tyrol, where he saw frequently the _stigmatized_ girl, whose
health was becoming every day worse. He found her in her father's
house, lying in a neat, plain, whitewashed room, on a hard
mattress, and covered with clean white linen. At the side of her
bed was a little family altar; behind it, and over the windows,
were a few religious pictures. She had a delicate figure, of
medium height, and somewhat emaciated from the use of sparse
diet, yet not unusually thin. When he saw her for the first time,
she was in an ecstasy, kneeling on the lower part of her bed.
Görres describes her thus: "Her hands, with the visible stigmata,
were folded on her breast; her face turned to the church, and
slightly raised; her eyes having a look of complete absorption
which nothing could disturb. No movement was perceptible in her
kneeling form for a whole hour, except a gentle breathing,
occasionally a muscular action of the throat as in swallowing,
and sometimes an oscillatory movement of the head and body. She
seemed as if looking into the distance, gazing in rapture at God,
like one of those angels who kneel around his throne. No wonder
that her appearance produced such a great effect on the
beholders, so as to bring tears to the eyes of the most hardened.
During her ecstasy she contemplated the life and passion of
Christ, adored the Blessed Sacrament, and prayed according to the
spirit of the season of the ecclesiastical year. This we are told
by her spiritual director. Her visions and revelations had all
reference to something holy and ecclesiastical; and, unlike
somnambulists, she remained entirely blind, like other persons,
to her own bodily state." (II. 504.)
In her natural condition, Maria von Mörl left the impression of
her being a simple and candid child on those who visited her.
Görres gives a characteristic description of her: "No matter how
deeply she may be lost in contemplation, a word of her confessor,
no matter in how low a tone it may be uttered, recalls her from
her rapture. There seems to be no medium condition; only
sufficient time elapses to make her conscious of the word having
been spoken, before she opens her eyes and becomes as
self-possessed as if she were never in ecstasy. Her appearance
becomes immediately changed into that of a young child.
{36}
The first thing she does on awaking from her ecstasy, if she
perceives spectators, is to hide her stigmatized hands under the
bed-clothing, like a little girl who soils her hands with ink,
and tries to conceal them at the approach of her mother. Then she
looks curiously among the crowd, for she is now accustomed to the
sight of multitudes, and gives every one a friendly greeting. As
she has been dumb for some time, she tries to make herself
understood by gestures; and when she finds this method
unsuccessful, she turns her eyes entreatingly, like an
inexperienced child, to her confessor, to ask him to help her and
speak for her. The expression of her dark eye is that of joyous
childhood. You can look through her clear eyes to the very bottom
of her soul, and perceive that there is not a dark corner in her
nature for anything evil to hide in. There is nothing defiled or
deceitful in her character; no sentimentalism, no hypocrisy, nor
the slightest trace of any pride; but all in her is childlike
simplicity and innocence." (II.508.)
Clement Brentano bears a similar witness to her virtue when he
visited her at Kaltern, in 1835, and again in the harvest of
1837. In one of his letters he says of her: "Here lives the
maiden Maria von Mörl, who is now in her twenty-third year. She
is a lovely, pious, and chosen creature. She is incessantly rapt
in ecstasy, kneeling in bed, her hands outstretched or folded.
She is so wonderfully lengthened during her ecstasy, that one
would take her for a very tall person, though really she is quite
short. Her eyes remain open and fixed, and though the flies run
over her eyelids, she moves them not. She is like a wax figure,
and her look is striking. Now and then her spiritual director
interrupts her visions, and immediately she settles into repose
on her couch, but after a few minutes rises to her knees again.
She makes no effort to rise; she seems carried by angels into a
kneeling posture. The whole appearance of this extraordinary girl
is moving, yet not shocking, for the moment the priest commands
her to resume her natural state, she becomes like one of the most
simple and innocent of children, as if she were not seven years
old. The moment she perceives persons around her, she hides
herself to the very nose under the bed-clothes, looks timorous,
yet smiles on all around, and gives them pictures, preserving
always a serene and attractive countenance, like that of the
blessed Emmerich." [Footnote 6]
[Footnote 6: Clemens Brentano, _Gesammelte Briefe_, band
ii. 326. He caused a likeness of her to be painted.]
Like a child, she was fond of children, of birds and flowers. It
was observed that birds seemed to have a great liking for her.
They sang in flocks around her windows, and if they were brought
into her room they flew to her. On one occasion three wild doves
were given to her, and although they never allowed any one to
fondle them before, they alighted on her, two of them on her
arms, and the third on her clasped hands, putting its bill to her
mouth as she prayed. This beautiful scene was repeated for
several days, until the doves were driven away. The same thing
happened with a chicken which a little sister of Maria's, a child
of nine years old, accidentally brought into her chamber.
If friends were around her, she could sometimes remain mistress
of herself and take part in their conversation; but this was only
for a short time, and she fell again into ecstasy. The passion of
our Lord seemed to be the special object of her contemplation,
and on Fridays especially she suffered agony in her mystical
life. In the forenoon her sufferings began to be noticeable.
{37}
As the great drama of the crucifixion proceeded, its traces were
visible in her; her pains increasing until the hour of the death
on the cross, when her whole person became as if it were
lifeless. Görres paints, in his usual graphic style, all these
phenomena, even to the most minute details. (P. 505-508.) For the
sake of brevity, we shall quote only Brentano's words. As he was
an eye-witness of what he narrates, he is perfectly reliable: "I
have never seen anything more awful and astounding; all the
patience, anguish, abandonment, and love of Jesus dying was
represented in her with inexpressible truth and dignity. She is
seen dying by degrees; dark spots cover her face, her nose
becomes pinched, her eyes break, cold sweat runs down her person,
death struggles in her trembling bosom; her head is raised, while
her mouth opens in pain; her neck and chin form almost a straight
line, her tongue becomes parched, and is drawn up as if withered;
her breathing is low and slightly gurgling; her hands fall
powerless to her side, and her head sinks on her bosom. A priest,
to whom Father Capistran, who was present, gave authority,
commanded her to repose. In a moment she lay fatigued, but calm
on her bed, and after about three minutes rose again to her
knees, and returned thanks for the death of the Lord."
These phenomena were repeated every Friday throughout the year.
Her sufferings became more and more extraordinary. In the year
1836, it was observed that, on the Fridays after the ascension of
Christ, when she finished her mystical agony, beginning at three
P.M., she fell into a new ecstasy which lasted until half-past
four o'clock. Her body lay extended on her couch as on a cross,
her arms outstretched as if powerfully wrenched; her head hung on
one side, bent somewhat back off her pillow, and unsupported by
anything. Thus she remained sometimes two hours as if dead, and
could not be recalled without violent and painful convulsions.
But when she came back to her natural state, she was ever the
same innocent and gentle girl, as if she had never been blessed
by God with extraordinary visitations.
So much had ecstasy become a second nature to her, that she was
self-conscious only at intervals and by great efforts of the
will. During Görres's stay at Kaltern, Maria was asked to stand
godmother for a newly born child. She accepted the invitation
with great joy, and took the most lively interest in the
ceremony; but during it she became ecstatic several times, and
had to be repeatedly recalled from her trance.
Yet with all this, she did not neglect the care of her family as
far as it lay in her power, and with the direction and counsel of
her good confessor. Two o'clock in the afternoon was the hour
appointed by him for her to attend to her household affairs. At
that hour she was commanded by him to leave her trance, and then,
with the greatest diligence, and with the care of a mother, she
directed business matters, dictated letters, and arranged all the
necessary temporal concerns with great prudence and good sense.
In the year 1841, she left her father's house, and went, in the
beginning of November, to live in the convent of the Sisters of
the Third Order of St. Francis, where, as one of its members, she
received a separate dwelling next the church. Here she enjoyed
great repose, for access to her became less easy, as visitors
were required to procure permission from the ecclesiastical
authorities to see her.
{38}
Still, pilgrimages did not cease; and the good influence
exercised by her increased. Of the deep religious impression
produced by her ecstasies, the Bishop of Terni, Monsignor Vincent
Tizzani, speaks authoritatively in a pastoral letter published
regarding Maria von Mörl in the year 1842. He had seen her, one
Friday, in her ecstasy and agony, and he could not repress his
tears at beholding the text so literally verified, "I live; yet
not I, but Christ liveth in me." His testimony concerning the
stigmata and the circumstances of her supernatural state agrees
in every particular with that rendered by Görres and Brentano
seven years previously. Louis Clarus also, at that time a
Protestant, afterward a Catholic, in his studies on mysticism,
felt compelled to render this witness concerning her. "The force
of truth and reality," says he, writing of his visit to Kaltern,
"impressed me so, that I felt necessitated, like the apostle
John, to announce what I had heard, my eyes had seen, and my
hands touched."
Many others, among them Lord Shrewsbury, attest the same fact,
every succeeding witness confirming the testimony of his
predecessor. [Footnote 7]
[Footnote 7: _Letter from the Earl of Shrewsbury to Ambrose
Lisle Phillips, Esq., descriptive of the Estatica of Caldaro
and the Addolorata of Capriana_. London 1842.]
A whole generation has passed since then, and no one has been
able to contradict their statements, or explain the phenomena on
any _natural_ principles. For thirty years every one could
behold her in ecstasy or agony, and see the wounds plainly on her
hands and feet, while she remained ever humble, meek, modest as a
child, and intensely pious and holy. Her history could be written
in two words: "_She suffers, and contemplates_." She was a
passion-flower clinging to the foot of the cross. In ecstasy she
spent her life, contemplating the sufferings of Jesus Christ,
praying for all, for the church, and for her native land; doing
good to countless poor people, alleviating their sorrows, like
the divine Master who dwelt in the recesses of her soul.
Three years before her death she lost her confessor, Father
Capistran, who had guided her soul for almost forty years. He was
a distinguished theologian, a good priest, and had been judged
worthy to be chosen provincial of his order, the Franciscans. He
died on the 4th of May, 1865. She mourned his death like a child,
and longed more than ever to be dissolved and be with Christ.
Her wish was soon gratified. She became very weak in the autumn
of 1867, and the numerous visits she was compelled to receive, as
well as the frequent requests made of her, completely prostrated
her physical powers. The number of pilgrims to her "Swallows'
Nest," as Görres called her abode near the Franciscan church, was
extraordinary; men, women, priests, and laity, all came to her
shrine.
The measure of her physical suffering was full; but the measure
of her mental anguish was not yet complete. On the 8th of
September, 1867, she was visited by a severe spiritual trouble.
She seemed to be struggling with some power of hell. She became
sad, and as if forsaken by God, to such an extent that until
September 17th, and for weeks after, consciousness seems to have
entirely left her. In this spiritual conflict she saw troops of
demons, which surrounded, attacked her, and threatened to carry
her off to judgment. She saw and heard the fiends blaspheming all
things holy, and trying to bear even the most righteous away to
the abyss.
{39}
She heard the devils scoff at her, and boast that they had the
pope in their power; that they had desecrated churches and
convents, and made wickedness thrive in the land. These
temptations and obsessions lasted from the middle of September to
the middle of October, when peace again returned to her soul.
From the 23d of October she was able to receive the blessed
sacrament regularly; the struggle was over; she had conquered,
and was now at rest. When she was afterward interrogated
regarding these obsessions, she said that, on the night of the
7th of September, as she was praying for the pope and the
emperor, the attack began. It was precisely at this time that the
invasion of the pope's temporal possessions by the Garibaldians,
sanctioned by the Sardinian government, took place. The French
expedition was sent to the pope's relief toward the middle of
October, just when Maria's soul obtained rest from demoniacal
aggressions; so that her personal affliction seems to have been a
participation in the sufferings of the church.
But the light of her life was flickering in the socket. She had a
presentiment of her death before it took place, and prophesied
often that she would never pass the winter on earth. Toward All
Saints' day her weakness became greater, and everything foretold
her dissolution. She could no longer bear nourishment. Lemonade
or water, with the essence of quinces, was almost her only
nourishment for some weeks before her death. When she felt better
on certain days, she ate fruit, bread, or porridge, but never
meat or meat soup. She sometimes spent several days without
eating or drinking. In the last week, especially from Wednesday<
she suffered great torture. But she was full of resignation;
indifferent to life or death, she never repined or murmured. She
was patient and full of calm resignation and infantile love. On
the feast of the Epiphany, five days before her death, she showed
herself in her usual way to the pilgrims; there was a mission at
Kaltern, and the missionaries visited her on that festival, to
bid her farewell. She received them with bland hospitality, and
offered them grapes to eat.
She knew nothing positive about the precise moment of her death,
but only that she should die when everything on her became white.
The stigmata began gradually to disappear, leaving only a blue
spot, which disappeared entirely after her departure. She
received the viaticum on January 6th, in the evening. Every one
thought she would die immediately; but she made known by gestures
that she should not die yet. She remained conscious, and was able
to receive holy communion daily.
At last the day of her demise, January 11th, came. About
half-past two on Saturday morning, two hours after communion, she
passed from this vale of tears to her heavenly home. Her last
agony was easy and calm. She lay quiet, occasionally murmuring
the name of Jesus; and one of the bystanders heard her say: "Oh!
how beautiful; oh! how beautiful." Her breathing grew weaker, and
she fell gently asleep in death.
Her body was exposed in the church for two days, and thousands
visited it. Many felt as if they had lost a member of their own
family. She lay dressed as a bride, clothed in white, with a
white veil on her brow, and a crown of flowers at her feet. Her
face was beautiful to look upon, half-childlike in expression,
yet mingled with the dignity of a matron; her head reclined, bent
toward the left side; her brow and eyes were full of dignity; her
mouth like that of an infant smiling in sleep; her hands white as
alabaster, and ruddy as roses.
{40}
Afterward the veil was taken away and she appeared more angelic
than ever, her rich flowing hair surrounding her noble head. A
look of perfect happiness beamed from her entire countenance.
Her burial was solemn. Surrounded by mourning and edified
multitudes, her body was borne by young maidens from the
catafalque to the zinc coffin prepared for its reception. Her
remains were taken on January 13th to her father's family vault
at Kaltern, where they now rest in peace.
Kaltern lost its jewel in losing Maria; but her virtues will live
for ever in the hallowed spot where she was born, where she lived
and died. Truly did Görres write of her to the Prince-Bishop of
Trent: "God put her like a living crucifix on the cross-roads, to
preach to a godless and dissipated people." She was one of those
lamps lighted by the hand of God himself to shine in the
darkness, when infidelity is abroad robbing and devouring in the
vineyard of Christ. For this purpose she was sent by God, and
hence we may well expect that the wonderful supernatural
phenomena of her ecstatic life will not cease with her death.
----------
A Summer Shower.
Welcome, O summer rain;
To thirsty hill and plain,
To desolate beds of streams of all their waves run dry.
We know who sent thee forth
From out the windy north,
To trail thy cooling fountains through the sultry sky.
The parchéd earth drinks up
The crystal-flowing cup;
The dusty grasses wash them emerald-green again:
The sweet, drenched roses sigh
In fragrant ecstasy;
The truant brooks foam down their glistening beds amain.
{41}
The robins, full of glee,
Answer from tree to tree;
'Neath dusky boughs the glancing orioles, aglow,
Mimic the vivid play
Of lightnings far away,
That southward toss their fiery shuttles to and fro:
While at the fall and lift
Of lights and shadows swift,
Titanic laughter rolls through all the bending skies,
And every water-bead
Trembles, but laughs, indeed,
And every insect quicklier breathes as low he lies.
O Heart! whose pity flows
To cheer the languid rose.
O Hand! outstretched to wake the brooklet's merry din,
Behold me like a blot
Upon this happy spot,
Where joys knock at my door, but never enter in!
Behold the arid ways
Through which my weary days
Tread with unfruitful steps that wander far from thee;
The wasted heart and brain,
All empty, save for pain;
Behold the hidden thorn which thou alone canst see;
And while my fainting sighs
Through nature's hymn arise,
O Comforter of flowers! leave not me to die!
But send thy heavenly rain
Unto my soul again,
Even to me, as grieving in the dust I lie!
----------
{42}
Who shall take care of our Sick?
We have taken occasion, in recent numbers of _The Catholic
World_, to present to our readers several of the works of
charity which appeal most strongly to Christian sympathy and ask
for Christian aid. In our articles on "The Sanitary and Moral
Condition of the City of New York"--as but one, however, out of
the many cities of our land with like evils and like needs--we
directed attention to some lamentable features of the situation
of the poor in our midst, and especially of the many thousands of
poor and vagrant children growing up in neglect and consequent
ignorance and vice. The kindred matter of the condition and
proper treatment of the inmates of our jails, prisons, and
penitentiaries was touched upon in our last, under the head of
"Prison Discipline;" and, again, that of the poor and unfortunate
subjects of mental ailments in the article on "Gheel, a Colony of
the Insane." In the present number, we invite attention to
another branch of the subject, suggested by the inquiry at the
head of this article, "Who shall take care of our sick?"
By the sick, we mean all who by infirmity of body or mind are
incapable of taking care of themselves; for the range of our
inquiry embraces the helplessness of infancy, of decrepitude,
insanity, and idiocy, and extends even to prisoners and
criminals.
By _our_ sick, we mean the sick poor, the duty of providing
for whom devolves on collective society.
But as what is everybody's business is nobody's business, and as
society, however imperfectly organized, has many distinct organs
and recognized functions corresponding; it remains to be
determined through what special ministry the suffering members of
humanity shall be succored and the erring reclaimed.
If the rich, and those whose social combinations have been
successful, are succored in their need by their families, their
friends, their servants; who constitute the families, the
friends, the servants, of the poor and isolated? This is a
question which pagan societies have evaded, or insolently
answered, _Vae victis!_ Religion alone, and only in so far
as Christ's spirit has penetrated mankind, has given, through its
orders of charity, a fair and candid answer--an answer in deeds
as well as words. For many centuries in Christendom, this answer
appeared satisfactory in its spirit and intent. Not even the
insane were left out of the Christian fold--witness the Colony of
Gheel--and it only remained to extend, and multiply, and perfect
the works of charity, in proportion as science and art added to
the resources of society.
But the Protestant "Reformation" came, sweeping away the work of
pious ages, confounding uses with abuses, and upset the whole
administration of charity by the servants of Christ, along with
public and religious hospitality: in changing the privileged
orders, it confided to secular hands the doling out of such
pittance to the destitute as the fear of insurrection compelled,
and still compels, from the reluctant economy of self interest.
{43}
A revival of Christianity in Protestant countries now opens the
public mind to the horrors and crimes against humanity
perpetrated, in the name of charity, in their "work-houses,"
"alms-houses," hospitals, and asylums; it leads to the recall and
renewal of religious orders devoted to the care of the sick and
other classes needing charity. This has not been merely a
brilliant corruscation, like the rescue which Florence
Nightingale carried to the British troops in the Crimea. Miss
Nightingale had previously been trained for years in the
religious order of the Kaiserwerth, a normal school of nurses,
and the movement, inaugurated by her, continues in England as the
"Institution of St. John." A number of religious works, of high
merit and extensive usefulness, are described among the
_Charities of Europe_, by De Liefde. [Footnote 8]
[Footnote 8: Published by Strahan: New York and London.]
In New York, we have the Hospital of St. Luke, ministered to by
pious Episcopal ladies, who, like the _Soeurs Grises_ of
mediaeval Europe, take no vows, and may marry, yet for the time
being perform the same functions as our Sisters of Charity or of
Mercy.
While attesting a tendency in Christendom to recover the ground
lost by the "Reformation," such institutions as we have cited are
still very trivial in numbers and power; and though small
appropriations of public funds have been made to them, neither
they nor the principles which they represent have been officially
recognized by states or cities. There is, on the contrary, a
jealous opposition to admitting, even to the service of the sick
poor, who are mostly Europeans and Catholics, as at Bellevue, the
Sisters of Charity; and one of its most eminent surgeons, who
knows by experience how precious is their aid, has declared to us
with regret his conviction that this salutary measure could not
pass. To obviate the prejudices that withhold the administration
of charity from its own votaries, whose noble emulation would
utilize the differences of sect or order for the common good; to
show that the State will find in this restoration economy, at the
same time with social or moral advantages, while Christ will be
more worthily served; to make it felt that the burden of human
sorrows will be lightened, and the redemption of our race from
evil promoted, by re-allying piety with charity, is the purpose
we have now in view.
"_Suum cuique tribuito,_" "Give to each his own." Two chief
orders of power exist in society--interest and sentiment. The
natural sphere of interest is confined to material property or
goods of the senses; that of sentiment embraces the relations of
_persons_, that is, of beings considered as hearts and
souls; so that sentiment culminates in devotion, and ranges love
and consanguinity, friendship and honor, in the ministries of
religion, expanding the selfhood of the individual by the
consciousness of his solidarity with the race, and through Christ
with our Father in heaven.
Still, practically, the functions of each power are distinct. It
is admitted, in regard to the divers organizations of fire
companies, for instance, that the payment of fixed salaries is an
efficient or adequate motive for the protection of houses. This
service was once confided to public spirit; there was no lack of
heroic devotion in its exercise; but salaried firemen were found
to be more amenable to discipline, and their organizations to be
more permanent and reliable.
{44}
Now, the contrary is true of hospital service and kindred
functions, which employ in some places the religious orders of
charity, in others hired assistants. Physicians, patients, and
inspectors, all proclaim the superiority of the former. Visit our
great secular establishments, such as Bellevue or the Charity
Hospital, where the service is either hired or compulsory by
convicts, and then the hospitals of religious orders, even the
poorest, such as that of the Sisters of the Poor of St. Francis,
which is supported by begging from door to door, not to mention
the more richly endowed hospitals of St. Vincent de Paul or St.
Luke, all free to every needy patient: scent the air of the
wards, share the food of the refectory, feel the human magnetism
of these spheres, take time and mood to appreciate all their
conditions, and you will find their difference amount to a
contrast in many essentials of hygiene, physical as well as
moral, although science is impartially represented at the secular
as at the religious establishments. The former have been largely
endowed by private and public benefaction; energy, ability, and
good will are not wanting among their officers; yet they inspire
such aversion that the decent poor will often rather perish than
resort to them.
The characteristic superiority of religious charities is
historical, and remounts to the earliest epochs of Christendom;
although the secular interest of states in the health and
contentment of their peoples has been the same in all times and
all countries. If their conduct has been different, the reasons
of this difference may be found in the nature of their religions
and the fervor or torpor of their piety.
Conversely, just in proportion as our modern states alienate
their "public charities" from the influence of religion, they
become perverted by the same cruelty and heartlessness that
characterized the behavior of the pagan world toward its
unfortunate classes. Between the philanthropy of the English
workhouse and that of Rome which sent poor slaves to perish on
the "_dismal island_" in the Tiber, the shorter course seems
preferable to us, because less degrading to the soul of the
victim, and because it has the courage, at least, of its crime.
The Emperor Maximianus, who shipped a cargo of beggars out to sea
and drowned them, was still more complete in this economy of
suffering. Disease and misery, decrepitude and helpless infancy,
have each in turn become the object of such elimination, which
ignores tenderness toward the individual; but the process has
never stopped where it might have been justified, in a manner, by
the substitution of healthier and stronger or more perfect, for
less perfect individuals among the representative types of the
species. No; the same spirit that sacrificed the feeblest,
revelled in the destruction of the strongest men in its
gladiatorial arenas. Even in the restricted sense of patriotism,
which had contributed so many devotions on the altar of the
country, in the heroic days of Greece and Rome, solidarity had
ceased to be matter of practical conscience in the pagan world of
the great empire. The Hebrews had developed it only as a tribal
and family principle. Where has it ever been a social life-truth,
unless in the fold of Christ's disciples? and where has this been
practically organized, except by its religious orders?
{45}
The inconsistencies of war excepted, we see life and personal
liberty becoming more sacred from age to age, even amid the
corruptions of advanced civilization in Christendom; whereas, on
the contrary, in pagan civilizations "the springs of humane
feeling in every ancient nation, like the waters of the fountain
of the sun, were warm at dawn of morning, but chilled gradually
as the day advanced, till at noon they became excessively cold."
When the development of intelligence in civilized communities
renders them conscious of needs and of resources outlying the
circles of family providence; one of their first Christian
movements is to care for their disabled members, stricken by
disease or wounds from the army of the working poor.
In our monster cities, the hospital acquires gigantic
proportions, and political economy meets humanity in the research
for a system which shall afford the greatest mitigation of
inevitable suffering and the best chances of restoring the
sufferers to social uses.
In this research, charity has anticipated experimental science,
and to the religious orders belongs the honor of fulfilling the
highest ideal of this sacred function.
The organization of hospitals contains for modern civilization
and for cosmopolite New York problems of the highest practical
import, which especially interest the Christian church.
What has been hitherto effected under the social pressure of
extreme necessity, whether to avert the generation and diffusion
of pestilence, or the shame of allowing millions of the poor to
perish in their squalid misery, is still painfully inadequate to
meet the needs of humanity at points where Europe disgorges her
miseries upon America. New institutions are annually struggling
into existence to supply this demand. Among the most important by
their social and religious nature are those of the Sisters of the
Poor of Saint Francis, which may serve as a type of what we would
urge concerning the superiority of piety and charity--those
daughters of the Christian church--over secular calculations, in
this work.
Few, small, and poor as are the hospitals of this order in
America, they shine by the spirit which animates them, by the
naked purity of their Christian faith, and its works, that
confront the world now, precisely as they did eighteen hundred
years ago. [Footnote 9]
[Footnote 9: This order of the "Sisters of the Poor of Saint
Francis" has been introduced already into several of our
larger cities, and with much promise of success. Houses of
their order exist in Cincinnati, in Brooklyn, in Hoboken, and
elsewhere, and, more recently, have been established here in
New York.
If they shall have the wisdom--the church's wisdom of old and
of all time, and the spirit which has always animated and
characterized her workings--to adapt themselves to the
country, to its needs and requirements, to its speech, and
(so far as compatible with piety) to its habits and customs,
they will doubtless receive vocations, will grow in numbers,
will be able to accomplish much in alleviating the sufferings
of humanity, and will do no small share of the great work of
bringing the Catholic Church rightfully before the American
people.
We subjoin the following deserved tribute to their house here
in New York, which we find in the _Evening Post_, of
August 13th.:
"Saint Francis Hospital.
"To the Editors of the _Evening Post_:
"I venture to affirm that at least nine tenths of the good
people of this great city are entirely ignorant of the
existence of the Hospital of Saint Francis in our midst.
Indeed, with my long and generally intimate knowledge of the
various benevolences of the city, I was not at all aware of
this institution, until a kind lady who has been a warm
friend of the House of Industry acquainted me with the fact a
few days since, and in her company I had the pleasure of
visiting the hospital. For several reasons I beg your
permission to say a few words about it in the _Evening
Post_.
"It is located on Fifth and Sixth streets, between Avenues B
and C, being the two brick dwellings Nos. 407 and 409 Fifth
street, and the one immediately in the rear of No. 173 Sixth
street. It is under the care of the 'Sisters of the Poor of
Saint Francis,' and is a free hospital for both sexes,
without distinction as to creed, and its inmates comprise
Catholics, Protestants, and Jews. The means for purchasing
this property were obtained by the solicitations of the
sisters from door to door. I think the order of Saint Francis
originated in Germany, where it still has its headquarters.
Most of the sisters here are German, though there are
certainly one or two exceptions. The accommodations are
altogether inadequate, and not at all well adapted to the
purposes. The patients are cheerful and happy, and there is
every evidence that all the efforts of these sisters arise
from the most pure and unselfish motives, and that there is
not the least constraint in regard to religious matters
resting upon the inmates. There is a very small chapel in the
establishment, the attendance upon which is wholly voluntary.
The commonest services are performed by the sisters, and,
Puritan Protestant as I was educated, I could but admire the
devotion and kindness of these women. I believe their charity
is a true and unselfish one; that they are animated by his
Spirit who went about doing good, and they should be well
supported in their work.
"The patients are of all ages and nationalities, perhaps a
more than usual average of Germans. I was particularly
interested in two of the wards, one for the 'grandfathers'
and the other for the 'grandmothers,' both of them filled
with quite aged people. Many of the patients seemed to be
incurables, and have a permanent home in the Saint Francis.
The good sisters have secured a large plot of ground on which
they purpose erecting a building of much greater capacity
than those they now occupy, and thoroughly adapted to the
objects of the institution. For this object they will need
large contributions, which I earnestly hope will be promptly
furnished. The following is a general summary of the past
year:
Number of patients treated in Hospital,
(males, 484; females, 108).............593
Discharged, cured or improved............423
Died......................................88
Remaining December 31, 1867...............81
"I have written out this simple statement, because it is
always pleasant for me to commend all right agencies working
for the comfort of the sick poor, and because, comparatively
isolated as these women are, they have special claim to
sympathy and assistance; and also, because they are
Catholics, I am glad of an opportunity to show that
Protestants can appreciate what is good, no matter who
originates it.
"S. B. Halliday."]
{46}
Arrogant, imposing, and splendid in Broadway, the lusts of power
and greed which the poor world now serves show the reverse of the
picture in the indigent swarms which vegetate a little way east
from First avenue. Passing from the hot-beds of luxury and their
exhaustive reactions of improvident misery, enter the Hospital of
the Sisters of the Poor of Saint Francis, on Fifth street, near
Avenue B. Its extreme neatness in the midst of squalor, its
sweetness amid corruptions, atmospheric and social, its severe
simplicity of self-renunciation, shaming the complex artifices of
our cupidity, its devotion so consistent, so persistent, as the
stream of charity ascends toward its fountain-level in the
heights of faith; all smite upon the heart with the manifest
presence of Jesus. Its inmates attest with a grateful enthusiasm
the kindness there lavished upon them. The voices of prayer and
praise consecrate the wholesome food to bodily uses; the
sweetness of fellowship in Christ pervades all its relations and
dignifies the humblest offices. Here are no hired nurses;
life-devotion supplies all. The iniquities of civilization or the
discrepancies between the soul's ideal and the world's possible,
may defeat nature's fondest intentions of personal destiny in
love and maternity for individual lives; but as "the stone which
the builders rejected, the same shall become the head of the
corner," so the career of charity opens to all who live in Christ
a higher sphere of espousals and of motherhood, pure from the
dross of selfishness.
One who observes the practical working of this institution must
soon be convinced that it possesses neither time nor inclination
for other arts of proselyting, than the attractive emanations of
a glowing, earnest life of love and duty. Fourteen sisters
support and care for more than a hundred patients, and even add
to the domestic and ward service that of the pharmacy. The
patients receive daily visits from a physician and a clergyman.
"We know," say the sisters, "that, when the body is sick, the
soul suffers, and that spiritual consolation often does the body
more good than the best medicines." Books are provided for those
able and willing to read. Attendance at the chapel is optional.
There are regular services on Sunday. The patients are of diverse
creeds, as of diverse nations. This hospital is often preferred
by Protestants, and even by Jews; for those who suffer go where
they find hearts to sympathize with and hands to help them.
{47}
They see that the poor sisters have nothing for their labors but
their simple food and clothing. More is not allowed by the rules
of their order, that they may the more disinterestedly apply
themselves to the care of the poor and suffering sick, the
support of whom and other expenses of the institution depend upon
the daily collections and labors of the sisters themselves."
(_Report_ for 1867.) This noble ignorance of all
distinctions of creed and sect is the common attribute of the
Sisters of Charity. Those who serve the Hospital of St. Vincent
de Paul, an older and wealthier charity than that of the Sisters
of St. Francis, one of the most creditable, indeed, in our
country, open its doors alike to sufferers of all denominations.
In regard to the matter of practical economy and saving to the
state, from placing its hospitals, and other like institutions,
under the care of the religious orders, we are permitted to give
the following extract from a letter from a Catholic lady of
Cincinnati:
"The only public institution we as yet have which is supported
from the public purse is the prison, managed by the Good
Shepherds. In his annual report, the mayor always praises their
economy and excellent management, but he has never had the
magnanimity to publish the thousands annually saved, in
comparison with the old _régime_. Their salaries are fixed
at $100 a year for six sisters--$600, which is $100 less than
the pay of a single policeman. The sisters have the entire
management of the prison. The Harris School is in full
operation. The house can receive no more than about fifty-five.
Colonel Harris, the founder, a Protestant, always expresses his
surprise at _the little outlay_. Our own experience shows
an immense economy, as well as superior moral influence in the
effects of our charities, so beneficial in softening the hearts
of the poor."
We may here take occasion to remark that a religious order
affords guarantees of honest administration in a higher degree
than any individual can do by his personal responsibility. The
legal security, or values pledged, may be equal; but in one case
there is at stake only a business responsibility, in which it is
often regarded as smart to outwit a committee of inspection;
while, on the other hand, corporate honor is involved, and the
officer entrusted with funds is doubly responsible to the
committee of inspection, and to the order of which he or she is a
member, under the more extended affiliation of the church.
Moreover, the discipline of the religious orders is very rigorous
on the chapter of economies, and there are not by any means the
same opportunities or temptations for an officer to divert funds
from public to private uses. The inspectors themselves will often
be Protestants.
It behoves us to examine the use of hospitals in the general
system of humanitary functions. The hospital is a corollary of
the city. The city is a gland or glandular system of elaboration
for the social and intellectual secretions of humanity--arts,
sciences, and refinements. But the advantages of the city are
obtained only by great sacrifices; among which is the separation
of great numbers of persons from their local and family
attachments, obliging them to derive their subsistence from
industries more precarious than those of rural life. More wisdom
being required to direct one's course in the complex relations of
the city, more are bewildered, misled, overwhelmed; vast and
powerful currents of crime and of waste are generated, and
restorative measures are needed to counteract them.
{48}
Now, the necessity of cities and that of hospitals being
admitted, how, let us ask, can this kind of help be rendered,
this sort of duty performed, so as most worthily to attest the
principle of human solidarity, so as to benefit most the
recipients of charity, to honor most the organs by which charity
is rendered, and so secure the best kind of service in this
arduous function; finally, how best to economize the resources of
collective society in the adaptation of means to ends?
First, let us consider the expediences of public charity,
especially in reference to the persons or characters of its
organs.
The best interest of society demands that there shall be a place
for every one, and every one in his place; or, in other words,
that as specific vocations are inherent to each type of
character, so _that_ use should be allotted to each for
which nature supplies the aptitudes, and which it embraces with
ardor.
The attractiveness of certain functions< or the aversion
occasioned by them, has very little to do with the impression
they make on the senses of a party indifferent. The cares
required by an infant, for example, which excite maternal zeal in
all its plenitude, appear simply tedious and disgusting to most
men. So it is with the care of the sick, in which science and
affection find powerful attachments insensible to others, who,
good in other ways, feel no vocation for it. Finally, and beyond
all special vocations, there is the enthusiasm of devotion, the
religious instinct to which Christianity appeals, which it
awakens in many souls, and which it justifies in affording to it
the highest spheres of use. The contemplative idealist may try to
escape the normal limitations of his nature in vague aspiration;
but Jesus has provided against this Brahminic perversion by the
culture of charity, in identifying the love of God with the love
of the neighbor, and himself with the least of mankind. "As long
as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to
me." (St. Matthew xxv. 40.)
We do not suppose that Christianity endowed human nature with
philanthropy as a new passion; it gave this aspect, this
evolution, this modality, to what had been patriotism for the
heroic states of Rome, of Greece, and other nations, which had
always sought, and sometimes found, a social channel, but which
Christianity more fully satisfied in the theory and practice of
unity.
There have always been developed, in proportion with the
industrial progress of civilization, wants extraordinary without
being fantastic. Such are the cares of illness. The wisdom of
Christian charity has adapted to these extreme wants vocations
equally extreme, in the devotion of religious orders; and this
duty has devolved especially upon the female sex, because it is
better gifted than the male for the ministry of compassion.
It is feasible, moreover, for religious orders to accept as well
the penitent as the virgin; and shaming the world's intolerance,
to rescue from sin and disgrace a lower world of souls, whom
passion or imprudence had otherwise ruined.
There is no depth of crime, indeed, from which its subjects may
not be rescued by charitable labors; and in proportion as their
organization is extended and perfected, legal as well as simply
moral offences may find here at once their prevention and their
expiation. The brothel and the penitentiary, those two
institutions of hell on earth, may thus be countermined, and the
means of redemption afforded to their victims.
{49}
The salutary influence which the discipline of charitable works
exerts over mental and moral aberrations, may even reclaim not a
few of the insane, or those who, under ordinary circumstances,
are drifting fatally toward the lunatic asylum.
That extraordinary virtue which the impulse and exercise of
active benevolence has in developing the soul and awakening its
latent powers from torpor, may appear from the following incident
lately observed at Mr. Bost's, in Laforce, Dordogne:
One day a poor girl, deaf, dumb, blind, paralytic, and epileptic,
was brought to Bethesda. "It required some courage," says the
narrator, Mr. De Liefde, "to fix one's eyes on that miserable
creature, with her dried-up, contracted limbs, her repulsive
face, the features of which were constantly contorted in the most
hideous manner. Well, an idiot took charge of that child, guarded
and nursed it, and stood by its death-bed to administer to it the
last solace of love! And such was the indefatigable care and even
intelligent thoughtfulness with which she tended her poor
helpless charge that Mr. Bost said, 'When I lie on my death-bed,
I shall count it a blessing to be nursed in this way.' I do not
wonder at such hearts being able to understand what is the
meaning of the simple sentence, 'God loveth you,' long before the
intellect is able to catch the difference between two and three;
nor can I be surprised at what Mrs. Castel told me, that the same
children who do not know whether a shoe ought to be on the foot
or on the head, or who, if not prevented, would, like beasts,
walk on all fours and lick the dirt, may yet sometimes be heard
ejaculating, '_Mon Dieu! prends pitié de moi. J'en at bien
besoin_.'
"Long before they could catch the idea of shifting a piece of
wood from the right hand to the left, they gave evidence of being
pleased by an act of kindness, and of being grateful for a
benefit bestowed on them.
"In the year 1854, a girl who was a perfect idiot stood, one day,
in Mr. Bost's lobby. The aspect of the hideous-looking little
creature was so sickening that Mr. Bost could not permit her to
be taken into the establishment, but still less could he send her
away. If ever there was a subject for compassionate, saving love,
it was here. The power of prayer and the perseverance of charity
could now be put to the test. Mr. Bost resolved to keep the girl
in his own house. The doctors declared it perfect folly. During
three months, all his efforts to strike a spark of intellect out
of this flint proved a total failure. But one evening, at
worship, while the hymn was being sung, he heard an articulate
and harmonious tone proceed from the brutishly shaped mouth. The
child evidently tried to put its voice in accord with the sounds
which it was hearing. Mr. Bost is a musician, and at once applied
his talent to the benefit of his unhappy pupil. Under the
softening and cheering influence of harmony, it was affecting to
see how, first with painful struggles, and then, with growing
ease, the mind of the child emerged from the dark deep in which
it had been confined. By little and little, the idiot succeeded
in uttering articulate sounds, then in uniting them into
syllables, and finally into words. At the same time, her health
improved visibly, her nervous system became less irritable, her
face assumed more and more a rational expression. She began to
show joy and surprise when receiving something that was agreeable
to her. Then tokens of gratitude and of affection followed.
{50}
In short, after a lapse of two years, the idiot had disappeared
to make room for a child which appeared to be behind but a few
years only, when compared with other children of her own age. At
present, that same child, formerly beneath the level of the
brute, speaks well, sews, and knits, and might be the teacher of
children less sunken in idiocy than herself when she first set
foot on Mr. Bost's threshold."
Such was the spirit and such the conduct which determined
mediaeval Europe to entrust the religious orders with vast landed
possessions, and with these the whole care of the poor, of the
sick, and of the wayfarer, duties which they discharged with
greater satisfaction to the people than any secular aristocracy
of privilege known in the records of history.
"For the uncertain dispositions of the rich, for their occasional
and often capricious charity, was substituted the certain, the
steady, the impartial hand of a constantly resident and unmarried
administrator of bodily as well as spiritual comfort to the poor,
the unfortunate, and the stranger."
Now, still the question presses, whether, instead of confiding
our sick to hired nurses, we shall not invite the willing
sisterhood to extend their organization among us, and sustain
them in this devotion. It is well ascertained that none can make
a thousand dollars go so far as they can in the service of their
sick.
It is notorious in America, that public works undertaken by the
government are generally ill done and very wastefully. Hence,
common sense excludes the government from enterprises of internal
improvement, and confides them either to individuals or
companies, without hesitating thus to create privileged orders
and to favor a moneyed aristocracy.
To have a great work well done, passions as well as interests
must be engaged in it; personal character, pride, and ambition,
as well as skill and capital; and where many persons must
co-operate, there is no guarantee of harmony in action and of
successful result so sure as that corporate zeal which religion
employs with so much power, and which religion alone can bring to
bear. This is indeed a holy fire, enkindled and kept alive upon
objects of charity, that purges away dross.
If the Catholic Church has in all ages conducted her enterprises
with the greatest success, it is because she has known how to
enlist the greatest number of motives, the strongest and the
best. On the other hand, it will be readily confessed that the
great public hospitals under secular control do not even bring
into play the common levers of interest which secure results in
the management of railroads, of hotels or banking-houses, nor
those of ambition, which animate the army and navy. Charity, as a
secular business, is always poorly paid, rendered grudgingly,
distastefully, and so as to excite aversion. Many will rather die
than have recourse to it. It always carries with it a certain
stigma of inferiority and contempt. No personal character or
corporate zeal is identified with it, still less can there exist
that unison of feeling and of effort which places the seal of the
divine humanity on such institutions as those of the sisters. We
transcribe from one of the most remarkable works of modern
travel, _The Pillars of Hercules_, by David Urquhart, his
impression of the last remaining hospitals of the religious order
in Spain. Let us note that Mr. Urquhart is an Englishman and a
Protestant:
{51}
"The Hospicio of Cadiz is at once a poor-house and a house of
industry, a school, a foundling hospital, a hospital, and a
mad-house; that is, it supplies the places of all these
institutions. It is imposing in its form, embellished in its
interior, and as unlike in all its attributes and effects as
anything can be to the edifices consecrated to the remedying of
human misery, by our own charity and wisdom.
"Hospital De La Sangre, (Seville.)
"This is a noble edifice, composed of several grand courts and
of two stories; the lower one for summer, and the upper one for
winter. I think I may say that to each patient is allotted at
least four times as much space as in any similar European
establishment, and the very troughs in which the dirty linen is
washed are marble: the patients have two changes of clean linen
in the week. The kitchens are all resplendent with painted
tiles and cleanliness, and there seemed abundance of excellent
food. In these institutions, in Spain, the inmates are
completely at home. Soft and blooming girls, with downcast look
and hurried step, were attending upon the poor, the maimed, and
the suffering. The lady-directress had told the servant who
accompanied me to bring me, after my visit, to her apartment,
which was a hall in one of the corners of the building; she
said she had heard that England was celebrated for its charity,
and asked if our poor and sick were better off than in Spain. I
was obliged to confess that the reverse was the case. She asked
me if it was not true that we hired mercenaries to attend on
the sick, and abstained from performing that duty ourselves;
and if our charity was not imposed as a tax? She told me that
there were eight hundred of her order in Spain; that it was the
only one that had not been destroyed; that none were admitted
but those of noble birth or of gentle blood; and that they took
all the vows except that of seclusion, and in lieu of it took
that of service to the poor and sick. The Saint Isabelle of
Murillo was the model of their order. The Hospital de la Sangre
was founded by a woman."
Mrs. Jameson [Footnote 10] pays a just tribute to the Hospital
Lariboissière, in Paris, "a model of all that a civil hospital
ought to be--clean, airy, light, lofty, above all, cheerful. I
should observe," she says, "that generally in the hospitals
served by Sisters of Charity, there is ever an air of
cheerfulness, caused by their own sweetness of temper and
voluntary devotion to their work. At the time that I visited this
hospital, it contained six hundred and twelve patients, three
hundred men and three hundred and twelve women, in two ranges of
building divided by a very pretty garden. The whole interior
management is entrusted to twenty-five trained sisters of the
same order as those who serve the Hôtel Dieu. There are, besides,
about forty servants, men and women, men to do the rough work,
and male nurses to assist in the men's wards under the
supervision of the sisters. This hospital was founded by a lady,
a rich heiress, a married woman too. She had the assistance of
the best architects in France to plan her building, while medical
and scientific men had aided her with their counsels."
[Footnote 10: _Sisters of Charity,
Protestant and Catholic_.]
In the _General Report on the Condition of the Prisons of
Piedmont, to the Minister of the Interior_, we find this
paragraph:
{52}
"It is an indisputable fact that the prisons which are served
by the sisters are the best ordered, the most cleanly, and in
all respects the best regulated in the country. To which the
minister of the interior adds: Not only have we experienced the
advantage of employing the Sisters of Charity in the prisons,
in the supervision of the details, in distributing food,
preparing medicines, and nursing the sick in the infirmaries,
but we find the influence of these ladies on the minds of the
prisoners when recovering from sickness has been productive of
the greatest benefit, as leading to permanent reform in many
cases, and a better frame of mind always; for this reason,
among others, we have given them every encouragement.
"Among the other reasons alluded to, the greater economy of the
management is a principal one. It is admitted, even by those
who are opposed to them, that, in the administration of
details, these women can always make a given sum go further
than the paid officials of the other sex. Their opposition to
the sale of wine and brandy to the prisoners, except when
prescribed by the physicians, is also worthy of note.
"One of the directors of the great military hospital at Turin
told Mrs. Jameson that he regarded it as one of the best deeds
of his life, that he had recommended and carried through the
employment of the Sisters of Charity in this institution.
Before the introduction of these ladies, the sick soldiers had
been nursed by orderlies sent from the neighboring barracks,
men chosen because they were unfit for other work. The most
rigid discipline was necessary to keep them in order, and the
dirt, neglect, and general immorality were frightful. Any
change was, however, resisted by the military and medical
authorities till the invasion of the cholera; then the
orderlies became, most of them, useless, distracted, and almost
paralyzed with terror. Some devoted Sisters of Charity were
introduced in a moment of perplexity and panic; then all went
well--propriety, cleanliness, and comfort prevailed. No day
passes, said this director, that I do not bless God for the
change which I was the humble instrument of accomplishing in
this place. Very similar was the information received relative
to the naval hospital at Genoa.
"Another excellent hospital, that of St. John, at Turin,
contained four hundred patients, male and female, besides its
ward for sick children, and two for the bedridden and helpless
poor, the whole being under the management of twenty-two
religious women with forty-five assistants, and a large number
of physicians and students. All was clean, neat, and cheerful.
I was particularly struck by the neatness with which the food
was served; men brought it up in large trays, but the ladies
themselves distributed it. There was a little dog with its
forepaws resting on one of the beds and its eyes steadfastly
fixed on the sick man, with a pathetic, wistful expression,
while a girl knelt beside him, to whom one of the sisters was
speaking words of comfort.
"In this and other hospitals is an excellent arrangement for
the night-watch. It was a large sentry-box of octagon shape,
looking each way, the upper part all of glass, but furnished
with curtains, and on a table were writing materials,
medicines, and restoratives, linen napkins, etc. Two sisters
watched here all night; here the accounts were kept, and
privacy secured, when necessary, for the ladies on duty.
"The Marchese A----, one of the governors of the Hospice de la
Maternité, described to us in terms of horror the state in
which he had found the establishment when under the management
of a board of governors, who employed hired matrons and nurses.
{53}
At last, in despair, he sent for some trained sisters, ten of
whom, with a superior, now directed the whole in that spirit of
order, cheerfulness, and unremitting attention which belongs to
them.
"We cannot," he said, "give them unlimited means, for these
good ladies think that all should go to the poor; but if we
allow them a fixed sum, we find they can do more with it than
we could have believed possible, and they never go beyond it;
they are admirable accountants and economists.
"In the great civil hospital at Vienna, larger even than the
Hotel Dieu of Paris, the Sisters of Charity were being
introduced some twelve years ago when Mrs. J. visited it.
"The disorderly habits and the want of intelligence in the paid
female nurses had induced the managers to invite the
co-operation of the religious sisters, though it was at first
against their will. In the Hospital of Saint John, at Salzburg,
the same change had been found necessary.
"At Vienna, I saw a small hospital belonging to the Sisters of
Charity there. Two of the sisters had settled in a small old
house. Several of the adjoining buildings were added one after
the other, connected by wooden corridors. In the infirmary I
found twenty-six men and twenty-six women, besides nine beds
for cholera. There were fifty sisters, of whom one half were
employed in the house, and the other half were going their
rounds among the poor, or nursing the sick at private houses.
There was a nursery for infants whose mothers were at work; a
day-school for one hundred and fifty girls, in which only
knitting and sewing were taught, all clean, orderly, and, above
all, cheerful. There was a dispensary, where two of the sisters
were employed in making up prescriptions, homoeopathic and
allopathic. There was a large, airy kitchen, where three of the
sisters, with two assistants, were cooking. There were two
priests and two physicians. So that, in fact, under this roof,
we had the elements, on a small scale, of an English workhouse;
but very different was the spirit which animated it.
"I saw at Vienna another excellent hospital for women alone, of
which the whole administration and support rested with the
ladies of the Order St. Elizabeth. These are _cloistered_.
All sick women who apply for admission are taken in, without
any questions asked, so long as there is room for them. I found
there ninety-two patients, about twenty of whom were ill of
cholera. In each ward were sixteen beds, over which two sisters
presided. The dispensary, which was admirably arranged, was
entirely managed by two of the ladies. The superior told me
that they have always three or more sisters preparing for their
profession under the best apothecaries, and there was a large
garden principally of medicinal and kitchen herbs. Nothing
could exceed the purity of the air, and the cleanliness, order,
and quiet everywhere apparent."
Let us remark certain features in these last two examples:
1. The possibility of recreation by a timely change of labors, as
from the hospital to the school, or to the garden, etc.
2. The economy, and guarantee of genuineness, afforded by the
culture and pharmaceutic preparation of medicinal herbs.
3. The unison of action, by fulfilment of sanitary functions by
members of their own body.
{54}
"It was admitted on all sides in England, when investigations
were held on the office of hospital nursing, that the general
management of our hospitals and charitable institutions exhibited
the want of female aid such as exists in the hospitals abroad--
the want of a moral, religious, intelligent, sympathizing
influence combined with the physical cares of a common nurse.
Some inquiry was made into the general character of hospital
nurses, and the qualifications desired, and what were these
qualifications? Obedience, presence of mind, cheerfulness,
sobriety, forbearance, patience, judgment, kindness of heart, a
light, delicate hand, a gentle voice, a quick eye; these were the
qualities enumerated as not merely desirable, but necessary in a
good and efficient nurse--virtues not easily to be purchased for
£14 10S. per year! (or hired at $14 a month in New York [Footnote
11])--qualifications, indeed, which, in their union, would form
an admirable woman in any class of life, and fit her for any
sphere of duty, from the highest to the lowest. In general,
however, the requirements of our medical men are much more
limited; they consider themselves fortunate if they can ensure
obedience and sobriety, even without education, tenderness,
religious feeling, or any high principle of duty. On the whole,
the testimony brought before us is sickening. Drunkenness,
profligacy, violence of temper, horribly coarse and brutal
language--these are common, albeit the reverse of the picture is
generally true. The toil is great, the duties disgusting, the
pecuniary remuneration small, so that there is nothing to invite
the co-operation of a better class of nurses but the highest
motives which can influence a true Christian. At one moment the
selfishness and irritability of the sufferers require a strong
control; at another time their dejection and weakness require the
utmost tenderness, sympathy, and judgment. To rebuke the
self-righteous, to bind up the broken-hearted, to strengthen, to
comfort the feeble, to drop the words of peace into the disturbed
or softened mind just at the right moment; there are few nurses
who could be entrusted with such a charge, or be brought to
regard it as a part of their duty. To this social function
corresponds the Sister of Charity, as defined by St. Vincent de
Paul, an ideal so often fulfilled in life and action.
[Footnote 11: This is the salary of orderlies at Bellevue
Hospital, where the duties are often so arduous that one
attendant would be quite inadequate to the care of twenty
beds but for the aid rendered by patients to each other. The
night-watch passes but once in two hours.]
"Can any one doubt that the element of power, disunited from
that of Christian love, must, in the long run, become a hard,
cold, cruel machine, and that this must of necessity be the
result where the masculine energy acts independently of the
feminine sympathies?
"All to whom I have spoken, without one exception, bear witness
to the salutary influence exercised by the lady nurses in the
Crimea over the men. In the most violent attacks of fever and
delirium, when the orderlies could not hold them down in their
beds, the mere presence of one of these ladies, instead of
exciting, had the effect of instantly calming the spirits and
subduing the most refractory. It is allowed, also, that these
ladies had the power to repress swearing and coarse language,
to prevent the smuggling of brandy and raka into the wards, to
open the hearts of the sullen and desperate to contrition and
responsive kindness. 'Even when in an apparently dying state,'
writes one of these illustrious nurses, 'they would look up in
our faces and smile.'"
{55}
Dr. H. R. Storer, of Boston, has recently put forth a little book
entitled _Nurses and Nursing_, etc., abounding in
suggestions which may some day be utilized in a hospital more
liberally endowed and more elaborately organized than anything
which now exists, and in which he mentions, with the highest
regard, the Hospital of the Sisters of St. Francis, in Boston, 28
Sansom street. The doctor does well to dedicate his humane
aspirations for a perfect system of nursing to the sisterhood.
From what zeal less earnest, less intelligent, less refined, or
less holy, can we ever expect to find music and flowers, birds,
landscape views, the varied resources of luxury in nature and
society, made tributary to the service of the sick?
A worthy servant of our Master, Mr. Bost, of Dordogne, the
founder and administrator of several important charitable
institutions, having among them departments for the hygienic
treatment of epilepsy, scrofula, consumption, and idiocy, one of
whose cures we have cited, remarks:
"The best physician, under God, is Nature. I never visit the
hospitals in our great cities without a feeling of distress.
What, then, you ask, is wanted? Are the patients not cared for?
Are there no able medical men, no remedies, no order, no
cleanliness, no wholesome and abundant nourishment? No doubt
there is plenty of all that. I have with admiration accompanied
the medical men on their morning visits. Everything _art_
could contrive for restoration to health was applied; yet the
cure was slow, attended with horrible pains, and the case often
terminated in death. I will tell you what was wanting--the
country air, the fragrance of the flowers and of the earth, the
hues of morn and eve, the sunbeams, the harmony of nature, the
carol and warbling of birds, so adapted to cheer hearts broken
by suffering, and to which no other recreation is offered than
the sight of rows of beds upon which sufferers are sighing and
groaning from morning till evening and from evening until
morning."
"It is amazing," writes Mr. Liefde, "to witness the cures which
simply by the application of natural hygiene, have been
effected at the establishments of Laforce: Consumption of the
lungs, in an advanced stage, has quite disappeared in some
cases, hysteria in others; amputations are prevented; a girl
sent away from a hospital as incurable from hip disease is
enabled to walk well. The invalids are occupied in the fields
or the garden; they go into the stable and see the cattle; they
are in sight of the works of creation so adapted to raise their
thoughts to God, who is love, even when his hand presses
heavily upon them."
If one wish to witness the healing power of the Gospel over both
body and soul, he can do no better than to spend a week at
Laforce.
In conclusion, we would urge it, as a matter of high policy,
duty, and right, upon the church of Christ, to reclaim, as fast
and as far as its means will allow, its primitive position in
regard to the administration of charities in general, and of
hospitals in particular; for we believe it to be the only social
organ adequate to these humane uses. Science cannot remain
neutral, and the trustees, the wardens, orderlies, nurses, the
cooks, and all the persons employed in the hospital service,
should be brothers and sisters of one and the same order, the
voluntary subjects of the same rule, all pervaded by the same
religious sentiment and corporate spirit, while friendly
rivalries obtain between the different institutions.
----------
{56}
Translated From Le Correspondant.
Kaulbach And The Era Of The Reformation. [Footnote 12]
[Footnote 12: Kaulbach's picture of the _Era of the
Reformation_ now being on exhibition in this country, a
republication of the above article from the pages of our
French contemporary has seemed to us not inopportune.--ED. C.W.]
I call up matters still fresh in recollection, in proceeding to
speak here of a work of art which so justly drew to itself the
public attention at the Universal Exposition of 1867. I refer to
the grand cartoon of Kaulbach, which, under the title of the
_Era of the Reformation_, figured in the Bavarian
department.
The purely artistic critic has already fulfilled his mission in
regard to that remarkable composition, and it is not from the
artistic point of view that I permit myself to reopen its study.
I had already, years ago, admired that magnificent fresco, one of
the most beautiful ornaments of the Berlin Museum; and after
having a long while contemplated and meditated upon it, it seemed
to me that one could not too highly praise the vigor of
composition and the marvellous skill with which the artist had
been able to group, within so narrow a space, so many different
personages, and to render living to the eyes of the spectator one
of the most stormy periods of modern times. But in this beautiful
drawing there is something else than a work of art: there is a
thesis. And that thesis is this: That the sixteenth century
belongs wholly to the Protestant Reformation; that that
Reformation is its centre, its heart, its vital principle; that
everything of that period--theology, letters, science, art, the
discoveries of human genius, political and military power--all
came of the Reformation. Hence the name given to the tableau--the
_Era of the Reformation_. Hence, also, the selection, the
treatment, and the grouping of all the personages in it.
And since I cannot avail myself of the help of an engraving or
photograph, I am going to attempt a rapid sketch, as a whole and
in its principal details, of this vast composition.
In the centre, and as the culminating point toward which the
whole movement of the picture converges, is figured Dr. Martin
Luther. The former Augustinian monk holds himself erect, upon the
uppermost step of that temple within whose walls a whole century
is represented as in motion, and he raises aloft above his head,
with both hands, the Bible--the Bible, that world at once both
old and new, which, according to the Protestant hypothesis, the
genius of Luther discovered, buried under the darkness of
ignorance and Roman superstition, as, in like manner, thirty
years before him the bold Genoese navigator, Christopher
Columbus--whom one sees at the left-hand side of the picture,
resting his hand, firm and inspired, upon the map of the
world--had found, in the ocean's midst, the vast continents of
the American hemisphere.
At the left of Luther stand the theologians and pastors who
adhered to his dogmatic teaching: Justus Jonas, and, next to him,
Bugenhagen, who is distributing the Lord's Supper to the two
princes, John le Sage and John Frederic, the two grand patrons of
nascent Lutheranism.
{57}
At the right of the Saxon monk stands Zwingle, holding also the
book of the Scriptures, and Calvin, who is giving the bread and
cup of the Lord's Supper to a group of Huguenots, among whom we
distinguish Maurice of Saxony and Coligny.
The artist does not tell us, it is true--and I own that his
pencil could hardly have told us--whether the Bible which Luther
holds speaks the same language as the Bible placed in Zwingle's
hands; nor how, within a step or two of the patriarch of the
Reformation, Bugenhagen gives a Lord's Supper wherein is really
contained, with the bread and wine, the body of Christ, while,
alike near to him on the other side, Calvin is giving another
Lord's Supper which is only a figure of that same body, and
wherein the faithful partake of the communion of Jesus Christ by
faith only.
A little beneath Luther, in the attitude of a submissive disciple
and admirer, and indicating by a gesture the Wittenberg doctor,
as much as to say, "There is the Master!" stands the mild
Melanchthon, conversing with two savants of the times--Eberhardt
of Tann and Ulrich Sazius. These two men are pressing each
other's hands, as if the artist would express thereby the strange
accommodations to which, in the matter of the Augsburg
confession, the strict Lutherans, on the one side, and those who
had a leaning toward the Zwinglian and Calvinistic ideas, on the
other, lent themselves. [Footnote 13]
[Footnote 13: It is well known that Melanchthon--who
personally inclined toward the ideas of Carlostadt and the
sacramentarians respecting the Lord's Supper; who, moreover,
upon the question of the outward hierarchy of the church,
would have willingly lent himself to a compromise with the
Catholics; who, underneath the whole, did not dare to
contradict Luther--thought to reconcile all these
difficulties by putting forth two editions of the Augsburg
Confession--the edition _invariata_, or strictly
Lutheran, and the edition _variata_, wherein concessions
are made to Calvinistic ideas.]
Behind these corypheuses of the Reformation of the sixteenth
century, the precursors of the grand "liberalizing" movement have
not been forgotten.
The Reformation, as is known, holds essentially to having a
tradition--a rise and visible continuation, reaching back to the
earlier ages. Behold them, then, these prophets and forerunners
of the "word of life:" Here, Peter Waldo, Arnold of Brescia,
Wickliffe, John Huss; there, Abelard, the bold metaphysician, the
merciless dialectician, the same whom St. Bernard accuses of
sacrificing faith to reason, and of destroying, by his
explications, the essence of the mysteries; [Footnote 14] next,
by his side, Savonarola and Tauler, the spiritual sons of the
canonized monk of the thirteenth century, (St. Dominic,) to whose
memory classic Protestantism never fails to attach the founding
of the Inquisition, with all its attendant train of horrors:
Tauler, of whom they desire to make one of the precursors of the
new exegesis of the Scriptures; and Savonarola, whose animated
and fiery gesture recalls at once the popular tribune, the
Florentine republican chief, and the head-strong opposer of the
church's hierarchical authority.
[Footnote 14: St. Bernard, letters 188th and 189th.]
Following upon these, come next in order all those other great
geniuses of the human race, more numerous and prolific than ever
in an age which justly calls itself the age of _renewal_,
(_de la Renaissance_,) and when a thousand favoring
circumstances had imparted mighty impulse to the human mind; and
they all proceed to arrange themselves in a most harmonious
manner around that renovation of Christianity and the church,
which is, as it were, (in the picture,) the heart and the vital
principle of all the movements of the era. Princes, warriors,
statesmen, savants, artists, scholars, jurists, poets, critics,
inventors--all have their place in this grand composition.
{58}
In the train of the haughty Elizabeth of England, but marching at
some distance from that pitiless reformer, as if they desired to
leave place for the gory shade of the unfortunate Mary Stuart,
"Queen of Scots," appear Thomas Cranmer, More, Burleigh, Essex,
Drake, and other gentlemen who represent the English Church.
Another group brings together Albert of Brandenburg, William of
Orange, Barnevelt, and, at the end, Gustavus Adolphus, evoked a
century in advance, it is true, but nevertheless consecrated by
his bold deeds of arms and his premature death as a hero--I was
about to say as a saint--of the Protestant Church militant.
To warriors and statesmen the painter has given only a secondary
place, in a work chiefly designed to glorify intellectual power;
and, after the apostles of the Reformation, the honors of this
grand piece of canvas are meted out to savants, scholars, and
artists.
Bacon of Verulam, with his _Novum Organum_, makes a part of
that group so vigorously designed, where are seen, with
Christopher Columbus, Harvey, Vesalius, and Paracelsus. High up
in the edifice, and properly placed there as in a sort of
observatory, Copernicus, Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler are
studying the course of the stars, and calculating the laws of
their revolutions. So much for science.
Marsilio Ficino, Giordano Bruno, Campanella, and Nicolas de Cus
represent philosophy, with Pico Mirandola, author of the
celebrated thesis, _De omni re scibili_.
Petrarch, with the crown he received at the capitol, faces
Shakespeare and the immortal author of _Don Quixote_,
Michael Cervantes. The aged Hans Sachs, the popular poet of the
Reformation, is there also, quite at the bottom of the picture,
and bending under the weight of age. He represents that
literature of the people which henceforward will always hold
place growingly by the side of the special literature of the
learned. This latter is personated in Reuchlin and Erasmus; and
the artist has judged most wisely and properly in placing the
latter of these close to Ulrich of Hutten and to Bucer, that is
to say, in company with the brutal enemy of monks, and with one
of those unfrocked monks whom the Rotterdam critic, with such
cutting sarcasm, rallied upon their enthusiasm for a reformation
which so generally, like the never-failing conclusion of a
comedy, ended in marriage.
The painter has taken care not to forget the personages of the
era who ought to be dearer to him than all the others together:
Albert Dürer, Peter Vischer, Leonardo da Vinci, Michael Angelo,
Raphael, and last, with the inspired gesture of a man who feels
himself master of the future, the author of that magnificent
discovery which men will henceforth make use of, alike with their
reason and their freedom, their intelligence and their speech;
here employing it to spread error, to persuade to falsehold, to
sow dissensions; elsewhere, using it to serve for the diffusion
of truth, the advancement of justice, the
amelioration--intellectual, moral, and religious--of the human
race: I mean Gutenberg, the immortal inventor of the art of
printing.
{59}
He holds in his hand that sheet, still fresh, which with deep
emotion he has seen come forth from the first press, and with
which he can speed round the world, crying out with Archimedes,
carried away by enthusiasm, "I have found it! I have found it!"
"[Greek text: Eureka]" And he _has_ found, in fact, the
mighty and formidable lever with which without difficulty he will
lift the world of modern thought.
Such, so far as I have been able to describe it, passing by some
personages or some details of secondary interest, is this famous
picture, which, as a work of art, I admire with the fullest
measure of sympathy, and have found it truly worthy of the high
award made to it. But, I repeat, the artist has not been in it
the artist only. He has also, at the same time, been the
controversialist and the historian. He has not only made a
_chef-d'oeuvre_ of painting: he has wished also to write a
page of the history of Europe. That was his right unquestionably,
and I am far from disputing it with him. I will even add that, if
I was a Protestant, I should be justly proud of the manner, so
intelligent and bold, with which the illustrious author of the
Berlin frescoes has been able to glorify the Reformation.
It is for this very reason, also, that I have profoundly studied
this grand picture. In fact, if a work of art is at the same time
a thesis of history or of theology, it is no longer amenable to
artistic criticism only. Kaulbach has, so to speak, crowned the
work of the Magdeburg centuriators, in making, as he has done,
all the events of the sixteenth century the triumphal
_cortége_ of the Reformation. Historic science has the
right, then, to intervene; and, without being a Baronius, one can
try to answer this thesis, and to point out what there is in it
of the purely systematic and exclusive.
II.
I commence by according thus much to it: To compress a whole
century within the frame--narrow and always a little
factitious--of a picture or of a historical representation, is no
easy task. So many diverse facts to bring together, to condense,
or at least to point out; so many movements and collisions of
ideas to depict; so many personages to group together and
arrange; then to gather this multitude into unity, to bring order
out of this seeming confusion; to know precisely how to seize and
place in proper relief that which can be called the culminating
point of the epoch, and to make that point the centre around and
from which shall radiate all the other events of the period--this
is a work which demands at once great power of synthesis, a wide
yet sure range of vision, an accurate sentiment of just
proportions, and, in the case of a historical painting, a
complete divesting of one's self of the spirit of mere system,
and a most scrupulous impartiality.
Now, what strikes one, first of all, in looking at Kaulbach's
grand picture, is the exclusive idea which has presided over the
whole, as well as over all the details, of its composition. Even
the title given by the author to his work is witness to this. It
is not so much the sixteenth century that the artist has desired
to paint as the _Era of the Reformation_; and the
Reformation, moreover, solely as regarded from the Protestant
point of view. Accordingly in the picture everything is treated
with reference to Luther and Calvin; and the choir of great
personages who figure in it serve only, so to speak, as the
retinue of the new gospel and its first apostles.
{60}
But if the unhappy rupture which separated from the Catholic
Church a large part of Northern Europe is one of the most
considerable events of the century, it is not, however, so
exclusively such that it has the right to absorb into itself all
the other events of the period; and it is well known how numerous
those events were in an age which should be regarded as one of
the most eventful epochs in European history.
And it is not solely from the point of view of religious and
artistic history that it is just to make this objection; it
should be made, moreover, in behalf of political history. In
fact, whatever influence Protestantism may have exercised upon
the relations of the civil states among and toward each other, it
is but slight up to the seventeenth century, the beginning of the
Thirty Years' War and the treaties of Westphalia, which caused
new principles to prevail in the public law of Europe. He has
been, therefore, entirely blind to the grandest political contest
of the sixteenth century--that between France and Austria; a
contest that holds too large a place in the history of that
century not to be noticed and made mention of, at least by
introducing into the sketch the princes in whom it was
personified--Charles V. and Francis I.
Francis I., the enlightened patron of letters, the founder of the
College of France, the friend of Benvenuto Cellini and Leonardo
da Vinci, the secret supporter of the Lutherans of the empire,
should have had, by these by-passages of his life, some right not
to be forgotten by the pencil of the German painter. But if state
policy caused him to lend a helping hand to the Protestants of
Germany--the adversaries of Charles V.--that same policy, joined
with religious motives, caused him to sign the edicts of
proscription against the Protestants of his own kingdom; and the
prince who, in despite of his sister's sympathies for Calvin,
refused to drag France upon the precipice of the Reformation,
could scarcely find favor with the panegyrists of Protestantism.
As to Charles V., even had he not joined to his title of Emperor
of Germany the crown of Spain, with all his possessions in the
Low Countries and in the New World, one would have still found it
strange to see him excluded from the _cortége_ of
sovereigns, politicians, and statesmen who gave lustre to the
sixteenth century.
A sketch of the sixteenth century, then, is incomplete without
these two princes, who represent the fierce struggle between the
two most powerful Catholic nations at an epoch in which the
religious revolutions of the European world should have made such
an omission, so it would seem, impossible. Strange antagonism
indeed that between these two nations, who would have been able
by their accord to arrest the political progress of
Protestantism, and to hinder the theology of Wittenberg and
Geneva from becoming subsequently a preponderating influence in
the direction of the affairs of Europe! Strange and restless
antagonism, which occupies a large part of the political history
of the sixteenth century; fills, again, the seventeenth with
Richelieu and Louis XIV.; seemingly is quieted for an instant
when Marie Antoinette shares the throne of Louis XIV. and
Marie-Louise that of Napoleon the First; survives, however, three
centuries of wars, of changes and revolutions of every sort, to
place anew the two peoples in hostile array upon the fields of
Magenta and Solferino, and only seems bound to disappear when it
has arrived at one of its extreme but logical consequences,
namely, the exaltation of the power which most fully represents
upon the European continent the Protestant enthusiasm and the
ancient grudges against France.
{61}
It is, in fact, only since the battle of Sadowa that this
antagonism between these two great Catholic nations has seemed to
give place to mutual intelligence of a common danger, and to that
sympathetic regard which a recent and distinguished visit has
consecrated, so to speak, in the face of Europe, and commended to
the intelligent applause of the people of Paris.
The exclusive glorification of Protestantism in the master-work
of Kaulbach has also been an occasion of another lamentable
omission. It is not enough--be it said without excessive and
immoderate partiality toward our own country--it is not enough
to have made France represented only by Calvin and by Coligny in
the imposing _cortége_ of all the glories of the sixteenth
century. This systematic exclusion is explained even by itself.
In such a composition the places of honor were to be reserved to
the countries which welcomed Protestantism with an enthusiasm so
ardent, or submitted themselves to its dictation with so strange
a docility. One knows, on the other hand, what insurmountable
resistance France opposed to the introduction and establishment
of Protestantism. It cost her, it is true, more than forty years
of continual wars. And what wars those terrible fratricidal and
religious strifes of the sixteenth century were; stirred up and
kept alive on both sides by the most violent passions, and which,
after the unhappy and sanguinary convulsions in which were
consumed the reigns of Henry II., Francis II., Charles IX., and
Henry III., would have ended surely in the breaking up of the
ancient national unity, if Providence had not, at the conclusion
of those frightful dissensions, caused to intervene a prince
pre-destined to pacify the minds, quiet the discords, and close
up and heal the deep wounds of the country! Henry IV. arrives at
the end of the sixteenth century, as it were in order to bring
about union between Protestantism vanquished and Catholicity
triumphant. He gives to the latter the pledge of a public
conversion; to the former, the benefit of a legal existence; and,
especially in rendering sacred the respect due to minorities, he
demonstrates, better than by all arguments, and perhaps for the
very reason that his conversion was less a work of devotion than
of policy, how the genius of the French nation was opposed to the
doctrines of the reformers.
Whatever may be said of the equivocal sincerity of his
Catholicity and of the blemishes of his private life, Henry IV.,
who belongs to the sixteenth century by his birth, by his
elevation to the throne and some of the most considerable
transactions of his reign, worthily represents, at the close of
an epoch so disturbed, some of the highest and most rightful
aspirations of what may be called, right or wrong, the spirit of
modern times. Great prince assuredly was he who could cause to
triumph over passions envenomed by the civil and religious wars
of half a century that love of common country, in which, despite
of all that would divide them, the French people ought to feel
themselves children of the same mother and defenders of the same
flag.
{62}
The exclusion--almost entire--of France from a picture designed
to glorify the sixteenth century, is not the only, nor even the
gravest, reproach which historical criticism has the right to
address to its author.
It is, still further, authorized to demand of him if it is
strictly just to cause this grand composition, artistic,
scientific, and literary, to do honor solely to Luther and
Calvin--a composition which, from a certain and strictly proper
point of view, would have sufficed to the glory of an epoch--and
above all, if it does not do a strange violence to truth to
enroll under the banner of Protestantism such men as Petrarch,
Shakespeare, Christopher Columbus, Michael Angelo, and Raphael?
The name of Shakespeare, indeed, not long since stirred up quite
a lively discussion upon this very subject In the eyes of a
certain school it seemed to import absolutely that, to the honor
of letters, the immortal author of _Hamlet_ and of
_Othello_ did not belong to the Church of Rome--as if
Corneille and Racine sparkled with any the less brilliancy
because they were Catholics, or that the dramatic art had need to
be ashamed of _Polyeucte, Esther_, and _Athalie_.
The question has been examined with all the attention which it
merits, and the conclusion to which a conscientious inquiry seems
to bring us is, that, if Shakespeare belonged by his birth to the
time of the Reformation, it is not, nevertheless, necessary to
ascribe, either to the gospel of Luther and Calvin or to the
Draconian Protestantism of Queen Elizabeth, the masterly
productions of his genius.
As to Christopher Columbus, who does not know, I will not say his
obedience and filial devotion to the Church of Rome, but the
profound piety of his soul and the tenderness of his religious
sentiments? According to the chronicler who has preserved for us
in Latin the admirable prayer made by that great man at that
solemn hour of his life when, triumphant at last over so many
distrusts and so many wrongs, over so many delays and so many
obstacles, conqueror, so to speak, of the elements and of men,
but always submissive to God, he cast himself upon his knees on
the land of the New World, as if to take possession of it in the
name of faith. "O God!" he said, "eternal and omnipotent, thou
hast by thy holy Word created heaven and earth and sea. Blessed
and glorified be thy name; praised be thy majesty which has
deigned by thy humble servant to cause that thy holy name should
be known and proclaimed in this other part of the world."
Now, by whom, think you, had the bold discoverer the intention of
proclaiming and making known the name of Jesus Christ in the New
World? Was it by the Methodist and Quaker missionaries? or by
those apostolic men who, docile to the word of the Roman pontiff,
and like him "fishers of men," went forth to announce the Gospel
to every creature and to "cast the net of the word" amidst all
nations? It is mere idle fancy, then, to connect with Luther and
Calvin that wonderful movement, made up of theoretical science
and of boldness, of learned calculations and of enthusiastic
intuitions, which set out to open to the adventurous genius of
the race of Japheth the vast field of enterprise presented by the
continents of America and the Archipelagoes of Oceanica.
Chronology, moreover, suffices to give the lie very explicitly to
this iniquitous claim. Christopher Columbus discovered America in
1492, and died in 1506: the same year in which Martin Luther
entered as a novice the Augustinian convent of Erfurt, and when
no one looked to see him become one day an adversary of the
Papacy.
{63}
The Papacy! Far rather with _its_ remembrance should be
associated that grand epoch of modern Europe, that new crusadal
enterprise, not to recover the tomb of Christ, but to plant the
cross, to propagate the Gospel, and to accomplish the prophecies
respecting the universality of the church. It was, in fact, a
pope, and that pope an Alexander VI.--the same that proved how
much the grandeur of that institution is independent of the worth
of individuals--it was Borgia, so severely judged by history, who
promulgated the famous bull of 1493, designed to draw the line of
demarcation between the discoveries of the Portuguese and those
of the Spaniards. From that bull, and from the names of the
peoples who bore away the palm from all the rest of Europe in the
career of great discoveries, it follows that the Protestant
Reformation had nothing to show or pretend to in that splendid
episode of the history of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
All those intrepid navigators were Catholics; and the only power
which intervened to regulate and pacify the feverish movement
that bore them onward was the Church of Rome--the Papacy!
It may be said, perhaps, that the Spaniards, in discovering
America, put to shame the Catholic religion by their sharp
cupidity and the disgraceful severity of their conduct toward the
natives. We have not the slightest intention of transforming the
soldiers of Cortez and of Pizarro into peaceful missionaries. If
the ferocity of those men disgraced the Gospel, so much the worse
for them. But as to the church, if it be insisted on that she
shall be mixed up with the question, she has nothing to lose; for
it was she herself, and she alone, who intervened to moderate the
cupidity of the conquerors, and to defend against it the cause of
the conquered. To her alone belongs the name, ever to be
venerated, of Bartholomew Las Casas, the eloquent pleader in
behalf of Catholicity and of its beneficent action upon society.
As to the great Italian artists of the sixteenth century, and
particularly as to Michael Angelo and Raphael, it is still more
arbitrary, if possible, to have enrolled them in the army of the
innovators. What could be more entirely Catholic than the
inspirations and great works of these men of genius? Not to speak
in detail of the inimitable Madonnas of Raphael, nor of the
gigantic frescoes of Michael Angelo in the Sistine chapel, nor
the many other marvellous works with which they have for ever
enriched Italy and Europe; but of the church of St. Peter, upon
which both had the glory of working, is it not, as it were, the
very personification, at once ideal and plastic, of the entire
Catholic Church? It is the grand church of the popes; it is there
that repose, by the side of the illustrious chiefs St. Peter and
St. Paul, the remains of so many sovereign pontiffs. It is under
its dome that is celebrated, on the grand solemnities of the year
and by the very hands of the vicar of Jesus Christ, the sacrifice
of the Mass. It is from its balcony that is given, on those same
solemnities, that pontifical benediction, preceded by that
absolution and those indulgences, against which for three hundred
years Protestantism never loses an occasion of casting its
anathemas or its sarcasms; save perhaps when one of its children,
assisting on Easter-Day at that wonderful solemnity, and hearing
the sonorous and affecting voice of Pius IX., at the moment of
imparting benediction to the world, mingling itself with the roll
of drums, the discharge of cannon, and the chimes of the thousand
bells of Rome, falls upon his knees in spite of himself, subdued
by I know not what mysterious power, and rises up again with the
confession that the inspirations of Catholicism are far
differently fitted to charm the soul and seize hold upon the
heart than the chilling ceremonial of a Calvinistic Lord's Supper
under the arches of St. Paul's in London.
{64}
In a word, everything of that grand basilica of the Eternal City,
from its corner-stone to the cross which surmounts its dome, all
has been inspired by Catholic thought; and it may be affirmed
with assurance that all the grand artists who worked upon it
could say as Raphael replied to Leo X.: "I love so much the
Church of St. Peter!" [Footnote 15]
[Footnote 15: Reply of Raphael to the brief of Leo X., naming
him superintendent of the work of the church. See, further,
the will of Raphael, (cited in Audin's _Leo X._ t. ii.
p. 347.)]
Moreover, independently of all individual names, can it not be
said in a general manner that it is going quite counter to
historic truth to attempt to connect the art-movement of the
sixteenth century with the influence of Luther and Calvin? It is
well enough known, in truth, what was the attitude of the
Reformation, especially of the Calvinistic part of it, toward the
beautiful and the divine in the arts. Many of our old cathedrals
in France still bear, after three hundred years, the marks of the
iconoclastic fury of the Huguenots. The literal
interpretation--literal even to barbarousness--of the text in
Exodus, "Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven images," it
translated, especially in its beginnings, into a relentless
proscription; and the statues, pictures, and wonderful great
church-windows, where the middle ages had expended so much of
faith and often so much of genius, disappeared under the blows of
a most savage vandalism.
They are ours, then, altogether ours, those divine men, as the
Greeks would have called them, who have written in the history of
art the immortal pages stamped with the names of Perugino,
Leonardo da Vinci, Brunelleschi, Bramante, Michael Angelo, and
Raphael. It is not around Luther and Calvin that they should be
grouped, but around those Roman pontiffs who gave such a vigorous
impulse to literature and the arts, and who caused all those
beautiful poems of painting or of stone to serve for the
glorification of the Catholic Church. On that point, moreover,
public sentiment has passed judgment for all future time. The
history of the arts does not know the era of Luther; it knows and
will always know the era of Leo X.
III.
If it had been given to one of those masters of art of the
sixteenth century to make a synoptical picture of that grand
epoch, he would have singularly modified the perspectives and
enlarged the horizons. In regard to that rebellious monk who
holds up the Bible as a standard of revolt; in regard to those
men who surround him, and among whom are found at the same time
the co-workers and the adversaries of his work; a Melanchthon,
who had been his disciple, and a Zwingle who had been his
rival--strange council, where there is no unanimity except to
attack and deny, and where there is division when the matter to
be treated of is that of affirming and establishing--in this
respect, one would have seen, majestically grouped upon the steps
of a temple based, sixteen hundred years previously, upon
immovable foundations, the Fathers of the Council of Trent, who,
during a term of nearly twenty years, had brought together,
classified, and fixed, in wonderful conformity with the whole
current of tradition, the divers points of the doctrine and the
discipline of the Christian church.
{65}
Five popes [Footnote 16] occupied the See of St. Peter during the
holding of that memorable council. Some among them may, perhaps,
be justly blameworthy for this or that fault, in their
administration; but to have been able to convoke and reunite that
immortal assembly; to have caused it to resume its labors when
they had been interrupted; to have conducted them through so many
obstacles and difficulties, coming from men or things, to their
close; to have, at last, as was done by Pius IV., perpetuated, so
to say, the authority and reformatory action of that oecumenical
assembly by the institution of that _Congregation_ of the
council, whose mission, for three hundred years past, has been to
explain and put into practical execution the decrees passed at
Trent--this is evidently one of the most important pages of the
history of the Reformation within the fold of Christianity, and
is, perhaps, one where the divine power and the supernatural
constitution of the church shine forth most visibly. For neither
the popes who presided over the council nor the bishops who
composed it were, taken individually, men of genius; and it is
permitted to us to say that in great matters where the personal
consideration of man appears the least, there the wisdom and
power of God shine forth all the more strikingly.
[Footnote 16: Paul III., Julius III., Marcellus II., Paul
IV., and Pius IV.]
And then, again, around those two centres which mingle themselves
in one--the Papacy and the general council--and which represent
so forcibly, in the face of the precocious divisions of
Protestantism, the grand and living unity of the church of Jesus
Christ, what astonishing fecundity for good, what varied
resources, what fruitful germination of men and deeds! What
souls, those great saints of the sixteenth century, recruited
from among all ranks of society, and to whom Providence seems to
have confided the mission of replying by some beneficent
institution to all the attacks and all the negations of
Protestantism!
Would that, then, be a picture wanting in grandeur, where a
competent artist--wishing to glorify in the sixteenth century not
the warlike Reformation which rent asunder without remorse the
ancient and majestic unity of Christendom, but the peaceful and
fruitful reform which multiplied, according to the needs of a
much troubled and suffering age, grand inspirations and
magnanimous self-sacrifices--should group around the living
centre of the church Ignatius Loyola and his brave companions,
the pastor Pascal Baylon and the grand nobleman Francis Borgia,
St. Philip Neri and St. Camillus of Lelli, St. Charles Borromeo
in the midst of the plague at Milan and St. Francis of Sales
evangelizing the populations of Chablais? And yet this
enumeration must be limited to the names of the more illustrious
only, and to works the most considerable.
Now, in these names are found truly personified the inspirations
which constitute, in its plenitude, the veritable spirit of
Christianity.
First, the spirit of zeal and apostleship. Those who have seen
the frescoes of the church of St. Ignatius at Rome remember with
what just pride a Jesuit painter has represented the triumphs of
the first fathers of his company over heresy and infidelity.
{66}
And unless blinded by incurable prejudices, what a striking
comparison can one make between Melanchthon, the disciple of
Luther, and that student of the Paris University, the friend of
St. Ignatius--that St. Francis Xavier who, setting out for the
Indies in 1541 and dying in 1552, had converted, by himself
alone, more heathen in a dozen years than all the Protestant
missionaries united have been able to convert in a century; that
man whose life would seem but a legend of olden times, were it
not authenticated by most unexceptionable documents, and had it
not appeared in the sixteenth century, which is far less the age
of enthusiasm than that of criticism--that man, in fine, to whom
a Protestant, Baldeus, has had the impartiality to render a
splendid eulogy, closing with that apostrophe so _naïve_ and
nearly as honorable to the writer as to the hero, "Would to God
that, having been what you were, you might be of us!"
If the Company of Jesus represents in so high a degree the spirit
of zeal, behold St. Theresa and St. Peter of Alcantara, who
represent none the less worthily the spirit of penitence--that
essential part of the Christian life, so entirely foreign to the
heroes and the works which spring forth from Protestantism.
In contrast with the rehabilitation of the flesh, openly preached
and practised by Luther, by Henry VIII., by the Landgrave of
Hesse and the principal corypheuses of the Reformation, see how,
in the train of these two Spaniards--that reformer of Carmel and
that son of St. Francis--whole generations follow. They embrace
with enthusiasm that hidden life of the cloister, where the
superficial glance of the man of the world sees only an arbitrary
captivity and aimless mortifications; but where the eyes of faith
discover the secret of those acts and movements of reparation
which preserve from ignominy and ruin the ages dragged along the
dangerous declivity of scepticism and immorality, by teaching men
that, if unbelief and luxury destroy individuals and societies,
it is the force of prayer, united to that of sacrifice, which
alone can raise them up again.
Finally, after the spirit of zeal and the spirit of penitence,
the spirit of charity completes the fulness of the Christian
life.
Now, can Protestantism take any offence, if, in looking over with
it the list of its founders and apostles, we demand of it where
there is to be found, among those ardent adversaries of Roman
superstitions, a single man to whom one can conscientiously give
the title of benefactor and consoler of men?
I see Luther, indeed, presenting the Bible to Germany surprised
and misled; and Calvin administering the cup of the Lord's Supper
to gentlemen of the court of Francis I. or to the rich burgesses
of Geneva. Here, in one place, Reuchlin and Ulrich of Hutten are
jeering, and laughing at the monks, and there, in another,
Gustavus Adolphus is brandishing his valiant sword in defence of
the new gospel; but still, again, among these bold promoters of
the Reformation, among these indefatigable champions of
gospel-christianity, as they proudly entitle themselves, would
that I were shown _one_ of those souls inspired from above
to pour upon the miseries of the age the treasures of divine
consolations! I behold party-leaders, Bible-expounders, soldiers,
politicians, and savants; but of friends of the poor, of
protectors of old age and deserted infancy, of men who sacrifice
all and who sacrifice themselves even, to gain the right, the
privilege, of drying up the tears of the afflicted and of holding
out the helping hand to the unfortunate--of these I see none.
{67}
These are all in the ranks of that church whose privilege it will
always be, and which no sect has ever been able to take from her,
to prove that she alone is the veritable spouse of Jesus Christ,
because she alone is the true mother of men! Behold St. Philip
Neri and his companions of the Oratory of Rome, whose
remembrances still live in the hospital of the Trinity for
pilgrims--St. Philip Neri, whose name, after more than three
hundred years, is always associated in the Eternal City with the
idea of whatever is most tender and good. By the side of St.
Philip, his contemporary and friend, St. Camillus of Lellis,
institutor of a congregation specially devoted to the care of the
sick poor; while, by a like inspiration, the Spaniard, St. John
of God, established, in 1540, that charitable order, spread since
then throughout Christendom, and whose members rival in
self-sacrificing devotion the disciples of St. Camillus in
consecrating themselves to the work of relieving human
infirmities. In fine, if St. Vincent of Paul constitutes the
glory and, more than the glory, the consolation of the
seventeenth century, the sixteenth century has, nevertheless, the
right to claim him in part; for it saw his birth, and it gave to
him the first inspirations of that zeal and charity which draw
down every day upon his name the grateful benedictions of all who
languish and suffer--upon that name at once the humblest and the
most popular of all names.
In conclusion, if, in this picture of the Catholic glories of the
sixteenth century, it were necessary also to find place for men
of the sword and men of law, are there many figures more martial
than that of Bayard, the chevalier "without fear and without
reproach," or those of the admirable Knights-Hospitallers of
Malta, who, in 1585, under the orders of their grand-master, La
Valette, stood as a living rampart, against which all the forces
of Islamism dashed and broke themselves, and who did for
Christian Europe in the sixteenth century what, a century later,
the immortal Sobieski had to do with his brave Polanders?
As to men of law, Catholic France has the right to name with
pride the grand-chancellor Hôpital; and Protestant England has
not the right to claim Thomas More. It was this courageous
magistrate who refused to subscribe to the divorce of Henry
VIII., and who, when entreated by his wife not to expose himself
to capital punishment by opposing the king's wishes, replied in
these beautiful words: "What! Would you have me compromise my
eternity for the sake of twenty years which yet perhaps remain
for me to live?" He died upon the scaffold, the 6th of July,
1535, with the constancy of a martyr; worthy precursor of that
long and illustrious generation of witnesses to the faith, who,
during all the second half of the sixteenth century, watered with
purest of blood the soil of England, and did more honor, it seems
to me, to the ancient renown of "The Isle of Saints" than a
Cranmer, the courtly and apostate archbishop, or an Essex, one of
the numerous lovers of that princess who foully stained with mire
and blood the throne upon which she sat, and that state church of
which she made a mere vassal of that throne.
{68}
After having rectified and completed, so far as it has been given
me to do, this painting, so original and vigorous, but at the
same time so manifestly devoted to a preconceived and
systematized idea, I arrive at a conclusion which is applicable
not to the sixteenth century only, but to all the epochs of
history.
It is that, after the likeness of man himself, each phase of the
life of humanity bears in it two souls, and, as it were, two
humanities. These are the twins that struggled together in the
womb of Rebecca, and on the occasion of which the Lord responded
to the troubled mother: "Two nations are in thy womb, and two
peoples shall be divided out of thy womb, and one people shall
overcome the other." (Gen. xxv. 23.)
Yes, as each one of us bears within him two men, whose unceasing
struggle makes up the whole prize and the whole grandeur of the
moral life, so in like manner each age of the world bears within
it two ages: the one which is the docile instrument of God in the
pursuit of truth and the accomplishment of justice; and the
other, which paralyzes a part of the living forces of humanity by
leading them astray into error, or by putting them to the service
of selfishness and evil.
This grand principle of the philosophy of history, due to
Christian psychology and the true knowledge by man of himself,
has been admirably demonstrated by St. Augustine. One sees, from
numerous passages in his writings, how that holy doctor was
impressed by the perpetual antagonism and irreconcilable
opposition between these two powers, or "cities," (as he terms
them,) who always and everywhere are making war upon each other,
and to whom each succeeding century serves but as a battle-field.
Quite as much and even more than others, does the sixteenth
century present to the look of the observer the militant dualism
of these two principles: the one, calling itself the Reformation
of the church by disorder and violence; the other, wishing to be,
and which has been, the fruitful and pacific renovation of
Christian life by humble zeal and true charity. The Protestant
Reformation claims the sixteenth century as exclusively its own.
I believe I have sufficiently demonstrated that, by its most
beautiful and most enduring parts and characteristics, the
century belongs neither to Luther nor Calvin; but that the
Catholic Church can exhibit it with just pride alike to her
friends and her enemies.
From this study, made in the light of this principle, I would
also deduce a second conclusion and apply it directly to the
times in which we live.
Are we not ourselves witnesses of and actors in a struggle like
or analogous to that which, before our day, divided our fathers?
Yes, our century, soon to complete the third quarter of its term,
itself also is engaged in this struggle between, so to term it,
two opposing cities or communities. For some time past, this
struggle seems to have entered upon a new phase and into a most
sharp crisis.
With whom will victory rest, and which of the two principles
shall carry captive the other in its triumph, so as to decide
definitively the character of this epoch? That is a secret as yet
only known to God, and it is not mine to attempt a reply to so
hidden and mysterious a question. What I do know is, that we
ought to oppose, with all our might, those who, wishing to bring
about a violent retrograde movement in European society, threaten
every day to carry us back to the age of Voltaire, and who
present to us the saturnalia of '93 as the ideal of liberty,
prosperity, and progress!
{69}
What I know, again, is, that but yesterday the antagonism between
these two opposing powers (_des deux cités_) was personified
in two men, upon whom, if I mistake not, the judgment of
posterity has already begun to be made up: One of them, who
represents, in all his serene majesty and with impressive
authority even in his weakness, the force of right--the august
and mild pontiff, whom twenty-two years of revolutions and
ingratitude do not dishearten and dissuade from blessing the
world, and calling down, by his prayers, upon sorely tried and
troubled society, the spirit of wisdom, counsel, and peace; the
other, that incorrigible leader of the antichristian army, the
man of those bold deeds whose ephemeral triumph aspires to build
up right upon force, but which one day, I hope, Italy will
disavow in the name of her religious traditions, as well as in
the name of her true and sound liberal traditions.
No; this nineteenth century, where by the side of so much that is
evil there is so much that is good--so many generous sallies of
self-devotion, so many hidden acts of self-sacrifice, so many
solid virtues--the century which has given us a Curé of Ars and a
Pius IX., an Affre and a Lamoricière, a Lacordaire and a
Ravignan, an O'Connell and a Zamoyski, a Jane Jugan--founder of
the Little Sisters of the Poor--and those students to whom not
only France, but the Catholic world, are indebted for the
institution of the Conferences of St. Vincent of Paul; this
century will never be dragged down to the _gemoniae scalae_
[Footnote 17] of history with the ignominious stamp upon it of
having been the _Era of Garibaldi_. It will triumph over all
the obstacles heaped upon its pathway by scepticism, by false
science, and by the violence of party-spirit. These adverse
forces seem at this hour, it is true, to take up with renewed
energy the struggle which for eighteen centuries nothing has
interrupted; but by so doing they only serve to show us more
clearly our duty, and to urge us on the more strenuously to
fulfil it.
[Footnote 17: The _gemoniae scalae_ were steps in
ancient Rome, near the prison called _Tullianum_, down
which the bodies of those who had been executed in prison
were dragged and thrown into the Forum, to be there exposed
to the gaze of the multitude. TRANS.]
----------
Translated From The French.
The Legend Of Hospitality.
"Legend or history, history or legend, there are truths to be
culled from each, my friends," justly remarks that charming
writer, Charles Nodier. A beautiful legend creates its own
atmosphere of sweet and moral influences, as a flower exhales its
perfume. Happy they who can discern and appropriate them! It is
in these old and popular legends that oftentimes will be found
infused whatever is most beautiful and pure of a nation's poetry
and of its faith; they being, as it were, the expression of a
people's thought. For a long time, indeed, those simple
traditions of the past constituted, as we may say, the literature
of the people's social gatherings, and served an important part
in keeping firmly cemented the noble principles of family, of
union, and of justice, which formed the triple corner-stone of
all well-regulated society.
{70}
When the trembling voice of the old man was heard, all were
silent, and went forth after his narrative with souls deeply
impressed, on the one hand, by the punishments which struck down
the wicked, or, on the other, softly moved by the justly deserved
reward that so often formed the graceful _dénouement_ of
some touching ballad.
Some of these legends, coming to us, as they do, from afar, have
even preserved the first freshness of the primitive ages. This
is, indeed, their greatest charm. Witness this exquisite legend
of hospitality, which for a long time delighted the simple hearts
of the peasants of France.
In the days of Jesus, there lived on the banks of the Jordan an
old man, who might well have been taken for a patriarch of an
ancient tribe, whom Death seemed to have forgotten. His name was
Philomen, and in his lowly cabin he subsisted solely on the fruit
of his little garden, and the milk furnished him by his goat.
Now, one quiet evening, some one tapped gently at his door, and
an old man, though younger than he, entering, claimed his
hospitality.
"Most willingly, my friend. My cottage is not large; my garden
yields not much fruit; my goat gives but little milk; but, even
so, I share it cheerfully with all who cross my threshold in the
name of hospitality. Enter, then, good friend, and rest after the
fatigue of the day."
"But," said the traveller hesitatingly, "I am not alone. I have
twelve companions with me, overpowered by weariness and parched
with thirst, for we have just crossed the desert."
"Let them all come; you are all welcome. All who come hungry to
my door are welcome to all I possess."
Then the stranger made a sign to his companions, who were
silently standing at the door; and he found that they were Jesus
and his twelve apostles, whom St. Peter led on their journey,
ever walking in advance, he who was one day to open the gates of
Paradise.
They entered, partook of his simple fruit, drank the milk
furnished by his goat, and rested for a time on his rough mat.
When day dawned, St. Peter said to him, "Before going hence, hast
thou no petition to make to us? Hast thou not some wish? Ask
whatever thou wilt in return for thy hospitality. All that thou
shalt ask shall be granted unto thee."
Then the old man made three wishes, and said: "My sweet Lord, I
love life so well, grant me yet five hundred years to live; the
days pass so quickly in this peaceful cabin."
"Granted," said a sweet and touching voice, which seemed to come,
as it were, from the midst of the group. "What else wilt thou
have?"
"My good Lord, I have a beautiful fig-tree in my garden, which
bears such fine fruit that they are often stolen from me. Grant
me, then, that whoever climbs into it may not be able to descend
until I give him leave; thus I will ensnare the thief."
Jesus smiled as he heard this quaint wish, and, bowing his fair
head, said: "It shall be done as thou wishest. Hast thou more
still to ask? Speak freely, for thou seest that I grant thee all
that thou hast wished for."
"My dearly loved Lord, I have a wooden chair, on which my friends
sit when they come sometimes at night to talk with me. Grant me
that whoever rests on it may not be able to rise, and must remain
there as long as I shall please."
{71}
And Jesus approved again, because he loved this guileless old
man, who was so simple of heart and made such modest wishes. St.
Peter then thanked him, and went forth, followed by his twelve
companions, among whom Jesus loved to conceal himself.
Years passed by one after the other. One century passed, then
another, until finally the last day of the last year arrived, and
the venerable Philomen saw the grim traveller Death enter his
cabin, who said to him:
"Come along, old man! Thou hast eluded me this long time--thanks
to an especial favor. Thou hast reached the years of Mathusale.
If every one lived as thou hast, I would have no work on earth.
Come along, quick. Regulate thy affairs, bid farewell to thy
garden, because, with the setting sun, I lead thee forth with
me."
"O my good dame! if you would but pity me! Ah! yes, if you would
have some pity, you would let me live some few days more--only
_one_ day, then. It is so good to live!"
"No, nothing; not one moment more," replied the sinister guest in
a harsh and dry voice.
"At least, then, let me once more eat of the fruit of my
fig-tree. I have loved them so well; it will be a last
consolation to me. But I am too weak to shake the tree, and too
old to reach those highest branches. Do you go up, and gather me
that fig up there; it is so thoroughly ripened by our eastern
sun."
"Most willingly. See, old man, I will show thee that Death is not
as surly as 'tis said she is."
Then placing her hour-glass and scythe at the foot of the tree,
the unlucky dame climbed up; but scarcely had she pressed her
foot upon the branches, than, lo! they sprang up as if from her
tread, closed around and so shut in the impudent wight that she
could not even stir. She called; she cried aloud, then moaned and
supplicated. Philomen renewed his humble petition, but she
persistently refused.
"Very well! I only want five hundred years, five centuries more!"
And raising his head menacingly, he took up the hour-glass and
scythe, quietly returning to his cabin. Every morning he
returned, imposed his conditions of release, which Death,
becoming more and more irritated, as obstinately refused. Then he
would go back patiently to his cabin. On the third night he saw a
dark figure, with glittering eyes, prowling round the foot of his
tree. He listened, and heard this conversation. Now, you must
know that this was the Devil, who came to make his complaint:
"What dost thou there, thou idler? Thou no longer sendest me work
to do. I am ruined by thy delay."
But the terrible accomplice could do nothing; because he who
binds on earth as he binds in heaven had bound her so firmly that
Death herself could not undo it.
Next morning, after a fresh dispute with Philomen, she yielded,
and consented to let him have five hundred years added to his
life. But as Death is treacherous, he sought his tablet, and
before she came down he made her sign the treaty. After that he
set her free, restored her baggage, her hour-glass and scythe,
and let her depart, threatening and raging as she went, vowing to
cut off, at the very moment of the promised time, the life of one
who had so pitilessly ridiculed her.
{72}
Years again passed by, one by one; the centuries were
accomplished; and yet Philomen did not grow old. Ten times had he
seen pass by that unhappy pilgrim condemned to wander for ever
round the world. Each journey marked one century as this
wandering Jew crossed the Jordan, near his little cabin, on the
road to Jerusalem, that, ascending Golgotha, he might sue for
mercy on the very spot where the blood had been shed of him whom
he had despised! The centuries had all now passed, and one
evening, when Philomen sat quietly by his hearth, the dark
traveller entered once more. Midnight was the fatal hour. She
rudely accosted him: "Come along now, old man! Thou shouldst long
since have been in thy grave. No mercy for thee this time! Thou
wouldst but mock me again, could I show pity for thee. Oh! how
tired I am; so tired, so worried! To-day I have killed nearly
three thousand Christians, then a whole race of infidels, and
decimated an entire kingdom, with my well-tempered weapon,
pestilence. Rich and poor, prelates and priests, I have upturned
everything--everything. But I am horribly tired, and while
awaiting the expiration of thy time, I will rest me a little
here." Saying these words, she threw herself on the wooden stool
that Jesus had gifted with supernatural powers. Then she began to
jeer at the old man, speaking to him of the joys of life, of
youth, of love, etc. When midnight tolled, she attempted to rise
from the chair and spring at Philomen, who had wisely placed
himself beyond her reach; but, nailed down upon this wonderful
seat, she could not move! In vain she shook her glass, made
deadly thrusts with her scythe! Then the good man went to his
hearth, and kindled such a fire as nearly roasted her even at
that distance. Her hour-glass was about falling to pieces, the
handle of her scythe was nearly reduced to ashes, when, after a
most vigorous dispute, she granted Philomen a new lease of five
centuries more of life!
Now, this was, as you know, the second time she had been caught
in the same trap, and more enraged than ever, she went forth
crying aloud that she should not be caught again; and good old
Philomen lived on through the long years obtained by this trick.
But everything of time must end; everything falls; everything
dies; everything passes away. And these five centuries, too, were
gathered with all that had gone before. But Death had learned
prudence now, and did not venture near, sending a shaft from afar
that pierced the good old man and sent him at once from life to
death. But as he had lived so innocently and ever observed the
laws of holy hospitality, God had a place prepared for him in his
own beautiful Paradise.
Now, it happened that before going there our Philomen wished to
see, just a little, what was going on in hell. Since the night
that he overheard the dispute between Death and Satan, he had
cherished a great desire to do so. He quietly entered the abode
of the condemned, and when the Devil came to meet him, and would
have seized upon him, Philomen cried out: "Stop there! I am not
for thee! I am of the kingdom of the elect, and come here only to
see if all that is said of thee in the kingdom of the living be
true. Lead me everywhere!" When, conducted by his dark guide, he
had visited the bowels of the earth and witnessed all manners of
torture, he proposed to him to stake his own soul against some of
the most fearfully punished among the damned who were uttering
most terrific shrieks. The dice were brought, and shaken by each
in turn.
{73}
Philomen gained twelve souls; then Satan became fearful he might
lose all with this mysterious partner, and refused to play on.
Philomen then took the road to Paradise, and, reaching the gate,
tapped gently. Saint Peter came to open for him. He at once
recognized him, and, smiling, said, "Pass on, we have expected
you all this time." "Oh! very well," said the acute old man,
"but, like you formerly, I am not travelling alone: I have with
me twelve companions, who claim your hospitality." "This is but
fair," said St. Peter, once more smiling, "so come in." And so
Philomen and his twelve ransomed souls all went to join the
throng of the blessed who will for ever sing the glory of God.
It is thus the good old man lived fifteen hundred years, and
practised the holy rules of hospitality. And it is thus that our
pious ancestors taught their children never to refuse entrance to
those who knocked at their doors, imploring shelter; and thus we,
too, see how religiously and beautifully hospitality was
practised in the former ages, in the chateaux of the rich as well
as in the more humble dwellings of the poor.
----------
Mine Enemy.
If he could stand against me now,
With other eyes and an alien brow;
If I could break the spell that still
My will entangles with his will;
If he could laugh the while I weep;
If I could wake, and he asleep;
Could I uncoil the mystery
Where he is I, and I am he:
Then might I hide me from his face;
Or strike him down within his place;
And so, at last, my life be free
From his tormenting company.
But no; his blush my forehead burns,
His the pallor my pale cheek turns,
And when he sees the thing I do,
'Tis mine own eyes that he looks through.
When I would hate this tiresome mate,
He teaches me the way to hate;
When from his presence I would flee,
He, taunting, flies along with me.
{74}
But best I like his baser slips,
His angry eyes and impious lips;
For then, half-wrenched away from me,
Almost it seems he leaves me free.
'Tis then I raise aloft my cry:
St. Michael, to the rescue fly!
'Tis then almost my foot is prest
Upon the monster's struggling breast;
'Tis then I feel my shoulders glow
With hints of wings they yet may know,
And breathe as slaves pant, wild and sweet,
Whose chains are falling to their feet!
'Tis then I nestle, safely bound
By wings of angels circling round,
And feel the drawing of the cord
That holds my anchor in the Lord!
And most I fear when cunningly
He crouches, hidden from mine eye,
And breathes into the pipes whose keys
Hold all my spirit's melodies.
When I his hiding would betray,
He holds the lamp, and leads the way;
When I would break his hardihood,
He wields the lash that draws my blood.
So deep his guile, I scarce can know
From whose intent my actions grow;
So brightly do his tear-drops shine,
I oft mistake his grief for mine.
When veiled emotions, swift and strong,
Run all my trembling nerves along,
If 'tis his sigh or mine whose swell
Upheaves my breast, I cannot tell.
When friendship frowns, I turn to see
My foe's eyes beaming tenderly;
When friendship harshly speaks, I hear
His dulcet tones wooing mine ear.
When God is slow to hear my cry,
Behold th' insidious list'ner nigh!
When thirst has parched my vitals up,
His hand presents the sparkling cup.
{75}
If I would reason with my foe,
He lets the high-piled logic grow,
And lowly bends, in humble guise,
With silent mouth and drooping eyes.
But as, o'erflowing with content,
I view my stately monument,
Nor guess the thoughts lie side to side
In subtle, weak cement of pride,
With sudden flash of mocking wit
He plays about and shatters it,
Or some volcanic underthrust
Levels my structure with the dust.
And straight, ere I can speak for pain,
He builds my chang'd thoughts up again
In airy stretches, bright or dim,
With flower-woven cornice-rim;
With domes that melt into the sky,
Like piles of snowy cumuli;
And pinnacles where fancy sees
Stars cling and swim, like golden bees;
With long-drawn wings whose cloudy tips
The sunset kisses with red lips;
And cloudy-curtained windows bright,
Whence pours a flood of rosy light.
And with it come bewildering tunes,
Where heavenly airs bear hellish runes;
And, calling sweet and calling clear,
The voice that most I long to hear.
But if, lured by this temple fair,
Dazzled, I seek to enter there,
It clings, and burns with lurid light,
Like Glauce's bridal-garment white.
Then since my foe so potent is,
And I so weak, lest I be his,
Some friend I need, stronger than he,
To stand and keep my heart for me.
And since, though driven forth with pain,
Ever he stealeth back again,
More need have I of heavenly light
To make his lurking-places bright.
{76}
And since I stand unarmed, indeed,
Before his wrath, great is the need
I should invoke, with prayerful word,
Saint Michael of the fiery sword!
That night and day I still should cling
Beneath my hovering angel's wing;
And ne'er let slip the golden cord
That holds my anchor in the Lord!
----------
Translated From The Revue Du Monde Catholique.
Flaminia.
By Alexandre De Bar.
Concluded.
"You will not be surprised to see that Flaminia was ignorant of
the veritable nature of the affection that she felt for Albert;
but you will be astonished to learn that he shared entirely her
ignorance, although he had seen much of life. Yet think that it
is to know nothing of the most impetuous passion of our soul if
we have only learnt the theory; for as to know the world we must
have lived in the world, so to know the heart one must have lived
by the heart; if such has not been one's experience, all is
obscurity and one takes a false route. Now, Albert had lived out
of the world, and had not yet loved aught but a glorious renown.
Besides all this, if you will look back upon that fair time of
youth which has now fled from us, you will remember that the
descent which allures us is often so gentle that we follow it
without attention; until the day when an unforeseen event, and
often even an unimportant circumstance, arouses us, and permits
us by a glance to see the road that we have already glided down.
Albert, too, descended that charming declivity, gathering the
perfumed flowers which hung on the shrubs, and intoxicating
himself with perfumes, with light and songs. His soul happy, his
heart pure, dazzled by the celestial gleams which irradiated him,
how could he see where all this was conducting him? This is how
he first became aware of his position: There was at the bottom of
the gardens of the palace Balbo a long alley, that was covered by
the thick foliage of the vines, whose stems, black and distorted,
clung to and spread up the stone pillars on each side. Here and
there the jasmines displayed the silver stars of their flowers,
which shone out of the deep shade of their leaves. From that
alley the eye gazed upon a vast horizon, bounded by two large
sheets of azure, the sea and sky, between which the mountains
lifted their imposing masses, gilded by the rays of the setting
sun. It was in this perfumed gallery that, each evening, Albert
was conducted by his hosts, as soon as the refreshing breeze of
evening blew across the sea.
{77}
Often it was the arm of Flaminia that aided his yet feeble steps
in this exercise. How many charming hours thus passed for them
during the calm of those evenings, when the noises of the day
ceased one by one, until the ear brought but the sound of the
whispering breeze, pure and sweet as the breath of a sleeping
child, to the touched and softened soul! One day, the fever
seemed struggling to regain its power over the form of Albert;
his wounds were scarcely closed, and the emotions that he
experienced reacted most powerfully upon his health. Sir, man is
born for suffering, and not for joy. His body can support an
immense weight of sorrow and pain without giving way; but it is
worn out by pleasure, and joy kills it. Giovanni, uneasy about
his friend, strictly forbade his leaving his room, and that
evening the family went alone to their walk. Albert returned
sadly to the saloon, become more desert for him than the sands of
Sahara, in company with Giovanni, who, in the hope of distracting
his loneliness, talked to him of battles and of victories;
although had he known how far the mind of his friend was from all
such subjects, he might have given himself far less trouble with
an equally good result. Little caring then for glory, Albert's
heart was with Flaminia under the perfumed shade of the vines and
jasmines. At their return, Flaminia held out to Albert a spray of
jasmine covered with flowers, saying to him: 'You like these
flowers, so I bring you them.' When Albert had retired to his own
room, he took this bouquet and covered it with kisses: he
listened with delight to the voice that issued from those flowers
and that told him such sweet words. A flame seemed to mingle with
their perfumes that carried a new life to his heart; but it
carried there also the light. Another voice made itself heard and
showed him the truth, and he fell from the regions of happiness
where his dream had carried him, into the implacable reality; for
he then discovered with what sort of an affection they were both
animated. And he a knight of the Order of Malta! If absence could
have given the repose of forgetfulness to Flaminia, Albert would
not have hesitated to have left her at once. But if there exist
attachments so slight that the simple absence of their object is
sufficient to cure them, so there are others which may be likened
to those long-lived plants that extend their roots in all
directions and all depths; so that one cannot tear them from the
soil in which they have once gained a hold. Such affections as
these resist all human efforts, and absence but serves to render
their wounds more poignant and more lively. Albert understood too
well the character of Flaminia not to know that their destiny was
irrevocably fixed. Divine Providence seemed to have drawn them
together in this world but to make them merit, by a sacrifice of
their affections, the happiness that was destined for them in the
next. The ordinary remedy of absence would have been useless in
their case. Albert understood this, and the idea of getting
himself absolved from his vows of knighthood came to him. This
thought he repelled. It was not that he believed the success of
such a measure impossible, but that he saw in it a desertion of
his duty; he felt that his conscience would not be in
tranquillity, and that it would perpetually remind him that one
cannot thus break his engagements with God. He knelt down
piously, and that which passed in his soul during that cruel
night, and that which he suffered during that struggle, ever
rested a secret between him and God.
{78}
For you, scholar of the eighteenth century, it is an unpardonable
weakness that of placing one's self humbly on one's knees before
the Divine Majesty. Yet, thanks only to this weakness, Albert, in
all the force of youth, resisted without failing before the most
impetuous, the most irresistible of all our passions, and came
forth victorious out of the rudest combat that he had ever given.
He loved, passionately, Flaminia: Flaminia, beautiful, rich in
heart and soul, full of all the merits, of all the virtues, that
can entrance at the same time the heart, the soul, and the
senses; Flaminia, who loved him with an equal ardor, and who
confided herself to him absolutely and without reserve. He had
over her an absolute power, and, far from using it, he subdued
his passion, and, directing by a determined will the tumultuous
waves of his heart, he traversed without shipwreck those tempests
that are more ungovernable than the rage of the ocean. The
strength with which he aided himself was that same weakness which
makes you smile. Had he trusted only in himself, he would have
fallen, because he was but a man; he implored the aid of him who
is strength itself, and he vanquished. Faith was for him what the
fortifying oil was with which the athletes rubbed their bodies
before the struggle; and, not content with aiding him to overcome
himself, she knew also how to dry his tears by the blessed aid of
hope. For, at the same time that she showed him in all their
barrenness the painful paths of duty, she let him see at the end
of the journey, and as the price of his victory, that eternal
union of souls which time itself is powerless to break. I know
you to be prejudiced, my dear Frederick, on all that which
touches religious questions; but, at the same time, I know you to
be of too good faith not to acknowledge that there is truly
something superhuman in a doctrine which gives such victories;
neither shall I insist on the detail of the events which occurred
during the six months that Albert yet passed by the side of
Flaminia, for they would have no value in my recital. It would
not, perhaps, be without a certain interest to follow the
developments of that affection, so completely purified from all
earthly thoughts; but, as there are certain situations where a
look, a smile, takes the proportions of a veritable event, it
would be necessary for me to enter into the very slightest points
of its psychology. On learning the gravity of the wounds of his
brother, Adolph Shraun had come in all haste to the palace Balbo.
Antonia failed not to produce in his heart an impression as
profound, but more decisive, than that which Flaminia had already
aroused in his brother. As he knew that the project of an
alliance would be joyfully received in the two families, Antonia
was not long without knowing the sentiments which she had
enkindled. The frank, impetuous, and lively character of Adolph
had already predisposed her in his favor, so that she quickly
shared the same sentiments and hopes as himself. Joy renders us
much more disposed to confidence than does sorrow, and Antonia
did not fail to feel the need of confiding to some one both her
secret and her love. This need caused her to seek in Flaminia for
sympathy, and the reciprocal confidence which was due between
these two young hearts, so well formed to love and sustain each
other, was then established for ever. The _naïve_
confidences of her sister enlightened Flaminia on her own
sentiments, and carried into her soul the light that she had but
caught glimpses of before.
{79}
She then understood the nature of her destiny, and, like Albert,
she accepted it without a murmur. She took refuge in the
consoling thought that their union would be accomplished in those
celestial regions where only reign the eternal laws of love; and
thus placing her hopes upon a sure basis, she resigned herself to
her cross, prayed, and awaited God's will. I think that I have
quite sufficiently instructed you upon the state of these noble
hearts; so that I can arrive at that which is the object of my
story--namely, to tell you how it was that my great-grandfather,
Adolph, saw, one day, two souls." The Baron Frederick could not
here repress a deep sigh of satisfaction, and the count, who
noticed nothing, continued: "The hours, which their separation
was soon to render so long, passed away with a cruel rapidity;
the moment approached when Albert ought to leave Flaminia, that
he might report himself to the Grand-Master Coroner, who was then
preparing an expedition directed against Napoli of Roumania, and
the few days they had yet to pass together made them feel still
more strongly the happiness that they were about to lose.
Giovanni had announced his intention of following his friend, and
their approaching departure had cast a shade of sadness on that
household, lately so joyous that it had seemed a nest hidden from
the world, where alone happiness dwelt. One evening, when,
according to their usual custom, they were all grouped together
under the shadow of the vines, the conversation took a melancholy
form, and the fear that reigned in all their hearts expressed
itself by words: they were talking of death. 'Come, come,' said
the Prince Balbo, after a few minutes of discussion on the
subject, 'what is the use of these fears? When duty calls, we
must obey, not only by action, but in heart, and without regret.
Besides,' he added, 'the hour of our death is not in our own
choice; and none are protected from his stroke when God calls the
angel of death and says, "Strike!" I have, like you, my children,
incurred many perils in my life, and yet sixty winters have
whitened my head; and how many have I not seen of those whose
life was peaceable--of flourishing youth--sheltered from all
harm, who have been struck down before their time! Let us confide
in God, my children; let us resign ourselves beforehand to his
will, which is always just, always good--since he is eternally
just and good.'
"Flaminia, crushed by the grief of a separation that snatched
away from her for ever the half of her soul, had, until these
last words of her father, remained silent; but then, lifting her
head and leaning slightly toward Albert, said to him in a tone
that was audible only to him, 'Yes, happily, one dies at every
age.'
"Albert understood her thought.
"'Do you not, then, think on the grief of those who are left?'
answered he, in a voice of low reproach.
"'Oh!' replied she quickly, 'if I die first, I will come to seek
you.'
"Before that cry, uttered from the heart, before that affection
that felt itself sufficiently strong to vanquish the laws of
death, sufficiently holy that God should grant it a miracle,
silence could be the only answer; but a glance of Albert replaced
with all the eloquence of the heart the powerless word. On the
morrow of that evening, Albert left Flaminia. I will not paint to
you their affliction. It was immense. But a hope that is too ill
known in this, our century, sustained their courage and energy.
{80}
At the moment of an adieu so cruel to both, not a tear fell from
their eyes. That they did flow, and most abundantly and bitterly,
there is no doubt, since grief never loses its rights, and human
force, even the best sustained, has its bounds; but they flowed
in silence and in secret, and he who was their only witness
treasured them up. The days, the months, the seasons passed on;
three times the trees had lost their foliage and renewed their
leaves; three times had the alley of vines seen the winter's sun
pass unobstructed through their naked branches. All had changed
around them; their hearts alone changed not. The renown of Albert
grew each day, with his valor, more brilliant; but it was no
longer renown that he sought, it was a death that would have
opened before him that wide field where impatience dies away
before the eternity that then commences; death that he desired
because it would have brought him near to Flaminia; and death
would not listen to him. In vain did he fling himself into the
thickest of the danger; in vain did he accomplish prodigies that
had caused the bravest to turn pale; he passed through all these
without even a wound. Although he had but very rare occasion of
knowing what passed in that cherished spot where ever rested his
heart and thoughts, still he doubted not but that the tenderness
of Flaminia was as lively and as deep as his own; nor did he
deceive himself. Flaminia had refused under different pretexts
the offers that had been made to her; and notwithstanding all the
desire they felt to establish their daughter, I would dare to
affirm that it was not without a certain secret joy that the
Prince and Princess Balbo looked upon the prospect before them,
the hope of keeping her always by their side. Do not blame them
too quickly, my friend; for it is a painful thought that during
twenty years a child should have been the object of your
affection and of your solicitude; that she should have taken the
best and largest portion of your life and heart, in order that,
one day, a stranger, under the title of a new-born love, should
carry away from you all your joy; leaving you to see your
much-loved child place herself under another protection than
thine, and quit without regret the house where she leaves a blank
that nothing else can fill.
"I had almost forgotten to tell you that Antonia had married
Adolphus, and lived happy and peaceful in this same castle where
we now are finishing our career. Albert, tired of war, and freed
from all further illusions of glory, had come, after having
refused the highest distinctions of the order, to seek some
repose by his brother's side. Ambition was dead in him; his soul,
that had been so severely proved, had need of recollection and
calm; and he found this by the side of him whom, after Flaminia,
he loved the best in the world. Moreover, although he himself
scarcely ever spoke of her who filled all his thoughts, still he
felt a lively pleasure in hearing her spoken of so frequently by
his brother and his wife. Albert was then calm and composed; he
marched courageously forward in life as does the traveller who
climbs with difficulty the bare paths of a desolate and arid
mountain, sure to find in the evening the joys of the fireside
and the shelter of his friends' roof.
"Three years, day by day, had passed away since the moment when
Albert had quitted the palace Balbo. It was the evening; Adolphus
and Antonia were by his side, in this same saloon where we now
are.
{81}
Contrary to his custom, Albert, for whom that anniversary was a
day of mourning, felt his soul full of a penetrating and serene
joy, when ten o'clock sounded from that same clock that--"
Here the recital of the count was interrupted by the sound of the
clock which resounded in the vast apartment. One would have said
that it affirmed the words of the count, by repeating the ten
strokes which it had caused to be heard at the moment of which he
was speaking. That metallic sound seemed to have in it an unusual
power; there was something solemn in its grave slowness; in the
deep noise of the wheel drawn round by the falling lead, which
accompanied with its heavy base the more piercing sound that
traversed the thick oaken case. Both the count and his friends
were seized by an impression which they did not seek to dispel or
resist. Both instinctively uncovered their heads, and while the
count waited almost respectfully until its last vibrations were
lost in silence, the baron, more moved than perhaps he was
willing to show, placed on the table his pipe, yet fully charged
with tobacco, and, an event that certainly had not occurred with
him once in ten years, he left that inseparable companion of his
leisure hours, without touching the tankard that in vain offered
to his gaze its brown and golden tints.
"Ten o'clock had then sounded," continued the count, "and that
being the moment when each was accustomed to separate for their
bedrooms, Adolphus had got up and looked at his brother, who had
been for some time previous motionless and in an attitude of
profound attention, resembling a man who follows with his ear the
scarcely perceptible sounds of some distant harmony.
"All is finished,' murmured Albert at the moment when the clock
had finished striking; and, placing his hand on his brother's
arm, 'Remain here,' said he, and turning toward Antonia: 'Pardon
me, my sister, if I thus detain Adolphus; but I have need of him
to-night, and to-morrow it will be too late.'
"'You frighten me,' answered Antonia; 'what then is going to
happen?'
"'You will know very soon,' replied Albert. 'Poor sister! your
eyes will shed many a tear; but they will be dried by the thought
that the motive which causes them to flow assures for ever the
happiness of those who are dear to you.'
"He then kissed her forehead, and, followed by Adolphus, went to
his own room, the same which is now yours, dear Frederick.
"'What is the matter with you?' asked Adolphus of his brother, as
soon as they were alone.
"'I am sad and happy at the same time; sad because I am going to
leave you alone for a short time; but very happy because I go at
last to rejoin her, and for this time not again to leave her!'
"'Explain yourself; why do you leave us?'
"'Listen: for that you may understand what is going to happen
here this night, it is necessary that you should know what I have
felt and suffered during the past three years.'
"Albert then told him of all that which I have just described to
you; of his love for Flaminia, of his struggles, and of his
victory, over himself; and Adolphus, who already knew through his
wife of what Flaminia had suffered, saw with astonishment that
all which had been felt by the one had also been by the other, in
the same degree and at the same moment. Never had the most
profound sympathy established between two beings a more complete
identity of sensations and thoughts; near or separated, their two
existences had formed but a single life, as their two souls
seemed to form but a single soul. When Albert had finished his
recital, he added:
{82}
"'"If I die first, I shall come to seek you!" Flaminia had told
me, and now Flaminia has just died. Do not ask me how I know it,
for I am ignorant myself of the reason; but I do know it. I have
followed, moment by moment, the progress of her death; at the end
I have felt her die, and now I await her coming. In a few
instants more she will be here, and we shall depart together for
that blessed home where nothing can again oppose itself to our
eternal union. It seems to me that already I feel my soul
disengaging itself from its bonds; I no longer regard the
sufferings that I have endured, except with that sentiment of
thankfulness and joy which one feels at the recollection of
perils that have been overcome; my past sufferings have no longer
their sting, my tears no longer their bitterness! At the solemn
moment when I am about to quit a life that has been most painful
in its trials for the happy life of triumph, I have wished to
have you by my side, that I might say to you my last farewell in
this world, and press for a last time your hand before going to
await you in eternity.' I leave you to think, my dear Frederick,
what must have been the astonishment of Adolphus at receiving
this strange confidence.
"'I have too much confidence in the firmness of your reason,' he
answered to his brother after a short silence, 'to believe that
it has become weakened, were it only for a moment; but do you not
fear to have been the victim of some mental illusion, and to have
taken for a reality that which was in reality only the dream of
your heart exalted by sadness and solitude?'
"'I understand your incredulity,' answered Albert, 'for I have
myself shared in it. Each time that the recollection of that
promise presented itself to my memory, my reason revolted against
such an evident impossibility; the soul cannot again appear in
this world once that it has quitted it, thought I, and yet I
counted on the premise even while I disbelieved its possibility.
Only an hour ago, I yet doubted, but now that doubt has passed
away, since the moment when her dying voice sounded in my ears
uttering her last words: "You have waited for me; I am here!"
Then I understood that it was not merely the strong desire of a
soul overexcited by the desire to be reunited to the second half
of itself that I felt, but that it was really a mysterious
warning; and the accomplishment of a promise that God himself had
blessed, and that he permitted to be fulfilled.'
"'But how to explain this miracle?'
"'I am unable to explain it; I tell you what is about to happen,
that is all that I can do. In a few minutes Flaminia will be
present, and in seeing her you will believe me. For the rest,'
added he, after a moment's pause, 'all is a mystery in this
world, but the grand end of all is sufficient to enlighten our
paths. Do you think that it would be more easy for me to tell you
how it is that, notwithstanding we have never said anything to
each other that could divulge the mutual state of our hearts, we
have yet, in spite of our separation, lived by the same life and
the same love? That you cannot believe me, I know, but only wait
a little time, and you shall see.'
{83}
"In truth, Adolphus did not believe, although the evidently
profound conviction of Albert shook his mind and caused in him an
impression that he would gladly have shaken off, so contrary to
reason did it seem to him. 'Let us make haste, the time presses,'
said Albert. He then arranged in order, with rapidity and calm,
several important affairs with which he was charged, relating to
the principal commanderies of Germany; then, kneeling down, he
offered up a short prayer; scarcely had he finished, than, rising
up quickly, he seized the hand of his brother, and cried: 'Look!
she is come.' Adolphus turned round, and saw Flaminia standing by
the side of Albert. You who have lost some one who was dear to
you, Frederick, you have remarked that, at the moment when the
last sigh escapes and before the work of decay begins, the face
is possessed of a calm beauty, supernatural and indefinable in
its expression, that inspires an awed respect for that now
lifeless form which just a moment before contained a soul. Such
looked Flaminia; her figure, surrounded by a luminous atmosphere,
had received from immortality an august expression. It was
perfectly the form of Flaminia, such as Adolphus had known her,
but it was no longer the creature that is imperfect, and subject
to the attacks of time and life. It was the being imperishable
who, coming forth victorious from her many trials, bore in her
all the splendors of her glory. Her beauty was not that which
charms by the uniformity, more or less complete, of its
lineaments; no, it was the celestial beauty whose type is graven
in ourselves; the beauty a single ray of which suffices to
illuminate the face that hides a pure soul: this was the beauty
sublime that enveloped her with its divine wings, and
transfigured her face while changing its lineaments. Adolphus
bent his knee before the vision. 'Had I not told you that she
would come?' said Albert to his brother. 'Yes!' replied a
harmonious voice, which issued from the then incorruptible lips
of Flaminia. 'Yes! our love was too pure not to merit its
recompense. God has permitted it; you waited for me, and I am
come.' She bent slightly toward him to whom she at length was
about to be united, and, surrounding him with her arms, she drew
his face closer to her own, that gleamed with a celestial joy.
Behind them, and contemplating them, stood Death, not under the
form of fleshless skeleton, but as a radiant angel who changes
bitterness into joy, and tears into smiles. His beautiful face
bore the impress of grave majesty rather than of severity,
softened by that infinite mercy which gives hope to repentance.
The mercy and goodness of the Master who sends him shone in his
look, which is so sweet to the contemplation of the soul wearied
by the painful journey of life. The hour was come! At the moment
when Flaminia, in a manner, took possession of Albert, the angel
of Death drew near him, and while with one hand he touched his
shoulder, with the other he pointed toward heaven. Albert's body
fell back into the arm-chair, which, living, he had just
occupied; and when Adolphus, drawn forward by an instinctive
motion, ran to support him, he saw by the side of Flaminia the
form of his brother, that shone forth surrounded by the same
glory and the same joy. He passed the rest of the night by the
side of his brother's body, and wept, though not over him whom he
had just seen pass away to heaven. The man whom faith sustains
with its sweet consolation weeps not the loss of his friend, but
his absence.
{84}
He wept because every separation, even the shortest, is a grief,
and his tears were dried by the certainty that Albert was in the
possession of a happiness that could neither diminish nor fade,
and which he hoped one day to share with him."
The count here left off his story. The baron had listened to him
with a sustained attention, and although he preserved his
imperturbable calm, yet the recital had so much moved him, that
he remained silent; and the count, after waiting a few minutes,
continued: "Such is the history of my great-uncle Albert, as it
has been transmitted to us by him who was the witness. Do you
find it, then, surprising that the faith should be hereditary in
a family where such facts happen? What can you reply to this
history?"
"Nothing," answered the baron, "except that, to draw the
consolations which it contains, one must have the faith; and
besides, in supposing that God, if he exists, interferes with the
affairs of this world, he is unjust, since he refuses to me the
consolation that he gives to others."
"Have you ever asked him for it?" answered the count with a
friendly severity. "Have you not, on the contrary, repulsed by a
determined obstinacy the solicitations of divine Providence?
Pardon me, my friend, if I awaken a painful recollection for you,
but have you not even resisted the awful voice of Death?"
"What is the good of my asking?" replied the baron, eluding the
second part of his friend's demand. "If faith be necessary, God
owes it to me without asking him."
"Food is also necessary," answered the count, "and does man find
it ready for him, unless he works? No, no, my friend; labor and
prayer, such is the destiny of man upon the earth. His material
life is bought by the sweat of his brow, as his spiritual life is
the price of his efforts. 'Seek, and you shall find; knock, and
it shall be opened unto you,' has said the divine Master. Ah! if
you had ever knelt before that God whom you blaspheme; if you had
with perseverance exposed to him your doubts, your miseries, you
would have known that he never leaves without help the soul that
sincerely implores him; you would have known that he never hides
himself from him who seeks him with a humble and contrite spirit
and a pure heart. Pray, my dear Frederick, pray, I tell you, and
you will feel that he is near to you; that his arms are open to
receive you, and his hands ready to shed on you all the sweet
consolations and hopes with which they are filled!"
It was now late; the two friends then separated, and, without
doubt, the count that night in his prayers demanded with more
than usual fervor the conversion of the man he so warmly loved.
Ordinarily, on gaining his room, the baron was accustomed to
install himself as comfortably as possible in an immense old
leathern arm-chair, whose age dated back for two or three
centuries, which he placed in front of the wood fire that burnt
noisily on the hearth; and after having again lit his pipe, that
inseparable friend, he used to take a book, and, stretching out
his feet upon the copper fire-dogs, wait until he felt sleepy,
which invariably occurred as soon as there remained no more
tobacco in the sculptured wooden bowl of his pipe.
{85}
But on that night he cast around him many a curious look, and
examined with as great an attention, one after the other, the
several pieces of antique furniture with which his room was
furnished, as though it had been the first time that he had seen
them; then, in place of sitting down in that ancient arm-chair,
which he preferred to all the others on account of its large
dimensions, he placed it in front of him, and, sitting down on
the most modern of his chairs, he regarded with a questioning
curiosity and certain respect that mute witness of an adventure,
the mere recital of which had caused so great a trouble in his
mind; seeming to ask of it a solution to his doubts and fears.
After a long and silent contemplation, he let fall his forehead
on his hands, and, plunging his fingers among his hair, whitened
rather by sorrow than by age, began to meditate profoundly. The
agitation of his mind was so great, and the flow of his thoughts
so rapid, that, without knowing it, he began to think aloud. "If
what he said were true, if there were something within us that
outlived our bodies, I could see thee again, my dearest and
best-beloved Gertrude; and I could again find the joys of our too
short union, and this time for always, unchanging and eternal!
And ought I to repulse that thought through the childish fear of
abandoning myself to a false hope? Of these two ideas were it not
better to follow that which gives us consolation and causes us to
live, rather than that which thickens around us the already too
profound shades of life, and changes our grief into despair? What
consolation have I ever found in the reason of which I am so
proud? None! If pride has withheld my tears before men, yet since
twenty years they have flowed on in silence without their source
being yet dry. If I have blushed to let my weakness be seen by
men, have I not felt it a thousand times within me, implacable,
and terrible, before my vain revolts against a destiny that broke
my heart and that I was forced to submit to? When beside her
death-bed I felt but a sterile despair, when my will, my love,
were powerless to retain for a single moment the last sigh of
that life that I would have been willing to prolong at the
expense of my own days, what have I been able to do? Nothing! not
even to die! Since twenty years I implore the oblivion which
flies before me! Since twenty years, I recoil before the thought
to precipitate myself therein! Is it fear that hinders me? No! I
have faced the peril when my duty demanded it, and I would do it
again: I have too often seen Death to fear him. The reason is
that a secret voice speaks within me higher than all the sophisms
of my grief, and tells me that I have not the right to destroy
the life which I did not give myself. Yet if there is nothing
beyond the tomb, why should I fear it, and what have I to dread
from oblivion? Have I not the most absolute right on myself,
since all ends but in a dreamless sleep? Is it really a sleep?
Ah! there is the truth, both for me and for all others; it is
that in secret I doubt as often of that oblivion that I so loudly
affirm, as I do whether that God does not exist whose existence I
so deny. Yet again, if God is but an imaginary being, and if
immortality is but a dream, what does one risk to have thought
the contrary? One would have lived fortified against the ills and
crosses of this life by a thought that sweetens, even the terrors
of death. One would not even feel the loss of that hope, since
the hour of our disenchantment would be the one which should
plunge us into the deep repose of oblivion! The lie, then, would
have done that which the truth could not do; it would have given
us happiness. If, on the contrary, immortality is not a vain
chimera, but a reality, is it not a terrible responsibility to
have shut one's heart to its evidence and to have misunderstood
the sublime Author of all things?
{86}
Yes! in truth terrible; for in that momentous question, doubt is
not to be permitted. On all human questions indifference follows
uncertainty, but here indifference is itself a fault--one must
deny or believe. But how am I to believe? When from earliest
childhood you have had your aspirations broken or wounded under
the repeated blows of contempt, and when you have been taught but
to laugh at in others that faith whose absence you shall one day
so bitterly deplore, how then to believe? Pray, he told me. Pray!
Can I pray? Oh! happy are they who, arrived like me at that sad
epoch in life when one drags painfully along the burden of one's
worn-out days, have not to curse those who held them away from
that source of strength and consolation! Yes, they are happy whom
a pious mother taught from their cradle to bend the knees and
join the hands in prayer! Gertrude also, she too prayed; and many
a time have I felt myself touched in seeing her bend her head
before the God of whom she asked for me the light of the faith.
How many times have I not felt the desire to share her belief,
and to kneel down like her and say: 'My dear Gertrude, there
exists no place on this earth where we ought to be separated;
there is not a thought, a belief, an affection, that ought not to
be shared by us. Whatever may be the destiny that awaits us after
the destruction of our being, whether it be oblivion or
immortality, I wish to share it with you. Let your convictions be
mine also, even as your life is mine. After having given me
happiness in this world, show me the road that leads to that
eternity I wish to believe in because you believe; make me to
know that God whom I wish to love because you love him!' But
alas! held by a false shame, I resisted that voice which spoke in
the depth of my heart, and which, perhaps, was the voice of God:
for is it not possible that such feelings as these are those by
which Providence calls us to the truth? And I, how have I
responded to that voice? Why, by rallying her on her belief. I
caused her tears to flow, the only ones most certainly, but today
they fall heavily upon my heart. And now friendship speaks to me
this day the very same language that did of old her love. Shall I
yet remain deaf? Ought I to cede to or resist the voice which now
speaks to me? O Albert! you on whom was accomplished, in the room
where I am, and in that arm-chair that I now look on, so
incomprehensible a mystery, cannot you come in aid of the most
faithful friend that your family ever had!" And the excellent
baron, letting himself be carried away by his emotion, found
himself, without knowing how, on his knees before that chair in
whose arms Albert had died; and the head covered by his hands,
and the heart filled with the thirst for truth, he prayed: "O my
God!" prayed he, "if it is true that you are not a vain creation
of the weakness or of the pride of man; if it is true that you
continue to watch with solicitude over the creature who has
issued from your hands, you will not see without pity the heart
full of trouble that I lift up toward you. Led astray by the
habits begun in childhood, I have perhaps followed error thinking
to follow the truth; but I have done it in all sincerity and
through love of the truth. If I am deceived, O God! enlighten my
trembling soul, dissipate the doubt which is crushing me, and
draw toward you the soul that seeks you and desires you! And you,
Gertrude, dear companion too soon lost to me, if you see my
regrets that time cannot extinguish; and the tears that your
memory costs me, ask of your God that he make himself known to
me; ask him that I may adore him as you adored him, and, above
all, ask him that I may again be united to you."
{87}
His voice died away then, and yet his prayer continued. His soul,
overexcited with the emotions of that night, poured itself out
before God without following any line of thought. It was an
immense lifting up of his whole being toward the truth--an ardent
thirst for hope; it was the twenty years of a mute despair that
resumed itself into a supreme cry; it was the heart, so pure and
so good, of that worthy man, that opened itself completely and
mounted full of desires and tears, carrying with it the most
fervent prayer that had ever reached the immovable throne of the
Eternal. At last the baron arose, but in place of at once laying
himself down to sleep on the bed, whose soft pillows vainly
invited him to repose, he retook his former position and began to
reflect. The thoughts pressed so tumultuously in his brain,
ordinarily so calm, and succeeded each other with so great a
rapidity, that he could but vaguely seize them. His eyes, fixed
upon the light flame that yet burned on the hearth, saw not that
they expired one by one. The last played yet some time on the log
covered with white ashes, disappearing for a moment to again
reappear in another spot; at length it died out. The lamp burned
with a reddened glare through its lack of oil, and yet the baron
did not move. How long he had rested in that state of semi-sleep
is what he never knew himself, when to the dying gleam of the
lamp succeeded so brilliant a light that the baron always
maintained that one so intense had never before shone on mortal
eyes; at the same time brilliant and soft, it penetrated all
objects without causing them to cast any shadow, and, as it were,
drowned them in a sea of light. The baron lifted up his head at
this unexpected brilliancy; he wished to speak, and his voice
expired on his opened lips; but he distinctly heard these words:
"Frederick, the prayers of your beloved Gertrude have been at
length heard; the straight-forwardness and simplicity of your
heart have found grace before the throne of the Eternal Master;
he smiles on those who imitate him. He loves those who, like him,
bear their cross with courage, and drink without feebleness the
chalice of bitterness that is offered to all, without exception,
in this life of probation. If it has been that, until now, you
have rested deaf to the warnings that divine Providence sent you,
at least you have listened with docility to that which was
contained in the recital of your friend, and it was not without a
reason that he was inspired to tell the true legend of the loves
of Flaminia and Albert to you this night. The faith that
strengthens the soul in the midst of the calamities of life
descended into your heart and penetrated it with its salutary
ardors at the moment when, breaking your pride before your will,
you have knelt down before the Lord and asked of him the light;
you could not remain always out of the truth; you, the devoted
friend, the faithful husband; you whose entire life has been but
a long research for the rarest virtues, and who feel, beating in
your breast as noble and loving a heart as ever animated a human
form." Here the brilliant light faded slowly away. The lamp was
extinguished, and the blackened, logs gave forth no glimmer of
light.
{88}
The baron gained, by feeling his way, his bed, and laid himself
on it, feeling himself full of an unknown joy, understanding the
duties of a Christian, and resolved to perform them. He fell
asleep in thinking of that happy day when should be restored to
him that wife whom he had never ceased to love. The next morning,
when he descended to the saloon where all the family were united,
he embraced his friend's wife, and kissed, one after another, her
children and grandchildren, who were all there that day at the
castle; and all this with a demonstration of joy so contrary to
his usual phlegmatic manner that it for the moment gave cause to
fear for his reason; and then, approaching the count, who
regarded him with stupefaction, he embraced him vigorously, and
said to him, while wiping his eyes, humid with tears of joy: "Ah!
you are right, my dear friend; I shall see again my Gertrude!"
----------
Talleyrand,
by Lytton Bulwer.[Footnote 18]
[Footnote 18: _Historical Characters. By Sir Henry Lytton
Bulwer, G.C.B. Two vols., 8vo. Richard Bentley, New
Burlington street, London_. 1868.]
Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer has presented the public with sketches of
some eminent men, and has done his work well. It is not a series
of biographies, but rather a finished outline of their prominent
characteristics and of their achievements. In advance of the
memoirs of Talleyrand, written by himself, and now in course of
publication, this illustrious Frenchman is placed among the
number, and in a new light. He is no longer the inscrutable being
he appeared to his contemporaries, and as he has appeared since
to their children. His name has been intimately associated with
the great men and events of the last years of the unfortunate
reign of Louis XVI. of France, near the close of the last
century. Still more prominently is the memory of him associated
with the convocation of the States-General and the National
Assembly. By accident, he had the good fortune to be free from
the odium attached to the Legislative Assembly and the atrocities
of the National Convention, with the attendant horrors of the
Committee of Public Safety in the Reign of Terror.
He fled from France in all haste as an _émigré_, and yet was
lucky to avoid being classed with the aristocrats and so-called
enemies of his country. He was prominent in the Revolution,
without the stain of a regicide; he was a fugitive with the loyal
crowd, without being stigmatized as a royalist. No amount of
human foresight could have served him as a safe guide to shun the
dangers which beset his fame and security on either side. His
success was altogether fortuitous; but his friends attribute all
to his superior sagacity and wisdom, while his enemies ascribe it
to his remarkable cunning and prudence. When the days of danger
and of blood passed by, Talleyrand returned to Paris with
_prestige_, and was immediately employed by the Directory.
When that went down, he floated to the surface with Bonaparte in
the consulate and empire. Upon the fall of the empire, with the
entrance of the allied armies into the capital he was their
trusted counsellor.
{89}
The restoration of the Bourbons was at once accompanied with the
restoration of Talleyrand to the foreign office and to the head
of affairs. When the Bourbons were expelled, in 1830, he was
again reinstated by Louis Philippe, under whose reign he died in
1838, with that sovereign an attendant at his death-bed.
In truth, the same good fortune set in his favor when he was a
boy: but it came in the guise of a calamity. Neglect on the part
of a nurse resulted in a slight lameness for life in his legs,
and in consequence a family council was convened wherein it was
decided he should be deprived of his rights of primogeniture, of
his high station as a nobleman, and of the wealth which went with
them. His younger brother was substituted, while Talleyrand was
destined for the priesthood. But such is the waywardness of fate
that in a few years nobility was abolished, its privileges
destroyed, and the nobles themselves were in exile, with his
impoverished brother among the number. On the other hand,
Talleyrand entered the church; he became a bishop, and in turn he
deserted the church and his diocese when the road to greater
worldly success and distinction led through desertion. He was
excommunicated by the pope when papal censure and condemnation
could only, for the time being, add to his popularity.
Subsequently these were removed by the pontiff, when a brief to
that end, with the turning tide of events, was all that was
wanting to increase his _prestige_.
To what peculiar talent, quality, or skill he was indebted for
his happy career has always been an open question; nor is it yet
completely solved. Sir Henry does not undertake to discuss the
problem, although he must entertain an opinion on the subject.
But it is much better that he declined to propound any theory of
his own; for in doing so the readers of his book would have
misgivings that he tampered with some facts, or suppressed others
altogether, in order to maintain it. His work in its present
shape invites confidence, imports greater accuracy, and imparts
additional satisfaction. No one can distrust his historical
integrity, or doubt the extent of his inquiries and research in
an honest endeavor to enlighten the public, or fail to appreciate
the information obtained. It is a decided accession to
biographical literature.
Nor are the opinions of the author, interspersed through the
pages, the least interesting part of his performance; for these
opinions on the mighty men and events of the period to which he
refers may be taken as a reflex of the sentiments now current in
the continental diplomatic corps, of which Sir Henry is an old
and constant member of high standing. In his expositions, it is
entertaining to compare the slow, lagging judgment of Europe on
those times with American impressions, which are far more
correct, enlightened, and advanced. The great idol which the
foreign diplomatic community adores is success: Paris is its
peculiar shrine; and Parisian society are fellow-worshippers.
But, until success is attained and established, their fetich
image is only one in the rough, to be hewed and hacked as cheap
lumber. Napoleon and Talleyrand, during the long wars of the
consulate and empire, were not deemed by neighboring states as
much better than misshapen monsters of the human species: while
the brilliancy of their achievements was dazzling the sight,
bewildering the imagination, and extorting applause or admiration
on this side of the Atlantic.
{90}
When the sanguinary contest closed in Europe, the exhibition of
its continuous blaze of glory had lost much of its novelty in
America; the ardor of our people commenced to cool down; they
began to make a more dispassionate, and, consequently, a more
rational estimate of their late heroes. This examination in some
of its aspects was not favorable to the character of the
republicans and of Napoleon. His genius, indeed, could not be
denied; his deeds were marvellous; the splendor of his course had
never been surpassed in ancient or modern ages; his individual or
personal popularity was not in the least impaired. But on the
whole, had his life been a blessing or otherwise to mankind? Had
it been beneficial or injurious to progress? Had he or the
preceding government of the Convention in the Reign of Terror
promoted the welfare of France? Reluctantly but surely the
American mind came to the conviction that the wars of the emperor
had been as useless as they were prodigal of life, more
desolating than the bloody guillotine worked by Robespierre. That
decision will not soon be reversed; in all probability it will be
confirmed and strengthened by time. On the eastern continent,
however, this stage of enlightenment has not been reached by the
mass of the intelligent population; but they are coming up to it.
Napoleon as the scourge had there to be withdrawn, before he
could reappear transformed into a hero, and from a hero into a
great beneficent political being. His wars were there pronounced
productive of good, as a destructive fire that had consumed the
vermin of class abuses; that had extirpated the noxious weeds
strangling civilization, which could not be eradicated by
peaceful means; that the Reign of Terror had been a terrible
tempest, to be sure, but a tempest, nevertheless, which, in the
oratorical figure of Lord Erskine, had driven away pestilence and
purified the atmosphere. At this point European sentiment now
stands.
In republican America, the next stride will be still in the
advance to the further conclusion, that Napoleon, in his martial
policy, evinced only the cold-blooded, inordinately selfish
despot, whose love of country was centred in self-love, whose
patriotism for the State was unbounded when he was the State, for
which he would sacrifice as much as Louis XIV. in a dazzling
reign equally disastrous to the happiness of his subjects. But in
Europe, to condemn the warlike propensities of Napoleon, is at
the same time to condemn the hostile coalitions that promoted or
provoked them. The measures adopted by inimical and rival powers
to overthrow the French empire originated in passions and for a
purpose fully as absurd and damaging to their own people. Both
sides wanted war, without counting the cost, and now both are
counting the loss, when war is no longer wanted. The losing
figures present the longest columns to contemplative countenances
the most elongated. In this showing, the picture is not inviting
to monarchical perceptions; they are unwilling to acknowledge the
fidelity of the portrait. England was always first in heart and
soul in these conspiracies against the peace of Christendom, and
England ever since has felt also, both first and last, the evil
effects from the heaviest debts to be borne in consequence. Hence
the dispiriting consciousness in the best of British circles,
that France under Robespierre and Napoleon was matched in its
foolishness by England under Pitt and Castlereagh.
{91}
Something like even-handed retributive justice was meted out to
all four: Robespierre attempted self-destruction when the
executioner at the guillotine awaited him; Castlereagh cut his
own throat; Pitt pined away and died as he closed the map of
Europe with his finger pointing to the fatal field of Austerlitz;
Napoleon lingered out a miserable life on a barren rock. The
administrations of these men are now understood in the American
republic, and have received the American condemnation. Talleyrand
was an inferior personage to them in power, but only one degree
less; he was the greatest in importance, and in position of the
second grade. He is not so well comprehended. They did not know,
until now, he had said to Montalvert:
"You have a prejudice against me, because your father was an
imperialist, and you think I deserted the emperor. I have never
kept fealty to any one longer than he has been obedient to
common sense. But if you judge all my actions by this rule, you
will find that I have been eminently consistent." (P. 408.)
The cause of his success was generally found in his strict
adherence to the maxim that
"The thoughts of the greatest number of intelligent persons in
any time or country are sure, with a few more or less
fluctuations, to become in the end the public opinion of their
age or community." (P. 442.)
He profited by this experience and knowledge; he understood men;
he consulted public opinion, and followed it.
For these revelations and for these reasons, every line in the
volume of Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer attracts attention and invites
scrutiny. Sir Henry's style, turn of thought, opinions, even his
words, must be weighed and studied, not only to gather the import
of their meaning, but the exact shade of meaning. In this
critical examination, it will be discovered Sir Henry adheres to
no fixed method or standard of composition. Sometimes he is easy,
smooth, and flowing as Joseph Addison; again he is terse as Dean
Swift; sometimes he is turgid and rambling as a plenipotentiary
who has particular instructions to communicate nothing in very
verbose sentences long drawn out, wherein he is neither choice in
his language nor correct in the common rules of grammar. Now,
diplomacy admits of all these varieties of writing, and Sir Henry
tries them all. No pent-up uniformity contracts the powers of his
rhetoric or vocabulary. In one paragraph he exercises the
precision of an algebraic formula; in another he wanders astray
in the collocation of phrases with unguarded looseness. For him
to write in his vernacular idiom must be something of an effort,
although he can write well when on his good behavior; but it is
evident he thinks in French. His ideas, thoughts, and some of his
opinions and principles have consequently a Gallic tinge, and
read like a translation; while others, if more cosmopolitan, are
limited to the tone pervading the diplomatic circle; and
diplomatists have among themselves a professional cant or set of
political dogmas, which in a class less polished and select would
be mistaken for a species of slang.
It is interesting and instructive to be made familiar with their
proverbial philosophy, but it does not follow the infallibility
of their proverbs must be recognized. Many of Sir Henry's
opinions, therefore, may meet with dissent on this side of the
water; much of his free and easy continental code he himself
would abhor if made applicable to British interests, British
politics, or British domestic ethics. In the cultivated opinion
of the United States, the continental standard of justifiable
policy is even more detestable, and ought to be in all climes and
countries, in every latitude and longitude on the face of the
earth.
{92}
Charles Maurice Talleyrand de Périgord was born in 1754, of one
of the most noble and ancient families in France. He was sent to
the Collége d'Harcout, where he gained the first prizes;
transferred to the Seminary of St. Sulpice, his talents for
disputation and composition were long remembered; and when, at
last, sent to the Sorbonne, he was equally remarkable, although
destined for the church, as a very clever and a very profligate
young gentleman. He made no secret of his dislike to the
profession chosen for him, but it was not doubted among those who
knew him that he would reach its highest honors. In 1773, he
entered the Gallican priesthood. When twenty years of age, his
countenance was peculiarly attractive. It was indicative of
softness, yet of boldness; of imperturbability, yet of humor and
wit. When somewhat older, his features wore a long, oval
appearance; his eyes were blue, deep, and variable; his lips
usually compressed with an ironical smile, but not of ill nature;
his nose, with clear-chiselled nostril, was delicate and slightly
turned up; his voice deep toned, almost sepulchral. In five years
he was chosen to the distinguished post of agent-general of the
French clergy, where he administered with great success the
ecclesiastical revenues of immense amount, and where he first
exhibited his financial abilities in the clearness and neatness
of his statements and reports. He became Bishop of Autun in 1789.
"'He dressed,' says one of his many biographers, 'like a
coxcomb, he thought like a deist, he preached like a saint. At
once active and irregular, he found time for everything: the
church, the court, the opera. In bed one day from indolence or
debauch, up the whole of the following night to prepare a
memoir or a speech. Gentle with the humble, haughty with the
high; not very exact in paying his debts, but very scrupulous
with respect to giving and breaking promises to pay them.'" (P.
31.)
Early in life introduced into the salons of Paris, he readily
caught their spirit, and soon obtained the friendship of the
leading encyclopaedists and philosophers of scientific and
historical fame; he was on intimate terms with many well known in
letters and in the arts. The celebrated wits of both sexes, the
beauties, the belles, courted his society; the charm of their
brilliant conversation, their versatile accomplishments, and
their winning manners were fascinating and irresistible. These
divinities imagined they moved and had their being in a
sublimated atmosphere far above and beyond the aspiration of
common mortals; their sentiments breathed of perfect
philanthropy, expressed in terms and in tenderness befitting
persons divinely inspired. Every allurement that could inspire
the imagination, every blandishment entrancing the senses, every
grace, talent, every ornament which could enhance the form or
ennoble the intellect, was cultivated and appreciated. Luxury in
dress, in gems, in furniture, in equipage, in banquets, in music,
in flowers, in painting, in frescoes, in sculpture, was displayed
with excess of prodigality which vied with the purest taste. An
ambrosial flavor of expression abounded in a common salutation; a
delicate oriental perfume seemed to permeate every compliment,
nor was any remark deemed appropriate unless it contained a
compliment; eloquence was discarded because it was tinctured with
too much external exhibition of feeling; it, moreover, took up
too much precious time.
{93}
But a higher art was attained in its stead--the art of
epigrammatical brevity, to communicate in a half-line what an
oration could not teach in a half-hour; nor was an epigram deemed
perfect when its wit was rare and its sense profound, unless it
tended to a sneer at religion or goodness in mankind, or told a
scandalous lie.
The pervading object, the avowed purpose in this society, was to
seek pleasure, to declaim against abuses in institutions, moral,
political, and Christian, in the public at large, in domestic
habits and manners, in the state, and in the church. But these
refined creatures were not good, nor moral, nor pure, nor
Christians themselves; they made no pretensions to any of these
virtues; they were not proselyting reformers; they were in no
sense radicals; they made no active exertions to pull down,
neither did they aim to build up, nor to improve the world, but
were content to deplore human evils and to rail at everybody. If
a choice had been given to them to abolish institutions, or only
to remove their abuses incident to all things of human creation,
they would have preferred to abolish the institutions, provided
the abuses were permitted to remain intact. But as they could not
be rid of the beneficial advantages of the substance without the
banishment of the evil shadow, they were content to tolerate the
nuisance of what was a blessing to the nation, in order to
possess for themselves the parts pernicious which were of sinful,
comfortable consideration in their sight. They supposed their
mission fulfilled when they talked and did nothing. If one of the
coterie had turned patriot and aspired to usefulness, he would
have been deemed a harmless traitor, and commiserated for the
folly of his desertion. His efforts would have subjected him to
their lamenting sympathy, their smiling mockery, their laconic
brevities, which, although seemingly soothing, would be as
scorching as they were short. Because he had accomplished
something commendable or attempted its accomplishment, they would
decide he had fallen from grace, had rendered himself liable to
their biting condolence, and laid himself open to the piercing
shafts of their pity. Voltaire, still lingering in his senility
as head and chief priest of this highly refined and deeply
depraved community, had sent forth a parting rescript to the
faithful in their infidelity, that "one who has done nothing is
possessed of a terrible advantage; but he must not abuse it."
Talleyrand, at the age of thirty-six, was fast rising to great
prominence, if not pre-eminence in this unholy set. When Voltaire
should be called to his last account in another world, and his
mortal remains repose in the Père-la-Chaise or Parthenon, it was
generally supposed the young Bishop of Autun would by common
consent be raised to the place of the old philosopher of Ferney.
But had it been thus, had the reign of the Bourbons been
prolonged, Talleyrand would have betrayed and mocked the
irreligious of the Palais Royal and St. Germain, as he bartered
away the pious interests of his diocese. In some respects he
resembled Voltaire, but in many more they widely differed. In
general he was in mind unlike to him, as he was in morals
dissimilar to the late bishop. Voltaire was always in search of
flattery; Talleyrand despised it. Voltaire was pleased with petty
scheming and petty intrigues; Talleyrand pushed them aside.
Voltaire betrayed and lampooned his friends; Talleyrand did not
deceive his, nor slander. Voltaire was much feared for his
malicious sarcasm; Talleyrand was well liked for his bounteous
humor.
{94}
The one was a judge of books, as the other was a judge of men;
the one was always grumbling from his failures, the other always
content with his success; the one injecting a telling point into
a falsehood, the other imparting force to a truth. Both were
great in epigrammatic hits in their own way; with this
difference, however, that Voltaire, being soured with the world,
exposed his asperity in his jests; while Talleyrand, pleased with
it, concealed all vexation and rounded his remarks with an easy
smile. Voltaire was a spoiled child of society; society was a
plaything for Talleyrand. In a word, the graceless bishop,
intellectually, morally, socially, was the superior, and far
outshone the snarling philosopher. Voltaire could never, in
playing long whist and counting his points, if informed that an
old lady had married her footman, have drawled out, "At nine
honors don't count;" nor could he in pleasantry have said to
Frederick of Prussia what Talleyrand remarked to Louis XVIII.:
"There is something inexplicable about me which brings ill luck
on the government that neglects me."
Before the death of Voltaire, the young Bishop of Autun had
discovered, with his preternatural clearness of mental vision,
that the scoffers who were the embodiment of science,
philanthropy, and refinement, joined to profligate professors and
shameless women, formed an institution, with its abominations
also, like all others; just as the holy church had its sacred
virtues scandalized by some glaring abuses among a portion of the
clergy. The bishop must have felt that he constituted in himself
a type of what was good and of what was bad in each: he ardently
loved science, art, and whatever was refining and progressive, as
he conscientiously revered the revealed truths of the Catholic
faith. But he could not resist the enticements and adulations of
society; nor refuse the temptation to raise himself to political
power by laying sacrilegious hands on the property of the church.
Not for one moment, however, was he deceived by the sophistries
or jargon of the infidel school that reigned supreme in polite
circles, and only once was his sound judgment found wanting in
fidelity to his religious order, of which he was a most unworthy
representative. He confounded the abuses in the state, the
depravity of the aristocracy, the irregularities among the
clergy, as one common class of grievances to the nation which
ought to be ended; but he did not desire to witness the sovereign
beheaded, the mob supreme, nor the idol of Reason enthroned in
the house of God.
His aim in life seems to have been the possession of unrivalled
_prestige_ in Parisian society. To reach that pinnacle for
his ease, comfort, and earthly happiness, he did or was willing
to do whatever would promote his purpose: he left undone whatever
would militate against it. He understood the requisites for its
attainment, but would not sacrifice present tranquillity, the
absolute satisfaction now, for the shadowy anticipation in the
future. Intellectual exertion was a pleasure to him at all times.
He desired wealth, rank, power, fame, as passports into the magic
circle of his ambition; but he held himself on a level with the
great, while he treated the unfortunate, the weak, the
unsuccessful, with undiminished attention. He was keenly
sensitive to censure, for censure impaired his _prestige_.
{95}
Pozzo de Borgo, a celebrated and rival diplomatist, once said of
him: "This man has made himself great by placing himself always
by the side of the little and among those who most need him." In
truth, he was willing to aid any one, powerful or weak, who could
now or hereafter aid him. But he never deceived those whom he was
serving, nor cringed, nor intrigued, nor betrayed them; he was
always true to his country, and always sound in his judgment in
deciding by what line of conduct the interests of his country
could be best promoted.
In one instance only did he make a mistake, but that mistake was
terrible; it was, moreover, unfortunate for France as for
himself; it produced the only bad luck that befell him in his
very long life and invariably prosperous career. It was in not
discriminating between the clergy, as trustees of the church
property, and the property itself entrusted to their keeping. He
viewed the temporalities as absolutely their own, their
inheritance, instead of perceiving that these possessions were
only a charge delivered to them for safe keeping and
transmission, which could not descend to their heirs but must go
to their successors. He confounded their duties as administrators
of the estate with the rights of the persons for whom the estate
was formed. If the clergy were willing, therefore, to take a
bribe to betray their trust, Talleyrand supposed the nefarious
bargain amounted to a fair and honest purchase of the trust
property. The estate was not created for them, but they were
created for the estate.
A few months after Talleyrand was installed Bishop of Autun, he
was elected a representative to the States-General. Of his
peculiar fitness for the place, Sir Henry Bulwer brings forward
some striking and convincing testimony.
When the States-General met, they formed themselves into the
National Assembly; they resolved to legislate in one and the same
hall, the nobles and the clergy, mixed with the commonalty, and
all three merged into one body. The Three Estates were no more;
it was only the Third Estate that remained. The impending danger
from immediate bankruptcy of the nation being the vital as it was
the first subject for discussion, the high reputation possessed
by the Bishop of Autun for financial abilities and practical
skill easily gained for him the first place as a man of business,
as the first rank in social position was already accorded to him.
He spoke well, sensibly, to the point. Mirabeau was the greater
orator, it is true, but Mirabeau was the orator for the commons;
Talleyrand was no orator at all; he was a fluent speaker, never
indulging in meretricious or ornamental embellishments, never
appealing to the vulgar passions: he was the pride and glory, the
great favorite of the nobles and clergy. His sphere had been more
select, more exalted, more refined, where the declamation,
passionate appeals, rounded periods, startling antitheses of
Mirabeau would have been deemed low and voted down. Mirabeau was
unable to shine in the Parisian salons frequented by the choice
aristocracy, while Talleyrand despised making a figure of himself
for the applause of the _bourgeoisie_ of the Third Estate.
But what the Third Estate was wanting in elegance of manners, in
wit and cultivation, they supplied in the strength of their
numbers, and in the corresponding determination to absorb all
political power. It was evident the nobles and the clergy would
be compelled to succumb. At last they gave way, and not only
yielded up whatever political rights or immunities were their
own, but whatever also was confided by others to their keeping.
To quote from Sir Henry:
{96}
"On the 4th of August ... almost all the institutions and
peculiarities which constituted the framework of government and
society throughout France were unhesitatingly swept away, at
the instigation and demand of the first magistrates and nobles
of the land, who did not sufficiently consider that they who
destroy at once all existing laws (whatever those laws may be)
destroy, at the same time, all established habits of thought;
that is, all customs of obedience, all spontaneous feelings of
respect and affection, without which a form of government is
merely an idea on paper. In after times, M. de Talleyrand, when
speaking of this period, said, in one of his characteristic
phrases: '_La Révolution a désossé la France_,' 'The
Revolution has disboned France.' ... The Bishop of Autun was
undoubtedly among the foremost in destroying the traditions
which constitute a community, and proclaiming the theories
which captivate a mob." (P. 55.)
This extract is a fair specimen of the false statement of facts,
and of the fallacious reasoning in the diplomatic body, on
popular events. It is as destitute of truth as it is of logic, or
a correct understanding of the principles upon which civil
government is constituted. In all that was done so far, only
antiquated, effete, feudal, or petty provincial privileges were
surrendered; privileges which properly belonged to the state for
the benefit of the nation whenever the state might deem it proper
to demand them or to destroy them; for, long before, they ought
to have been abolished. The aristocracy now chose voluntarily to
relinquish them gracefully. They removed thereby great grievances
from the public, and many intolerable burdens from the peasants.
The laws which were repealed at the same time were only customs
or statutes which had protected the privileges given up, and
became obsolete when nothing was left for them to protect.
Instead of dissolving society, the relinquishment of petty
political rights was the removal of pernicious, detestable
rubbish. All laws were not abrogated; nor was one destroyed,
altered, or amended which protected the person or preserved
property.
The next step of progress in the right direction was a vigorous
effort to induce the king to be equally generous and patriotic in
relinquishing some of his odious antiquated prerogatives. But
Louis XVI. was unwilling to conform to the public wishes; he
refused, because compliance would trench upon the sovereignty
which he had received untouched from his royal ancestors, and
which he resolved to transmit untarnished to his posterity. But
when the pressure for a written constitution began to threaten
his personal safety, he yielded with a mental reservation that he
had given way to superior force; he conscientiously, but
erroneously and fatally, believed his consent was not binding on
him or his heirs. The representatives of the nation now
maintained, that ministers having the national confidence should
be called into the royal cabinet. To this reasonable request, the
king refused his consent; but he temporized by reluctantly giving
audience to Mirabeau, Talleyrand, and some others of the liberal
party, leaving them under the mistaken impression that he would
listen to their advice. But the king did not adopt their
counsels; he did not intend that any of them should become his
counsellors.
Louis granted them a hearing in order to conceal his intentions.
It was only a blind to cover his purpose, which was to resume, at
the first opportunity, what he had relinquished, and to send
Mirabeau and Talleyrand, with their friends the
_sans-culottes_, adrift.
{97}
These liberals were consequently deceived; in truth, they aided
in their own deception; they could not imagine the king would
prove a traitor to his own interests. The king, however, was only
playing over again the losing game practised by Charles I., and
by his son, James II., of England. The stake in both countries
was the same: it was, whether sovereignty should repose in the
crown, as in ancient times, or in the people, in accordance with
modern ideas. The prize cannot be divided, as some supposed; it
can never be divided; in its very nature it is indivisible; it
would be as impossible as to place one crown on two separate
heads at the same time. Sir Henry Bulwer, as a true Briton,
thinks, no doubt, the Stuart sovereigns were perjured knaves,
because they deceived the House of Commons, and broke solemn
promises made to their ministers; but he views the Bourbon king
as foolish only in doing the same things, and pursuing the same
line of policy. Now, in verity, the moral code applies alike to
both dynasties, in both countries, in both centuries. Whatever
royal promise is made should be royally and religiously
fulfilled; but its violation does not justify a resort to the
block at Whitehall or to the guillotine at the Carrousel. The
execution of a monarch for defending his prerogatives by fair
means or false promises, is no less a crime against civilization
than it is a political error. No good can come of it; no good
ever has.
But the duplicity and falsehood of Louis, in its incidents,
brought on the first blow against property; and with the attack
on property, all the crimes and calamities, all the misery,
poverty, and long list of woes of the Revolution commenced. Then
society began to disintegrate; then France began to disbone; it
never ended until morality, Christianity, civilization, were
crushed to a jelly. Talleyrand was the leader in this raid, and
on his head rests the responsibility. He was the great oracle on
financial topics in the National Assembly; he was the member
looked up to for the solution of the financial problem to save
the nation from ruin; he had accepted the position almost thrust
upon him; and his reputation was at stake in surmounting the
crisis. With success he could compel the king to invite him into
the ministry. Mirabeau admitted this in a letter to a friend, and
a portfolio in the ministry was the goal of Talleyrand's
ambition. All eyes were, therefore, turned to the Bishop of
Autun, and the eyes of the bishop turned to the landed property
of the church, from whence the wants of the treasury could be
immediately and with facility supplied. He was willing to propose
the double sacrilege on religion and on society; for it was no
less an outrage on civilization or civil government than it was
on Christianity, which is the foundation of good government.
The coolness with which Sir Henry Bulwer states this desecration
can only be compared with the absurdity in the line of argument
with which Talleyrand advocated the measure. If some Bishop
Colenso in the House of Lords should propose the seizure and
confiscation of the wealth of the Anglican Establishment, the
question would appear in a different aspect to the British
diplomatist. He would view it with horror.
{98}
In either case, however, the measure would be infamous.
Governments are instituted to protect property, not to squander
it; and the only difference between that which is held by an
individual for himself and that which is held in trust for the
benefit of others, is in the circumstance that whatever is in
trust is, in the public estimation, more sacred, because it is
preserved for the welfare of the poor, the weak, the ignorant or
infirm of mind, who cannot provide for themselves; just as the
state extends a more paternal care over the property of infants,
idiots, or orphans, than over the interests of men and women of
full growth and sound mind. If a call must be made in a sudden
exigency for funds, what government, not demented, would spare
the mercantile houses of the rich, to sequestrate and spoliate
the hospitals for the helpless?
Talleyrand considered the church property as public property; but
this view, plausible at first sight, is found on reflection to be
fallacious. It was not derived from the nation, nor from the
public, but from individuals, and from its own accumulations; it
was not designed for the benefit of the public, but for a
specific class of the people--the needy--to which class the mass
of the community did not belong, and, furthermore, hoped they
never would. So much for the bishop's premises and argument. But
a stronger objection remains: it is the broad principle of the
invasion of private rights, of common justice; and when that
principle is once rendered unstable by common consent, the
stability of all public opinion, of all civil institutions, of
all organized government, is shaken; the state is liable to be
overturned. When the National Assembly deemed it proper for the
public good to confiscate the church property, the Legislative
Assembly followed the example set to deprive persons of their
liberty, and the National Convention next voted away lives by the
hecatomb daily; under the same plea, the king himself was
decapitated. When the public morality was once vitiated, who
could foretell where the national criminality would terminate,
who or how many would not be its victims?
It has been the same with European ethics. When the great
Frederick of Prussia violated the Pragmatic Sanction, to which
Prussia had assented, and seized upon Silesia, neighboring
nations were not slow to forget and forgive his audacity and to
follow his unrighteous example. The partition of Poland grew out
of it, from the contempt entertained for international opinion.
Next came the French Revolution, when nations had no faith in the
integrity of rival governments, nor had governments much
confidence in their people. The world went backward in
civilization, and the long wars of the republic, of the
consulate, of the empire, ensued; not only the French, but every
foreign soil on the Continent, was drenched in blood. At last,
the moral atmosphere became so foul that the idea of
assassination was entertained and talked about in every court at
war with Napoleon. It was deemed feasible, it was favored by a
silent assent; it floated in the air.
Sir Henry, in echo to diplomatic opinion and to the sentiment of
the belligerent nations, treats the murder in cold blood of the
Bourbon Duke d'Enghien, by order of Napoleon, as an atrocity. The
act certainly was atrocious; but, at the bar of history, who are
all the criminals that may be arraigned as accomplices in
conspiring to efface the stain of turpitude in assassination from
the Christian code of morals? How many were smiling at the
prospect of doing unto the French emperor that which he did unto
the duke? Not one statesman, or legislator, or diplomatist, or
writer, could in his conscience cast the first stone. Public
opinion was debauched on the subject; moral integrity was
disboned.
{99}
Napoleon justified his conduct in the only way left open to
modify the enormity of the offence--to extenuate the nefarious
deed. He excused himself as he excused his first attacks in war;
it was to defend himself by becoming the assailant. He undertook
to teach his enemies the efficacy of retaliation, and the lesson
did teach them. Nothing more was ever whispered in secret, or
again talked openly, of taking him off by poison or the dagger.
Talleyrand, although imperial prime minister at the time, does
not appear to have been consulted. From all that is known, he
certainly did not advise or countenance the act; he did not
approve or condemn when it was done. What he communicated
officially, he wrote, as secretary of the emperor, that which was
dictated to him to write. But, on the other hand, no one is aware
that he counselled against the murder; in all probability, in his
laxity of morals, his sensibilities were not much shocked by the
event. He was never known to have considered the transaction an
impolitic measure; the common story that he spoke of it as worse
than a crime--as a political blunder--has no authentic
foundation.
Such was the course of affairs growing out of the first invasion
of rights to property at the suggestion of the Bishop of Autun.
But the immediate effects upon his fortunes are curious. He was
erroneously associated in the foreign mind with the revolutionary
acts that followed; and when, on the contrary, for
self-preservation, he fled to London to escape the stigma of
those very acts and the malice of the very men who perpetrated
them, he was ordered out of England as a Jacobin or regicide and
found a refuge in America. But in our republic no countenance was
given to him, no cordial greeting extended. By the Federalists,
he was, contemned as a traitor to his king, an apostate to his
religion, an enemy to social order. By the anti-Federalists he
was viewed as an aristocrat, an _émigré_, an obstacle to
social progress. The ex-bishop, therefore, in 1794, like the
expatriated M. Blot in 1864, had leisure to turn his attention to
the culinary art. Talleyrand, and the other involuntary
emigrants, observed upon the vines near the kitchens a beautiful
round red production growing, which was cultivated as a vegetable
ornament, whose botanical name was the _lycopersicum_, but
which Americans called the love-apple. The French gentlemen
recognized in it their _tomate_, and forthwith taught our
great-grandmothers how to render it a more palatable esculent for
their tables than it was a pleasing embellishment to their
gardens.
But the Reign of Terror soon terminated; like the reign of Louis,
it ended also at the guillotine. He now returned to Paris. His
friend Barras was in the Directory, and Barras was of the
aristocracy, who, however, "had been forgiven the crime of being
a noble, in consideration of the virtue of being a regicide."
From that date began the new lease to Talleyrand of power,
_prestige_, influence, and prosperity, which was never again
broken during his long life. He was willing to serve any
administration under any form of government, providing it was the
best under the circumstances, and when he could be, as he for the
first time expressed it, the right man in the right place. But
never for a day did he remain when he could not be useful to
France, nor serviceable to the executive by whom he was retained.
He knew how long it was beneficial to adhere to the Directory,
and when the time had come to drop off.
{100}
The first consul was treated in the same manner, and the emperor,
and the allies, and Louis XVIII., and Louis Philippe. None of
them could fascinate him by their condescension or consideration;
yet he served them all honorably, honestly; but it was requisite
he should be called and retained on his own terms. When he was
dismissed, it was not before he already knew it was better for
his own interests to go.
When Alexander of Russia entered Paris, in 1814, with the allied
armies, the czar took up his imperial residence at Talleyrand's
mansion, and expected to use the late prime minister for his own
purpose by the high honor conferred. But Talleyrand was
insensible to such delicate attentions; he was fully conscious he
was himself a prince, and of the proud family of Périgord, a
family that were sovereign in provinces of France in the middle
ages, long before the Romanoffs, surrounded by a wild horde of
half-naked Tartars, had ever held court on horse-back, or crossed
the Ural, or been heard of in Europe. Talleyrand was not made a
tool by the czar, but the czar was moulded like wax under the
manipulations of Talleyrand; to him Louis XVIII. was indebted for
his throne; and afterward, at the Congress of Vienna, when
Alexander discovered Talleyrand could not be induced to betray
French interests for the benefit of Russia, the czar compelled
Louis to dismiss him from office.
Napoleon was estimated in a similar manner, but with even less
respect, for he had been a plebeian, and perhaps, if anything,
worse; he was not a Frenchman, he was a Corsican. After the
battle of Leipsic, Napoleon offered the portfolio of foreign
ministry to his former minister, but on the condition he should
lay down the rank and emoluments of vice-grand elector. The
object of the emperor was to make him dependent on imperial
favor. But Talleyrand, who would have accepted the office,
refused the condition, saying: "If the emperor trusts me, he
should not degrade me; and if he does not trust me, he should not
employ me; the times are too critical for half-measures." No
circumlocution was resorted to on either side; it was plain
dealing; for the parties knew with whom they were treating, and
no compliments were requisite. M. Thiers remarks that "two
superior Frenchmen, until they have an opportunity to flatter one
another, are natural enemies." However much Talleyrand's wish
might have been to assist the emperor, he would not show it: his
invariable maxim was _point de zèle_--never evince ardor in
anything.
But while he had no abasement in the presence of the great, he
had no assumption toward equals or inferiors in mind and in
position. Thoroughly self-reliant, he was never found
disconcerted nor off his guard; in the widest sense he was a man;
he held all others as no more and no less. He had no confidants.
Perhaps Montrond was an exception, for Montrond was a specialty,
Sir Henry tells us, of the age, a type of the French _roué_.
He was one of Talleyrand's pets, as Talleyrand was one of his
admirations. Each spoke ill of the other; for each said he loved
the other for his vices. But no one could speak to Talleyrand
with so much intimacy, nor obtain from him so clear an answer;
for they trusted one another, though Montrond would never have
told any one else to trust Talleyrand, nor Talleyrand have told
any one else to trust M. de Montrond.
Here we must, with reluctance, lay down Sir Henry's book; space
will not permit dwelling longer upon it.
----------
{101}
The Basilica of St. Saturnin.
My journey to the ancient and religious city of Toulouse was made
in a season of sorrow. I was in the fearful grasp of giant
Despair, whose whips were as scorpions urging me on. Every step
in this sorrowful way was a torture, because it widened the
distance between me and a past which could never return. I felt
like those poor souls in Dante's _Inferno_, whose heads were
placed backward, so their tears fell on their shoulders. So my
heart was looking ever back--back, with sorrowful eyes, as if the
future held no consolation in store. O soul of little faith!
encompassed by thy black cloud, absorbed in thy griefs, thou
seest not the brightness beyond the darkness that enfolds thee!
Journeying on with weary steps, I found in my way a cross. I was
already laden with _one_--seemingly overwhelming--which the
past had bequeathed to me, and I was about to turn aside from
this _material_ cross I had stumbled upon, when I called to
mind a traveller of the olden time who found, like me, a cross in
his pathway. Not satisfied with kneeling before it, he caught it
up and pressed it to his heart. What should he find but a
precious treasure concealed beneath! Such a treasure I found
beneath the great Latin cross known as St. Saturnin or St.
Sernin's church at Toulouse--a treasure I took to my heart,
which it continues to enrich, and hallow, and beautify. I turned
aside from my weary path to find consolation and rest in this
great cruciform temple, and not in vain. O little isle of peace
in an ocean of sorrow! how sweetly did the hours pass in thy
serene atmosphere! The _Vade in pace_ came to my soul like
the sun after a great tempest, restoring brightness and freshness
to my world. A thousand tender and holy emotions floating around,
like the birds in the arches of Notre Dame de Paris; came
nestling to my heart. At such moments
"The eyes forget the tears they have shed,
The heart forgets its sorrow and ache."
But it is not my intention to indulge here in any display of
personal emotion. I only wish, in gratitude for many holy
memories, to note down a few of the impressions I received in a
sacred place, and mention in a simple way some of the objects
that interested me particularly, but not as a connoisseur of
Christian art.
I am sure no one has ever lived in Catholic countries without
feeling thankful that there is one door ever open to the
passer-by, with its mute appeal to sinful, sorrowing humanity to
enter and lay down its burden. It is the door of God's house,
which rejects no one--always open, reminding us that the
All-Father is ever ready to receive us. Who can resist the
appeal? How many a poor peasant have I seen, with care on the
brow, turn aside for a moment into a church, lay down the basket
of provisions or utensils for a brief prayer, and then go on his
way refreshed! These ever-open churches are like fountains by the
wayside, where the heated and foot-worn traveller may find rest
and a cooling draught, without money and without price. Ah! who
would close thy gates, O house of prayer? As the poet says: "Is
there, O my God! an hour in all life when the heart can be weary
of prayer? when man, whom thou dost deign to hear in thy temple,
can have no incense to offer before thy altar, no tear to confide
to thee?"
{102}
Even the undevout cannot pass one of the grand old churches of
the middle ages with indifference; especially one like the
basilica of St. Sernin, with so many historic and religious
memories connected with it, and which seems to appeal to every
instinct of our nature. Entering this great church by the western
portal, I could not forget that through it had passed three Roman
pontiffs and many a king of France. Pope Urban II., returning
from the Council of Clermont, where the first crusade had been
decided upon, came, in the year of our Lord 1096, to consecrate
this church, built on the ruins of two others. Some days after
came Count Raymond de St. Gilles, the hero of the Holy Wars, to
pray before the tomb of St. Saturnin, followed by princely
vassals, before reviewing the one hundred thousand soldiers at
the head of whom he opened a passage to the Holy Sepulchre. His
two noble sons, Bertrand and Alphonse Jourdain, likewise passed
through the same door, preceded by their family banner, before
going, like their glorious father, to die in the Holy Land. Simon
de Montfort, of Albigensian memory, before being invested with
the _comté_ of Toulouse, came here to kneel before the tombs
of the apostles and martyrs. Among the kings of France,
Philippe-le-Hardi came here four times. Charles VI., Louis XI.,
Louis XIII., and Louis le Grand also rendered homage to the
saints herein enshrined. Above all, Saint Bernard, St. Dominick,
and many other renowned saints trod these pavements and prayed
under these arches! ...
Some may think lightly of these associations, and say,
"A man's a man for a' that;"
but there are no greater hero-worshippers than the Americans;
none love a title more than a stanch republican; and I, a Hebrew
of the Hebrews! frankly own to this little weakness. I love the
grand old names and titles. I look with curiosity and respect on
the footprints of kings and crusaders, and even of knights of low
degree, and I tread with reverence the stones the blessed saints
have trod. ...
St. Sernin's church, built in imitation of St. Paul's at Rome, is
of the Latin style, cruciform in shape, terminating, in pious
memory of the five sacred wounds of our Saviour, with five
chapels toward the holy East; for the orientation is carefully
fixed, as in all ancient churches. There are five naves in this
church, separated by four rows of majestic pillars. It is rare to
find these collateral naves.
On entering this church, one is profoundly impressed by the
majestic arches and the length of the grand nave with the double
row of arcades on each side. A mysterious light, coming one
hardly knows whence, is diffused through the multiplied arches,
disposing the soul to calmness and meditation. The long naves all
seem, through the converging rows of columns, to point to that
altar in the distance where is seen the twinkling light that ever
burns before the tabernacle, drawing one on like a powerful
magnet. The Christian heart feels the influence of a Presence
diffused, like the light before IT, throughout the vast
enclosure.
Thoreau, who only worshipped nature, impressed by the religious
atmosphere of a great Catholic cathedral, said such a vast cave
at hand in the midst of a city, with its still atmosphere and
sombre light disposing to serious, profitable thought, is worth
thousands of our (Protestant) churches which are open only on
Sundays.
{103}
"I think," says he, "of its value, not only to religion, but to
philosophy and poetry: besides a reading-room, to have a
_thinking_ room in every city!" And who can tell the
influence, not only on the mind and heart, but on the taste, of
such a church with its paintings, statuary, holy emblems, and
antique shrines which have for ages been the glory of one's city,
and intimately connected with its past history?
The most striking object, on entering the principal nave, is the
tomb of St. Sernin, raised in the air on the uplifted heads of
four gilded bulls. Over it is a _baldaquin_ on which is
represented the apotheosis of the saint. The whole is richly
gilded, and, when lighted up, has a brilliant effect.
OSSA SANCTI SATURNINI,
in large gilded letters, is inscribed on the sarcophagus. At
first the _taureaux_ puzzled me. I thought of the bulls of
Bashan--of the cattle upon a thousand hills--and of the
sacrifices of the old law, but I could not see their connection
with St. Saturnin. But in recalling his martyrdom I found the
solution of my perplexity.
St. Sernin, the apostle and first Bishop of Toulouse, was sent by
Pope St. Fabian, in the third century, to carry the light of
faith into Gaul. His success in the conversion of the people to
Christianity so infuriated the priests of Jupiter and Minerva,
who were specially worshipped in the capital of Toulouse, that
they one day seized him, and, on his refusing to sacrifice to the
gods, attached him to the feet of an infuriated wild bull, who
leaped down the hill, dashing out the brains of the saint. Two
holy women gathered together his remains, but the place of their
burial was known only to a few till after the triumph of the
Christian religion in the empire of Rome. An oratory was erected
over his tomb in the fourth century, and later a church rose
which was completed by the great St. Exuperius, the seventh
successor of St. Sernin in the see of Toulouse--that saint so
renowned for his charities and learning, and whose remains are
enshrined in this church. He was the friend of St. Jerome, who
corresponded with him, and dedicated to him his commentary on the
prophecies of Zachary. St. Exuperius even sold the sacred vessels
of the altar to feed his flock during a great famine, so the Body
of Christ had to be carried in an osier basket, and a chalice of
glass was used in the service of the altar--a chalice carefully
preserved by a grateful people till the Revolution of 1793.
One loves to recall, among the many sainted bishops of Toulouse,
that "flower of royal blood," Louis of Anjou, grand-nephew of St.
Louis, King of France, and nephew of the dear St. Elizabeth of
Hungary. At the age of twenty-one he was offered a kingdom, which
he refused in favor of his brother, wishing to consecrate himself
to God among the Franciscans. "Jesus Christ is my kingdom," said
he. "Possessing him, I have all things: without him, I have
nothing." He was ordained priest at the age of twenty-two, and
obliged by holy obedience to accept the see of Toulouse. Before
receiving episcopal consecration he made a pilgrimage to Rome and
took the habit of St. Francis. The _Toulousains_ received
him with magnificence as a prince, and revered him as a saint.
Like St. Exuperius, he was devoted to the poor, to whom he gave
the greater part of his revenues.
{104}
Every day he fed twenty-five poor men at his table and served
them himself, sometimes on his knees. Terrified by the
obligations of his office, he begged to be released from them,
and God granted what men denied. During his last sickness, he
exclaimed: "I have at last arrived in sight of the desired haven.
I am going to enjoy the presence of my God, of which the world
would deprive me." He died with the _Ave Maria_ on his lips,
at the age of twenty-three and a half years.
What renders the basilica of St. Sernin one of the most
remarkable and one of the holiest spots in the world, after
Jerusalem and Rome, is the number of the saints herein enshrined.
The counts of Toulouse brought back from the Holy Land many
relics which they obtained in the East. Thus a great part of the
body of St. George was brought from Palestine by William
Taillefer, eighth Count of Toulouse. Kings of France also endowed
this church with relics. Those of St. Edmund, King of England,
were brought to France by Louis VIII. The crypts in which most of
these relics are contained are intended to recall the catacombs
of Rome. In the eleventh century they were not in shrines or
reliquaries, but reposed in marble tombs, and the faithful went
to pray before them, as in the crypts of St. Calixtus on the
Appian Way. Over the door leading into the upper crypts is the
inscription, "_Hic sunt vigiles qui custodiunt civitatem_,"
and over the door of the pilgrims, "_Non est in toto sanctior
orbe locus_." This door leads to the inferior crypts, which
you descend by a flight of steps. The numerous pilgrims of the
middle ages paused on each step to repeat a prayer. Thus they
passed on into the numerous passages of the crypts, recalling the
catacombs. As you go down into them, you pause amid your prayers
to read an inscription, in red letters, on a white marble tablet:
"Under the auspices, and by the pious munificence of the
emperors Charlemagne, Louis le Débonnaire, and Charles le
Chauve, the wonderful basilica of Saturnin has received the
precious remains of several apostles and of a great number of
martyrs, virgins, and confessors of the faith. The dukes of
Aquitaine, the counts of Toulouse, have increased this
treasure. The magistrates of this capital have faithfully
guarded it.
"Here Religion preserves for the eternal edification of the
faithful a portion of the cross of our Lord, a thorn from his
crown, (the gift of Count Alphonse, brother of St. Louis,) a
fragment from the rock of the Holy Sepulchre, (glorious
conquest of the Toulousain crusaders.) and a piece of a garment
of the Mother of God.
"Under these vaults, O pious traveller! are venerated the
relics of St. Peter, St. Paul, St. James the major, St. James
the minor, St. Philip, St. Simon, St. Jude, St. Barnaby, St.
Bartholomew, apostles.
"St. Claudius, St. Crescentius, St. Nicostratus, St.
Simplicius, St. Castor, St. Christopher, St. Julian, St. Cyr,
St. Asciscle, St. Cyril, St. Blasius, St. George.
"The first bishops of Toulouse, the series of whom date from
the third century: Saint Saturnin, St. Honorius, St. Hilaire,
St. Sylvius, St. Exuperius, repose in this church.
"Not far from their venerated remains are those of St.
Honestus, St. Papoul, St. William, Duke of Aquitaine, St.
Edmund, King of England, St. Gilles, St. Gilbert, St. Thomas of
Aquin, St. Vincent of Paul, St. Raymond, Pope St. Pius V., St.
Susanna, St. Julietta, St. Margaret, St. Catharine, St. Lucia,
and of St. Agatha."
{105}
Grow not weary, kind reader, over this long list of names, for
each one has its history, which is interwoven with that of Holy
Church. Let us rather linger with love and faith over each name,
whether humble or mighty on earth--now potent in heaven! Let us
murmur them in reverence, for some of them are inscribed on the
foundations of the New Jerusalem--and all gleam like precious
stones on its walls--all these did wear on earth "the jewelled
state of suffering," but they are now triumphant in heaven, and
their memory has long been glorious on earth.
One feels deeply awed in descending among these shrines
containing the bodies of the saints--_temples of the Holy
Ghost_. Virtue hath not yet gone out from them, as is
testified by the wonders still wrought at their tombs.
Many of the present shrines are antique, some costly, and all
interesting, but they have lost their ancient splendor. Their
magnificence before the Revolution may be imagined from existing
descriptions. These tell us of, among others, the silver shrine
of St. Edmund, an _ex-voto_ from the city of Toulouse, in
1684, in gratitude for deliverance from the plague, adorned with
statues of solid silver. When the saint was transferred to this
_châsse_, it was exposed to the veneration of the people for
eight days, and all the parishes of the environs came to honor
them. Some days there were fifty processions, which gives an idea
of the lively faith and piety of that age. The octave was
terminated by a general procession in the city, in which were
borne forty four shrines, the most of them silver, and adorned
with gold and precious stones.
And when, in 1385, the relics of St. James the major were
transferred to a new shrine, the Duc de Berry, brother of Charles
VI., gave for it a silver bust of the saint, a gold chain to
which was attached a sapphire of great value, surrounded by
rubies and pearls, with other jewels which adorned the bust till
the time of the Revolution.
Like Madame de Staël, "I love this prodigality of terrestrial
gifts to another world--offerings from time to eternity!
Sufficient for the morrow are the cares required by human
economy. Oh! how much I love what would be useless waste, were
life nothing better than a career of toil for despicable gain!"
Though these shrines are stripped of most of their former
splendor, the inestimable relics remain still venerated by the
people. They no longer go there in the old garb of the pilgrim,
with "sandal shoon and scallop-shell," or only occasionally, but
their faith is as profound, and their piety as genuine. I was so
fortunate as to meet a pilgrim in the orthodox garb as I was
going into the church. He entered just before me. He was clad in
a loose brown habit which extended to his feet. Over his
shoulders was a cape, around which were fastened scallop-shells,
as we see in pictures of pilgrims. His feet were sandalled.
"His sandals were with travel tore:
Staff, budget, bottle, scrip he wore."
In truth, he had a bundle suspended by a stick on his shoulder.
His hair was disordered, his eyes cast down, and he went from
shrine to shrine paying his devotions, regardless of every one.
From the way in which he made the sign of the cross I took him to
be a Spaniard. I felt an indescribable emotion of pity for him
whose contrition had induced to assume a penitential garb, and go
from church to church living on alms, and I prayed that his soul
might find peace--that peace which the world cannot give!
{106}
One of the first subterranean chapels I entered was that of the
Sainte-Epine, in which is a beautiful silver reliquary,
containing one of the thorns from the crown our suffering Saviour
wore. It was given by St. Louis to his brother Alphonse, who
married Jeanne, daughter of Raymond VII., last Count of Toulouse.
On the pavement of the chapel is graven this ancient distich,
likening the Sainte-Epine, surrounded by the bodies of thirteen
saints, to a thorn among roses:
"Quisquis es externus quaerens miracula sixte,
En tredecim pulchris insita spina rosis."
After the Revolution a holy priest of Toulouse established, in
honor of this precious relic, the Confraternity of the Holy
Thorn, composed of the most fervent Catholics of the city.
Afflicted by the prolonged captivity of Pope Pius VII., they
begged of God his deliverance--not only at their own shrines, but
at that of St. Germaine of Pibrac. Their prayers were heard. On
the 2d of February, 1814, the holy father slowly and sadly passed
the walls of Toulouse on his way to Italy, locked up in his
carriage! The highway was completely obstructed by the crowds of
people, who, all bathed in tears, went out to meet him, and on
their knees besought his benediction. Among them were the
votaries of the Sainte-Epine, raising their hands to heaven in
behalf of the holy captive.
The pope earnestly desired to enter the city that he might
venerate the body of the angelic doctor, in the church of St.
Sernin, but it was not deemed expedient to entrust such a guest
to the faithful Toulousains. Halting beyond the ramparts, merely
to change their horses and obtain refreshments, they hurried on
as if afraid of losing their prisoner.
In another chapel of the crypts is the altar of St. Simon and St.
Jude, containing their relics. It was consecrated by Pope
Calixtus II. Old legends tell us that these apostles were two of
the shepherds of Bethlehem, who first heard the _Gloria in
Excelsis_. One loves to believe that they who were encircled
by the brightness of God, to whom angels talked, and who were
first at the manger, should afterward be called to follow our
Saviour and preach the glad tidings, which they had heard from
angelic tongues, to the nations afar off. They _could_ not
have lost sight of him who was so miraculously revealed to them.
They _must_ have hastened to join him as soon as he entered
upon his public life.
In a niche, close by the chapel of St. Simon and St. Jude, is the
entire body of St. Gilles, to whom the old counts of Toulouse had
a particular devotion, especially Raymond IV., who is invariably
styled in history Raymond de St. Gilles. This saint was very
popular, not only in France, but in England and Scotland. A large
hospital for lepers was built by the queen of Henry I. outside
the city of London, which has given its name to a large district
of that city; and St. Giles is the patron saint of Edinburgh,
where a church was built under his invocation not later then
1359. This renders his shrine a place of interest to all who
speak the English tongue. St. Sernin possesses, too, the body of
one of England's sainted kings and that of her patron saint.
St. Gilles, or St. Giles, was an Athenian of royal blood, who,
fearing the admiration excited by his talents, went to France,
and became a hermit in a cave near the mouth of the Rhone.
{107}
He subsisted on the produce of the woods and the milk of a tame
hind. After his death a magnificent monastery, and then a city,
rose round his tomb, and gave his name to the counts of
Languedoc.
In a large portable _châsse_ is the head of the glorious St.
Thomas Aquinas, the author of the profound _Summa
Theologiae_ and the sublime Office of the Blessed Sacrament,
worthy of the tongues of angels. This great doctor of the middle
ages is not dead. His voice is still heard in the office of the
church, "now with a single antiphon unlocking whole abysses of
Scripture, and now in almost supernatural melody, more like the
echoes of heaven than mere poetry of earth," says Faber. One
should listen to this grand office resounding in the arches of
the church where its author is enshrined, when thousands of
tapers, around the enthroned ostensorium, light up the brilliant
shrine of St. Sernin! It is a foretaste of the song of the
redeemed!
When the body of St. Thomas of Aquin, brought from Italy,
approached Toulouse, Louis of Anjou, brother of Charles V. of
France, with archbishops and mitred abbots, at the head of one
hundred and fifty thousand people, went out to meet it. Duke
Louis and the principal lords of his court bore over it a canopy
blazing with gold and precious stones. Around it floated six
standards: on two were the arms of France, the third of Anjou,
the others of the pope, the house of Aquin, and the city of
Toulouse. They enshrined it magnificently in the church of the
Dominicans, but it has been at St. Sernin since the Revolution.
When placed in its present _châsse_ in 1852, the venerable
Père Lacordaire made a panegyric of the saint, attracting an
immense audience. The arms of the illustrious house of Aquin are
emblazoned on his altar.
In passing out of the crypts on the side opposite that which I
entered is the following inscription:
"After having reunited in Clermont, in the year of salvation
1096, the faithful destined to deliver the Holy Sepulchre, Pope
Urban II. wished himself to consecrate this basilica, one of
the most precious monuments of Christian art. The sovereign
pontiff had near him Raymond IV., Count of Toulouse and of St.
Gilles, that glorious prince who first displayed on his banners
and on his armor the Holy Cross of the Saviour.
"Popes Clement VII., Paul V.. Urban V., and Pius IV. have
granted numerous privileges to this abbatial church. Those who
visit its seven principal altars obtain indulgences like those
acquired before the seven altars of St. Peter's church at Rome.
"Charles VI., Louis XI., Francis I., Charles IX., Louis XIII.,
and Louis XIV., kings of France, have, in praying, passed
through these holy catacombs. It is here that in all public
calamities a pious population has constantly resorted to
implore the powerful intercession of the holy protectors of
this antique and religious city."
There is hung on the walls of the crypts a curious bas-relief of
the youthful Saviour, which is supposed to date from the
Carlovingian age. He is in an aureola, ovoidal in form, pointed
at its two extremities. Without, in the angles, are the emblems
of the four evangelists. Around the head of our Saviour is a
_nimbus_ in the form of a cross, on which are graven the
letters _Alpha_ and _Omega_. This bas-relief was
evidently the centre of an extensive work. The youthfulness of
the features of Christ gives a presumption in favor of its
antiquity.
{108}
He is often found on many Christian sarcophagi, and in many of
the paintings of the catacombs at Rome, with a youthful face. M.
Didron says that, from the third to the tenth century, Christ is
oftener represented young and beardless, but his face, young at
first, grows older from century to century, as Christianity
advances in age. The ancient Christian monuments at Rome, Aries,
and elsewhere represent Christ with a young and pleasing face.
Many non-Catholics do not like these representations of our
Saviour at all. The old Puritans were so opposed even to a cross
that, in 1634, they cut out the holy emblem from St. George's
flag; but there is now a great reaction in this respect. We pray
it may grow still stronger. We find many of these representations
of our Saviour, which must date from the beginning of
Christianity. The Emperor Alexander Severus, who ascended the
throne A.D. 222, had placed in his _Lararium_ a statue of
Christ, but we are not told how he is depicted. The Sudario of
Veronica, the portrait attributed to St. Luke, the statue raised
in the city of Paneas by the grateful _Hémorroïsse_, whether
genuine or not, belong to the earliest ages, and prove, says M.
Didron, that the Son of God was represented by painters and
sculptors from the dawn of Christianity.
The chapels in the upper crypts are very interesting, with their
statues and bas-reliefs covering the panelled niches which
contain the holy relics. There is, in one of the chapels, a
crucifix which St. Dominick used when he preached, and which he
is said to have held up to animate the army of Simon de Montfort,
at the great battle of Muret, when the Albigenses were decisively
overthrown. Lacordaire says St. Dominick was not present at the
battle, but remained in a chapel hard by, to pray, like Moses,
with uplifted arms. One looks upon the crucifix with interest. It
is of wood, blackened by time, and about a yard in length. The
feet of the Christ are fastened one upon the other, in the
Italian style.
One of the chapels bears the startling title of the Seven
Sleepers, which would seem to savor of magic or oriental legend.
They were seven Christians martyred at Ephesus, in the reign of
Trajan, where, in the language of Scripture, _they slept in the
Lord_. Their bodies having been found in the year 479, it was
said, in mystic style, that they had awakened again, after a
sleep of more than two hundred years. Honoring them collectively,
it became a custom to call them the Seven Sleepers, and the
Mohammedans have preserved the tradition as well as Christians. A
chapel dedicated to them is rarely found; but Mrs. Jameson says
they perpetually occur in the miniatures, sculpture, and stained
glass of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. They are found
in the chapel of Edward the Confessor at Westminster. Their
statues, lying side by side on a bed of stone, were formerly in
their chapel at St. Sernin, but only two of them now remain.
In the treasury of the abbey of St. Saturnin were formerly many
curious and valuable objects. One of these, now in the museum at
Toulouse, is the horn of Orlando, which, indeed, is ornamented
with figures in the style of the age of Charlemagne. During the
last days of Holy Week, when the bells were hushed during the
awful days commemorating our Saviour's passion and death, the
prolonged notes of this horn called the faithful to prayer. A
similar one was used in the church of St. Orens at Auch, which is
still carefully preserved.
{109}
One loves whatever recalls Orlando, the type of Christian
chivalry. Many a tradition of him lingers in this country.
Roncesvalles claims to possess his armor, and Blaye his terrible
sword and his tomb. In the country of the Escualdunae is the
_Pas de Roland_, a gigantic footprint on a large rock. At
the other extremity of the Pyrenees, in Roussillon, the long
table of a Celtic _dolmen_ is called by the people _Le
Palet de Roland_; and large depressions in the form of a
semi-circle, in this part of France, mark the passage of
Orlando's steed--that steed over which, when dead, his master
wept, begging his forgiveness if he had ever been ill-treated.
The poet tells us the horse opened his eyes kindly on his master,
and never stirred more.
One would like to think this the veritable horn of Orlando--which
was so powerful, when sounded for the last time, that the very
birds of the air fell dead, the Saracens fell back in terror, and
Charlemagne and his court heard its notes afar off. There is far
more enjoyment in accepting all these local traditions than in
disputing their truth. Let us reserve our incredulity for
so-called history.
From the tower of St. Sernin there is a magnificent view of the
Pyrenees from sea to sea, and of a large extent of country full
of historic and religious associations. Directly beneath is the
old city of Toulouse, recalling Clemence Isaure and the golden
violets, and the troubadours of an older time. St. Anthony of
Padua frequented its famous schools. St. Dominick here founded
the order of Preaching Friars, which has given so many doctors
and missionaries to the church. St. Vincent Ferrier preached
yonder in St. George's Square. In that same _Place_
afterward preached Friar Thomas de Illirico against the excesses
of the Carnival, and against all games of chance, with such
effect that all the cards found in the shops were publicly burned
and the trade of card-maker abolished. One day, after the
preaching of this servant of God, the capitouls had placed on the
five principal gates of the city a marble tablet which bore _en
relief_ the holy name of JESUS supported by angels--that name
so powerful for defence that it makes the very demons tremble!
Another famous preacher of that time induced the capitouls to
appoint four watchmen to patrol the city at night, from one till
five, and chanting loudly:
"Réveillez-vous, gens qui dormez,
Priez Dieu pour les trépassez."
Before leaving St. Sernin, we stop to murmur a _Requiescant in
pace_ at the tombs of the counts of Toulouse, the first
sovereigns who styled themselves "By the grace of God," and whose
history is so glorious and yet so sad and tragical.
And as no Catholic Christian quits a church without leaving a
tribute of love before the altar of the Madonna, so, before
reluctantly leaving this antique basilica, perfumed with a
thousand memories, I drop my bead at the feet of Mary,
remembering that in this country were first strung together the
bright jewels of the rosary, which have ever since adorned the
garments of Christ's spouse--the Church.
AVE MARIA!
----------
{110}
The Little Sisters of the Poor.
The thoughtful soul, whether within or without the Catholic
Church, cannot fail to be impressed with the extent of her
charities. The fatherless, the widow, the aged, the poor, as St.
Laurence the martyr declared when ordered by the prefect of Rome
to deliver to him the wealth of the church--these are her riches.
But one must be within the fold to appreciate the universality of
her bounty; to see that every need of suffering humanity, as it
rises, finds pious souls whose vocation it is to look after that
very need, to provide for that very want; and the smallness of
the beginning of each world-wide charity makes the humble-hearted
leap with joy that, even in the narrowest sphere, every one may
be privileged to help our dear Lord in the person of his poor.
When St. Francis of Assisi gave his rule of strict poverty to the
ten united with him in hungering to work for Christ, it needed
more than his great faith to believe that, in forty-two years
after his death, two hundred thousand zealous souls would be
banded together, under his name, for prayer and alms-deeds;
while, through all coming ages of the church, his followers
should steadily increase, steadfast in the work for which they
had joined hands.
When, in 1537, Angela Merici, of Brescia, a lady of birth and
fortune, sorrowing over the death of a well-beloved sister,
soothed her grief by devoting herself to the education of poor
female children, at a time when four doctors of the law declared
the instruction of women the work of the devil, she did not
realize that from the grave of her own sorrow would spring the
far-famed order of Ursulines, (a beautiful resurrection!) who
collected and taught the poor orphans of massacred parents during
French revolutions, and who held their infant and ragged schools
long before England had thought of them.
When, in 1633, St. Vincent de Paul, seeing the misery and
destitution of the poor in the streets of Paris, placed four
young women, who volunteered to aid him in relieving present
distress, in charge of a noble lady who had for several years
devoted herself to the work under his direction, he scarcely
expected to see in twenty years two hundred houses and hospitals
of the order of Charity, spreading everywhere their sheltering
arms for the suffering poor.
Franciscans, Ursulines, Sisters of Charity, we have in our midst,
showing, by their lives of self-abnegation in this hard, worldly
age and country, that the evangelical counsel, to forsake all for
Christ's sake, is not obsolete.
But another branch of the great tree of charity that, like the
banyan, plants itself and rises with new life and vigor wherever
it takes root, is about to spread its benign shadow over our
land.
The Little Sisters of the Poor are coming among us, and it is
well we should know whence they come and what is their work. Like
the older orders in the church, _Les Petites Soeurs des
Pauvres_ had a very small beginning.
{111}
In St. Servan, a small town on the north coast of France, washed
by the waters of the English Channel, the male peasantry have,
from time immemorial, obtained a scanty living for themselves and
families by following the sea. This life of exposure and danger
leaves always, wherever it is followed, many children fatherless
and wives widows, and often deprives aged parents of their only
support. It was the custom for these poor bereaved widows and
parents of deceased fishermen to gather about the church-doors,
asking alms of the congregation as they passed out; many abuses
arose out of this way of distributing charity; the boldest fared
the best, and the money thus obtained was often wasted in drink
or self-indulgence, without providing for any real want. The good
God touched the heart of the pious Curé of Servan by the sight of
these poor persons, often blind, aged, and infirm, with none to
care for them. In the quiet of his own humble home, Abbé le
Pailleur thought over the condition of these miserable beings,
commending them to his divine Master, and asking the guidance of
him "who had not where to lay his head," in his efforts for their
relief. The blessed Spirit guided to his direction a young
orphan-girl from the laboring classes, who, for the love of God,
desired to do something for those more destitute than herself.
The curé recommended to her care an old blind woman, utterly
without friends, and who, from the scanty alms bestowed at the
church-door, was seldom able to obtain the smallest pittance, her
blindness preventing her access to the charitably inclined.
Not many weeks passed, before another poor seamstress confided to
her pastor the same desire to work for Christ's poor; she was
permitted to share the labors of the other, both working all day,
and coming by turns at night to watch and tend and to provide for
the old blind woman, with what they could spare from their own
small earnings. At length, that there might be no loss of time
and labor, Marie Augustine and Marie Theresa hired an attic where
they dwelt together, and took their aged pensioner to share their
home.
Here their devotion and self-denial attracted the attention of a
servant, Jenny Jugan, [Footnote 19] who, by industry and
frugality in early life, had accumulated about six hundred
francs. She asked to go with them, and to share with them, giving
her all to the good work, taking her part of the toils and
privations, and bringing with her one or two aged poor. Thus, on
the feast of St. Theresa, 1840, the house of "The Little Sisters
of the Poor" may be said to have been established.
[Footnote 19: Jenny Jugan was about forty. She was living in
the attic mentioned, and received in that place the poor
blind who had been under the care of Marie Augustine and
Marie Theresa.]
Abbé le Pailleur had early given them a rule of life, one article
of which they pondered with special care: "We will delight above
all things in showing tenderness toward those aged poor who are
infirm or sick; we will never refuse to assist them when occasion
presents itself, but we must take great care not to meddle in
what does not concern us." They still went about their daily
labors, and though their earnings never exceeded one franc per
day, at night they shared it with those whom God had confided to
their care. The curé helped them to the extent of his resources,
which were very limited. Prayer and faith were the means whereby
they made so little serve for so many. The good Lord who heareth
the cry of the ravens listened to the pleading of the Little
Sisters, and sent them a faithful friend and benefactress in one
Fanchion Aubert, who took no vows, but gave all her substance to
their work, wishing to live and die among them.
{112}
She possessed a little property, a small stock of the plainest
furniture, and a quantity of linen; with these she came, sharing
everything with them and their poor. By her thrift she had gained
credit in St. Servan, and through her the sisters were able to
leave the attic, and rent a long, low dwelling with space for
twelve beds, which were immediately filled. And now came the time
when, with the small band of sisters and the multiplication of
pensioners, the age and infirmities of their poor required all
their attention; they could no longer go out to earn anything;
and though those of the old women who were able did sometimes
assist the funds of the establishment by begging, their faithful
guardians desired to save them from the temptations and
degradation to which such a life too often led them.
Help came now and then, but not enough to supply all the needy
ones, and the sisters often went hungry. They sought counsel of
the father of the house, Abbé le Pailleur. After prayer and
meditation, he proposed to the sisters that for the love of God
they themselves should become beggars. Most cheerfully they went
forth with baskets on their arms, asking charity, "the crumbs
that fell from the rich man's table." From that day they have
provided in this way for their destitute ones; nothing comes
amiss, the refuse of the table or the wardrobe is accepted
thankfully. These mendicant sisters have never been without their
share of contumely and reproach. Members of older orders in the
beginning turned the cold shoulder upon them, and they were
spurned from the presence of one _religieuse_ with the
reproach, "Don't speak to me, I am ashamed of your basket!" but
they only renewed their entire consecration to God, and went on
begging. At length their basement was crowded to suffocation; the
abbé sold his gold watch, and with the remains of Fanchion's
property, and all their savings, they made the first payments for
a large house; before the end of the year, the twenty-two
thousand francs (the price of the house) were all paid. Here they
took that name so redolent of sweetness and humility, "Little
Sisters of the Poor," and here they accepted fully what before
had been necessarily imperfect, their rule of life, taking, in
addition to the usual vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience,
the vow of hospitality. At the end of two years, fifty aged
people were fed and clothed by the begging sisters, and comforted
and cared for with all the assiduity of the most tender love.
Their rule was to divide all the broken victuals among the poor,
and feed themselves upon what remained, never murmuring if they
went without. One winter's night, when the old people, fed and
cared for, had gone to their rest, the sisters had for their
suppers only about a quarter of a pound of bread. They sat down
cheerfully at the table, said their Benedicite, and passed the
bread from one to the other, each declining any right to it, and
all pretending to be well able to do without it. Before it had
been decided how the loaf should be divided, the bell rang; some
one had sent them a supply of meat and bread. "Trust in the Lord
and do good, and verily thou shalt be fed," was the motto of
their holy lives. It will not surprise us to learn that, in
return for their self-sacrifice, Almighty God gave them many
souls from among the abandoned and often dissolute people, who,
but for the peaceful refuge of their home, would have been lost
in the whirlpool of ignorance and vice. To bring back these poor
creatures to their forgotten Father was the delight of the
zealous sisters, and they felt themselves well rewarded when they
saw these darkened minds opening to the truth, and returning to
sit at the feet of Jesus with loving penitence.
{113}
But the house was filled to overflowing, and they resolved to
build. They well knew in whose hands are the gold and silver, and
into his ever-listening ear they poured their new want.
The reply did not linger, for they worked as well as prayed. At
the sight of the zeal with which they began to clear the stones
from a piece of ground, which they already owned, and to dig the
foundations, workmen came, materials were sent, and alms flowed
in abundantly.
Some time previous a person from the Island of Jersey, which is
not far from St. Servan, came to that town to seek for an aged
relative. He found her sheltered by the "Little Sisters," and
with devout thanksgiving to God he gave alms of all that he
possessed, and at his death bequeathed the house seven thousand
francs. This legacy fell to them as they began the building, and
with the new house came new souls, ready to consecrate themselves
to the service of God's poor, and with these new sisters came the
desire that the hand of charity might be held out to the poor of
other regions. The elder of the two girls who were first banded
together in this order, and who was now called Mother Marie
Augustine, with four sisters, went out from the mother-house, and
established themselves at Rennes, a town of forty thousand
inhabitants, fifty or sixty miles from their first home. The
trust in Providence which led to this movement was greatly
blessed, and soon there came another call from the town of Dinan.
This call came from the mayor of the city, who thought it a
wonderful stroke of policy to provide for the town's poor without
drawing on the city treasury. The sisters went without hesitancy,
and in 1846 had three well-established houses, which ten of the
sisterhood supported by begging.
In France, as in this country, it has been for a long time the
custom for persons living in the interior to seek the sea-coast
during the summer months. A young lady coming from Tours to St.
Servan did not, as too many do, leave all thoughts of her
religion behind, but in her temporary sojourn gave herself to
good works. Attracted by the genuine humility and piety of the
"Little Sisters of the Poor," she begged them to go back with her
to Tours. They asked only a roof to shelter and liberty to work,
and in January, 1847, they hired in that city a small house in
which they received at once a dozen poor people. In 1848, they
bought, for 80,000 francs, a very large building, and found
shelter for a hundred. How this sum was paid and the family
supported remains a secret with the angel who makes record of
alms-deeds. For the food of these poor people, every café was
engaged to save their coffee-grounds and tea-leaves, and schools,
colleges, barracks, and families their crusts of bread; each
sister, as she went forth, carried on her arm a large tin pail,
divided in compartments, which allowed the scraps of bread and
meat, with the cups of broth and other fragments, to be kept
apart from each other. At their return, these bits were
overlooked, and by the hands of the sisters made into very
palatable dishes for their beloved poor. But we must not forget
that other and more arduous and disagreeable duties were required
of these indefatigable workers than even providing their food
from such material.
{114}
The nursing, tending, and watching of these poor creatures whose
former lives of misery had often brought upon them repulsive
infirmities and diseases, lifting the helpless, comforting the
forlorn, and bearing with the ungrateful, all these must be
shared by these devoted women, who had undertaken to follow the
command of the apostle, to provide for the aged and the widow.
Most of these nuns came from the people; many of them had
witnessed want and woe from their infancy, and understood the
special needs of the poor; but now and then ladies of rank and
education joined them, all working together in perfect equality,
each undertaking that class of duties for which she was best
fitted. Many a sister has been truly a martyr for Christ, in
working for these ignorant, degraded beings, often obstinate and
full of ingratitude. But "it is not for the sake of gratitude we
nurse them," said a sister whose pale face showed the wearing
nature of her cares: "it is because in them we see _le bon
Dieu!_"
To tell the story of the journeyings from place to place all over
France, the difficulty with which they took root in some of the
larger cities, and the comparative welcome they met in the
smaller towns, would fill a volume. From France they went to
Belgium, to Spain, to Switzerland, and lately to Ireland, and
even to Protestant England and Scotland. To-day one hundred and
eight houses of this order are scattered over Europe, with a
sisterhood of eighteen hundred women, who watch over, comfort,
and maintain more than twelve thousand poor old men and women,
without money and without price save the voluntary offerings of
the cheerful giver!
In England the appearance of the order excited at first much
curiosity, but many turned away from them with aversion, the
aversion which centuries of false teaching has planted in the
minds of most Protestant communities against all religious
orders; but their uniform humility, gentleness, and kindness won
the day. In Park Row, Bristol, England, in Bayswater, in London,
as well as in other places, their convents are admirably
conducted, and they welcome visitors most cordially; wherever
they go they become popular. "We get a good deal in England,"
said one of the sisters; "the English are very good to us, though
they are Protestants." There is something in simple, honest trust
in God which touches the heart, and often those who at first
turned away from the begging sisters, in the end prove their
warmest supporters.
On his way to business a butcher, belonging in London, and
glorying in the name of "a stanch Protestant," was induced to
visit one of the convents. He was so delighted with the charity
and with all he saw, that he told the "good mother" to let the
convent cart call at his stall once a week, and he would give
them soup-meat for the house. As he went away, his conscience
reproached him; the "horns and hoofs" of the dreadful "beast" of
whom he had so often heard appeared before him; he might be
suspected of a leaning toward popery! But then his Anglo-Saxon
common sense told him that to help the aged and infirm was right,
popery or not, and he kept his word; the meat is always ready
when the cart arrives, but no communication passes between the
sister who takes and the man who gives; he has not yet lost his
fear of the "seven heads and ten horns, and the number 666."
{115}
The institution of this order at least makes plain one fact: that
numbers of poor can be well supported from the waste of the rich.
It ought also to put to silence those who scoff at the idea of an
overruling Providence--the _living_ God rather, who cares
for the raven and the sparrow, and is constantly working miracles
under our eyes, whereby the hungry are fed and the naked clothed.
Madame Guizot de Witt, a-Protestant lady, says: "Every time I
visit one of the houses of the 'Little Sisters,' and see their
bands of old people--aged children, so neatly dressed, so well
taken care of, occupied and amused in every way that age or
weakness allow, I seem to hear the voice which says, 'Go, and do
thou likewise.'"
This band of noble workers is coming among us, to gather the
abundance that falls from our tables, often wasted, or thrown to
dumb beasts, while souls made in the image of God look on with
hungry eyes.
How shall we greet these servants of God? If we receive the
"Little Sister" kindly, giving of our plenty when she asks, she
will thank God; if we turn away with cold questioning, she still
thanks God that she may bear trial for his sake.
To the thrifty American mind, this scheme of beggary will, no
doubt, appear to some as a nuisance, and call for the
interference of the laws against begging; but there are others
whom the hand of God has touched; these will welcome to the
freedom of our land a band of sisters whose charity beareth all
things, endureth all things, and hopeth all things. But however
we receive them, they will still go on, and if they are turned
away from one town or city by the iron hand, they will bring a
blessing upon another, both now and in that day when the Judge
shall say, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom
prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was
hungry, and ye gave me meat; thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was
a stranger, and ye took me in; naked, and ye covered me: ... for
as long as ye did it to one of my least brethren, ye did it to
me."
List Of The Houses Founded By The
Little Sisters Of The Poor.
_In France_.--
The novitiate at Latour;
St. Joseph, near Becherel, (Ile et Vilaine;)
Rennes;
St. Servan;
Dinan;
Tours;
Nantes;
Paris, Rue St. Jacques near the Val de Grace;
Besançon;
Angers;
Bordeaux;
Rouen;
Nancy;
Paris, Avenue de Breteuil;
Laval;
Lyon, á la Vilette;
Lille;
Marseilles;
Bourges;
Pau;
Vannes;
Colmar;
La Rochelle;
Dijon;
St. Omer;
Brest;
Chartres;
Bolbec;
Paris, Rue Beccaria, Faubourg St. Antoine;
Toulouse;
St. Dizier;
Le Havre;
Blois;
Le Maus;
Tarare;
Paris, Rue Notre Dame des Champs;
Orleans;
Strasbourg;
Caen;
St. Etienne;
Perpignan;
Montpellier;
Agen;
Poitiers;
St. Quentin;
Lisieux;
Annonay;
Amiens;
Roanne;
Valenciennes;
Grenoble;
Draguignan;
Chateauroux;
Roubaix;
Boulogne;
Dieppe;
Beziers;
Clermont Ferrand;
Lyons, La Croix Rousse;
Metz;
Nice;
Lorient;
Nevers;
Flers;
Villefranche;
Cambrai;
Niort;
Paris, Rue Philippe Gerard;
Les Sables d'Olonne;
Troyes;
Maubeuge;
Nimes;
Toulon;
Tourcoing;
Cherbourg;
Valence;
Périgueux;
and one just now beginning in Dunkerque.
_In Switzerland._--Genevra.
_In Belgium_.--
Bruxelles, Rue Haute;
Liege, at the Chartreuse;
Jemmapes, near Mons;
Louvain;
Antwerp;
Bruges;
Ostende;
Namur.
{116}
_In Spain_.--
Barcelona;
Maureza;
Granada;
Lerida;
Lorca;
Malaga;
Antequera;
Madrid, Calle della Hortaletza;
Jaen;
Reuss;
two more are preparing in Valence and Andalusia.
_In England, Ireland, and Scotland_.--
London, (Southwark,) South Lambeth Road;
London, (Bayswater,) Portobello Lane;
Manchester, Plymouth Grove;
Bristol, Park Row;
Birmingham, Cambridge Street Crescent;
Leeds, Hanover Square;
Newcastle-on-Tyne, Clayton Street;
Plymouth, St. Mary's;
Waterford;
Edinburgh, Gilmore Place;
Glasgow, Garngad Hill;
Lochee, near Dundee;
a new foundation beginning in Tipperary.
_In the United States_.--
No house exists as yet, but the "Little Sisters of the Poor"
are preparing three foundations which are to take place very
soon, one in Brooklyn, De Kalb Avenue; a second one in New
Orleans, in the buildings occupied by the Widows' Home; the
third one in Baltimore, with the charge, too, of the Widows'
Home; besides these, several other foundations are
contemplated in the course of the next and of following year.
----------
Religion Medically Considered.
By the term "religion," we mean that divine code mercifully
revealed by God to mankind, in the old and new dispensations, as
their rule of faith and practice. Its precepts have reference
both to the corporal and spiritual, the temporal and eternal
welfare of men. Religion, it is true, in its higher sphere,
addresses itself to the soul. It embraces the affections,
emotions, and sentiments of our spiritual nature, and its
direction is always toward the infinite fountain of love and
wisdom. Yet its scope, while for eternity, is for time also. When
God first revealed himself to Moses, the Israelites were fast
relapsing into heathenism, with, its pernicious and degrading
habits of life. Under the divine inspiration, however, the
prophet imbued them anew with faith in the true God, and
presented them at the same time with an admirable code of
practical life. He taught them to love and fear God, to obey his
commandments, to live soberly and uprightly in themselves, and to
practise justice and love toward each other. He continually
placed before them the divine promises of not only eternal but
also temporal rewards for obedience, and, in like manner, the
threatened penalties of disobedience. Viewed even as practical
rules of living for earthly life alone, his are models of
excellence. No man has ever done more toward retaining that
tabernacle of the human soul, the earthly body, in a pure and
healthy condition than this great lawgiver. Contrast the precepts
given by God through him to the Israelites after he had brought
them out of the land of Egypt, with those of the Egyptians, of
the Canaanites, and other heathen nations of the period. How wise
and elevating are the tendencies of the one! What injustice,
inhumanity, and degradation mark the other!
{117}
On the one hand, love supreme to God and to one's neighbor as
one's self, joined with forbearance, justice, truthfulness,
honesty, chastity, temperance, cleanliness even, and rigid
adherence to what would now be termed sound sanitary principles;
while on the heathen side, what may be comprised in three
words--selfishness, sensuality, and force. The fruits of
obedience to the former were, even here, comparative immunity
from disease and its sufferings, with enhanced material
prosperity and happiness, and with increased longevity; while to
the other there came the legitimate penalties of inordinate
self-indulgence, of selfishness and evil-living; the fruits of
the laws of life which heathenism gave to them.
It is hence that we claim for religion--for the religious
precepts revealed to man by the divinely inspired prophets of the
old dispensation, that they contributed vastly to the physical
and temporal well-being of the race. The God of nature required
that there should be no violation of the laws of nature; that our
organs and faculties, designed for legitimate uses, should not be
subjected to abuse and perversion. Hence temperance and
moderation, and a rigid avoidance of whatever tended to a
violation of the natural laws of health, were enjoined upon man
as duties of religious obligation. That the mortal body might be
and remain a fit enclosure of the immortal soul, the inspired
teachings of the old law descended to the minutest details of the
laws of health and life. This, indeed, constituted the less
exalted sphere of religion, yet one of prime importance, so far
as the well-being and happiness of earthly life was concerned.
Even, then, should we, for the moment, ignore religion in its
higher relations, and leave out of the question a future
existence, regarding man merely as an animal who is to be
annihilated at death; still we shall find that by its precepts
and its influence it has always largely contributed to his
measure of health, happiness, and longevity.
It is our purpose, in this paper, to confine our remarks to this
view of the case, and to discuss the influence of religion and a
Christian life upon man in his physical and earthly relations.
For the atheist even, for the deist and the sceptic, we claim
that the precepts and practice of Christianity are, above all
other systems and modes of life, conducive to physical and mental
health and vigor, to true enjoyment and long life.
Nearly all of the eminent philosophers and heathen teachers
before and at the time of Christ seem to have regarded the
pursuit of sensual pleasure as life's chief aim and end. True,
they advised a certain measure of moderation in the gratification
of the appetites and passions, in order that the vitality might
not be too rapidly exhausted; but this was their only limit to
self-indulgence; religious or moral obligation was not taken into
the account in making up the programme of practical life. The
pagan disciples of Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato, as well as the
more cultivated and polished polytheists of the empire of the
Caesars, lived for sensual enjoyment alone. Even human life was
made subservient to this dominant idea, as the frequent and
wanton murders of slaves and newly born children demonstrate.
{118}
Early failure of the vital forces, followed by disease and its
accompanying physical and mental suffering, was the fruitful
result. A participation in the revels of the temples of Venus and
of Bacchus might give its few brief hours of sensual pleasure;
but violated nature always inflicted her bitter penalties
therefore, in the form of painful and tedious morbid reactions.
The spectator at the Colosseum may have been momentarily excited
by the bloody scenes of the arena; but the simple instincts of
humanity must have filled the soul with horror and disgust, on
subsequent reflection upon the cruelty involved therein. Even in
the higher planes of pagan life, in the very lyceums and groves
of the philosophers of the Augustan age, so lax and inefficient
was the moral code of the day, and such their own imperfect moral
teachings, that the practical life-results were little better.
One can appreciate the reality of this when he calls to mind the
utter variance of the new law of Christ, when first introduced
among them, with nearly all the philosophies, customs, and habits
of the period. He has but to read, for this purpose, the
frightful description of ancient heathen society given by St.
Paul in the latter half of the first chapter of his epistle to
the Romans, addressed to the Christian converts from among this
very people. Without the restraining and healthful influences of
true religion, to what depths of moral and physical degradation
is not human nature capable of bringing itself! [Footnote 20]
"Professing themselves to be wise," says the apostle, "they
became fools. ... Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of
their heart, to uncleanness, to shameful affections, and to a
reprobate sense:" [thereby] "receiving in themselves the
recompense which was due to their error. ... Being filled with
all iniquity, malice, fornication, covetousness, wickedness, full
of envy, murder, contention, deceit, malignity, whisperers,
detractors, hateful to God, contumelious, proud, haughty,
inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, foolish,
dissolute, without affection, without fidelity, without mercy."
[Footnote 20: Romans i. 21-33.]
In contrasting, then, the principles, habits, and lives of the
Latin subjects of the Roman empire with those inculcated by
Christ in the new law, it will be found that the latter were by
far the most conducive to physical and mental vigor, material
happiness, and longevity. In one example we have a material
philosophy, wealth, sensuality, and unlimited self-indulgence; in
the other, a Christian code, inculcating virtue, charity,
morality, temperance, and moderation in all things. The fruits of
both systems were plainly visible, even in the days of Christ.
It has been estimated that more than one fourth part of the
population of the empire, under Augustus and Tiberius Caesar,
were slaves. The condition of these bondmen was deplorable. They
were not only deprived of all political and social rights, but
were regarded as soulless and devoid of moral responsibility.
Human slavery was a legitimate offspring of the pagan
philosophies of the period.
Another portion of the Roman people, amounting to about one half
of the entire population, occupied a moral and social status
nearly as low as that of the slave. The mothers, wives, and
daughters of Roman citizens were regarded as inferior beings,
mere pets and playthings of the men, household ornaments, useful
only so far as they were capable of contributing to the sensual
pleasures of their lords and masters. This wanton degradation of
the sex was another direct result of the pernicious teachings of
those men who are still lauded and honored by the world as models
of wisdom and virtue!
{119}
The free patricians and plebeians, comprising less than one third
of the entire population, and possessing nearly all of the
national wealth, devoted their lives in striving to add to the
military power and glory of the empire, and in the pursuit of
worldly pleasure. In the furtherance of these objects, neither
right, justice, humanity, nor even life itself was regarded as
important when opposed to their dominant passions. Such were the
materialists of that day.
Let us now turn to the precepts of our blessed Saviour, and their
immediate practical results in elevating humanity to a higher
plane, and in enhancing the general welfare of the human race.
The fundamental principles of the Christian system are, besides
faith in the revealed mysteries, supreme love to God and
fraternal love to man. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy
whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind.
This is the greatest and first commandment. And the second is
like to this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these
two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets."
(Matt. xxii. 37-40.) "All things, therefore, whatsoever you would
that men should do to you, do you also to them: for this is the
law and the prophets." (Matt. vii. 12.)
One of the first-fruits of these new ideas was a recognition by
the Christian converts of the dignity and brotherhood of all
mankind, and of the equality of all in the sight of God. Thus
were females and slaves at once elevated to their proper
positions in the scale of humanity. They could no longer be
regarded as mere instruments of sensual gratification, but were
recognized as brethren, children of a common father, co-workers
and coequals in the spiritual vineyard of our Lord Jesus Christ.
How readily, then, can we comprehend the ardent and untiring
devotion and love which were everywhere evinced by Christian
women for their divine Redeemer and Benefactor! How readily can
we explain the boundless enthusiasm and joy of the multitudes of
poor, oppressed, and disease-stricken men who followed Jesus from
place to place for consolation and restoration! When these
multitudes heard the precious sermon upon the mount, so much at
variance with the prevalent tenets and practices of the world,
they were amazed and delighted; for in it false philosophies, a
vicious civilization, and pernicious usages were rebuked, mankind
exalted to a higher sphere, and humanity vindicated.
As the lives of the pagans were natural reflexes of their false
and inhuman moral and social codes, so were the lives of the
Christians natural reflexes of the divine code. The foundations
of the one were idolatry, selfishness, sensuality,
uncharitableness, pride, and arrogance; of the other, godliness,
charity, love, humility, and benevolence. Humanity cannot clothe
itself with the first without chilling and paralyzing the higher
impulses of the soul, and fostering the bitter germs of mental
and physical sorrow. Nor can it adopt the last without developing
those spiritual attributes which elevate, refine, and bless the
possessor.
Let us come down to our own day, where materialism, sensuality,
and general immorality are nearly as common as in the days of the
apostles. We call ourselves Christians, profess to believe in one
God, in the immortality of the soul, and in a future state of
rewards and punishments; but practically, in actual life, many
communities are as inhuman, as sensual, as material, and as
immoral as were the pagans of the golden age.
{120}
The pagan disciples of Aristotle, for instance, did not hesitate
to violate the sacred germs of humanity, and thus to blast the
souls of multitudes of victims, for the purpose of preventing too
great an increase of population. The religion of Christ changed
all this, and true Christians have ever heeded the change. But
the recent work of Dr. Storer, of Boston, and official
legislative reports, demonstrate that this great crime is quite
as prevalent in the modern Athens and in the State which contains
it, as it was in the worst days of the Roman empire. The
influence of this alarmingly prevalent crime of our own day and
of our own nation is baneful in the extreme. On strictly sanitary
and material grounds, it is to be deprecated as an evil of the
greatest magnitude. Among its deleterious results may be recorded
diseases of important vital organs, which are in turn reflected
to the entire nervous system, and a consequent train of physical
and mental disorders, which make life a burden instead of a
blessing. Here, then, we see that a truly Christian mode of
living is more conducive to health, happiness, and long life than
that of the sensual materialist.
Contemplate, again, the world of wealth, fashion, and pleasure.
Behold the pomp, the luxury, and the numerous sensual enjoyments
which make up so largely its sum of life. Follow the votaries of
pleasure in their daily and nightly rounds, sit at their
epicurean tables, accompany them to routs, balls, play-houses,
and innumerable other places of resort, which temptingly beckon
them on every hand. Be with them also in their sleeping, and at
their early morning hours, when the inevitable reactions manifest
themselves; when pains, lassitude, and nervous and mental
depression overtake them. Read their interior convictions,
thoughts and regrets for ill-spent time, and for perversions of
the higher faculties. Consult the epicure, who "lives to eat" and
to stimulate his artificial appetite daily with highly seasoned
dishes. He will discourse eloquently upon the pleasures of the
table; but he can depict also the horrors of indigestion,
hypochondria, and not unfrequently of paralysis, apoplexy, and
kindred ailments. Consult the wine-bibber and the
whiskey-drinker. They can point to the enormous revenues which
the government derives from their patronage; to the innumerable
drinking-saloons which cover the land, and which are sustained
and enriched by them; to the numerous dens, above-ground and
under-ground, where the poor congregate to imbibe fiery poisons
that steal away their brains and the bread of their wives and
children; to the untold millions which are expended in their
traffic by men of all classes and conditions.
These men can portray the temporary delights and excitements of
such exhilarating beverages. They can tell you how the brain
glows, how the pulse rises, and how all the organs and faculties
are roused to preternatural energy under the influence of these
potent agents. But alas! what multitudes have experienced the
dreadful reactions which always follow their habitual use! What
multitudes have gone down to the grave prematurely with Bright's
disease, liver-complaint, softening of the brain, dropsy,
insanity, paralysis, delirium tremens, etc., victims of these
insidious poisons! In the United States especially, the
prevalence and the evils of whiskey-drinking are truly monstrous.
It is the dominant curse, the crying evil of the day. It pervades
all of the ramifications of social life.
{121}
It numbers its victims by millions of all ages, sexes, and
conditions. It corrupts and undermines the very foundation of
health, perverts and degrades the intellectual and moral
faculties, and depresses men deep, deep into the lower strata of
humanity.
Thousands have become habitual drinkers, and ultimately confirmed
inebriates, through the advice of their medical advisers. In
accordance with some absurd hypothesis, or perchance to please
their patients, too many medical men, during the past twenty
years, have ordered the habitual use of whiskey, rum, brandy, and
other stimulants. The calamities thus entailed are fearful to
contemplate; and those thoughtless physicians who have
contributed so largely in extending this great national vice will
bear to their graves a dreadful responsibility.
So far, then, as eating and drinking are concerned, it is evident
that the precepts of the Christian religion are far better
calculated to promote the welfare of mankind than are those of
the man of pleasure. Religion inculcates simplicity, frugality,
temperance; and the fruits are physical and mental vigor and
tranquil enjoyment. Irreligion encourages unrestrained convivial
excesses; and the results are disease, pain, and general
debasement.
Note, again, the devotees of fashion, whose pleasure consists in
unnatural and artificial excitements, who regard the ordinary
affairs and duties of life as tame and irksome, who convert night
into day, and who are happy only when in the midst of the
exaggerations, the frivolities, the romances of life. Do these
individuals employ their faculties or their time in accordance
with the laws of nature, or with reference to the duties and
destinies which manifestly pertain to them? The excitements of
the play-house, the ballroom, the race-course, and similar places
of fashionable resort are prone to divert the mind from the
serious duties of life, to engender morbid tastes and sentiments,
and to implant feelings of discontent with reference to ordinary
duties and occupations. When indulged in to such an extent, these
amusements are unchristian, and therefore derogatory to health
and happiness. Not in the gilded saloons of fashion are to be
found peace, contentment, and charity. Not in the souls of
pleasure-seeking devotees are to be found real satisfaction and
enjoyment. But among those who lead religious lives, whether high
or low, rich or poor, wise or simple, will be found the highest
developments of love, virtue, health, and true happiness.
A worldly life develops and fosters all that is sensual and
selfish in man. It continually rouses the organs and faculties of
the system into abnormal activity and excitement. It perverts the
delicate and sensitive functions of the organism from their
legitimate uses to the gratification of transient impulse,
passion, and caprice. It plays with the thousand living nerves
and fibres as upon the inanimate strings of an instrument,
heedless whether the overstrained and palpitating chords of life
snap asunder under the exciting ordeal. Its fruits, consequently,
are demoralizing, and in the highest degree detrimental to
health, usefulness, and happiness.
In a religious life how great a contrast is presented! Such a
life develops and fosters the highest and purest attributes of
the soul. It rouses into ever-living activity the divine
sentiments of love and charity, and puts far away sensuality,
selfishness, and inordinate and unlawful self-indulgence.
{122}
It inculcates temperance, moderation, disinterested benevolence,
chastity, and the cultivation of those virtues and graces which
secure health, contentment, and tranquil happiness.
From a strictly material point of view, then, we may rest assured
that a truly religious life is far more conducive to genuine
pleasure and to longevity than a mere worldly one. A simple
contemplation of the complicated and sensitive human organism, of
its physiology and its subjection to certain natural laws and
requirements, renders the justness of our position manifest.
Health can only be maintained by a just equilibrium in the action
of all the organs, functions, and faculties. Every overaction,
every undue excitement, is followed by a corresponding reaction
which is depressing, debilitating, and productive of more or less
disorder and suffering.
The thoughts, energies, and hopes of men of business are too
generally absorbed in the eager pursuit of wealth. Their ideas,
aspirations, and daily and hourly actions pertain solely to this
world. From childhood to old age the idea of eternity is almost
entirely put from them. Practically, these men are infidels,
because every act of their lives, from waking to sleeping, has
sole reference to the present life. They live and think and act
as if they were to remain for ever on this earth. They put far
from them the momentous realities of the near future, and cling
to the riches, the pomps, the vanities, and the frivolities of
this world like monomaniacs. Follow them to their counting-rooms,
to their clubs, to their places of recreation, to their homes,
and see how much of care, anxiety, and suffering, and how small
an amount of tranquil happiness, attend them. Contrast the lives
and the deaths of these devotees of business and riches with
those of the humble and exemplary Christian. Is there a doubt on
which side health, contentment, and true enjoyment of life will
be found? "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth; but
lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven: for where your
treasure is, there will your heart be also. ... Ye cannot serve
God and mammon." (Matt. vi. 19, 20, 21, 24.)
Let it not be thought that we are opposed to a reasonable
devotion to material and worldly affairs, or that we would place
a single obstacle in the way of human progress, whether
pertaining to trade, commerce, or the useful and ornamental arts.
Every man in his sphere has duties to perform; but it must not be
forgotten that these duties are neither exclusively material nor
yet spiritual. Let it not be forgotten that the _soul_ has
its wants and necessities as also the _body_. And let it not
be forgotten that, while the physical man is but for a day, the
spiritual man is for eternity. The wise man, therefore, will
recognize the fact that there is a time for all things--for
business, for recreation, for mental culture, and (chief of all)
for spiritual duties; and he will best accomplish the just ends
of his existence who rightly appreciates and acts upon this great
truth.
----------
{123}
Translated From The French.
Faith And Poetry Of The Bretons.
Continued.
Saint-Thêgonnec
Cemeteries
Calvaries
Character Of The People.
We need not traverse the whole of Brittany to have a perfect idea
of the works of architecture which faith has embellished. In one
little borough-town, Saint-Thégonnec, between Morlaix and
Landerneau, we find all the types of Christian art in Brittany
concentrated--church, funereal chapel, burying-vault, calvary,
and sculptures.
The Breton cemeteries closely resemble each other; nearly
everywhere they surround the church, and are enclosed by a low
wall, often without gates of any kind, merely a small ditch
preventing the cattle from trespassing on the abode of the dead.
[Footnote 21] A cross, or a calvary, where the scenes of the
passion are represented, or sometimes the kneeling statue of a
loved or lamented pastor's venerated image that recalls his
virtues to his faithful people, these are the only monuments of
the cemeteries of the Breton villages. The tombs are marked by
small heaps of earth, pressed each against the other, and
surmounted by a cross. Some are covered by a stone, and in this
stone is indented a little cup that gathers the dew and rain from
heaven, and offers to the mourning relative--the mother, son, the
friend--the blessed asperges to accompany the prayer for him who
lies beneath. [Footnote 22] These cemeteries, placed in the midst
of towns and villages, cannot be of any great extent; soon,
therefore, they are filled with extinct generations, and these
bodies must be exhumed to make place for new-comers. In one
village, Plouha, after the sons had disinterred the bodies of
their fathers, they decorated the façade of the church with the
stones of the tombs, that they might be cold witnesses of their
memories, or, at least, might never cover the bodies of others.
The general resting-place for these exhumed bones is a mortuary
chapel constructed by the side of the church; and if a glance is
taken through the Gothic arch which opens on this charnel-house,
bones upon bones may be seen heaped up and mingled like blades of
straw. These were men who have walked on the earth, now solitary
and forsaken until the eternal resurrection.
[Footnote 21: At Goueznon, at Plabennec, etc.]
[Footnote 22: We see in Algeria little cups hollowed in the
sepulchral stones of the Mussulmans; but this water is only
used by the birds to satisfy their thirst, or to water the
flowers that decorate the tombs.]
But at Saint-Thégonnec a more respectful and tender sentiment has
tried to preserve intact at least a portion of these bodies so
rudely torn from the earth. Before entering the church, we are
struck by an unexpected sight; from every projection of the
building, on the porches, on the prominent cornices, are laid or
hung and suspended, one above the other, a multitude of small
boxes arranged as a chaplet; these little boxes, surmounted each
by its cross, are coffins, and enclose the skull of an ancestor,
his head, or, according to the expressive word of the old
language, _le chef_, that which is most noble in man, and
which may be resumed. An inscription indicates the date and name:
{124}
"_Here lies_ LE CHEF _de_ ..."
Another touching symbol may be seen through the openings, the
funeral archives of families preserved in the shadow of the
church, that rising generations may discover them, so that they
may not be forgotten, as they would be, immured in their own
homes. [Footnote 23]
[Footnote 23: At Locmariquer there are not only coffins with
heads, but miniature ones enclosing all the bones, piled one
above the other like bales of goods, in the place apportioned
them.]
Here and there on the cornice, exposed to the air, are skulls of
the dead, poor creatures once without friends or family to give
them burial, painted green, their eyes filled with sand and
blades of grass projecting from them, often leaning against each
other; here, one supported perhaps by him who was his bitter
enemy.
Passing there double rows of coffins, we enter the church, and
this is but a repetition of all the Breton churches; everything
here--an elegant font, sculptured mouldings, pulpit of choice
wood and of marvellous workmanship--_chef-d'oeuvre_ of the
end of the Renaissance, and one of the finest pulpits in
Brittany--pictures on wood, chisel paintings, ever perpetuating
the patriarchs, the kings, and prophets of the Old Testament
mounting from earth to heaven; even to the Blessed Virgin; vault
of gold and azure fairly sparkling in its complete beauty; the
choir, the altar, and the side chapels filled with statues,
wreathed columns, heads of angels, flowers, garlands, gilded and
painted in every color, a perfect stream of gold, verdure,
brilliant crimson, and azure.
From this refulgent and living whole, a single door rises on the
side, high and naked; no sculpture, no ornament; the stones sweat
their dampness; the bricks, that have assumed a blackened tint,
separated by their white cement, present a lugubrious aspect; a
great mourning veil seems spread before the eyes--this is the
gate of death. You open, and you pause enchanted. Before you lies
the cemetery. At your right, at your left, monument upon monument
breaks upon your gaze. Under the porch where you stand are the
statues in line of the twelve apostles; and opposite you, a large
gate with three arches, the gate of the cemetery, in its imposing
style, an arch of triumph, as if the Bretons, passing under it
the perishable body, had typified the life eternal, the glory and
the joy of the imperishable soul. At the right, a mortuary chapel
of the style of the Louvre of Henry IV. is erected, its sculpture
from the bottom to the top, an immense _châsse_ pictured in
granite; at your left is the calvary, one of those complicated
calvaries, found only in Brittany, a whole people of statues;
eighty or a hundred personages in the most natural and simple
attitudes--disciples, prophets, holy women, thieves on their
crosses, guards on horseback, and, towering over all this crowd,
the tree of the cross, colossal in its structure, of several
stones, cross upon cross, and holding on its branches statues of
the Virgin, Saint John, the guards, and others, and, in immensity
of size and above all, the Christ himself, with his arms extended
over the world, and his eyes uplifted to heaven. Angels are
there, too, suspended in the air, and collecting in their
chalices the precious blood from his hands. [Footnote 24]
[Footnote 24: The calvaries of Plougastel and Pleyben--towns
so remarkable for their beautiful churches are more
complicated and grand, perhaps, but not so striking, as this
one.]
{125}
And this is not all: enter the crypt of the mortuary chapel, and
there you will find yourself face to face with another
_chef-d'oeuvre_--the entombing of Christ, the scene which
has ever inspired the greatest artists, and in colossal
proportions. These are painted statues, and the painting adds to
the impression, giving to the deeply moved personages the
appearance of life. You hear them cry, you see their tears course
down their pallid faces; the Virgin-Mother with her pressed lips
on the livid feet of her divine Son, the Magdalen overwhelmed
with grief and still beautiful in the midst of her sorrow. Can
you fail to become an actor in this impassioned scene? You are
rooted to the spot; the terrible blow that made them surfer
becomes your reality, and, grieved to the depths of your soul,
you feel your own tears flow; the lapse of ages is forgotten, and
you are living in that Calvary scene.
And when we think that these works of religious art are spread
all over Brittany with the same profusion; that in towns
apparently the most remote from any road or centre, at
Saint-Herbot in the Black Mountains, at Saint-Fiacre, which is
only a little village of Laouet, and even less than a village, a
miserable hamlet of five or six houses, in the chapel of
Rozegrand near Quimperlé, a modest manor which hardly merits the
name of a castle--we find in all these places galleries of
sculptured wood, painted, gilded, and figured with fifty or more
persons, rivalling the most costly churches; works so admirably
reproducing the history, the miracles, and the mysteries of
religion, while they preserve among the people and reanimate and
increase their ardor and faith, we cannot but ask, What is the
cause of such a multitude of works of art appearing everywhere on
the surface of the country, and what has been the inspiration
which has produced such fruit--richness of invention, truth of
gesture, expression of physiognomy, a true and deep sentiment of
everything divine in scenery and action? In all these monuments
of the middle ages, there is to be found the same truth, the same
power of imagination, while the artist never repeats himself and
never tires you. He leads you on like the musician, scarcely
giving you time to recover from one melody ere you are
soul-entranced with another still more beautiful.
But this creative power has a cause; this society--as a man
arrived at maturity with all his work accomplished for the end he
would attain--had been prepared by previous ages. Disengaged
from the swaddling-clothes of antiquity, its tongue was formed,
its religious ideas fixed, and with its new-formed Christianity,
it was logically constituted--it became a unity. Still in
possession of such power, this people struggles only to create;
never led by contrary tastes or carried away by disorderly and
unregulated motives, so justly named in our day _caprice_,
they cling to what preceding ages have sought for, gathered, and
inculcated. The materials are ready to their hands, they seize
them, and, with the genius of the age, reproduce, in a thousand
forms, new beauties; the well-filled vase has only to diffuse
itself and overflow with treasures. Thus, imagination bursts out
everywhere lively and colored; the same mind, in literature as in
art, reproduces the varied ornaments of churches, invents fables
and legends, and finds at every moment new images to represent
manners, ideas, opinions; and this imagination, far from
exhausting itself, grows and increases, not as the forced plant
of the hot-house, but the natural flower of their own spring.
Ages train on, and the last one bears the crown.
{126}
We see, too, why such artists--authors of such exquisite
works--are so obscure, so unknown. They have not rendered their
own ideas simply, but those of their race; the sentiments of
their ancestors, of the fathers with whom they have been born and
raised, have penetrated their whole being, and they have merely
expressed their surroundings. Thus, these monuments of art are
not only proof of talent and their sojourn on earth, but
witnesses of their piety and faith--the worship of a people.
So, the faith of days past still lives in Brittany: could one
doubt it, let him look at the evidences of an unweakened piety
which meet him at every step. See the gifts of the women of the
aristocracy, beautiful scarfs of cashmere, covering the altars of
the cathedral of Tréguier, and the offerings of the poor, bundles
of crutches, left at Folgoat by the infirm "made whole." Then the
pilgrimages, vast armies of men and women, moving yearly to their
favorite shrine of Saint Anne d'Auray, and the miraculous
pictures, decking from top to bottom this church of the Mother of
the Virgin, too small for a Christian museum replenished so
constantly. At every step arise new chapels and churches: at
Saint-Brieuc several were built at once; Lorient, a town peopled
with soldiers and sailors, has just raised at its gate a church
in the style of Louis XIV.; Vitré gives to its church a new bell
and a sculptured pulpit; the little villages put up in their
cemeteries calvaries with figures of the middle ages; the calvary
of Ploëzal, between Tréguier and Guingamp, is dated 1856; Dinan
restores and enriches its beautiful church of Saint Malo; Quimper
throws to the air two noble spires from the towers of its
cathedral; the chapel of Saint Ilan, a model of elegance and
grace, rises in pure whiteness on the borders of the sea, in the
midst of the calm roofs of its pious colony; Nantes, while she
builds several new churches, finishes her immense cathedral, its
dome of Cologne and Brittany, to which each age has given a hand,
and in constructing this beautiful church of Saint Nicholas,
proves what the piety and zeal of a pastor and devoted flock
could accomplish, in less than ten years, by alms and gifts. A
few years since, at Guingamp, a chapel was dedicated to the
Blessed Virgin outside the church; the statues are painted of the
twelve apostles, the altar is magnificent, and the roof azure and
stars of gold. No expense was spared, no decoration too great to
ornament the sanctuary of the Virgin. Fifty thousand persons were
there the day of the inauguration. These are the national
holy-days of the Bretons. Elsewhere, people rush to the
inauguration of princes or the revolutions which presage their
downfall; but here they come from all parts of Brittany to assist
in the coronation of the Queen of heaven. And what piety, what
recollection, what gravity in the deportment of these men and
women, kneeling on the pavements of the churches! As at La
Trappe, so here is seen the same complete absorption of the human
being in the thoughts that fill the soul; the functions of life
seem annihilated, and, immovable in prayer, they remain in that
absolute contemplation in which the saints are represented,
overwhelmed by sentiments of veneration, submission, and
humility: the man is forgotten, the Christian only exists. More
expressive even than the monuments are these daily acts of
devotion, that evidence the habitual state of the soul.
{127}
Walk, on a market-day, through the square of some city or town of
Finistère. How varied and animated it appears! Rows of little
wagons standing around, and on these all sorts of merchandise:
velvet ribbons and buckles for the men's caps; woollen ornaments
made into rosettes for the head-dresses of the women; variegated
pins, ornamented with glass pearls; pipe-holders of wood; little
microscopic pipes and instruments to light them, with other
useful and ornamental wares. Under the tents of these movable
shops, a crowd of men and women are seen. The women with
head-dresses of different forms, their large white handkerchiefs
rounded at the back and carefully crossed on the breast; the men
with their pantaloons narrowly tightened, falling low, and
resting on the hips, so that the shirt may be seen between them
and the vest, their caps with broad brims covering their long
hair, often tucked up behind, and walking with measured steps,
carrying their canes, never hurried, always calm and dignified.
Twelve o'clock is heard; from the high bell-tower of the
neighboring church comes the echoing peal of mid-day; twelve
times it slowly strikes, and then all is hushed. Every one
pauses, is silent. With simultaneous movement, the men doff their
hats and their long hair falls over their shoulders. All are on
their knees, the sign of the cross is made, and one low murmur
tells the Angelus. A stranger in such a crowd must kneel;
involuntarily he bends his knee with the rest. The prayer to the
Virgin finished, they rise again; life and motion commence, and a
din is heard, the almost deafening noise of the roar of the sea.
Again I see them in the church of Cast, (Finistère.) It was
Sunday, at the hour of vespers. The bell of the church-tower had
sounded from the break of day, and crowds of men and women
surrounded the church, talking in groups, gently and noiselessly.
The bell ceased; the groups broke up and separated into two
bands, on one side the men, on the other the women, all directing
their steps to the church. The women entered first, and in a
moment the nave was filled; the young women of the Confraternity
of the Blessed Virgin took their places in the middle of the
church, all in white, but their costume ornamented with
embroidery of gilt and silver, gilded ribbons on their arms,
belts of the same encircling their graceful figures, and falling
in four bands at the back on the plaited petticoat, and the heart
of gold and cross on the breast of each; in the side aisles, the
matrons ranged themselves, wives and mothers, in more varied
costumes, gayly colored, head-dresses of deep blue and yellow,
blue ribbons with silver edges on the brown jackets, red
petticoats, and clock stockings embroidered in gold. All knelt on
the pavement, their heads inclined, their rosaries in their
hands, and in collected silence.
The women all placed, another door opened at the side of the
church, and the men's turn came. With grave and measured steps
they walked in file, and strange and imposing was the sight--in
comparison with the variegated and gay dress of the women, so
opposingly sombre was that of the men; and yet the attention was
not so much riveted by their uniform attire, their long brown
vests, their large puffed breeches; but their squared heads,
their long features, the quantity of straight hair, covering
their foreheads like thick fleece, and falling in long locks on
their shoulders and down their backs.
{128}
All, children and men grown, wore the same costume, this long
black hair, which in the air assumed a sombre reddish tint, and
falling on the thick, heavy eyebrows, gave to their eyes an
expression of energy, of almost superhuman firmness. They
scarcely seemed men of our time and country; the grave, immovable
faces, with the brilliant eyes scrutinizing at once the character
and appearance of the stranger among them, the uncultivated heads
of hair, weighing down their large heads like the manes of wild
animals, gave the idea of men apart; men from the wilds of some
far country moving among the modern races, with silent gesture
and solemn step, and uttering brief and pithy sentences, as if
they alone held the secrets of the past, the knowledge of the
mysteries and truths of the olden time.
They defiled one by one, prostrating themselves before the altar,
and kneeling in turn on the stone floor, surrounding entirely the
grating of the choir. True assemblage of the faithful! The men, a
strong soldiery in front, the women behind, a more humble crowd,
but each forgetting the other, living but for one thought--for
God. For God is not for these _barbarians_ what he is for
us; we, _civilized inhabitants_ of cities, we try to explain
God, and even on our knees in his temples we analyze him, comment
upon his acts, and even doubt if he exists. They spend no time in
such vain thoughts, barren meditations: for them God is; they
know and believe in him. He made the heaven over their heads, the
earth that produces their harvests, made them themselves, and
preserves them or takes them to him. He is the Invisible who can
do everything, from the heights of the heavens, and everywhere at
once; and in comparison with this All-Powerful they feel their
littleness, prostrate themselves and adore.
----------
Count De Montalembert.
In that drear twilight, herald of the day
On which new faith, new hope, new love were born,
And while my heart still pressed against the thorn
Of unbelief, like some fresh matin lay
Of forest warbler in his own loved May,
Broke, Montalembert, on my trance forlorn,
Elizabeth's young voice, which sang death's scorn
In carols with celestial transports gay.
Now, when cool evening's earliest pensive shade
Creeps o'er my life, as clear and jubilant
As that wild mocking-bird's, is heard the chant
Of mighty abbots, whose processions fade
Into the dark of ages, made by thee
New themes for thought and holy minstrelsy.
----------
{129}
Rings.
Looking over an old jewel-case, the other day, I found a ring; no
treasured heirloom or _gage d'amour_ of by-gone days, but a
simple black circlet, whose sole ornament was a silver heart, on
which were engraved in rude fashion the letters VA. The sight of
it recalled a stormy day during the winter of 1864, when a pale
and emaciated Confederate soldier knocked at our door and asked
for shelter. Of course, it was cheerfully granted.
On questioning him we learned that he had suffered the rigor of
prison life for two years; had just been released, and was _en
route_ to join his regiment before Petersburg. Upon leaving,
he thanked me for our hospitality, and begged my acceptance of
this little ring, the making of which had served to while away
the tedium of captivity. I put it carefully aside, and the lapse
of time and other more stirring events had almost obliterated the
circumstance from my mind, until it was thus revived.
As I gazed upon it, how many memories were revived by it! In it I
traced the life of the donor, and in him the vain hopes and
aspirations of his comrades and the ruin which befell them. I
heard the call to arms; saw the leave-taking and departure for
the field; followed him amid the sanguinary contests of battle;
till at length defeat, like a black cloud, lowers over his
decimated legions, and he finds himself within a prison's walls.
There, chafing against captivity, listening eagerly for tidings
of release, and sick with hope deferred, I see him beguiling the
weary hours in fashioning this little trinket. At last the hour
of liberty arrives, and with bounding pulse, to the tune of
"Home, sweet home," he turns his back on prison-bars. Once again
he is a soldier of the army of Northern Virginia; but gone are
the high hopes which animated his breast, and gone are most of
the brave comrades who once stood shoulder to shoulder with him;
hardship, hunger, and death have done their work, and the end is
near; a few more suns, and he and his cause fall to rise no more!
Such is the story that I read in that little hoop of black horn.
How many startling events, how many passions of the human heart
crowded into a tiny compass!
And this, methought, is not the only ring about which might be
woven a tale of joy or sorrow. The "lion-hearted" king,
notwithstanding his pilgrim guise, by means of one was betrayed
to his relentless Austrian foe; and, centuries later, the gallant
Essex entrusted his life to such an advocate. Trifling baubles as
they are, which may be hid in the hollow of a baby's hand, they
have, from their first introduction to the world, acted a
conspicuous part in its history.
{130}
The Persians maintain that Guiamschild, fourth king of the first
race, introduced the ring. Whether this be true or not, it is
certainly of ancient date, since mention is made of it in Genesis
as being worn by the Hebrews as a signet. It was also in use
among the Egyptians; for we are told that, after the
interpretation of the dream, "Pharaoh took off his ring from his
hand, and put it on Joseph's hand," as a mark of royal favor. The
Sabines used this ornament during the time of Romulus, and
perhaps the glittering jewels on the fingers of the women may
have enhanced their attractions in the eyes of the bold Roman
youths when they so unceremoniously bore them off. But it is not
certain at what precise period the Romans adopted rings; for
there are no signs of them on their statues prior to those of
Numa and Servius Tullius. They were commonly made of iron, and
Pliny says that Marius wore his first gold one in his third
consulate, the year 650 of Rome. Senators were not allowed to
wear them of this metal unless distinguished as ambassadors in
foreign service; but in after days golden rings became the badge
of knighthood; the people wearing silver, the slaves iron.
In tracing its history, we can readily imagine that the ring was
invented merely as an accompaniment to bracelet and necklace;
afterward it became a badge of distinction; and finally, when the
art of engraving and cutting stones was introduced, it attained
an importance which no other trinket can boast of. Ornamented
with initials, armorial crests, or mystic characters, it has been
used for centuries as a seal for state documents and secret
despatches, a sort of _gage de foi_ of their authenticity.
There are numerous instances in the sacred writings of its
peculiar significance when thus employed. For example, when
Ahasuerus, giving ear to the counsels of his favorite, consented
to exterminate the Jews, it is recorded that "the king took his
ring from his hand, and gave it unto Haman;" and, concerning the
proclamation, "in the name of King Ahasuerus was it written, and
sealed with the king's ring." We also read elsewhere that the den
into which Daniel was thrown was sealed by the king "with his own
signet, and with the signets of his lords, that the purpose might
not be changed concerning Daniel."
It is supposed that the Greeks did not know the ring at the time
of the Trojan war; for Homer does not speak of it, and instead of
sealing, they secured their letters by means of a silken cord.
Although this people encouraged learning and the fine arts, they
do not seem to have possessed that of engraving, which they
borrowed from the Egyptians, who excelled in this branch to a
remarkable degree.
The rage for signets soon became universal, no patrician was
without his ring, and in Rome the engravers were forbidden to
make any two seals alike. In such esteem were they held, that it
is related, when Lucullus visited Alexandria, Ptolemy could find
no more acceptable present to offer him than an emerald, on which
was engraved a portrait of himself. Julius Caesar had on his ring
the image of Venus, armed with a dart; and the seal of Pompey was
a lion holding a sword, while that of Scipio Africanus bore the
portrait of Syphax, the Libyan king whom he had vanquished.
The manner of wearing the signet differed greatly, the Hebrews
preferring to ornament the right hand, the Romans the left. The
Greeks put it on the fourth finger of the left hand, because of
the belief that a nerve connected that member with the heart;
hence the same custom is observed with the wedding-ring.
After the advent of Christianity, it assumed a spiritual as well
as political value, the episcopal ring, as it is called, being
used as a pledge of spiritual marriage between the bishop and the
church.
{131}
This custom is of ancient date, since there is mention in the
proceedings of the fourth Council of Toledo, A.D. 633, that a
bishop condemned for any offence by one council, if found
innocent upon a second trial, should have his ring restored. The
popes also wore seals, and at the present time the revered Father
of the Catholic Church has two--one which he uses to sign
apostolical briefs and private letters, called the _fisherman's
ring,_ representing St. Peter drawing in his net full of
fishes; the other, with which he seals his bulls, is ornamented
with the heads of St. Paul and St. Peter, with a cross between
the two.
The Hebrew used the wedding-ring, though some writer maintains
that it was not a pledge of love, but given in lieu of a piece of
money. It is evident that the Christians adopted the practice in
their marriage rites at an early period, some of the oldest
liturgies containing the vows with regard to it.
Being esteemed in a political and religious sense, it is no
matter of wonder that Cupid's minions have also, from time
immemorial, made the ring a seal of undying constancy, accepting
its circular form as a type of eternity. Thus, Portia, after
bestowing her riches upon Bassanio, says:
"I give them with this ring;
Which when you part from, lose, or give away,
Let it presage the ruin of your love,
And be my vantage to exclaim on you."
But lovers, not content with the emblem of shape, also added
mottoes, and it became the fashion to engrave verses, names, and
dates within the ring. Alluding to the custom, Hamlet asks, "Is
this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?" And in the last act of
_The Merchant of Venice_, when Portia exclaims:
"A quarrel, ho, already? What's the matter?"
Gratiano answers:
"About a hoop of gold, a paltry ring
That she did give me; whose posy was
For all the world like cutler's poetry
Upon a knife--_Love me, and leave me not_."
The wedding-ring of Lady Catharine Grey, sister of Lady Jane
Grey, consisted of five golden links, and on the four inner ones
were these lines of her husband's composition:
"As circles five by art compact, shewe but one ring in sight,
So trust uniteth faithfull mindes with knott of secret might;
Whose force to breake but greedie Death noe wight possesseth power,
As time and sequels well shall prove. My ringe can say no more."
The famous ring given by Queen Elizabeth to the Earl of Essex is
said to be still extant, and in the possession of Lord John
Thynne, a descendant of Lady Frances Devereux, the earl's
daughter. It is of gold, the sides engraved, with a cameo head of
Elizabeth in a sardonyx setting.
Before ending this paper, I must relate a curious legend, told of
the Emperor Charlemagne, prefacing my story by saying, that in
those times certain precious stones were thought to possess
peculiar virtues which had an influence on the wearers or those
around them. At the court of Charlemagne there lived a woman,
neither young nor handsome, but who appeared to have a wondrous
fascination for the monarch. So potent were her charms, that he
neglected the affairs of his empire, and allowed his sword to
rust. At last, to the great joy of all, the woman died; but
Charlemagne mourned grievously, and even when her body was
prepared for burial, refused to allow it to be carried out of his
sight.
{132}
However, there was in the palace a bishop, learned in the arts,
and acquainted with the superstitions of the time; and one day,
when the king had gone hunting, he resolved to examine the
corpse. His search was successful; for under the woman's tongue
he found a ring, which he immediately secured. On his return from
the chase, the emperor repaired to the room where the body lay;
but instead of lingering near it, he ordered it to be interred,
and seemed to have entirely recovered from the spell that bound
him. That night a ball was given at court; and many a fair cheek
flushed in anticipation of being the choice of Charlemagne in the
dance; but lo! when the music struck up, the emperor stepped
forward and requested the bishop to be his partner. The good
priest, resenting the indignity, escaped from the hall, and
feeling assured that the ring in his possession was the cause of
such conduct, threw it into a lake beneath the palace walls.
Thereupon Charlemagne recovered his senses, but ever after was
devoted to the spot, and built there the town of Aix. Some old
chronicler also asserts that, when the monarch was on his
death-bed, he said that it was impossible for him to depart in
peace from this world until a certain ring was restored to him.
The secret of its hiding-place being revealed, the lake was
dragged and the charm found. Charlemagne received it with many
signs of joy, and requested that it might be buried with him.
For the truth of this legend I do not vouch; but it is averred
that, years afterward, when the tomb of the mighty Frank was
opened, on his breast was found an antique ring.
----------
In The School-room. [Footnote 25]
[Footnote 25: _In the School-Room; Chapters in the
Philosophy of Education._ John S. Hart, LL.D., Principal
of the New Jersey State Normal School. Eldredge & Brother:
Philadelphia.
_The Scientific Basis of Education_, demonstrated by an
analysis of the temperaments and of phrenological facts, in a
series of letters to the Department of Public Instruction in
the city of New York. By John Hecker. Published by the
Author, 56 Rutgers Street, New York.]
The author of this volume has evidently spent much time in the
school-room, and has not spent it in vain. He writes like a
practical man, in a clear, vigorous style. As he says in his
preface, he takes "a pretty free range over the whole practical
field of inquiry among professional teachers, and presents to us
thoughts suggested in the school-room itself in short, detached
chapters." The work is not a _philosophy_ of education, but
rather a laudable attempt to contribute something toward it.
In the first chapter, on "What is Teaching?" he brings out
forcibly the truth that teaching is not simply telling, nor is
talking to a class necessarily teaching, as experience shows that
a class may be told a thing twenty times over, and talked to in
the most fluent manner, and still make little advancement in
knowledge.
{133}
This truth deserves more attention from those engaged in
teaching. The work of universal education which is required in
our country is so vast, that necessity has forced many to assume
the office of teachers who have very little knowledge of what
teaching is. "Teaching," as the author well says, "is causing one
to know. Now, no one can be made to know a thing but by the act
of his own powers. His own senses, his own memory, his own powers
of reason, perception, and judgment must be exercised. The
function of the teacher is to bring about this exercise of the
pupil's faculties."
The second chapter, on "The Art of Questioning," states that a
"most important and difficult part" of the teacher's art is to
know how to ask a question, but he gives none of the principles
that underlie the art. The earnest reader will say: If so much
depends on skilful questioning, why does he not tell us how to do
it? The little work of J. G. Filch, M.A., on _The Art of
Questioning_ appears to us much more philosophical and
satisfactory. According to him, questions as employed by teachers
may be divided into three classes, according to the purposes
which they may be intended to serve. There is, first, the
_preliminary_ or _experimental_ question, by which an
instructor feels his way, sounds the depths of his pupil's
knowledge, and prepares him for the reception of what it is
designed to teach.
There is, secondly, the question employed in _actual
instruction_, by means of which the thoughts of the learner
are exercised, and he is compelled, so to speak, to take a share
in giving himself the lesson.
Thirdly, there is the question of _examination_, by which a
teacher tests his own work, after he has given a lesson, and
ascertains whether it has been soundly and thoroughly learned. By
this method, as an eminent teacher has said, one first questions
the knowledge into the minds of the children, and then questions
it out of them again.
The following chapters on the order of development of the mental
faculties are very good. We think, however, he lays too much
stress on the necessity of knowledge before memory. The memory,
being strongest and most retentive in youth, should then be
stored with those germinating formulas which will bear fruit in
after life. When the reasoning powers are developed at a later
period, they then have something upon which to act.
The chapters on "Loving the Children" and "Gaining their
Affections" are excellent.
The high salaries paid in our public schools induce many to
engage in teaching, merely because it affords them honorable and
lucrative employment. They have no love for the children, and
are, therefore, unfit for the work. They have no sympathy for the
children of the poor with bright eyes and tattered garments. It
is painful to go into the school of such teachers. They seem to
regard the children as pawns on a chessboard, or as _things_
which they are paid to manage and keep in order. Such teachers
should study well the chapters on loving the children for what
they are in themselves.
He then introduces a chapter on "Phrenology," in which he details
several instances where a professor of phrenology, as he says,
was misled, and gave an incorrect delineation of character. We
suppose he wishes us to conclude, phrenology is therefore a
humbug. But such an inference is evidently unwarranted from any
_data_ he has given.
{134}
One might as well say that several instances of malpractice on
the part of physicians prove the science of medicine to be a
humbug. There is no doubt that, by phrenology, physiognomy, and
various temperamental peculiarities, a person's general character
and disposition may be discerned. The wise teacher will study
these, that he may intelligently vary his government and teaching
to suit the various characters of the pupils under his charge.
The work of Mr. John Hecker on _The Scientific Basis of
Education_ shows to how great an extent a knowledge of
phrenology and of the different temperaments may assist the
teacher in the instruction and government of children. His work
is worthy the attention of every teacher.
The chapters on "Normal Schools" and "Practice Teaching" are
important. It by no means follows that, because a person knows a
thing, he is therefore prepared to teach.
The art of communicating one's knowledge to others is quite a
distinct acquirement.
No one who has compared the results obtained by teachers who have
been trained for the work with those who have not can fail to
appreciate this. We hope the time will come when all who occupy
the position of teachers will be required to attend to this
matter, and keep pace with the progress made in the art of
teaching.
The chapter on cultivating a habit of attention should be studied
by every teacher.
The freaks into which an uncultivated ear may be led for the want
of attention will be best illustrated by one of the author's
examples. A class at the high-school was required to copy a
passage from dictation. The clause,
"Every breach of veracity indicates some latent vice,"
appeared with the following variations:
Every breach of veracity indicates some latent vice.
Every bridge of rasality indicates some latest vice.
Every breech of ferocity indicates some latinet vice.
Every preach of erracity indicates some late device.
Every branch of vivacity indicates some great advice.
Every branch of veracity indicates some late advice.
Every branch of veracity indicates some ladovice.
Every branch of veracity indicates some ladened vice.
Every branch of veracity in the next some latent vice.
Every reach of their ascidity indicates some advice.
Every one who is called upon to give out "notices" or to speak in
public knows full well how great a portion of what is said in the
plainest manner is misapprehended for the want of this habit of
attention.
The volume closes with a lengthy "Argument for Common Schools."
It would be more properly called an "apology." His first point
is, "that without common schools we cannot maintain permanently
our popular institutions." The necessity of universal education
to secure the permanence of our popular institutions is conceded
by all. But education, according to the author's own definition,
is the "developing in due order and proportion whatever is good
and desirable in human nature." Therefore, not only the
intellect, but also the moral and religious nature must be
developed. This the common schools fail to do.
A man is not necessarily a good citizen because he is
intelligent, without he also possesses moral integrity. According
to the author's own admission, his education is incomplete. As
the public schools fail to give any moral training, they fail to
make reliable citizens, and are therefore insufficient to secure
the permanence of our democratic form of government.
To this objection he replies "that many of the teachers are
professing Christians, and exert a continual Christian
influence." But many more are non-professors, and exert an
anti-christian influence.
{135}
In visiting schools, we have been able to tell the religious
_status_ of the teachers in charge by the general tone of
the exercises. One presided over by a zealous Methodist resembled
a Methodist Sunday-school or conference meeting. Another, under
the care of a "smart young man," delighted in love songs, boating
songs, etc., and had the general tone of a young folks'
glee-club. In another of our most celebrated public schools, one
of the professors was an atheist, and it was a matter of common
remark among the boys that Prof. ---- said there was no God.
In another, one of the teachers was overheard sneering at a child
because she believed in our Lord Jesus Christ, and had a
reverence for religious things. We admit that the familiar
intercourse and intimate relations of the teachers with the
children give them a great influence over their plastic minds,
but, to our sorrow, we know that it is not always for good. We do
not, therefore, consider it a recommendation of a system to say
that the moral tone of its teaching depends altogether on the
caprice and character of the different teachers it happens to
employ.
Again, he says the law of trial by jury requires that every
citizen should be intelligent, as they are thus called to take
part in the administration of justice. True; but it requires much
more that jurymen should possess moral principle. What makes
courts of justice so often a mockery, but the want of principle
and of conscience in those who administer the law? If his estate,
life, or reputation depended on the decision of twelve men, would
he feel easy if he knew them to be unprincipled, immoral men,
open to bribery and corruption, however intelligent they might
be? No; the constitution of our government, the popular
institutions of our country, require that here, more than in any
country of the world, the young should receive a sound moral and
religious training, which cannot be done where, as here, religion
is excluded from our common schools.
But, he says, the children attend the Sunday-school, which
supplements the instructions of the weekday-school. True; but
every earnest pastor who has any positive creed or doctrine to
teach his children will tell you that one or two brief meetings
on Sunday are not enough for this purpose. We ourselves are
forced to the painful conclusion that the Sunday-school system
does not give sufficient control over the children to form in
them any earnest Christian character. It is like reserving the
salt which should season our food during the week, and taking it
all in a dose on Sunday.
The Sunday-school should be diligently used to supply, as far as
may be, the lack of religious instruction in the common schools,
but that it alone is inadequate to this purpose is shown by the
constantly increasing number of our young who follow not the
footsteps of their parents in the ways of a Christian life.
The author then, changing his base, argues that intellectual
education alone tends to prevent sensuality and crime, and
adduces statistics to show that the majority of convicts in our
prisons are from the uneducated class. But if he attended to
other statistics recently brought to light by Rev. Dr. Todd, Dr.
Storer, of Boston, and others, he would discover that sensuality,
_only more refined_, is permeating American society, and
that hidden crime is depopulating some of the fairest portions of
our land. It is true, perhaps, that those crimes which are taken
cognizance of by the police courts may be more numerous among the
uneducated, but it is those secret crimes against God and the
moral law that corrupt society and endanger a nation's life.
{136}
In New England, which the author holds up as the ideal of what
the common-school system can produce, physicians testify that
immorality and hidden crime prevail to such an extent that the
native American stock is literally dying out, the number of
deaths far exceeding the number of births. Intellectual culture
_alone_ will not preserve American society from corruption,
any more than it did pagan Greece and Rome.
The author seems to feel the force of this objection, which, as
he says, "is urged with seriousness by men whose purity of motive
is above question, and whose personal character gives great
weight to their opinions," and admits that "religious teaching
does not hold that prominent position in the course of study that
it should hold; but he seems forced, like many of his
fellow-educators whom we have known, to argue and apologize for
the common-school system, because they see no way of securing
universal education and at the same time providing for proper
religious training. If they turn, however, to the educational
systems of France, Austria, or Prussia, they would find the
problem solved. Even in Canada, the British Parliament has
avoided by its provisions those serious errors under which we
labor, and which are making our system daily more and more
unpopular.
By "An Act to restore to Roman Catholics in Upper Canada certain
rights in respect to Separate Schools," passed May 5th, 1863,
they provided that "the Roman Catholic separate schools shall be
entitled to a share in the fund annually granted by the
legislature of the province for the support of common-schools,
and shall be entitled also to a share in all other public grants,
investments, and allotments for common-school purposes now made
or hereafter to be made by the municipal authorities, according
to the average number of pupils attending such school as compared
with the whole average number of pupils attending schools in the
same city, town, village, or township." (Cap. 5, sec. 20.)
And also that "the Roman Catholic separate schools (with their
registers) shall be subject to such inspection as may be directed
from time to time by the chief superintendent of public
instruction." (Cap. 5, sec. 26.)
Let our separate schools that have been and may be established,
in which the children receive a proper religious training,
receive their due proportion of the public fund, and by the
inspection of a board of education be kept up to the highest
standard of secular learning, and the grievances under which we
now suffer will be removed.
----------
{137}
From the German
The Holy Grayle.
"'Here on the rushes will I sleep,
And perchance there may come a vision true,
Ere day create the world anew.'
Slowly Sir Launfal's eyes grew dim,
Slumber fell like a cloud on him,
And into his soul the vision flew."
Lowell.
Sir Launcelot Du Lac--without his peer of earthly, sinful
man--had taken the Quest of the Holy Grayle. One deadly sin
gnawed at the heart of the flower of chivalry; but a mighty
sorrow struggled with and subdued his remorse, and a holy hermit
assoiled him of his sin. With purified and strengthened heart, he
won his way to a sight of that wondrous vessel, the object of so
many knightly vows. It stood on a table of silver veiled with red
samite. A throng of angels stood about it. One held a wax light
and another the holy cross. A light like that of a thousand
torches filled the house. Sir Launcelot heard a voice cry,
"Approach not!" but for very wonder and thankfulness he forgot
the command. He pressed toward the Holy Grayle with outstretched
hands, and cried, "O most fair and sweet Lord! which art here
within this holy vessel, for thy pity, show me something of that
I seek." A breath, as from a fiery furnace, smote him sorely in
the face. He fell to the ground, and lay for the space of four
and twenty days seemingly dead to the eyes of all the people. But
in that swoon marvels that no tongue can tell and no heart
conceive passed before his face. ...
The history of the wondrous vessel was in a measure made known to
him. His purified eyes saw in the dim past a long line of
patriarchs and prophets, who had been entrusted with this sacred
charge almost from the beginning of time. The San Greal was
revealed to his ardent gaze:
First: in the hands of white-robed men, who met Noah as he went
in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives, with him
into the ark, bearing with him the bones of Adam--great
Progenitor. Its origin and history were revealed to Noah, and
that it was destined to be used in the most mysterious of rites.
Next: Abraham was standing before an altar on a hillock in the
valley of Jehoshaphat. His flocks were grazing around or drinking
from the brook Cedron: his camels and beasts of burden and armed
servants in the distance. The patriarch, flushed with victory,
stood as if in awe and expectation. Majestic, white-winged
Melchizedek came from Salem. His tall, slender frame was full of
tempered majesty. He wore a garment of dazzling whiteness,
confined by a girdle on which were embroidered characters of
mystic import. His long hair was fair and glossy as silk; his
beard white, short, and pointed. His face shone with divine
splendor. A holy calm seemed diffused in the air around him. He
bore in his hands the holy vessel handed down from Noah. He
placed it upon the altar, behind which rose three clouds of
smoke; the one in the midst rose higher than the other two. On
the altar lay the bones of Adam--long after buried beneath the
great altar of Calvary--and both prayed God to fulfil the promise
he had made to Adam of one day sending the great Deliverer who
would bruise the serpent's head.
{138}
The priest of the most high God then took bread and wine--
emblems of the great Eucharistic Sacrifice--raised them toward
heaven, and blessed them, and gave thereof to Abraham and his
servants, but tasted not thereof himself. They who ate of this
bread and drank of this wine seemed strengthened and devoutly
inspired thereby. And Melchizedek blessed Abraham, and said:
"Blessed be Abram by the most high God, who created heaven and
earth." And he renewed to him the promise that in him should all
the families of the earth be blessed.
The San Greal seemed, in the vision, left with Abraham as a
pledge of that promise, and afterward, was carried down into
Egypt by the children of Israel. Moses took it with him when he
fled to the land of Midian, and was using it for some mysterious
oblation on Mount Horeb, when the Lord appeared to him in a flame
of fire out of the burning bush.
Sir Launcelot saw the vessel long after in the temple of
Jerusalem among other precious objects of antiquity; its use and
origin nearly forgotten. Only a few remembered its strange
history, and _felt_, rather than knew, that it yet awaited
its most glorious use. Its holy guardians had always watched over
its safety with jealous care, until the abomination of desolation
entered the holy place. But a divine Eye seemed to watch over it.
At the institution of the Mass, it was in the possession of a
holy woman, since known as Veronica--her who took off her veil
to wipe the dust and sweat and blood from the divine face of
suffering Jesus, which was left thereon so miraculously
imprinted. Veronica brought the vessel to the disciples of Jesus
to be used at the Last Supper.
The Holy Grayle revealed to the astonished eyes of Sir Launcelot
was composed of two parts, the cup and the foot. The cup alone
had been handed down from the time of the holy patriarchs. Its
very form was wonderful and significant, and its composition
mysterious. Jesus alone knew what it was. It was dark, compact,
and perhaps of vegetable origin. It was covered and lined with
gold, and on it were two handles.
The foot of the chalice, added at a later period, was of virgin
gold, wrought with the skill of a cunning workman. It was
ornamented with a serpent and a bunch of grapes, and gleamed with
precious stones.
The whole chalice rested on a silver tablet, surrounded by six
smaller ones. These six cups had belonged to different
patriarchs, who drank therefrom a strange liquor on certain
solemn occasions. They were used by the holy apostles at the Last
Supper, each cup serving for two persons. (These cups Sir
Launcelot saw belonging afterward to different Christian
churches, where they were held in great reverence.) The Holy
Grayle stood before our blessed Lord. ... Let not sinful hand
depict the vision of that unbloody sacrifice, so clearly revealed
to the adoring eyes of Sir Launcelot, and so affectingly told in
Holy Writ. ...
The San Greal, fashioned with mysterious care for the most
mysterious of oblations, and handed down from remote antiquity by
righteous men, to whom it was the pledge of a solemn covenant,
was henceforth to be the object of the veneration of the
Christian world. Only the pure in heart could guard it. Angels
with loving reverence folded their wings around what contained
most precious Blood. Its presence conferred a benediction on the
land in which it was preserved.
{139}
Sir Launcelot saw afterward the hand that came from heaven right
to the holy grayle and bare it away. But a comforting voice told
him that it should reappear on the earth, though for him the
quest was ended.
At the end of four and twenty days, Sir Launcelot awoke. The
vision had passed away, but the place was filled with the
sweetest odors, as if of Paradise. Wondering thereat, he cried:
"I thank God of his infinite mercy for that I have seen, for it
comforteth me." And he rose up and went to Camelot, where he
found King Arthur and many of the Knights of the Round Table, to
whom he related all that had befallen him.
----------
New Publications.
Lives Of The English Cardinals;
Including Historical Notices
Of The Papal Court, From Nicholas
Breakspear (Pope Adrian Iv.)
To Thomas Wolsey, Cardinal Legate.
By Folkestone Williams, author of, etc., etc.
Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co.
1868. 2 vols. 8vo, pp. 484, 543.
Wonders will never cease. A few years since, the present pope,
willing to do honor to a great nation, conferred on one of its
subjects the highest dignity in his gift. The new cardinal was a
man honored alike in England and America for his learning and
ability, as well as for his never departing from the strict line
of his priestly and episcopal functions. One would have supposed
that the English government and people would have felt flattered,
and that the English sovereign, who is queen not only of certain
Protestant Englishmen, but of a mass of Catholic subjects who
cannot number much less than twenty millions, would, while
thanking his holiness, have hinted that her twenty millions
should have more than one representative in the Sacred College.
Instead of this sensible course, a period of insanity
ensued--England frothed, England foamed, England grew rabid.
To judge by this book, England is actually becoming sane. The
author seems to feel that England is slighted because she has no
cardinal. "There has recently been a creation of cardinals, and,
though some disappointment may have been caused by the omission
of an eminent English name from those so honored, the
extraordinary claims of one of the most active of Roman Catholic
prelates are not likely to be overlooked by so discriminating a
pontiff as Pio Nono."
Mr. Williams here, in two goodly octavos, gives the lives of the
English cardinals, from Robert le Poule to Wolsey, as he
conceives it; and a rapid examination of the whole, and careful
scrutiny of portions, leads us to the judgment that seldom has a
work been attempted by a man so utterly unfitted for the task. As
though his proper task did not afford him a field sufficiently
large, he gives an introduction of eighty pages on the Papacy,
the Anglo-Saxon Church, and the Anglo-Norman Church. The whole
history of the church down to the Reformation is thus treated of,
and to the mighty undertaking he brings only the usual
superficial reading of our time, with a more than ordinary amount
of religious flippancy, and false and prejudiced views of
Catholic dogma, practice, polity, and life. There is not a silly
slander against the church that he does not adopt and give, with
all the gravity imaginable, as undisputed fact, not even deigning
to quote vaguely any of his second-hand authorities or modern
treatises, while, to make a parade of his learning, he gives us a
four-line note in Greek to support his opinion as to a
topographical question as immaterial to the history of the
English cardinals as a discussion on the Zulu language would be.
As instances of his utter unfitness, we might refer to his
treatment of such points as St. Gregory VII., Pope Joan, and the
institution of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.
{140}
What his own religious stand-point may be is not easily decided.
He lays down (p. 146) that Christ's divinity is his humanity;
that the idea of the Good Shepherd, put forward by our Lord and
ever deemed so typical of him, was of pagan origin, (p. 8,) and,
from the note on the same page, that the church, as founded by
Christ, was a grand failure. He maintains, too, that the
Christianity, as introduced into England, was and is only the old
paganism, the names of the days of the week settling the
question, (p. 24.) On one point only he seems clear and positive,
and this is, that on general principles popes must always be
wrong, and that to deny anything they lay down must be
pre-eminently right.
As a specimen of his style, take the following: "The Good
Shepherd was the recognized emblem of the divine Founder of their
religion, but as the community enlarged it required a human
director." We are left in doubt whether this community of
primitive Christians required this human director as a new
emblem, or a new founder, or a new religion. He proceeds: "He who
by his superior sanctity gained authority as well as admiration
was invested with that character. His flock became a church, and
he undertook its spiritual management in the capacity of
presbyter." This is a very pretty fable, but he fails to give us
any authority. An expression of our Lord shows that church
authority began at the other end: "_Non vos me elegistis; sed
ego elegi vos, et posui vos ut eatis,_" "You did not elect me,
(your God and Redeemer,) but I picked you out and set you up to
go and teach." And they did go and did teach, and such as
listened to their teaching and became their disciples became
Christians with human directors from the outset.
During the period covered properly by these volumes, from the
beginning of the twelfth to that of the fifteenth centuries,
England had comparatively few cardinals; English kings seemed to
have cared little to exercise any influence on papal councils,
and never sought to obtain for an English prince an honor given
to members of many reigning families. The English cardinals whose
names at once suggest themselves are Cardinal Nicholas
Breakspear, (subsequently Pope Adrian IV.,) Cardinal Stephen
Langton, Cardinal Beaufort, and Cardinal Wolsey. Of all except
the first, the general idea in men's minds is drawn less from
history than from Shakespeare. Of these especially, really
well-written lives, with sketches of the less known and less
important English cardinals, would indeed be a valuable addition;
but such Mr. Williams's book certainly is not.
In beginning his life of Adrian IV., he quotes Matthew of Paris,
who makes him son of Robert de Camera, said by William of
Newburgh to have been a poor scholar; then cites Camden's
statement that he was born at Langley, near St. Alban's; but he
slips in a charge, hunted up in the filth of the wretched Bale,
that he was illegitimate; as though the assertion of such a man,
in the most virulent stage of the Reformation abuse, could be
authority as to a fact of a period so long past. Even Fuller, as
he admits, with all his readiness to belittle the papacy, only
"insinuates that he was an illegitimate son." Yet Mr. Williams,
on the assertion of a Bale and the insinuation of a Fuller, says,
"There is reason to believe that he was the natural son of a
_priest_," and on this supposition he proceeds to erect his
whole superstructure.
From such a writer no book can emanate that any man can read who
does not wilfully wish to be misled.
-----
{141}
Goethe And Schiller.
An Historical Romance.
By L. Mühlbach, author of "Joseph II. and his Court,"
"Frederick the Great and his Court,"
"The Empress Josephine,"
"Andreas Hofer," etc., etc.
Translated from the German by Chapman Coleman.
Illustrated by Gaston Fay.
New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 283. 1868.
A careful perusal of this, the author's latest production, has
not caused us to modify, in the slightest degree, the opinion
heretofore expressed in these pages concerning the volumes
comprising what is now known as the Mühlbach series of historical
romances. That they are ably written we admitted then, and we are
not now disposed to deny. But this, their only merit, in our
judgment, can be claimed equally as well for many literary works
which no prudent father, no careful mother, would dream of
keeping within reach of, much less of placing in the hands of,
their guileless offspring. Illicit love, in some instances
covered by a thin veil of Platonism, the intrigues of courtiers,
duplicity and meanness, are the pivotal points on which the
incidents principally turn. For these and similar offences
against morality, the author has no word of censure, while as for
the _dramatis personae_, their _virtuous_ indignation,
when given utterance to, is always directed against the criminal
and not the crime. In fine, we look upon these as books by which
not a single person can become better or more enlightened, while
very many will rise from their perusal worse than before.
-----
Father Cleveland; Or, The Jesuit.
By the authoress of "Life in the Cloister,"
"Grace O'Halloran," "The Two Marys," etc., etc.
Boston: P. Donahoe. Pp. 178. 1868.
An affecting tale, founded on fact. The main incident, the
heroine withering beneath the breath of calumny and finally dying
of a broken heart, truly depicts the fatal consequences too often
resulting from the sin of slander. The scene is laid in England,
Ireland, and the New World. The incidents being principally
descriptive of the fallen fortunes of the Desmonds, the sad
reverses of Squire Cleveland, and the untimely fate of the
amiable heroine, give a rather sombre tone to the narrative,
which is somewhat relieved, however, by the filial affection of
Aileen Desmond, the quaint humor of Pat Magrath, and the
unaffected piety and zealous ministrations of Father Cleveland,
the good Jesuit.
-----
Outlines Of Ancient And Modern History.
Illustrated by numerous Geographical and
Historical Notes and Maps.
Embracing: Part I. Ancient History.
Part II. Modern History.
By Marcius Willson.
School Edition.
Published by Ivison, Phinney & Co., New-York.
Messrs. Ivison, Phinney & Co. are among the most extensive
publishers of school books in the United States. They are the
publishers of Sanders's series of Union Readers, Robinson's
Arithmetics and Mathematical Works, Kerl's Grammars, and many
other school publications. All of these are largely used in our
Catholic institutions, and extensively used in the public schools
all over the country. At present we will confine our remarks to
the _Outlines of Ancient and Modern History_ at the head of
this notice. We are fully satisfied that any candid, intelligent,
fair-minded reader of this misnamed history, after the most
cursory examination, would pronounce its introduction into the
schools of the country as highly calculated to mislead such as
should rely on its statements, and corrupt such as should adopt
its principles. In note I, p. 332, he tells us that the
"Albigenses is a name given to several heretical sects in the
South of France, who agreed in opposing the dominion of the Roman
hierarchy, and in endeavoring to restore the simplicity of
ancient Christianity," and that "the creed of the unfortunates
had been extinguished in blood." The Protestant historian,
Mosheim, speaking of these "unfortunates," says that "their
shocking violation of decency was a consequence of their
pernicious system.
{142}
They looked upon decency and modesty as marks of inward
corruption. Certain enthusiasts among them maintained that the
believer could not sin, let his conduct be ever so horrible and
atrocious." (Murdock's Mosheim, note, vol. ii. b. iii. p. 256.
[Footnote 26])
[Footnote 26: This note was omitted in the English
translation.]
But our object is not to refute or expose its inconsistencies,
contradictions, misrepresentations, falsehoods, and calumnies, as
the book, left to itself, is far below our notice. But the case
is different when Messrs. Ivison, Phinney & Co. set their
machinery in motion for introducing this SCHOOL-BOOK into all the
schools in the country, send their agents from school to school
soliciting their introduction, and advertise in school
publications throughout the country that "this _History_ has
an extensive circulation, has received the highest
recommendations from hundreds of presidents and professors of
colleges, principals of academies, seminaries, and high-schools."
It is these powerful and, we are sorry to say, successful efforts
that have caused us to take any notice whatever of this
demoralizing book; for left to itself it would be of very little
consequence. In the same page from which we have already quoted,
p. 332, the author assents that "the avarice of Pope Leo X. was
equal to the credulity of the Germans; and billets of salvation,
or indulgences professing to remit the punishments due to sins,
even before the commission of the contemplated crime, were sold
by thousands among the German peasantry." And then he goes on to
tell us that Luther bitterly inveighed against the traffic in
indulgences, and that he was a man of high reputation for
sanctity and learning. Here the author is so anxious to falsify
the Catholic doctrine of indulgence, and to blacken the character
of Leo X., that he goes so far as to slander and misrepresent
even his idol, Martin Luther. For Luther did not inveigh against
the pope for the sale of indulgences, or ever say that an
indulgence was a pardon for sin past, present, or to come. It was
left for his followers to coin this falsehood, and it is a
slander on Luther to accuse him of the fabrication. He has enough
to account for without charging him with what he is not guilty
of; and he knew and taught while a Catholic priest that an
indulgence does not pardon sin, and that a person in mortal sin
cannot gain an indulgence. We may return to Willson's
_Histories_ again, for he has written others besides the one
referred to, and all in the same strain; but we trust we have
said enough to draw the attention of our readers to the character
of the work, and we hope that neither the solicitations of
agents, nor the high-sounding recommendations of interested
parties in its favor, will prevent them from opposing its
introduction into our schools, public and private, and preventing
its introduction whenever they can. Count de Maistre has
testified that history, for the last three hundred years, is a
grand conspiracy against truth; and although the Willsons and
their tribe are still numerous, active, and powerful, the
progress of the age warns them that they cannot delude the
public.
-----
1. The Complete Poetical Works Of Robert Burns,
with Explanatory Notes, and a life of the author.
By James Currie, M.D.
2. The Poetical Works Of John Milton.
To which is prefixed a Biography of
the author, by his nephew, Edward Phillips.
3. The Monastery And Heart Of Mid-Lothian.
By Sir Walter Scott, Bart. Paper.
4. Mr. Midshipman Easy.
By Captain Marryatt. Paper.
5. The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby,
Martin Chuzzlewit And American Notes.
By Charles Dickens.
New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1868.
We give above the titles of six different works, by well-known
authors, new editions of whose writings are now being reprinted,
in a cheap and popular form, by the Messrs. Appleton. As long as
the majority of people will read little else than fiction, we are
glad to see the Messrs. Appleton give them such works as Walter
Scott's and Charles Dickens's, for the trifle of twenty-five
cents a volume. They are certainly remarkably cheap, and if this
will have the effect, even in a slight degree, to make the youth
of the country turn from the sickly trash of newspaper stories,
and read these instead, the Messrs. Appleton will have done good
for the rising generation. If we are to have cheap literature
spread broadcast over the land, it is better to have such works
as those of Scott, Dickens, etc., than the dime novel and the
weekly-paper stuff now so widely prevalent.
-----
{143}
Modern Women And What Is Said Of Them.
A reprint of a series of articles in the Saturday Review.
With an introduction by Mrs. Lucia Gilbert Calhoun.
New York: J. S. Redfield. Pp. 371. 1868.
This volume contains thirty-seven articles on modern woman in her
various phases. That they are, in a certain sense, ably written,
it is needless to assert; and as the majority of them have been
extensively copied on this side of the Atlantic, it may be
equally unnecessary to state that, as regards the subject under
discussion, they are generally denunciatory. Hence we are at a
loss to understand what could induce one of the sex attacked to
take upon herself the ungracious task of a compiler, even with
the opportunity of self-vindication afforded by the introduction.
Perhaps, however, this advocate of woman's rights acts on the
principle that even kicks and cuffs are better than being
entirely ignored.
-----
Alton Park; Or, Conversations On Religious And Moral Subjects.
Chiefly designed for the amusement
and instruction of young ladies.
New edition. Philadelphia: Eugene Cummiskey. Pp. 408.
_Alton Park_ is so well and favorably known to Catholics,
that praise at our hands and at this late day is supererogatory.
We must, however, compliment the publisher for the very handsome
style in which he has brought out this volume.
-----
A Pysche Of To-day.
By Mrs. C. Jenkin, author of "Who breaks pays,"
"Skirmishing," "Once and Again," "Cousin Stella."
New York: Leypoldt & Holt. Pp. 280. 1868.
This tale represents to us certain aspects of Parisian life,
which are interesting, not as always exciting pleasurable
emotions, but as being evidently drawn from life. The story is
told in a pleasing, unaffected manner, and the main incidents are
only too probable.
-----
Logic For Young Ladies.
Translated from the French of Victor Doublet,
Professor of Belles-Lettres.
New York: P. O'Shea. Pp. 148. 1868.
An excellent text-book; clear, simple, comprehensive. We would
suggest, however, in order that its sphere of usefulness may not
be even apparently circumscribed, that the title for the next
edition read, not "Logic for Young Ladies," but "Logic for the
Young."
-----
Academic Edition. A Dictionary Of The English Language,
explanatory, pronouncing, etymological and synonymous. With an
appendix, containing various useful tables. Mainly abridged
from the latest edition of the quarto dictionary of Noah
Webster, LL.D.
By William G. Webster and William A. Wheeler.
Illustrated with more than three hundred
and fifty engravings on wood.
Pp. xxxii. 560. 1868.
A High-school Dictionary Of The English Language, explanatory,
pronouncing, and synonymous. With an appendix containing
various useful tables. Mainly abridged from the latest edition
of the quarto dictionary of Noah Webster, LL.D. By William G.
Webster and William A. Wheeler. Illustrated with more than
three hundred engravings on wood.
Pp. xxiv. 415. 1868.
{144}
A Common-school Dictionary Of The English Language,
explanatory, pronouncing, and synonymous.
With an appendix containing various useful tables.
Mainly abridged from the latest edition of the American
dictionary of Noah Webster, LL.D., by William G. Webster
and William A. Wheeler.
Illustrated with nearly 250 engravings on wood.
Pp. xix. 400. 1868.
A Primary-school Dictionary Of The English Language,
explanatory, pronouncing, and synonymous.
With an appendix containing various useful tables.
Mainly abridged from the latest edition of the
American dictionary of Noah Webster, LL.D., by
William G. Webster and William A. Wheeler.
Illustrated with more than 200 engravings on wood.
Pp. xii. 352. 1868.
A Pocket Dictionary Of The English Language;
abridged from the American dictionary of Noah Webster, LL.D.
Prefixed is a collection of words, phrases, mottoes, etc., in
Latin and French, with translations in English.
William G. Webster, editor.
Pp. iv. 249. 1868.
The Army And Navy Pocket Dictionary.
By William G. Webster.
Pp. iv. 319. 1868.
The peculiar claims of these books to professional and popular
patronage are so fully set forth in the titles prefixed, that it
only remains for us to say that we heartily recommend them to
teachers and others, as among the best dictionaries of their
class now before the public. They are published by Ivison,
Phinney, Blakeman & Co., New York.
-----
The "Catholic Publication Society" has in press
_The Holy Communion:
its Philosophy, Theology, and Practice_.
By John Bernard Dalgairns, Priest
of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri.
A new edition of the _Illustrated History of Ireland_, by
a member of the Poor Clares, Kenmare, Ireland, and sold for the
benefit of that community. This edition will have additional
engravings, and over 100 pages more matter than the first
edition. It will also contain a chapter on the Irish in
America. The work will be ready about October 15th. Canvassers
are wanted to sell it in the country.
-----
Books Received.
From THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION SOCIETY, New York:
Symbolism.
By John Adam Moehler, D.D.
1 vol. crown 8vo, pp. 504. Price, $4.
The Illustrated Catholic Sunday-School Library
Second series. 12 vols. in box, $6 per box.
From PATRICK DONAHOE, Boston:
The works of Rev. Arthur O'Leary, O.S.F.
Edited by a Clergyman of Massachusetts,
1 vol. 8vo, pp. 596. Price, $2.
--------------------
{145}
The Catholic World
Vol. VIII., No. 44--November, 1868.
----------
The Church of The Future.
The phrase which forms the title to this article does not
originate with us. We find it floating in the columns of various
recent periodicals. Our attention is especially directed to it,
as the expression of a definite idea, in a late number of the
_Galaxy_, and by an editorial in the _Churchman_ for
the 25th of July of the present year. From these we gather that,
in the opinion of certain modern prophets, some one of the
existing Protestant denominations is destined to achieve
pre-eminence over all the rest, and, gathering into its single
fold the population of America, become the "Church of the Future"
in our land.
The author of the article in the _Galaxy_ writes in the
interest of Methodism. In its past successes and its present
characteristics he beholds an omen of its ultimate supremacy over
all other Christian bodies, if not over infidelity and
rationalism itself. The _Churchman_, on the contrary, claims
the laurels of this future victory for Protestant
Episcopalianism--predicting that, through its inconsistency with
republican institutions, the influence of the Catholic Church
must eventually be destroyed; that Presbyterianism, being a
growth of but three hundred years, and never yet attaining, or
likely to attain to, the _semper, et ubique, et ab omnibus_
of mature and stalwart age, must soon decay; that Methodism,
having lost its pure vitality when it departed from the sacred
unity of "_Mother Church_" can never meet the needs of
coming generations; he thence concludes, that the diminutive
society once called the "_Protestant Episcopal_" but now
rejoicing in the title of the "_Reformed Catholic_" Church,
is to absorb into its bosom the teeming millions of this country,
and become the guide and teacher of the Western continent.
{146}
The expections of these dreamers are well calculated to provoke a
smile. While the great fact remains uncontradicted that the
united strength of Protestant Christendom has failed to check the
spread of irreligion in the bosom of modern society, while nearly
every one of its denominations is struggling to maintain its
present spiritual powers, it seems a time for humiliation rather
than for boasting, for prayer and labor rather than for triumph.
Far be it from us to discourage Christian hope, or snatch away
from Christian zeal the vision of those future glories to which
it should aspire. But the impression is strong upon our mind that
such "_castles in the air_" as those to which we have
referred, imply worse than time wasted in their building, and
manifest an increase of that indolent consciousness of strength
which, in communities as well as individuals, is the forerunner
of a swift decay.
With this remark, we leave the thoughts suggested by the advocate
of Methodism, and pass on to discuss the question raised by the
assumptions of the _Churchman_, namely:
Whether the Protestant Episcopal Church is destined to attain
pre-eminence over the other sects of Christendom in this country,
and become the church of the future people of America?
This question is susceptible both of a divine and human answer.
It may be said that the Protestant Episcopal Church is the true
Church of God, and therefore that its ultimate supremacy, not
only here but everywhere, is certain. It may be also said that,
as its internal structure and external operations are such as
will adapt it to control and harmonize the elements of which
American society is now and will hereafter be composed, so is it
likely to attain the relative position which its advocates with
so much assurance claim, and to wear the crown which already
glitters in their dazzled eyes. Together these two answers stand
or fall; for, if the Protestant Episcopal Church be the true
church of God, then must it, _ex necessitate rei_, be
adapted to control and harmonize, not only the society of this
age and country, but the societies of every other age and clime;
and, _vice versa_, if it be adapted to control and unify the
faith, and, through the faith, the acts and lives of men, then
must it also, _ex necessitate rei_, be the church of God.
The writer of the _Churchman_ appears to us to have chosen
the former method of reply. He says:
"Our own church is to be the church of the future in our
country. It is a church of apostolic constitution and
derivation, with a pure, uncorrupted faith, with a duly
authorized ministry, with the word and sacraments of the
gospel, and, with and through these, the dispensation of the
supernatural grace of God, without which everything else would
be but ineffectual words and forms. Whatever may be alleged of
others, it cannot be denied that all this is true of our
church. We do not find it to be true, in all particulars, of
any church in the land but ours."
The two syllogisms of which this allegation forms a part, seem to
be logically complete as follows:
(1.) The true church of God will be the church of the future in
our country.
The church, which is alone of apostolic constitution and
derivation, with a pure and uncorrupted faith, a duly authorized
ministry, the word and sacraments of the gospel, and, with and
through these, the dispensation of the supernatural grace of God,
is the true church of God.
_Ergo_, The church, which is alone of apostolic constitution
and derivation, with a pure and uncorrupted faith, a duly
authorized ministry, the word and sacraments of the gospel, and,
with and through these, the dispensation of the supernatural
grace of God, will be the church of the future in our country.
{147}
(2.) The church, which is alone of apostolic constitution and
derivation, with a pure and uncorrupted faith, a duly authorized
ministry, the word and sacraments of the gospel, and, with and
through these, the dispensation of the supernatural grace of God,
will be the church of the future in our country.
The Protestant Episcopal Church is alone of apostolic
constitution and derivation, with a pure and uncorrupted faith, a
duly authorized ministry, the word and sacraments of the gospel,
and, with and through these, the dispensation of the supernatural
grace of God.
_Ergo_, The Protestant Episcopal Church will be the church
of the future in our country.
With both the premises and the conclusion of the former syllogism
we presume that nearly every Christian, Catholic or Protestant,
will heartily agree. But we believe the conclusion of the second
to be erroneous, and its fallacy we find in what we conceive to
be the utter falsehood of its minor premiss, as a simple matter
of fact. We know that the writer says: "Whatever may be alleged
of others, it cannot be denied that all this is true of our
church." But, whether it can or cannot, it most certainly
_is_ denied. We here deny it. We deny the apostolic
constitution and derivation of the Protestant Episcopal Church.
We deny that she holds a pure, uncorrupted faith. We deny that
she has a duly authorized ministry. We deny that she possesses
the word and sacraments of the gospel. We deny that through that
ministry, that faith, that word, those sacraments, [Footnote 27]
she retains the dispensation of the supernatural grace of God.
And, in support of our denial, we point to Holy Scripture, to the
unanimous tradition of the fathers, to the vast treasures of
historical and theological learning which have accumulated in the
past eighteen hundred years, and to the united voice of the holy
Catholic Church throughout the entire world.
[Footnote 27: Except baptism.]
Nor only we. In our own country these bold assertions, and the
extravagant pretensions which are based upon them, are also
constantly denied. Two million Methodists deny them. One million
six hundred and ninety thousand Baptists deny them. Seven hundred
thousand Presbyterians deny them. Six hundred thousand
Universalists deny them. Three hundred and twenty-three thousand
eight hundred Lutherans deny them. Two hundred and sixty-seven
thousand four hundred Congregationalists deny them. Of the one
hundred and sixty-one thousand two hundred Episcopalians, how
many dare maintain them? How many are at open warfare with that
party, within their communion, from whom these rash and
groundless allegations come? Among the extremest of "_Reformed
Catholics_" how many actually believe that the ecclesiastical
organization to which they protestingly belong, is, in truth,
that glorious fabric which our Lord built upon the Rock, St.
Peter, and to which he communicated the infallibility of his
perpetual presence? Even the subtle _Churchman_ will hardly
venture to affirm distinctly his belief of such an extravagant
proposition, but will most likely take refuge in the declaration
that his is a reformed _branch_ of the Catholic Church, a
declaration that destroys the value of his whole argument, unless
he also demonstrates the impossibility, to other branches, of the
reformation which has sprung from within his own.
{148}
To argue that the Episcopal Church alone possesses those
characteristics which indicate the true church of God, and that,
as such, she must eventually predominate over all the rest, is
thus as useless as it is unwise. It opens up a series of disputes
which no generation would be long enough to exhaust, and no
acknowledged authority be sufficient to determine. It creates in
advance an adversary in every Christian outside her exclusive
pale, and puts him on his guard against the courtesy and
solicitude with which she seeks to win his personal devotion. It
thrusts into the face of the inquirer a proposition whose
absurdity annoys him, whose positiveness discourages him, whose
arrogance repels him. If our Episcopal brethren wish to realize
the dreams of their modern seer, they must abandon this species
of argument and betake themselves to the adaptation of their
church to meet, more fully, the wants and necessities which
surround them upon every side.
In their ability or inability to do this resides the human answer
to the question whose discussion we pursue.
The syllogism in which this answer is embodied may be thus
constructed:
The church which is best adapted, by internal structure and
external operations, to control and harmonize American society,
will be the church of the future in our country.
The Protestant Episcopal Church is best adapted, by internal
structure and external operations, to control and harmonize
American society.
_Ergo_, the Protestant Episcopal Church will be the church
of the future in our country.
The major premise of this syllogism is evidently sound. If the
minor is reliable in fact as well as form, the conclusion is
unmistakable. Our inquiry is thus reduced to this:
Whether the Protestant Episcopal Church is best adapted, by its
internal structure and external operations, to control and
harmonize American society?
The answer to this inquiry will unfold our own view of the matter
now in issue, and will, we trust, set forth some of the principal
_criteria_ by which the church of the future may, at this
day, be humanly discerned.
1. The "church of the future" is a "church of the people."
The American nation is now, and always must remain, in the
strictest sense, "_a people./i>" The order of our political and
civil institutions, the vast area of our territory and the
unlimited susceptibility of its development, the achievements of
art and mechanism by which alone that development can be secured,
all necessitate, in the future, as in the present, a nation of
working-men, homogeneous in principles, in intelligence, and in
toil. Classes of society, except so far as based upon the
accidents of personal friendship, cultivation, or locality, are
practically now, and must hereafter become more and more,
unknown. The distinctions by which its divisions in the Old World
were created and maintained, lost the last hold upon America when
slavery went down in the fierce tempest of the recent war. The
proud prerogatives of race and birth are henceforth without
value. Every man must receive himself from the hands of his
Creator just as that Creator made him, and carve out for himself
a destiny, limited only by his individual ambition, and by his
fidelity to the end for which his life and independence were
bestowed upon him.
Unfavorable as such a state of things may be for the extreme
cultivation of the few, that the great masses gain immeasurably
by it, is undeniable. A race of farmers, of mechanics, of
tradesmen, of laborers, can never be illiterate, immoral, or
impoverished.
{149}
A race whose future embraces the population and political
direction of a continent, into whose veins the choicest blood of
the eastern hemisphere pours itself with an exhaustless tide,
whose wisdom is the experience of six thousand years, and whose
labors already testify to the vigor of its ripe and lusty
manhood, must be a people in whose ranks each individual counts
one, and by the overwhelming pressure of whose progress ignorance
and pauperism must eventually disappear.
The church which gathers this grand race of the future into her
bosom, and holds them by her spiritual hand, must, therefore, be
a church adapted to the wants, the sympathies, the tastes of
working-men. Its creed must be within the scope of their
intelligence. Its worship must give form to their devotion. Its
teaching must be simple, earnest, hearty, like themselves. Its
pastoral care must be at once familiar, constant, and
encouraging. Just what the so-called "_masses_" need to-day,
in faith, in ceremony, in the pulpit, in the priest, will the
whole nation seek for in those years of coming labor. Just that
internal structure and external operation which now most fully
and most readily supplies that need, will characterize that
church which then absorbs the rest and guides and governs this
great people in all heavenly things. And if, of all the clashing
sects of Protestantism, there is one which is destined to occupy
this exalted station, it is that one which is to-day the "church
of the people," and whose trophies, won in warfare with the
toiling multitudes of past and present generations, are the sure
omens of complete and final victory.
Judged by this standard, what prospect has the Protestant
Episcopal Church of becoming the "church of the future" in our
country?
This question merits a most serious and thorough answer; not
merely as a speculative problem, but as a matter eminently
practical, affording a fair test of her divine commission, and of
the quality of the spiritual workmanship which she performs. For
this reason, we attempt to pass upon her no verdict of our own,
but, turning to her best authorities, gather from them the
_data_ of her progress, and the measure of her churchly
capabilities.
The first few years of this half-century were a season of unusual
prosperity to the Episcopal Church. From 1850 to 1856 the
numerical increase of her membership far exceeded that of any
former period. The ranks of her clergy gained largely in extent
and influence. A spirit of unprecedented activity seemed aroused
within her; and, above all, was manifested a disposition to rally
round herself the other Protestant denominations, and unite them
with her into one ecclesiastical body.
This disposition met with much encouragement from those outside
her fold. Many who never yet had called themselves by any
distinctive Christian name were attracted, by her dignity and
order, to regard her as the most desirable of Protestant
societies. Eminent "_dissenters_" looked to her for the
solution of that entanglement of schism in which their various
barks were already well-nigh overwhelmed. Large charity on both
sides, and a full meeting of the issue upon her part, alone
seemed necessary for the consummation of that "union" for which
distracted Christendom had so long yearned and prayed.
{150}
It was her golden opportunity. The iron was hot for the hammer.
The wheat was ripe for the harvest. The profound peace, which
rested on the entire country, gave leisure for sedate and kindly
inquiry. The spirit of organic life was kindling over all the
land, and men were drawing into closer brotherhood, and
prejudices waned and lost their power. It needed but a strong
will and skilful hand to sweep away the few remaining obstacles,
and the triumph of Episcopacy in this country might have been
secured.
Perhaps the most startling of the events which marked this
important period, and certainly the one which most clearly
manifested its awakening vitality, was the presentation of a
_Memorial_ to the General Convention of 1853. Therein was
suggested the important question, whether "the posture of our
church with reference to the great moral and social necessities
of the day" was all that could be desired or expected, and
whether her usefulness might not, by specified means, be greatly
enlarged.[Footnote 28]
[Footnote 28: _Journal_ of 1853, p. 181, _et seq._]
The convention referred the subject to a commission of bishops,
which met six times during the interval between the date of its
appointment and the convention of 1856. At its first meeting this
commission published a _Circular_, propounding certain
questions, and requesting answers to them, from any persons
interested in the subject into whose hands the circulars might
fall. A large number of communications were received in reply,
both from Episcopal and non-Episcopal divines, most of which
united in admitting the necessity for some decisive change, and
in recommending the improvements suggested in the _Memorial_
itself. At the general convention of 1856, the commission made
their report, warning the church of the great popular destitution
which surrounded her, and advising the adoption of extemporary
preaching, the curtailment of the liturgical services, the
employment of lay workers, the association of unmarried women
into sisterhoods, the better training of her ministry, and the
thorough Christian cultivation of the young, as the principal
means by which her ability to meet these necessities might be
extended. [Footnote 29]
[Footnote 29: _Journal_ of 1856, p. 339. 1 1 tut. p. 204.]
The house of bishops therefore passed a series of resolutions,
expressing their opinion that certain variations might be
lawfully made in public worship, and appointing a "Commission on
Church Unity" to confer with other churches as occasion might
require. [Footnote 30]
[Footnote 30: _Ibid_. p 204.]
But no legislation followed. No practical recognition of the
emergencies in which the nation lay, or of her urgent duty to
meet the wants which cried so loudly for her interference, marked
the proceedings of this chief council of the church. Not one of
the important measures which the _Memorial_ suggested, which
many leaders of the church recommended, and which the Episcopal
commission had itself advised, received the sanction of her
legislative will. On the contrary, at the next session of the
convention, in 1859, a strong and determined effort was made, by
the house of clerical and lay deputies, to move the house of
bishops to rescind their resolutions, and permit the
representative branch of the convention to take part in the
discussion of the subject and in determining what steps should be
adopted. This the bishops refused, [Footnote 31] and there the
matter rested and still rests a solitary report of the
"Commission on Church Unity" that _they have done nothing_
[Footnote 32] alone marking the spot where the vast hopes and
aspirations of the _Memorialists_ exhaled and disappeared.
[Footnote 31: _Journal_ of 1859, pp. 55, 72, 100, 143.]
[Footnote 32: _Ibid_. p. 382.]
{151}
And thus the golden opportunity of Protestant Episcopalianism
passed by. The terrible events which followed in the next six
years, put far away that quiet calm in which religious
differences grow dim, and love for God and man overcomes human
pride. Through her own bisection into _Confederate_ and
_Federal_ her unifying influence has sustained a shock from
which it will not, for long years, recover. The
_evangelical_ churches have, at once, lost confidence in her
disposition to meet them with a fair and open compromise, and in
her separate ability to do the work which, in the providence of
God, is placed before her; while her internal difficulties have
augmented year by year, and rendered less and less likely the
revival of that spirit which promised such achievements only
fifteen years ago. Her golden opportunity passed by. But that
hour of trial, in the great crucible of national emergencies, can
never be forgotten, either by her friends or foes, and both will
look to it for the disclosure of her real abilities, and for the
revelation of her character, as human or divine.
The _Memorial_, the report of the commission, and many of
the communications which were received in answer to the
_Circular_, were collected into one volume, and published by
the Rt. Rev. Bishop Potter, of Pennsylvania, in 1857. For some
reason, (which we never could explain,) the publication of this
volume was soon afterward suspended, and such portions of that
edition as could be reached were called in and destroyed. The
last monuments of the _great uprising_ were thus levelled
with the dust; and, to-day, except for the few copies of
_Memorial Papers_ which escaped destruction, and the
scattered records of _Convention Journals,_ reliable
statistics of that eventful period are almost unattainable.
Fortunately, however, we have these authorities at hand, and thus
are able to try the Episcopal Church by her own evidence, and
rest the truth or falsehood of her claims to be the "church of
the people" on her own solemn and well-weighed admissions.
First, then, in the _Memorial_ itself, which bears the date
of October 14th, 1853, we find the following statement:
"The actual posture of our church, with reference to the great
moral and social necessities of the day, presents to the minds
of the undersigned a subject of grave and anxious thought. Did
they suppose that this was confined to themselves, they would
not feel warranted in submitting it to your attention; but they
believe it to be participated in by many of their brethren, who
may not have seen the expediency of declaring their views, or,
at least, a mature season for such a course.
"The divided and distracted state of our American Protestant
Christianity; the new and subtle forms of unbelief, adapting
themselves with fatal success to the spirit of the age; the
consolidated forces of Romanism, bearing with renewed skill and
activity against the Protestant faith; and, as more or less the
consequence of these, the utter ignorance of the gospel among
so large a portion of the lower classes of our population,
making a heathen world in our midst, are among the
considerations which induce your memorialists to present the
inquiry whether the period has not arrived for the adoption of
measures, to meet these exigencies of the times, more
comprehensive than any yet provided for by our present
ecclesiastical system; in other words, _whether the
Protestant Episcopal Church, with only her present canonical
means and appliances, her fixed and invariable modes of public
worship, and her traditional customs and usages, is competent
to the work of preaching and dispensing the gospel to all sorts
and conditions of men, and so adequate to do the work of the
Lord in this land and in this age? This question, your
petitioners, for their own part, and in consonance with many
thoughtful minds among us, believe_ MUST BE ANSWERED IN THE
NEGATIVE." [Footnote 33]
[Footnote 33: _Memorial Papers_, p. 27, et seq.]
{152}
"The undersigned," who passed this severe and searching criticism
upon the practical efficiency of the Episcopal Church, were such
men as Dr. Muhlenberg, founder and chaplain of St. Luke's
Hospital, New York; Dr. Crusé, librarian, and Drs. Turner and
Johnson, professors at the General Theological Seminary; Drs.
Bedell and Coxe, both since made bishops; Drs. Hobart and Higbee,
of Old Trinity; Drs. Francis and A. H. Vinton, two of the most
eminent of her parochial clergy; and Dr. Harwood, late professor
at the Berkeley Seminary of Connecticut. Certainly no
Episcopalian, either of that day or our own, could ask for more
reliable authority.
Second, the report of the commission of the house of bishops,
made to the convention of 1856, after some preliminary
statements, thus continues:
"An examination into the relative increase of the various
bodies of Christians in the United States within the last
thirty years will exhibit some startling facts, which may well
rouse us to serious considerations, and lead us to ask
ourselves the questions, 'What have we been doing? and what
shall we do?' We have been in the habit of looking merely at
the increase of our ministers and members within given periods
as the proper exponent of our growth, without considering how
that increase compares with the rate of increase in the
population at large. Making our estimate in this way--and it
is the only accurate method to ascertain the ratio of our
growth or increase as a church--_it will be found that we are
by no means keeping pace with the population of the country_
in the provision we make for their religious instruction, to
say nothing of our duty to heathen and foreign lands; that we
are consequently falling very far below the measure of our
responsibility, and _that our growth in the last half
century_, which has been dwelt upon with complacency, if not
with a spirit of vainglory, _furnishes matter of deep
humiliation and shame, rather than of boasting_." [Footnote
34]
[Footnote 34: _Memorial Papers_, p. 53, et seq.]
And again:
"Ministers are found, who yet do not minister; rectors who
cannot govern; pastors who do not feed the flock; teachers send
forth theological essays, for the instruction of the church,
who might find better employment in studying the Bible and
catechism, while the necessary means for maintaining religious
services too often have to be wrung from those who appear
reluctant to recognize it as a Christian obligation to give of
their ability, as God has prospered them, with liberality, with
cheerfulness, and with simplicity. _On every side the
complaint is heard, that the work of the church languishes, or
is not done._' [Footnote 35]
[Footnote 35: _Ibid_. p. 58.]
The bishops over whose signatures these statements were made were
Otey of Tennessee, Doane of New Jersey, Potter of Pennsylvania,
Burgess of Maine, and Williams of Connecticut; all of whom,
except the latter, have since closed their earthly career,
leaving behind them reputations for prudence, learning, and
earnestness in their official labors which are sacred in the
heart of every member of the church over which they ruled.
Third, in the communications sent to the commission, in answer to
their _Circular_, the same sentiment prevails. The Rev. Dr.
Craik, of Louisville, Ky., in speaking of the constitution of the
apostolic church, remarks:
"Nearly the whole church has sanctioned the wisdom of this
seemingly apostolic arrangement by imitating it. The refusal of
the church in the United States to imitate it, has sanctioned
its wisdom in another way, _by our comparative failure to do
the work of the church in this country_." [Footnote 36]
[Footnote 36: _Ibid_. p. 232.]
{153}
The Rev. Dr. Gregory, of Syracuse, writes:
"It is said that the Episcopal Church is the church of the
educated and the rich. _This is so_ to a considerable
extent, particularly in the cities." [Footnote 37]
[Footnote 37: _Memorial Papers_, p. 250. ]
Then, speaking of certain remedial measures, he continues:
"It cannot be done, in the present state of feeling--the pride
of social distinction is against it; and all the canons and
councils in Christendom cannot make a church _efficient_
in which this feeling prevails." [Footnote 38]
[Footnote 38: _Ibid_. p. 251.]
And again, in concluding, he says:
"The great body of our people are at ease--satisfied to have a
_valid_ ministry, and _valid_ sacraments, and a
_sober_ liturgy, and a _conservative_ ecclesiastical
system. And the rest of the world have _no evidence_ that
we _care_ very much about them." [Footnote 39]
[Footnote 39: _Ibid_. p. 254.]
The Rev. Dr. Howe, of Philadelphia, declares:
"Having been through my whole ministry (now of more than
twenty-two years continuance) in a position to observe the
relation of our church to the middling and lower classes as
they are found in and around great cities, I cannot forbear the
confession that we do not, by the authorized appliances of the
church, reach and interest them. Individuals of these classes,
by the force of early association, or a refinement of taste
unusual in their sphere, do retain or acquire a strong
attachment to our worship, and derive unspeakable benefits from
its use. But the fact is too glaring to be denied, that
mechanics and laboring men are not in any considerable numbers
reckoned among our people; and pastors who will expose the
truth in this behalf, must confess that of those who are reared
among us to these industrial pursuits very many desert the
church, and find religious associations more acceptable to them
among other denominations. This is too general to be attributed
to the unfaithfulness of ministers. There must be some lack in
the system of means under which such disastrous issues occur."
[Footnote 40]
[Footnote 40: _Ibid_. p. 255.]
These are but a few out of the many writers whose communications
were collected into the volume before alluded to, and even those
were few in number, when compared with those whose letters were
omitted from lack of room. Of these, Bishop Potter, in his
_Introduction_, says:
"A large proportion plead for change in one or more respects
more earnestly than most of those inserted;" [Footnote 41]
[Footnote 41: _Memorial Papers_, p. ix.]
and then significantly adds:
"That a spirit of self-depreciation and of change for the mere
sake of change is not that to which as a communion we are most
obnoxious." [Footnote 42]
[Footnote 42: _Ibid_. p. ix.]
Fourth, at the same general con before which the _Memorial_
was first discussed, another document was presented, in tone and
application almost exactly similar, which forms a valuable
corroboration of the statements which we have already cited. This
was the report of the Committee on the Domestic and Foreign
Missionary Society, of which the Rev. Dr. Stevens, now Bishop of
Pennsylvania, was chairman. In this report the following occurs:
"Not only have we to deal with these multitudes of emigrants,
spreading their ignorance, their irreligion, and their
superstitions over the land, but we should also carefully
provide for another and deeply interesting class, those who
come to us from countries and churches holding like principles
of ecclesiastical polity and Christian faith, the sons of
Sweden, and the children of the Church of England, and the
brethren from Moravia. ... _Thousands of emigrants from these
foreign churches, who, if properly looked after, would unite
themselves to our church, are lost to us, and either relapse
into infidelity or unite themselves with the sects around them,
because we make no effort to win them to our bosom._"
[Footnote 43]
[Footnote 43: _Journal_ of 1853, pp. 80, 81. ]
The report then calls attention to the new missionary fields
opening in the West, and says:
{154}
"Every other evangelical denomination in the land has gone
before us in this matter, and the Romish Church has planted
bishops, clergy, schools, churches, convents, and colleges,
while we have been debating about one bishop and two or three
ministers. As in too many previous instances, our church has
been too much stiffened with dignity to run, like the prophet,
before the chariot of some political or commercial Ahab, but,
like a laggard in the race, treads daintily and slowly in
others' footsteps, and then, when almost too late, discovers
her error." [Footnote 44]
[Footnote 44: _Journal_ of 1853, p. 81.]
Such was the deliberate verdict of the bishops and the leading
clergy of the Protestant Episcopal Church, concerning her
efficiency, during and prior to the year 1856. Such was the
intensity of the conviction which forced itself upon the minds of
committees and conventions, and swept from one end of her
communion to the other, that, without great changes in her mode
of dealing with the masses of our people, no considerable
influence over them could ever be obtained. It is no wonder that
Bishop Upfold should have written, concerning these admissions,
that
"Her worst enemies could not have said a worse thing of the
church; and, _if it be true, involves a cogent argument for
at once abandoning a church so radically and essentially
defective in its organization and working agencies_."
[Footnote 45]
[Footnote 45: _Memorial Papers_, p. 189.]
Surely if evidence of any kind could satisfy us that, at any time
at least, the Episcopal Church was not adapted, by internal
structure and external operations, to control and harmonize
American society, the evidence which the _Memorial_ movement
thus elicited, has done it. If it ever has been, or can ever be,
made manifest that any given church is not the "Church of the
People," it was then demonstrated that the Protestant Episcopal
Church is not so.
Since that golden epoch twelve years have passed away. That the
people of America have materially changed, either in intelligence
or religious feeling; that their necessities are lessened or more
easily supplied, no one will venture to assert. All the world
knows that the spiritual destitution of the nation has increased,
and that the same means which failed to relieve it then meet with
like failure now. All the world knows that the Protestant
Episcopal Church is the same dignified and stolid organization,
moving on in the same beaten track, its ponderous and cumbersome
machinery revolving heavily round the same well-worn axis, and
limited on every side by clamps and bands, which tremulous
conservatism dare not offer to unloose.
The records to which we have heretofore referred show also that,
in both of these particulars, all the world is right. Not one of
the measures advocated by the _Memorialists_ has ever been
adopted. No law has ever passed, requiring that her clergy preach
instead of read. No general attempt has yet been made to organize
the lay element, either male or female, into a body of efficient
laborers. No change has taken place in the canon which requires
that upon every occasion of public worship the Prayer-book, and
it only, should be used. And, worse than this, no disposition to
so modify existing modes of labor as to secure their wider range
or surer efficacy has ever since been manifested. Even when, at
the convention of 1865, a memorial was presented, signed by
nearly fifty leading clergymen, repeating the statements of the
_Memorial_ of 1853, and praying for the institution of an
association of "_Evangelists,_" in the hope that "these
statements may be so regarded as to secure to the church the
important instrumentalities." ... "which were never more urgently
demanded than at the present time," the house of bishops coolly
resolved that "_it was not expedient to entertain the
subject_" and the other house tacitly concurred in the
decision. [Footnote 46]
[Footnote 46: _Journal_ of 1865, pp. 361, 190.]
{155}
If, in the face of facts like these, we judge of the future by
the present and the past, what shall we say? Is there a hope
that, in that mighty era when this great continent shall swarm
with prosperous, intelligent, industrious millions, a church,
which during a whole century, with every advantage of
respectability and wealth, has met with such signal failure,
shall rise into supremacy? Is there a probability great enough to
justify our serious contemplation that a church, whose claim to
be the "Church of the People" is thus denied by that unerring
voice of history which is the echo of the voice of God, should be
the "Church of the Future" in our country?
We know no better answer to these questions than the thrilling
exhortation given by the venerable Dr. Muhlenberg to the Memorial
Commission concerning their own duty to their church:
"Bid her," said he, "look over this vast continent, filling
with people of all nations and languages and tongues, and see
the folly of hoping to perpetuate among them an _Anglican_
communion, that will ever be recognized as aught more than an
honorable sect. Bid her give over the vain attempt to cast all
men's minds into one mould.
"Bid her cherish among her own members mutual tolerance of
opinion in doctrine, and taste in worship; remembering that
uniform sameness in lesser matters may be the ambition of a
society, a party, a school in the church, but is far below any
genuine aspirations of the church herself. It is the genius of
Catholicism which is now knocking at her doors. Let her refuse
to open. Let her, if she will, make them faster still with new
bolts and bars, and then take her rest, to dream _a wilder
dream than any of the Memorial of becoming the Catholic Church
of these United States._" [Footnote 47]
[Footnote 47: _Memorial Papers_, p. 288.]
The conclusions to which the experience of a hundred years has
thus directed us will be extended and confirmed by an examination
of certain characteristics which the "Church of the Future," as a
"Church of the People," must necessarily present, and by a
comparison of these with the internal structure and external
operations of the Episcopal Church. In the course of this
examination we shall also probably discover the causes from which
the past failures of the latter have resulted, and the means by
which she might adapt herself more fully to the wants of the
country and the age, if, in fact, such adaptation were any longer
possible. Therefore we proceed:
II. The "Church of the Future" is a church of stability in
principle and flexibility in operation.
The work of the church of God upon the earth is to teach and
govern men. The truth, by which alone the intellect can be
enlightened, the law, by which alone the heart and life can be
subjected to the will of God, are both entrusted to her keeping.
Doctrine informing and directing discipline, discipline realizing
and preserving doctrine--such is the system by which her Lord
commanded her to subdue the world, and by which to this day the
world has been subdued.
The people whose church the "Church of the Future" is to be, and
of whom, as its members, it must be composed, will be a
_free_ people. The race from which they spring long ago
recognized, as fundamental truth, that the will of the people is
the highest law, and every civil and political institution which
is or is to be derives its origin and permanence from the sole
fiat of the citizen. There is no power above it by which its
errors may be corrected or its excesses be restrained.
{156}
The popular vote is the tribunal from whose decision there can be
no appeal. The ballot-box is the throne of state, from which
supreme authority comes down only to take up the thunderbolts of
war.
The sturdy independence which results from such a national
cultivation will place a burden of no common order upon the
church into whose hands the control and unification of American
society must fall. The bearer of divine illumination, the
custodian of unalterable truth, the spiritual government of the
people, will be also on her shoulders; and she must be able to
withstand not only persecution from without, but the more
dangerous assaults of innovation and revolt within. She must have
_no capacity for compromise_. The organic principle which
binds into one body her integral elements must be beyond the
power of popular tumult to disturb or political dissensions to
destroy. In every storm and tempest she must be immovable, and,
with a will of divine firmness and an arm of godlike might, must
bend the tempest and control the storm.
Again, the people over whom the "Church of the Future" will
extend its sway embraces men of every nation, color, class, and
tongue. The offspring of the African, the Saxon, and the Indian
dwell here together with the children of the Hebrew, the
Mongolian, the Teuton, and the Celt. Religions of all forms offer
contemporaneous and discordant worship to their several
divinities. Prejudices of every complexion and against every
truth mingle in the religious atmosphere. Vices of every name,
grown, through long apathy or longer ignorance, into a second
nature, contaminate the public heart. Every possible diversity of
ideas, of tastes, of impossibilities, is found among them, and,
under all, the same great wants, the same unceasing aspirations,
the same formless void.
The church which heals the spiritual wounds of such a people must
both possess and use appliances of infinite variety. Her
_pharmacopoeia_ must contain all remedies which ever have
been suitable to man. Her learning and ability must extend to
their appropriate selection and bestowal. She must, indeed, be
"all things to all men," high with the high and lowly with the
low, wise with the learned and simple with the ignorant, firm
with the headstrong and gentle with the meek, sublime with the
imaginative, cold with the severe, in every way adapting the
method of her operations to the dispositions of the people whom
she seeks to save, if by any means their salvation may be made
secure.
Thus, in herself immovable, eternal, and in her labors as
flexible and various as the needs she must supply, the "Church of
the Future" will not only conquer, but wherever and whatever she
has conquered she will thenceforth unceasingly retain.
But can the church which does this be the Episcopal Church? Let
us test her immobility of principles. Let us measure the
flexibility of her operations. The result will teach us much that
is worth learning, and should not be without its influence on
her.
The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States consists "of
thirty-four confederated dioceses, under the care of bishops,
using the same liturgy, and yielding obedience" to the same canon
law. [Footnote 48] The organic principle by which this
confederation was originated and has been maintained is a written
constitution. [Footnote 49] Its organic life is manifested
through a general convention, in which the supreme legislative
and judicial authority of the whole church resides.
[Footnote 48: _Church Almanac_ for 1867, p. 17.]
[Footnote 49: Law writers define a "constitution" as either a
"limitation" or a "grant" of power. Did the general
convention of 1789, in adopting the constitution of the
Episcopal Church, thereby _grant_ to the church of
Christ, or to any part thereof, powers of which it was
previously destitute, or limit powers which Christ himself
conferred upon it? Or, on the contrary, is not the idea of a
"constitution" essentially repugnant to the idea of the
Christian church?]
{157}
Each of these several dioceses consists of various parishes,
united under one bishop, and yielding obedience to the same local
law. The organic principle of the diocese is a written
constitution; and its organic life is manifested in a diocesan
convention, in which the supreme legislative and judicial
authority of the diocese resides.
Each of the several parishes which compose a diocese consists of
a greater or less number of lay-people, united under one pastor
and occupying certain fixed and well-known territorial limits.
Its organic principle is usually a written constitution; and its
organic life is manifested through a body of vestrymen, to whom
the management of its parochial affairs is entrusted.
With the exception that the church possesses no chief executive,
corresponding to the President of the United States, her organic
system is almost identical with the political order of the
government under which she lives.
The general convention of the church is composed of two houses, a
house of bishops and a house of clerical and lay deputies. The
house of bishops consists of all the bishops of the various
dioceses, as members _ex officio_. The house of deputies
consists of four delegates--two clerical and two lay--from each
diocese, appointed in diocesan convention. A concurrence of both
orders in the lower house, and of both houses, is necessary to a
vote of the convention. [Footnote 50]
[Footnote 50: See Constitution, appendix to
_Journal_ of 1865, arts. 2 and 3.]
The convention of each diocese is composed of the clergy,
canonically resident within its limits, and of a certain number
of lay-deputies, appointed by the various congregations of which
the diocese consists.
The vestrymen of each parish are elected annually by the people.
In each of these three bodies the lay element possesses the
virtual supremacy. In general convention, no law can be enacted,
no lax discipline can be reformed, no erroneous doctrine can be
corrected, without the express acquiescence of the lay-deputies.
In the diocesan convention, no bishop can be elected, no
delegates to the general convention can be appointed, and no
local diocesan regulations can be established, until the laity
agree. In the parish, no pastor can be called, no church-building
be erected, no regular order be determined, while the people
withhold their permission. And though, upon the face of it, this
power may seem to be entirely negative, yet it is not so; for, in
the right to choose their pastors and convention-delegates, the
real control of the diocesan conventions, and, through these, of
their bishops and the general convention, is placed ultimately in
their hands, and, whenever they might choose to organize for such
a purpose, a single generation would suffice to overturn the
doctrine, discipline, and worship of the church itself.
In this respect, also, the Episcopal Church has practically
conformed herself to the model which our national institutions
set before her. If she believes that, in religious as well as
secular affairs, "all governments derive their just powers from
the consent of the governed," her system and belief are certainly
consistent, but it can hardly be pretended that either of them is
divine.
{158}
Nor will it be denied that all the objections to which the
temporal is open on the score of instability and weakness are
doubly pertinent to the ecclesiastical, so long as those whom
Christ intended that his church should govern on the contrary
really govern her.
But however unstable and insecure in all her fundamental and
organic principles the Episcopal Church has thus been rendered by
the inherent nature of her system, she certainly is far from
flexible in her methods of external operation. Here all the
strength of her conservatism concentrates itself. The Prayer-Book
is "the apple of her eye." It cost her less to blot out a creed
in which the faith of ages was embodied, and rob her clergy of
the power of absolution, than it would now to change a single
syllable of her "incomparable liturgy." Yet nothing is more
widely understood, even in her own borders, than that this very
liturgy is the greatest barrier which stands between her and the
masses of the people; and that her inflexible, unvarying use of
it on all occasions is the great patent cause of her acknowledged
failures.
The entire _Memorial_ movement proceeded upon the assumption
that this inflexibility exists, and that to it must be attributed
the uselessness of efforts which, under different methods, should
have accomplished great results. The _Memorialists_ did not
hesitate to say that, with "her fixed and invariable modes of
public worship," her "canonical means and appliances," "her
traditional customs and usages," she was "inadequate to do the
work of the Lord," and that, in their view, it was necessary to
define and act upon a system "broader and more comprehensive"
than that which then existed, and "providing for as much freedom
in opinion, discipline, and worship as is compatible with the
essential faith and order of the gospel." [Footnote 51] The
commission boldly acknowledged that "we have to labor in places
where very much of our work is outside of that contemplated in
the plans of our offices," [Footnote 52] and that "our methods of
dealing with men should be more direct and manifold." [Footnote
53] They admitted the "necessity of that diversity in our modes
of operation which has not been heretofore sufficiently
appreciated," [Footnote 54] and that "we have refused or
neglected to use many gifts which Christ has bestowed on his
church." [Footnote 55] Different bishops declared that her
ministers "must often preach the gospel where the attempt to
perform the entire service would be incongruous, unsuccessful,
and injurious;" [Footnote 56] that at such times the clergy were
"like David in Saul's armor," [Footnote 57] and objects of
compassion in the eyes of others. The late Bishop Polk, with
characteristic frankness, stated:
[Footnote 51: _Memorial Papers_, p. 30.]
[Footnote 52: _Ibid_. p. 50.]
[Footnote 53: _Ibid_. p. 53.]
[Footnote 54: _Ibid_. p. 52.]
[Footnote 55: _Ibid_. p. 58.]
[Footnote 56: _Ibid_. p. 126.]
[Footnote 57: _Ibid_. p. 160.]
"I am satisfied our liturgical services as now used are to a
certain extent impediments in our way. ... There are
circumstances in which all the services help us. ... There are
other circumstances in which the use of all the service is a
manifest and felt hinderance. ... We are not as powerful a
church as we might be if we had more liberty. Of this I am
fully persuaded." [Footnote 58]
[Footnote 58: _Ibid_. pp. 160, 161.]
The missionary bishop of Oregon and Washington, out of his large
experience, concludes:
"There are undoubtedly great advantages resulting to the church
from a general uniformity of worship; but if that uniformity be
so minute and fixed as to refuse adaptation to the actual
condition and wants of Christian men, or to restrain in any
degree the preaching of the gospel to every creature, then it
becomes a yoke of bondage and a damage to Christ's kingdom."
[Footnote 59]
[Footnote 59: _Memorial Papers_, p. 213.]
{159}
The Rev. Dr. Howe remarks:
"I do not believe, sir, that the difficulty lies in the
organization of the church, ... but in the unvarying and (in
the esteem of many) invariable use of our forms and other
usages of worship. ... The church may be entirely Catholic in
her doctrine and polity, yet she can never be
_practically_ so while she requires all men to worship
everywhere in precisely the same forms." [Footnote 60]
[Footnote 60: _Ibid_. p. 256.]
The Rev. Dr. Trapier asserts that
"in the country-places, among the rural population, it has
proved to be an almost hopeless task to introduce our services,
that is, in their integrity." [Footnote 61]
[Footnote 61: _Ibid_. p. 316.]
And so great an advocate of formal worship as the Rev. Dr.
Francis Vinton is reputed to have been exclaims:
"You cannot fulfil the Lord's will while the canons of our
church are left in their stiffness." [Footnote 62]
[Footnote 62: _Ibid_. p. 330.]
We have already seen how much effect the movement, of which these
well-considered statements form a part, finally produced upon the
external system of the church, and it is only too well known that
at this day the declarations of the _Memorialists_ are as
applicable as they were twelve years ago. The evangelical
leaders, hopeless of legitimated liberty, have grown more and
more restless under the unyielding yoke, and here and there some
bolder spirit has burst away from the intolerable servitude, and
asserted his right and duty to do "the Lord's work" unhampered by
her human institutions. Ever and anon some anxious writer
ventures to repeat the declarations and the prayers of the
_Memorial_. But those who dare to look for any change are
few in number, and the high hopes of former days, that the iron
bars were soon to be unloosed and the eager wings of Christian
zeal unbound, are already well-nigh buried in despair.
That, in reference to either of these two essential
characteristics, any improvement will take place we see no reason
to believe. It would be contradictory to all experience if the
Episcopal laity should voluntarily relinquish their share in the
government and administration of the church which they uphold, or
that, by any exercise of spiritual power, the clergy could compel
them to its resignation. It seems to us almost equally impossible
that the inflexibility of operation which prevents her success
can ever be materially diminished. Her liturgy is her _centrum
unitatis_, her teacher, her authoritative law. It is the
golden band which binds her members to one another; which unites
bishop to bishop, diocese to diocese, priest to priest; which
links her with the centuries of the past, and reaches onward to
the future; which keeps her heterogeneous elements in contact
with one another, as the electric coil binds into one repellent
particles of steel. In it her denominational existence is bound
up, and with material changes in it she herself is fated to
dissolve and die.
It cannot be. No day will ever come when Protestant
Episcopalianism can convert this people. No day will ever come
when, if converted, she could govern them. Honored for her
learning, her decorum, and her wealth, she may endure to witness
many generations pass away. Great names will be in her and great
men will be of her. She will do her work in the world, whatever
that may be; but her continuance will be that of a sect, and a
sect only, until the day of her absorption comes.
{160}
III. The "Church of the Future" is a church of uniform and
consistent faith.
It seems almost superfluous for us to argue in support of this
proposition. That divine truth is one, that what God teaches is
unchangeable and every way harmonious with itself, are axioms
which even the unlearned can see to be infallible. And that the
thoughtful, earnest, practical people who must by and by cover
this great continent will ever acknowledge as God's
representative and their spiritual teacher a church whose faith
is variable and undefined, whose theologians are at issue
concerning fundamental points of doctrine, and whose public
preaching is in perpetual self-contradiction and uncertainty, is
utterly impossible. The "Church of the Future" is a "Church of
Truth," a church of divine origin and of divine authority, over
whom is one Lord, and in whom is one spirit; a church whose voice
is ever clear and certain, whose unity with herself is evidence
of her unity with God, and who, in gathering the nations to her
footstool, maketh them all "to be of one mind in the house,"
through "the faith once delivered to the saints."
Will the Episcopal Church justify this description? Has she that
"pure and uncorrupted faith," that "word of the gospel," which is
"always, and everywhere, and by all" invariably taught and held?
Everybody knows better. She herself denies it. Years ago one of
her bishops described her as a church in which parties were
"arrayed in bitter hostility to each other;" in which there was
"so much difference of opinion upon important points of doctrine
that the bishops and other ministers could not be brought to
agree;" in which "one part denies all claim to an evangelical,
that is, a gospel, character, to all who do not agree with them
in every particular," while "the other party denies to the former
any just right to the name of churchman." [Footnote 63]
[Footnote 63: _Memorial Papers_, p. 187.]
Years ago a venerable presbyter declared that the prime source of
all her difficulties was that "_the house_" was "_divided
against itself_" and that so long as men were "ordained to her
ministry, clothed with her authority, and seated in her high
places, who cannot conscientiously teach her Catechism for
children, and whose work of love it is to revile her doctrines,
her institutions, and her faithful people, her enemies" [Footnote
64] would rejoice, and the world repudiate her claims.
[Footnote 64: _Ibid_. p. 236.]
The church in the United States has not yet brought forth a
Colenso, neither has a Pusey yet arisen in her midst; but the
diversity between these leaders of the Anglican communion is
hardly greater than obtains between the congregations on this
side of the Atlantic. The rector of old Trinity with his
confessional, the rector of St. George's with his prayer-meeting,
are exponents of parties, the gulf of whose separation cleaves
downward to the bottom of the great plan of man's salvation.
"Father" Morrill at St. Alban's, and the younger Tyng beneath the
missionary tent in the public square, represent creeds and
principles as different as any that divide the world. Under the
shelter of a liturgy which each interprets according to his
personal views, they dwell together, and through its rigid
formularies preserve external uniformity. But everywhere outside
of it their unity is wanting. Pulpit is arrayed against pulpit,
seminary against seminary, society against society. Her bishops
are catalogued as "high" and "low," and looked to as the leaders
of her hostile factions. Her general convention seeks safety in
inaction. Her ecclesiastical existence hangs upon the thread of
compromise.
{161}
How long this state of things can continue we venture not to
prophesy. Whether the Episcopal Church is destined to
disintegrate like other sects around her, or whether she will
overcome the dangerous schismatic miasm which infests her members
and be once more the home of peace and unity, are questions which
we have no need to answer. But that this state of things was ever
possible proves that her uniformity, wherever it exists, is
merely _accidental_, and never can confer upon her teachings
that authority which a clear-sighted and sensible people will
demand as a condition of their faith.
There are still other characteristics which the "Church of the
Future" will possess, but the limits of this article forbid us to
examine them. The three to which we have directed our attention
are those which were most easily discernible, and concerning
which material for research and comparison lay most readily at
hand. They have answered our question as definitely as if the
whole ground had been gone over, and have told us that, so far as
human calculations can extend, the Protestant Episcopal Church
will never be the "Church of the Future" in our country.
In attempting to demonstrate this proposition we have been
actuated by no feeling of hostility toward the Episcopal Church.
Too many sacred memories, too many years of deep and fond
affection, have made her priests and people dear forever to our
hearts. We believe that, in the inscrutable providence of God,
she has a work to do; a work which, stained with heresy and rent
with schism as she is, none else can do so well. Standing between
the Catholic Church and the remoter darknesses of Rationalism and
Infidelity, she catches the light of its eternal truth more
fully, and breathes a far diviner atmosphere than they. She
drinks in the solemn beauty of its apostolic order. She feels the
power of its infallible authority. She wonders at its vast and
perfect unity. She strives to reproduce these marks of the true
church upon her own exterior, and calls her neighbors to examine
and admire.
Thus she becomes the school-mistress to lead them to the truth.
How many, who by birth, by prejudice, by old associations,
appeared to be for ever aliens to the Catholic fold, have yielded
first to the modified Protestantism of the Episcopal Church, and
through her have been led straight home to the real mother of
their souls! The names of Newman and Spencer, Faber, Ives, and
Baker, teach us how much Catholics may owe to her who, even since
her fall, has nursed the spiritual infancy of many saints of God.
And we, who from her breast drew our first reverence for Holy
Church, and, guided by her hand, at last beheld the beacon-light
which led us to the Rock of Peter and the Home of Peace, can
never cease to love her, or to pray that her great work may
spread until the people of this nation, entranced by her
reflected beauty, may turn their eyes to whence her light
proceeds, and hasten onward to the Catholic Church, in which the
sun of truth for ever shines.
Let, then, the general convention of 1868, so soon to gather in
this great metropolis, awake to the emergency and quit themselves
like men. The task imposed upon them is worthy of their toil,
and, though the church for which they legislate reap not the
harvest, they shall have their reward.
{162}
The influence of their grand and solemn worship, of their fixed,
conservative ideas, is necessary to keep down this restless age,
and make it look with calmness on the questions of the day. Let
that worship be established and those ideas extended in every
town and hamlet to which the Catholic Church has not preceded
them. Let her bishops and her clergy imbue the people with
veneration for apostolic order and with a spirit of submission to
apostolic power. Let her maintain the truths which she preserves,
and with them build foundations in the national heart for the
erection of the divine temple of the Christian faith. Let her do
this and so fulfil the work which lies before her, doubting not
lest the Lord forget her labor, but hoping that the way of grace
she paves for others it may be finally her lot to tread.
And when the "Church of the Future" counts the trophies of her
victory, and reviews the means by which it was accomplished, the
work of Protestant Episcopalianism shall not be forgotten, and
the workmen who performed it shall receive the meed of praise
which is their due.
----------
From The French Of Erckmann And Chatrian.
The Invasion; Or, Yegof The Fool.
Chapter IV.
All this while, everything was pursuing its usual course at the
farm of Bois-de-Chênes. Yegof's strange behavior was almost
forgotten, and war was for the time unthought of. Old Duchene,
while Hullin plodded back, was driving his cattle home, the
herdsman Robin spreading the straw on which they were to rest,
and Annette and Jeanne were skimming the daily tribute of their
dairy. Catherine Lefevre alone, silent and gloomy, mused over
what had passed, as she superintended the work of her people. She
was too old, too grave, to so soon forget events which had
agitated her so strongly. At nightfall, after the evening repast,
she entered the large kitchen where the farm-servants awaited
her, and there took down her register and placed it upon the
table, ready, as was her wont, to regulate the accounts of the
day.
It might have been half-past seven, when footsteps were heard at
the gate. The watch-dog sprang forward growling, listened for a
moment, sniffed the air, and then quietly returned to his bone.
"It is some one belonging to the farm," said Annette; "Michel
knows him."
At the same moment old Duchene exclaimed:
"Good-evening, Master Jean-Claude! You are back."
"Yes--from Phalsbourg, and I will remain here a few moments to
rest before going to the village. Is Catherine at home?"
"She is within," replied Duchene. And brave Jean-Claude entered
into the bright light, his broad hat drawn over his eyes, and the
roll of sheepskin upon his shoulder.
{163}
"Good-evening, my children," said he, "good-evening. Always at
work, I see."
"Yes, Monsieur Hullin," answered Jeanne, laughing. "If we had
nothing to do, life would be tiresome indeed."
"True, my dear, true. There is nothing like work for giving rosy
cheeks and shining eyes."
Jeanne was about to reply when the door opened, and Catherine
Lefevre advanced into the room. She cast an anxious glance on
Hullin, as if to divine beforehand the news he was bringing.
"Well, Jean-Claude, you have returned."
"Yes, Catherine, and with good and ill tidings."
"Let us have them!" exclaimed she, presenting a seat to the
sabot-maker, as he deposited his roll upon the table.
"Well, the news from Gaspard is good; the boy is well, although
he has had a hard time of it; so much the better--hardship
strengthens youth. But the war goes badly, badly!"
He shook his head as he spoke, and the old woman, seating herself
in her arm-chair directly in front of him, fixed her eyes upon
his.
"Then the allies are in France; the war is to be brought home to
us?"
"Yes, Catherine; we may any day expect to see the enemy in our
mountains."
"I feared it--I was sure of it--but go on, Jean-Claude."
Hullin, in a low voice, proceeded to relate all he had seen and
heard; he told of the works around the city, the proclamation of
the state of siege, the wagons loaded with wounded on the Place
d'Armes, and his meeting with the old sergeant. From time to time
he paused, and the old lady half-closed her eyes, as if graving
his words upon her memory, and when Hullin spoke of the wounded
she gasped:
"But Gaspard has escaped?"
At the end of the sabot-maker's sorrowful story there was a long
pause. How many bitter thoughts were burning in the minds of
both! At last Catherine broke the silence:
"You see, Jean-Claude," said she, "Yegof was right."
"He was right," replied Jean-Claude, "but what does that prove?
It would, indeed, be astonishing if a fool--wandering, as he
does, everywhere, from village to village--in Alsace, in
Lorraine--saw nothing, heard nothing; and if he should not
occasionally utter a truth in the midst of his nonsense.
Everything is mingled in his head, and you imagine you understand
what he does not understand himself. But enough of the fool,
Catherine. The Austrians are coming, and the question is whether
we shall let them pass quietly through our mountains, or defend
ourselves like mountaineers."
"Defend ourselves!" cried the old woman, her pale cheeks
flushing. "Think you we have lost the courage of our fathers? Did
not the blood of their men, women, and children flow like water,
and no one think of yielding?"
"Then you are for defence, Catherine?"
"Ay! while a drop of blood remains in my body. Let them come. The
old woman will be in their path."
Her long, gray hair in her excitement seemed to quiver upon her
head; her cheeks trembled and glowed, and her eyes flashed fire.
She seemed even full of a fierce beauty--of a beauty like that of
Margareth of whom Yegof spoke. Hullin stretched his hand to her
in silence.
{164}
"I knew you, Catherine," said he with enthusiasm; "I knew your
true heart. But we must look calmly at what is before us. We
shall fight, but how? Where are our munitions?"
"Everywhere! axes, scythes, pitchforks--"
"Yes, yes; but muskets and bullets are the best. Muskets we have;
every mountaineer's cottage has one hanging over the door; but
where is our powder? where are our bullets?"
The old woman became suddenly calm; she pushed back her hair
beneath her cap, and looked around thoughtfully.
"Yes," she replied; "we lack powder and ball, it is true, but we
shall have them. Marc-Dives the smuggler has plenty. You will see
him for me to-morrow, and tell him that Catherine Lefevre will
buy all that he has, and pay for it too; yes, though it cost her
house, lands, and cattle--all she possesses. Do you understand,
Hullin?"
"I do. This is splendid, Catherine!"
"Splendid! Bah! To drive from our doors those Austrians, those
Prussians, the red-bearded race who once already all but
exterminated ours! They are our mortal foes! You will buy the
powder, and the wretches will see whether their old castles are
to be rebuilt by us!"
Hullin saw that Yegof's story yet preyed upon her mind, but he
said simply:
"Then it is understood. I go to Marc-Dives's to-morrow?"
"Yes," replied Catherine; "and you will buy all his powder and
lead. You must also go to all the villages in the mountains, to
warn our people of the danger and agree upon a signal to be used
in case of attack."
"Rest easy as to that," said Jean-Claude; "it shall be my care."
Both had risen and turned toward the door. For half an hour past
the noise in the kitchen had ceased; the people of the farm had
retired. The old woman placed her lamp on the chimney-shelf and
drew the bolts. The cold without was sharp, but the air clear and
still. The peaks around, and the fires on the Jaeger that stood
out against the dark-blue sky in masses of silver or jet, and no
sound broke the quiet save the short bark of a far-off fox.
"Good-night, Hullin," said the old woman.
"Good-night, Catherine."
Jean-Claude walked rapidly down the heath-covered slope, and his
late hostess, after following him for a few moments with her
eyes, closed the door.
I must leave you to imagine the joy of Louise when she learned
that her Gaspard was safe. Hullin was careful not to mar her joy
by a view of the dark cloud rising upon its horizon. All night he
heard her talking to herself in her little chamber, murmuring the
name of Gaspard, and opening drawers and boxes to find tokens he
had left.
Thus does the linnet, unmindful of the coming storm, sing in the
fast-receding sunshine.
Chapter V.
When Jean-Claude, the next morning, pushed open his
window-shutters, he saw the neighboring mountains--Jaegerthal,
Grosmann, Donon--covered with snow. This first sight of
winter--when it overtakes us in our sleep--has a strange
attraction about it. The old firs, the moss-covered rocks, were
yesterday still clothed in their verdure, but now they glitter
with frost, and fill our soul with an indescribable sense of
sadness.
{165}
"Another year has passed away," we murmur to ourselves; "another
rude season must pass away before the flowers return!" And we
hurry to don our great-coat or to light a roaring fire. Our
little retreat is full of white light, and without we hear the
sparrows--the poor sparrows crouching beneath the eaves and
bushes--who with ruffled feathers seem to cry, "No breakfast this
morning--no breakfast!"
Hullin put on his heavy double-soled shoes and his thickest
jacket. He heard Louise walking over his head in the little
garret.
"Louise," he cried, "I am going."
"What! to-day again?"
"Yes, my child; I must. My business is not yet finished."
Then pulling his broad felt hat over his head, he went half-way
up the stairs, and said in a low tone:
"You must not expect me back very soon, child, for I must go a
long way off. Do not be uneasy. If they ask you where I am gone,
say to Cousin Mathias, at Saverne."
"Will you not have some breakfast before starting?"
"No; I have put a loaf of bread and the little flask of brandy in
my pocket. Farewell, my child. Be happy, and think of Gaspard."
And, without waiting for more questions, he seized his staff and
left the cottage, directing his steps toward the hill to the left
of the village. At the end of a quarter of an hour he had passed
it and reached the path of the Three Fountains, which winds
around Falkenstein by an old wall. The first snow never lasts
long in the damp shadows of the valleys, and it had already begun
to melt and form a stream in the pathway. Hullin mounted the wall
to escape the water, and throwing a glance toward the village saw
a few old women sweeping the snow from before their doors, and a
few old men exchanging their morning greetings and smoking their
morning pipes at their thresholds. He pursued his way along
dreamily, murmuring: "How tranquil all is there! None suspect
that danger is nigh, and yet in a few days what tumults, what
shrieks, what crashing of cannon and clattering of muskets will
fill the air!"
Powder was the first necessity, and we have seen how Catherine
Lefevre turned her thoughts to Marc-Dives the smuggler; but she
did not speak of his amiable helpmate, Hexe-Baizel.
The couple lived at the other side of Falkenstein, beneath the
cliff on which the ruined castle stood. They had hollowed out for
themselves a very comfortable den, although it possessed but one
entrance and two little windows, but rumor hinted that it
communicated with ancient subterranean passages. These last,
however, the custom-house officials were never able to discover,
notwithstanding several visits they made the worthy pair with
this object in view. Jean-Claude and Marc-Dives knew one another
from infancy; they had many a time together driven the owl and
the hawk from their nests, and still saw one another at least
once a week at the saw-mill. Hullin placed full reliance upon the
smuggler, but he somewhat mistrusted Madame Hexe-Baizel.
"However," said he, as he neared their domicile, "we shall see."
He had lighted his pipe, and from time to time turned to
contemplate the immense stretch of country spread out before him.
Nothing can be more magnificent than the view of snow-covered
wooded mountains, rising peak after peak far into the pale-blue
sky until sight is lost in distance, and separated by dark
valleys, each with its torrent flowing over mossy stones, green
and polished like bronze.
{166}
And then the silence--the silence of winter--broken only by the
foot-fall on the soft, white ground, or the dash of snow falling
from the higher branches of the firs to the lower, which bend
beneath the weight; or mayhap the shrill screams of a pair of
eagles, whirling far above the treetops, startle the ear. But all
this must be seen and felt; it cannot be described.
About an hour after his departure from the village, Hullin,
climbing over rock after rock, reached the foot of the cliff of
Arbousiers. A sort of terrace, full of stones, and only three or
four feet in width, entirely surrounds this mass of granite. The
narrow way, itself surrounded only by the tops of trees shooting
from the precipice below, seems dangerous, but is scarcely so in
reality, for dizziness is all that is to be feared in passing
along it. Above the ruin-covered rock overhangs the path.
Jean-Claude approached the smuggler's retreat. He halted a few
moments upon the terrace, put his pipe back into his pocket, and
then advanced along the passage, which described a half-circle
and terminated in a notch in the rock. At its end he perceived
the two windows of the cave and the half-open door.
At the same moment Hexe-Baizel appeared, sweeping the threshold
with a huge broom of green twigs. She was short and withered; her
head covered with a mass of dishevelled red hair, her cheeks
hollow, her nose pointed, her little eyes glittering like burning
coals, her mouth small and garnished with very white teeth. Her
costume consisted of a short and very dirty woollen gown, and her
small, muscular arms were bare to the elbow, notwithstanding the
intense cold of winter at such a height; a pair of worn-out
slippers half-covered her feet.
"Ha! good-morning, Hexe-Baizel," cried Jean-Claude, in a tone of
good-natured raillery. "Stout, fat, happy, and contented as
usual, I see."
Hexe-Baizel turned like a startled weasel. She shook her hair,
and her eyes flashed fire. But she calmed herself at once, and
said, in a short, dry voice, as if speaking to herself:
"Hullin the sabot-maker! What does he want here?"
"I want to see my friend Marc, beautiful Hexe-Baizel," replied
Jean-Claude. "We have business together."
"What business?"
"Ah! that is our affair. Come, let me pass; I must speak to-him."
"Marc is asleep."
"Well, we must wake him. Time presses."
So saying, Hullin bent beneath the door-way, and entered the
cave, which was irregular in shape and seamed with numerous
fissures in its walls. Near the entrance the rock, rising
suddenly, formed a sort of natural hearth, on which burned a few
coals and some branches of the juniper. The cooking utensils of
Hexe-Baizel consisted of an iron pot, an earthen jar, two cracked
plates, and three or four pewter forks; her furniture, of a
wooden stool, a hatchet to split wood, a salt-box fastened to the
rocky wall, and her great broom of green twigs. At the right, her
kitchen opened upon another cavern by an irregularly shaped
aperture wider at the top than below, and closed by two planks
and a cross-bar.
"Well, where is Marc?" asked Hullin, seating himself at the
corner of the hearth.
{167}
"I have already told you that he is asleep. He came home very
late last night, and he must not be disturbed; do you
understand?"
"I understand very well, Hexe-Baizel, but I have no time to
wait."
"Then leave as soon as you please."
"That is very fine, but I don't intend to leave just yet. I did
not make this journey to return empty handed."
"Is that you, Hullin?" interrupted a rough voice in the inner
cavern.
"Ay, Marc."
"Wait a moment, I am coming."
A noise of rustling straw was heard, then the planks were
removed, and a tall man, three feet at least from shoulder to
shoulder, bony, bent, with ears and neck of a dull brick color
and disordered brown hair, bent in the aperture, and then
Marc-Dives stood erect before Hullin, gaping and stretching his
long arms.
At first sight the countenance of Marc-Dives seemed mild enough;
his broad, low forehead, temples only thinly covered with hair,
pointed nose, long chin, and calm, brown eyes would seem to
betoken the quiet, easy-going man, but one who should so class
him would sooner or later discover his mistake. Rumor said that
Marc-Dives had little scruple in using his axe or carbine when
the custom-house officials invaded his premises, but proofs were
wanting. The smuggler, thanks to his complete knowledge of all
the defiles of the mountain, and of all the roads from Dagsbourg
to Sarrebrück, from Raon l'Etape to Bâle in Switzerland, always
seemed twenty miles from the place where such conflicts occurred.
Then he had such a harmless air--in short, the rumors against
him inevitably recoiled upon those who started them.
"I was thinking of you last night, Hullin," cried Marc, coming
out of his den, "and if you hadn't come I should have gone all
the way to the saw-mill to meet you. Sit down. Hexe-Baizel, give
Hullin a chair."
He himself sat upon the wide hearth, with his back to the fire,
opposite the open door, around which blew the winds of Alsace and
of Switzerland.
The view through the narrow opening was magnificent--a
rock-framed picture, but how grand a one! There lay the whole
valley of the Rhine, and beyond the mountains melting into mist.
The air, too, was so fresh and pure, and when the blue expanse
without tired the eyes, the little fire within, with its red,
dancing flames, was there to relieve them.
"Marc," said Hullin, after a moment's silence, "can I speak
before your wife?"
"It is the same as speaking to me alone."
"Well. I have come to buy powder and lead of you."
"To shoot hares, I suppose," returned the smuggler, half-closing
his eye and gazing keenly at Jean-Claude.
"No; to fight the Germans and the Russians."
There was another silence.
"And you want a good deal, I suppose."
"As much as you can furnish."
"I can furnish three thousand francs' worth to-day," said the
smuggler.
"I will take it."
"And as much more in a week," continued Marc calmly, still gazing
steadily at his friend.
"I will take it."
"You will take it!" cried Hexe-Baizel--"you will take it! I
believe you, but who will pay for it?"
"Silence!" said Marc roughly.
{168}
"Hullin will take it; his word is enough."
Then, stretching out his broad hand to the sabot-maker, he
exclaimed:
"Jean-Claude, here is my hand! The powder and lead are yours; but
I wish to stand my share of the expense. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Marc, but I intend to pay at once."
"He will pay himself," cried Hexe-Baizel. "Do you hear?"
"Am I deaf? Baizel, go fetch us a bottle of
_Brimbelle-wasser_ to warm us. What Hullin tells me fills me
with joy. Those beggarly _Kaiserliks_ won't have things go
as easily as they imagine. Our people will defend themselves, and
well!"
"They will! they will!"
"And there are those among them who will pay for what is needed."
"Catherine Lefevre will pay, and it is she who sends me here,"
said Hullin.
Then Marc arose, and, extending his hand toward the precipice,
exclaimed:
"She is a woman among a thousand. Her soul is as great as yonder
rock, Oxenstein. Never saw I a grander. I drink to her health.
Drink too, Jean-Claude."
Hullin drank, and Hexe-Baizel followed the example.
"The bargain is made," cried Dives; "but, Hullin, it will not be
easy to beat back the foe! All the hunters, the workmen, and the
wood-cutters in the mountain will not be too many. I have just
come from beyond the Rhine. The earth is black with Russians,
Austrians, Bavarians, Prussians, Cossacks, hussars. The villages
cannot contain them, and they are encamped upon the plains, in
the valleys, on the heights, in the cities, everywhere,
everywhere!"
A sharp cry pierced the air.
"It is a buzzard chasing its prey," said Marc.
At the same instant a shadow passed over the rock. A cloud of
chaffinches and small birds swept over the cave, and hundreds of
buzzards and hawks dashed on above them, with loud screams. So
dense and broad was the feathered mass, that it seemed almost
immovable while the fluttering of so many thousand wings sounded
like dead leaves driving before the wind.
"It is the birds leaving Ardennes," said Hullin.
"Yes, the last of them. Their corn and seeds are buried in the
snow. But there are more men in the enemy's armies than birds
yonder. No matter, Jean-Claude; France will live though the world
assail her. Hexe-Baizel, light the lantern; I wish to show
Jean-Claude our stock of ammunition."
Hexe-Baizel could not willingly obey this command.
"No one," said she, "has been in the cave for twenty years. He
can as well take your word for it. We take his for payment. I
will not light the lantern--not I!"
Marc, without saying a word, stretched forth his hand and grasped
a stout stick. The old woman, trembling in every limb,
disappeared like a ferret through a small aperture, and in a
moment returned with a large horn lantern, which Dives tranquilly
lighted at the hearth.
"Baizel," said he, replacing the stick, "you know that
Jean-Claude is my friend, and has been since we were boys, and
that I would trust him much sooner than I would you, old snarler;
for you know well that if you did not fear being hung the same
day, I would long since have danced at the end of a rope. Come,
Hullin, follow me."
{169}
They went out together, and the smuggler, turning to the left,
kept on toward the notch, which projected over the Valtin two
hundred feet in the air. He pushed aside the foliage of a stunted
oak, and then disappeared as if hurled into the abyss.
Jean-Claude trembled, but he saw at the same moment Dives's head
advancing along the wall of rock. The smuggler called out:
"Hullin, place your hand on the left side; there is a hole there;
stretch out your foot boldly; you will feel a step, and then turn
upon your heel."
Master Jean-Claude obeyed, not without fear and trembling; he
felt the hole in the rock, found the step, and, turning half-way
around, presently stood face to face with his friend in a niche
which must formerly have belonged to some postern. At the end of
the niche a low vault opened.
"How in the world was this discovered?" cried the wondering
Hullin.
"I came on it while hunting for nests, thirty-five years ago. I
had often seen a magnificent eagle with his mate upon this rock;
they were splendid birds, full six feet across the wings. I heard
the cries of their young beyond the notch, and, after many a
trial, found myself here. What a battle we had! They tried to
tear my eyes out, and when I killed them I cleared their nest of
the bones that lay there after I had twisted the necks of the
young; then I kept on, and you shall see what I found. Come."
They glided together beneath the low and narrow vault, formed of
enormous red stones, over which the lantern threw a sickly glare.
At the end of about thirty steps a vast circular cave, formed
from the living rock, appeared, on the floor of which were
perhaps fifty piles of little kegs, and on the sides a great
number of bars of lead and bags of tobacco. The air of the cavern
was strongly impregnated with the strong odor of the last.
Marc placed his lantern at the entrance and gazed around with a
well-satisfied smile.
"Here is what I found," said he, "only the cave was empty, save
that in the middle of the floor yonder lay the skeleton of an
animal--of a fox, which had probably died there of old age. The
rogue had discovered the way before I did, and he could sleep in
safety here. At that time, Jean-Claude, I was twelve years of
age. I thought then that the place might some day be useful to
me, I knew not how; but afterward, when I made my first essays at
my trade with Jacob Zimmer, and when for two winters the revenue
officers were on our track, the remembrance of my cave returned.
I had made the acquaintance of Hexe-Baizel, who was a servant at
the farm of Bois-de-Chênes, then owned by Catherine's father. She
brought me twenty-five louis by way of dowry, and we set up our
establishment in this cavern of the Arbousiers."
Dives was silent, and Hullin asked:
"You like this den, then?"
"Like it! I would not change it for the finest house in
Strasbourg. For twenty-three years have I kept my goods
here--sugar, coffee, powder, tobacco, brandy--and no one the
wiser. I have eight horses always on the road."
"But you enjoy nothing of your wealth."
"Enjoy nothing! Think you there is no pleasure in mocking and
outwitting the police--in defying the shrewd officials of the
custom-house? And, besides, the people all love you; you sell at
half-price; you are the benefactor of the poor."
{170}
"But the danger!"
"Bah! What revenue officer would dare come here?"
"I believe you," muttered Hullin, as he thought that he must
again brave the precipice.
"But I am used to it," continued the smuggler, "although, when I
first made my way hither with a cask on my shoulder, my heart
fluttered as it had not for many a day before."
He took up the lantern and held it so that the light might fall
upon the heaps of kegs.
"It is fine English powder," said he; "it rolls like grains of
silver in your hand, and is strong as fate. A little goes a long
way; a thimbleful is enough for a charge. And there is lead that
Europe cannot beat. This evening, Hexe-Baizel shall run some into
balls. She knows how, as you shall see."
They turned to leave the cavern, when suddenly a confused noise
of voices was borne upon the air. Marc instantly blew out the
lantern, and the two men were in a moment plunged in darkness.
"There is some one above," whispered the smuggler. "Who in the
fiend's name could have climbed Falkenstein in the snow?"
They listened breathlessly, their eyes fixed upon a ray of
pale-blue light which descended through a narrow fissure in the
top of the cave. Around this opening hung glittering spars of
frost; above it could be seen the crest of a ruined wall. While
they gazed thus in profound silence, a head shaggy with
disordered hair, a glittering circlet binding the brow, the face
long and ending in a pointed red beard--all sharply outlined
against the white wintry sky--became visible.
"It is the King of Diamonds!" cried Marc, laughing.
"Poor wretch," murmured Hullin; "he is making a progress to his
castles, his bare feet upon the frozen ground, and his tin crown
protecting his head from the cold. Look, Dives, he is giving
orders to the knights of his court; he stretches his sceptre
north and south--all is his. Poor wretch, he makes me shiver to
see him with nothing but his dog-skin robe around him."
"He makes me think," laughed the smuggler, "of some
round-paunched burgomaster, or village mayor, rolling back in his
chair as he dilates upon his wealth: 'H'm, I am Hans Aden; I have
ten acres of fine meadow-land; I have two houses, a vine, my
orchard, my garden--h'm, I have this, that, and the other.' The
next day a colic seizes him, and then, good-night! We are fools,
all of us. Come, Hullin, after all, the sight of that miserable
creature talking to the winds and of his famine-stricken crow
makes my teeth chatter too."
They passed on to the entrance of the vault, and the glare of day
breaking suddenly upon them dazzled Hullin. The tall form of his
companion guided him, however, and he pressed on after him.
"Step firmly," said Marc, "and do as you see me; your right hand
in the hole, right foot on the step, half a turn, and here we
are!"
They returned to the kitchen, where Hexe-Baizel told them that
Yegof was among the ruins.
At the same moment the raven sailed past the door over the abyss,
and uttered its hoarse cry; they heard the frozen heather bend
beneath steps, and the fool appeared on the narrow terrace; he
was wan and haggard, and cried, looking toward the fire:
{171}
"Marc-Dives, try to leave this soon; I warn you. The
fortifications of my domains must be free from such vermin. Take
your measures accordingly."
Then perceiving Jean-Claude, he knit his brows.
"Thou here, Hullin?" said he. "Art thou yet far-sighted enough to
accept the proposals I deigned to make thee? Knowest thou that
the alliance I offered is the only means of saving thyself from
the destruction that broods upon thy race?"
Hullin could not avoid laughing.
"No, Yegof," he replied; "my sight is not yet clear enough; it is
dazed by the honor you offer me. But Louise is not yet old enough
to marry."
The fool seemed at once to grow more gloomy and thoughtful. He
stood at the edge of the terrace, his back to the abyss, as if in
his own hall, and the whirling of the raven around his head
disturbed him not in the least.
At length he raised his sceptre, and said, frowning:
"I have twice demanded her, Hullin; twice thou hast dared to
refuse me. Once more shall the demand be renewed--but once--dost
hear?--and then the decrees of fate shall be accomplished."
And turning upon his heel, with a firm step and haughty carriage,
notwithstanding the steepness of the descent, he passed down the
rocky path.
Hullin, Marc-Dives, and even the acrid Hexe-Baizel, burst into
peals of laughter.
"He is a fool!" said Hexe-Baizel.
"I think you are not altogether wrong," sneered the smuggler.
"Poor Yegof is losing his head entirely. But listen, Baizel; you
will begin at once to cast bullets of all calibres; I am off for
Switzerland. In a week, at latest, the remainder of our munitions
will be here. Give me my boots."
Drawing on the last, and wrapping a thick red woollen scarf about
his neck, the smuggler took from a hook on the wall a herdsman's
dark-green coat which he threw over his shoulders; then, covering
his head with a broad felt hat and seizing a cudgel, he cried:
"Do not forget what I say, old woman, or if you do, beware!
Forward, Jean-Claude!"
Hullin followed his host without even bidding Hexe-Baizel
farewell, and she, for her part, deigned not to see her departing
guest to the door. When they had reached the foot of the cliff,
Dives stopped, saying:
"You are going to the mountain villages, are you not, Hullin?"
"Yes; I must give the alarm."
"Do not forget Materne of Hengst and his two sons, and Labarbe of
Dagsbourg, and Jerome of Saint-Quirin. Tell them there will be
powder and ball in plenty; that Catherine Lefevre and I,
Marc-Dives, will see to it."
"Fear not, Marc; I know my men."
They shook hands warmly and parted, the smuggler wending his way
to the right toward Donon, Hullin taking the path to the left
toward the Sarre.
The distance was rapidly widening between them, when Hullin
called out:
"Halloo, Marc! Tell Catherine, as you pass, that all goes well,
and that I have gone among the villages."
The other replied by a nod, and the two pursued their different
ways.
{172}
Chapter VI.
An unusual agitation reigned along the entire line of the Vosges;
rumors of the coming invasion spread from village to village.
Pedlars, wagoners, tinkers, all that wandering population which
is constantly floating from mountain to plain, from plain to
mountain, brought each day budgets of strange news from Alsace
and the banks of the Rhine. They said that every town was being
put in a state of defence; that the roads to Metz, to Nancy,
Huningue, and Strasbourg, were black with army and provision
wagons. On every side were to be seen caissons of powder, shells,
and shot, and cavalry, infantry, and artillery hurrying to their
posts. Marshal Victor, with twelve thousand men, yet held the
Saverne road, but the draw-bridges of all the fortified towns
were raised from seven in the evening until eight in the morning.
Things looked gloomy enough, but the greater number thought only
of defending their homes, and Jean-Claude was everywhere well
received.
The same day, at about five in the evening, he reached the top of
Hengst, and stopped at the dwelling of the hunter-patriarch, old
Materne. There he passed the night; for in winter the days are
short and the roads difficult. Materne promised to keep watch
over the defile of Zorn, with his two sons, Kasper and Frantz,
and to respond to the first signal that should be made from
Falkenstein.
Early the next day, Jean-Claude arrived at Dagsbourg to see his
friend Labarbe the wood-cutter. They went together to the hamlets
around, to light in all hearts the love of country. Labarbe
accompanied Hullin to the cottage of the Anabaptist Nickel, a
grave and respectable man, but they could not draw him into their
glorious enterprise. He had but one reply to all their arguments.
"It is well," he said; "it is doubtless right; but the Scriptures
say that he who takes up the sword shall perish by the sword." He
promised, however, to pray for the good cause, and that was all
they could obtain of him.
They went thence to Walsch, where they found Daniel Hirsch, an
ancient gunner in the navy, who promised to bring with him all
the men of his commune.
Here Labarbe left Jean-Claude to pursue his route alone.
For a week more our brave friend wandered over the mountains,
from Soldatenthal to Leonsberg, from Meienthal to Voyer, Cirey,
Petit-Mont, Saint-Sauveur, and the ninth day he found himself at
the shoemaker Jerome's, at Saint-Quirin. They visited together
the defile of Blanru, after which Hullin, entirely satisfied with
the results of his journey, turned once more toward his village.
Since two o'clock in the afternoon he had been pressing on at a
brisk pace, thinking of the life of the camp, the bivouac, the
crash of battle, marches and countermarches--all those details of
a soldier's life which he regretted so often and which he now
looked forward to with ardor. The twilight shadows had begun to
fall when he discovered the village of Charmes, afar off, with
its little cottages, from which curled wreaths of light-blue
smoke, scarcely perceptible against the snow-covered
mountain-side, its little gardens with their fences, its
slate-covered roofs, and to the left the great farm-house of
Bois-de-Chênes, and below, in the already dark ravine, the
saw-mill of Valtin.
And then, without his knowing why, a sadness filled his heart.
{173}
He slackened his steps; thoughts of the calm, peaceful life he
was losing, perhaps for ever, floated through his mind; he saw
his little room, so warm in winter and so gay in spring, when he
opened his window to the breezes from the woods; he heard the
never-changing tick of the village clock; and he thought of
Louise--his good little Louise--spinning in silence, her eyes
cast down, or, mayhap, singing in her pure, clear voice at
evening. Everything in his home arose before his eyes: the tools
of his trade, his long, glittering chisels, the hatchet with the
crooked handle, the porringers of glazed earthenware, the antique
figure of Saint Michael nailed to the wall, the old curtained bed
in the alcove, the lamp with the copper beak--all were before
him, and the tears forced their way to his eyes.
But it was to Louise--his dear child, his Louise--that his
thoughts turned oftenest. How she would weep and implore him not
to expose himself to the dangers of war! How she would hang upon
his neck and beg him not to leave her! He saw her large,
affrighted eyes; he felt her arms around him. He would fain
deceive her, but deceit was no part of Jean-Claude's character;
his words only deepened her grief.
He tried to shake off his gloom, and, passing by the farm of
Bois-de-Chênes, he entered to tell Catherine that all went well,
and that the mountaineers only awaited the signal.
Fifteen minutes later, Master Jean-Claude stood before his own
door.
Before opening it, he glanced through the window to see what
Louise might be doing. She was standing in the alcove, and seemed
busily arranging and rearranging some garments that lay upon the
bed. Her face beamed with happiness, her eyes sparkled, and she
was talking to herself aloud. Hullin listened, but the rattling
of a passing wagon prevented his hearing her words.
He pushed open the door and entered, saying:
"Louise, here I am back!"
She bounded like a fawn to him and threw her arms around his
neck, exclaiming:
"It is you, Father Jean-Claude! How I have been waiting for you!
How long you were gone! But you are home again, at last."
"My child--many things"--said the good man, putting away his
staff behind the door--"many things kept--"
But his heart was too full; he could say no more.
"Yes, yes, I know," cried Louise, laughing. "Mother Lefevre told
me all."
"How is that! You know all and only laugh? Well, it proves your
good sense. I expected to see you weep."
"Weep? And why, Father Jean-Claude? Oh! never fear for me; I am
brave. You do not know me."
Her air was so prettily resolute that Hullin could not help
smiling; but his smile quickly disappeared when she added:
"We are going to have war; we are going to fight, to defend the
mountains!"
"_We_ are going! _We_ are going!" exclaimed the good
man, astounded.
"Certainly. Are we not?" she asked, her smile disappearing at
once.
"I must leave you for some time, my child."
"Leave me? Oh! no, no. I will go with you; it is agreed. See, my
little bundle is all ready, and I am making up yours. Do not be
uneasy; let me fix everything, and you will be satisfied."
Hullin stood stupefied.
"But, Louise," he cried, "you are dreaming. Think, my child! We
must pass long winter nights without a roof to cover us; we must
bear hardship, fatigue, cold, snow, hunger, and countless
dangers! A musket-ball would mar my pretty bird's beauty."
{174}
"You are only trying your little Louise," cried she, now in
tears, and flinging herself upon his neck. "You will not leave me
here alone."
"But you will be better here; you will have a good fire and food.
Besides, you will receive news of us every day."
"No, no! I will go with you; I care not for cold. And I have been
shut up here too long; I want the fresh air. The birds are out;
the redbreasts are out all winter; and did I not know what hunger
was when a child? Mother Lefevre says I may go; and will you whom
I love so much be more cruel than she?"
Brave Jean-Claude sat down, his heart full of bitter sorrow. He
turned away his head that she might not see the struggle going on
within, while Louise eagerly continued:
"I will be safe; I will follow you. The cold! What is the cold to
me? And if you should be wounded--if you should wish to see your
little Louise for the last time, and she not be near to take care
of you--to love you to the last! Oh! you must think me
hard-hearted!"
She sobbed; Hullin could hold out no longer.
"Is it indeed true that Mother Lefevre consents?" he asked.
"Yes, yes, oh! yes, she told me so; she said, 'Try to get Father
Jean-Claude to let you; I am satisfied.'"
"Well," said the sabot-maker, smiling sadly, "I can do little
against two. You shall come! It is agreed."
The cottage echoed with her cry of joy, and with one sweep of her
hand her tears were dried, and her face, like an April sky,
beamed in smiles.
"You are a little gypsy still," cried Hullin, shaking his head.
"Go trap a swallow."
Then, drawing her to him, he continued:
"Look you, Louise: it is now twelve years since I found you in
the snow. You were blue with the cold, poor child; and when I
brought you to the fire and warmed you, the first thing you did
was to smile at me, and since that day your smile has ruled old
Jean-Claude. But let us look at our bundles," said the good man
with a sigh. "Are they well fastened?"
He approached the bed, and saw in wonder his warmest coats, his
flannel jackets, all well brushed, well folded, and well packed.
Then in Louise's bundle were her best dresses and her thick
shoes. He could not restrain a laugh, as he cried:
"O gypsy, gypsy! It takes you to pack up."
Louise smiled.
"Then you are satisfied with them?" she asked.
"I must be; but in the midst of all this fine work, you did not
think, I'll wager, of getting ready my supper."
"That is soon done," said she, "although I did not know you would
return to-night, Papa Jean-Claude."
"That is true; but get something ready quickly; no matter what,
for my appetite is sharp. In the meantime I will smoke a pipe."
"Yes, smoke a pipe."
He sat at the corner of his work-bench and drummed dreamily upon
it. Louise flew to right and left like a veritable fairy,
kindling up the fire, breaking eggs, and in the twinkle of an eye
she had an omelette ready. Never had she looked so graceful, so
joyous, so pretty. Hullin leaned his cheek upon his hand and
gazed at her gravely, thinking how much firmness, will,
resolution, there was in that little form, light as an antelope,
but decided as a cuirassier. In a moment she had laid the
omelette before him on a large plate, ornamented with blue
flowers, a loaf of bread, his glass, and his bottle of wine.
{175}
"There, Father Jean-Claude, eat your supper."
The fire leaped and crackled in the stove, throwing ruddy stains
on the low rafters, the stairs half in shadow and the large bed
in the alcove, and lighting up the poor dwelling so often made
joyous by the merry humor of the sabot-maker and the songs of his
daughter. And Louise would leave all this without regret to brave
the wintry woods, the snow-covered paths, and the steep
mountain-side, and all for love of him. Neither storm, nor biting
wind, nor torrents staid her. She had but one thought, and that
was to be near him.
The repast ended, Hullin arose, saying:
"I am weary, my child; kiss me for good-night."
"But do not forget to awake me, Father Jean-Claude, if you start
before daybreak."
"Rest easy; you will come with us," he answered, as he climbed
the narrow stairs.
All was silence without, save that the deep tones of the village
clock told the hour of eleven. Jean-Claude sat down and
unfastened his shoes. Just then his eyes fell upon his musket
hung over the door. He took it down, slowly wiped it, and tried
the lock. His whole soul was in the work in which he was engaged.
"It is strange--strange! The last time I fired it was at
Marengo--fourteen years ago, and it seems but yesterday."
Suddenly the frozen snow crunched beneath a foot-fall. He
listened. Two taps sounded upon the window-panes. He ran and
opened the door, and the form of Marc-Dives, his broad hat stiff
with ice, emerged from the darkness.
"Marc! What news?"
"Have you warned Materne, Jerome, Labarbe?"
"Yes, all."
"It is none too soon; the enemy are advancing."
"Advancing?"
"Yes; along their whole line. I have come fifteen leagues since
morning to give you warning."
"Good. We must make the signal: a fire upon Falkenstein."
Hullin's face was pale, but his eyes flashed. He again put on his
shoes, and two minutes after, with his cloak upon his shoulders
and his staff firmly clinched in his hand, he opened the door
softly, and with long steps followed Marc-Dives along the path to
Falkenstein.
Chapter VII.
From midnight until six o'clock in the morning a flame shone
through the darkness from the summit of Falkenstein.
All Hullin's friends, and those of Marc-Dives and Mother Lefevre,
with high gaiters bound around their legs, and old muskets upon
their shoulders, trooped in the silence of the woods to the
gorges of the Valtin. The thought of the enemy pouring over the
plains of Alsace to surprise their glens and defiles nerved every
heart and arm. The tocsin at Dagsbourg, at Walsch, and at
Saint-Quirin ceased not to call the country's defenders to arms.
Imagine the Jaegerthal, at the foot of the old _burg_, in
the early morning hour, when the giant arms of the trees begin to
break through the shadows, and when the approach of day softens
somewhat the intense cold of the night. The snow lies deep upon
the ground.
{176}
Imagine the old saw-pit with its flat roof, its heavy wheel
glittering with icicles; a fire of sawdust shining from within,
but paling before the morning twilight, and around the fire fur
caps and slouched hats and dark faces crowded together; further
on, in the woods, and along the winding valley, were other fires
lighting up groups of men and women seated on the snow.
As the sky grew brighter friends began to recognize each other.
"Hold! There is Cousin Daniel of Soldatenthal. You here too?"
"As you see, Heinrich, and my wife too."
"What! Cousin Nanette! But where is she?"
"Yonder, by the large oak, at Uncle Hans's fire."
They clasp each other's hand. Some slept, some piled branches and
broken planks upon the fires. Flasks passed around, and those who
had warmed themselves made way for their shivering neighbors. But
impatience was gaining upon the crowd.
"Ah!" cried one, "we have not come here only to stretch our legs.
It is time to look around, to agree upon our movements."
"Yes! yes! let us organize and elect our leaders!" cried many.
"No; all are not yet here. They are yet coming from Dagsbourg and
Saint-Quirin," replied others.
Indeed, as day advanced, the pathways of the mountain seemed full
of people. There were already some hundreds in the
valley--wood-cutters, charcoal-burners, and others--without
counting the women and children.
Nothing could be more picturesque than that halt in the snow, at
the bottom of a defile covered to the clouds with high firs; to
the right, valley following valley as far as the eye could reach;
to the left, the ruins of Falkenstein, reaching, as it seemed, to
the sky; and before you groups of thickly bearded men with gloomy
brows, broad square shoulders, and hands callous from labor. Some
of them, taller than their fellows, were red-haired and
white-skinned, and seemed strong as the oaks of the forest. Of
this number were old Materne of Hengst and his two sons, Frantz
and Kasper. These three, armed with short Innspruck rifles, their
high gaiters of blue canvas with leather buttons reaching above
the knee, their bodies covered with hare-skin jackets, and their
slouched hats pushed far back upon their heads, did not deign to
approach the fire. Since one o'clock they had sat upon the felled
trunk of a fir by the border of the brook, their eyes constantly
on the watch, and their feet buried in the snow. From time to
time the old man would say to his sons:
"What are they shivering for yonder? I never saw a milder night
at this season; it is a fine hunting night; the brooks are not
yet frozen."
Every hunter as he passed pressed their hands, and then joined
his fellows, who formed a separate band, among whom but few words
passed, for silence is one of the great virtues of the chase.
Marc-Dives, standing in the middle of another group, over whom he
towered by a head, talked and gesticulated, now pointing to one
part of the mountain, now to another. Opposite him was the old
herdsman Lagarmitte, in his gray smock-frock, his dog at his
side. He was listening open-mouthed to the smuggler, and from
time to time gravely nodded his head. The remainder of the group
was composed of wood-cutters and workmen with whom Marc had daily
dealings.
{177}
Between the saw-pit and the first fire sat the shoemaker Jerome
of Saint-Quirin, a man between fifty and sixty years of age; his
eyes were sunken, his face long and brown, and his yellow beard
descended to his waist; his head was covered with an otter-skin
cap; and as he leaned forward upon a heavy knotted staff, in his
long woollen great-coat, he might easily have been mistaken for
some hermit of the wilds. Whenever any one approached with news,
Father Jerome slowly turned his head and listened with bent
brows.
Jean Labarbe sat motionless, his elbow resting upon his
axe-helve. He was a pale man, with an aquiline nose and thin
lips, and exercised a great influence over the men of Dagsbourg
by the resolution and force of his character. When those around
him cried out for action, he simply said, "Wait; Hullin has not
arrived yet, nor Catherine Lefevre. There is no hurry," and all
around became quiet.
Piorette, a little, dry, thin, energetic man, with eyebrows
meeting over his nose, and a short pipe between his teeth, sat at
the threshold of the saw-mill, and gazed with a quick but
thoughtful eye at the scene.
Nevertheless, the impatience increased every minute. A few
village mayors in cocked hats called upon their people to
deliberate. Happily the wagon of Catherine Lefevre at last
appeared, and a thousand enthusiastic shouts arose on all sides.
"Here they are! They have come!"
Old Materne stood up upon the trunk of a tree and then descended,
gravely saying:
"It is they."
Much excitement now prevailed; the scattered groups collected.
Scarcely could the old woman be seen distinctly, seated upon a
truss of straw with Louise by her side, when the echoes rang with
the cry:
"Long live France! Long live Mother Catherine!"
Hullin, behind, his musket strapped upon his back, was crossing
the field of Eichmath, grasping hands and saluting his friends:
"Is it you, Daniel? Good-morning, Colon!"
"Ha! Things look stormy, Hullin."
"Yes, yes; we shall soon have lively times. You here, old Jerome!
What think you of the state of affairs?"
"All will yet go well, Jean-Claude, with God's help."
Catherine, when she arrived in front of the saw-mill, ordered
Labarbe to open the little cask of brandy she had brought from
the farm-house. Hullin, approaching the fire, met Materne and his
two sons.
"You come late," said the old hunter.
"True, but there was much to be done, and too much yet remains to
be done to lose more time. Lagarmitte, wind your horn."
Lagarmitte blew until his cheeks seemed bursting, and the groups
scattered along the path, and at the skirts of the wood hastened
to assemble, and soon all were collected before the saw-mill.
Hullin mounted a pile of logs, and spoke amid the deepest
silence:
"The enemy," said he, "crossed the Rhine the night before last.
He is pressing on to our mountains to enter Lorraine. Strasbourg
and Huningue are blockaded. In three or four days at most the
Germans and the Russians will be upon us."
A shout of "Long live France!" arose.
"Ay, long live France!" cried Jean-Claude; "for, if the allies
reach Paris, all our liberties are gone! Forced labor, tithes,
privileges, and gibbets will flourish once more. If you wish that
they should, let the allies pass."
{178}
A dark scowl seemed to settle on every man's face.
"I have said what I have to say!" cried Hullin, pale with
emotion. "As you are here, you are here to fight!"
"Ay, to fight!"
"It is well; but one word more. I would not deceive you; I see
among you fathers of families. We will be one against
ten--against fifty. We must expect to perish! Therefore, let
those whose hearts may grow faint ere the end comes, go. All are
free!"
Each in the crowd looked round to see his neighbors' faces, but
no one left his place. Jean-Claude spoke in a firmer tone:
"No one moves! All are ready for battle! A chief--a leader--must
be named, for in times of danger everything depends on order and
discipline. He whom you shall appoint must be obeyed in all
things. Reflect well, for on him depends the fate of every one of
us."
So saying, Jean-Claude descended from his tribune, and earnest
voices began at once to whisper in the crowd. Every village
deliberated separately; each mayor proposed his man; time passed;
Catherine Lefevre burned with anxiety and impatience. At length
she could contain herself no longer, and rising upon her seat she
made a sign that she wished to speak.
"My friends," said she, "time flies; the enemy is advancing. What
do we need? A man whom we can trust; a soldier acquainted with
war, and knowing how to profit by the strength of mere positions.
Well, why not choose Hullin? Can any among you name a better? I
propose Hullin!"
"Hullin! Hullin!" cried Labarbe, Dives, Jerome, and many others.
"Let us have a vote!"
Marc-Dives, climbing the pile of logs, shouted in a voice of
thunder:
"Let those who are opposed to having Jean-Claude Hullin for our
leader, raise their hands!"
Not a hand rose.
"Let those who wish Jean-Claude Hullin to be our chief, raise
their hands!"
Every hand rose.
"Jean-Claude," said the smuggler, "you are the man. Come hither.
Look!"
Jean-Claude mounted the logs, and seeing that he was elected,
said calmly:
"You name me your chief. I accept. Let old Materne, Labarbe of
Dagsbourg, Jerome of Saint-Quirin, Marc-Dives, Piorette the
sawyer, and Catherine Lefevre enter the saw-mill. We will hold a
council, and in twenty minutes I will give my orders. In the
meantime let every village detail two men to go to Falkenstein
with Marc-Dives for powder and ball."
Chapter VIII.
Those whom Hullin named met in the hut attached to the saw-mill
around the immense chimney. A sober sort of merriment seemed to
play about the face of more than one.
"For twenty years I have heard people talking of these Russians
and Austrians and Cossacks," said old Materne, smiling, "and I
shall not be sorry to see one at the muzzle of my rifle."
"Yes," answered Labarbe; "we shall see enough of them at last,
and the little children of to-day will have many a tale to tell
of their fathers and their grandsires. And how the old women of
fifty years hence will chatter of it at evening around the winter
fire!"
{179}
"Comrades," cried Hullin, "you know the country--you know our
mountains from Thann to Wissembourg. You know that two grand
roads--the imperial roads--traverse Alsace and the Vosges. Both
starting from Bâle, one runs along the Rhine to Strasbourg, and
enters Lorraine by Saverne. Huningue, Neuf-Brisach, Strasbourg,
and Phalsbourg defend it. The other turns to the left to
Schlestadt. Leaving Schlestadt, it enters the mountains, and
passes on to Saint-Dié, Raon-l'Etape, Baccarat, and Lunéville.
The enemy would like to force the passage of these two roads, as
they are the best for cavalry, artillery, and wagons; but, as
they are well defended, we need not trouble our about them. If
the allies lay siege to the cities upon them, the campaign will
be dragged out to a great length, and we shall have nothing to
fear; but this is not probable. After having summoned Huningue to
surrender, and Belfort, Schlestadt, Strasbourg, and Phalsbourg,
on this side of the Vosges, and Bitche, Lutzelstein, and
Sarrebrück, on the other, they will fall upon us. Now, listen.
Between Phalsbourg and Saint-Dié there are several defiles
practicable for infantry, but only one for cannon, that is, the
road from Strasbourg to Raon-les-Leaux, by Urmatt, Mutzig,
Lutzelhouse, Phramond, and Grandfontaine. Once masters of this
road, the allies can debouch in Lorraine. This road passes us at
Donon, two leagues hence, to our right. The first thing to be
done is, to establish ourselves upon it at the place most
favorable for defence--that is, upon the plateau on the mountain;
to break down the bridges, and throw heavy abatis across it. A
few hundred large trees, with their branches, will do the work,
and under their cover we can watch the approach of the foe. All
this, comrades, must be done by to-morrow night, or by the day
after, at the latest. But it is not enough to occupy a position
and put it in a good state of defence. We must see that the enemy
cannot turn it."
"That is just what I was thinking," said old Materne. "Once in
the valley of the Bruche, and the Germans can bring their
infantry to the hills of Haslach, and turn our left; and there is
nothing to hinder their trying the same movement upon our right,
if they gain Raon-l'Etape."
"Yes; but to prevent their doing either, we have only to occupy
the defiles of the Zorn and of the Sarre on our left, and that of
Blanru on our right. We must defend a defile by holding the
heights, and, for that purpose, Piorette will place himself, with
a hundred men, on the side of Raon-les-Leaux; Jerome, on
Grosmann, with the same number, to close the valley of the Sarre;
and Labarbe, at the head of the remain on the mountain, will
overlook the hills of Haslach. You will choose your men from
those belonging to the villages nearest your stations. The women
must not have far to come to bring provisions, and the wounded
will be nearer home. The chiefs of each position will send me a
report each day, by a messenger, on foot, to Donon, where will be
our headquarters. We will organize a reserve also; but it will be
time enough to see to that when our positions are taken, and no
surprise from the enemy is to be feared."
"And I," cried Marc-Dives, "am I to have nothing to do? Am I to
sit with folded arms while all the rest are fighting?"
{180}
"You will superintend the transporting of our munitions. No one
among us understands keeping powder as you do--preserving it from
fire and damp--or casting bullets and making cartridges."
"That is a woman's work," cried the smuggler. "Hexe-Baizel can do
it as well as I. Am I not to fire a shot?"
"Rest easy, Marc," replied Hullin, laughing; "you will find
plenty of chances. In the first place, Falkenstein is the centre
of our line--our arsenal and point of retreat, in case of
misfortune. The enemy will know by his scouts that our wagons
start from there, and will probably try to intercept them. Shots
and bayonet-thrusts will not be wanting. Besides, we cannot
confide the secret of your cave to the first comer. However, if
you insist--"
"No," said the smuggler, whom Hullin's' reflections upon the cave
touched at once. "No; all things well considered, I believe you
are right, Jean-Claude. I will defend Falkenstein."
"Well, then, comrades," cried brave Jean-Claude, "we will warm
our hearts with a few glasses of wine. It is now ten o'clock. Let
each one return to his village, and see to the provisions.
To-morrow morning, at the latest, the defiles must be occupied."
They left the hut together, and Hullin, in the presence of all
assembled, named Labarbe, Jerome, and Piorette chiefs of the
defiles; then he ordered those who came from the Sarre to meet,
as soon as possible, near the farm of Bois-de-Chênes, with axes,
picks, and muskets.
"We will start at two," said he, "and encamp on Donon, across the
road. To-morrow, at daybreak, we will begin our abatis."
He kept old Materne, and his two sons, Frantz and Kasper, by him,
telling them that the battle would surely begin on Donon, and
sharp-shooters would be needed there. Mother Lefevre never seemed
so happy. She mounted her wagon, and whispered, as she embraced
Louise:
"All goes well. Jean-Claude is a man. He astonishes me, who have
known him forty years. Jean-Claude," she cried, "breakfast is
waiting, and a few old bottles which the Austrians will not
drink."
"Good Catherine, I am coming."
But as he struck the horses with the whip, and as the
mountaineers had just begun to scatter on their way to their
villages, they saw, on the road to Trois-Fontaines, a tall, thin
man, mounted upon a red mare; his hare-skin cap, with a wide
peak, pulled well down upon his head. A great shepherd-dog, with
long black hair, bounded beside him; and the skirts of his huge
overcoat floated like wings behind him.
"It is Dr. Lorquin, from the plain," exclaimed Catherine; "he who
at the poor for nothing; and that is his dog Pluto with him."
It was indeed he, who rushed among the crowd, shouting:
"Halt! stop! Halt, I say!"
His ruddy face, large, quick eyes, beard of a reddish-brown,
broad, square shoulders, tall horse, and dog, in a moment
appeared at the foot of the mountain. Gasping for breath, he
shouted, in his excitement:
"Ah the villains! They wanted to begin the campaign without me!
They shall pay for it!"
And, striking a little box he carried at his crupper, he
continued:
"Wait awhile, my fine fellows, wait awhile! I have some things
here you'll want by and by; little knives and great ones--round
and pointed ones--to cut out the bullets and canister your
friends yonder will treat you to."
{181}
So saying, he burst into a gruff peal of laughter, while the
flesh of his hearers crept. After this agreeable pleasantry, Dr.
Lorquin said gravely:
"Hullin, your ears should be cut off! When the country was to be
defended, was I to be forgotten? It seems to me that a surgeon
might be useful here, although may God send you no need of one!"
"Pardon me, doctor; it was my fault," replied Hullin, pressing
his hand. "For the last week I have had so many things to think
of that some escaped me, in spite of myself. But a man like you
need not be called upon by me to do his duty."
The doctor softened.
"It is all well and good," he cried; "but by your fault I am here
late. But where is your general? I will complain to him."
"I am general."
"Indeed!"
"And I appoint you surgeon-in-chief."
"Surgeon-in-chief of the partisans of the Vosges. Very good,
Jean-Claude." And, approaching the wagon in which Catherine was
seated, the doctor told her that he relied upon her to organize
the hospital department.
"Very well," she answered; "forward. You dine with us, doctor."
The wagon started, and all the way the brave doctor laughingly
told Catherine how the news of the rising reached him; how his
old house-keeper Marie was wild with grief, and tried to keep him
from going to be massacred by the Kaiserliks; the different
episodes of his journey from Quibolo to the village of Charmes.
Hullin and Materne and his sons marched a few paces in the rear,
their rifles on their shoulders; and thus they reached the farm
of Bois-de-Chênes.
----------
Catholicity And Pantheism.
Number One.
Introductory.
Man is made for truth. The ray of intelligence beaming from his
countenance and kindling his looks with life marks his
superiority over all inferior creation, and loudly proclaims this
fact. Intelligence must have an object; and what can this object
be but truth? As a necessary consequence from this fact, it
follows that error can be nothing else than fragments of truth;
ill-assorted, improperly joined together. Error does not consist
in what logicians call simple ideas, or self-evident
propositions; but in complex ideas, the result of a long chain of
syllogisms. Another consequence, closely allied to the first, is,
that the greater the error, the more universal and more widely
spread, the more particular truths it must contain. Or, if it
does not contain a greater number of partial truths, it must have
the power of apparently satisfying a real and prevalent tendency
of our mind, otherwise it would never exert dominion over the
intelligence; or else it must possess the secret of awakening and
alluring a true and imperative aspiration of our nature.
{182}
It is through these views that we have been enabled to explain to
ourselves the prevalence of Pantheism. The simple utterance of
the word Pantheism, the Deity of everything, would seem to carry
its refutation with it, so plain and evident is its falsehood, so
glaring its absurdity.
Pantheism, however, has been the universal error in time and
space. In India, Persia, China, Greece, Rome, Pantheism
flourished; now under a religious, and then under a philosophical
form. After the Christian era it was the religion or system of
those who did not understand the Christian dogmas as taught by
the church; and the fathers of the first centuries, in battling
against Gnosticism, Eclecticism, and Neoplatonism, were
struggling with this old error of the world--Pantheism. Depressed
for awhile by the efforts of the doctors of the church, it arose
with fiercer energy under the forms of all those heresies which
attacked the dogma of the Incarnation of the Word.
In the middle ages there were many philosophers who held
Pantheism; and in modern times, since the dawn of the
Reformation, it has become the prevalent, the absorbing error of
the world. Always the same as to substance, it assumes every
variety of form: now you see it in a logical dress, as in the
doctrine of the German school; again it takes a psychological
garb, as in that of the French school with Cousin at its head; or
it assumes a social and political form, as in the Pantheism of
Fourier, Leroux, Saint Simon, and all the progressists of every
color or shade; and finally, it puts on a ghostly shroud, as
taught by the American spiritualists. Under whatever garb it may
appear, it penetrates and fills all, and pretends to explain all.
It penetrates philosophy, natural science, history, literature,
the fine arts, the family, society and the body politic, and
religion. It holds its sway over all, and exhibits itself as
having the secret of good and evil. How is this to be explained?
If the falsehood of Pantheism be so evident, whence is it that it
is the universal error in time and space, and has made such
ravages in man's intelligence? The greater its falsehood, the
more inexplicable becomes its prevalence. Has the nature of man
changed? Has his intelligence lost its object? It is true, man's
intelligence is not perfect. Since the fall it is weakened and
obscured, but doubtless it has not ceased and could not cease to
be intelligence; truth has not ceased to be its natural essential
object. How, then, are we to explain the prevalence of so mighty
an error?
By the fact that it is a system which by its generality seems to
satisfy a supreme tendency of our mind, and to appease one of the
most imperative cravings of our souls. Man's intelligence has a
natural tendency to synthesize, that is, to bring everything into
unity. This tendency arises both from the essential oneness of
the mind and from the nature of its object. The object of the
mind is being or reality in some form or other. That which does
exist cannot even be apprehended, and hence cannot be the object
of the mind. To understand and to understand nothing is, at the
same time, the affirmation and the negation of the understanding.
{183}
Now, if the object of the intelligence, in order to be known and
understood by the said faculty, must represent itself under the
form of being or reality, it is under this respect necessarily
one. Under whatever form it may exhibit itself, under whatever
quality it may be concealed, it must always be reality or being,
and, as such, one. But if being, reality, or unity, taken in the
abstract, was the sole object of the intelligence, there would be
an end to all its movement or life. All science would be at an
end, because science is a process, a movement; and movement is
not possible where an abstraction is the sole object of the mind.
Being and unity, then, abstractly considered, would be the
eternal stupor of the mind. This cannot be so, however.
Intelligence is action, life, movement. Now, all this implies
multiplicity; hence the object of the intelligence must also be
multiple. But does not this second condition also destroy the
former, which requires that the object of the intelligence should
be one? Here reason finds a necessary, though, as we shall see,
only an apparent contradiction, both in the logical as well as
ontological order. In the logical order, because the intelligence
seems to require unity and multiplicity as the conditions without
which its action becomes impossible. In the ontological order, or
the order of reality, because if the object is not at the same
time one and multiple, how can those conditions of the mind be
satisfied?
The intelligence, then, in order to live, must be able to travel
from unity to multiplicity in an ascending or descending process,
and to do so, not arbitrarily, but for reasons resting on
reality.
In this lies the life of the intelligence; science is nothing but
this synthetical and analytical movement. Let the mind stop at
analysis or multiplicity, and you will give it an agglomeration
of facts of which it can neither see the reason nor the link
which connects them: and hence you place it in unnatural bonds,
which, sooner or later, it will break, it matters not whether by
a sophistical or a dialectic process. On the other hand, let it
stop at unity, and you condemn it to stupor and death.
The foregoing ideas will explain the fact how a particular error
will either have a very short existence or fall into the
universal error of Pantheism. For in this, so far as we can see,
lies the reason of the universal dominion of Pantheism. Because
it proposes to explain the whole question of human knowledge, it
takes it up in all its universality, and the solution which it
sets forth has all the appearance of satisfying the most
imperative tendency of our mind. To be enabled to explain the
numberless multiplicity of realities, no matter how, and, at the
same time, to bring them into a compact and perfect whole,
strikes to the quick the very essence of man's intelligence and
allures it with its charms. If this be not the main reason of the
prevalence of Pantheism, we acknowledge we do not understand how
such a mighty error could ever take possession of man's mind; we
are tempted to say that human understanding was made for
falsehood, which is to deny the very notion of intelligence.
What Pantheism proposes to do for the mind it also promises to
accomplish for the soul.
{184}
There is, in man's heart or soul, impressed in indelible
characters, a tendency after the infinite, a craving almost
infinite in its energy, such is the violence with which it impels
the soul to seek and yearn after its object. To prove such a
tendency were useless. That void, that feeling of satiety and
sadness, which overwhelms the soul, even after the enjoyment of
the most exquisite pleasure, either sensible or sentimental; the
phenomenon of solitaries in all times and countries; the very
fact of the existence of religion in all ages and among all
peoples; the enthusiasm, the recklessness and barbarity which
characterize the wars undertaken for religion's sake; the love of
the marvellous and the mysterious exhibited by the multitude;
that sense of terror and reverence, that feeling of our own
nothingness, which steals into our souls in contemplating the
wide ocean in a still or stormy night, or in contemplating a
wilderness, a mountain, or a mighty chasm, all are evident proofs
of that imperious, delicious, violent craving of our souls after
the infinite. How otherwise explain all this? Why do we feel a
void, a sadness, a kind of pain, after having enjoyed the most
stirring delights? Because the infinite is the weight of the
soul--the centre of gravity of the heart--because created
pleasures, however delightful or exquisite, being finite, can
never quiet that craving, can never fill up that chasm placed
between us and God.
The pretended sages of mankind have never been able to
exterminate religion, because they could never root out of the
soul of man that tendency. I say pretended sages, because all
real geniuses have, with very few exceptions, been religious; for
in them that tendency is more keenly and more imperiously felt.
This is the second reason of the prevalence of Pantheism. To
promise the actual and immediate possession of the infinite, nay,
the transformation into the infinite, is to entice the very best
of human aspirations, is to touch the deepest and most sensitive
chord of the human heart.
Both these reasons we have drawn _a priori_; we might now
prove, _a posteriori_, from history, how every particular
error has either fallen into Pantheism or disappeared altogether.
But since this would carry us too far, we will exemplify it by
one error--Protestantism.
The essence of Protestantism lies in emancipating human reason
from dependence on the reason of God. It is true that at its dawn
it was not proclaimed in this naked form, nor is it thus
announced at the present time; but its very essence lies in that.
For if human reason be made to judge objects which God's reason
alone can comprehend, man is literally emancipated from the
reason of God.
What does this supreme principle of Protestantism mean, that
every individual must, by reading the Bible, find for himself
what he has to believe?
Are the truths written in the Bible intelligible or
superintelligible; that is, endowed with evidence immediate or
mediate, or are they mysteries?
If they be purely intelligible, endowed with evidence mediate or
immediate, there is no possible need of the Bible, for, in that
case, reason could find them by itself. If they be mysteries, how
can reason, unaided by any higher power, find them out? It will
not do to say, They are written in the Bible, and reason has
merely to apprehend them. Suppose a dispute should arise as to
the right meaning of the Bible; who is to decide the dispute?
Reason? Then reason must grasp and comprehend mysteries in order
to decide the dispute. For none can be judge unless he is
qualified thoroughly to understand the matter of the dispute.
From this it is evident that to make reason judge of the faith is
to make it judge of the mysteries of the infinite, and,
therefore, is to emancipate the reason of man from subjection to
the reason of God. Hence, Protestantism was rightly called a
masked rationalism.
{185}
It soon threw off the mask. The human mind saw that it can never
be emancipated from the reason of God unless it is supposed to be
independent, and it could never be supposed independent unless it
was supposed equal to the reason of the infinite.
The result of all this is necessarily Pantheism. And into
Pantheism Protestants soon fell, especially the Germans, who
never shrink from any consequence if logically deduced from their
premises. Such was the latent reasoning of Fichte, Schelling,
Hegel, and others, in building up their form of Pantheism.
To understand is to master an object, to mould it so as to fit
our intelligence. We can understand the infinite, we can master
it. Therefore, we are at least equal to the infinite, 'we are
ourselves the infinite,' we ourselves lay it down by a logical
process. Hence the astounding proposal which Fichte made to his
disciples, that the next day he would proceed to create God, was
nothing else but the echo and logical consequence of the cry
raised by the unfrocked monk of Wittenberg, proclaiming the
independence of reason from the shackles of all authority.
On the other hand, the denial of human liberty and the absolute
predestination of the Calvinists give the same result. If we are
not free agents, if God can do what he lists with us, we are no
longer agents in the strictest and truest sense of the word. Now,
every substance is an act, a _monos_, a force; if, then, we
are not agents, we are not substances, and hence we become
qualities, phenomena of the infinite substance. All this as
regards doctrine. But Protestantism ran into Pantheism by another
road almost as soon as it arose, for the action of the feelings
is swifter and more rapid than logic. Protestantism being
rationalism in doctrine is necessarily naturalism with regard to
the soul; and by presenting to the soul only nature, its authors
left the craving after the supernatural and the infinite thirsty
and bleeding. What was the consequence? Many Protestant sects
fell into mysticism, which is but a sentimental Pantheism, a
species of interior theurgy. History is too well known to render
necessary any proof of these assertions. These are the
consequences at which active minds must arrive when, in their
researches, they do not meet with truth.
As to those minds which are not active, or not persevering in
their inquiries, they fall into indifference, which is but a
scepticism of the soul, as doubt is the scepticism of the mind.
Now, the question arises, What is the best method of refuting
Pantheism? Many have been the refutations of Pantheism, but they
are limited to pointing out the absurd consequences following
from it, which consequences, summed up, amount to this: that
Pantheism destroys and makes void the principle of contradiction
in all the orders to which it may be applied; that is to say, it
makes void that principle in the ontological order or order of
realities, in the logical order, etc.
But, notwithstanding the truth and force of this refutation, we
do not know that it has converted a single Pantheist. From the
fact that Pantheism is more prevalent at the present time than
ever it was, we should conclude that it has not. We say this with
all the respect and deference due to those who have exerted their
talents in the said arena.
{186}
For we know that some of the noblest intellects have brought
their energy to bear against this mighty error. But, if we are
allowed to express our opinion, we say that all former
refutations have been void of effect for lack of completeness,
and a determination on the part of their authors to limit
themselves to the abstract order, without descending to
particulars, and to the order of realities. The result was, that
while Pantheism, without any dread of consequences, applied its
principles to all orders of human knowledge, and to all
particular questions arrayed under each order, and was, as it
were, a living, quickening system--false, indeed, in the
premises, but logical and satisfactory in the consequences
resulting from those premises--the refutations of it, confined
within the limits of logic, were a mere abstraction; true,
indeed, and perfectly satisfactory to any one who could apply the
refutations to all the orders of human knowledge, but wholly
deficient for those who are not able to make the application. We
think, therefore, that a refutation of Pantheism should be
conducted on the following principles:
1st. To admit all the problems which Pantheism raises, in all the
generality of their bearing.
2d. To examine whether the solution which Pantheistic principles
afford not only solves the problem, but even maintains it.
3d. If it is found that the Pantheistic solution destroys the
very problem it raises, to oppose to it the true solution.
These are the only true principles, as far as we can see, which
will render a refutation of Pantheism efficient. For, in this
case, you have, in the first place, a common ground to stand
upon, that is, the admission of the same problems; in the second
place, if you can prove that the Pantheistic solution of the
problems destroys them, instead of solving them, it will be
readily granted by the Pantheist for the sake of the problems
themselves. When you have done all this, you do not leave the
mind in doubt and perplexity, but you present to it the true
solution, and it will then be ready to embrace it.
A refutation conducted upon those principles we have attempted in
the articles we now publish.
We take Pantheism in all its universality and apparent grandeur;
we accept all its problems; we examine them one by one, and we
show that the Pantheistic solution, far from resolving the
problems, destroys them; and we substitute the true solution. In
a word, we compare Pantheism with Catholicity; that is, the
universality of error with the universality of truth--the whole
system of falsehood with the whole system of truth. We make them
stand face to face, and we endeavor to exhibit them so plainly
that the brightness and splendor of the one may thoroughly
extinguish the phosphoric light of the other. We show the
Pantheist that, if he ever wants a solution of _his_
problems, he must accept Catholicity, or proclaim the death of
his intelligence.
To do this it will be necessary for us to compare Pantheism and
Catholicity in all orders; in the logical order, in the
ontological order or the order of reality; and under this order
we must compare them in the moral, social, political, and
aesthetic orders. The truth of the one or the other will appear
by the comparison.
It is true we undertake a great task; great especially as regards
the positive part of the refutation. For it embraces the whole of
theology; not only with relation to what is commonly regarded as
its object, but in the sense of its being the supreme and general
science, the queen of all sciences, the universal metaphysic in
all possible orders.
{187}
We own that we have felt the difficulty of such a task, and many
times have we abandoned it as being far above our strength. But a
lingering desire has made us return to the work. We have said to
ourselves: Complete success and perfection are beyond our hope,
but we can at least make the attempt; for, in matters of this
kind, we think it well to reverse the wise maxim of the Lambeth
prelates, and rather attempt too much than do too little.
----------
Friendships.
The glowing wreaths that 'mid curled locks repose,
Through night of pleasure worn,
Myrtle and jasmine, orange-flower and rose,
Fall shrivelled by the morn.
The simple immortelles for loved ones twined--
With many a tear and sigh,
Hung round the cross--the rain-compelling wind
And winter snows defy.
Thus gilded friendships, knit by pleasure brief,
Fade when joy's scenes have passed;
But duller links, annealed by burning grief,
Through checkered years shall last.
_The Lamp._
----------
{188}
Translated From Le Correspondant.
Discourse by the Rev. Père Hyacinthe. [Footnote 65]
[Footnote 65: Delivered on the occasion of a profession of
Catholic faith and the first communion of an American
Protestant lady, in the chapel of the convent of "Les Dames
de l'Assomption," at Paris, July 14th, 1868]
"Misericordias Domini in aeternum cantabo,"
"I will sing eternally the mercies of the Lord."
--_Psalms_.
Madam and my sister in Jesus Christ:
It is you who have given me the text and the subject of this
exhortation. It is you who, overflowing with gratitude toward him
who has called you from darkness to his admirable light, have
asked me to forget this audience and to think only of you and of
God, and to speak only of his loving-kindness which has been
manifested in every event of your life. I will obey you; and,
taking this life in its three divisions which mark time, I will
endeavor to speak in simple truth, and the pious confidence of an
overflowing heart, of the mercies of God over your past, your
present, and your future career.
The history of Christian souls is the most marvellous and yet the
most hidden of all histories. The more exterior events which
agitate society find only in these interior histories their true
sense and their highest reason; and when we shall read these
entire in the book of life, and by the light of eternity, we will
find therein the unanswerable justification of the providence of
God over human affairs, and the true titles of the nobility of
mankind in the blood and by the grace of Christ. "We will sing
eternally the mercies of the Lord!"
I.
And first, madam, what were these mercies of your past life? Or,
to be better understood, what were you? What have you been until
now? I acknowledge some embarrassment in giving an answer to my
own question. Although born in the bosom of heresy, you were not
a heretic. No, by the grace of God you were not a heretic; and
nothing shall force me to give you this cruel name--justly
cruel--against which cries out all the knowledge I have of your
past. One of the doctors--the most exact and the most severe--of
Christian antiquity, Saint Augustine, refuses in several of his
writings to class among heretics those who, born outside the
visible communion of the Catholic Church, have kept in their
hearts the sincere love of truth, and are disposed to follow it
in all its manifestations and in all its requirements. [Footnote
66]
[Footnote 66: See particularly the letter xliii. of the
edition of the Benedictines of Saint-Maur: "Qui sententiam
suam, quamvis falsam atque perversam, nulla pertinaci
animositate defendunt, praesertim quam non audacia
praesumptionis suae pepererunt, sed a seductis atque in
errorem lapsis parentibus acceperunt, quaerunt autem cauta
sollicitudine veritatem, corrigi parati, cum invenerint;
_nequaquam sunt inter haereticos deputandi_."]
That which makes heresy is the spirit of pride, of revolt, and of
schism, which burst forth in heaven when Satan, separating the
angels of light, attempted to remodel, according to his liking,
the theology of eternity, and reform the work of God in the
world; it is that breath blown from the nostrils of the archangel
in wrath to stir up about him his propagandists throughout time.
Gentle and humble of heart, you have never breathed that breath.
You are not, then, a heretic.
{189}
But then, what were you? One day I interrogated one of your most
distinguished fellow-countrymen, Protestant by birth, now a
Catholic and a priest, and in the outburst of that pious
curiosity which is awakened by the history of souls I asked him
this same question: "What were you?"
He answered me thus: "I did not belong to any Protestant
communion; I had been baptized in the church of my parents, but I
had never professed their faith." "You were, then, a
rationalist?" said I. "No," responded he smilingly; "we of the
United States know nothing of that mental malady of the
Europeans." I blushed and was silent an instant, then pressed him
to explain further, when he gave me this noble reply: "I was a
natural man, seeking the truth with my whole intelligence and
heart."
Well, madam, you were like that: you also--a noble, womanly
nature--seeking the truth in love, and love in truth. But you
were more: you were a Christian; ay, a Catholic.
This is a fundamental distinction without which it becomes
impossible to be just toward communions separated from the
Catholic Church, and toward the souls which compose them. All
religious schisms contain within their bosom two elements
entirely contrary: the negative element, which makes it a schism
and often a heresy; and the positive element, which preserves for
it a portion more or less great of its ancient heritage of
Christianity. Not only distinct, but hostile, these two elements
are nevertheless brought together in constant combat; the
darkness and the light--life and death--meet without mingling, or
without either being vanquished; and then results what I shall
call the profound mystery of the life of error. As for myself, I
do not give to error that undeserved honor to suppose that it can
live of its own life, breathe of its own breath, or nourish of
its own substance souls who are not without virtue, and peoples
who are not without greatness.
Madam, Protestantism, as Protestantism, is that negative element
which you have repudiated, and which with the Catholic Church you
have condemned and abjured. But the spirit of Protestantism has
not been alone in your religious life: by the side of its
negations there were its affirmations, and, like savory fruit
confined within its bitter husk, you were in possession of
Christianity from your infancy.
Before coming to us, you were a Christian by baptism, validly
received, and when the hand of your minister poured the water
upon your forehead with the words of eternal life, "I baptize you
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost," it was Jesus Christ himself that baptized you. "Of little
importance is the hand," writes Saint Augustine, "whether it be
that of Peter or that of Paul: it is Christ that baptizes."
It was Christ who affianced you, who received your plighted faith
and pledged you his. The depths of your moral being--that sacred
part which in noble souls feels instinctively a repugnance to
error--the Word consecrated to himself, and like a chaste virgin
he reserved it for the skies! "_Virginem_ castam exhibere
Christo." [Footnote 67]
[Footnote 67: 2 Corinthians xi. 2.]
{190}
Christian by baptism, you were also one by the gospel. The Bible
was the book of your infancy; and therein you have lisped at once
the secrets of this divine faith, which is of all time because it
comes from eternity, and the accents of that Anglo-Saxon tongue
which is of all lands because it prevails over the globe in
civilizing it. Without doubt the principle of private judgment,
so-called--the principle under which you have formerly lived--is
the source of numberless errors; but again, let us render thanks
to God, besides the Protestant principle, with the Protestants
themselves there is the Christian principle. Besides private
judgment, there is the action of that supernatural grace received
in baptism, and the mysterious sense, of which Saint Paul speaks,
"We have the mind of Christ," [Footnote 68] and of which Saint
John said, "Ye have unction from the Holy One, and ye know all
things." [Footnote 69] When we have read together that Scripture
which has separated our ancestors, I was agreeably surprised to
find that we understood its every page in the same sense, and
consequently in reading it alone, and out of the Church, you have
not read it without the spirit of the Church.
[Footnote 68: "Nos autem sensum Christi habemus."
(i Cor. ii. 16.)]
[Footnote 69: "Sed vos unctionem habetis a Sancto, et nostis
omnia. ... Et non necesse habetis ut aliquis doceat vos: sed
sicut unctio ejus docet vos de omnibus, et verum est, et non
est mendacium." (i John ii. 20, 27.)]
Again, my child: with Baptism and the Holy Scriptures, with the
sacrament and the book, you had prayer; that interior, invisible,
ineffable, and withal common property; that language
pre-eminently of the soul to God, and of God to the soul; that
personal and direct communion of the humblest Christian with his
Father in heaven.
In what, then, were you wanting? I remember what you once said to
me when you were still a Protestant: "You, monk as you are, and
I, Puritan that I am, are, nevertheless, of the same blood
royal." You spoke truly, not because you were Puritan, but
because you were Christian: we were of the same blood, both royal
and divine. You were a child of the family like myself; but your
cradle was carried away in a night of storm by imprudent hands
from the paternal mansion--that mansion of which your eyes could
no longer retain the image, of which your lips knew not the name,
but which you reclaimed by your tears, by your cries, and by all
the emotions of your soul. What you needed, my daughter, was to
find it again, to weep upon its threshold, to embrace its old
walls, and to dwell therein for ever.
You found it at Rome, in the temple of Saint Peter, the vastest
and the most splendid which man has ever built to his God; but
vast and splendid above all to the eyes of faith, because it is
to them the image of the universal brotherhood of the children of
God upon the earth. "To gather together in one the children of
God that were dispersed." [Footnote 70] Coming from the great
dispersion of souls, which is the work of man in Protestantism,
you contemplated at last their supreme unity, which is the work
of God in Catholicity. Deeply impressed and suddenly moved, you
looked about you--it is your own touching account that I repeat
here--you looked about you for a priest of your own tongue; not
to confess to, for you did not then believe in its necessity, but
to whom you could unburden your soul, and to whom you could tell
your joy at having found at last a hearthstone for the heart, a
_home!_--word so dear and sacred to your race and more
necessary in the religious than in the domestic life. "This is my
rest for ever and ever: here will I dwell, for I have chosen it."
[Footnote 71]
[Footnote 70: "Ut filios Dei, qui erant dispersi,
congregaret in unum." (John xi. 52.)]
[Footnote 71: Psalm cxxxi. 14.]
{191}
II.
I have tried, madam, to tell what was your past, and how the
mercy of God prepared you in it by his far-reaching hand for the
marvels of the present. What is now this marvel? It is the mystic
marriage with Jesus Christ, by the communion with his real body
and with his real blood, in the sacrament of his true church.
Affianced of God in baptism, you become his spouse in the
Eucharist. "Oh! blessed are you to have been called to the
marriage feast of the Lamb." [Footnote 72]
[Footnote 72: Apocalypse xix. 9.]
It is not without a touching motive that you have chosen the 14th
of July to consummate this solemn act. This is the anniversary of
your marriage--of that marriage sundered by death. You have made
your entry into the Catholic Church the epoch of a great
transformation in your spiritual life: you have chosen the day
most appropriately, desiring that this date, so full of the
remembrances of tenderness and grief, should mark your entire
union with your crucified Lord, to be no more separated for ever.
How beautiful is he--in his blood, and through your tears--this
Spouse of Calvary, and how lovely, and how truly is he made for
you, my daughter! It is not
"Patience on a monument smiling at grief:"
it is love transported with sorrow and reposing in death.
I remember well the day when I met you for the first time in the
parlor of my humble convent. The Catholic crucifix you already
wore upon your breast, and from time to time your eyes were
turned toward that other cross suspended against the wall, and
which presided over our interview, full of light and full of
tears, with an expression which revealed your whole soul--all
that it still lacked--all that it already foresaw.
I would exaggerate nothing, and above all I would offend no one;
but can I not say that the orbit wherein, ordinarily, Protestant
piety moves is the divine, rather than God himself? It is
conscience, with its steel-like temper, which is at the same time
evangelic and personal. It is respect for truth--the instinctive
taste for what is moral and religious. All these are what I call
the divine: it is not God. It is the glorious ray of the sun, but
it is not that resplendent disk. Where, then, is the elevation of
the soul to the living God? "My soul has thirsted for the strong
and living God; when shall I come, and appear before his face?"
[Footnote 73]
[Footnote 73: Psalm xli. 3.]
Where is the habitual communion of the heart and its works with
the Word made flesh? and the tears poured out like Magdalen at
his feet? and the bowed head--like that of John--upon his breast?
and all that which the book of the _Imitation_ so well calls
the familiar friendship of Jesus? Where, in a word, is that Real
Presence which, from the holy sacrament, as from a hidden
fountain, flows forth to the true Catholic, like a river of
peace, all the day long, fructifying and gladdening his life? It
was this Emmanuel--this God with us--who awaited you in our
church, and in the sacrament which attracted you with so much
power even when you but half-believed in it. As in the ancient
synagogue, you found in your worship only symbols and shadows;
they spoke to you of the reality but did not contain them, they
awakened your thirst but did not quench it. Weak and empty
elements which have no right to existence since the veil of the
temple has been rent asunder and the eternal reality discovered.
{192}
"Old things have passed away, and all things are become new."
[Footnote 74] Oh! blessed are you to have been admitted into the
nuptial chamber of the Lamb.
[Footnote 74: 2. Cor. v. 17.]
However, madam, if Christ has taken captive your heart, it is the
language of the prophet: "Thou hast beguiled me, O Lord, and I am
beguiled: thou hast been stronger than I, and thou hast
prevailed." [Footnote 75] But he has respected all the rights of
your reason and of your liberty. That which you have resolved,
that which you are about to accomplish, you have weighed well and
long in the balance of investigation, study, reflection, and
prayer; and I owe you this justice to say that you have carried
your reflection to the utmost scruple, and completion almost to
delay--so much have you feared, in this great religious act, any
other argument but of personal conscience; to such a degree have
you persisted in rejecting the shadow of any human influence, or
the shadow of the influence of imagination or sentiment.
[Footnote 75: Jer. xx. 7.]
It is thus, however, that Jesus Christ would have you to himself.
Spouse of love, he is at the same time the Spouse of truth and
liberty, and this is why, in drawing souls to him, he never
deceives nor constrains them. He is the eternal Word, begotten of
the reason of God the Father; born in the outpouring of infinite
splendor, he remembers his origin, and when he comes to us it is
not under cover of our gloom, but in the effulgence of his light.
And because he is the truth he is also liberty. He bows with
respect [Footnote 76] before the liberty of the soul, his image
and daughter, and forgets the language of command that he may
only employ that of prayer.
[Footnote 76: "Cum magna reverentia disponis nos."
(Sap. xii. 18.)]
As in the sacred song, he says: "Open to me, my sister, my love,
my dove, my undefiled: for my head is full of dew, and my locks
of the drops of the nights." [Footnote 77]
[Footnote 77: Canticle v. 2.]
"Here am I." He says again in the Apocalypse, "I stand at the
door, and knock: if any one shall hear my voice, and open to me
the door, I will come in, and will sup with him, and he with me."
[Footnote 78] He never forces an entrance into the heart; he
enters it only when it is opened for him. How tender and
beautiful those words that prove that with God as with man there
is the same love and the same tenderness! True love respects as
much as it loves, and disdains triumph at the expense of liberty!
[Footnote 78: Apocalypse iii. 20.]
Is this all, however? For his love is jealous and liberty is not
enough; there must be the combat and the sacrifice. What were the
desperate conflicts, free though you were, that rendered your
decision so difficult and so painful? I may not speak of them.
Family, friends, country: I have seen these sacred wounds too
near to dare to touch them. I will only say that I was ignorant
until now of what it costs even to the mind most perfectly
convinced, and to the strongest will, to leave the religion of
their mother and of their country!
Ah! why is it that on that noble soil of the United States our
church is still, I do not say unknown, but despised, by so many
souls? Would to God it were only unknown! A new apostle will
invoke upon her shores the God whom Paul invoked before the
Areopagus, _ignoto Deo_, the church which they love in the
ideal, without knowing it in its reality; and, free from
prejudices, the sober-minded Americans will receive it better
than did the frivolous Athenians.
{193}
But they think they know us, while they see us through such base
report that even our name excites disgust and hatred. How much
longer must these sectarian misapprehensions continue? and when
will God at last command that the walls of division shall be
thrown down? At all events, it depends upon us to prepare for
that much desired day, by coming together, not with doctrinal
concessions, which would be criminal if not chimerical, but by
abandoning our respective prejudices before the better known
reality, and by the formation of those kindly relations, while
esteem and charity could yet unite those whom diversity of
beliefs still separate. As for me, this is my most ardent prayer,
and as far as I understand and appreciate the situation of
religious affairs in this century, this feeling is invested with
a quickened and more pressing character. And since, then, the
time has come when judgment should begin at the house of God,
[Footnote 79] let us Roman Catholics know how to give the
example; let us arise resolutely and give a loyal hand to our
separated but well-be-loved brethren.
[Footnote 79: "Quoniam tempus est ut incipiat judicium a domo
Dei." (i Peter iv. 17.)]
But what do I say? Is it not you, madam, who have come to us
first, surmounting obstacles which I cannot recount? You have
overcome them not only with the sweat of your brow, but by the
blood of your soul; for, as Saint Augustine so truly says, "there
is a blood of the soul." And it is this which you have poured
out; you have removed by your heroic hands the hewn rocks which
shut you in. Like the daughter of Zion, you have made straight
your way and have come. [Footnote 80]
[Footnote 80: "Conclusit vias meas lapidibus quadris, semitas
meas subvertit." (Lam. iii. 9.)]
Ah! let me welcome you with these words of your own, in which you
expressed the inspiration which was your strength: "My love, my
beautiful, calls me: I know his voice, and though I am weak and
trembling I will come to him."
III.
Let us finish this song of the loving-kindness of God in your
soul. Affianced by baptism, even in the bosom of your involuntary
errors, espoused by the Eucharist in the integrity of Catholic
faith and charity, what remains for you to complete the cycle of
divine love and to consummate your life therein, except to become
a mother in the apostolate?
Our Lord was speaking one day to the multitude, when he was told
that his mother and his brethren were without and had asked for
him. Surveying the people with his look of inspiration, he asked,
"Who is my mother, and who are my brethren?" Then stretching out
his hand over the listening multitude, he said, "Behold my mother
and my brethren. For whosoever shall do the will of my Father in
heaven, the same is my brother and my mother." [Footnote 81]
[Footnote 81: Matthew xii. 49, 50.]
The Pope Saint Gregory the Great, explaining, in one of his
homilies, this teaching of the Master, found some difficulty in
his saying, "This is my mother." "We are without doubt his
brothers and his sisters, by the accomplishment of the will of
the Father; but how could any being other than Mary be called his
mother?" And the great pope remarks, as soon as a soul by a word,
by example, by a spiritual influence, whatsoever it may be,
produces or develops in another soul the Word, the God, the
Truth, substantial and living, justice and charity, in fact,
Jesus Christ--for Jesus Christ is all these--she becomes in a way
superior to the reality of maternal conception, the mother of
Jesus in that soul, and the mother of that soul in Jesus.
{194}
Well, madam, if I mistake not, God reserves for you a part in his
choice of this spiritual maternity. It is of those cherished ones
of whom I cannot speak--respect and emotion forbid--but you will
be their mother in Jesus, their mother in the integrity of their
liberty as you have been his spouse in the plenitude of your own.
Since there are other souls without number and without name, at
least to our feeble minds, but who are counted and inscribed in
the book of divine election, and who, by the mysterious power of
your apostleship, shall be gathered from the four winds of
heaven; for the Lord hath not spoken in vain: "And many shall
come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham
and Isaac and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven." [Footnote 82]
Yes, many, born like you in heresy without having been heretics,
ignorant without being culpable, are hastening to the banquet of
Catholic truth, to the joys of a refound unity; while, alas! some
there are among us, zealous for the letter, but using it to
smother the spirit, who will see themselves perhaps excluded from
the kingdom of God, for which they do not bring forth fruit.
[Footnote 83]
[Footnote 82: Matthew viii. 11.]
[Footnote 83: Matthew xxi. 43.]
Go, then, as a missionary of peace and of light to the land that
awaits you, and of which by an especial design of Providence the
moral future is almost entirely in the hands of women. You will
not regret the public preaching which is forbidden your sex; you
will speak in the modest and persuasive eloquence of
conversation; you will speak by your person and your entire life,
free yet submissive, humble yet proud, austere yet tolerant,
carrying the love of God even to aspirations the most sublime,
and the love of your fellow-beings to condescensions the most
tender.
But I would define more clearly the special character of your
apostolate. In recounting to me the history of your soul, with
its loves and hates, you have said, "I have hated three things:
slavery, the Catholic Church, and immorality." Of the three hates
only one remains. Slavery is no more: God has effaced the sign of
Cain from the brow of your people with a baptism of blood. As for
the Catholic Church, when you came to know it your hate was
turned to love, and you have espoused it to battle more
efficiently with it against the last enemy; and it is in the firm
foundation of her dogmas, replacing the slippery sand whereon
your uncertain feet trod; it is in the fecundity of its
sacraments, substituted for the sterility of your worship; it is
under the guidance of its hierarchy, and in the force of its
unity, that you will combat the double immorality which dishonors
the Christian world--the immorality of mind, which we in Europe
call Rationalism, which you in America call Infidelity; two
wounds unlike I know, but two wounds equally mortal: and the
immorality of the heart, that which corrupts the senses as the
former does thought. These two immoralities are sisters; one
attacks the virginity of faith, the other the virginity of love,
and both have found in woman a special enemy. To the serpent
which crawls on its belly and eats the dust of the earth, the
Lord has said from the beginning, in pointing to woman, who is
the ideal being springing from the heart of man: "I will put
enmities between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her
seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for
her heel." [Footnote 84]
[Footnote 84: Genesis iii. 15.]
{195}
But now, behold the woman above all women! Mary, the young wife,
the young mother, going over the hills of Judea to visit her
friend, advanced in years, and hopeless as it seemed in
sterility. She carries in her womb the infinite weight of the
Word, but her step is light like truth, like love. Under the
charm of the chaste love of God she greets Elizabeth, who feels
at her approach the germ of nature quicken within her breast.
"From whence cometh this happiness that the mother of my Lord
should come to me?" The children were yet mute, but their mothers
prophesy, Elizabeth before John the Baptist, Mary before Jesus
Christ. "Already," to speak with St. Ambrose, "already the day of
the beginning of the salvation of man had begun," [Footnote 85]
and because sin had commenced by woman, regeneration commenced by
her.
[Footnote 85: "Serpunt enim jam tentamenta
salutis humanae." In Luc.]
It seems to me I see now the Christian woman, espoused of Jesus
and his mother, advancing toward this century, bowed down like
Elizabeth in the sadness of sterility. The obstacles which have
repelled us do not hinder her. She will imbibe in the
inspirations of her charity, faith, and hope, which we have too
often failed to show; rising like Mary upon the delectable
heights, walking in the paths of the spring-time and of the dawn;
she will cause to be heard in the ears of the men of this century
this cry of the heart which recognizes the presence of Jesus:
"Behold, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in my
ears, the child in my womb leaped for joy." [Footnote 86]
[Footnote 86: Luke i. 44.]
Arise, daughter of Zion, unbind the cords about your neck, you
who were captive: "_Solve vincula colli tui, captiva filia
Sion_." [Footnote 87] How beautiful are the feet of those who
stand upon the mountain-top, proclaiming peace and bringing the
glad tidings of salvation, crying: "The Lord shall reign!"
[Footnote 87: Isaiah iii. 2.]
----------
{196}
Glimpses of Tuscany.
Santo Spirito.
III.
Santo Spirito is not as well known to strangers as the other
large churches of Florence. It is on the south, or less
frequented, side of the river, and is so hemmed in, hidden away,
and thrust out of sight, by compact masses of tall dwellings and
old palaces, that, although just round the corner from the Pitti,
it was a month before I found it out. Indeed, I was only then
apprised of its existence by the drums of the Sixth grenadiers
beating for military Mass.
A piazza in Florence means an acre, more or less, of oblong,
open, flat, macadamized, unornamented ground; without tree, or
shrub, or flower, or even the picturesque grasses of the deader
Italian towns. The Piazza of Santo Spirito is peculiarly bald and
insipid. The exterior of the church itself is dreadful;
shabbiness and dilapidation unrelieved by a single line of
beauty. The cupola, for which Brunelleschi is responsible, is
mean almost to vulgarity; almost as mean as the cupola of San
Lorenzo. Two such cupolas would ruin any other reputation than
his who vaulted Santa Maria del Fiore. The only redeeming feature
in the whole quadrilateral is the charming Campanile, or belfry
of Baccio d'Agnolo's, which hovers like the dream of a poet over
Ser Filippo's prose. The facade of the church is unfinished, and,
what is worse, disfigured by the introduction of the scroll, that
poorest, falsest, shallowest of architectural devices. The scroll
is properly the symbol of the fleeting; a line described through
air or water with wand or wheel; the scriptural type of
evanescence: "_And the heavens shall be rolled away like a
scroll_." (Isaiah.) "_And the heaven withdrew, as a scroll
rolled up together._" (Revelation.)
How monstrous a violation of all fitness to adopt it as part of
the fixed form and outline of an edifice--to fasten the sign of
the transient on the front of mansions dedicated to the service
of the Eternal! The front is the weakest elevation of the
basilica, but the scroll only makes it worse. See how well the
matter can be mended by the gold mosaic and linear grace of San
Miniato, by the arched colonnades of Pisa, by the pointed
buttresses--_not_ the wretched windows--of Milan. You are in
a rage with Ser Filippo and the Renaissance at once.
But enter; push the green baize aside; step fairly in. Heaven,
how beautiful! What breadth, what calm, what repose! Round-arched
aisles of dark Corinthian columns, not stopping at the choir, but
running clean round transepts and apsis, traversing a Latin cross
of more than three hundred by nearly two hundred feet. No stained
glass--all in transparent shadow, like the heart of a forest. A
church built for use, not show; yet lofty, spacious, beautiful,
with an atmosphere of its own which is luxury to breathe. Not the
gloom of the Duomo, nor the glow of St. Peter's, nor yet the gray
of San Lorenzo; the place is haunted by a dim, mysterious
gladness.
{197}
Although in the round style, and comparatively barren of detail,
it looks larger even than it is; larger than Santa Maria Novella
or Santa Croce. Its real magnitude is enhanced by its perfect
proportions; a fact which should keep us from flippantly imputing
to the same cause the illusive littleness of St. Peter's.
But the grenadiers are marching in, "fifty score strong;" their
bayonets are flashing in nave and aisle. You would think the
church would never hold them all; yet there is room beneath those
brown arches for thrice as many more. As soon as the men are
formed, the officers march down the nave amidst complete
silence--their breasts covered with decorations won at Magenta
and Solferino--and range themselves before the choir. In the
transept on their right is stationed their band, much the best in
Florence--some forty instruments, admirably led, and nearly as
good as the Austrian. Just as the music begins, the chaplain, a
handsome, grave young ecclesiastic--followed by two tall
grenadiers who serve his Mass--advances from Cronaca's beautiful
sacristy; and, without the least appearance of haste, and with
the utmost dignity, Mass is said in fifteen minutes. No noise, no
shuffling, no whispering, none of the effort and formality of a
festa; the charm is that of a ceremony first beheld just as the
celebrants are first at home in their parts. The cavalry Mass at
Santa Maria Novella is far less imposing; dismounted troopers are
always awkward, and their band, in this instance, is a poor one.
But it was very fine at La Novella--the two dragoons flanking the
altar with naked sabres, else motionless at their sides, flashed
forward in swift salute at the elevation.
As soon as Mass was over, the troops dispersed and I was at
liberty to explore the church. What a relief to find the pictures
covered! it almost reconciled me to Lent. What a delight to find
all the details unobtrusive--all the chapels modestly in the
background, instead of parading their comparative
insignificances. Nothing blank or bald: a broad, single effect
like the Sistine Sibyls and Prophets, or the Madonna of the Fish,
or the Idylls of the King.
In the ages of faith, the monk, the noble, and the state went
hand in hand in erecting and adorning the house of God--in making
it gigantic, beautiful, imperishable, complete. Not only in
Italy, but throughout Europe, there was a silent compact between
the present and the future--an assurance that the inspiration of
to-day would remain the inspiration of tomorrow--an abiding
conviction that the creed of the sire would remain for ever
precisely the creed of the son. In this belief, the founders of
the great churches cut out work for three centuries with less
misgiving than we should now have in projecting for as many
years. The builders of the English abbeys foresaw not the day
when the torch and sword and hammer of the descendant would be
uplifted to burn, to stain, to shatter a repudiated inheritance;
when the rites of new and hostile doctrines would affront the few
ancestral temples that were spared. The architects of St. Peter's
foresaw not the large revolt for which they were unconsciously
paving the way in Germany. Like ourselves, to be sure, they had
the record of the past before them. They knew, as well as we,
that naught was left of Corinth, and next to nothing of Athens,
and little of ancient Rome save her Colosseum and her Pantheon;
that the temple of Solomon was ashes; that the obelisks were
pilgrims to the West; that the _tented_ sepulchres of the
_shepherd_ kings stood solitary and meaningless in the
desert.
{198}
But, in spite of all this panorama of mutation and decay, they
could not subdue the sacred instinct of building for eternity.
Christianity was so charged with promise, triumph, and
immortality that they fancied her tabernacles as indestructible
as herself. There was a joyous trust, too, that "the time was at
hand," a confident expectation that those domes and spires would
abide till the coming of the Son of man in the glory of his
Father with his angels.
But the English Reformation, the French Revolution, and Italian
Unification have taught us that the monuments of the new faith,
instead of being specially exempt from injury, are peculiarly
liable to insult and mutilation. Men and nations have measurably
ceased to care or expect to perpetuate themselves through the
temple and the tomb. The soul of architecture has received a
shock. Her throne is the solitude or the waste. She lurks amidst
ruins and relics, the very Hagar of art. She that seemed
mightiest has proved weakest; her daintier sisters, sculpture and
song, have triumphed where she failed. The statues that adorned
her porticoes are upright still, but the porticoes themselves are
overthrown. The lay, the legend, the chronicle, committed with
plying finger to paper or parchment, are living, while the forms
of beauty and grandeur entrusted to marble are broken or beneath
the sands. Here and there you meet her skeleton in the
wilderness, her white arm upraised in sublime self-assertion; but
though the story of Zenobia is immortal, there is scarcely a
column of Palmyra standing. The very mummy, with his dry papyrus
which a spark might annihilate, may chance to survive his
pyramid! Nature has turned against her; matter has played her
false. She has toiled a thousand years in granite, iron,
cedar--in all that seemed solidest, hardest, firmest: her back is
bent with honest toil, her hands are roughened with mallet and
chisel; yet the dream of a poet traced on calfskin outlasts the
vision embodied in travertine or porphyry. If an earthquake shook
the Val d'Arno, the canvas of Giotto would survive his campanile.
What mockery, then, to persist in attempting the indestructible
when dissolution or disintegration is the inevitable doom of the
material! Time has demonstrated that the more ponderous the
instrument of expression, the less easy of perpetuation the art.
The obliterated manuscript can be forced to reappear, but no
chemistry can reproduce the vanished temple. The greatest forces
of the universe are precisely those which are subtlest and least
substantial. Steam and electricity are well-nigh impalpable and
invisible. It is the spirit, not the body, save as purged and
spiritualized by decay, that exists for ever. Away, then, with
the unattainable! Away with a miscalled _real!_ If it, too,
is a cheat, may it not be counterfeited with impunity? Away with
column of stone, with lacework of fretted marble, with blazonry
in oak and walnut! Away with all stubborn, difficult truth, and
welcome brick and mortar, lath and plaster, paint and whitewash,
gilt and varnish. If the cheap will look as well or nearly as
well as the dear, why not use it? It is no falser, only
_sooner_ falser. When it wears out or burns up or tumbles
down, try it again. Be done with the tower of Babel: its curse
clings faster to architecture than to speech. And as for the
gigantic, drop it!
{199}
It is always a disappointment--a disappointment in nature and
art, in minster, mountain, stream--a disappointment in all things
save the broad dome of the empyrean with its floor of emerald,
its ceiling of unfathomed blue or studded bronze, its draperies
of shifting, winged, ethereal cloudland.
Yes, art, like the artist, must encounter death. But shall we
embrace the mean because sooner or later we must relinquish the
great? Shall we forsake the permanent for the transient because
the enduring falls short of the everlasting? Shall we inaugurate
a reign of sham because the real is not always the perpetual?
"Il pessimo nemico del bene é l'amator del ottimo."
The muses should never pout: each art should reverently accept
its limitations. Though the pen is mightier than pencil or
chisel, though only the word and the song are privileged to pass
intact from age to age, yet a portion of the soul of plastic art
may sometimes baffle decay. Even in ruin, architecture is not
without its prouder consolations. _Ex pede, Herculem_. While
a bone of her survives, imagination can approximate a
resurrection of the departed whole. The malice of her sworn
enemies, the elements, is sometimes providentially her salvation;
the shrouded lava of Vesuvius embalmed a more vivid presentation
of Roman life and manners than lives in the pages of Terence or
Plautus. A broken shaft, a fragmentary arch, a section of
Cyclopean wall, is at once a poem, a chronicle, and a picture.
The ruin is time's authentic seal, without which history were as
inconclusive as the myth. The past is a present voice as long as
a vestige of its architecture remains. The Column of Trajan is
the best orator of the forum now; there is a deeper charm in the
living eloquence of the Colosseum than in the dead thunder of the
Philippics. [Footnote 88] We are as awed and startled when
unexpectedly confronted by some mouldering but still breathing
monument of antiquity, as if the form of the deathless evangelist
stood bodily before us.
[Footnote 88:
"Tully was not so eloquent as thou,
Thou nameless column with the buried base!"]
We perfectly understand and sympathize with the modern instinct
that recoils from imparting a more than needful permanence to
private dwellings. The home of man is sullied with low cares and
offices; beneath the screen and shelter of its roof the worst
passions are often nourished, the darkest mysteries are sometimes
celebrated. In many an ancient manor, there is scarcely a chamber
without its legend of sin, scarcely a floor without its
bloodstain. But the _House of God_ is the witness of the
virtues, not the vices, of humanity; within its hallowed
precincts the casual profanity and levity of the few are quite
lost in the earnest adoration of the many; the whispers of
blasphemy drowned in the ceaseless tide of general thanksgiving;
the rebellious beatings of passion hushed in the solemn chorus of
penitence and praise. The longer it endures, the holier it
becomes. Its aisles are impregnated with prayer, its vaults
enriched with ashes of the blest, its altars radiant with the
wine of sacrifice. Behind the doors of the palace and the
dwelling, time is sure to plant the spectre and the thorn; behind
the doors of the cathedral, the angel and the palm.
The primary charm of church architecture is veracity. The
interior of Santo Spirito is perfect truth. The columns are, what
they claim to be, stone; the balustrade of the choir is, what it
claims to be, bronze; the altar what it claims to be, _pietra
dura_.
{200}
You do not sound a pillar and hear a lie, or scratch a panel and
see a lie, or touch a jewel and feel a lie. All is fair, square,
honest--not even the minutest lurking insincerity to vex the
Paraclete. I soon learned to love Santo Spirito as well as any
Florentine; to love it better than the Duomo with its windows of
a thousand dyes; better than the bride of Buonarroti With her
frescoes of Masaccio, her Madonna of Cimabue's, her Crucifix of
Giotto's; better even than Santa Croce with its ashes of Angelo,
its Annunciation of Donatello's, its Canova's Alfieri. I used to
sit for hours in its spacious choir, undisturbed even by the
dull, nasal, inharmonious chanting of the good Augustinians, and
listen to the sermons preached by those dim, unending arches.
----------
Translated From The Revue Du Monde Catholique.
The Statue Of The Cure D'ars,
Inaugurated At Ars, August 5, 1867.
God's purposes sometimes reveal themselves in a manner greatly to
perplex us. They move contrary to all foresight or to any human
logic. Day succeeds to night, light to darkness, hope to despair,
without any apparent reason, indeed in spite of reason itself.
When all seems lost, then everything is regained, and even death
itself appears to live anew. The history of religion is full of
such decay and such regeneration.
After the frightful crisis of the eighteenth century, one would
have thought the Church entirely abandoned, and that no new
breath could revive the fallen ruins which the efforts of a
hundred years had accumulated. "The pinnacle of the temple is
crumbled, and the clew of heaven comes to moisten the face of the
kneeling believer," says, in his theatrical and pseudo-biblical
style, the most celebrated enemy of our time. [Footnote 89]
[Footnote 89: M. Renan.]
Many Christians were distressed, and the timid braved with
difficulty the universal defection. That which they believed in
was denied, that which they adored was burned, and that which
they loved was disgraced.
God permits these humiliations, to show us that "the work is all
of his hand," and sustained only by him. To the triumphant cries
of his adversaries, to the cry of distress from his faithful, he
has responded by the glorious miracle which eternally attests his
power. Lazarus was in the tomb; he has restored him to life! The
Church, said its enemies, was crushed to the earth; he has
revivified it. To the eighteenth century, the most impious and
corrupt of centuries, he has caused the nineteenth to succeed,
which will remain in history one of the most fruitful and
beautiful of the Church. To speak properly, the nineteenth
century seems to have for its mission the raising of the ruins
made by its predecessor.
{201}
Following it over all the earth, and taking up its work as a
counterpart, the present century repairs the breaches made before
it and re-establishes at each point the fortresses and ramparts
of virtue.
Without doubt the enemy is still vigorous; he is far from being
vanquished, and puts forth his last efforts. The nineteenth
century is a list where truth and error, good and evil, give
themselves up to solemn combat. The ground is cleared, the
intermediate questions laid aside, and each party knows well what
he wishes and where he goes. Scepticism and materialism never had
a more brilliant career; never have truth and Christian virtues
shone with greater _éclat_. In which camp will rest the
victory? This is God's own secret, and only from the past may we
predict the future. In no age, perhaps, even in its best days,
has the Church collected around her so many and such valiant
champions. The greatest bishops, the greatest writers, the
greatest orators, have succeeded each other for nearly a hundred
years, and have formed for their spiritual mother a magnificent
crown of science and genius. Speaking in a literary point of
view, the age belongs to Catholics; our adversaries, by the side
of our apologists, make but a paltry figure.
Works, too, are on a level with the minds that inspire them.
Never have they been so numerous, and never so fruitful.
Foundations of all sorts, churches, monasteries, orders,
missions, schools, hospitals, orphan-asylums, have multiplied in
emulation of each other. A small part of the works of our day
would suffice for the glory of any epoch. The clergy encourage
and direct these movements; they display zeal and
self-abnegation; and, devoted to their chiefs, they become more
and more devoted to the church. The _élite_ of society do
them honor by following in their footsteps. Disabused of the
unhealthy and destructive ideas by which their fathers were lost,
and instructed by a hundred years of experience and misery, the
higher classes, in France especially, return with simplicity to
the faith and to the Christian virtues. Obedient to the eternal
law which regulates society, the lower classes by degrees model
themselves according to their example. The centenary
_fêtes_, the canonizations, the pilgrimages of Salette,
Lourdes, and others, are living witnesses of the fervor of the
clergy and the public faith.
And, to crown all, the Church never attested its supernatural
fecundity by such a number of saints and martyrs. The nineteenth
century is the richest in canonizations. When the Church is
accused of being exhausted, she replies by showing a new harvest.
And what saints! what models! The Labres, the Germaine Cousins,
the Marie Alacoques, the Cure's d'Ars! The greatest defiance
thrown at our time, and the most violent antithesis of its ideas
and instincts, is the actual Christianity in our midst--so
hostile to the spirit of the world and the spirit of the age.
II.
Two men seem to represent and renew the periods that follow them,
and the eternal tendencies of humanity. These two men offer a
similitude and a contrariety so strange, that it seems as if God
had opposed the one to the other to make the balance equal. Their
skulls even, and the form of their faces, present striking
analogies. The expression is contrary, but the mark is the same.
{202}
Both, born a hundred years apart, have inhabited the same
country; both have passed the greater part of their lives in two
villages that touch each other, and these two villages, so
obscure before their time, have through them attained
extraordinary celebrity. Each has been the object of the world's
attention, and each the goal of eager pilgrimages. The eighteenth
century rushed with ardor to Ferney; the nineteenth goes to Ars
in greater transports. As the nineteenth century is to Catholics
the retaliation for the eighteenth, so Ars is the retaliation for
Ferney. [Footnote 90]
[Footnote 90: This expression is from the Abbé Monnin, a
missionary at Ars, who has given to the life of the Curé
d'Ars several popular works of rare merit.]
These are the resemblances, and great they are. The differences
are greater still.
One, to speak properly, personifies the genius of evil.
Scepticism, wicked irony, hardness of heart, corruption of mind
and senses, egotism and cupidity, united in forming a modern
corypheus. The other personifies the spirit of good. Truth,
purity, self-abnegation, love of God and man, the spirit of
sacrifice and mortification, in a word, all of moral grandeur
revealed to man by Christ himself, has rarely an exemplifier more
perfect. One is the type of the Christian, elevating himself to
the saints, to the angels; the other is the anti-Christian type,
descending to the cursed, to the demons.
Each has attracted the attention of man by the most opposite
means: the first by his delicacy of wit equalling his duplicity;
the second by his integrity and a simplicity of character
brightened apparently by supernatural rays; the first by his
pride, the second by his humility; the first by noise, the second
by silence. Each has exercised toward his contemporaries results
the most contrary. The refined in wickedness, the utterly
corrupted, visited the scholar to plunge deeper in perversity.
Entire populations, just men and men of good will, visited the
priest to establish themselves in justice, or submit their doubts
to him, and go on toward perfection. Both still effect by their
minds and their remembrance--from one portion of the world to the
other--the same consequences.
And that is not all.
The world flies from the first, as his character and doctrines
become better elucidated. It approaches the second, as he is
better known, and the beauty of his character developed. Ferney
was abandoned shortly after the death of him who was its centre;
the factitious or true admiration accorded him by the most
brilliant and perverted of his age could not survive the
perishable attraction which Voltaire exercised. To-day Ferney is
only visited by amateurs in human curiosity. Ars, on the
contrary, grows greater and greater. The sentiment which attracts
people thither increases hour by hour, and the entire world knows
the name of the obscure village, whose echo even seems to arouse
the most indifferent. Multitudes flock there incessantly, and
when Ferney and the memory of Voltaire, the hero of impiety of
the last age, shall by degrees have disappeared, Ars and the
memory of its curé, the hero of truth and of the present age,
will attract still greater crowds, still greater homage.
By a circumstance not less strange than those already mentioned
of these two men so totally different, the erection of a statue
to each is now occupying the public mind. Unheard of efforts have
been made to erect that of Voltaire--as Raymond Brucker says--by
the hand of the executioner, for the meanest stratagems and the
most trifling falsities have been resorted to; and by dint of
puffing and scandal, our little Voltairians, whom Voltaire
himself would disown, will perhaps attain their glorious end.
{203}
And without effort, without puffing, without scandal or imposture
of any kind, by the simple emotion of love and of Christian
veneration, to the saint of the nineteenth century is being
erected a statue worthy of him.
Before criticising this work, lately inaugurated at Ars with
great solemnity, I will relate its history. It is sufficiently
striking to merit being known, and places in bold relief one side
of the person it is destined to represent.
III.
The Curé d'Ars obstinately refused to sit for his portrait. On
this point he was more obdurate than a Mussulman, and never lent
himself to any proposition or stratagem the end of which was to
reproduce his person. Several artists, working openly, had been
rejected; others, using hidden means, watching for the priest,
and following him in the street or in church, had been warned to
keep quiet. Under these circumstances, M. Emilien Cabuchet, the
author of the statue of which we are going to speak, presented
himself at Ars. He was furnished with a letter from the bishop,
and numerous recommendations. He did not doubt his success, and
accosted the curé, and spoke of his business with a deliberate
air. "No, no, I do not wish it," said the curé; "neither for
monseigneur, nor for you, my artist-friend! At least," added the
priest, changing his mind, and taking up a favorite idea, "unless
monseigneur will permit me to go away immediately, and weep over
_my poor life!_" "But, Monsieur le Curé--" "It is useless."
The discomfited artist ran to relate his adventure to the
missionaries established near the curé. They gave him new
courage. "Persevere!" said they to him. "You are not here to make
your court to the Curé d'Ars, but to make his portrait. Go on, we
will sustain you."
Thus reassured, the artist risked everything, and commenced by
following the curate to church. During the Mass he was behind the
curate, at the sermon back of the good women, and at the
catechism behind the children. Every one assisted him, and took
part in the enterprise. The artist held the wax between his
fingers, and modelled in the bottom of his hat--his eye now on
the curé, now on his work. Sometimes, to mislead the priest, he
pretended to pray with fervor, or to follow attentively the
instruction. He thought he was very adroit.
One day the curé bent toward him.
"You are well aware, monsieur," said he in a gentle tone, "that
you are causing distraction to every one--and to me also!"
What was he to do? How defend himself to a man so very polite! "I
would have preferred harshness," said the artist to me. "This
gentleness disconcerted me."
He returned to the monastery decided to renounce the enterprise.
"Persevere!" again said the missionaries.
The artist renewed his work.
Two days after, in the street, where he now worked from choice,
the curé again addressed him:
"Have you, then, nothing to do at home?"
"O Monsieur le Curé! one would think that you would turn me out
of doors."
This time the curé was disconcerted.
{204}
"No, no," said he eagerly, and slightly embarrassed. "Stay as
long as you choose, but don't begin again!" ...
The next day, seeing the curé so surrounded that he could not
disengage himself, and in danger of leaving his cassock in the
hands of the pilgrims, the artist ran to his relief and offered
him his arm.
"I constitute myself your bodyguard," said he gallantly.
"Then I am emperor! ... But this is not the question. Do you
know, I would like to excommunicate you?"
"Really, Monsieur le Curé, what a tremendous word! Have I, then,
committed so shocking a crime?"
"Bah! you understand me well enough."
"Well then, what?"
"You cause me constant distraction; and when you think seriously,
would it not be far better to take the head of the first dog you
meet?"
"O Monsieur le Curé!"
And when the model was finished and the curé saw it,
"Well," said he, "it is not a subject of rejoicing! Look at the
poor Curé d'Ars! How odd it is," added he, "your power of giving
life to plaster!"
IV.
I have given this dialogue at length, as it was repeated to me by
the artist. If I am not deceived, it represents well the
character of the good priest; his humility, his humor, his
brusqueness touched with raillery, his politeness and
goodness--all are well portrayed. All this is reproduced in the
statue. It gives us the character of the dialogue, and the almost
legendary figure that our contemporaries have seen, and which
will pass to posterity.
The Curé d'Ars is kneeling in his cassock, with the surplice,
rabat, and stole. His hands are joined, his eyes uplifted to
heaven. A sweet smile brightens his face. His hair, cut off
square, falls on his neck in abundant locks, and shaven closely
on the top of his head; his forehead is left free. The priest
prays with such fervor and such faith, I may say a passion which
makes us think of paradise. Angels must pray in this way. His
hands are extended toward heaven with an intensity of emotion;
the eyes have so much ardor in their expression that the spirit
of prayer seems to lift the body from earth and carry it to
heaven. I know no work with more life in it; there does not exist
a more impassioned statue. Faith, love, and desire, transfigured
in this marble block, animate it and give it a striking reality.
As a whole, the work offers a new and excellent type of the
religious sculpture of our age. The artist has set aside
classical lessons and proved himself in the right. The
remembrances of antiquity should not interfere in the realization
of an ideal taken from the very heart of contemporary life and
the present Christian age. Gothic traditions are even neglected,
and the author has been careful to give the figure the seal of
its own time, his good taste causing him to avoid the quicksands
into which so many others have fallen. Wishing to represent a man
of our time, the sculptor would have committed an anachronism to
be regretted if he had impressed his character with a mysticism
and power which distinguished the personages of the art of the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In the spirit of truth he
was to give to the world a saint, and in this saint the beatific
expression which in the prerogative of the saints of every age;
but over and above this general feature there was an order of
secondary shades he was obliged to respect, to give to the figure
its age and physiognomy.
{205}
M. Cabuchet has admirably seized and rendered the double
character I have tried to define. His saint is as mystical as the
saints of the middle ages, yet he has the reality of a man of our
time. Gothic, or rather Christian, in sentiment, he is modern,
and even French, in his exterior aspect. Such, in a few words, is
the exact appreciation shown in this work of M. Cabuchet, and the
double reflection gives him, in my opinion, the highest rank
among sculptors of his age.
The imitation of antiquity would have produced a dead work; the
imitation of the middle ages would have produced a work
impersonal and hieratic; but going out of himself and all
national traditions, inspired only with his subject and his time,
the artist has brought to light a new and striking piece of work,
a true specimen of religious and modern sculpture.
It is easy to see what remembrances and what masters have
directed this statue. French sculpture, as its painting, has
particular traits which are easily recognized. Less correct,
perhaps, and less noble than Greek or Italian sculpture, it has
an ease, a power, a life, that has no equal. Puget and Houdon are
the two foremost artists in our school, so essentially French.
Using Greek models only to simplify and enrich their style, they
have sought beyond everything expression and the power of motion.
M. Cabuchet has followed their example, and, walking in their
footsteps, has given us a work of which his masters could not be
ashamed.
In looking at the statue of the Curé d'Ars the spectator is
reminded of the celebrated statue of Voltaire by Houdon; not only
that the resemblance of the two faces is unaccountably striking,
but because the build and the exterior appearance of the marbles
offer incontestable analogies. In both statues we find the same
amplitude, the same facility, the same light and soft manner; in
both the details are uniformly sacrificed to the whole, and the
whole owes to this mode of execution a more decorative and
lifelike representation.
Voltaire is seated, his hands leaning upon, almost clinching, the
arms of his chair. The Curé d'Ars is on his knees. Voltaire
smiles with a cynical air, as if rejoicing in the ruin he has
made. "_Dors tu content, Voltaire, et ton hideux sourire_."
[Footnote 91]
[Footnote 91: "Rest content, Voltaire, and
thy hideous smile."--Alfred De Musset.]
The Curé d'Ars smiles with the ineffably sweet smile of those who
see God and dream of the happiness of their equals. In the two
marbles, the head is the same; the forehead is the same; the two
cheek-bones, so prominent, are the same; the receding chin is the
same; the mouth opens by the same smile. In one it has a
repulsive and satanic character; in the other it is angelical and
attractive. Everything is similar except the expression. The
features are brothers--twins, I might say; the souls that
animate these features are as divided as the poles. In each face
the cornea of the eye is represented by a deeply cut circle, a
style of carving peculiar to the best age of statuary. This has
given to each an intensity of look; and while that of Voltaire is
lowered toward the earth, and only expresses the baser passions,
that of the Curé d'Ars is uplifted to the sky, and reflects the
joys of his moral superiority.
{206}
Thus, we see, the two statues give perfectly the character and
life of their respective models. The first seems to rise from
regions of hope and love, the second from despair and
malevolence. One represents the consoler and saviour, the other
the spoiler, the demolisher of souls and consciences.
It would be easy to point out other resemblances and other
contrasts.
To complete this analysis it is well to add, that the statue of
the Curé d'Ars recalls an element that the author has not taken
from our own school. Every one conversant with art will remember
the figure of San Diego in Murillo's picture vulgarly called the
Kitchen of the Angels. The saint prays to God for the actual
necessities of the abbey, and God sends his angels to prepare the
repast of the monks. Several gentlemen, visiting the convent,
look on with astonishment at the saint raised from the earth,
ravished with ecstasy, his hands joined, his eyes uplifted to
heaven, while the angels are getting ready the dinner. The
natural and supernatural were never more widely separated.
Murillo has painted the personages working a miracle as he would
any person in any ordinary action of life; yet who that has seen
this picture will ever forget it? It is evident that our artist
was struck by it, and that the San Diego of Murillo has occurred
to him more than once when he represented the Curé d'Ars. He has
been inspired by it as a true artist, guarding his own
originality. His hero has very much the same simplicity that
characterizes the saint of the Spanish painter, the same natural
in the supernatural, the same ease of vision and ecstasy. Both
see, and in seeing they evidence none of the fear or surprise
which could actuate the less assured believer. They see; they are
in heaven with God and his angels; they converse with them, and
their faces express no other sensation than the tender and deep
joy of the man who has discovered his ideal.
Delicate and profound characteristic! shade difficult to seize,
and which constitutes the true essence of men living in God, and
beginning on earth their immaterial existence. It needs more than
an artist to fix this and give it form. Only a simple and pious
Christian could crown the heads of our blessed ones with the
mystical aureole that the believer alone discovers; only a
Christian could give to the figures of which we speak the
attitude and life so manifestly stolen from regions of beatitude.
The great difficulty of the work consisted in this shade, and
that may be said to form the perfect whole. The artist's title to
glory is in his having known how to comprehend and realize this,
and so give to his statue the freedom of none other.
Let us dwell on this expression of sanctity--the distinctive
feature in the personage produced by M. Cabuchet. Sanctity has a
strikingly physiological character. It changes the exterior man,
and transforms his countenance. The action of Jesus Christ,
dwelling constantly in the soul, gives to the features a
reflection of a superior order. Sanctity, to speak properly,
represents the fusion of divine and human nature. The pervading
feature of saints is a calm, a serenity, a natural goodness which
attracts and subjugates us. The transfigured soul transfigures
its envelope, and we might imagine divinity showing itself
through the encasement of the body. If the beautiful is the glory
of truth, the saint is the glory of good.
{207}
The statue of the Curé d'Ars possesses to a striking degree this
_suprasensible_ aspect that I have just noticed. By contact
with divinity the marble itself is transfigured--grace sheds its
beams and gives to the features a kind of immaterial
transparency. Jesus Christ is present and breathes into the
passionate and ravished eyes, into the lips and the blessed
smile; the personage lives in another world; his attitude, his
movements have nothing in common with earth. If the spectator
could ignore the name of the priest represented, his attention
would not be less arrested, and he would easily recognize in his
face the presence of a supernatural element, heightening the
human personality.
Here, however, I will make a remark. The body of the Curé d'Ars
is not in unison with his face; it is too material, too vigorous,
too vulgar even, if I dare speak from my heart. "The cassock of
the Curé d'Ars seems to have nothing under its large folds," said
the biographer. ... "He was a shadow," added he still further.
Now, the Curé d'Ars of the artist has nothing of a shadowy
appearance. His shoulders are strong, his breast large, his hands
knotty. The sculptor has wished to express the humble origin of
the priest, but in my opinion he has forgotten the transformation
which the contemplative and mystical life had necessarily
operated in the organization of the saint.
This remark, necessary to be made, detracts nothing, or almost
nothing, from the merit of the work; it could only be appreciated
by those who have personally known the Curé d'Ars, and ceases to
be of import since his death.
V.
We can now understand the character and various merits of the
statue of M. Cabuchet. All who see it retire satisfied, and the
mass of spectators are struck by the pious and compassionate
expression of the holy priest. Connoisseurs admire the freedom of
the effect and of the execution. The author may be proud of his
success. He has paid for it by effort and anguish of every kind,
and it is well to know sometimes these artist-struggles, that we
may rightly value the works that charm us so much.
When the statue came from the workshop of the finisher, the
sculptor did not recognize it. He had expected his model to be
reproduced on a less grand scale, and the difference of
proportion rendered it not easy to be known again. At such a
result Cabuchet experienced one of those counter-blows which have
made certain young artists of twenty grow old in a quarter of an
hour, and only those who have tried to realize an ideal can
perfectly understand such emotion. Benvenuto and Palissy in
similar moments were taken with fevers which brought them to the
very portals of the tomb. Sigalon, noticing his picture of
Athalie compromised by difference of light, saw his hair turn
gray in two minutes. Cabuchet had no less trouble, and the wonder
is he escaped a similar shock; he withstood it, however, and,
seeing no other means, he did what any valiant artist would have
done in his place; he took his chisel and mallet, and in the
style of Michael Angelo and Puget he attacked the marble. Each
blow knocked off a piece, but each blow soothed the heart of the
sculptor, for in reducing his statue he re-established it in its
first form, and restored its true physiognomy.
{208}
Cabuchet has devoted a year to such labor. For a whole year he
has worked with chisel and mallet, seeking the form, the
movement, the life; and finding, little by little, this form,
movement, and life at the end of his tools. He played a dangerous
game; the first stroke of the hammer could have destroyed his
work. Driven to a corner, the artist acted as a great captain. He
risked all to gain all. Fortune, which encourages audacity, or
rather the good God who sustains energetic and faithful artists,
came to his aid; and at the end of a year Cabuchet saw his statue
re-created by his chisel, and become truly and doubly the
daughter of his brain and of his hands. He gained more than one
wrinkle at this task and more than one white hair. According to
his own expression, he _sweated many shirts_. But he forgot
difficulties and anxieties when he saw the long dreamed of
figure, the ideal of his days and nights, realized and looming
before him!
VI.
They have given this excellent work a reception worthy of it. At
its arrival at the dock at Villefranche, near the village of Ars,
a numerous cavalcade, and a multitude composed of the entire
surrounding population, rushed to meet it, and received it with
transports of love and admiration. The faithful, the penitents of
the holy curé, saw again their master and their model. The parish
saw again its venerated father. They surrounded the marble, they
tried to touch it; many fell on their knees, and prayed as before
the images of the saints. On the day of the inauguration the
demonstrations were the same; every moment a newly collected
crowd prostrated itself at the foot of the statue; flowers were
hung on it, and rosaries and medals laid on the pedestal. Each
believed that new and strengthening virtue would escape from the
marble and regenerate those happy enough to approach it; and yet
this marble was nothing more than a work of genius; it had not
even been blessed, it had no place in the church, it had received
no certificate or consecration from Rome--no matter! the crowd
saw none of these obstacles. Abandoning themselves without
after-thought to the impression which sanctity always produces on
the masses, they rushed to the image of the man who appeared to
them a saint, as we seek the Consoler and Alleviator of all human
suffering.
The inauguration was conducted with a ceremony befitting the
occasion. Monseigneur de Langabrie, Bishop of Belley, a prelate
as remarkable for the urbanity of his manners as his superior
mind, came himself to preside over the occasion. A great admirer
and friend of the Curé d'Ars, he wished to give to his memory
some proof of his affection. More than a hundred priests of
neighboring parishes accompanying him, presented an imposing
_cortége_. Quietly, calmly, and with recollection, they
rendered homage to the remembrance and virtues of a saint. The
secular and official element was represented by the Comte de
Carets, a true Christian gentleman, and for thirty years the
friend of the Curé d'Ars. A numerous crowd from all the
neighboring country testified by repeated manifestations the
ardor of its faith and sentiment. The church of Ars, enlarged by
a talented architect, was entirely too small for all this wealth
of offering.
The Mass was celebrated with pomp; at the gospel the Abbé Ozanam,
vicar-general, mounted the pulpit, and described the most
striking points of physiognomy of the Curé d' Ars.
{209}
Inspired by his text from St. Paul, he showed how God always
employed the same means to act upon and govern the earth;
weakness to confound strength, humility to confound pride, and
littleness to confound grandeur; all that is despicable in the
eyes of man to confound all that is powerful and worthy his
respect. A staff in the hands of an old man is sufficient for
God, and well represents the instruments he sometimes employs to
rule the world. The Curé d'Ars was of obscure parentage; the Curé
d'Ars was humble, ignorant, illiterate, according to the world,
without power, without birth, without _prestige_. He seems
of still less repute, in that before God he so completely
annihilated himself. Son of a poor farmer, with difficulty he
reached the seminary, with difficulty he staid there, with
difficulty he attained the different grades. Everywhere, always,
the weakness of his faculties proved the signal of distrust from
his superiors, of contempt from his equals. He knew but one
thing, to love, to pray, to humble himself--above all to humble
himself. The less he felt himself, the less he made himself; the
more he was despised, the more he despised himself. But wait! the
hand of God appeared, and the ordinary movement of the see-saw
was reproduced. The lower the world placed him at one end, the
higher God uplifted him at the other, and he became the
instrument God always uses for his great works--an instrument
lowly yet powerful, and that confounds, attracts, and subjugates
the whole world. This humble priest--powerless, lacking ability,
and awkward in appearance--saw millions of men, great and small,
wise and ignorant, known and unknown, flock from all corners of
the earth to hear his word, see his countenance, listen to his
advice, feast on his holy expressions--to touch his vestments. He
will govern consciences and hearts; he will read their souls,
enlighten them, touch them. He will predict the future, will
overcome nature, and subject to his will the world of mind and
the world of matter. ... Admirable effect of humility which
produces sanctity! The most humble shall become the most
celebrated, and his name resound from pole to pole. He shall
agitate multitudes, and no living man can hear him without
thrilling with love or anger. His image will provoke enthusiasm.
The world will prostrate itself before it and kiss its very
traces; and when other images, other glorified, other renowned
conquerors, poets, legislators, politicians, are only a
remembrance, a vain sound which cannot thrill a single human
fibre, the name of the obscure, the despised Curé d'Ars will
radiate in an ever new orbit of splendor, and produce emotions
and effects ever new in millions of hearts. Strange consequence!
Contrast truly striking; which shows that Catholicism by a
brilliant overthrow of events is alone heard to give glory and
immortality!
After the Mass, monseigneur was heard in his turn, and related
the efforts made at Rome to obtain the canonization of the
defunct whose memory was then and there celebrated. He spoke of
the hope which he cherished to see ere long the Curé d'Ars and
his image among the glorified ones, and placed on those altars
where public veneration had already given them a place.
VII.
After the ceremony was over, the priests and some of the pilgrims
coming to the solemnity united in an old-fashioned feast at the
house of one of the missionaries.
{210}
The day was passed in recalling the virtues and actions of the
saint, while the crowd continued its homage and demonstrations.
Nothing could be more striking than the appearance of the village
of Ars during this _fête_. The spectator goes backward
several centuries; he lives in the earliest age; legend becomes
reality in his eyes, and the natural world is entirely forgotten
in the consciousness of the supernatural that surrounds him. M.
Renan speaks somewhere with contempt of times and populations for
whom the natural and supernatural have no exact limit. Ars
presents every day, and especially those days in which the saint
is honored, the same character. The natural and supernatural
touch and mingle. The multitude kneels, it intercedes, it asks;
and sometimes, in the simplest manner, extraordinary favors are
granted, which strike with wonder the Christians of our day, so
much less habituated than others to the manifestations of the
immaterial world. The church is always full; the tomb of the good
pastor, recognizable by a black slab, covered perpetually by an
eager crowd. Some are kneeling, others standing awaiting their
turn, and prostrating themselves as soon as a vacant place offers
itself. They dispute a corner of the tomb of the Curé d'Ars, as
during his life they disputed a corner of his confessional or an
end of his cassock. All pray, some weep, others kiss the funereal
marble. Mothers bring their sickly children, and rest them on the
slab. Paralytics and the lame take their places. Each one touches
the tomb with his cross, his medals, or his beads, and carries it
away persuaded of its renewed efficacy. Every object, every part
of the church, bears the trace of what I may call a pious
vandalism. The confessional, the pulpit in which the holy priest
passed nearly all his life, are cut in a thousand places. Each
one has chipped the wood to carry off a relic.
Outside of the church the eagerness and veneration are no less.
The places frequented by the defunct are pointed out, and into
the old presbytery they hurry and almost smother each other on
the stairs. One has to pause on his way a quarter of an hour
sometimes before reaching the bedroom of the Curé d'Ars. The
chamber has been barricaded, and provided with an opening in the
wall, that it may escape the general devastation. The door is
armed with a strong grating and plated with iron. Without such
precaution all would have been long since broken open,
demolished, and carried away. As it is, there is more than one
hole in the wood-work, and even the walls are broken in, in
places. It is said that workmen armed with crow-bars have
attempted to throw down the wall. The shrubs and herbaceous
plants in the court-yard are spoiled incessantly; as if the
visitors, unable to molest the walls, revenge themselves on the
flowers and verdure. But they cannot penetrate into the chamber
and are forced to stay behind the barricade. They succeed each
other, as on some grand occasion of public curiosity in Paris,
when the crowd is unusually large. From the kind of vestibule
which forms the opening in the wall the visitor can take in the
whole apartment, if not entirely at his ease, on account of the
pressure of the crowd, at least without losing any detail.
Everything remains as it did during the life of the Curé d'Ars.
Here is the bed, sheltered under its green tapestry, a present
from the Comte de Carets, in place of another bed which was
burned under extraordinary circumstances.
{211}
Here is the wooden chimney where the priest came each day--after
spending from sixteen to eighteen hours in the confessional--to
revive his exhausted body by the still living flame of a simple
branch. The table is always set, as if it awaited its old
companion. An earthen porringer, with a pewter spoon, a little
pitcher, also of earth, which held the milk, an earthen plate,
and a coarse linen napkin; and nothing more. This modest service,
and the necessarily modest repast it supposes, had sustained, for
nearly forty years, the most valiant and fruitful life of the
age. Man lives not by bread alone; this man lived almost without
it; a little milk sufficed him, and on this he existed nearly all
his life--a trait not less astonishing than the power and energy
with which this milk seemed to inspire him. Two oaken chests,
presented also by pious persons, some sacred engravings, enough
books to fill the simple shelves, two or three straw chairs,
complete the furniture of this poor chamber, as popular today as
the apartments of the Louvre or the Museum of Sovereigns. A niche
in the wall, covered with a glazed partition, preserves and
exposes to the piety of the pilgrims the cassock and cap of the
poor priest.
The presbytery is no longer inhabited. No one has been reported,
or felt himself, sufficiently worthy to occupy it after its last
possessor. There is no longer a Curé d'Ars, there never will be a
Curé d'Ars--no one feeling strong enough to struggle with such a
remembrance, nor bear the legendary title. The missionaries who
during his lifetime were established near the presbytery, do the
duties of the parish and suffice for the pilgrims.
VIII.
Such is the _prestige_ of the Curé d'Ars since his death;
and the influence he exercised during his life was no less
astonishing. We are amazed at hearing or reading the details of
this exceptional existence. Eighty to a hundred thousand persons
came to Ars every year, and from all parts of the world. France,
Belgium, Germany, England, Italy, America, Asia, by turns sent
their pilgrims; and the enthusiasm of old--of the days of
Bernard, Dominic, Francis d'Assise, Vincent Ferrier, Philip de
Neri--has been renewed. Petitions were addressed to the Curé
d'Ars as to a superior being. Every day he received letters,
demands, confidences, and prayers. "One must come to Ars," said
he sometimes, "to know the sin of Adam and the evils he has
caused his poor family!" Sinners, the ill in body and mind, the
suffering of all kinds, went to the Curé d'Ars as the healer sent
by God himself. His faith, his humility, his love of God and man,
his frightful austerity, his perfect abnegation of self,
astonished and ravished souls; the gift given him to read the
human heart, his marvellous intuition, his power over nature, his
predictions, his miracles, ended by according him the
supernatural aureole, and the signs of election which in all ages
have carried away multitudes. At Ars one could learn how the
Christian religion was founded; by what virtues, what miracles,
its initiators had acted on the public mind and conquered. The
life of the gospel and the glorious days of the church
reappeared; hagiography lived again; the supernatural and
legendary history of Catholicism became comprehensible and
impressed itself on every mind.
{212}
According to calculations which may be called official, nearly
three millions of pilgrims have been admitted to the Curé d'Ars.
Every kind of human misery has presented itself before him, and
how many have been comforted! The blind have seen, the deaf have
heard, the paralyzed have walked; bread, wine, and corn have been
multiplied; and all the miracles of the gospel, except the
resurrection of the dead, have been reproduced. The greatest
miracle of the Curé d'Ars was, perhaps, the resurrection of the
living and the conversion of sinners, to which the holy priest
had dedicated his life, and was the principal end of all his
efforts. Notwithstanding his ardent desire for death and heaven,
he would have consented to remain on earth until the end of the
world to gain hearts for Jesus Christ. It was in this _rôle_
that so brilliantly shone the supernatural character of the life
and mission of the Curé d'Ars. When we think of the sixteen to
eighteen hours of the confessional, of the eighty to a hundred
penitents who knelt daily at the feet of the holy priest, we may
form some idea of the attraction that he exercised, and the deep
furrow he ploughed in the soul of the present age.
So many shining traits give to the Curé d'Ars the most
wide-spread fame of his time. Chateaubriand, De Maistre, Goethe,
Voltaire even, and others less famous, are only known to the more
refined. Their names have not penetrated the stratum of an
immense humanity. The Curé d'Ars was known to all, and his name
had traversed every country, every ocean, every race. In Europe,
America, Asia, it echoed and wakened souls; and everywhere we
find his portrait, in every town, in every country. Siberian huts
can show the Curé d'Ars. No face--not even that of Napoleon
I.--is as popular. His hair, his cap, his cassock, his shoes, his
furniture, his books, his breviary, have been sold over and over
again for more than their weight in gold. His blood, if taken
from him in illness, was collected and treasured as a relic; and
we see still at Ars, in several places, vials containing this
blood, as pure as the day it flowed: can science account for
this? The phenomenon is, to say the least, unique, abnormal. The
objects that he blessed were almost taken by assault, and before
his death rival countries disputed for his body, and the dispute
came near degenerating into a bloody conflict. No honor, homage,
or public respect was wanting to the Curé d'Ars, and once again
piety and Christian virtues have proven themselves the surest
means of acting on the world and attracting the masses, because
they represent the superior and eternal ideal of life and of
humanity.
IX.
But I must pause. I have wished to sketch in a few words the
appearance of this remarkable man, but yesterday our
contemporary, and of whom an extraordinary work of art has given
me the opportunity to speak. I fear I have been prolix, and,
forgetting the statue, have occupied my readers' attention with
the person represented; but I hope to be forgiven, as the best
way, surely, to impress the merit of a portrait is to make known
the model the artist has wished to depict. The statue will be
better appreciated as the Curé d'Ars himself is fully understood.
Again, it seems to me that the appearance and actions of such a
man, in the uncertain times in which we live, are a symptom and
hope of something better, to which we cannot give too much
weight. Truly the age is bad enough; hardened against God, it is
hardened against his church, and tries to sap every foundation of
virtue and honesty.
{213}
It destroys faith, attacks good principles and the virtuous
instincts that prompt them, and endeavors to replace the ancient
order of consciences by a sort of individual independence which,
sowing division, can only produce ruin. Character and manners are
falling as low as ideas; cupidity, egotism, unbridled pleasure,
sensual enjoyments, sought for and held up as the only end of
life; the expansion of luxury by every ingenuity gives to society
an ideal of Babylonian civilization; revolution, that is to say,
revolt and universal overthrow, cap the climax, and threaten to
swallow up everything: behold the situation and its dangers!
Seldom have ages been more troubled, or the symptoms more
terrible.
But hope revives and the mind is elevated when it contemplates
the opposing camp. So long as an age is able to produce a Curé
d'Ars, it is full of strength; and if the Catholic faith can
excite such a sensation as that of which I have just spoken, she
assures her future. Monarchs, generals, politicians, legislators,
writers, may become powerless. They could not preserve the
society of old, and saints alone saved it, walking in the
footsteps of Christ. They reconstructed and regenerated it,
because they were the last and unique expression of the true and
beautiful in morals, the only pivot of progress, the only lever
which lifted a people to lead them onward to God, the only source
of life. Producing the same men, modern society may hope for the
same regeneration; its cure and its future health will not depend
on human means or agents, but on the divine grace exercised by
its saints.
----------
Dante Alighieri.
The fame of the _Fiero Ghibellino_, as the Italians are wont
to call Dante Alighieri, is great, not in extensiveness, but in
weight. Wherever and to whomsoever he is known, his name and his
works carry a charm and an authority vouchsafed to only a few in
the department of authors. Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare are
_the_ poets, whose names are enshrined on an elevation above
the rest; they breathe, so to speak, in an atmosphere of their
own. They are, indeed, masters and guides,
"Maestri di color che sanno."
In truth, to understand their works, the study thereof must needs
be made a specialty. Yet even those who have lisped their names
in their mothers' tongue find that "_ars longa, vita
brevis_." The student will drink at those pure fountains with
ever-increasing pleasure. "How often have you been in St.
Peter's?" asked of us a venerable monk, the first time we entered
the Vatican. "Never before, sir." "Well," replied he, "I have
been coming here almost every day for the last thirteen years,
and every day I find some new thing to admire and study!" The
same has been averred by those who have been familiar with Dante,
Homer, and Shakespeare.
{214}
We well remember how, in our youth, and in our native schools, we
were so trained in the study of Alighieri that it was an easy
matter to discover whether an author, be he poet or prose-writer,
had been formed on Dante, whether he had drunk at the head
fountain or at side streams. Only few poets we remember whose
verses we read with an enchanted devotion--Gasparo Leonarducci,
of Venice; Vincenzo Monti, of Milan; and Alfonso Varano, of
Ferrara. Of the prose-writers, Paolo Segneri, Sforza Pallavicino,
of the seventeenth, and Pietro Giordani, of the nineteenth
century, are the only _Danteschi_ in whom we delighted, as
we were delighted in reading Homer transformed into the _succum
et saporem_ of the _AEneid_. Those above mentioned were
poets, historians, and orators, than whom more ardent and
persevering students of Dante are not recorded in the annals of
Italian literature. Theirs was not, however, a pedantic
servility: Dante was the father that engendered their style, the
eagle who provoked them to fly; and they did fly, and soared
above the rest, and fixed their pupils on the brightness of the
sun. Which remarks afford us also the measure by which to value
the success of those who have attempted to translate Dante into
foreign languages, an attempt which to the Italian scholar sounds
almost presumptuous. For, if the style and the meaning of Dante
have proven a matter of so much difficulty and labor to the
countryman of Dante, how much more laborious and difficult must
they prove to the foreign-born student?
Whoever attempts to translate a poet must join "the fidelity of
rendition to the spirit of a poet." The former presupposes a
thorough knowledge of the two languages, even to the commonest
idioms. Then, unless one is born a poet, the attempt will be the
very madness of folly, which truth receives additional evidence
when the work to be translated is one of transcendent merit in
its originality; ay, more, when it is _incomparable_:
incomparable, we mean, as a human work can be.
Such is the _Divina Commedia_ of Dante Alighieri. Pindaric
in flights, supernatural in conception, inventive in expression
and language, (for Dante is "the father of the Italian tongue,")
Dante stands before the scholar as a most difficult author. Nor
are the numberless commentators and voluminous comments, agreeing
or conflicting, ingenious or absurd, a mean proof of our
assertion!
Commentators have, in fact, pushed their folly and their
presumption to an excess equalled only by the absurd twisting of
Holy Writ in favor of the thousand and one senses which defenders
of opposite doctrines have fancied they read in one and the same
text. A witty Italian imagines he sees Dante crouching low, and
vainly endeavoring, with wild gesticulations and lusty cries for
help, to parry the blows by which clergymen and laymen, _laico
o cherco_, endeavor to force him to admit such meanings into
his words as he never dreamt of; at the same time they, falling
out among themselves, exchange blows, and throw at each other's
head their heavy comments, bound in wood, and rudely embossed
with brazen studs. It is related that once the stern poet, while
passing by a smithy, heard snatches of his poem sung, but so
interlarded with strange words, and the ends of verses so bitten
off, that the grating upon his ears was unendurable: whereupon he
entered the shop, and fell around wantonly throwing into vast
confusion the tools of the churl, who, thinking him mad, rushed
upon him and yelled: "What the ---- art thou about?" "And what
art _thou_ doing?" retorted Dante, sobering down at once.
{215}
"I am at my work, and thou art spoiling my tools!" replied the
smith. "If thou wishest me to leave thy things alone, leave mine
alone also." "And, pray, what am I spoiling of thine?" "You are
singing my verses, but not as I made them; it is the only art I
possess, and you spoil it." [Footnote 92]
[Footnote 92: Had Shakespeare this anecdote in mind when he
made Orlando cry out, "I pray you, mar no more of my verses
with reading them ill-favoredly"? (_As You Like It_, act
iii. sc. 2.)]
On another occasion the poet met a churl driving before him a mob
of donkeys, and enlivening his wearisome journey by singing also
snatches of the divine poem. But, very naturally, he would
intersperse his songs with an occasional pricking of the haunches
of his asinine fellow-travellers with the goad, and the shout of
_arri, arri_--the Italian _g'long, g'long_. Dante at
once visited the fellow's back with an earnest blow, and cried:
"That _arri, arri_, I never put it in that verse!" The poor
_asinaro_ shrugged his shoulders, and darted to one side,
not well pleased with the uncouth salutation; but when at a safe
distance, ignorant as he was of the cause of the blow and of the
man who had inflicted it, he thrust his tongue out, and said,
"Take that," an indecent act even for an Italian boor. Dante
replied: "I would not give mine for a hundred of thine!"
What the smith and the drover did, in their own way, and in
Dante's time, has been repeated down to our days. Volumes might
be filled with merely the titles of essays, treatises, and
theories, at times ingenious, seldom interesting, always
betraying the conceit of the writer. Editions innumerable are
crammed with interpretations conflicting with each other, and by
which the sense of the poet has been cruelly distorted. We, who
have been reared in the deepest reverence for Dante's orthodoxy,
have always felt indignant at the irreligious and unphilosophical
inordinations to which the _Divina Commedia_ has been made
to afford foundation and development.
For the nonce we mean to deal with translations, yet not in a
general or comprehensive treatise; for to treat of all English
translations of Dante, down to Sir J. F. W. Herschel's, the
latest of all, would carry us over fields too extensive and
uninviting. We have been led to beg for a corner of THE CATHOLIC
WORLD, in order to introduce to its readers what, after a close
and careful study, we deem the best of all translations of Dante.
We allude to _The First Canticle (Inferno) of the Divine Comedy
of Dante Alighieri_. Translated by Thomas William Parsons.
Boston: De Vries, Ibarra & Co. 1867.
That Mr. Parsons possesses the spirit of a poet, no one who has
read ever so little of his original compositions will gainsay.
Whatever he writes has the true ring; there is nothing
transcendental in him, and no mannerism; his sentiments are
spontaneous, and flow into his diction with a naturalness that
takes hold of the heart of the reader at once, like a peaceful
streamlet mingling its waters with kindred waves. Opening a
collection of his poems at random, we do not hesitate to
transcribe, without any studied choice, what first offers itself
to our eye. He writes on the death of his friend, the sculptor
Crawford, and thus he suddenly gives vent to his feelings:
"O Death! thou teacher true and rough!
Full oft I fear that we have erred,
And have not loved enough;
But, O ye friends! this side of Acheron,
Who cling to me to-day,
I shall not know my love till ye are gone
And I am gray!
{216}
Fair women, with your loving eyes,
Old men that once my footsteps led,
Sweet children--much as all I prize,
Until the sacred dust of death be shed
Upon each dear and venerable head,
I cannot love you as I love the dead!
"But now, the natural man being sown,
We can more lucidly behold
The spiritual one:
For we, till time shall end,
Full visibly shall see our friend
In all his hands did mould--
That worn and patient hand that lies so cold!"
On a Palm-Sunday, as he wends his way to the bedside of a dying
young convert, he begs of a little Catholic girl a twig of the
blessed palm she is carrying home. Whereupon he extemporizes the
following:
"To A Young Girl Dying:
With A Gift Of Fresh Palm-leaves.
"This is Palm-Sunday: mindful of the day,
I bring palm branches, found upon my way:
But these will wither; thine shall never die--
The sacred palms thou bearest to the sky!
Dear little saint, though but a child in years,
Older in wisdom than my gray compeers!
_We_ doubt and tremble--_we_, with 'bated breath,
Talk of this mystery of life and death;
Thou, strong in faith, art gifted to conceive
Beyond thy years, and teach us to believe!
"Then take my palms, triumphal, to thy home,
Gentle white palmer, never more to roam!
Only, sweet sister, give me, ere thou go'st,
Thy benediction--for my love thou know'st!
We, too, are pilgrims, travelling toward the shrine:
Pray that our pilgrimage may end like thine!"
Mr. Parsons's poetical gift manifests itself most sensibly in
what might be called "fugitive pieces." They are gems, like the
above, and as they are offered to the reader they are at once set
in the most fitting corner of his heart. We regret our limited
space will not allow us to transcribe the poems _To
Magdalen_, "Mary from whom were cast out seven devils;" or the
death of _Mary Booth_; or the _Vespers on the Shores of
the Mediterranean_, when the Italian mariner
"In mare irato in subita procella
Invoca Te nostra benigna Stella."
But we must be allowed to quote one little poem; an impromptu
one, written on the death of a Catholic prelate (February 13th,
1866) whose memory is held in benediction by a vast number of our
readers:
"Son of St. Patrick, John, the best of men,
Boston's blest bishop bids good-by again.
Not long ago we parted on the shore,
And said farewell--nor thought to see him more:
That brain so weary, and that heart so worn
With many cares! The parting made us mourn.
But he came back--he could not die in Rome.
Tho' well might those bones rest by Peter's dome,
Or Ara Coeil--and the sacred stair
That climbs the Capitol--or anywhere
In that queen city. ...
"Scholar and friend! old schoolfellow, though far
Past me in learning, that was ne'er a bar
To our free intercourse; for thou hadst thine
One muse to worship--leaving me the nine.
Thy faith was large, even in thy fellow-men:
And it pleased thee to patronize my pen
When I turned Horace into English rhyme,
And thought myself a poet for the time,
In Latin school-days--but, alas! thy shroud
Drives from remembrance all this gathering crowd
Of tender images; farewell to all!
I cannot think of these beside thy pall.
Thine, good Fitzpatrick, noble heir of those
Who went before thee--Fenwick and Bordeaux's
Gentle apostle Cheverus, and Toussaud--
Whom in my boyhood I was blest to know.
"But the bell moves me. Christian, fare thee well.
I loved my bishop and I mind his bell."
Let us now approach our subject more closely. But here the
difficulty is how to enable our readers, who are not acquainted
with the original Italian, to appreciate the fidelity of the
American translator--a fidelity the beauty whereof consists in
that Mr. Parsons translates almost _literally_ and at the
same time his translation _is_ poetry. After all, he is not
entitled to extraordinary praise who, being endowed with poetical
genius, catches the sense of the original and gives it in foreign
verses. The best plan seems to us to give the text, then a
literal (pedantic or lineal) translation, and afterward
Parsons's. Thus, for instance, Dante reads on the architrave over
the entrance to hell:
[Transcriber's Note: The arrangement of the text of pages
217, 218, and 219 is confusing, including two parallel
renderings and numerous footnotes. The renderings have been
placed in sequential order and the footnotes placed following
the references.]
{217} {218} {219}
"Per me si va nella città dolente. [Footnote 93]
Per me si va nell' eterno dolore:
Per me si va tra la perduta [Footnote 94] gente.
Giustizia mosse 'l mio alto Fattore:
Fecemi la divina Potestate,
La somma Sapienza, e 'l primo Amore.
Dinanzi a me non fur cose create,
Se non eterne, ed io eterna duro:
Lasciate ogni speranza, voi, che 'ntrate."
[Footnote 93: _Dolente_ means sorrow
without any mixture of hope--
_wailing and gnashing of teeth_.]
[Footnote 94: _Perduta_, in the sense of
that _pecunia sit tibi in perditionem_,
(Acts viii. 20,) absolute condemnation.
_Uemo perduto_ in Italian is the
_ruptus disruptusque_ of
Cicero, a "gone" man, beyond all hope
of moral recovery.]
To wit:
Through me you go into the doleful city;
through me you go into eternal grief;
through me you go among the lost people.
Justice moved my lofty Builder;
Divine Power made me;
and the supreme Wisdom and the first Love.
Ere me were no things created--unless eternal, and I eternal last;
relinquish all hope, you who enter.
Now compare with Parsons's:
"Through me you reach the City of Despair:
Through me eternal wretchedness ye find:
Through me among perdition's tribe ye fare.
Justice inspired my lofty Founder's mind:
Power, Love, and Wisdom--Heavenly First Most High--
Created me. Before me naught had been
Save things eternal--and eterne am I:
Leave ye all hope, O ye who enter in!"
Can any translation be more literal? Can it be more faithful? We
have tried to find fault with it, but gave it up in despair; yea,
the more we strain our critical eye, the more perfectly does the
original beauty appear reflected in the translation. It is not
the reflection of the mirror; it is the reflection of the sun's
light on the moon's face.
To economize room, we shall give no more text: we will only add a
lineal translation by way of note, presuming on the reader for
his trust in our knowledge of both languages, and in our honesty.
The long extract we are going to make is, perhaps, the noblest
specimen of descriptive poetry in the Italian language. It is,
however, founded on a historical mistake, inasmuch as Ugolino was
starved to death not by Archbishop Ruggieri, but by Guido da
Montefeltro, Lord of Pisa. The true account runs thus: Ugolino
dei Gherardeschi, Count of Donovatico, and a Guelf, had, with the
connivance of the archbishop, made himself master of Pisa. But
having put to death a nephew of Ruggieri, and sold some castles
to the Florentines, that prelate, at the head of an infuriated
mob, and aided by Gualandi, Sismondi, and Lanfranchi, three
powerful leaders, attacked the count in his own palace, and made
him prisoner with his two sons Gaddo and Uguccione, and three
nephews, Ugolino Brigata, Arrigo, and Anselmuccio. Thus bound,
they were all thrown into the donjons of the Tower at the Three
Roads. Montefeltro, having meanwhile got the power into his own
hands, forbade any food to be administered to his prisoner rival,
whereby Ugolino and the rest died of hunger. Dante,
(_Inferno_, c. xxxii. and xxxiii.,) admitted to the ninth
circle, or bolgia, on entering that part of it which was called
Antenora, witnessed the horrible punishment of the traitor and of
the murderer:
[Transcriber's note: Rendering 1]
"In a single gap,
Fast froze together other two I saw,
So that one head was his companion's cap:
And as a famished man a crust might gnaw,
So gnawed the upper one the wretch beneath,
Just where the neck-bone's marrow joins the brain:
Not otherwise did Tydeus fix his teeth
On Menalippus' temples in disdain.
While thus he mumbled skull and hair and all,
I cried: 'Ho! thou who show'st such bestial hate
Of him on whom thy ravenous teeth so fall,
Why feedest thou thus? On this agreement state:
That, if thou have good reason for thy spite,
Knowing you both, and what his crime was, I
Up in the world above may do thee right,
Unless the tongue I talk with first grow dry.'
From his foul feast that sinner raised his jaw,
Wiping it on the hair, first, of the head
Whose hinder part his craunching had made raw.
Then thus: 'Thou wouldst that I renew,' he said,
'The agony which still my heart doth wring,
In thought even, ere a syllable I say;
But if my words may future harvest bring
To the vile traitor here on whom I prey
Of infamy, then thou shalt hear me speak,
And see my tears too. I know not thy mien,
Nor by what means this region thou dost seek;
But by thy tongue thou'rt sure Florentine.
Know then, Count Ugolino once was I,
And this Archbishop Ruggieri: fate
Makes us close neighbors--I will tell thee why.
'Tis needless all the story to relate,
How through his malice, trusting in his words,
I was a prisoner made and after slain.
But that whereof thou never canst have heard,
I mean how cruelly my life was ta'en,
Thou shalt hear now, and thenceforth know if he
Have done me wrong. A loophole in the mew
Which hath its name of Famine's Tower from me,
And where his doom some other yet must rue,
Had shown me now already through its cleft
Moon after moon, when that ill dream I dreamed
Which from futurity the curtain reft.
He, in my vision, lord and master seemed,
Hunting the wolf and wolf-cubs on the height
Which screeneth Lucca from the Pisan's eye:
With eager hounds, well trained and lean and light,
Gualandi and Lanfranchi darted by,
With keen Sismondi--these the foremost went;
But after some brief chase, too hardly borne,
The sire and offspring seemed entirely spent,
And by sharp fangs their bleeding sides were torn.
When before morn from sleep I raised my head,
I heard my boys, in prison there with me,
Moaning in slumber and demanding bread.
If thou weep not, a savage thou must be:
Nay, if thou weep not, thinking of the fear
My heart foreboded, canst thou weep at aught?
Now they woke also, and the hour was near
When used our daily pittance to be brought.
His dream made each mistrustful; and I heard
The door of that dread tower nailed up below:
Then in my children's eyes, without a word,
I gazed, but moved not; and I wept not: so
Like stone was I within, that I could not.
They wept, though, and my little Anselm cried,
'Thou look'st so! Father, what's the matter, what?'
But still I wept not, nor a word replied,
All that long day, nor all the following night,
Till earth beheld the sun's returning ray;
And soon as one faint gleam of morning light
Stole to the dismal dungeon where we lay,
And soon as those four visages I saw
Imaging back the horror of my own,
Both hands through anguish I began to gnaw;
And they, believing want of food alone
Compelled me, started up, and cried, 'Far less,
Dear father, it will torture us if thou
Shouldst feed on us! Thou gavest us this dress
Of wretched flesh--'tis thine, and take it now.'
So to relieve their little hearts, at last
I calmed myself, and, all in silence, thus
That and the next day motionless we past.
Ah thou hard earth! why didst not ope for us?
On the fourth morning, Gaddo at my feet
Cast himself prostrate, murmuring, 'Father! why
Dost thou not help me? Give me food to eat."
With that he died: and even so saw I,
As thou seest me now, three more, one by one,
Betwixt the fifth day and the sixth day fall;
By which time, sightless grown, o'er each dear son
I groped, and two days on the dead did call:
But, what grief could not do, hunger did then.
This said, he rolled his eyes askance, and fell
To gnaw the skull with greedy teeth again,
Strong as a dog upon the bony shell.
Ah Pisa! shame of all in that fair land
Where _si_ is uttered, since thy neighbors round
Take vengeance on thee with a tardy hand,
Broke be Capraja's and Gorgona's bound!
Let them dam Arno's mouth up, till the wave
Whelm every soul of thine in its o'erflow!
What though _'twas said_ Count Ugolino gave,
Through treachery, thy strongholds to the foe?
Thou needst not have tormented so his sons,
Thou modern Thebes!--their youth saved them from blame--
Brigata, Hugh, and those two innocent ones
Whom, just above, the canto calls by name."
[Transcriber's note: Rendering 2; the dash at the end of each
line is probably a typesetting artifact; all the poetic lines
are run together.]
I saw two _persons_ frozen in one hole,--
so that one head to the other was hat:--
and as bread in hunger is eaten,--
so the uppermost his teeth into the other stuck,--
there where the brain is joined to the nape.--
Not otherwise did Tydeus gnaw--
the temples of Menalippus through disdain--
than he did the skull and the other things.--
O thou who showest by so bestial token--
hatred over him whom thou eatest,--[Footnote 95]
tell me the why, said I: on such condition,--
that, if thou with reason of him complainest,--
knowing who you are, and his offence,--
in the world above I also may repay thee for it,--
if that [tongue] with which I speak does not _become_ dry.
The mouth [he] raised from the beastly [Footnote 96] food,--
that sinner, wiping it on the hair--
of the head which he had disfigured (maimed) behind.--
Then [he] began: Thou wishest that I renew--
desperate grief, which me to the heart oppresses,--
even only thinking, before I speak of it.--
But if my words must (may) be a seed--
that will bear fruit of infamy to the traitor I gnaw,--
thou shalt see me both speak and weep.--
I know not who thou be nor by what means--
art thou come here below; but Florentine--
_thou_ seemest to me truly, when I hear thee.--
Thou shouldst know that I was Count Ugolino,--
and this Archbishop Ruggieri:--
now I'll tell thee why I am such [Footnote 97] neighbor.--
How by the means of his evil mind,--
trusting in him, I was taken--
and then killed, there is no need of telling.--
But that which _thou_ canst not have heard, (known), [Footnote 98]
that is, how cruel my death was,--
thou shalt hear; and [thou] shalt know whether he hath done me wrong.--
A narrow hole within the mew-- [Footnote 99]
which from me has the title of Hunger,--
and in which it needs that others be confined,--
had shown me through its opening--
many moons already, when I had the fatal dream--
which tore from me the veil of the future.--
This [man] seemed to me leader and lord,--
driving the wolf and wolf-cubs [Footnote 100] to the mountain,
for which the Pisans cannot see Lucca.--[Footnote 101]
With hounds, [she-hounds,] lean, keen on the scent,
and well trained, (_cagne magre studiose e conte_,)--
Gualandi with Sismondi, and with Lanfranchi--
had [he] put before him in the van.--
After a short run they seemed to me borne down,--
the father and the sons, and by those sharp teeth--
I deemed their sides torn open.--
When I became awake ere the morning--
I heard weeping in their sleep my children,--
who were with me, and ask for bread.--
Indeed thou art cruel if thou dost not already grieve,--
thinking of what to my heart was then foreboded:--
and if thou weepest not, at what art thou wont to weep?--
They were now awake, and the hour was drawing near--
when food used to be brought in,--
and his dream gave each misgivings.--
And _then_ I heard the door bolted [Footnote 102] below--
in the horrible tower: whereat I looked--
into the face of my children without saying a word.--
I was not weeping, so was I petrified (_impietrai_) within:--
they were weeping; and my little Anselm--
said: Thou lookest so! Father, what aileth thee?--
Yet I shed no tear, nor answered I--
all that day, nor the following night,--
until another sun arose over the world.--
As soon as a little gleam of light (_un poco di raggio_) began to creep--
into the doleful prison, and I saw in four faces my own very image,
both my hands through pain I bit;--
and they, thinking that I did it for wish of food, instantly arose,--
and said: Father, far less painful will it be to us--
if thou eatest of us; thou didst dress--
[us with] this miserable flesh, do thou take it off.--
I then calmed myself, not to make them more wretched.--
That day and the next we all lay silent:--
alas! cruel earth, why didn'tst thou open?--
After we had reached the fourth day--
Gaddo threw himself prostrate at my feet,--
saying: Father mine, why dost thou not help me?--
There he died; and, as thou seest me,--
did I see the three fall one by one,--
betwixt the fifth day and the sixth, whereat I began,--
already blind, to grope over each:--
and three days I called them after they were dead.--
Then more than the grief did the fasting overwhelm me.--
When he had said this, with eyes distorted--
he resumed the loathsome skull between his teeth,--
which, like a dog's, stuck to the bone.--
Ah Pisa! disgrace to the people--
of the fair land where the _si_ sounds;--[Footnote 103]
as thy neighbors are slow to punish thee,--
let Capraja and Gorgona [Footnote 104] arise,--
and build a dam on Arno's mouth--
that may drown every mother's child in thee.--
For if Count Ugolino had the name--
of having defrauded thee of thy castles,--
thou shouldst not have put the children to such torture.--
Innocent were by their youthful age,--
Modern Thebes! Uguccione and Brigata,--
and the other two whom my song has mentioned."
[Footnote 95: _Ti mangi_, "thou selfishly holdest for
thy dainty food." This is one of those idioms expressed by
the reciprocal pronoun "ti," almost impossible to translate.
Its meaning is felt only by the native Italian.]
[Footnote 96: _Fiero_, here as the carcass on which a
beast of prey will feed, from _fiera_, savage beast.]
[Footnote 97: _Tal vicino_, a neighbor so barbarously
distressing another.]
[Footnote 98: _Inteso Udire_, hear by chance;
_ascoltare_, to listen, _intendere_, to understand
what you hear, or are told.]
[Footnote 99: _Muda_, the place where the republic's
eagles were kept during moulting-time. _Mudare_, to
moult.]
[Footnote 100: Ugolino had the dream while suffering the
acute pangs of hunger. He dreamt of a famished wolf and its
whelps, hunted by she-hounds, under which allegory he
recognizes the Ghibellines, himself being a Guelf.]
[Footnote 101: _San Giuliano_, a mountain between
Pisa and Lucca.]
[Footnote 102: The Pisans, about eight months after Ugolino's
imprisonment, bolted the dungeon's massive doors, locked
them, and threw the keys into the Arno.]
[Footnote 103: Dante calls the language of Southern France
the language of _oc_, and the Italian the language of
_si_; both _oc_ and _si_ meaning "yes."]
[Footnote 104: Two small islands at the mouth of the Arno.]
We had marked one or two more pieces for transcription, but we
deem it useless; for a diligent collation of Mr. Parsons's text
with the literal translation we have given _ad calcem_ will
at once convince the reader of the faithfulness of the work. Of
course, it would be absurd to expect that words were rendered for
words. It is simply impossible. Again: there are words which
cannot be rendered. We know the Italian language pretty well--and
why shouldn't we?--yet we have never been able to find the
Italian word corresponding with the English "home"; nor have
twenty-three years of close and earnest study of the English
language yet enabled us to find an English word corresponding
with the Italian _vagheggiare_. We say, "He was lost in the
contemplation of a picture:" the Italian will simply say,
"_Vagheggiava la pittura._" Translate, if you can, "L'amante
vagheggia la sua bella!" You can do it no more than the Italian
can render with corresponding meaning the words, "Home! sweet
home!"
In our opinion a too literal translation will not give us Dante;
it will only give his words. Although we must admit that the
meaning of the word, as it conveys the idea, must be scrupulously
rendered as well as the idiom, yet it is evident that too great
an anxiety in translating the word into that which bears the
greatest resemblance to the original may lead into a
misconception or misrepresentation of the author's idea. In an
elaborate article in the _Atlantic Monthly_, of August,
1867, the word _height_, employed by Mr. Longfellow in his
translation of Dante, (_Purgat_, xxviii. v. 106,) receives
the preference over _summit_, employed by Cary. True,
_height_ is the literal rendition for _altezza_; yet
Dante there employs _altezza_ not in its literal meaning,
which is one of measurement, but in that of a _summit_, or a
_top_. A comparison with parallel cases in the
_Commedia_ will bear us out in our remark. We must not be
understood as if we meant to prefer Cary to Longfellow. By no
means: for the former gives us Cary's Dante, whereas the latter
gives us, if we may be allowed the expression, _Dante's
Dante._ Which remark, however, must not be taken as if we were
disposed to endorse the fidelity of every line of the American
translator.
{220}
The very narrow limits to which he has confined himself often
place him under the necessity of employing words which convey not
the original's idea; while, on the other hand, often must he add
words in order to fill up his line; for example,
"When he had said this, with _his_ eyes distorted."
That _his_ Dante never put there; why, it is a pleonasm.
While we do not like nor did ever like the freedom of Cary, nay,
have felt indignant at the liberties he has taken with the text,
we are amazed at the boldness with which Mr. Longfellow has
endeavored to master his Procrustean difficulties; but we give
preference to the work of Dr. Parsons, because his translation is
easy (_disinvolta_, the Italians would call it) and yet
faithful; it is poetical, and yet we challenge our readers to
point to any idea which is not conveyed to the English mind in
scrupulous fidelity to Dante's ideas. He sits in Alighieri's
chair, and he is at home.
Were we requested by him who knew Italian only moderately as to
the easiest method to understand and enjoy Dante, we would say:
Read the text, collating it verse for verse with Longfellow; then
read Parsons. Yet, to be candid, we hope no American scholar will
form his idea of Dante's transcendental merit on the translation
of Mr. Longfellow, who, it must be admitted, has done more
meritorious work in behalf of Dante than the one hundred thousand
and one who have written comments on him. But one feels a painful
sensation in alighting from Dante's text on Longfellow's
translation, whereas the transition from the perusal of the
original to Parsons's causes no jerking in our soul, and the
pleasure, _decies repetita_, never abates. To the Italian
scholar Mr. Longfellow's translation will never prove
satisfactory.
Lest our readers should think that we are _blind_ admirers
of Dr. Parsons, we will conclude this part of our paper with the
remark that we wish different words were in a few occasions
employed by him. Thus, for instance, the word, "in blackest
letters," (_Inf_. c. iii, v. 10,) do not convey the full
meaning of Dante's "parole di colore oscuro." Of course the
doctor can easily defend his rendition (and we know he long
pondered on the suitableness of the word) with the obvious remark
that a _scoundrel_ may be _black_ without being an
Abyssinian, hence his "blackest letters" must be taken in a moral
sense; yet it requires an after-thought to understand it, whereas
the word "oscuro" at once hints at something black in itself and
dreadful in its forebodings. But what English word will convey
the idea?
Our article, incomplete as it is, would yet appear more deficient
were we not to give our readers a general idea of what the
_Divina Commedia_ is, what it proposes to convey to the
reader's mind. Were we to form an idea of the nature of this poem
from what has been written about it, we should call it _a
saddle_. For there is no system, theological, philosophical,
or political, the supporters whereof have not taken their proofs
from Dante. According to some, Dante was a Catholic devotee;
while others, especially in these our days, will represent him as
the most determined and conscientious foe of everything Catholic,
_et sic de ceteris_.
{221}
In the language of an accurate modern Italian scholar, "Dante
lifted the Italian language from its cradle, and laid it on a
throne: in spite of the rudeness of the times not yet freed from
barbarism, he dared to conceive a poem, in which he embodied
whatever there was most abstruse in philosophical and theological
doctrines; in his three canticles he massed whatever was known in
the scientific world; after the example of Homer and Virgil, he
knew how to select a national subject which would interest all
Italy, nay, all whose hearts were warmed by the warmth of
Catholic faith; in a word, he became the mark either of decay or
of prosperity in the Italian literature, which was always
enhanced according as his divine poem was studied and
appreciated, or laid aside and neglected." [Footnote 105]
[Footnote 105: Cav. G. Maffei,
_Storia Lit. Ital._ I. iii.]
Dante was born in Florence, in March, 1265, and died in Ravenna
an exile in 1321, September 14. His father's name was Alighiero
degli Alighieri. His education was as perfect as the times could
afford in science, belles-lettres, and arts. When only nine years
old he became acquainted with Beatrice di Folco Portinari, a
young damsel of eight summers, but endowed with great gifts of
soul and body, and her praises he sang in prose and verse, and to
her he allotted a distinguished place in paradise. Dante served
his country faithfully both in the councils of peace and under
the panoply of war. When only thirty-five years old, he attained
the highest dignity in the gift of his countrymen. On the
occupation of Florence by Charles of Valois, whose pretensions he
had opposed and so far thwarted, Dante was banished from
Florence, (Jan. 27, 1302.) At the time, he was in Rome
endeavoring to interest Pope Boniface VIII. in behalf of his dear
Florence. Dante never saw his native place again, but after
nineteen years of exile and poverty he died highly honored and
very tenderly cared for by the Polentas, the masters of Ravenna.
Dante was the author of many excellent works; but to the
_Divina Commedia_he owes that fame by which he stands of all
the Italians _facile princeps_. At first, it was his
intention to write his poem in Latin verse; but seeing that that
language was not understood by all, and many even among the
educated laity could not read it, and just then the great
transformation of the new language taking place he wisely
conceived the plan of gathering all the words which were then
used from the Alps to the sea, and exhibited a uniformity of
sound and formation, and thus to write a poem that might be
called national, and at the same time be a bond that would unite
all the Italian hearts. This may be looked upon as the political
or patriotic aim of his work. A moral end had he then in view:
thus, laying down as the principle of common destiny that man was
created for the double end of enjoying an imperishable happiness
hereafter, to be attained by securing a happiness in this world,
which should arise from attending to the pursuits of virtue, in
_Paradise_ he described the former, which cannot be attained
without a soul entirely detached from the affections of this
earth, a process of schooling one's self and purification so well
represented by what he imagines to have witnessed in
_Purgatory_. But as the soul needs be animated to do works
of justice by the promise of reward, as well as by the
intimidation of deadly punishment, so he depicts the horrors to
which the lost people, those who were dead to even the aspiration
of a virtuous nature, will be doomed in _Hell_.
Naturally, this triple state of the soul, lost, redeeming
herself, glorified, gave him a chance of embodying into his work
theological expositions of the duties of man, of the working of
grace, and of the economy of religion; revelation, natural
religion, and science, all in turn lend him a helping hand.
{222}
And because examples should be adduced to practically prove the
truth of his assertions, he freely quotes from the past and from
the present; and while he is perfectly alive to the importance of
placing in high relief the beautiful deeds of those who gained
glory in paradise because of their being faithful to the behests
of faith and religion in whatever concerns our relations to God,
ourselves, and our neighbors, at the same time, his heart burning
with love for his country, he will admit of no mitigation in the
Conduct Of such as he considers unfaithful to it or in the least
hostile to that Florence he loved so well.
And here we pause. We have not done justice to the subject: we
have not said all we could wish about Dante and Mr. Parsons. Yet
we hope the few remarks we have made will enkindle in the breast
of some of our readers a desire of becoming better acquainted
with the father of Italian literature, the idol of the Italian
student, the _Fiero Ghibellino_:
"Onorate l'altissimo Poeta."
----------
Aspirations.
O dread Jehovah! who before the world
Had being dwelt eternal and alone,
Ere yet our planet on its path was hurled
Through space, ere angel or archangel shone,
Ere waves had learned to roll or winds to sweep,
And darkness brooded on the mighty deep!
Thy glance searched through infinity around,
And there was none save thee; thy spirit warm
Moved over chaos, and its vast profound
Heaved up a thousand worlds, dark, without form.
"Let there be light!" And, kindled at thy ray,
Burst radiant morning teeming with the day.
And what am I to thee? A raindrop placed
In an o'erteeming cloud?
A snowflake drifting o'er the northern waste
When winds are loud?
An atom or a nothing where sublime
Worlds, planets piled, thy praise unceasing chime?
Not so; for in thy living image made,
Conscious of will, of immortality,
In thy tremendous attributes arrayed,
Like thee, a Lord, yielding alone to thee--
What awful dignity! what power divine!
A semblance of infinitude is mine.
{223}
Yet did thy breath no less
Create me; sprung from thy eternal fires,
I glow; without thee, I am nothingness;
Thy wisdom guides me and thy love inspires.
"Give me thy heart"--O strange benignity!
What is a mortal's heart, O God! to thee?
My bursting heart expands
To meet thee, and thy presence weighs me down:
He who contains the heavens within his hands,
Annihilating systems with his frown,
Comes clad in garments of mortality
To dwell on this dim, shadowy earth with me.
For what shall I exchange thee? For the shine
Of worldly pomp and pageantry and power?
This spark, within eternal and divine,
Spurns the false baubles of a fleeting hour.
Thou art all glory, power, infinity--
Thou _art_; what can I want, possessing thee?
Thou shalt unchanged behold
The starry host, quenched like a firebrand, die;
The firmament is as a vesture rolled
Around thee--as a vesture 'tis cast by.
A thousand years are nothing in thy sight--
Or as a watch that passes in the night.
And when this earth shall fly
To atoms; when the mountains shall be tossed
As chaff; when like a scroll rolls back the sky,
And Nature and her laws for ever lost;
When thou shalt speak in fire the dread command
And hurl it from the hollow of thy hand--
What hope for me? Thy promises sublime
That o'er the wreck of worlds I shall survey,
With eye unmoved, beyond the touch of Time,
The stars grow dark, the melting heavens decay,
And sit arrayed in immortality
In peace eternal and supreme with thee.
C. E. B.
----------
{224}
Shall we have a Catholic Congress?
All our readers must have read with interest the account given of
the last Catholic Congress at Malines. The importance and utility
of such assemblies are generally understood. Shall we have a
Catholic Congress? The feasibility of introducing it into the
United States can scarcely be doubted. The people here are more
accustomed to self-government than in Europe. We are thoroughly
acquainted with the management and rules of popular, deliberative
assemblies. We have learned members of the clergy, and educated
laymen, who appreciate the value of a congress, and are competent
to render its workings practical and make its deliberations
effective. The episcopacy is ever ready to aid undertakings for
the benefit of religion. There can, therefore, be no doubt of
obtaining the necessary sanction from the ecclesiastical
hierarchy for the assembling of the congress.
Who, then, will begin it? And when will it be held? Many earnest
Catholics of the country, who have seen the great benefits
derived to Belgium and France from the congresses at Malines; and
to Germany from those at Munich and elsewhere; who have witnessed
the powerful influence for propagating doctrines and
concentrating forces of the sectarian or philanthropical
assemblies which annually meet in New York or elsewhere, are
asking these questions. Our forces are scattered; a congress
would unite them. There is no centre, no unanimity, no harmony of
action among us in reference to many important matters which
might be treated of in a congress.
Let us briefly enumerate some of the objects which could be
discussed and studied in an assembly of our learned clergy and
educated laity.
FREE SUNDAY AND DAY SCHOOLS, their regulation and amelioration,
might be one of the objects. In large cities like New York,
Baltimore, Boston, and Philadelphia, where Catholics are, many of
them, wealthy and instructed, the teachers of parochial or Sunday
schools are often highly capable of conducting their
establishments. The large cities afford so many opportunities of
study and improvement that every one can learn. But in the poor
country districts, how is it? The teachers are isolated. They
need more system. There is no central point to which they may
look for light. The rural clergy in remote districts are often
suffering from want of some large and powerful organization which
could assist them in their labors, either for the improvement of
their schools, their choirs, etc., or for the counteracting of
Protestant propagandism.
The influence which has been exercised on education in Belgium by
the Catholic congresses is well known. The labors of the German
Catholic congresses is not so public. The Nineteenth General
Assembly of the Catholic associations of Germany took place at
Bamberg, in Bavaria, during the interval between the 31st of
August and the 3d of September, A.D. 1868. These German
congresses, like those of Belgium, are composed of laymen as well
as ecclesiastics. They exclude all political questions from their
sessions.
{225}
Their only aim is to sustain and support the Catholic cause. In
the three first meetings, one at Mayence, in 1848, under the
presidency of the Chevalier Buss; the other at Breslau, presided
over by M. Lieber, while the city was in a state of siege, in
1849; and in the third, held at Ratisbon in 1850, the members
organized a unity of action among the societies of St. Vincent de
Paul, established schools and reading-rooms in the interest of
Catholic literature, and watched over the religious wants of the
Germans in Paris and throughout the rest of France. The Congress
of Ratisbon, presided over by Count Joseph de Stolberg, founded
the Society of St. Boniface, which has since then realized the
sum of $700,000, and by this means established one hundred and
ten missions and one hundred and fifty schools for the poor
German Catholics living in Protestant countries.
Münster, in Westphalia, had a Congress in 1852. The president was
the Baron of Andlau. In it was discussed the method which the
Catholic associations could take to promote Christian education
and to found a Catholic university. These deliberations were
continued the following year at the Vienna Congress, where Dr.
Zell presided. In 1856, at another Congress, in which Count
O'Donnel was president, the foundation of children's asylums was
discussed. Salzburg was proposed as the seat of the Catholic
university. The Salzburg Congress, in 1857, was specially
occupied with this project, and with the means of developing the
power of the Catholic press, founding Catholic publication
societies, and giving pecuniary aid to the Catholics of the East.
At Freyburg, in 1859, the Congress, presided over by the Count de
Brandis, treated of the Catholic press and religious music. The
Thirteenth Congress at Munich, in 1861, founded the literary
review known as the _Litterarischer Handweiser_, edited by
Hulskam and Rump, at Münster.
The Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, in the following year, took up
again the question of the establishment of a Catholic university.
A committee was appointed to found it; but the government opposed
them. This rather excited than diminished the zeal of the
persevering German Catholics. Professor Moeller, of Louvain, on
this occasion said: "_The word impossible is not
Christian._" There was not one of those congresses that did
not oppose the secularization of education; not one of them that
did not materially and morally aid the cause of Christian
doctrine.
In these German congresses we have a good model to imitate.
Isolated attempts to obtain public support for our own schools
will rarely if ever succeed. There must be union; a union of the
Catholic brain, intelligence, and wealth, not only in one state,
but all over the country.
Our CATHOLIC REFORMATORIES is another object worthy the attention
of a Catholic congress. No one can exaggerate the importance of
these institutions. That of New York, supported and maintained by
our good and zealous archbishop, has produced incalculable
benefits in our city already. A Catholic congress would
strengthen the hands of our zealous prelate; would increase the
efficiency of the institution; would encourage the Catholics of
other cities, where they are not already established, to found
similar establishments for the orphaned or homeless children who
swarm in our country. How many of the poor sons and daughters of
our Catholic emigrants are lost for ever to faith and virtue in
our cities!
{226}
Will not their blood cry out on the last day against their
fellow-Christians, who have the wealth and the intelligence, but
not the zeal, to save them from a life of crime and ignominy?
The ST. VINCENT DE PAUL SOCIETIES could also profit by union of
action among the different conferences throughout the country. In
the South, especially, the war has multiplied widows and orphans.
The poor there have not the same advantages as in the North. Some
of the dioceses were poor before the war. They are now all very
poor. The bishops and priests are trying to build up what the
sword or the cannon destroyed. It is true there are regular
assemblies of the different conferences; but they need a stronger
impulse from without to make them flourish as they should and as
they are needed.
Then there is the question of RELIGIOUS MUSIC, [Footnote 106]
which none of the European congresses ever omit in their
deliberations.
[Footnote 106: Professor Jacovacci, of the Propaganda
College, in a recent circular to the bishops, urges this
point on the next General Council.]
We are not disposed to find fault; but every one knows that the
music of our churches is frequently anything but rubrical or
ecclesiastical. We are in favor of the best music; the very best,
whether it be figured or plain chant; but let it be at least
CHURCH music, not rehashed operas. We know that many of the
pastors are unable to procure singers who are competent to render
Catholic music as it should be in our churches. We need a
Catholic training-school of music. A Catholic conservatory might
easily be formed in New York. It is no exaggeration to say that
the best of the foreign musicians in the United States are
Catholics, whether they be remarkable for their skill with
instruments or for the culture of their voices. There is besides
much native talent, which only needs the opportunity to become
distinguished. Let there be founded a national Catholic
conservatory of music, with prizes and exhibitions; let the
members of it see that their efforts will be even pecuniarily and
profitably remunerated, and we venture to predict that in a short
time America will stand as high as her European sisters in
religious music. Toward the close of the last Malines Congress, a
multitude of Belgian Catholic amateurs gave an oratorio on the
_Last Judgment_, which was magnificent. A Catholic
conservatory of music in New York could give similar
entertainments, as an appropriate termination to our Catholic
congresses, and be able thereby to pay all its expenses, and have
even much left with which to remunerate its members.
LIBRARIES, READING-ROOMS, and the PRESS could also be discussed.
Nothing will do more good in a community than a supply of good
reading matter. We have already discussed the method of founding
family and Sunday-school libraries in the pages of this magazine.
A Catholic congress would encourage those who wished to found
them; would bring out the energies of many of the laity and
clergy who only seek a good opportunity to display them. In this
respect we might learn a lesson from many of the Protestant
sects. Whatever we may think of the real zeal of Protestants,
however much we may condemn their external show of piety, their
confounding Christian charity with philanthropism, we must admire
the energy which they manifest in the cause of education. No
church of theirs but has its Bible class, its well-organized
Sunday-school, its Sunday-school library, its young men's
association, reading-room, and newspaper.
{227}
No doubt these are but the accidentals of Christianity; but they
help very much in propagating or sustaining the essentials.
It is certain that our CATHOLIC PRESS does not receive all the
support which it deserves. We have Catholic newspapers, which
could be rendered much more useful and efficient were they better
patronized; and as for our magazine, our readers must judge
whether we do not endeavor our utmost to satisfy their
intellectual wants. In Europe, every petty, poor Catholic
community is willing to support a journal. We often find many
reviews flourishing in countries far less wealthy and populous
than our own. Ought not the five millions of Catholics of the
United States to give THE CATHOLIC WORLD a subscription list of
at least fifty thousand? And if they do not, what is the reason?
Is it because they are poor? No, but because there is no central
point from which the current of electricity can be sent leaping
through the brain and heart of our population. Let us have a
congress for these purposes also.
Then there is the project of a CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY. Every day we
read of wealthy gentlemen leaving donations of thousands of
dollars to educational establishments belonging to the state or
to religious denominations other than Catholic. In Europe this is
also a common custom. We have read of Mr. Peabody's donation to
Yale College. Girard, an infidel, founded the institution in
Philadelphia which bears his name. Our Catholic millionaires of
New York and other cities, we are sure, only need to be asked to
show their generosity in the founding of a Catholic university.
Several of the petty German states have theirs. Even impoverished
Ireland has had the courage to originate one. Will not rich
America follow her example? What is wanting? Not the money; not
the patronage; not the ability to conduct it; but simply that
there is no united, powerful body of Catholics to undertake it.
Give us a congress, and we can have this union; a congress of the
brain, good sense, and faith of the American church.
Are we to have a school of CATHOLIC ARTISTS in this country?
Shall we do anything to promote the Catholic arts of painting,
sculpture, and architecture? What style of church ornament shall
we keep? Shall we cultivate the taste of our clergy in these
matters? After what fashion shall our churches be built? Will we
make no effort to unite the Catholic architects and artists of
the country to consult, compare their experiences, and improve
their taste and talent by mutual contact? They individually
desire to be brought together. There is no true artist who does
not wish for an opportunity to be appreciated; and where can so
just an appreciation of an artist's work be had as in a Catholic
congress of American Catholic talent which would influence even
the remotest parts of our vast country?
Our priests all feel the want more or less of a central point to
which they can look with safety for _proper vestments, altar
furniture_, and _altar wine_, It may be suspected without
rashness that many of the merchants who sell wines for the altar
are not always reliable. In many cases the wine is adulterated.
In such a state of uncertainty, would it not be well to have a
"Bureau of Safety" established? Would it not be well to have some
authorized and reliable agents who could transport to this
country, cheaply and safely, some of the treasures of
Europe--vestments, chalices, pictures, and the like--instead of
obliging every priest to depend on his own individual knowledge,
or leave him at the mercy of some purely mercantile monopoly?
{228}
If there were a Catholic congress, all this state of disorder
could be remedied, if not in one year, at least in two or three.
There are zealous Catholics enough in the country to devote a
portion of their time to the general interests of religion.
The condition of CATHOLIC PRISONERS in jails or penitentiaries
could form not the least important object of a Catholic assembly.
There are many unfortunate members of our church in the prisons
on the neighboring islands of New York who are in the best
dispositions to profit by spiritual consolation, yet they have no
books, save the few which the devoted chaplain may give them when
charity affords him the necessary funds. The prisoners in more
remote districts are worse off. Does it not stir up the fire of
zeal in the heart of a Catholic to know that he can save a soul,
reclaim the vicious, and give consolation to a poor wretch who
may have unfortunately forgotten the sanctity prescribed by his
religion? Would not a supply of good books be a godsend to
Catholic prisoners? Would it not tend to reform them, to beguile
their weary hours, and sanctify them? Now, a Catholic congress
could establish a permanent committee, to see that the prisons of
the country were supplied with Catholic literature. If we want to
convert the United States, we must be in earnest about our work.
We must take every method that our means will enable us to use
and our piety suggest. Let Catholic doctrines percolate through
the veins of society not only by preaching in our churches, but
by spreading Catholic tracts, Catholic newspapers, Catholic books
in the city, in the country, in the work-house, even in the jail
and penitentiary. Let our religion be like its Founder, "going
about everywhere doing good:" "_pertransiit benefaciendo._"
Although centralization, in a political point of view, when
carried to excess, is injurious to liberty, too much
individualism is equally pernicious, for it entails too much
responsibility. A Catholic congress would not destroy individual
zeal, but only concentrate it. A Catholic congress could coerce
no man's will. It would only be an index to show men what they
could do; to ask them to be unanimous and to pull together.
The details of the congress could be arranged at its meeting. The
constitution and by-laws of the Malines congresses, or of those
which succeeded so admirably in Germany, could be adopted with
slight modifications. The approbation of the Holy Father would be
given to it as to those in Europe. Our venerable archbishops and
bishops would sanction it. The prelate in whose diocese it would
assemble might preside at its deliberations or appoint a
substitute. Committees would be appointed, some permanent, others
transitory.
In the interest of the laity, then, we ask for a Catholic
congress. We ask for it in the interest of the clergy also, who
are anxious to keep up their own tone of respectability, and at
the same time influence by unanimity the great work of the
conversion of the whole United States to Catholicity.
----------
{229}
Translated From Le Correspondant.
The Present Disputes in Philosophy and Science.
By Dr. Chauffaid, of The Imperial Academy Of Medicine.
I.
Philosophy or rather philosophical discussions are being renewed.
On the one hand, materialism rages like a tempest over the
regions of science; menacing our scientific, intellectual, and
moral past and future with destruction. On the other side, we
behold noble efforts, beautiful works, and eloquent
protestations, on the part of reason and liberty, in favor of the
dignity of human nature against the debasing tenets of
positivism. We know what shall be the result of this struggle.
Materialistic doctrines and hypotheses can never conquer the best
aspirations and real glory of humanity. But if final triumph is
certain, when will it take place? Immediately, or only after a
passing victory of the great philosophical error of the day? This
is a serious question; for a temporary victory by materialism
would be a fatal sign of our time, and humiliate our race beyond
anything that can be imagined. The philosophical discussions,
therefore, which have been raised around us are not a mere
useless noise; but they are the most important subject for our
consideration, bearing with them great destinies--those of
science, and perhaps of national life.
To appreciate the true character of the materialistic movement
which is stirring every layer of society, and whose action the
learned and the ignorant equally feel, we must examine all the
remote and proximate, latent and manifest, causes which influence
the currents, the ebb and flow of materialism. It would be well
to determine how actual materialism has its exclusive origin and
its new sources in the bowels of modern science; what new support
it has met with in recent scientific discoveries, and what are
the value and bearing of those discoveries.
In beholding the tumult which the partisans of the experimental
method in philosophy create, the enthusiasm which they show, and
the passionate defence of their theory, one would suppose they
had made a new conquest of the human mind, and made some
astounding discovery. Yet we know what the exact value of the
experimental method is. Why, then, so much nervous excitement
over it? Yet the excitement is probably only artificial; still it
has an aim. The experimental method is clamorously extolled for
the purpose of covering with its authority sophisms destructive
of all philosophy and of all science. This method is a great flag
under which all causes that are not science are sheltered. M.
Caro, in his excellent book, _Materialism and Science_, has
endeavored to dispel all confusion on this subject, and to
re-establish facts and the truth. Positivism--which must not be
confounded with positive science--tries to unite its destiny with
that of the experimental method; calling itself the necessary
fruit of the latter, the systematized result of a method which
subjects all visible nature to man. Positivism concludes from the
premises that it has the same certainty as the experimental
method.
{230}
M. Caro, with a strong hand, upsets all such pretensions. He
demonstrates that, if positivism has skilfully stolen the name
and some of the processes of positive science, the experimental
school, to which the positive sciences owe so much, owes nothing
to positivism. Taking for guide, in the study of the experimental
method, one of the _savants_ who understands it best, and
who, after practising it successfully, has exposed its precepts
with incomparable authority, M. Caro proves that this method is
not bound by the tyranny of positivism. "Nothing is less evident
to my eyes," he writes, "than the agreement of M. Cl. Bernard's
manner of thinking with certain essential principles of
positivism. His independence is clearly manifested especially in
regard to two points: Firstly, in opposition to the spirit of the
positive doctrine, he gives place to the idea _a priori_ in
the constitution of science. Secondly, contrary to one of the
most decided dogmas of the positivist school, he leaves a great
many open questions, and thus allows his readers to revert to
metaphysical conceptions for their solution."
In the thought of M. Cl. Bernard, the _a priori_ element
loses all absolute sense and becomes a purely relative and
accidental fact. It has no longer any of those eternal forms of
the understanding, of those necessary conceptions through the aid
of which the human mind sees and judges the things of nature,
contingent facts, and phenomena which happen before our eyes. It
is not that power, obscure yet admirable reflection of the divine
power, which enables us to apprehend the immutable relations of
things, and establishes science by compelling us, by an
irresistible attraction, to seek in their cause the reason of
phenomena. No; M. Cl. Bernard does not rise directly to that
alliance of the infinite and finite, of cause and effect, which
takes place in the active depths of the human mind. To this great
experimentalist the idea _a priori_ is revealed only in face
of experience; it is an instinct, a sudden illumination which
strikes and seizes the mind, when the senses act and perceive, as
impassible and mute witnesses. "Its apparition is entirely
spontaneous and individual. It is a particular sentiment, a
_quid proprium_, which constitutes the originality, the
invention, and genius of every man. It happens that a fact--that
an observation--remains for a long time before the eyes of a
_savant_ without inspiring him with anything, when suddenly
a ray of light flashes on him. The new idea appears then with the
rapidity of lightning, as a sort of sudden revelation." This
flash, this ray of light, is well known to medical tradition, and
often called tact, sense, and medical skill. These expressions
will exist notwithstanding the denials of a narrow science, which
thinks to ennoble itself by suppressing art. There are physicians
who, in face of the obscure manifestations of a disease,
perceive, with a rapid and sure intuition, the hidden relations
of the malady, its nature buried in the living depths of the
organization, its future tendencies and probable solutions. This
intuition has nothing mysterious in it, and is not the play of a
capricious fancy; it is the flash of light, the new idea, the
sudden revelation, of which M. Cl. Bernard, the learned
_savant_ and most severe of experimentalists, writes. This,
then, is what M. Cl. Bernard calls the idea _a priori;_
certainly he does not pretend nor think that he is writing
metaphysics.
{231}
Nevertheless, when we attentively consider it, is not this idea
_a priori_ a species of prolongation or consequence of the
necessary ideas, the true ideas _a priori_, of the human
mind? Is not the idea _a priori_ a perception of a cause
through its effects; at one time the perception of a contingent
and particular cause; and again the perception of a cause in
itself--of the supreme, necessary, and infinite cause? Does not
M. Cl. Bernard himself seem to admit metaphysical conceptions,
when, after considering the spontaneity of the intellect under a
general aspect, he writes as follows, "It may be said that we
have in the mind the intuition or sentiment of the laws of
nature, but we do not know their form"?
The experimental school has not, however, determined this point
of doctrine; it has so confusedly felt and expressed it that the
positivist school could not avoid refuting those rather vague
aspirations, and admit, without denying its own principles, those
soarings of the understanding in presence of facts. But the
experimental school, of which M. Cl. Bernard is the interpreter,
puts itself in opposition to positivism. He allows those high
truths which cannot be demonstrated by sensible phenomena to have
some place in science. He tells us that true science suppresses
nothing, but always seeks and considers, without being troubled,
those things which it does not understand. "Deny those things,"
says M. Cl. Bernard, "and you do not suppress them; you shut your
eyes and imagine that there is no light." Positivism could not be
more formally condemned by positive science.
Will it be pretended that, although the experimental school
accepts the order of metaphysical truths, it rejects, them
disdainfully when there is question of the natural sciences; and
that thus rejected by science they cannot be counted among the
serious knowledge of humanity? Nothing could be more unjust than
such a condemnation; for nothing proves that there is not another
knowledge besides that of experience. M. Cl. Bernard discovers,
even in the order of biological truths, capital truths which are
not at all experimental, susceptible of a _real
determinism_, to use the expression of which he is so fond.
When he tries to define life by using a word which expresses
exactly the idea, he calls it _creation_. In every living
germ he admits a _creating idea_, which is developed by
organization, and is derived neither from chemistry nor physical
nature. In fine, the experimental school, such as tradition
presents it to us and its ablest expounders teach it, must not be
confounded with _positivism_, which tries to steal its name
and flag.
The experimental school, healthy and fruitful, gives to
metaphysical truths their legitimate influence, their superior
and imperishable sight, and does not suppress them by a violent
and arbitrary decision. Especially, it does not resolve
difficulties by denying all other causes and activity than what
is purely material. The experimental school is not fatally
materialism.
Materialism is the legitimate consequence of positivism. The
positivist sect, at the beginning of its career, pretended to
take hold of materialism with a superb indifference and dogmatic
insolence, in presence of those eternal problems which, to the
honor of humanity, have always puzzled and tormented it. But it
is easy to show that most of the definitions and teaching of
positivist philosophy correspond with the materialist dogmas,
from which positivism pretended to hold itself aloof.
{232}
How could it be otherwise? Those supreme questions and their
answers are not isolated facts, distinct from our particular
knowledge, regarding the things of this world. They penetrate
necessarily into all our cognitions; become incarnate and visible
under the form of all the particular existences which we analyze.
We cannot give the character of one of those existences, without
this definite character implying a corresponding solution of the
primary truths, which were supposed to be entirely forgotten. All
the special science of positivism is identical with materialistic
interpretation; and one would have wished that the human mind had
not tried to ascend from these special sciences to general and
primary science and explain it like them. Was this possible? No;
and hence illusion is no longer possible. Positivism has
logically terminated in materialism.
To demonstrate this inevitable fusion, M. Caro examines one of
the absolute precepts of positivism, namely, the subjection of
psychology to cerebral physiology. He proves that this subjection
is only an indirect method of resolving both psychology and
cerebral physiology by materialism. Stuart Mill has been rejected
by the positivists for not having followed the founder of the
positivist school, resumed in the principle that there is no
psychology outside of biology. "Psychology, we are told," writes
M. Caro, "is identical with biology; faculties, consciousness
which observes them, attention which analyzes them, and, thanks
to memory, classes them; all these are in the dependence of the
organs on each other. This dependence is called by a very
expressive word: the affective and intellectual faculties become,
in positivist language, the _cerebral faculties_. The rest
follows. We are assured that there is identity between those two
relations: the intellectual and moral manifestations are to the
nervous substance what weight is to matter, that is to say, an
irreducible phenomenon, which in the actual state of our
knowledge is its own explanation. 'Just as the physician observes
that matter is heavy, so the physiologist proves that the nervous
substance thinks, without either of them being able to explain
why the one is heavy and the other thinks.'" [Footnote 107]
[Footnote 107: M. Littré, préface au livre intitulé
_Matérialisme et Spiritualisme_.]
"Let it be so," continues M. Caro; "yet which of the materialists
has ever pretended to explain why the nervous substance thinks?
They merely attest the existence of the fact. The real question
is to know if it is the nervous substance which thinks, and if it
can think. To affirm that it thinks is to close the question. I
take as witness M. Moleschott, whose teaching is not doubtful,
and which has been published with applause. What does he say in a
discourse recently delivered at Zurich? 'The identification of
spirit and matter is not an explanation; it is a fact, neither
more nor less simple, more nor less mysterious, than any other
fact; it is a fact like weight. No one assuredly pretends to
explain gravitation by means of distinctions between it and
matter.' Is there, I ask, an appreciable difference on this
question between the language of the present chief of the
positivists and that of the most decided positivists?"
A journal, devoted to the defence and propagation of scientific
materialism, _La Pensée Nouvelle_, proclaimed the same
doctrine: "The positivist school is a sect which proceeds from
materialism; it has no value or aim except through materialism."
{233}
II.
Materialism absorbs, therefore, the positivist school. It tries
to resolve the important questions regarding the origin and end
of man. It does not proscribe metaphysics on the pretence that it
wishes to know the eternal unknown, and approach the
inaccessible. It admits neither unknown nor inaccessible. It
substitutes for the primary causes of metaphysics, considered as
pure chimeras, other causes the reality of which it pretends to
prove. This is a bold but frank attitude, and preferable in every
respect to the constrained position of positivism.
How has materialism tried to solve the questions it proposes? It
cannot appeal to pure reason or to the revealing faculties of the
human understanding, affirming or denying God as primary cause of
existences, and the soul as secondary cause of the human person.
Where would be the authority of materialism if its process of
demonstration, if its methods were not separated from the process
and methods of traditional spiritualism? The latter cannot be
conquered on its own ground; it would always find there the
height of its moral inspirations, and the power of its
demonstrations. Materialism has felt this, and pretends to
repudiate both the methods and the doctrines of the old
metaphysics. Instead of asking the understanding for imaginary
means of demonstration, it proclaims its adherence to infallible
experience, its belief in the senses alone, and the analysis of
sensations. Just like positivism, it calls itself the immediate
production of the experimental method, and attributes to itself
the certitude which belongs to the positive and experimental
sciences. The old doubt should thus be dissipated, and man would
enjoy the full brightness of this universe, whose secrets would
no longer be redoubtable, and whose eternal and necessary laws
would be opposed to all idea of a higher origin, and government
regulated by any exterior will.
But let us leave aside for a moment the examination of those sad
illusions and past solutions and the part which experience has in
them. Let us consider at first, from the stand-point of method
alone, those problems of origin which materialism pretends to
resolve. How are those problems capable of being solved by the
experimental method? Such is the true question, and it is this
one the study of which completes the beautiful book of M. Caro.
"We shall not be opposed," says the eloquent author of the
_Idée de Dieu_, "by any unprejudiced _savant_, when we
assert that, in the actual state of science, no positivist dogma
authorizes conclusions like those of materialism on the problem
of the origin and ends of beings, on that of substances and
causes; that to give exact knowledge on these points is contrary
to the idea of experimental science; that this science gives us
the actual, the present, the fact, not the beginning of things;
at most, the immediate _how_, the proximate conditions of
beings, and never their remote causes; finally, that from the
moment materialism becomes an express and doctrinal negation of
metaphysics, it becomes itself another metaphysics; it falls
immediately under the control of pure reason, which may be freely
used to criticise its hypotheses, as it uses them itself to
establish them and bind them together."
This _a priori_ dogmatism imposes itself as a necessity on
materialism, and destroys the experimental character which it
loves.
{234}
The learned, devoted to the worship of positive science, are
obliged to admit this, and M. Caro cites, on this point, the
precious admission of an illustrious _savant_, M. Virchow,
whom the materialists claim as one of themselves. "No one, after
all," says M. Virchow, "knows what was before what is. ...
Science has nothing but the world which exists. ... Materialism
is a tendency to explain all that exists, or has been created, by
the properties of matter. Materialism goes beyond experience; it
makes itself a system. But systems are more the result of
speculation than of experience. They prove in us a certain want
of perfection which speculation alone can satisfy; for all
knowledge which is the result of experience is incomplete and
defective."
It is not a metaphysician who speaks thus; it is a _savant_,
who, in Germany, ranks at the head of experimental biology, who
leans to materialism, and admits, nevertheless, that materialism
has no other root than an undemonstrable _a priori_;
consequently M. Caro has the right with ironical good sense to
draw these conclusions: "Until materialism leaves that vicious
circle which logic traces around its fundamental conception;
until it succeeds in proving experimentally that that which is
has always been as it is in the actual form of the recognized
order of phenomena; so long as it cannot strip those questions of
their essentially transcendental character, and subject its
negative solutions to a verification of which the idea alone is
contradictory; until then--and we have good reason to think that
period far distant--materialism will keep the common condition of
every demonstration that cannot be verified. It may reason, after
a fashion, on the impossibility of conceiving a beginning to the
system of things, to the existence of matter and its properties,
but it will prove nothing experimentally, which is, according to
its principles, the only way of proving anything; it will
speculate, which is very humiliating for those who despise
speculation; it will recommence a system of metaphysics, which is
the greatest disgrace for those who profess to despise
metaphysics. We are continually reproached with the _a
priori_ character of our solutions concerning first causes.
Materialism must necessarily accept its share of the blame, no
matter how full it may be of illusions regarding its scientific
bearing and value, no matter how intoxicated with the conquest of
positive science with which it essays in vain to identify its
fortune and right."
We have just seen, with M. Caro, whether materialism can call
itself the faithful representation and direct product of the
experimental method. M. Janet, in one of those little volumes,
_Le Matérialisme Contemporain_, destined to a happy
popularity, and in which high reason and good science are made
clear and simple to convince better, shows us what is the value
of the solutions proposed, even nowadays, by materialism. The two
works of MM. Caro and Janet thus complete each other: the one
discusses the question of methods, and judges materialism in face
of its own work, and systematic development; the other asks it,
after its labors, whither the method it has used has led it, and
interrogates it on those questions of origin and end which it
treats and so boldly resolves.
{235}
III.
Materialism has two grand problems to solve: matter and life. No
one would hesitate to say that the first of these is within its
scope, and the solution easy for it. What should be better able
to teach us what matter is than a system which recognizes nothing
but matter? Has matter in itself the reason of its existence, the
reason especially of the motion which impels and moves it, causes
all its changes, and what seems now to be the only origin of all
its properties and of all its manifestations? M. Janet, in a
chapter particularly original, _La Matière et le Mouvement_,
demonstrates that matter cannot present the conditions of
absolute existence which are necessary to it if we admit nothing
above it. Materialism, instead of arriving at a substantial and
freed matter, has nothing ever before it but an intangible
unknown. To find nothing for basis of its affirmations but the
unknown, and pretend on this basis to build a philosophical
belief, seat the destinies of humanity on the unknown, is an
outrage on reason and good sense. What a chimerical enterprise!
"What would signify, I ask," writes M. Janet, "the pretensions of
materialism in a system in which one would be obliged to confess
that matter is reduced to a principle absolutely unknown? Is it
not the same to say that matter is the principle of all things,
in this hypothesis; and to assert that _x_, that is, any
unknown quantity, is the principle of all things? It would be as
if one should say, 'I do not know what is the principle of
things.' What a luminous materialism this is!" But let us leave
pure matter aside; although it touches and bounds us on every
side, it does not seem to contain the peculiar secret of our
origins and destinies. Let us go further and interrogate
materialism regarding life and living beings, among which we are
counted, and the study of which penetrates so deeply into our own
life.
Materialism pretends to explain the mysterious origin and first
appearance of life; and imagines that it can establish by
experience the conditions and cause of the formation of simple
and rudimentary organizations. The theory of spontaneous
generation answers these experimental conditions, and is the
proximate and sufficient cause of the existence of life. Having
obtained those primary organic forms, materialism explains the
immense multiplicity of living species by the gradual
transformation of the rudimentary organic forms, produced by
spontaneous generation; a transformation effected by natural
conditions. Spontaneous generation is consequently a primary
thesis of materialism.
"We see," says Lucretius, "living worms come out of fetid matter
when, having been moistened by the rain, it has reached a
sufficient degree of putrefaction. The elements put in motion and
into new relations produce animals." The whole theory and all the
errors of spontaneous generation are contained in these phrases.
The progress of the natural sciences gradually extinguished the
belief in spontaneous generation. In proportion as science
studied this pretended generation it disappeared, and ancestral
generation became evident. M. Pouchet has reawakened the
discussion of the question by transporting it into the study of
those lives of only an instant in duration, which the immense
multitude of animalcula presents. Those lives, still so little
known and so hard to observe in their rapid evolution, offered a
favorable field for confusion, premature assertion, and arbitrary
systems. To affirm their spontaneous generation, or demonstrate
their generation by germs detached from infinitely small
organizations in their complete development, was a task equally
obscure and apparently impenetrable to experimentation.
{236}
The one theory was opposed to all the known laws of life, while
the other was in conformity with those laws. It seemed,
therefore, that unless demonstrated by all the force of evidence,
the spontaneous generation of animalcula should find no
legitimate place in science. But not only was evidence always
wanting, but thanks to the wonderful ability displayed by M.
Pasteur; thanks to the beauty, precision, clearness, and variety
of the experiments performed by him; thanks to the penetrating
sagacity with which he has exposed the defects of the contrary
experiments of M. Pouchet and M. Jolly, all the evidence is in
favor of ancestral generation; and the Academy of Science, so
prudent and ordinarily so reserved in its judgments, has not
hesitated to pronounce openly in this sense. Let us hear the
eminent M. Cl. Bernard, judging spontaneous generation; even that
which, not daring to maintain the complete generation of the
being, sought refuge in the spontaneous generation of the ovulum
or germ, which being evolved produced the entire being:
"That generation," says M. Cl. Bernard, "which governs the
organic creation of living beings has been justly regarded as the
most mysterious function of physiology. It has been always
observed that there is a filiation among living beings, and that
the greatest number of them proceed visibly from parents.
Nevertheless there are cases in which this filiation has not been
apparent, and then some have admitted _spontaneous
generation_, that is, production without parentage. This
question, already very old, has been investigated in recent times
and subjected to new study. In France, many _savants_ have
rejected the theory of spontaneous generation, particularly M.
Pouchet, who defended the theory of spontaneous ovulation. M.
Pouchet wished to prove that there was no spontaneous generation
of the adult being, but of its egg or germ. This view seems to me
altogether inadmissible even as a hypothesis. I consider, in
fact, that the egg represents a sort of organic formula, which
resumes the evolutive conditions of a being determined by the
fact that it proceeds from the egg. The egg is egg only because
it possesses a virtuality which has been given to it by one or
several anterior evolutions, the remembrance of which it in some
sort preserves. It is this original direction, which is only a
parentage more or less remote, which I regard as being incapable
of spontaneous manifestation. We must have necessarily a
hereditary influence. I cannot conceive that a cell formed
spontaneously and without ancestry can have an evolution, since
it has had no prior state. Whatever may be thought of the
hypothesis, the experiment on which the proofs of spontaneous
generation rested were for the most part defective. M. Pasteur
has the merit of having cleared up the problem of spontaneous
generation, by reducing the experiments to their just value and
arranging them according to science. He has proved that the air
was the vehicle of a multitude of germs of living beings, and he
has shown that it was necessary before all to reduce the argument
to precise and well-formed observations.
"In order to express my thought on the subject of spontaneous
generation, I have only to repeat here what I have already said
in a report which I have had to make on this question; that is to
say, that in proportion as our means of investigation become more
perfect, it will be found that the cases of supposed spontaneous
generation must be necessarily classed with the cases of ordinary
physiological generation. This is what the works of M. Balbiani
and of MM. Coste and Gerbe have recently proved in reference to
the infusory animalcula."
{237}
These latter works, especially those of M. Balbiani, [Footnote
108] completely overturn the basis of the doctrine of spontaneous
generation. Those infusory animalcula which were supposed to be
produced by a silent self-formation are really produced by sexual
generation, and those germs floating in the atmosphere are real
eggs, the laying of which M. Balbiani discovered.
[Footnote 108: Balbiani "Sur l'Existence d'une
Reproduction sexuelle chez les Infusoires."]
Nevertheless, spontaneous generation has still some decided
partisans. Some, like Messrs. Pouchet and Jolly, still believe
the theory as _savants_. The observations which they trusted
in affirming spontaneous generation or ovulation still preserve
their value for them. It is not easy to give up one's ideas and
works. The children of our mind are often dearer to us than the
offspring of our blood. It requires a species of heroism for a
_savant_ to immolate what he has conceived with labor,
protected and defended against all assailers. But besides these
illusions and attachments which may be respected, interested
passion arose and transformed into aggression and violent quarrel
the peaceful discussions of science. _The Origin of Life_,
[Footnote 109] such is the title of a recent publication on
spontaneous generation; such is the problem which those who
nowadays maintain a cause scientifically lost pretend to resolve.
[Footnote 109: L'Origine de la Vie: Histoire de la Question
des Générations spontanées. Par le docteur George Pennetier,
avec une préface par le docteur Pouchet.]
The origin of life! Observe the general meaning of the terms;
there is question of life in itself, of the essence of all living
beings. Human life is a particular case of this general problem;
the solution of both is the same. Behind the animalcula and their
spontaneous apparition is man. The higher origin, the high
aspirations, the predestined end of which man thought he had the
right to feel proud--all these vanish like vain dreams and puffs
of pride in presence of the origin of primary life through the
energy of matter alone. It alone is the true creator, the only
cause, and it alone contains our end; beyond it there is nothing;
science shows it, at least that science which places spontaneous
generation at the top of its conceptions. The importance of the
consequences explains the reason why the partisans of materialism
have been so ardent in defence of their principles. If a simple
problem of chemistry had no more proofs in its favor than the
theory of spontaneous generation, no _savant_ worthy of the
name would have maintained it or founded on so fragile a basis a
multitude of scientific deductions. But there was question of the
order and constitution of the world, of the reason, of the being
of every creature, and hence the proofs seemed good and
sufficient to a materialism which calls itself scientific and
experimental. An aggressive polemic represented even as enemies
of progress, as retrograde spirits, all those who rejected errors
to which too easy a popularity had been given.
{238}
IV.
Spontaneous generation gave materialism a point of departure at
once rash and weak; bold if one looked behind, almost miserable
if one looked ahead! What efforts to draw out of some rudimentary
animalcula the regular development of the whole animal kingdom,
man included--that being who thinks and wills, who is conscious
of its acts and liberty, who possesses the notion of good and
evil, who aspires after the true and the beautiful, who feels
himself as cause and admits other causes in nature! How can the
abyss which separates those two extremities of living creation be
bridged? What omnipotence will be able to produce from these
infusoria the prodigious number, the infinite variety of those
animated beings, all those living species which, no matter how
profoundly or how far the world may be investigated, are almost
like each other, as it were immutable in their precipitate
succession, stationary even in motion!
The same science which affirmed spontaneous generation has not
balked before this enterprise, and it has pretended to prove the
hidden mechanism which, from the egg spontaneously laid, produces
the fearful immensity of animate forms! There have been found
naturalists, eminent _savants_ in other respects and
possessing great authority, like Lamarck and Darwin, who have
imagined that they discovered the laws of the transformation of
species.
M. Paul Janet, in the book which we cited above, has made a sharp
and searching criticism of the theories of Lamarck and Darwin. He
asks, in the first place, in what the hypothesis of a plan and of
a design of nature, otherwise called the doctrine of final
causes, would be contrary to the spirit of science. We must not
undertake phenomenal analysis with the premeditated design of
finding the phenomena conformable to an object decreed in
advance; this preconceived object should never take the place of
reason and be the explanation of the facts observed; such a
manner of proceeding is hardly scientific, and leads fatally to
arbitrary and erroneous conceptions. But does it follow that the
facts observed and analyzed in themselves should not, by their
collection and connection, express to the human intelligence a
superior design, a progressive and ascending harmony, which are
its final reason and vivifying spirit? To refuse in advance every
final cause is an error similar to that of imagining it
altogether and before the observation of the phenomena. Flourens
has well said: "We must proceed not from the final causes to the
facts, but from the facts to the final causes." These are the
fruitful principles, and this is true natural philosophy.
"The naturalists," says M. Janet, "imagine that they have
destroyed final causes in nature when they have proved that
certain effects result necessarily from certain given causes. The
discovery of efficient causes appears to them a decisive argument
against the existence of final causes. We must not say, according
to them, "that the bird has wings _for the purpose_ of
flying, but that it flies because it has wings." But in what,
pray, are these two propositions contradictory? Supposing that
the bird has wings to fly, must not its flight be the result of
the structure of its wings? And from the fact that the flight is
a result, we have not the right to conclude that it is not an
end. In order, then, that your materialists should recognize an
aim and a choice, must there be in nature effects without a
cause, or effects disproportioned to their causes? Final causes
are not miracles; to obtain a certain end the author of things
must choose secondary causes precisely adapted to the intended
effect.
{239}
Consequently, what is there astonishing in the fact that in the
study of those causes you should be able to deduce mechanically
from them their effects? The contrary would be impossible and
absurd. Thus, explain to us as much as you please that, a wing
being given, the bird must fly; that does not at all prove that
the wings were not given to it for the purpose of flying. In good
faith we ask, If the author of nature willed that birds should
fly, what could he do better than give them wings for that
object?
The demonstration of the reality of final causes, and of a
decreed and premeditated plan in nature, furnishes a primary and
powerful refutation of the systems which pretend to explain the
successive formation of organized beings by the sole action of
natural forces, acting fatally, petrifying, modifying,
transforming living matter in an unconscious and blind manner.
Lamarck and Darwin, as we have said, are the two naturalists who
have substituted most successfully a fatal, necessary, and in
some sort mechanical plan, instead of a premeditated plan,
realized by an intelligent and spontaneous cause. Lamarck
appealed especially to the action of means, habit, and want. The
combined action of those agents sufficed to him to conclude from
the rudimentary cell to man himself.
The action of means, exterior conditions, can modify the form and
the functions of living beings; this is a fact of which the
domestication of animals offers the most striking examples. But
does it follow that because we can modify certain animal and
vegetable species, we can therefore create their species? Can we
imagine the possibility of modifications so active and powerful
that they arrive at the most complex creations, at the
construction of the great organs of animal life, and of those
organs of the senses, so diverse and so marvellously adapted to
their functions? "For instance," says M. Janet, "certain animals
breathe through their lungs, and others by the bronchial tubes,
and these two kinds of organs are perfectly adapted to the two
means of air and water. How can we conceive that these two means
should be able to produce so complicated and so suitable
organizations? Is there a single fact among all those proved by
science which could justify so great an extension of the action
of means? If it is said that by _means_ we must not
understand merely the element in which the animal lives, but
every kind of exterior circumstance, then, I ask, let the
materialists determine what is precisely the circumstance which
has caused such an organ to take the form of the lung, and such
another to take the form of the bronchia; what is the precise
cause which has created the heart--that hydraulic machine so
powerful and so easy, and whose movements are so industriously
combined to receive the blood which comes from all the organs to
the heart and send it back through the veins; what is the cause,
finally, which binds all these organs together and makes the
living being, according to the expression of Cuvier, "a closed
system, all of whose parts concur to a common action by a
reciprocal reaction?" What will it be if we pass to the organs of
sense; to the most marvellous of them, the eye of man or that of
the eagle? Is there one of those _savants_ who have no
system who would dare to maintain that he sees in any way how
light could produce by its action the organ which is appropriated
to it? Or, if it is not light, what is the exterior agent
sufficiently powerful, sufficiently ingenious, sufficiently
skilled in geometry, to construct that marvellous apparatus which
has made Newton say: "Can he that made the eye be ignorant of the
laws of optics?"
{240}
Remarkable expression, which, coming from so great a master,
should make the forgers of systems of cosmogony reflect an
instant, no matter how learnedly they may dilate on the origin of
planets, and who pass with so much complacency over the origin of
conscience and life!
If the action of means is incapable by itself of explaining the
formation of organs and the production of species--what Lamarck
calls the power of life, namely, habit and want--how can they
give us the sufficient reason for those great facts? According to
Lamarck, necessity produces organs, habit develops and fortifies
them. But what is this necessity and this habit which are
appealed to so complacently, and who proves their strange power?
Let us take the necessity of breathing, of which M. Janet wrote
as we have quoted. Whence comes this necessity? From the
necessity of giving to the blood the oxygen which is necessary
for it; and this latter necessity is derived from the necessity
of keeping up the organic combustion, and furnishing the nervous
system with an appropriate stimulant. Who does not see that there
is here a connection of functions and organs which requires a
simultaneous creation, which displays a preconceived plan, and
not a successive growth of organs according to wants which find
in each other the principle of their being, and which cannot be
perceived and satisfied separately? What unheard-of aberration,
what decadence of the scientific spirit, to transform necessity
into a sort of effective and creative power; to make of a
sentiment, ordinarily vague and obscure, a new and active entity,
which not only animates the created being, but actually creates
it!
Lamarck, it is true, admits that observation cannot demonstrate
the producing power which he attributes to want; but if a direct
proof is wanting, he considers an indirect proof sufficient by
appealing to custom. What does he mean? Habit can develop and
fortify existing organs by an appropriate and sustained exercise;
but how does that prove that want can create them? How can habit
develop an organ which does not exist? How can the development of
an organ be compared to the creation of this organ, or make us
realize the mode of creation of the organ? We can conceive want
as the reason not of the creation but of the development of an
organ, and habit as excited and sustained by this need; but the
need of an organ which is absolutely wanting cannot be born of
itself, cannot produce the organ, cannot excite habit. How can an
animal deprived of every organ of seeing or hearing experience
the want of sight or hearing, or acquire the habit of either?
What chimerical hypotheses!
Let us hold to the judgment of Cuvier on all these hypotheses,
whose authority is very great:
"Some naturalists, more material in their ideas, and relying on
the philosophical observations of which we have just spoken,
have remained humble followers of Maillet, (Talliamed,)
[Footnote 110] seeing that the greater or less use of a member
increases or diminishes its force and volume, have imagined
that habits and exterior influences, continued for a long time,
could change by degrees the forms of animals so as to make them
attain successively all those shapes which the different
species of animals now have.
{241}
No more superficial and foolish idea could be imagined.
Organized bodies are considered as a mere mass of paste or
clay, which could be moulded by the fingers. Consequently, the
moment these authors wish to enter into detail, they fall into
absurdities. Whoever dares to advance seriously that a fish by
keeping on dry land could change its scales into feathers and
become a bird, or that a quadruped by passing through narrow
places would become elongated like a thread and transformed
into a serpent, only proves his profound ignorance of anatomy."
[Footnote 110: Benoit de Maillet was the predecessor of Lamarck.]
The forms of scientific error change rapidly; only the principle
always remains. But this principle requires to be clothed from
time to time in new garments, which rejuvenate and disguise it.
The system of Lamarck, for a moment popular on account of the
philosophic ideas to which it gave support, could not maintain
itself in lasting honor in science. It was as it were buried in
deep oblivion, when Darwin undertook to awaken it from its ashes
by substituting for the antiquated conceptions new ones, destined
to give a similar satisfaction to the passions which had
applauded the enterprise of Lamarck.
The work of Darwin--we must do him the justice to say it--is an
important work, and displays rare science. The author, gifted
with great penetration, employs to the greatest advantage what he
knows to deduce from it what he does not know; and if he goes
beyond experience, it is always in appealing to experience; so
that he seems to remain faithful to observation even when he
ventures far beyond its limits. Nevertheless so much science and
sagacity can hardly blind us to the radical weakness of the
system; and it would not have met with so favorable a reception
if all the prejudices of the materialists whom it satisfied had
not become its ardent champions. A first fact strikes one who
studies impartially the theory of Darwin, namely, the
incalculable disproportion between the means of demonstration and
the immense problem to be resolved. There is question, let it be
remembered, of the origin of living species. Darwin tries to
explain this origin by the action of a natural selection,
incessantly at work, which draws the collection of organisms out
of one or several primitive, simple, and rudimentary types formed
by the simple action of forces proper to matter. This natural
selection is the image of the method according to which new races
of domestic animals have been created, as the modern doctors
maintain. In order that this, natural selection should produce
the powerful effects which Darwin gives to it, he imagines two
agents always active--changes in the conditions of existence, and
especially _vital concurrence_. The changes in the
conditions of existence, the accidental characters acquired by a
living individual and transmitted by inheritance to its
descendants, create certain varieties of type. Vital concurrence,
the battle of life, the struggle of animated beings to subsist,
allow only some of those varieties to last on the scene of the
world; the others are vanquished and disappear. These
transformations, continued and accumulated from age to age,
increased by the indefatigable labor of an immense number of
ages, have produced all the animal species actually existing;
which are imperceptibly their predecessors in a continuous line
of transformation, under the permanent influence of the same
natural forces.
{242}
The notion of species as well as that of variety and race
disappear in this order of ideas, or at least lose the determined
sense which the naturalists had attributed to them. Variety and
race become species in the way of transformation, in course of
development. The living form passes insensibly and by eternal
motion from the one to the other, from the species to the
variety, from the variety to the race, and from the latter to a
new species which appears only to disappear in its turn. It is
only an affair of time. The living kingdom is in perpetual
transformation. No one can tell what it will become naturally.
Such is the essence of the Darwinian theory. It begins by the
hypothesis of a natural selection which no direct fact proves or
confirms. But can the method of selection as Darwin explains it
be the foundation of such a hypothesis? But in this artificial
election, due to the labor of man, man is the agent who chooses,
who works; he becomes the final and active cause of the
transformation undergone by the species; he takes care that the
character of the races which he has obtained should be maintained
by an ever-vigilant election. Can anything of this kind be
invoked in the natural selection of Darwin? Who replaces the
choice of man? If the natural selection is made according to a
plan decreed and premeditated by the omnipotence which has
created nature, this selection changes its character; it is no
longer anything but one of the forms of creation; it is an
interpretation of the mode of acting of the creating cause, it is
no longer the negation of this cause. Darwinism, which consists
in conceiving the order of things without any superior
intervention, under the simple action of accidents passing
fortuitously to permanence; Darwinism, hostile to all finality,
disappears if the idea of plan is perceptible in the natural
selection. Can vital concurrence replace the intelligent action,
and assure to the natural selection that fecundity and power
which are not in it, and which must come to it from without? But
can "vital concurrence, the battle of life," be the means of
creation; can they engender directly organic modifications,
varieties, animal species? Evidently not the battle of life can
make subjects; it is an agent of elimination for weak and
defective species; it cannot produce by itself a new species.
Natural selection remains always delivered up to itself, to its
blind resources, which nothing directs or regulates, which
acquire fecundity only by chance. To imagine that the harmonic
and infinite collection of living species can be legitimately
referred to a given agent, even by granting to it thousands of
years to manifest its action, seems to me arbitrary and sterile
rashness, which has nothing in common with a noble rashness of
science, with the intuitions of a genius which sometimes
forestalls experience and the proofs which it adduces.
M. Janet has given a general refutation of the theories of
Darwin, and sufficiently strong to show their folly. General
facts have their own light, but it does not shine the less far or
the less brilliantly for being general. Nevertheless, in a
question obscured by so many prejudices, and by the assertions of
a science which calls itself entirely experimental, that is to
say, entirely particular, particular facts acquire a singular
eloquence and power of demonstration which the most audacious
systematizers cannot refuse to acknowledge.
{243}
Those facts embrace the infinite individualities of the living
kingdom continued across the known ages. The source of
information is inexhaustible. What does it teach us? Do
particular facts confirm the ideas of Darwin regarding the
gradual mutability of species; do they even furnish the sketch of
a demonstration limited to certain determined points, to certain
animal or vegetable species; do they finally show us some of
those transformations which are the foundation of the system? Man
has been observing and studying nature for centuries: tradition,
the ruins preserved from the past, permit us to remount far up
the stream of time; have they apprehended in nature any traces of
those great changes which incessantly and fatally transform the
vegetable and animal species? Or, on the contrary, does not
everything go against those supposed transformations, and prove
the fixity in time and space of those real species; a fixity
which is not contradictory, which rather adapts itself to a
certain normal physiological variability, which always allows to
subsist and be perceptible through it the type of the species,
the essential and primary form? We easily conceive the importance
that a sincere response to these questions may acquire. They
strike at the experimental foundation of Darwin's theory; if this
experimental basis is wanting, what becomes of those theories?
Are they not mere personal and arbitrary conceptions; brilliant
plays of an imagination strong and creative, it is true, but
which cannot be substituted for Nature herself and her direct
teachings?
A learned professor of the faculty of science of Lyons, M. Ernest
Faivre, has just undertaken this particular and experimental
study of the origin of species, of their variability and
essentiality; and we signalize his work to our readers--_La
Variabilité des Espèces et les Limites_. It is impossible to
write, on so complex and obscure a question, a book more rich in
facts, more clear in its developments, or more authoritative in
its conclusions. It seems to us the condemnation without appeal
of the system of Darwin.
The vegetable kingdom is considered less rebellious than the
others to the theories of Darwin; variety has more extended
limits in it, less fixed than in the animal; generation,
increase, the exterior conditions, present the occasion of many
changes often profound in appearance. M. Faivre shows that the
true species exists through all these changes, and that it is
reproduced of itself from modified types, when circumstances or
the artificial selection of man no longer supports the latter.
Nowhere has man been able to create a real and durable species;
and the species from the most remote times to our days are
maintained with a fixity which has become one of the essential
characters of species. The ancient land of Egypt is full of
moving revelations on this subject: the animals, the plants, the
grains buried in the caves, are the same as the plants and
animals which cover the borders of the Nile at the present time.
All the naturalists have proved this identity of a considerable
quantity of animal and vegetable species. Hence, Lamarck and
Darwin, to lessen the value of an experience of more than three
thousand years' duration, have pretended that the conditions of
life and the conditions of the exterior medium had not changed in
Egypt from the historical times, and that the permanency of the
species became consequently an ordinary and logical fact. But
history, geography, the study of the soil, prove that the
situation of Egypt has been profoundly modified.
{244}
The level of the Nile, the limits of the desert, the extent of
the cultivated lands, the culture of the soil, the number of
populous cities, the proximity or distance of the sea, the great
public works, everything which transforms a country under the
action of men, all have changed in Egypt as much if not more than
in other countries, and nothing is found changed in the
productions of this soil, in the living beings which it supports
and nourishes. But we may go further than the historical period.
The permanence of species is proved to-day from the glacial
period; the bogs of Ireland, the submarine forests of England and
of the United States, conceal in their depths relics of mammifera
or of vegetable species exactly comparable to the vegetable and
animal species actually living in those same countries. We could
not enumerate all the proofs which establish the great fact of
the permanency of species; the number of these proofs is immense,
and no fact seriously contradicts them, and yet it is in the name
of experience that the partisans of natural selection pretend to
speak! The accidental, temporary, and superficial varieties which
they produce become for them a sufficient warrant of absolute and
permanent varieties which they cannot produce, but of which they
impudently suppose the formal existence; thus destroying species
by a mere hypothesis.
Natural selection has artificial selection for its ideal
godfather, but what has the latter produced? Not only no species,
but not even a permanent race definitively fixed and acquired.
All the races made by the hand of man die if they are left to
themselves, unsupported by an artificial selection constantly at
work. It is a fact which M. Faivre supports with superabundant
demonstration, taken from both the vegetable and animal kingdoms.
The collection of those facts is truly irresistible. What! the
continued transformation of species is given to us as a law, and
yet we cannot find a solitary transformed species! The
transformation of races, which must not be confounded with that
of species, is itself conditional and relative, is soon effaced
if nothing disturbs the return of the race to the pure type of
the species, and yet we are told of the power of natural
selection and of the battle of life which consecrates this power!
This selection, this vital concurrence, this action of means,
have been all employed to modify the proximate species, as the
horse and the ass; domestication offered here all its resources;
the hand of man could choose, ally, and cross the types at will.
"Assuredly," says M. Flourens, "if ever a complete reunion of all
the conditions most favorable to the transformation of one
species into another could be imagined, this reunion is found in
the species of the ass and horse. And, nevertheless, has there
been a transformation? ... Are not those species as distinct
to-day as they have always been? Among all the almost innumerable
races which have been produced by them, is there one which passed
from the species of the horse to that of the ass, or,
reciprocally, from the species of the ass to that of the horse?"
Why, say we with M. Faivre, pay no attention to such simple
facts, and take so much trouble to seek outside of evidence
explanations which do not agree with the reality?
The theories of Darwin have become the chief support of those who
attribute to man a monkey origin. "I prefer to be a perfect
monkey to a degenerate Adam," says one of the partisans of these
theories.
{245}
But why can they not perfect an ass so as to make a horse of it?
There is not between these two latter species the profound
anatomical difference which exists between the monkey and man--a
difference so well established by Gratiolet, a great mind and a
true _savant_. On what, then, can be founded the theory of
our descent from the monkey species, since the slightest change
resists all fusion, all transition from one neighboring species
to another?
The book of the _Variabilité des Espèces_ is the answer of
facts to the spirit of system. Calm and severe, rigorous and
cold, this book admits only the testimony of nature. It will
instruct and convince those who doubt on those questions. The
author terminates by those conclusions which we willingly
reproduce because they allow us to divine something else besides
the indifferent study of facts; they are perhaps the only lines
of the work where the sentiment of the moral dignity of man is
apparent. "This hypothesis (namely, of the mutability of species)
is not authorized," says M. Faivre, "either by its principle,
which is a mere conjecture; or by its deductions, which the
reality does not confirm; or by its direct demonstrations, which
are hardly probabilities; or by its too extreme consequences,
which science as well as human dignity forbid us to accept--the
theory of spontaneous generation, the intimate and degrading
relationship between man and the brute."
Notwithstanding the ability--we may almost say the genius--which
illustrious _savants_ have employed in defending the
doctrine, reason and experience have not weakened the reserved
and just judgment which Cuvier has passed upon it, and which will
serve as the conclusion to this essay: "Among the different
systems on the origin of organized beings, there is none less
probable than that which causes the different kinds of them to
spring up, successively, by developments or gradual
metamorphosis."
One word more before quitting the subject. All these great forms
of scientific error spring up in our old Europe, where they find
at the same time numerous and passionate adherents, and firm and
eloquent opponents. The attack and the struggle are kept up
incessantly in the press, in our books, in our learned bodies, in
our teaching faculties. If we examine the general character of
these conflicts, we find in them truth almost intimidated,
certainly less bold and less respected than error. Truth is
self-conscious, and that is sufficient to prevent it from
becoming weak or yielding to fatigue and discouragement; but it
has not popular favor; it is tolerated, but hardly ever greatly
encouraged. If we quit this tormented Europe, which is drawn only
toward new errors, and cast our eyes toward those great United
States of America, that fertile land appears to us as favorable
to truth as to liberty. Let us listen an instant to that
illustrious _savant_ who has no superior in the domain of
natural science, M. Agassiz; let us follow his teaching in the
University of Cambridge. What elevation and what sincerity! How
all those systems which seduce so many minds in these cisatlantic
regions are brought to their true proportions--judged in their
profound disregard of the laws of nature! Let us take, for
instance, the influence of exterior conditions and of physical
agents on animals--the basis of the system of Lamarck, and one of
the principal conditions of the mutability of species in
Darwinism. M. Agassiz, on this point, uses again the firm
language which from the days of Cuvier natural science has not
spoken in France:
{246}
"In so far as the diversity of animals and plants which live in
the same physical circumstances proves the independence as to
the origin of organized beings, from the medium in which they
reside, so far does this independence become evident anew when
we consider that identical types are found everywhere on the
earth in the most varied conditions. Let all those different
influences be united--all the conditions of existence, under
the common apellation of cosmic influences, of physical causes,
or of climates--and we shall always find in this regard extreme
differences on the surface of the globe, and nevertheless we
shall see living normally together under their action the most
similar or even identical types. ... Does not all this prove
that organized beings manifest the most surprising independence
of the physical forces in the midst of which they live, an
independence so complete that it is impossible to attribute it
to any other cause than to a supreme power governing, at the
same time, physical forces and the existence of animals and
plants, maintaining between both a harmonical relation by a
reciprocal adaptation in which we can find neither cause nor
effect? ... It would be necessary to write a volume on the
independence of organized beings of physical agents. Almost
everything which is generally attributed to the influence of
the latter must be considered as a simple correlation between
them and the animal kingdom resulting from the general plan of
creation." [Footnote 111]
[Footnote 111: _Revue des Cours scientifique_,
Mai 2, 1868.]
----------
Canadian Customs.
The neighboring British provinces of the north--the new Dominion
of Canada--from various reasons, claim at this time the public
attention. From intrinsic merits they are worthy of notice. With
much of interest in the natural prospects and the interior life
of this country and its denizens, it is almost a _terra
incognita_ to the general traveller, and few penetrate to
those remote portions where the ancient customs of the original
settlers are faithfully retained and kept up in their primitive
simplicity. Although closely contiguous to the American line,
bordered by its lakes and its forests of dense timber, rich in
valuable mines and costly furs indigenous to northern latitudes,
it is chiefly for these possessions that the province is sought
by the utilitarian trader, rather than visited by the
pleasure-seeking tourist. And yet the general beauty of scenery
and the peculiar characteristics of the people are worthy of
close observation, and one might vainly seek in a wider range for
material so grand, or characteristics better deserving of
appreciation. The noble St. Lawrence is bordered by shores of
smiling fertility in the summer months. The country rises in
gradual ascent from the present boundaries of the stream, and
geological inquiry demonstrates that at an earlier period the bed
of the river extended to much wider limits than at present.
{247}
Still it is a grand and noble stream, as it goes sweeping onward
majestically to the ocean, gemmed with a thousand isles, and
having hundreds of peaceful villages that nestle on either shore.
A mere passing voyage on this route of travel presents a rich and
varied panorama of natural beauty. Still more interesting to the
mind of serious thought than this mere material attraction, is
the suggested idea presented in every village, crowned hill, or
hamlet, nestling in some nook along the shore, of the happy unity
and devotion of a people who make, within their humble homes and
in the practice of piety, the sacred faith of their worship the
_main_ object of their existence. Strangers to their zeal
many deride this devotion and call it _fanaticism_; but no
system can offer, in practical moral results, a higher order of
virtuous life than that presented by the Catholic
_Habitants_ [Footnote 112] of Lower Canada.
[Footnote 112: The _Habitant_ is a generic
name applied to the farming population of Canada East.]
Retaining, with their French origin, the happy temperament of the
Latin race--courteous, hospitable, and enthusiastic--foreign
refinements have not destroyed original purity of character; and
in their simple lives, wisely directed by zealous, self-denying
curés, they illustrate in piety and contentment the happy results
of this influence. To notice, then, the habitudes of this class,
to enter their homes and penetrate the _arcana_ of their
inner life, is a profitable study to all who are willing to
receive the high moral lessons that grandeur does not constitute
comfort, and that contentment may prevail where wealth does not
abound, and that piety in simple faith presents a consolation
that mere material possessions fail to bestow. While the
patriotic Canadian claims as his motto,
"_Notre culte, notre langue, notre lois,_" he properly
places his religion first and above all other mundane
considerations. This religion is the Catholic faith; and while
the Canadian submits to political innovations, and recognizes the
rights of the conquering arm of the British, he claims, in
unbending adherence to his church, the observance of every
ancient rite. The Code Napoleon may be modified by Saxon
legislation; but the great common law of traditions in religious
forms must ever remain undisturbed. Hence arises a peculiar charm
in the simplicity, fervor, and unity of devotion among the
Catholic Canadians. Voyaging from Montreal to La Rivière du Loup,
at every intervening two or three leagues are defined the
boundaries of a Catholic parish, denoted by the dome or spire of
the village church. The proportions of these edifices present a
solid character and generally harmonize in style; and, although
lacking the finish of architectural design, they are constructed
of stone, with ample accommodations for from one to two thousand
worshippers. In this one edifice gathers, for miles around, the
populace of the entire district; for here no discordant sects
prevail to divide and weaken congregations. This one church,
then, is the grand centre around which the people cluster, and
which usually occupies the most commanding point of observation.
If an ancient edifice, the building occupies the centre of the
plateau of cottages, at once in former times the house of worship
and fortress of defence. Should the approach of hostile Indians
be signalled, the populace retired within the sacred precincts
until after the danger passed, which was generally escaped by the
appeal for peace, on terms of mutual accommodation, by the
venerable priest.
{248}
The influence of moral force often served to lead the minds of
the aggressive savage to better and higher purposes.
Thus in this barren and bleak land whole tribes have been
reclaimed from heathenism, though many priests, especially those
of the Jesuit order, fell victims to their holy zeal, and offered
their lives in sacrifice to their sacred efforts. Others lingered
for years, prisoners in the hands of their captors, but still
teaching in bondage, and finally, gaining influence from their
virtues and learning, made proselytes of their persecutors. Thus
whole tribes were brought within the influence of Christianity,
and Canada was reclaimed from the savage customs of the natives,
who have been elevated and preserved by the happy influence of
the Church. These tribes have not disappeared, as elsewhere,
before the rude invading march of the Christian, so-called, but
continue in their united character and distinctive habits to live
prosperously with their white brethren, and to venerate the
religion they have embraced. Their principal villages dot the
shores of the St. John and St. Lawrence, and even approach so
near Quebec as Loretto. Their church edifices are generally of a
simple character; but of late years, throughout Canada, many have
been rebuilt, enlarged, or superseded by magnificent structures
of more modern style than the ancient village church, in which,
in times of a more primitive civilization, their forefathers
worshipped. But the worship, in its outward ceremonies, remains
unchanged. The same faith that won amid Siberian snows the land
from savage rites, is alone fostered tenaciously in all its
ancient forms. The devoted zeal of the French mission priest,
driven from France by the bloody Revolution, carried the seeds of
the true faith to the bleak shores of the Canadas; and their
influence is well maintained by the curés of the present day, who
continue not only to console spiritually, but in all the affairs
of life give that wise direction which their superior
intelligence enables them to exercise. The efforts of modern
missionaries, who exhaust themselves in temporary efforts in
remote regions, might take a wise lesson from this concentration
of labor and dedication of life to the service of religion within
fixed limits. It is granted, (for the fact cannot be
controverted) that this people and country have been
Christianized by the labors of the Catholic missionaries, and
that the religion they inculcated is universally established and
practised by the French population of the rural districts. It
must, also, in fairness be admitted that the good effects of the
system is demonstrated by the superior _morale_ of the
people under this control, who compare favorably with other
sections where mixed sects predominate. Canada East, from the
ocean to Quebec, is settled almost universally by Catholics,
principally agriculturists, though along the shores the fisheries
and pilotage occupy their attention as a means of livelihood.
Among this people crime is almost unknown, so efficient have been
the influences of their faith upon their moral habitudes.
Notwithstanding this favorable condition of morality, emissaries
from Canada West are diligently sent yearly with their stock of
tracts for distribution and well-bound Bibles for sale. The
preaching from one text, "Be not a busy-body in other people's
matters," would be a judicious commentary on this course,
especially as the influence of their own system fails to produce
the benign influences of Catholicity, in freedom from the
ordinary evils from which these happy, peaceful French parishes
are exempted.
{249}
Devotion to their religion defends them from the influences of
vice. Murder is a crime that rarely occurs among the native
population, and other minor offences are equally unfrequent. To a
people thus living harmoniously under an established religious
influence, faithful in observance of their duties in patriarchal
simplicity, and devoted to their religion, such invasion of the
Protestant colporteur is a gratuitous impertinence. If the
Catholic faith protects its votaries practically from sin, the
substitution of another system, from the section of Canada West,
(which by no means contrasts favorably with Catholic Canada East
in comparative statistics of crime,) is no recommendation for the
propagation of a faith that does not produce equal exemption from
evil where their own influence prevails. Notwithstanding this
common-sense proposition, zealots from the Bible societies yearly
arrive among these devoted Christians, each one successively
quarrelling about the proper construction of a book they
universally recommend. The logical Canadian might well ask: "Why
don't you agree among yourselves before you come to teach us? We
are all happy in one opinion here!" Notwithstanding such rebuffs,
the colporteurs proceed from house to house, leaving their
incendiary documents, which inform the people that the creed that
defends them from the influence of sin is a snare and delusion,
and that to be saved they must forego its exercise, and
advantageously adopt that of some one of the fifty Protestant
sects. Any of these may be supposed to possess a sufficient
diversity of doctrine to satisfy the most exacting inquirers in
their search after religious novelties. If these so-called
religious propagandists confined themselves exclusively to these
statements, in conscientious diversity of belief, their action
might be regarded as an ardent desire to do good to the souls of
their fellow-men. But the basest means are used to proselytize,
by deliberate forgeries of the truth. The following incident is
recorded from personal knowledge of its occurrence, and can be
verified by witnesses to the transaction: A colporteur of this
beneficent class, from Canada West, entered the cottage of a poor
_Habitant_ family in the third range of the village of
Saint-Michel, some fifteen miles from Quebec. One of the family
was dying, in a room apart, and the priest of the parish was
administering the last rites of the Church. The other members of
the family were in the general room, during the confession
preparatory to the anointing, and, although in grief, their
circumstances did not protect them from the intrusion of the
insidious stranger. The pedlar in piety vaunted his tracts, but
as they were unable to read, these were unappreciated, and he
finally displayed his costly Bible, which, he informed them,
unless they possessed, studied, and read, they never could be
saved. A stranger present--companion of the curé--asked the
question: "Is it a Catholic edition?" "Oh! yes, certainly, a
Catholic Bible," pointing to the binding with the embellishment
of a large cross, the imprimatur of a bishop in France, and the
recommendatory note from some Pope recommending its perusal to
the study of the faithful. One had only to look within at the
text to discover the perversion from the truth, and expose the
fact that all these emblems were but a _false pretence_, to
make the book sell among those who would be more attracted by its
external resemblance to the authorized version of Holy
Scriptures.
{250}
The curé at this moment entered, and, in taxing the man with his
duplicity, he answered with effrontery, "It is a Catholic Bible,
but not the Romish edition;" adding, unless all read it they must
certainly perish. "Then," answered the priest, "all here must be
lost, for not one can read; and unless you remain, in your
Christian benevolence, and instruct them, they cannot avail
themselves of your written instructions." Fortunately, as a
protection against the insidious wiles of such base pretenders to
exclusive possession of religious truth, the laws of Lower Canada
protect the people against dangerous forms of proselytism,
calculated to create breaches of the peace; and the invasion of a
harmonious parish by these disturbers of the contented people can
be promptly punished as a penal offence. They may sell or give
away their books, but here their influence for evil ends; and the
trouble these colporteurs give themselves, if expended in a more
legitimate manner, might prove quite as effective for their
personal good in earning an honest livelihood by more worthy
methods. To uproot these tares of evil is the one trouble given
to the worthy curés, who diligently watch and guard their flocks
from the invasions of wolves, as well as instruct and guide them
truthfully in the way of life. The result of their self-denying
labors is manifest; and Catholic Canada compares favorably in its
morality with any portion of the Christian world. An American
Catholic entering one of these rural parish churches described,
though recognizing the same service in the offering of the holy
sacrifice, would be struck by several distinctive features in the
Mass and congregation, and perhaps more than one observance that,
as a republican Catholic, he never before witnessed. Distinctions
in society are observed, but the deference is paid to superior
goodness only; the lines that mark the grades of superiority in
society being drawn by the personal worth of the possessor in his
elevation to the place of honor. Three chief officers are elected
from among the congregation every two years. They occupy the seat
of honor in the church on a raised _banc_, in some cases
canopied, but always decorated by two candles and a crucifix. To
these points the priest first proceeds at the aspersion, and,
making his obeisance and blessing, proceeds with the ceremony.
And they are likewise first served on the distribution of the
_pain bénit_, and always take precedence in the grander
ceremonies of the church, being admitted within the sanctuary to
receive the palms, and on other appropriate occasions having the
_place notée_ assigned to their occupation. This gives the
laity an active part and place of honor in the service of the
church. Personal worth, and aptitude to look after the secular
interests of the church, are the sole qualifications for this
position, and the united voice of the congregation, in assembly,
declares their choice. No alteration or repairs, or any movement
connected with changes in matters pertaining to the interests of
the church, can be undertaken without their approval. They are
the defenders of the secular interests, as the priest is
exclusively of the spiritual direction, but most generally
harmonize with their curé in any plans of improvement he may
suggest.
{251}
An American participating in these Canadian services could
intelligently follow all that is exhibited in the ritual, though
he would be surprised in a simple rural population at the pomp
and exactitude with which on grand occasions the services would
be performed. No ceremony is omitted that would give dignity to
devotion, and the Roman ritual is closely followed. Although the
American stranger might not understand the French sermon or hymn,
generally sung during the gradual or communion service, still in
common faith he would recognize the offering of the great
sacrifice, expressed in the same sonorous language in which the
service of the Church offers her devotions in every clime. Thus,
as a foreigner, in the Catholic Church he would in the most
solemn parts of the service feel at home. In common with Roman
discipline, the Diocese of Quebec excludes female singers from
the organ-loft, save by dispensation during the month of Mary,
when this joyful season is marked by this indulgence. The
choristers, composed of men and boys, sit within the sanctuary,
in stalls arranged in a double row on either side, and these are
chosen for their excellent character as well as vocal powers.
[Footnote 113]
[Footnote 113: They sometimes number forty
or fifty in an ordinary village church.]
None would be admitted who did not possess the one qualification
of piety. All are decently surpliced, and on Sundays and
fête-days four of the boys wear, in addition to the surplice,
pendent wings of muslin, neatly plaited, and act as the prominent
assistants to the Mass. At the feast of Corpus Christi, the
grandest ceremonial of the Church, (after the consecration of a
bishop,) as many as eight censers are used, and the road through
which the _cortége_ passes is garlanded with flowers, and
banners are waving from every point. The grandeur of the
ceremonial exceeds that of cathedral pomp in American cities, for
the procession makes the out-door circuit of the village,
stopping at four sections for the benediction. Two of these are
erected temporarily of boughs of trees tastefully decorated, and
most villages possess two small chapels distinct from the church
that are permanently constructed for these purposes, and used on
various occasions, whenever the bishop prescribes peculiar
devotions. Thus, at the blessing of the seeds of the earth, in
invoking prayers for a plentiful harvest, in times of plague,
war, or inundation, these specialty services are peculiarly
enjoined, and these chapels are then ever ready for the reception
of the sacrament. Otherwise they are closed and unused, and only
stand as memorials of the faith of the people; marking with the
emblem of Christianity the Catholic land of Canada. At every mile
a black cross stands as a milestone to point the way and keep
religious hope alive on every side and every step; and sometimes,
to mark special blessings in answer to prayers, these crosses are
handsomely carved and of stone, and almost always enclose, even
when of ordinary material, some sacred statue of venerated saint.
Thus in the frigid clime and snow-capped hills of Canada, a
Catholic love of the beautiful, pure, and good stands in
memorials as frequent as may be found in the sunny climes of
Italy or of the smiling lands of the south. Who will say that
these objects of veneration do not tend to keep faith alive? The
rustic Canadian, as he passes the memorial, lifts his mind to the
higher reality to which it points, and in respectful adoration
either raises his hat or devoutly crosses himself in prayer. Call
it superstition if you will, but it is at least a harmless form
of decent respect to the earthly insignia of heavenly realities
which the emblem represents.
{252}
The same respect, too, is universally extended to the curé when
he passes abroad; all bow or lowly make their obeisance to the
man of God. These outward manifestations of human respect only
teach lessons of honor for the office proper to be observed; and,
to the credit of Protestant gentlemen it may be added, in Lower
Canada, the character and influence of the priest are so highly
esteemed that, even though strangers to the Church, in many
instances they conform to the custom. A Catholic never passes the
clergy of the church without the compliment of the _salut_;
to omit the observance would be a mark of disrespect. These
peculiarities, like the order of the church service, arrest the
attention of the American Catholic. The whole Mass is uniformly
performed in Gregorian tones. The versicle of the day and the
_Introit_ are chanted by leading voices in the sanctuary.
The choir commence the _Kyrie_, and it is likewise
responsively intoned alternately, first by voices in the
sanctuary, and then, with organ accompaniment, answered by
singers in the organ-loft. And so the service is carried on most
impressively, throughout the _Gloria_ and _Credo_, even
unto the canon of the Mass, with the same tone that is proper to
the Mass of the day. Thus is produced an effect of solemn harmony
and unity with the celebrant at the altar. No light operatic air
clashes with the severe ritual, but all is grave and subdued, and
only relieved by the simple pathos of some French hymn,
creditably chanted, and most frequently as a solo, by the best
voice of the choir. The Canadians are a music-loving people, and
all orders cultivate this gift of nature. Their melodies are
spirit-stirring and deserving of wider cultivation. As it is,
many of our popular airs spring from _la chanson
Canadienne_. Frugal in their tastes, the simple pleasures of
social companionship are their chief relaxation; though the games
and enjoyments of their hardy clime have their many votaries, and
they excel in all the manly out-door exercises, in which even
their women participate. Perhaps this may be one reason, besides
higher moral causes, that account for the peculiar longevity and
large families of the Canadian people. If more primitive in their
customs than in lands where luxurious habits prevail, they are
exempted from many evils consequent on their indulgence, and the
virtues of the heart flourish and abound in luxuriance as the
teachings of the church prevail and are practised. Hospitality is
the crowning merit of the Canadian people. The stranger ever
receives a generous welcome and courteous attentions. The French
origin of the people retains all the idiosyncrasies of the latter
race, and that easy grace of manner inseparable from French
habitude. A Canadian peasant will receive a stranger with a ready
tact that is universal, even to those in the simplest rank in
life. This frankness and generosity of manner are partially the
influence of the Church, which inculcates the practice of
courtesy springing from goodness of heart and virtuous intention,
and it is especially inculcated in a rite peculiar to the
Catholic Church in Canada. During the course of the Mass, every
Sunday, is duly observed the generally obsolete custom called the
_Agapae_, of apostolic institution. It is one of those
ceremonials which in its latent significance teaches a wholesome
truth and duty, and it is to be regretted that it should have
fallen into desuetude elsewhere.
{253}
Significant of the good-fellowship that should prevail among all
members of the human family, and in recognition of our common
dependence one upon the other, and the duty of mutual aid and
support to our brother-man, this feast of love is eaten in common
by all ranks and conditions in life. If a Protestant should be
present, and conduct himself orderly during the service, the
courteous Canadian would extend a portion of the bread for the
acceptance of his dissenting brother, as there is nothing of a
sacramental character in its reception, and it is as free as the
holy water fount in which the curious unbeliever often dips his
hand with more superstitious dread than the Catholic believer. In
this rite, large loaves of bread are prepared in rotation by the
respective families of the parish, each in their order supplying
the demand. This is called _le pain bénit_, blessed bread;
and, after its benediction by prayer, that our daily food may be
used to our advantage, which ceremony takes place from the steps
of the altar, just before the _Gloria_, it is cut and
divided into small pieces among the congregation, who receive it
from the ushers, (the _maires_ being first served,) in
whatever position they may be in during the course of the
service--either kneeling, seated, or standing. Its distribution
usually commences during the course of the _Credo_, and,
unless the congregation is very large, concludes at least before
the commencement of the most solemn period of the Holy Sacrifice.
The ceremony creates no confusion, but is received as an ordinary
part of the day's duties. The morsel is accepted, the recipient
blesses himself, with a short prayer, and the particle is
consumed. The value of the observance of this rite is, the sacred
lesson that it so significantly teaches. Its absence would only
create remark in the mind of the _Habitant_, who is
singularly tenacious of any innovation on the established customs
of his forefathers, even where they manifestly are somewhat
burdensome to be observed; for the preparation of bread in three
or four large loaves for a thousand people is not entirely an
insignificant matter. In the city churches of Quebec, the rite by
dispensation is not observed, but it is universal in all the
rural parishes. "_La religion est changée_." the
_Habitant_ would say with a sigh, should an effort be made
to cut loose from any of the ancient landmarks and customs to
whose practice he had been accustomed. The observance of this
habit is therefore wisely retained, as teaching a wholesome
lesson of charity to our fellow-man. All are recipients alike,
young and old, the sinner as well as the saintly, for all have
need of the tender indulgence of each other in deference to their
common infirmities. Many lands of softer clime possess fairer
scenes and a richer soil; but for the elevated affections of the
heart in simplicity, none possess in a rarer degree those virtues
calculated to render man noble and happy, and to elevate him in
the social scale, than the people of these northern possessions
that bound our American limits. Perhaps in the march of events,
should their country ever be absorbed with our own republican
institutions, the strongest bond of fellowship will be, the
common religion they hold in such perfect unity with numbers of
their American brethren. It is this principle that will render
them adaptive to our political institutions as good citizens;
and, perhaps, in simple faith, earnest devotion, and rigid
standard of observances of the Catholic faith, the American
Catholic could well borrow from his Canadian brethren a portion
of that zeal for which they are so justly conspicuous.
{254}
Our limits forbid all that might be said of the Catholic
hierarchy in Canada; a body of men who, for learning, piety, and
self-sacrifice, furnish so many glorious examples worthy of
imitation. Zealous in the cause of education, as fervent in their
piety, they have made the sterling worth of the Canadian Church a
subject for praise and imitation in every land. The simplest
Canadian follows the language of the Church in his daily prayers;
and as the Angelus sounds within her borders thrice a day, or the
passing-bell tells of a soul departed, or the joyful chime
proclaims a Christian received within the Church, the Latin
prayer universally ascends from a thousand hearts, and Heaven's
benisons follow in benignant response. May the sun of prosperity
ever lighten her borders!
----------
Translated From The French.
The Story Of Marcel,
The Little Mettray Colonist.
Chapter I.
"O grief beyond all other griefs! when fate
First leaves the young heart desolate
In the wide world."
Moore.
It was at the close of the memorable 26th of June, 1848, one of
the most dreadful days of that sanguinary strife called "the
Revolution," which had desolated Paris since the month of
February, that a man, dressed in a torn and blood-stained blouse,
his face and hands black with gunpowder, and carrying a gun on
his shoulder, climbed hastily the dark, dirty staircase of a
house in the Rue de la Parcheminerie. He was followed by a
miserable-looking child of apparently about eight years old,
whose little, trembling legs managed with difficulty to keep up
with the long strides of the individual before him, who from time
to time looked back to see that he was coming.
On reaching the third story, the revolutionist, for such he
evidently was, opened a door, and entered a dismal, bad-smelling
room of poverty-stricken aspect. A woman of about forty was
there, busily occupied over a small iron furnace casting lead
bullets, of which a number ready for use were lying on the dirty
brick floor beside her.
"Here they are, all hot, all hot," cried she with a fierce laugh
as he came in. "I don't keep you waiting for your tools, you see;
there's not a citizen of Paris that has a better help-mate than
you, Auguste; is there, now? And I'm as ready with my knife
as--but what have you there?" And the dreadful woman strode
forward a step as she caught sight of the child, half-hidden
behind her husband.
{255}
"It's a poor little devil I picked up on a barricade," replied
Auguste. "Ma foi! I believe that he had followed his father to
the fight, where the citizen received his passport for the other
world; the little one had hooked himself on to the corpse, and I
had some trouble to loosen his hold, and afterward to put him on
his legs again; but a drop of brandy did it at last, and here he
is!"
"And what on earth are we to do with him?" vociferated the woman,
who had listened to this explanation with many a shrug and
menacing gesture. "I shall not feed him, I tell you. Where's the
grub to come from, I should like to know?"
"Come, now," said Auguste soothingly, "be reasonable, do. Now
that the dog's dead, you can give him the bones and lickings,
can't you? It won't cost more to keep this little wretch than it
did to keep the dog. Not so much, I believe."
"He's not worth either bones or lickings," screamed the wife.
"Medor earned his living, while this beast of a child"--here she
caught the frightened boy by the arm and whirled him violently
round--"hasn't the strength of a fly!"
"He'll be able to pick up rags in a day or two, Pelagie, you will
see; Come, now, let us keep him. Here, sit down, young one." And
Auguste pushed the child down on a wooden stool.
Pelagie stormed, but Auguste at last gained the day, and even
obtained a crust of bread for the wretched little creature, whose
large eyes glanced from the one to the other of the speakers
while they debated his fate. His thin, pale cheek still bore the
traces of the tears he had shed when his father fell, shot
through the heart, on the barricade, and his little blouse and
torn trousers were stained with his father's blood!
We shall not repeat the conversation of the husband and wife on
the events of the day--that day when the infatuated workpeople
and proletaires of Paris murdered the venerable priest who,
obedient to the call of his sacred duties, had come to the scene
of strife and slaughter to preach mercy and forbearance. "The
shepherd gives his life for his sheep," and, "May my blood be the
last shed," were the last words of Archbishop Affre. Alas! when
the torch of civil war is once lighted, men seem to grow mad; the
fiercest passions of humanity are let loose, and ruin and death
seem alone able to end the struggle. So has it ever been with the
excitable people of Paris; so will it ever be with the ignorant
and vicious. Many fell after the good archbishop, and among them
Auguste Vautrin. He had gone off, carrying with him the
newly-made bullets, and leaving the child whose life he had
probably saved; he returned no more. A neighbor whispered to
Pelagie that same night that her husband was lying dead in the
Rue St. Antoine, but the depraved and unloving wife did not care
to reclaim his body, and all that was left of the miserable man
was consequently thrown ignominiously into the common grave of
the misguided revolutionists.
Chapter II.
"Pinn'd, beaten, cold, pinch'd, threaten'd, and abused,
His efforts punish'd and his food refused,
Awake tormented, soon aroused from sleep,
Struck if he wept, and yet compelled to weep,
The trembling boy dropped down, and strove to pray,
Received a blow, and trembling turned away."
Crabbe.
Pelagie Vautrin, now a widow, continued to gain her living as
before. She was what is called in France a "merchant of the four
seasons," that is, a costermonger, hawking about the streets in a
handcart the different vegetables and fruits of each season,
sometimes even venturing on a load of salt mackerel, sometimes of
dried figs. She was a strong, masculine-looking virago, who might
have gained a tolerable living, for one day with another brought
her in about three francs, had she not been given to drink.
{256}
Every bargain she made either to buy or to sell was ratified by a
glass of brandy, so that by the time she had emptied her cart,
her pocket was nearly empty too. At all times without gentleness
or pity, she became almost ferocious when excited by liquor, and
it was a cruel fate that had made the little orphan fall into her
hands. He, poor fellow, seemed to be quite friendless. Questioned
and cross-questioned by Pelagie and her neighbors, he could give
no further account of himself than that he was called Marcel, and
that his father was shot on the barricade; the child shuddered
each time that he was forced to answer this. He appeared never to
have known his mother, replying always that he had lived with his
father, only with his father, and nobody else. He was a slight,
elegantly formed boy, with the intelligent, delicate features
peculiar to the true Parisian. Timid and nervous, he trembled
each time that Pelagie addressed him, and implicitly obeyed her
slightest order.
During the two days that followed the death of Auguste, Pelagie
remained shut up in her dirty, close-smelling room. Whether she
feared that the restoration of public order might expose her to
the unpleasant observation of the law, or that the loss of her
husband did really somewhat affect her, we know not; certain it
is that she staid quietly at home, and even shared the bread and
boiled beef that a neighbor had fetched for her from a
_gargote_, or poor eating-house, near by, with Marcel. He
had been provided with a heap of rags for a bed, and permitted to
sleep. And for two nights, poor boy, he had slept as children,
happily the poor as well as the rich, only can sleep--forgetful
of the past and unthinking of the future. But on the morning of
the third day, Pelagie got up in full possession of all her
wonted energy and brutality.
"Out of bed, little beggar!" were her first words, as she pushed
the sleeping child with her foot; "out of bed; you must begin to
work for your bread. Now, listen to me," she continued, as
Marcel, with a scared look, started up ready-dressed from his bed
of rags; "listen, do you hear, to me. You will go search for all
the bits of old iron, old nails, and things of that sort, that
you can find in the streets and gutters. Here is a leathern bag
to put them in; do you see? I shall tie it about your waist, and
take care you don't lose it. And here is a basket and a hook;
with this hook you will catch up all the pieces of paper and rag
that you see, and put them into the basket. Now, mind what you're
about: I shall have an eye on you, wherever you may be. Here is a
piece of bread; and don't come back until your basket is full, or
I shall skin you."
So saying, she thrust the bewildered, frightened boy out of the
door, which she shut immediately, leaving him to grope his way
down the dark, crazy staircase as he best might.
After two or three falls he reached the door of the house, and
found himself in the narrow, filthy gutter called the Rue de la
Parcheminerie--one of the impure, airless thoroughfares of that
old Paris which the present ruler of France is levelling to give
place to wide, healthful, handsome streets and squares. He stood
a moment hesitating whether he should turn to the right or to the
left, when the voice of Pelagie calling to him from the window
above made him look up. "Be off!" she screamed. "I'm watching
you, and mind you bring me back all you get!"
{257}
The child shouldered his basket and ran on. Turning the corner
and out of sight of his fierce protectress, if we may call her
so, he stopped, poor little fellow! His basket and hook dropped
to the ground, as with a gesture of despair he threw up his hands
toward heaven and cried aloud, "O my father! my father!"
The cry and the gesture were not addressed to that Heavenly
Father whose eye was then as ever upon him, full of pity and
mercy though unseen and incomprehensible, for the unhappy orphan
knew not how to pray; but we can believe that it was heard and
answered, as if it had been a direct supplication to the throne
of grace; not then, perhaps, but in the fulness of that time
which he hath chosen for our consolation. A moment after, the boy
gathered up his fallen basket and hook and diligently set to
work. Not a rag or scrap of paper escaped his searching eye.
Nails and metal buttons, and bits of old iron, and many a
flattened bullet that had probably done some deadly work, all
found their way into his basket or his leathern bag.
Toward twelve o'clock he found himself near the fountain in St.
Michael's Place; tired and hot, he took a drink, and, seating
himself on the curbstone near by, began to eat the piece of bread
that Pelagie had given him that morning. His appetite was good,
and he enjoyed his dry crust better than many a rich man did his
sumptuous dinner that day. His little teeth went so busily and
vigorously to work, that a hackney-coachman belonging to the
coach-stand in the place, and who was lazily contemplating
humanity from his box-seat, after watching him awhile with
admiration, threw him a sou, telling him to buy some sausage,
because he deserved something for the way in which he attacked
that piece of brick-bat.
"He has teeth like a rat," cried the coachman, grinning, to one
of his comrades; "the way he nibbles that crust, that's as hard
as the stone he's sitting on, is a sight!"
Marcel took the sou, and returned a look of such smiling
gratitude that the observant coachman again remarked to his
friend that that little chap had eyes like the gazelle's in the
Garden of Plants; "they're just as soft and tender," added he,
"only blue." But the child dared not spend the money on
himself--had not Pelagie told him to bring her back everything he
got? So he put it into the bag with the old iron, and once more
went to work. Steadily and earnestly he plodded on, all his
little faculties concentrated on his task, so that at five in the
afternoon his leathern bag was full, and his basket piled up and
pressed down.
Glad and triumphant, with some hope of kind words this time at
least, he turned toward the Rue de la Parcheminerie, and reached
the wretched house just as Pelagie was pushing her empty handcart
through the narrow passage into the yard, where it was put up
under a shed for the night. He climbed the staircase and stood
waiting for her on the landing-place before the door of her room.
"You here!" she cried when she perceived him. "What's brought you
back so soon, you little _vaurien_?" [Footnote 114]
[Footnote 114: Worth-nothing.]
"My basket and my bag are both full, madam," replied Marcel,
trembling as he looked up into the furious eyes of the drunken
virago.
"I shall soon see that." She pushed him violently into the room.
"Now, give me the bag."
She snatched it from him as she spoke and emptied out the
contents on the floor.
{258}
"Why, what is this?" she exclaimed as she caught sight of the
sou. "Did you find this? don't you know what it is?"
"I know what it is, madam; it was given to me to buy some sausage
with to flavor my bread."
"To flavor your bread, you little beggar! Good bread's not good
enough for you, then! I'll flavor your bread, you idiot." And
with her strong right hand she dealt him a blow on the side of
the head that felled him instantly to the floor.
He hid his bruised face in his little trembling hands and lay
there weeping silently.
"Get up, get up, you idle dog; you're not going to stay there, I
can tell you! Come, take your basket and hook and be off again."
The unfeeling woman pulled up the wretched child as she spoke.
"What! crying! I'll have none of that! Come, be off! You'll get
no supper, I promise you, until your basket's full again."
Down the crazy staircase once more the little orphan stumbled
into the street--hungry and tired, his cheek blue with the cruel
blow, and his young heart swelling with the sense of so much
injustice and oppression. The thought came to him suddenly that
he would not return again to that wicked woman; but then, where
should he go? Who would take care of him? He wandered through
many dirty, narrow streets while he thus meditated, and at last
found himself before the old church of St. Etienne du Mont. He
saw some children going in, and followed them. There was so
profound a silence in the sacred edifice, such a soft, subdued
light streamed in from the beautiful painted windows, that the
child's agitated, angry heart seemed calmed almost by a miracle.
He slunk into a dark corner, and there, doing as he saw the
happier children with whom he had entered do, he knelt. He did
not pray; he had never known a mother's care, never been taught
to lisp "Our Father who art in heaven" at his mother's knee; but
peace and forgiveness entered into the orphan's soul as he knelt,
silent, unheeded, in that dark corner of God's house.
Half an hour after he slunk out again into the street, feeling
better, he knew not why, poor ignorant boy, and only anxious to
try to satisfy his task-mistress.
All the evening he went to and fro, filling his basket from the
heaps of rubbish thrown into the streets as soon as night comes
by the numerous inhabitants of Parisian houses. At last, when ten
o'clock had struck from all the church-towers in the quarter, he
again climbed to the third story. The door was ajar, he entered
softly, and saw, by the light of a gas-lamp that was on the
opposite side of the street, Pelagie Vautrin lying extended on
her bed, and snoring the heavy sleep of the drunkard.
He crept, tired and hungry, to his heap of rags, and soon happily
forgot for a few hours that he was motherless and fatherless, a
little waif adrift on the sea of life.
Thus passed and ended Marcel's first day of labor.
Chapter III.
"Thus liv'd the lad, in hunger, peril, pain,
His tears despis'd, his supplications vain.
...
Strange that a frame so weak could bear so long
The grossest insult and the foulest wrong;
But there were causes."
Crabbe.
{259}
Marcel had continued to ply this business for the profit of
Pelagie Vautrin about two years, most times half-starved, and
ofttimes beaten, and had become one of the quickest-sighted and
quickest-witted of the little rag-pickers of Paris, when one wet
winter's night, as he passed near St. Michael's Bridge, he put
his foot on something hard.
To pick it up, to see by the nearest gaslight that it was a
coarse linen bag, containing a quantity of gold coin, was the
work of a minute; the next saw him running as if for dear life to
the office of the Commissary of Police in the Rue des Noyers; he
knew the place well by the red-glass lamp over the door. Almost
breathless he handed his prize to the worthy magistrate, telling
him at the same time where he had found it.
The commissary looked into his little, eager, intelligent face
while he told his story, then taking his hand kindly, "You are a
good boy," said he, "and, mark my words, your honesty will bring
you good luck."
Marcel blushed with pleasure and surprise to be praised, but
stood nervously twirling his ragged cap round and round.
"The man who lost the bag of gold," continued the commissary,
"was here half an hour since; he is a poor clerk, and is in
despair; he is afraid of going back to his employers to tell them
that he has lost their money. You have saved him and his poor
wife and children from much misery. Go, you are a good boy; but
first tell me your name and where you live."
The child told him, it was written carefully down, and he then
went away happier than he had ever been since that dreadful day
when he had convulsively fastened himself to his father's dead
body as it lay on the barricade.
But as he approached his miserable home, this happy feeling
decreased; and he began to think of what Pelagie would say if she
knew what he had been doing. To tell or not to tell, that was the
question, and it was not yet decided when he opened the door of
the dismal room, where Pelagie, drunk as usual, was making her
preparations for going to bed.
"And where do you come from, _vaurien?_" asked she as he
came in.
He did not reply; he was not prepared with a lie, and he feared
to tell the truth. Pelagie, accustomed to prompt and ready
answers from her victims, turned round and stared at him,
surprised beyond measure at this unwonted hesitation.
"Do you hear, little beast, do you hear!" she screamed presently.
"Where do you come from? Why don't you answer me?" And she seized
him violently by the arm.
"Pray don't beat me!" said the child imploringly. "I will tell
you. As I was passing over St. Michael's Bridge, I--I found--a
bag--"
"A bag!" exclaimed Pelagie, still holding him fast. "A bag of
what? Quick! quick! Speak faster!"
"Of gold," whispered the child, trembling, for he _knew_ now
that he should suffer for what he had done.
"Of gold? of gold? Where is it? Give it to me!" And she fumbled
about his little breast, as if she thought it must be hidden
there.
"I haven't got it!" said the boy, whose cheeks waxed paler and
paler, but whose blue eyes met hers for once undauntedly. "I
carried it to the Commissary of Police."
For one moment the drunken fury looked at him silently, and then
burst forth in bitter curses and bitterer blows. Hard and fast
they fell on the young head and tender face; he was knocked down
and kicked up again--hurled against the wall--pushed into the
fire-place--and at last thrown upon the cranky table, which fell
with so terrible a crash that the noise fortunately brought up
the tenants of the story beneath in time to prevent a murder; for
it is too probable that would have been the end of this frightful
scene, if no one had come to save poor Marcel.
{260}
"Madame, Madame Vautrin!" cried M. Poquet, as he rushed into the
room, followed by his wife and a number of the neighbors, "what
is the matter here? Pray, be calm. You've beaten that child too
much! Now, stop, or I'll go for the police." And the strong man
seized the furious woman in his arms, while his wife and one or
two other women got hold of Marcel and carried him down-stairs,
covered with blood and bruises, to the Poquets' room.
Covered with blood and bruises! Such was this wretched child's
reward for the first act of probity he had as yet found an
opportunity of performing!
Be gentle, then, in your judgment of his future errings. O
children of happier fortunes! ye who are encouraged in every
generous thought and honest deed by the tender caresses of a
mother and the approving smiles of a father, remember that
_he_ was an ignorant, homeless orphan, whose first good
impulses were beaten out of him, or stifled by the vicious
influences which surrounded him.
Monsieur and Madame Poquet were--it is a pity to be obliged to
say it of such a kind-hearted couple--no better than they should
be, rather, indeed, far worse. M. Poquet called himself a
cobbler, but few, very few were the boots or shoes that could
show trace of his handiwork. Talking politics in the
_cabaret_ [Footnote 115] at the corner, with idlers like
himself, seemed to be his principal occupation; but there were
rumors afloat that, at night, when honest men were sleeping
peacefully in their beds, he and his companions were dodging the
police, and trying to _find_ the money they would not
_work_ for. Certain it is he generally had a forty-sous
piece in his pocket, and few people knew how he got it.
[Footnote 115: Wine-shop.]
Madame Poquet earned or rather thieved her living as a _femme
de ménage_ [Footnote 116] and a very good living she made too;
for, not satisfied with stuffing herself as full as she could of
victuals at her employer's house, she regularly brought back
every evening in a great basket, that was continually suspended
at her arm, such a supply of cheese, charcoal, sugar, garlic,
bread, cigars, cold meat, and such like, that there was not a
better furnished cupboard nor better fed children than hers in
the neighborhood.
[Footnote 116: Charwoman.]
These children consisted of a boy and a girl--Polycarpe and
Loulou--cunning, ready-witted, unprincipled, and idle. Never had
they heard a word of truth; their only teaching since they came
into the world had been to lie and steal, but like their parents
they were naturally merry and good-tempered; they had never been
ill-treated, as children generally are among the vicious poor,
and they were well-disposed to be generous with their pilfered
plenty.
Such were the people who had rescued the orphan from Pelagie
Vautrin's murderous hands, and who now washed away the blood from
several cuts on his head, and applied such remedies to his poor
bruised limbs as they were acquainted with. And Madame Poquet had
a kind, motherly way with her that comforted poor Marcel
wonderfully, and Polycarpe and Loulou showed much sympathy; and
at last he was put into bed (a dirty one, it is true, but warm)
with Polycarpe; and the boy fell asleep happier, notwithstanding
his aches and pains, than he had been for many a year of his
short life.
{261}
For three whole days Marcel remained quietly with the Poquets,
who would willingly have kept him altogether, and only hoped that
Pelagie would let things be as they were. The fourth morning,
however, brought a change. Scarcely had Madame Poquet taken
herself and her great basket off for her day's work and
pilfering, and M. Poquet slunk off a moment after to the
_cabaret_ at the corner, when Madame Vautrin appeared
suddenly before the frightened eyes of the three children. She
was sober, and in few words ordered Marcel to get his basket and
hook and go to work. The trembling boy silently obeyed.
Chapter IV.
"Alas! regardless of their doom,
The little victims play!
No sense have they of ills to come,
Nor care beyond to-day.
Yet see how all around them wait
The ministers of human fate
And black misfortune's baleful train."
Gray.
But Polycarpe Poquet did not drop the acquaintance so well begun;
far from it; he seemed to have become really attached to the
pale, weak child, who was about a year younger than himself, and
proved his friendship by becoming a kind of amateur rag-picker
and helping to fill the dreadful basket and leathern bag that
Pelagie exacted twice a day. This business finished, he would
lead off Marcel in quest of amusement, with the understood
intention also of picking up a few sous as he best could, and
Polycarpe was not at all particular.
All was new to Marcel; he had never yet had time to stroll
through the great thoroughfares at the hours when the magnificent
shops of Paris display their wonderful merchandise to tempt the
luxurious rich. He had not even ever crossed the bridges since
that fatal 26th of June, 1848, and knew nothing of beautiful
Paris but the narrow and busy streets of the "Quartier Latin,"
the quarter of the great schools, of the College of France, the
Sorbonne, and the Institute.
How wonder-stricken was he the day that Polycarpe conducted him
to the Place de la Concorde! The sky was blue, the sun bright,
the two beautiful fountains were spouting their many waters in
feathery spray, the grand old chestnut-trees of the Tuileries
gardens were in full bloom behind him, palaces on either side of
him, and before him stretched away the magnificent avenue of the
Champs Elysées, bordered by trees and flowers and grassy lawns,
and bounded in the far distance by the Arch of Triumph! The boy's
heart swelled within him, for the love of the beautiful was
hidden in it, as well as the sense of the good and true, and he
could not speak. He had never gazed before on so brilliant a
scene, and he could find no words to express his feelings.
Polycarpe understood nothing of this silent admiration, and after
loitering a short time around some of the _cafés_ among the
trees in the avenue, proposed going down on the quay to look at
the river. They stopped for a glass of brandy at the nearest
_cabaret_--for Marcel had learnt this dreadful habit from
his friend, who had been accustomed to tipple from his very
birth--and then, ready for any mischief, descended to the river's
side. An old lady was standing there, gazing at the swift-flowing
water, as if she were longing to throw into it a very
apoplectic-looking little dog she held by a string.
"Marcel, Marcel," whispered Polycarpe, "I'm going to have some
fun with that old woman. I'll squeeze some sous out of her, you
see if I don't!"
{262}
He started off running as he spoke, then suddenly stopped close
to the dog.
"What a love of a dog!" cried he in apparent ecstasy. "I never
saw a prettier little animal in my life! What kind of a dog do
you call that, madam?"
"It is a Scotch dog, my young friend," replied the old lady,
evidently much flattered; "you have very good taste, for he is
really a very pretty creature."
"He is a love!" ejaculated Polycarpe.
"I have brought him here for a bath," continued the old lady. "I
think that it would do him good if he would swim a little."
"That it would, madam," answered Polycarpe, stroking and kissing
the fat, wheezy little animal; "but it would be well to give him
a little rubbing first; his skin is rather dirty, I perceive,
madam, on looking close. I'll wash him for you, if you like. I'm
used to washing dogs. I wash my mother's dog every Saturday,
madam."
"Really!" said the old lady. "Well, I _should_ be glad to
give Zozor a good washing, but I'm afraid he's difficult; he
don't like it; he never did."
"That's nothing, madam. Julius Caesar--that's my mother's dog--
don't like it, but he's obliged to, for it's for his good. You
should just see Julius Caesar when I've washed and dressed him!
He's perfectly beautiful! He's a poodle, quite white, and I've
cut his coat so that he has a flounce round each ankle, three
rows of fringe on his hips, a fine bandelet on his side, a frill
on his chest, and a magnificent tassel at the end of his tail."
"He must be very handsome," remarked the old lady, who had
listened with much interest to this description.
"He is, madam. My mother says no one can dress a dog better than
I can. So I'll wash Zozor, if you like; I'll not hurt him in the
least."
"You're very kind, indeed," said the old lady. "I really shall be
very much obliged to you. Now then, Zozor, don't be naughty; it
will do you good, Zozor."
So saying, the trustful old lady undid the string attached to her
pet's collar, and delivered the victim into the hypocrite's
hands. In an instant the wretched little creature was smeared
from head to tail with a villanous compound of black soap and
soot that Polycarpe drew from one of his dirty pockets. The poor
animal howled dismally as his tormentor daubed him all over, and
more vehemently still when his eyes, nose, and mouth were crammed
with the nasty, stinging mixture.
"Now, madam," said Polycarpe, when the poor beast was well
plastered and utterly unrecognizable, "that's the first
operation; and if you want me to go on, and wash it off, my
charge is forty sous, paid in advance. I never give credit: it's
a bad system; I've learnt that by experience."
"You wicked boy!" screamed the old lady, "you little impostor!
you've killed my poor Zozor!"
The unlucky pet was rolling himself in the mud, in an agony of
pain.
"You cruel, wicked boy! Oh! what shall I do? what shall I do?"
"Why, you've only to pay me the forty sous," said Polycarpe, who
stood calmly contemplating the contortions of his victim, "and
I'll continue my operations. Forty sous is not dear, madam,
especially as I provide the soap."
{263}
The old lady, unable to endure any longer the sight of her
darling's sufferings, at last drew from her purse a piece of
forty sous, and put it into the outstretched palm of the young
scamp, who no sooner had closed his dirty fingers on the coin
than he burst into an insulting laugh and took to his heels,
leaving Zozor's mistress inarticulate with astonishment and rage.
Marcel had stood a little distance off while this scene was
enacting. At first he laughed; but when he saw how much the poor
dog suffered, the innate humanity of his nature was awakened, and
as soon as his friend had disappeared he approached the yelling
animal, and, with much difficulty and no little danger of being
bitten, managed to seize him by the nape of the neck and throw
him into the water. The miserable animal struggled desperately,
and so got rid of a great part of the soap and soot; with the
help of a boatman who had come up just in time, Marcel got him
out again, and, after a little rubbing and rinsing, restored him
to his weeping mistress, clean, but with blood-shot eyes and
inflamed nostrils, and certainly very much the worse for his
adventure.
The poor lady was profuse in her thanks. "You have saved his
life," she cried; "I shall be eternally grateful to you; I will
never forget you!" And she pressed her dripping darling to her
heart, while she hastily climbed the steep that led from the
river's side to the quay above.
Marcel followed when she was out of sight, and soon perceived
Polycarpe waiting for him, and half-hidden behind one of the
kiosks on the sidewalk in which newspapers are sold in Paris.
"So you washed that old woman's little monster!" cried he, as
soon as he saw Marcel. "You needn't have done that. Here I've
been waiting for you to go to Mother Crapaud's for a real
blow-out. Come along, now, I'm as hungry as a wolf. Did you ever
see an old woman so nicely done? O my eye! poor Zozor! wasn't he
well soaped?"
Chapter V.
"Let not Ambition mock their humble toil,
Their vulgar crimes and villany obscure;
Nor rich folks hear with a disdainful smile
The low and petty knaveries of the poor.
"The titled villain and the thief of power,
The greatest rogue that ever bore a name,
Awaits alike the inevitable hour:
The paths of wickedness but lead to shame."
Parody On Gray's Elegy.
Polycarpe's favorite dining-saloon, the gargote, or eating-house,
of the Mère Crapaud, was situated in the Rue de la Huchette, one
of the narrowest, darkest, and dirtiest of the old streets of
Paris. It was a large, low room, opening from the street; the
whole length of one side of it was taken up by four great
furnaces which cooked the contents of the four great marmites, or
boilers, that were constantly suspended over them. The contents
of three of these marmites consisted of beef-soup, flavored with
carrots, turnips, cabbage, onions, and garlic. The fourth
generally contained stewed beans, a favorite accompaniment to the
boiled beef. A kind of counter, on which stood baskets of cut
bread and bowls of salad, separated the furnaces and marmites
from the other part of the room, which was furnished with tables
of six places each, and benches, all painted dark green. The
place was smoky and grimy, and not rendered pleasanter by the
presence of the Mère Crapaud herself, an enormously fat,
blear-eyed old woman, possessed of a most abusive tongue. Indeed,
she would have seemed better fitted to drive away than to attract
customers. The Mère Crapaud, however, was very popular, and with
good reason; for not only were her beef and soup the very best
that could be bought for the money, but she also could be
depended on in critical moments, when those whom she recognized
as regular customers were in difficulties with the authorities.
{264}
Fifteen or sixteen customers, of all ages and of both sexes, were
seated at the tables when the two boys entered, and the Mère
Crapaud, brandishing the great spoon with which she measured her
soup, was busy behind the counter, assisted by two perspiring
marmitons. [Footnote 117]
[Footnote 117: Scullions.]
"Bonjour, la mère," said Polycarpe, as he entered with the ease
and swagger of a well-known and favored guest; "how goes it with
you?"
"Bonjour, mauvais sujet," returned the hostess; "what brings you
here, to-day?"
"Well, I followed my nose, good mother, which was attracted by
the smell of your bouillon and beef, and brought me straight
here. Permit me to present my friend M. Marcel, a young gentleman
who is as yet unacquainted with the mysteries of your marmites."
"Mysteries! what do you mean by that, you little polisson? There
are no mysteries in my soup-pots; good beef and good vegetables;
find any better if you can."
"Why, I know I can't, Mother Crapaud, and that's why I've come."
"I don't intend running up a score for you, M. Polycarpe, I can
tell you; so clear out, you and your friend, if you've nothing to
pay with."
"But I have, Mother Crapaud. I'm a millionaire to-day, or very
nearly so, and so I'm going to treat my friend and myself to two
sous apiece of soup, and we'll see presently if you can give me
change for this." And he tossed up into the air and caught again
the silver piece he had extorted from poor Zozor's mistress.
The boys then seated themselves at one of the tables, and were
presently served with a bowl of good bouillon and a hunk of
bread.
"Now for a slice of fat beef, la mère," said Polycarpe, when the
soup had disappeared; "six sous' worth will be enough for us two,
and two sous each of stewed beans. What a cram! isn't it,
Marcel?"
Marcel did indeed like his good hot dinner. Poor fellow! it was
only when Polycarpe treated him that he knew what it was to eat
his fill. No conscientious scruples prevented his full enjoyment
of the present. Conscience, that mirror of the soul, which never
flatters, never deceives, was veiled in him by the thick mists of
ignorance, and the only kindnesses he ever received were from the
hands of thieves.
They were finishing their beef and beans when two big, rough
boys, dressed in dirty blue blouses and dirtier trousers of some
nondescript color, rushed into the gargote and bellowed for
something to eat. Throwing themselves on the bench opposite to
that on which Polycarpe and Marcel were seated, they commenced a
series of contortions, elbow nudges, whispers, and loud guffaws,
which were only stopped by the arrival of their victuals. The
elder of the two presently looked up, and, catching Polycarpe's
fixed gaze, after a moment's hesitation exclaimed, "Well, yes!
'tis you, Polycarpe! I thought I remembered your face. I'm glad
to meet you; you're a good one, I know."
Polycarpe was evidently much flattered by this recognition. "I
thought I knew your face too, as soon as you sat down, Guguste,
but you were so full of fun that I wouldn't interrupt you."
{265}
"I'll make you laugh presently," replied Guguste, bursting out
afresh, as did his companion also. "I'll tell you something
that'll tickle you. Come now, stop your noise," he continued to
his friend, who wriggled and choked in a convulsion of merriment,
"or I'll punch you quiet. I'll tell you, Polycarpe, when I've put
this plateful away. My eyes, what fun!"
So saying, he and his friend fell to again, and had soon finished
both beef and beans. When the plates were empty, Guguste leaned
his two elbows on the table and took breath. "That matter being
happily finished," said he presently, "I'll tell you the other;
it's a joke, a real good joke, in my opinion; what old Gorgibus
the shoemaker calls it, is another thing. What do you think he
calls it, eh! Touton? A riddle, perhaps. Ha, ha, a riddle!"
His friend Touton twisted and wriggled and giggled so heartily at
this idea, that he fell off the bench in his ecstasy. "What a
fellow you are for fun!" exclaimed Guguste, pulling him up; "but
really I don't wonder at you, to-day! You must know, Poly, that I
haven't had a shoe to my feet that was decent for an age, and
you'll agree that _that_ was uncomfortable and unpleasant,
not to say inconvenient, especially for a man of business like
myself--ha, ha! So when I got up, this morning, I said to
myself--while I shaved, you know, ha, ha, ha!--that I really must
find some kind of covering for my trotters. But where? That was
the question. So, to settle it, Touton and I strolled about the
streets until we found ourselves pretty far in the Rue St.
Antoine. What should we come upon all at once but a shoe-shop,
and there in the window the very kind of shoes that suited my
taste. Gorgibus was the name over the door. I shall always
remember it; sha'n't you, Touton?"
"Don't speak to me, Guguste; I shall burst with laughing,"
replied Touton. "Poor old Gorgibus, at the sign of holy Saint
Crispin! Oh! don't we owe him a candle, Guguste?"
"That we do, Touton, and you shall go to the church of St.
Severin, it's close by, and pay it to the good saint!"
"Not now, Guguste. Go on with the story, do; I want to know how
you got your shoes," cried Polycarpe.
"Well, then," continued the young reprobate, "Touton and I
consulted together for a minute, and then in we went. 'I want a
good pair of shoes, monsieur,' said I very politely. 'I'm just
going as clerk to a notary, and I must be well shod. What is the
price of this pair?'
"Ten francs,' said he.
"So I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out my cash, and
counted it over with him, and I had just nine francs. 'That's all
I have,' said I, putting the money back again into my pocket;
'will you give them to me for nine francs, if they fit me?'
"'Well, yes, I will, my boy,' said the old fellow good-naturedly.
Upon that I sat down and put on both shoes; they went on like
gloves, so comfortable, you have no idea! Then said I, 'Now, let
me see if nothing hurts when I walk;' so I walked up and down the
shop, old Gorgibus standing by admiring the fit, when, just as I
was passing near the door, this great vaurien of a Touton gave me
a punch in the nose!"
"Ha, ha, ha!" screamed Touton, unable any longer to restrain
himself, "how I cut up the street when I'd done it! and Guguste
cried, 'Stop, you rascal, I'll make you pay for that!' And he ran
and I ran, and old Gorgibus looked after us and laughed till he
cried, and he's crying still very likely!--ha, ha, ha!--and
waiting for Guguste to come back and pay for the shoes! Ha, ha,
ha!"
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"Ha, ha, ha!" echoed the listeners.
"And then the neighbors," continued Guguste, wiping his eyes,
"came to their doors, and kept calling out, 'He'll catch him,
he'll catch him!' O Lord! what fun! And what a capital pair of
shoes!" And the scamp put a foot on the table to show his prize,
while the numerous customers around who had overheard the story
applauded him with enthusiasm. Excited by the universal
admiration, Guguste now invited the two boys to accompany him and
his friend to the cabaret at the corner of the street to take a
glass, an invitation most willingly accepted. The four
unfortunate children accordingly, after paying for their dinners,
adjourned to the wine-shop, where, in the society of bad men and
worse women, they were initiated still deeper into the mysteries
and the practice of crime.
Poor Marcel! poor little orphan!
To Be Continued.
----------
Treatise On Purgatory. [Footnote 118]
By Saint Catharine Of Genoa.
[Footnote 118: The month of November is usually set apart by
pious Catholics for commemoration of the souls in purgatory,
and for prayers and offerings in their behalf. As specially
befitting the season, therefore, we republish anew the
beautiful _Treatise on Purgatory_ by St. Catharine of
Genoa, with the above prefatory remarks by the translator.
There have been several translations of the treatise
heretofore published, and it might seem a needless work to
give another. But besides its appropriateness to the season,
and that many will read it in the pages of _The Catholic
World_ who might not elsewhere see it, the new translation
we now give has special merits of its own which will justify
its publication.--ED. C. W.]
When the gates of purgatory opened to Dante and his companion
with awful thunderous roar, he heard mingling with the sound a
chorus of voices--"We praise thee, O God!"--rising and fading
away like a solemn chant and sound of the organ under the arches
of some vast cathedral.
And afterward, while pursuing their journey, they felt the whole
mountain of purgatory tremble. A shout arose--"Glory be to God in
the Highest!"--swelled by the voice of every suffering soul in
that vast realm. It was the expression of universal, unselfish
joy over the deliverance of one soul from its bounds.
Such are the tones that ring all through the _Treatise on
Purgatory_ by St. Catharine of Genoa--full of praise, of holy
joy, and of unselfish love. It ought to be read beneath the mild
eyes of the Madonna in some old church, to the sound of solemn
music. If you do not meet in it the dazzling angels of the great
Florentine poet, you feel their presence, and you rejoice like
him in the nooks of beauty where "spring sweet, pale flowers of
penitence," refreshed by the fragrant dews of God's mercy.
The patient, silent suffering of the tried souls she describes,
which are living on the glimpse they had of the divine Splendor
at the moment of death, is full of eloquence. They suffer
intensely, but peace and joy rise above pain, as in the beautiful
bay of Spezia, we are told, the sweet water rises up out of the
salt and bitter sea.
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While reading this production of genius and of inspiration, we no
longer shrink from that dark region, lighted up, as it is, by
rays of God's wonderful goodness. With St. Catharine, we regard
it as a provision of great mercy which the soul gladly avails
itself of as a means of purification, which will fit it for the
awful presence of him in whose sight the very stars are not
pure--a presence the soul could not endure till it had purged
"the world's gross darkness off." As Faber says, "The moment that
in his sight it perceives its own unfitness for heaven, it wings
its voluntary flight to purgatory, like a dove to her proper nest
in the shades of the forest." It cries:
"Take me away, and in the lowest deep
There let me be,
And there in hope the lone night-watches keep,
Told out for me.
There, motionless and happy in my pain,
Lone, not forlorn,
There will I sing my sad perpetual strain,
Until the morn.
There will I sing, and soothe my stricken breast,
Which ne'er can cease
To throb, and pine, and languish, till possessed
Of its sole peace.
There will I sing my absent Lord and Love:--
Take me away,
That sooner I may rise, and go above,
And see him in the truth of everlasting day." [Footnote 119]
[Footnote 119: _Dream of Gerontius_, by Father Newman.]
M. le Vicomte de Bussierre, in writing of this treatise, says:
"But is the state described by the saint that of all the souls
detained by divine justice in this place of expiation?" The reply
to this question requires some preliminary observations.
The dogma of the church respecting purgatory is very brief. The
Holy Council of Trent is satisfied with declaring that there is a
purgatory, and that the souls therein detained are helped by the
suffrages of the faithful.
The church does not define the nature of the sufferings endured
there, but this is our idea of them:
This world is a place of probation. In it are prepared the
materials for the construction of the New Jerusalem. Not only
stones are wanted for its walls, but jewels for its decoration.
Diamonds are not cut in the same manner as common stones. Thence
we can perceive the necessity of different ways of preparing the
righteous for a higher state of existence. The place each one
will occupy in heaven is irrevocably fixed at the moment of
death, but, before taking possession of it, he must have the
highest polish of which he is susceptible, and be without any
defect or stain.
Take two persons who are entering purgatory. One has passed his
life in gross sensual pleasures, but absolution with the
necessary dispositions has restored him to the paths of
righteousness; the other has always lived in innocence and in the
closest union with God, but slight imperfections deprive him for
a time of the beatific vision. Shall it be said that the manner
of purifying these two souls is the same, and that their
purgatory only differs in point of duration? It does not seem
probable. We do not use the same means for removing a stain from
a garment that we should for a particle of dust on a polished
mirror.
This explanation will better enable us to understand St.
Catharine's treatise. Most Christians believe there are sensible
pains in purgatory. It is the view commonly taken of that state
by our preachers. Our saint does not contradict this opinion. She
speaks of a special purification for certain souls, but without
excluding any. The soul in question in her treatise is a diamond
already cut with wonderful exactness, and from which the Divine
Artist is removing the last stain before placing it among his
choicest jewels.
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Faber says there are two views of purgatory prevailing among
Christians, indicative of the peculiar tone of the mind of those
who have embraced them.
One is, that it is a place of sensible torture, where the least
pain is greater than all the pains of earth put together--an
intolerable prison-house, full of wailing and horror; visited by
angels, indeed, but only as the instruments of God's awful
justice. The spirit of this view is a horror of offending
Almighty God, a habitual trembling before his judgments, and a
great desire for bodily austerities.
The second view does not deny any of these features, but it gives
more prominence to other considerations. "The spirit of this view
is love, an extreme desire that God should not be offended, and a
yearning for the interests of Jesus." It is not so much a
question of selfish consideration with the soul, as of God's will
and glory. "Its sweet prison, its holy sepulchre, is in the
adorable will of its Heavenly Father, and there it abides the
term of its purification with the most perfect contentment and
the most unutterable love."
In short, this second view is that of St. Catharine of Genoa,
which comes home to our hearts, as we read her treatise, with
joyful conviction--giving new conceptions of that holy realm of
pain.
This treatise is not the production of human vanity. St.
Catharine only wrote by the express wish of her spiritual
director, who fathomed her genius and knew her familiarity with
the secrets of the Most High. It is, in the estimation of judges
of the highest authority, one of the most astonishing and
admirable productions of mystical theology, says M. de Bussierre.
And it has been approved of by the Holy See, and by the Sacred
Congregation of Rites.
It was one of the favorite books of St. Francis de Sales, with
whose spirit it is so greatly in harmony, and he calls the
authoress a seraph.
And Faber styles her, "The Great Doctress of Purgatory."
St. Catharine was contemporary with Christopher Columbus, being
born a few years later in the same city. And she was the
grand-niece of Pope Innocent IV., who first gave,
authoritatively, the name of Purgatory to the Intermediate State,
and who was, like her, of the noble house of the Fieschi.
The French author so often quoted says: "There are many
expressions in this work to which a forced meaning is not to be
given. St. Catharine represents a soul as strictly united to God
as it can be without being absorbed in the divinity. But she does
not annihilate individuality. She does not teach pantheism. She
only expresses the doctrine of St. Paul, '_In ipso vivimus, et
movemur, et sumus:_' 'In him we live, and we move, and we
are.'"
How she makes us long for that union, and welcome all that
hastens it! We would join with all our earth-worn heart in that
"liturgy of hallowed pain." "O world!" we cry with Faber--"O
weary, clamorous, sinful world! who would not break away, if he
could, like an uncaged dove, from thy perilous toils and unsafe
pilgrimage, and fly with joy to the lowest place in that most
pure, most safe, most holy land of suffering and of sinless
love?"
(Hector Vernaccia, who first published the works of St. Catharine
of Genoa, wrote the following preface to her _Treatise on
Purgatory:_)
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"The soul of Catharine, still clad in the flesh, was plunged in
the furnace of God's ardent love, which consumed and purified her
from every imperfection, so that at the end of her life she was
fitted to pass at once into the presence of God, the only object
of her affection. This interior fire made her comprehend that the
souls in purgatory are placed there to be purified from the rust
and stain of the sins which they had not expiated on earth.
Swallowed up in this divine and purging fire, she acquiesced in
the will of God, rejoicing in all his love wrought in her; she
clearly understood what must be the state of the souls in
purgatory, and thus wrote thereof:"
Chapter I.
State Of The Souls In Purgatory--
They Are Divested Of All Self-love.
The souls which are confined in purgatory, as it is given me to
understand, can wish for no other dwelling-place than that
wherein God hath justly placed them.
They have no longer the power of reviewing their past lives. Nor
can they say: "I deserve to remain here for such and such sins.
Would that I had not committed them! Then should I be
participating in the joys of heaven." Neither can they compare
the duration of their punishment with that of others. They have
neither in good nor evil any remembrance which aggravates their
pains, not even respecting others; but they feel a great
satisfaction in being at the disposal of God, who doeth all that
seemeth to him good, and as it pleaseth him, so that in their
greatest sufferings they cannot think of themselves. They regard
only the goodness of God, whose infinite mercy would draw all men
to himself. They anticipate neither the pain nor the solace that
may be their portion: if they could, they would not be in a state
of pure love.
Nor do they see that they are suffering in punishment of their
sins. They cannot retain such a view in their minds, for that
would be an active imperfection, and impossible in a place where
there is no actual sin.
Only once, at the moment of quitting this world, do they see the
cause of purgatory which they have in themselves, but never
afterward, or there would be some selfish consideration. Being in
a state of pure love, from which they cannot deviate by actual
fault, they can only will and desire what is conformable to that
pure love. For in the flames of purgatory they are under the
divine ordinance and will; that is to say, in that state of pure
charity from which they can no longer be separated by any cause
whatever, because it is as impossible for them to commit actual
sin as it is to acquire actual merit.