Despite these words, so calm and simple, Materne too was sorely

troubled. As he entered the trench, the air seemed full of sounds

of dire foreboding, the rattling of arms, the steady tramp of a

trained multitude. He looked down the steep and saw the Austrians

pressing on, but this time with long ladders, to the ends of

which great iron hooks were fastened.

"Kasper," he whispered, "things look ill--ill indeed. Give me

your hand. I would like to have you and Frantz near me! Remember

to do your part like a man."

As he spoke, a heavy shock shook the defences to their

foundations, and a hoarse voice cried, "O my God!"

Then a fir-tree, a hundred paces off, bent slowly and thundered

into the abyss. It was the first cannon-shot, and it had carried

off both old Rochart's legs. Another and another followed, and

soon the air was thick with crushed and flying ice, while the

shrieking of the balls struck terror to the stoutest hearts. Even

old Materne trembled for a moment; but his brave heart was soon

itself again, and he cried:

{480}

"Vengeance! vengeance! Victory or death!"

Happily, the terror of the mountaineers was of short duration.

All knew that they must conquer or die. Two ladders were already

fixed, despite the hail of bullets, and the combat was once more

foot to foot and hand to hand, fiercer and bloodier than before.

Hullin had seen the ladders before Materne, and once more his

wrath against Dives arose; but he knew that anger then availed

naught, and he sent Lagarmitte to order Frantz, who was posted on

the other side of Donon, to hasten to the farm with half his men.

The brave boy, warned of his father's danger, lost not a moment,

and already the black slouched hats were seen climbing the

mountain-side. Jean-Claude, breathless, the sweat pouring from

his brow, ran to meet them, crying:

"Quick, quick! or all is lost!" He trembled once more with rage,

attributing all their misfortunes to the smuggler.

But where was Marc-Dives? In half an hour he had made his way

around the ravine, and from his steed saw the two companies of

Austrians drawn up at ordered arms, two hundred paces behind the

guns, which still kept up their fire upon the intrenchments. He

turned to the mountaineers, and in a low voice, while the thunder

of the cannon echoed peal upon peal from the valley, and the

shouts and shrieks and clatter of the assault rose beyond it,

said:

"Comrades, you will fall upon the infantry with the bayonet. I

and my men will do the rest. Forward!"

The whole troop advanced in good order to the edge of the wood,

tall Piercy of Soldatenthal at their head.

They heard the _Werda_ [Footnote 157] of a sentinel. Two

shots replied; then the shout of "_Vive la France_!" rang to

heaven, and the brave mountaineers rushed upon the foe like

famished wolves upon their prey.

[Footnote 157: "Who goes there?"]

Dives, erect in his stirrups, looked on and laughed.

"Well done!" he said. "Charge!" The earth shook beneath the

shock. Neither Austrians nor partisans fired; for a while nothing

was heard but the clash of bayonets or the dull thud of the

clubbed muskets as they fell; then shrieks and groans and cries

of rage arose, and from time to time a shot rang out. Friend and

foe were mixed and mingled in the savage fray.

The band of smugglers, sabre in hand, sat all this while gazing

at the fight, awaiting their leader's signal to engage.

It came at last.

"Now is our time," cried Marc. "One brave blow, and the guns are

ours."

And forth from the cover of the wood, their long mantles floating

behind in the wind, every man, in his fiery impatience, bending

over his saddle-bow, and pointing his long, straight rapier

straight forward, broke the bold riders.

"The point, my lads! the point! never mind the edge!" shouted

Dives.

In a moment they were on the pieces. Among Marc's troop were four

old dragoons who had seen the Spanish wars through, and two

veteran cuirassiers of the guard, whom love of danger had

attached to the smuggler. The rammers and short sabres of the

artillerymen could avail but little against their well-aimed

thrusts, each one of which brought a man to the earth.

{481}

Marc's cheek was blackened with the powder of a pistol fired

within six inches of his head; a bullet passed through his hat;

but his course was not staid until his sword pierced the old

officer with the light mustache through and through, at one of

the cannons. Then, rising slowly in his saddle until his tall

form sat erect, he gazed around, and said sententiously:

"The guns are ours!"

But the scene was terrible; the _mêlée_ on the high plateau;

the shrieks, the neighing of horses, or their cries of agony; the

shouts of rage; men casting away their arms in a wild flight for

life, an inexorable foe pursuing; beyond the ravine, ladders

crowded with white uniforms and bristling with bayonets;

mountaineers defending themselves with the fierce courage of

despair; the sides of the slope, the road, and the foot of the

_abatis_ heaped with dead, or wounded writhing in anguish;

still further away, the masses of the enemy advancing, with

musket on shoulder, and officers in the midst urging them on; old

Materne, on the crest of the steep, swinging his clubbed rifle

with deadly effect, and shouting for his son Frantz, who was

rushing at full speed with his command to the fight; Jean-Claude

directing the defence; the deafening musketry, now in volleys,

now rattling like some terrible hailstorm; and, rolling above

all, the vague, weird echoes of mountain and valley. All this was

pressed into that one moment.

Marc-Dives was not of a contemplative or poetic turn of mind,

however, and wasted no time in useless reflections upon the

horrors of war. A glance showed him the position of affairs, and,

springing from his horse, he seized one of the levers of the

guns, and in a moment had aimed the yet loaded piece at the foot

of the ladders. Then he seized a match and fired.

Strange cries arose from afar off, and the smuggler, gazing

through the smoke, saw a bloody lane in the enemy's ranks. He

shook both his hands above his head exultingly, and a shout of

triumph arose from the breastworks.

"Dismount!" he cried to his men. "Now is our time for action!

Bring cartridges and balls from your caissons. Load! We will

sweep the road! Ready! Fire!"

The smugglers applied themselves to the work, and shot after shot

tore through the white masses. The fire enfiladed the ranks, and

the tenth discharge was at a flying foe.

"Fire! fire!" shouted Marc. And the partisans, re-enforced by

Frantz, regained the position they had for a moment lost.

And now the mountain-side was covered only with dead, wounded,

and flying. It was four o'clock in the evening, and night was

falling fast. The last cannon-shot fell in the street of

Grandfontaine, and, rebounding, overturned the chimney of the

"Red Ox."

Six hundred men had perished. Many of the mountaineers had

fallen, but many more of the Kaiserliks. Dives's cannonade had

saved all; for the partisans were not even one against ten, and

the enemy had almost made himself master of their works.

Chapter XVI.

The Austrians, crowded in Grandfontaine, fled toward Framont, on

foot and on horseback, flinging their knapsacks away, and looking

behind as if they feared the mountaineers were in hot pursuit.

{482}

In Grandfontaine, in a sort of spirit of revenge, they broke

whatever they could lay hands on, tore out windows, crushed in

doors, demanded food and drink, and insulted the people by way of

payment. Their imprecations and cries, the commands of their

officers, the complaints of the inhabitants, the heavy tramp of

feet across the bridge of Framont, and the agonized neigh of

wounded horses, all rose in a confused murmur to the

_abatis_.

On the side of the mountain, arms, shakos, knapsacks, dead--all

the signs of a rout--were alone seen. Opposite appeared

Marc-Dives's guns, ready to open fire anew in case of a new

attack.

The partisans had gained the day; but no shout of triumph rose

from their intrenchments. Their losses had been too cruel.

Silence had succeeded the tumult of battle--silence, deep and

solemn--and those who had escaped the carnage gazed earnestly at

their fellows, as if wondering to see them yet alive. A few

called aloud for friends, some for brothers, who replied not.

Then search began throughout the length of the works for Jacob,

or Philippe, or Antoine.

And the gray shades of night were falling fast over mountain and

valley, and lending a strange mystery to the horrid picture; and

men came and went without knowing one another.

Materne wiped his bloody bayonet, and called his boys in hoarse

tones:

"Kasper! Frantz!"

And seeing them approach in the half-darkness, he asked:

"Are you hurt?"

"No."

The voice of the old hunter, harsh as it was, trembled.

"We are all three again together; God's mercy be thanked!" he

murmured.

And he, who was never known to weep, embraced his boys, while the

tears rained down his cheeks, and they, no less moved, sobbed

like little children.

But the old man soon recovered himself and cried with a forced

gayety:

"We have had a rough day, lads; let us take a cup of wine--I am

thirsty."

Throwing a last glance at the bloody slope, and seeing that the

sentries whom Hullin had stationed at intervals of thirty paces

were all at their posts, the old man led the way to the

farm-house.

They were passing carefully through the corpse-piled trench, when

a feeble voice exclaimed:

"Is that you, Materne?"

"Ah poor Rochart! Pardon! forgive me if I hurt you," said the old

hunter, bending over the wounded man; "how comes it that you are

still here?"

"Because I cannot move hence; inasmuch as I have no legs,"

answered the other with a mournful sort of merriment.

The three hunters stood silent for a moment, when the old

wood-cutter continued:

"Tell my wife, Materne, that behind the cupboard, in a stocking,

she will find six crowns. I saved them in case either of us

should fall sick; but I have no further need--"

"Perhaps--perhaps--you may live yet, old friend," interrupted

Materne. "We will carry you from here, at all events."

"It is not worth while," returned the wounded man. "An hour more,

and you can carry me to my grave."

Materne, without replying, signed to Frantz to help him, and

together they raised the old wood-cutter from the ground, despite

his wish to be left alone. Thus they arrived at the farm-house.

{483}

All the wounded who had strength enough to drag themselves to the

hospital were there. Doctor Lorquin and a fellow-surgeon, named

Despois, who had come during the day to his assistance, had work

enough on hand; and as Materne and his sons with their piteous

load traversed the dimly-lighted hall, they heard cries which

froze the blood in their veins, and the dying wood-cutter almost

shrieked:

"Why do you bring me here! Let me die in peace. They shall not

touch me!"

"Open the door Frantz," said Materne, his forehead covered with a

cold sweat, "open quick!"

And as Frantz pushed open the door, they saw, on a large

kitchen-table in the middle of the low room, with its heavy brown

rafters, Colard, the younger, stretched at full length, six

candles around him, a man holding each arm, and a bucket beneath.

Doctor Lorquin, his shirt-sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and a

short wide saw in his hand, was about cutting off the poor

fellow's leg, while Desbois stood by with a sponge. Blood dripped

into the bucket, and Colard was pale as death. Catherine Lefevre

was near, with a roll of lint, and seemed firm; but the furrows

in her cheeks were deeper than usual, and her teeth were tightly

set. She gazed on the ground so as not to see the misery around.

"It is over!" said the doctor at length, turning round.

And casting a glance at the new-comers he added:

"Ah! you here, Father Rochart?"

"Yes; but you must not touch me. I am done for; let me die in

peace."

The doctor took up a candle, looked for a moment at the old man's

wounds, and said with a grimace:

"It was time, my poor Rochart; you have lost a great deal of

blood, and if we wait any longer, it will be too late."

"Do not touch me!" shrieked the old man. "I have suffered

enough!"

"As you wish. We will pass to another."

He looked at the long line of mattresses. The two last were

empty, although deluged with blood. Materne and Kasper placed

their charge upon the last, while Despois went to another of the

wounded men, saying:

"It is your turn, Nicholas."

Then they saw tall Nicholas Cerf lift a pale face and eyes

glittering with fear.

"Give him a glass of brandy," said the doctor.

"No, I would rather smoke my pipe."

"Where is your pipe?"

"In my vest."

"Good; and your tobacco?"

"In my pantaloons pocket."

"Fill his pipe, Despois. This man is a brave fellow--I like to

see such. We will take off your arm in two times and three

motions."

"Is there no way of preserving it, Monsieur Lorquin--for my poor

children's sake? It is their only support."

"No, the bone is fractured and will not reunite. Light his pipe,

Despois. Now, Nicholas, my man, smoke, smoke."

The poor fellow seemed after all to have little wish to do so.

"Are you ready?" asked the doctor.

"Yes," answered the sufferer in a choking voice.

"Good! Attention, Despois; sponge!"

Then with a long knife he cut rapidly around the arm. Nicholas

ground his teeth. The blood spirted; Despois tied something. The

saw ground for two seconds, and the arm fell heavily on the

floor.

{484}

"That is what I call a well-performed operation," observed

Lorquin.

Nicholas was no longer smoking; the pipe had fallen from his

lips. They bound round what remained of his arm with lint, and

replaced him on his mattress.

"Another finished! Sponge the table well, Despois, and then for

the next," said the doctor, washing his hands in a large basin.

Each time he said, "Now for the next," the wounded men groaned

with fear. The shrieks they heard and the glittering knives they

saw were enough to strike a chill to their hearts; but what could

be done? All the rooms of the farm-house and of the barn were

crowded. Only the large hall remained clear, and so the Doctor

could not help operating under the eyes of those who must a

little later take their turn.

Materne could see no more. Even the dog, Pluto, who stood behind

the doctor, seemed to tremble at the horrible sight. The old

hunter hastened to breathe the cold air without, and cried:

"And to think, my boys, that this might have happened to us!"

"God is good," said Frantz, "and why should we let sights even

like these affright us from our duty? We are in his hands."

A murmur of voices arose to their right.

"It is Marc-Dives and Hullin," said Kasper, listening.

"Yes, they have just come from the breastwork they made behind

the fir-wood for the cannon," added Frantz.

They listened again. Footsteps approached.

"You are embarrassed with your three prisoners," said Hullin, in

short tones. "You return to Falkenstein to-night; why can you not

take them with you?"

"But where shall I put them?"

"_Parbleu!_ In the prison of Abreschwiller; we cannot keep

them here."

"I understand, Jean-Claude. And if they attempt to escape on the

way, I will plant my rapier between their shoulders."

"You must!"

They reached the door, and Hullin, seeing Materne, cried

joyously:

"You here, old friend? I have been seeking you for an hour. Where

were you?"

"We were carrying old Rochart to the hospital."

Jean-Claude dropped his head sadly; but his joy at the result of

the day's battle soon gained the upper hand, and he said:

"Yes, it is mournful, indeed. But such is the fortune of war. Are

you or your sons hurt?"

"Not a scratch."

"Thank Heaven! Materne, those who passed through this day's work

may well rejoice."

"Yes," cried Marc-Dives, laughing, "I saw old Materne ready to

beat a retreat; without those little cannon-shots, things would

have had a different ending."

Materne reddened and glanced angrily at the smuggler.

"It is very possible," he answered; "but without the cannon-shots

at the beginning, we should not have needed those at the end, and

old Rochart and fifty brave fellows would yet have legs and

arms--a thing which would not have hurt our victory."

"Bah!" interrupted Hullin, who saw a dispute likely to arise.

"Quit this discussion. Every man has done his duty."

Then addressing Materne, he added:

{485}

"I have sent a flag of truce to Framont, to tell the enemy to

remove their wounded. They will arrive in about an hour,

doubtless, and you must order our outposts to let them advance;

but without arms, and with torches. If they come otherwise, fire

on them."

"I will go at once," replied the old hunter.

"Return with your sons, and have supper with us at the

farm-house, when you have carried out your orders."

"Very well, Jean-Claude."

Hullin ordered Frantz and Kasper to have large bivouac-fires

lighted for the night, and Marc to have his horses fed and to go

at once for more ammunition, and, seeing them depart on their

way, he entered the farm-house.

----------

Translated From The French.

The Unity Of Scientific And Revealed Truth. [Footnote 158]

[Footnote 158: A discourse pronounced by the Archbishop of

Malines on his first pastoral visit to the city and

university of Louvain.]

I have not been able to come among you as soon as I desired. The

duties of my office, and especially the difficulties which always

surround one's initiation to a new sphere of duties, are the

causes of this delay. Had I the leisure, my first visit after my

entrance into this vast diocese would have been to Louvain--to

Louvain, so celebrated for its glorious traditions--to Louvain,

which has ever remained true to them. To the attraction of great

historical remembrances are joined in my case ties of a more

intimate nature. This pulpit recalls to my mind the days of a

ministry which must always be dear to my heart, and which was far

less onerous than that which has replaced it; for if in those

days I spoke of the cross, it was surely without carrying the one

which now weighs upon my shoulders. Yet it is with joy that I

address for the first time, as pastor of their souls, the

children of this city, twice blessed by the Church for the signal

services she has rendered to the Christian world, both by her

ancient university, and by the one which lives again in our time

with so much lustre.

Louvain bears a great title, because she symbolizes a great

thing--_the unity of science and faith_. How, then, my

brethren, can I avoid speaking of her, and of that unity which

men now strive to banish from the schools of learning? Everywhere

it seems as if some invincible power had given the command to

expel Christianity from our schools in the name of science. I

gladly seize, therefore, the first opportunity which has been

offered me to consider this question, because it deeply interests

the living minds of the age, because it is one of the great cares

of our social life, and because here the two interests are united

in one place: the interests of science, because I speak of

Louvain; the interests, of religion, because I speak from this

sacred pulpit.

{486}

Not always in their efforts against the unity of science and

religion do we find our opponents frankly declaring war upon

Christianity. No; its enemies prefer to extinguish it by

stratagem. They wisely fear the love of parents for their

offspring; and while they are eager to destroy the faith of the

one, they hope to accomplish their task without the knowledge of

the other. It is on this account that they have sought and found

the proper word to conceal their design, and this word is

_neutrality in teaching_. I wish, then, to show you two

things:

_First_. That neutrality in teaching, as far as it regards

the Christian religion, is evidently impossible; that a teacher

must unavoidably declare himself for or against the Christian

faith, even as Christ himself said, "He that is not for me is

against me."

_Second_. Science cannot declare itself against the

Christian faith without denying itself, without being unfaithful

to its own principle, which is reason, and without renouncing the

very conditions of a free, perfect, and progressive science.

May the Mother of Science and Faith, _Mater Agnitionis_,

obtain for us from the incarnated Wisdom the light which we need!

I.

When I speak of instruction, I do not intend to designate certain

branches of study in particular, but I refer to the whole course

of teaching in each of its three degrees. I affirm, then, that

neutrality in teaching is an evident impossibility, so far as it

regards Christianity in each of these three degrees, and more

especially in the highest grade of instruction. This could be

demonstrated by running over a great number of the various

branches of study; but in order to be more concise, though not

less conclusive, I will speak of only two among them, history and

morals, upon which no school can be silent. They will suffice to

convince you that the school which is not Christian is

necessarily antichristian, and that it will ever be impossible to

be neutral.

Let us begin with history. If the Christian religion were a

mythology, certainly we could separate it from the teaching of

history, and banish it to the domain of fable; but Christianity

before as well as after the Incarnation is a great historical

fact; nay, it is the greatest fact of history. This fact is a

living one in that religious society which embraces every nation.

This living fact speaks and affirms itself divine; not divine in

man who accepts it, but divine in that which constitutes its

essence, in its doctrine, in its worship, and in its doctrinal

and sanctifying power.

Christian teaching affirms that Christianity is a _divine_

fact. Anti-Christian instruction denies it. What, then, can

neutral instruction be? If it neither affirm nor deny,

necessarily it doubts, and consequently it must teach doubt. But

is not the teaching of doubt formally antichristian? The divine

Author of Christianity teaches us that, in the presence of the

proofs of his mission, doubt is inexcusable: "_If I had not

come and spoken to them, they would not have sin: but now they

have no excuse for their sin_." (John xv. 22.)

We will see, in a few moments, why this doubt is inexcusable; but

we only affirm a self-evident truth when we declare neutrality to

be impossible, because he who is not for the faith is necessarily

against it, and to teach doubt is only another way to deny truth.

But perhaps it will be said that neutral instruction will say

nothing concerning this matter; that it will pass by the fact of

the Christian religion in silence; and that, without relegating

it to the domain of mythology, it will quietly ignore its

existence.

{487}

Now, the absurdity of this position is still more manifest, for

Christianity is linked to everything in this world. We cannot

take a step in history without meeting with it; if you search the

annals of antiquity, of the first centuries of the Christian era,

of the middle ages, or of modern times, at every age alike you

will see Christianity before you, and everywhere it governs all

other things from its lofty height.

The pretence of silence in this matter is therefore one of two

things: it is either nonsense or it is hypocrisy. It is nonsense

when it is said, as I have recently been informed it is in a

certain classic work adopted by our schools, that it will contain

no question about sacred history, nor about the history of the

church, whether of the old or the new alliance, because these

questions are all beyond the scope of history. The chain of facts

which a Bossuet has unrolled in his discourse upon universal

history--that marvellous chain of facts beyond the scope of

history! The expectation of redemption among all the people of

the globe, which is proved by the universality of expiatory

sacrifices, and by foreshadowings which redemption can alone make

intelligible; the establishment of Christianity in its last and

definite form, its civilizing influence, its trials, its

long-continued struggles, its triumphant existence--these are

all beyond the scope of history! This pretended silence, then, is

not nonsense, it is hypocrisy; it is only, like the neutrality

which it defends, the hollow mask of infidelity.

Again, neutrality is not less impossible in the sphere of morals

than in history. What is morality? It is the science of duty. By

itself, it is the science of means furnished by reason to

overcome our passions. Therefore to morals belong these absorbing

questions: Why have the passions revolted against reason? Why

does not the same beautiful harmony reign in the moral as in the

physical order? Why are there, as it were, two men within us, and

why do we know what we ought to do, and why do we follow the

opposite? What is the cause of this deep-seated evil, which is

only too well known to us all? What is the remedy for it? Where

shall we find the strength to conquer this interior revolt? Where

are the arms with which we can triumph?

He who knows not this knows nothing. But faith has positive

answers for these fundamental questions. It teaches us that the

revolt of passions in human nature is the first result of the

revolt of the human mind against God; that the soul, which did

not wish to submit to its Creator and its Master, has rightly

suffered the uprising of its own slaves, the senses and the

appetites; that, if it would vanquish them, it must humiliate its

pride, lament its evil deeds, implore the grace of God, pray to

obtain again its lost strength. It teaches us that by prayer we

seize familiarly the divine armor, "_armaturam Dei orantes_"

and that only by its aid can we hope to combat and to triumph.

This is Christian teaching. And will not that teaching be

antichristian which denies what Christianity, in this respect,

declares to be true? Certainly it must, because in the teaching

of morals, to be silent concerning the necessity of grace and of

prayer, by which man freely obtains grace, is to make an avowed

profession of antichristianity. To say nothing of the grace which

strengthens our nature; to say nothing of grace, which not only

strengthens, but elevates nature above itself; to say nothing of

the life of grace, as if, when compared with the physical and

intellectual life, there was not a far more noble life, which all

men have experienced, since no one is completely abandoned by its

merciful inspirations--this is not a neutral course; it is

antichristian, formally antichristian.

{488}

I might prove to you here that instruction upon morals is not

only antichristian when it is silent concerning the means given

us by faith to conquer these passions, but also when it refuses

to recognize the great motives for fulfilling our duties, for

these motives are so many Christian truths. I might show, or

rather recall the fact, that these truths have transformed

private and public morality, that they have begotten modern

civilization; and those are indeed blind and ungrateful who enjoy

the fruit of this civilization, while they would miserably tear

the fair tree from the hearts of their Christian countrymen.

But I must be satisfied with placing these arguments before you;

and I am the more readily contented with this sketch, because I

know that it is not requisite to say everything, in order to be

understood. I am convinced that I have said enough to make it

clear, both to your reason and to your conscience, that

instruction must be Christian, or it will become antichristian;

that science is necessarily either for or against the holy faith;

and that its pretended neutrality is only an unmeaning word.

Hence it follows that the organization of public instruction on

the basis of a deceitful neutrality is in reality the affirmation

of antichristianity in the state. [Footnote 159]

[Footnote 159: In Belgium, there is a society which bears the

title of _The League of Instruction_. This society is

free to organize antichristianity in its schools, but always

defraying its own expenses, and at its own risk and peril.

This society has become dissatisfied, because its members

know that they cannot gain the confidence of the people;

hence they have sought to remove the obstacles by imploring

the protection of the state.]

II.

It remains for us to see that, when science declares against the

Christian faith, it really denies its own principle, that is to

say, reason. And why? Because it is reason which invokes the

light of faith, and it is reason which recognizes it. It is

reason which invokes the light of faith. For what is reason?

Reason is that one of our powers which reaches after truth; it is

that faculty which is ever forcing us to search out the

"_why_" of things. It has even the same name as its object,

for the reason and the "_why_" of anything are one. Again,

we only act reasonably when we know _why_ we are acting.

Even in our most insignificant actions, we always propose to

ourselves an intention, an end which determines them. In order,

therefore, to live reasonably, we must know _why_. It is

necessary to know the _why_, or the _end_, of life, so

that the first words of our catechism answer the first question

of reason. Why are you in the world? Is it only to go to the

cemetery? Has man been placed upon the earth only that he may be

thrown into a grave? Humanity will never accept this doctrine.

The generations of the human race kneel at the tombs of their

ancestors and protest against this monstrosity--the miserable and

absurd system of those who clamorously desire a liberty of the

human mind, which can only terminate in corruption and worms. The

human conscience and human reason unite in declaring that life is

only a journey, that its end is beyond the tomb, and that to die

is to attain it. But what do we attain? Where do we arrive?

{489}

Here reason searches, and trembles while she seeks. She looks,

and feels that she is powerless to penetrate single-handed into

the abyss of the future life. The learned and the ignorant are

equally baffled, and can only say, "It is necessary to return to

the other world, in order to know what really is done there." The

gospel tells us the same; no one has penetrated the heavens

except he who came from them: "No one has ascended into heaven,

except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man who is in

heaven."

Let us try then, brethren, to discover what reason asks, and

justly asks. It asks the "_why_" of life; it does not care

to exist without knowing "_why_" and knowing it with

certainty. It can obtain certitude in many other spheres of

thought; but it wishes to be assured upon this far more than upon

any other question. Let us, then, state how reason has certitude

in some other matters, and how it wishes and can attain it in

this.

We know the things of the exterior world with certainty, and

reason tells as to admit that which is well attested by the

senses. We know the things of the interior world, of that world

which is within our own breasts, because reason tells us to admit

what is revealed by our self-consciousness. We know the great

mass of truths of the intellectual world with certainty, for our

reason tells us that we must acknowledge the truths proclaimed by

evidence. We know that which is passing upon the earth in the

present day. We know events which occur in distant quarters of

the world, and we know the facts which are separated from us by

long intervals of time, because our reason tells us that history

and the testimony of mankind are reliable grounds of certitude.

But that which we wish to know more than all these things is the

end of our own existence; and we wish to know this precisely,

because we are reasonable beings. Our reason longs to know more

of the meaning of our creation; it desires to know what is true

in regard to our end, because this truth must be divine and

eternal. But to be certain of divine truth, must not reason be

willing to obey the voice of God? To be certain of eternal truth,

must we not accept the testimony of eternity? The testimony of

God was implored in every age, and from this it comes that faith,

which is the acceptance by human reason of God's revelation, is a

constant, perpetual, universal fact, even as the fact of reason

itself. It is ridiculous to urge against the truth of revelation

the various religions which claim to be revealed; for the

counterfeits of revelation do not prove more against it than the

perversion of reason proves against reason. The wanderings of

reason do not compel us to deny the truth of human reason, so

neither do the misrepresentations and counterfeits of revelation

force us to deny its truth. We have seen, therefore, what reason

requires; let us see how it recognizes revelation when it meets

with it.

There is a certain manner of speaking indifferently of all

religions which is used as a cloak to hide the desire to confound

them. This is common in the world of letters among men of scanty

science. But serious science, like a sincere conscience,

discovers divine revelation, in spite of its human alterations,

by certain signs and characteristic marks which are unmistakable.

These signs have been multiplied by Providence with love; but I

wish to insist here upon that token which has not only followed

past ages in their course, but has, if I may so speak, grown with

their growth: that grand characteristic which reveals the author

of nature, and which assures us of the giver of revelation, is

unity.

{490}

The unity of nature reveals God as the creator, the harmony of

the heavens and of the earth recount the glory of their author:

"The heavens explain the glory of God." It is the chant of the

unity of space. But the unity of time is not less splendid than

the unity of worlds; it is the harmony of centuries in Jesus

Christ, who has revealed God as the author of revelation. Nature

and revelation are, then, the two great works in which God is

revealed by the same sign--queenly and all-powerful unity! The

unity of time in Jesus Christ, and in him alone, is a fact

without a parallel; more easy for us to rejoice in than to

depict. Yet here is the master-stroke of a great pencil: "These

are great facts, clearer than the light of the sun itself, which

make us know that our religion is as old as the world, and

demonstrate that he only could be its author who, holding all

things in his hand, has been able to begin and continue that

which holds all centuries in its embrace. To be expected, to

come, to be adored by a posterity which will last through every

age, is the character of him whom we adore, Jesus Christ,

yesterday, to-day, and to endless ages, the same." This, then, is

the manifest sign of divine revelation, the unity of time in

Jesus Christ.

St. Augustine spoke of this sign, considering it, however, under

only one of its aspects, when he answered those persons who

envied the good fortune of those who conversed with the risen

Christ: "The apostles saw one thing, but they believed another;

and because they saw, they believed that which they did not see.

They saw Jesus Christ risen, the head of the Church, but they did

not yet see this body, this Universal Church, which Jesus Christ

announced to them," this marvellous and almost incredible

Catholicity, extending over every country, with its unbloody

sacrifice of the great invisible Victim, with the manifestation

of conscience and remission of sins, with its perpetuity to the

end of time, with its centre of unity established by these words:

"Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and

the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." The apostles saw

none of these things, and how could they believe in such

apparently incredible promises? But they were in the presence of

the risen Christ; they had seen him dead and crucified, they saw

him living and glorious, and it is from his mouth that they

received the promise of that which they did not see. "They have

seen the head," says St. Augustine, "and they have believed in

the body; we see the body, and we believe in the head. We are

like them, because we see, and therefore we believe that which we

do not see."

It is necessary for us to recall here what St. Thomas Aquinas

says upon this point: "No one believes, unless he sees what is

necessary to be believed." It is because we are reasonable that

we are believers. It is also because we are believers, we are

Christians; and it is as Christians and children of Catholicity

that we love with the same affection faith and science, the

plenitude of science, the liberty and progress of science. The

plenitude of science, for, without its harmony with the sphere of

faith and the truths which surround our faith, science must

always be incomplete.

{491}

There is a science to-day which calls itself "_positive_"

meaning that it is founded on well-attested facts. It is indeed

good to rely upon facts. Facts should undoubtedly be the basis of

natural science. Still the natural sciences are not the only ones

which should be sustained by facts. The moral order, as well as

the physical, appears to be a magnificent assemblage of facts.

Humanity with its reason, its conscience, its sublime

inclinations, its immortal yearnings--is not humanity a grand

fact? Then this great fact must be considered as it really

exists, in its entirety, and not as mutilated by the false spirit

of a system. If the order of facts to which positivism would

limit us were the only order, do you know what humanity would be?

An ant which disputes with the grains of sand. But humanity will

never allow itself to be thus dishonored.

To the moral fact of humanity corresponds that which we have seen

triumph over centuries--the fact of revelation. I say it

corresponds to them, because Christian revelation offers the only

satisfactory reply to questions which philosophers have always

asked and never answered. I say it corresponds, because Christian

revelation has alone thrown a flood of light upon the mysteries

of the _positive_ state of humanity, and it alone affirms

that it bears a sovereign remedy for the moral disorder of our

nature: "Come to me, and I will refresh you." Do we really

possess science, then, if, in the presence of these two great

facts and of this divine appeal to experience, we obstinately

close our eyes and shut our ears? Have we science when, without

investigation, we assert as the first condition the gratuitous

denial of the possibility of the things that were to be examined?

What is really this pretended scientific position? It is the

attitude of fear. If science would be perfect, it must

investigate every order of facts, investigate their character,

declare their harmony. It is when it states the harmony of the

facts of the natural order with the facts (I say _facts_) of

the supernatural order, the harmony of the actual condition of

the human race with the revelation which enlightens its depths,

then it is that science becomes perfect, or at least always tends

more and more toward perfection. The very names which represent

this harmony are, as you are well aware, the greatest names of

science.

But will science be free, some one asks, if it is bound by

revelation? Does it cease to be free because it is bound by

nature? That which troubles certain minds on this point is due to

a false and pitiable notion of liberty. In what respect is

liberty everywhere distinguished from license? In this, that

liberty always moves within the sphere of law, and license always

beyond it. In the order of science, the law is the truth

established. The liberty of science is not, then, absolute in its

independence, as has been recently declared by an academician.

No; liberty is not the independence of science, for it consists

precisely in the fact of its dependence upon truth. The servitude

of science, on the contrary, consists in its dependence upon

opinion. Indeed, it is not the freedom of the human mind, but

license, mother of servitude, which pretends to-day to reduce

everything to opinion. This pretence is the negation of science.

To possess science is to know with certainty; to have only

opinions is to doubt; and to submit to doubt is slavery. The true

man of learning never asserts when he is ignorant; but science

does not require less certainty, and only becomes science when

she can attain it. Science is therefore _science_ only

because the truth controls it, and by controlling it, preserves

it from the servitude of opinion, so that this shining sentence

of our Lord concerns also the learned: "The truth shall make you

free."

{492}

"But does not experience show that in bearing the yoke of truth

we are sure to yield to illusions?" I answer, is it not proven

that those who resist the evidence of a divine order, whether in

the work of revelation or in the work of nature, bend beneath

every breath that passes, turning to every wind of doctrine,

yield to every caprice of intellect, and frame their convictions

according to the phrases which are daily set forth by the press

of both hemispheres? Have you never met with one of these slaves?

They are ready to believe anything that is affirmed without

evidence, provided it is contrary to the faith, and they are

willing to accept any theory as a demonstrated fact, so long as

it can be used against Christianity. What is this but the

credulity of incredulity?

The notion of progress is not less false among them than that of

liberty. Do they not say every day that faith is incompatible

with progress, because revelation is immutable? Is not nature

also immutable? Is the immutability of nature an obstacle to the

progress of natural science? Why, then, is the immutability of

revelation, which we have seen clothed with the same divine sign

as nature--why, then, is this immutability an obstacle to the

progress of the moral sciences? Is it not concerning the progress

of these sacred sciences that Pius IX. has recently adopted the

words of Vincent of Lerins, and made them his own? "Progress

exists, and it is very great; but it is the true progress of

faith, which is not constant change. It must be that the

intelligence, the science, the wisdom of all ages, as well as of

each one in particular, of all ages and centuries of the whole

church, should, like individuals, increase and make great, very

great progress; so that posterity may have the good fortune to

understand that which antiquity venerated without comprehending;

so that the precious stones of divine dogma may be cut, exactly

adapted, wisely ornamented, that they may enrich us with their

grace, their splendor, and their beauty, but always of the same

kind, that is to say, the same doctrine, in the same sense and

with the same substance, so that, when we use new terms, we do

not say new things." You understand then, my brethren, that the

immutability of revelation does not offer a greater obstacle to

the progress of sacred science than the immutability of nature

places in the way of the natural sciences.

The popes were not only the friends of the progress of the sacred

sciences; they were the most ardent supporters of all science, as

well as of the progress of letters and arts. The facts which

prove this are so numerous that I shall content myself with

recalling those which concern you more directly. Who founded the

universities of Oxford and Cambridge in England? The popes. Who

founded the universities of Paris, Bologna, Ferrara, Salamanca,

Coimbra, Alcala, Heidelberg, Prague, Cologne, Vienna, Louvain,

and Copenhagen? Again the popes. Who instituted the

professorships of the Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and Chaldaic

Languages at Paris, Oxford, Bologna, and Salamanca? A

pope--Clement V. By whom, during two centuries, were sustained,

encouraged, recompensed, the works of savants which finally led

to the knowledge of the system of the world? By the popes and the

cardinals of the holy Roman Church. This is what those ignore who

do not blush to perpetuate the fabulous condemnation of Galileo

by the Church.

{493}

Neither the Church nor the sovereign pontiffs have ever condemned

Galileo. Galileo was condemned by a tribunal of theologians, who

soon withdrew this condemnation to give astronomy the same

liberty which was granted to Galileo himself, whose sombre prison

is only a romance. Where was this system of the movement of the

earth adopted by Copernicus, and then first taught by Galileo? At

Rome, in 1495, by Nicholas de Cusa, professor in the Roman

University, forty-eight years before the birth of Copernicus, and

one hundred and thirty-nine before that of Galileo. Nicholas de

Cusa defended at that time this system in a work, dedicated to

his professor, Cardinal Julian Cesarini. Pope Nicholas V. raised

Nicholas de Cusa to the cardinalate, and named him Bishop of

Brixen, in Tyrol. Again, it was at Rome, toward the year 1500,

that Copernicus explained and defended this system before an

audience of two thousand scholars. Copernicus was made Canon of

Königsberg. Celius Calcagnini, who taught the system of Cusa and

Copernicus, in Italy, about 1518, was appointed apostolic

prothonotary by Clement VIII., and confirmed in this position of

honor by Paul III.; it was to Paul III. that Copernicus dedicated

his work _De Revolutionibus Orbium Caelestium._ At last,

when the renowned Kepler, who developed and completed the system

of Copernicus, was on this account persecuted by the Protestant

theologians of Tübingen, the Holy See used its utmost endeavors

to place in the University of Bologna this savant, so Christian

in his ideas, and who had not merely embraced the system of

Galileo, but had given it an immense weight by the authority of

his immortal discoveries. If I insist on this episode, it is

because bad faith is stubborn in its efforts to find an argument

against the conduct of the popes in the great history of the

moral progress of science. The Church never fears the light. She

knows and teaches that the light of reason and the light of faith

come from the same source. She knows that one of these truths

will never contradict the other, and that among the proofs of

revelation we must not forget its harmony with the sciences. The

sects cannot withstand the presence of science; never has pagan

or mussulman become a savant without losing his poor, bewildering

faith. It is not so of the true religion. From Clement of

Alexandria and Origen to Descartes, Leibnitz, Pascal, Kepler, and

De Maistre, to say nothing of our contemporaries, science and

faith have dwelt together in the greatest minds of Christendom.

Continue this glorious tradition, young men of the Catholic

university, and remain always worthy of your _Alma Mater!_

Become truly men, and you will be men the more powerful and

useful the more faithful Christians you are.

And you, city of Louvain, be justly proud of remaining, through

your university, the object of noble envy to the nations which

surround you. Ireland has taken you for her model; France and

Catholic Germany look upon you, and endeavor that they too may

possess something which resembles you. Never cease to be

yourself, the city of science and of religion, that your

children, ever faithful to these two lights, may be consoled,

during their life and at the hour of death, by the thought that

their love has never divided these two great things which have

been united by the infinite wisdom of God.

----------

{494}

The Story Of Marcel, The Little Mettray Colonist.

Chapter XI.

"Wide o'er the brim, with many a torrent swelled,

And the mixed ruin of its banks o'erspread,

At last the roused-up river pours along,

Resistless, roaring, dreadful."

Thomson.

The first inundations of the Loire with which we are acquainted

have been made known to us by the celebrated historian and bishop

St. Gregory of Tours, who has left detailed accounts of eight

dreadful disasters that occurred in the space of eleven years;

that is, from 580 to 591. In the archives of France there is

preserved an edict of Louis le Debonnaire, son and successor of

Charlemagne, who, touched by the piteous complaints made to him

by the inhabitants of Touraine and Anjou, whose harvests were in

constant danger from the sudden risings of the river, ordered the

building of dams and embankments, which, modified by some of his

successors and strengthened by others, became at last the

magnificent structures we behold them at the present day, between

Blois and Tours.

Nevertheless, the capricious river has never yet during all these

long centuries been kept for any time within its bed. Its

devastations were fearful in 1414, and again in 1615, when the

sudden melting of the enormous masses of snow which had fallen on

the surrounding country during the winter caused so frightful a

catastrophe that it has since been known in French history as the

"Deluge of Saumur." The beginning of the seventeenth century saw

ten risings of the Loire in ten years; and the Duke of

Saint-Simon has left us, in his celebrated memoirs, a notice of

one in 1708, which was the cause of much misery. In more modern

times, France has had, every eight or ten years, to deplore some

dreadful misfortune arising from the same source, and the more

favored portions of that beautiful land have been compelled

repeatedly to come to the aid of the ruined population of the

basin of the Loire, whose farm-houses had been swept away by the

flood, their harvest-fields devastated, their cattle drowned, and

who, too often, alas! had also had to weep over irreparable

losses far more bitter than these--the life of dear ones lost in

the surging waters.

About five years after Marcel's admission into the Mettray

Colony, one of the most terrible of these visitations overtook

the inhabitants of the banks of the picturesque stream. A long

continuation of rainy weather had swollen the Cher and the

Allier, both tributaries of the Loire, and the river, rising

suddenly, broke through its strong embankments and spread itself

over the country. The local authorities, of every degree and

station--prefect, subprefect, and mayors--with the soldiers,

engineers, and townspeople of Tours, all hastened to the relief

of the drowning villages and farms, and all did their duty; but

even among these courageous men the young Colonists distinguished

themselves by their energy and self devotion.

{495}

The inundation had commenced in the night, and when daylight

revealed the extent of the disaster, the director assembled the

youths.

"Boys," cried he, "the Loire has risen, the country is under

water, and hundreds of families are in danger of their lives.

Boys, the oldest and strongest of you must go and help to save

them!"

The lads looked at one another an instant in silence, then broke

forth in a cry that rang far and near, "Long live Demetz! Long

live our director!" a cry that was a perfect explosion of

gratitude and of pride; for the poor fellows fully comprehended

all that their wise and good director meant them to

understand--his confidence in their honor, their honesty, and

their courage.

And well they justified his trust in them! More than a hundred

were soon actively at work raising dikes and clams, propping

houses, and carrying succor to the distressed.

Marcel, Polycarpe, and one of their companions, a young baker,

named Priat, to whom both of them were much attached, were among

the foremost in these labors. They had gone with some others to

carry help to a village containing about twenty families; it was

situated only two hundred yards from the river, and completely

surrounded by water. An immense quantity of wood--wrecks from

other villages swept away by the flood--drifted about in the

streets, and was dashed incessantly against the water-soaked

walls of the houses, shaking them terribly; two, indeed, had

fallen in the night and been washed away. On the roofs, or

leaning from the upper windows of the tottering dwellings, were

to be seen the frightened inhabitants imploring aid; the mothers

holding out their little ones and praying for pity. It was a

heart-breaking sight, and the noise of the ever-rising and

surging river, of the wind and pouring rain, of the shocks of the

drift-wood, increased the terrors of the scene. Nor was it

possible to approach near enough to the houses to save any of the

unfortunates shrieking for help; for every boat belonging to the

place had either been swamped or had been torn from its moorings

by the overwhelming current and carried away.

"Let us run to Saint-Pierre," cried Polycarpe, after he and his

companions had contemplated the fearful spectacle for a few

moments with consternation. "We may find a boat there!"

He started off as he spoke, followed by half a dozen of the

Colonists. Marcel did not accompany them, for he had heard cries

of distress from the windmill, a short distance off, and had

hastened thither with three or four more. The water at this point

was quite seven feet deep, and the building evidently giving way.

There seemed to be no possibility of saving the miller and his

wife and child, for the flood rushed so fiercely around the mill

that the most experienced swimmer would not have ventured into

it. Marcel was gazing in hopeless pity at the fated building,

when a man on horseback trotted into the midst of the group of

despairing spectators. A sudden thought struck the boy.

"Give me that horse!" cried he; "quick, give me that horse!"

"What do you mean, youngster?" asked the man, somewhat surprised

by the imperative tone and unexpected demand of the stranger.

"For God's sake, lend me your horse; every moment that we lose

may cost a life!"

{496}

As he spoke he turned toward the mill, where the unfortunate

family could be seen at the window, stretching forth their

imploring hands and crying for help. The traveller got off his

horse without another word, and, quick as lightning, Marcel was

in the saddle and spurring the animal forward into the water.

Before his surprised companions well comprehended what he

intended to do, they saw him breasting the furious current and

struggling to reach the windmill.

They saw him reach it at last, and then the miller letting down

his wife to him by a rope passed under her arms. The poor woman

held her child clasped closely to her bosom, and though she clung

to her deliverer with a grasp that almost strangled him, she

seemed to think only of her babe, whispering to it as Marcel

urged the panting horse back again to the land, "Thou art saved,

my little one, thou art saved!"

The brave boy placed the mother and child in safety in the hands

of the admiring spectators of his courage and self-devotion;

then, without staying for a moment's breathing or rest, forced

his unwilling horse again into the flood.

This time the owner of the good beast made some indignant

remonstrances. "Both boy and horse will be lost," cried he; "they

are both, tired now; they can never fight against the current!"

"Why don't the miller throw himself into the water and swim? He's

fresh and the others aren't."

"Suppose he don't know how," answered one of the bystanders; "and

if he did, do you think he could stem that torrent?"

"Why, he'd be carried down the Loire to the sea, just like a

piece of straw," said another.

"The horse, the horse, look how he strains! he's giving way! he's

lost his footing!" cried half a dozen at this instant.

For a moment the strong, high-spirited animal was hurried along

by the foaming, eddying stream, then with a mighty effort

recovering himself he reached the mill, and the miller had just

time to drop down and cling with a death-grip to the pale,

intrepid rider, when the building toppled over and was carried

away!

Cries and tears of joy hailed them as they approached the dry

land; the young Colonists surrounded their heroic companion, and

presently bore him off to Mettray for a change of clothing and

some refreshment; his trembling frame told how much he needed

them. But the family he had saved so gallantly did not let him

depart before they had thanked him with tears of gratitude, while

the owner of the noble horse pressed his hand in both of his and

swore to be his friend through life.

"You're a brave fellow, and I honor you," cried he. "I'll be your

friend, and a true one, or my name's not Charles Rodez!"

The poor miller with his wife and child were taken to a house

prepared to receive and succor the unfortunate victims of the

inundation. Food and warm clothing and beds were here ready for

the half-starved and half-drowned families that were arriving

continually--poor, despairing people who had most of them lost

their little all, and some of them a father, or husband, or

child.

Scarcely had Marcel, cold and wet, but very happy, been borne off

in triumph by his comrades, when there appeared on the road,

coming toward the village, a great truck drawn by two horses, and

loaded with a large boat and its oars.

Polycarpe and his friend Priat had been successful in their

search, and were now returning at the head of the little band of

Colonists who had followed them to Saint-Pierre.

{497}

The people in the water-logged houses of the village fairly

screamed with hope and joy when they saw the procession, and then

the boat taken off and launched. A dozen Colonists were eager to

jump in, but Polycarpe and Priat were given the precedence, and

they, with another well-grown youth, presently pushed off into

the fast and furious stream. It was hard work to keep clear of

the drifting beams that were hurled along, rather than carried,

by the current through the narrow streets of the village; harder

still to get the boat near enough to each tottering house to take

off the frightened family from the roof or out of the windows.

Once, indeed, it came near being swamped, with eight persons on

board, by the sudden falling of a wall of the house from which

they had just been saved. Polycarpe's quick eye saw the coming

danger in time to give such a vigorous pull with his oar that the

boat sprang forward just out of reach of the stones and beams,

but she was so violently rocked by the concussion of the falling

materials with the water that it seemed a miracle that she did

not capsize.

And once, too, the brave boy missed his footing as he climbed on

a roof to take off a lame old man, and fell headlong into the

water. An admirable swimmer and diver, he did not lose his

presence of mind, but passed under the boat and came up on the

other side; he was soon hauled in by poor Priat, who was more

frightened and affected by this accident than by any other event

of that terrible day.

All day long the work of rescue went on. When the three rowers

were exhausted with fatigue, three others took their places.

There was not one among the young Colonists who hung back or

shirked the danger; not one who did not give proof of courage and

Christian charity. The boat went and came, until, at last, one

after another, all the poor peasants were in safety. When night

fell, not a house of the village was left standing, but not a

life had been lost.

Chapter XII.

"Not always full of leaf, nor ever spring,

Not always endless night, nor yet eternal day;

The saddest birds a season find to sing,

The roughest storm a calm may soon allay.

Thus with succeeding turns God tempereth all,

That man may hope to rise, and fear to fall."

Southwell.

The services rendered by the young Colonists during the

inundation attracted unusual attention to the Colony, and

visitors from Tours, and even from Paris, flocked in numbers to

Mettray every Thursday and Sunday. The afternoons of these two

days were set apart for the public, who were permitted to be

present at the boys' gymnastic exercises, and for whose pleasure

the band of the military establishment performed its best pieces.

On one of these occasions, about a couple of months after the

events we have endeavored to describe in the preceding chapter,

Marcel remarked a gentleman whose countenance he seemed to

remember, who appeared to be looking at him, almost examining

him, with much attention. Toward the close of the exercises, he

perceived the same gentleman in conversation with one of the

head-officers of the place. Presently they came to him.

"Marcel," said the officer, "this gentleman wishes to ask you a

few questions."

"I want to ask you, my boy, if you recollect ever to have seen me

before!" said the gentleman, with an encouraging smile.

{498}

"Yes, sir," replied Marcel; "I believe that I have. I think that

you are the Commissary of Police in the Rue des Noyers."

"I was; I see that I am not mistaken either. I never did forget a

face that struck me. You are the boy who, some years since, found

a bag of Napoleons in the street and brought it to me. Am I not

right?"

"Yes, sir," said Marcel, looking down.

"Well, my good fellow, your honesty saved a poor man from a

broken heart; but he was very ill for a long time from the

dreadful emotions of that night, and circumstances prevented my

seeking you out immediately, and so it happened that, when I did

go to the address you gave me, I only learnt that the woman with

whom you lived was dead, and no one could tell me anything about

you. I suspect that no one would. Perhaps I was recognized to be

the Commissary of Police, and inspired no great confidence. But I

am glad to see you again, my boy. I have just learned something

of your history, and I rejoice to find that I was not mistaken in

the opinion I formed of you that night that you brought me the

bag. I often regretted that you received no reward. I don't know

how it happened either. You're a brave fellow, too, as well as an

honest one, they tell me. Shake hands, will you?"

He took Marcel's hand as he spoke; the boy burst into tears; the

past returned so vividly to his recollection at that moment; the

commissary's long speech brought back so much that had almost

been forgotten, so much misery and shame and sin, that the

different present overpowered him. The good-natured visitor

patted him on the shoulder in a kind, fatherly manner, his eyes

glistening with sympathy.

"Come," said he presently, "tell me what you intend to do when

you leave the Colony. I hear that your time will soon be out now.

What trade have you learned?"

"I am a gardener," replied Marcel. "I always loved flowers, and I

should like to cultivate them."

"Quite right," said his new-found friend. "Well, I shall look out

for a place for you. And now, my boy, remember that I am your

friend, a sincere one, and be sure to write to me in any

emergency. This is my address, _M. de Morel, Rue du Luxembourg,

Paris;_ take care of this card, and do not forget to let me

know two or three months before you leave the Colony."

He gave Marcel his card, with another cordial shake of the hand,

and, returning to his party, shortly after left the

establishment.

Marcel had a long talk with the father of the family and

Polycarpe that evening. They both agreed that the promised

influence of M. de Morel was a bright prospect for Marcel's

future career.

"This friendship, however, is not absolutely necessary for your

prosperity hereafter, Marcel," said the father. "You know well

that Mettray never abandons her children. Our good director would

find you a suitable situation, and continue to watch over your

interests. But still I think you must do as this kind gentleman

wishes. It is a pleasant and useful thing to have friends; one

cannot have too many good ones!"

"You will get acquainted with the poor clerk, very likely,"

remarked Polycarpe. "Wouldn't you be glad to know him? I should,

I think."

"Yes, I think I should too," answered Marcel thoughtfully.

{499}

The friends went to bed that night very happy; Marcel to dream of

that future garden, the aim of all his ambition, in which he

wandered, hand in hand with the poor clerk, until the clarion

sounded; Polycarpe to fancy himself marching, drums beating,

colors flying, at the head of a regiment of Zouaves!

There is not a pleasanter place in Paris than the Garden of

Plants--the people's delight and the people's own!

Who that has seen it in spring can forget its magnificent avenues

of linden-trees, fragrant with the delicious perfume of the

tassel-like blossoms; its grand old chestnut-trees, covered with

spikes of creamy-white or rose-colored flowers; its lilac-bushes,

its pear-trees, white with blossoms, as if they had been snowed

on! And then the twitter of birds, mingled with the bleating of

sheep and goats, and the soft lowing of cows! Delightful sights

and sounds in the very heart of poor old Paris, close by the door

of the hospital! 'Tis there that the pale Parisian workman spends

his holiday with his wife and children; 'tis there the little

ones learn to love and be gentle to God's creatures.

How pleasant it is in the warm summer-time, when the shady

avenues are crowded with bands of happy children, jumping the

rope or playing at hide-and-seek behind the thick trunks of the

old trees planted by Buffon, while their smiling mothers sit near

with their sewing. How beautiful then are the gay parterres of

bright-colored flowers so skilfully grouped, so harmoniously

contrasted! How interesting the rich botanic garden, where so

many strange exotic plants, each with its common as well as

scientific name legibly inscribed near it, can be freely and

conveniently studied by all!

Who that has climbed the little hill, on whose summit stands the

Cedar of Lebanon, and rested beneath the glorious spreading

branches, has not felt it a heart-warming sight to watch the

crowds of hard-working people rambling with their children amidst

the trees and flowers of this magnificent garden; here stopping

to feed the patient elephant, who seems to pass his life begging

for bits of bread; here contemplating, with some aversion

perhaps, the clumsy hippopotamus bathing its unwieldy form in its

tank; then making a long pause before the monkeys' palace, where

some twenty of those natural gymnasts excite roars of laughter by

their tricks; and then again before the great cage of the

many-colored parrots, that look to the delighted children like

giant flying-flowers? And as they stroll along, the goats and

sheep, and soft-eyed gazelles and fawns, that beg by the way, get

each a few crumbs of black bread and many caresses; and the boys

jest _en passant_ with the bear at the bottom of his

pit--"Old Martin" they call him--and they bribe him to climb the

great pole placed expressly for him, with a bit of crust; and the

little girls pity the eagle as they pass by his narrow grated

prison. Sitting there under the cedar, the eye falls almost

involuntarily on a group of pretty houses, nestled together in a

corner not far from the Museums of Natural History. They are the

residences of many of the professors attached to the Garden of

Plants--professors of botany, of comparative anatomy, of

mineralogy and geology, of natural history, etc.--men of

world-wide reputations, whom the privileged inhabitants of Paris

may hear lecture on these various sciences, in well-ventilated,

well-warmed halls, twice every week, for nothing.

{500}

In an out of the way nook, but quite near to the homes of these

celebrated men, there was one quaint, old-fashioned little house

which, in the spring of the year 1859, had been appropriated as

the dwelling of one of the head-gardeners, a young man of great

intelligence in his profession, and who had lately been appointed

to the situation.

It was a very little house, it is true, but large enough for the

tenant and his young, newly-made wife, who thought it, for her

part, the sweetest nest ever built. It was covered with climbing

roses; they could scarcely be shut out by the windows and doors,

so that it had received the name of "The House of the Roses."

Outside, it needed no other ornament to be beautiful; inside, its

charms were neatness, cheerfulness, cleanliness, and quiet.

But the afternoon that we present it to our readers the little

house was in a bustle, for wife Gabrielle and her maid Marie were

preparing a dinner far more elaborate than was usual in that

simple household, and very anxious were the two little women that

every dish should be worthy of the occasion, for the banquet was

to feast the return of an old friend from the war in Italy.

The master of the house had but just got home from his daily

occupations when there came a vigorous ring at the door, and he

ran to open it.

"Marcel!"

"Polycarpe!"

The two friends threw themselves into each other's arms, unable

to utter another word.

"How well and happy you look!" exclaimed Polycarpe at last,

laying his hand caressingly on his friend's shoulder and gazing

affectionately at him.

"And you, Polycarpe, what a tremendous fellow _you are_ with

your turban and your great beard!" returned Marcel, looking with

admiration at the supple, sinewy form of the handsome Zouave, on

whose broad chest shone the Cross of the Legion of Honor.

The blushing young wife received her husband's old friend with a

cordiality that soon put the soldier quite at his ease, and by

the time the dinner was ended they were chatting together as if

they were acquaintances of ten years' standing.

"Now, Marcel," said Polycarpe, when the happy trio were quietly

seated in the little salon through whose open windows the fresh

roses peeped in, perfuming the soft evening air--"now, Marcel,

you must tell me something more about yourself than the few

letters I have received from you have contained."

"First, let _me_ tell you something, Monsieur Polycarpe,"

cried Gabrielle. "Let me tell you that I shall be grateful to

you, and love you as a brother to my dying day, for having saved

Marcel from being a soldier."

"Madam," replied the Zouave, laughing, "you must love me as your

brother, but you owe me no gratitude. Why, I had always wished to

be a soldier, and it was the most natural thing in the world that

I should exchange my good number for Marcel's bad one. But that

drawing for the conscription is really a dreadful ordeal!"

"Thank God that you have come back to us!" ejaculated Marcel

softly.

"Oh! that horrible battle of Solferino!" cried Gabrielle with a

shudder. "When Marcel knew that you had been engaged in it, I

thought that he would go distracted, until he was assured of your

safety."

"He ought to have seen us Zouaves, how ready we were for the

fight; not a man among us who would have backed out!"

{501}

"It was because I knew your impetuosity, Polycarpe," said Marcel,

"that I despaired of ever seeing you again."

"Well, my friend!" said the soldier, pressing his friend's hand,

"here I am, safe and sound, with two legs and two arms; there is

many a brave man who came back from Solferino who cannot say

that!"

"I have always been lucky," continued he after a short pause; "I

entered the army a simple soldier, without a single friend, and

yet here I am with the Cross of the Legion of Honor, and next

month I shall get my epaulettes!"

"I am not surprised, not in the least surprised. You acted like a

hero in Italy, I know, or you would not have been decorated! We

shall see you a captain soon!" And Gabrielle clapped her little

hands with delight at the thought.

"Come, Marcel," cried Polycarpe, laughing, "I shall become too

vain if I listen to your wife any longer. Come, tell me; when we

parted, you for Paris, and I for the army, how did you get on?"

"It will be a twice-told tale to you, Polycarpe, for you must

have received my letters!"

"Never mind! There are gaps in what I know of your doings, and

they must be filled up."

"Well, then, after that painful parting with our friends at

Mettray, I proceeded to Paris, and went immediately to see M. de

Morel; he was just as cordial as he had given me reason to

believe he would be, and one of the very first things he did was

to take me to see Gabrielle's father."

"Do you know who he was, Monsieur Polycarpe, or is that one of

the gaps you mentioned?" interrupted Gabrielle, smiling.

"Oh! no, that is not a gap," replied the soldier. "I know that it

was your father who lost the bag of gold Marcel was so fortunate

as to find."

"What a dreadful remembrance that night is to us all even now! I

was very young then, but I can perfectly recollect my poor

father's despair, and my mother's bitter weeping. I have never

since heard of a sum of money being found, without picturing to

myself the loser's agony, and some such scene of wretchedness as

I witnessed in my own home!"

"Monsieur Tixier received me as if I were his son," continued

Marcel.

"Well, you were to be!" said Gabrielle archly.

"But I certainly never should have dared to have thought of such

a thing then," replied her husband, smiling. "I saw Mademoiselle

Gabrielle sitting at work by her mother's side; but I little

dreamt that that fair young girl would ever be my wife!"

"How glad we were to see him, you can imagine, Monsieur

Polycarpe! We had wanted for years to prove our gratitude to him!

But you know we had never been able to find him. In the street

where he used to live they told father that Pelagie Vautrin was

dead, and the family with whom Marcel lived had moved."

"You can understand how that happened, Polycarpe," continued

Marcel, "for you know that your unfortunate father was never seen

again after that day when we so hastily fled the house. And then

your mother and Loulou left the neighborhood."

"Poor father, poor mother, both gone!" sighed the soldier. "How

often have I hoped to possess a decent home of my own that I

might save them from a miserable old age! They are both gone, for

I cannot help believing that my father is dead."

{502}

"Loulou will be a comfort to you; the good sisters in Rue St.

Jacques have brought her up well. She is a good, industrious

girl, and an excellent needlewoman. Gabrielle has had her to

spend the day with us twice, and we are very fond of her."

"Madame Gabrielle, how can I thank you! What kind, good friends

you are to me!" The brave Zouave hid his face for a moment in his

hands; when he raised it, his cheeks glistened as if they had

just been washed with tears.

"Go on, Marcel, what happened after you had made the acquaintance

of M. Tixier?"

"Very shortly after, M. de Morel succeeded in getting me a place

in the staff of gardeners attached to the Garden of Plants, and

here I have worked steadily on while you have been fighting my

battles, Polycarpe."

"You have fought your own, Marcel, and manfully too!"

"Happy years they have been--my profession pleased me, and I made

many friends, and as time went on I was promoted, until, at last,

six months ago, I was appointed one of the head-gardeners, with a

good salary and this little house rent free."

"And then, Monsieur Polycarpe, my good father, who had known for

a long time that Marcel and I loved one another dearly, made him

understand that my mother would be happy to call him her son!"

"Yes, when my way was clear before me, my good friend bestowed on

me the best little wife that ever man was blessed with; and where

do you think we went for our wedding trip?"

"Where? Why, to Mettray, of course," cried Polycarpe excitedly.

"Yes, to Mettray. We staid with Rodez at Tours; he was very kind

to us, and took us to see all our friends. First of all, Priat;

he is foreman to the richest baker in the town, and is very

highly esteemed by his master. He was very glad to see me again,

and we talked a great deal of you and of the Zouaves."

"Good fellow! I shall go to see him, one of these days!"

exclaimed Polycarpe.

"Yes, do. Then we went to Mettray. How my heart beat when I

caught sight again of the chapel steeple! I saw many new faces,

but our kind director, and the good abbe, and the father of our

family were there just the same, all well, and so glad to see me,

and so glad to know that I was prosperous and happy; and they

admired my little wife so much!"

"Enough, enough, Marcel!" interrupted Gabrielle, brightly

blushing and smiling.

"Marcel," said Polycarpe after a short silence, "I have been on

the battle-field, my comrades falling by hundreds around me,

while I was spared; I have seen death in its most fearful shapes,

and human suffering inconceivable to the imagination of those who

have not witnessed it, and I have escaped, unhurt, untouched; but

I declare to you that when the battle was over and the danger

past, I never felt that overpowering gratitude that fills my

heart when I remember Mettray. For, after all, what is physical

pain, what is the loss of this life compared to that corruption

of the heart and conscience that was ours when we first entered

the Colony? I do not believe that I have ever closed my eyes in

sleep since I quitted that saving home before praying, 'God bless

the founders of Mettray!'"

----------

{503}

Protestantism A Failure. [Footnote 160]

[Footnote 160:

1. _Failure of Protestantism, and Catholicism

the Remedy_: Four Discourses delivered by the Rev.

F. C. Ewer, D.D., in Christ Church, Fifth avenue,

New York. Reported in the New York _Times_, 1868.

2. _Dr. Ewer's Reply to Dr. Adams and Others_,

in Defence of his Discourses on the _Failure of

Protestantism, and Catholicism the Remedy_. Reported

in the New York _World_, November 16th, 1868.]

Dr. Ewer is a Protestant Episcopal minister of Christ Church in

this city, and is, we are assured, no ordinary man. Afflicted in

early life with doubts of the truth of revealed religion, but

subsequently getting the better of them, he joined the Protestant

Episcopal Church, became an Episcopalian minister in California,

whence he was called to the pastorate of Christ Church in this

city. He is, we are told, a man of great ability, of genuine

eloquence, and a true pulpit orator. He appears to be an honest

and earnest-minded man, who took seriously the church pretensions

of Episcopalians, treated the Episcopal Church as a real

Christian church, in which he might hold, develop, and defend

what he regarded as real church principles.

But he found that he had counted without his host, that is,

without his vestry, with whom the principal power in Episcopalian

churches is lodged. His vestry or wardens complained of his

preaching, and censured his doctrine as tending Romeward, or as

not sufficiently Protestant. Like a brave man, he answered their

complainings by these four discourses, in which he distinctly

asserts the _failure of Protestantism as a religious system,

and "Catholicism" as the remedy._ Nothing could be more

startling to a Protestant congregation, and it seems to have

startled to a considerable extent the whole American Protestant

public. But we are bound to say, if any one imagines that in

these discourses Dr. Ewer rejects Protestantism for the church in

communion with the Roman Apostolic See, he is very much in error.

Dr. Ewer, in the train of the Oxford Tracts, the Puseyites, and

the Ritualists, disclaims Protestantism, proves unanswerably that

it was a blunder, and is as a religion a disastrous failure; but

the Catholicity he looks to for a remedy is of a very different

stamp from ours, and whether it be a genuine Catholicity or not,

he claims to be as far from being a _Romanist_ as he thinks

he is from being a Protestant. Rome, he says, failed in the

fifteenth century, as Protestantism has failed in the nineteenth.

That Protestantism was a sad blunder, and has proved a disastrous

failure, Catholics have proved over and over again; and on this

point Dr. Ewer has said no more nor better than they had said

before him. He has said no more than was said by the Oxford men,

or than is said every day by the Ritualists, who are so strong in

the English Church that its authorities do not dare condemn, and

are obliged to tolerate them. The Convention of the Protestant

Episcopal Church of the United States, lately in session in this

city, could not by any means be induced to take any action

against them, or to do anything to favor the party in the church

opposed to them. The Anglican Church, or a considerable portion

of it, would, if it could, like to get rid of the name of

_Protestant_, and assume that of _Catholic_. It is

growing ashamed of its origin and principles, and it has many

noble members who are doing their best to bring its doctrine and

form of worship up to the level of Catholicity.

{504}

Dr. Ewer indeed says nothing of Protestantism that all thinking

men do not see and know as well as he. Protestantism was always

more political and national than religious. It originated chiefly

with the princes of the sixteenth century, who were opposed, for

secular reasons, to the pope, or wished to frighten him in order

to bring him to their terms; and it relied wholly on the civil

power to diffuse, protect, and defend it. Now, when the civil

powers are abandoning it as no longer necessary to their

purposes, and giving partial or complete liberty to Catholics, it

is able to make a show of sustaining itself only by forming an

intimate alliance with the unbelief and naturalism of the age. It

is not an insignificant circumstance that, when recently the

attempt, for political purposes, was made in England to revive

the "No Popery" cry, once so effective, it wholly failed. The

Protestant mind in the Protestant world is evidently drifting

away from the Reformation, even if not drifting toward the

church.

But though the part of Dr. Ewer's discourses which so effectually

prove the failure of Protestantism as a religious system is the

part most satisfactory to us, we must for various reasons confine

the remarks we design to make chiefly to the remedy proposed. The

error, nay, the blunder, the author assures us, was in breaking

away from the One Holy Catholic Church of the Bible and the

Creed, and setting up in its place the Bible interpreted, by the

private spirit or private judgment, almost inevitably tending to

discredit the Bible, and to develop in pure rationalism or

naturalism; the remedy, of course, must be in the return to this

One Catholic Apostolic Church with its divinely instituted

priesthood, its august sacrifice, its sacraments, sacred rites,

and plenary authority in matters of faith and discipline. This,

if asserted by us, would be very intelligible to all the world,

and would mean a return to the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church,

or church in communion with the Apostolic See of Rome, the See or

the Chair of Peter. But Dr. Ewer takes great pains to have us

understand that this is not his meaning, and that in rejecting

Protestantism he is far from accepting _Romanism_, or Roman

Catholicity. The puzzle, then, is to determine what, which, or

where is the One Catholic Apostolic Church which he proposes as

the remedy of the widespread evils of Protestantism.

Is it the Roman Church? No. That is a Catholic Church, but not

the Catholic Church. Is it the Greek or Oriental Church? No. That

is a catholic church, but not the Catholic Church. Is it the

Anglican? No. That, again, is a catholic church, but not the

Catholic Church. These, the doctor says, near the conclusion of

his second sermon, are particular and local churches, not the one

universal church itself, but holding from it and subordinate to

it. Where, then, is this universal church? He answers, in the

same sermon, a little further on, "We must go deeper and broader"

than these particular and local churches "to find the Catholic

Church, down to the great foundation on which the three stand;

down out of the differences of the brothers to the unity of the

family, to find the ground upon which we stand as Catholics, not

as Romanists, not s Greeks, not as Anglicans, far less as

Episcopalians."

{505}

But is this catholic church which underlies alike the three

particular churches an organ or organism distinct from them, with

a centre of unity, life, and authority, independent of them, but

on which they themselves depend for their church unity,

authority, and life? Not at all. If we understand the author, the

Catholic Church is in what these three particular or local

churches have in common, in what they agree in holding, or what

remains after eliminating their differences. In order not to do

the author any injustice, we quote nearly at length, in his own

words, the answer he gives in his fourth discourse to the

question, "What is the Catholic Church?"

"Now, a church is an organism. The Catholic Church must be an

organism universal over space and universal back through time

to Christ. Suppose, now, I go to the Methodists again. I find

there an organism; but in looking back I find it was arranged

about the time of John Wesley, one hundred years ago. Before

his day there was no such church organism. I pass then to the

Presbyterians. There I find a different organism. But in

looking back I find it dates its origin only about three

hundred years ago. That will not answer, then. Very well, I try

the Congregationalists, and, in fact, each and all of the

modern Protestant organizations. Avowedly they do not, any of

them, run back into the dreadful mediaeval times--those _dark

ages_. Whatever these Protestant organisms may be, then,

they must each and all be set aside, as, at any rate, not

Catholic organisms either in space or in time, and therefore

not Catholic at all. Well, suppose I come to our church. I find

it, as an organism, with its bishops, priests, and deacons, its

ritual form of worship, its altars and sacraments, its

conventions and synods, its dioceses and parishes, running back

in the history of England into mediaeval times; yea, still

further back through the early days of old Britain and up even

to the apostles. I seem to strike something Catholic here. But

be not in haste. Suppose I go to the Roman Church. I find that

I can trace its life back also interruptedly to the apostles.

Suppose I go to the Greek Church. I find the same peculiarity

of continued existence back to the apostles there. Here, then,

in the Roman, Greek, and Anglican churches, we have reached

something which it will do at least to pause upon for further

investigation.

"But have a care. When we look a little more closely into the

Anglican organization as a whole and consider it part by part,

and when we examine the Roman organization in like manner, and

the Greek, we find that each of the three differs from the

other two in certain respects. Rome has a pope and a cultus of

St. Mary the ever-Virgin; these are not parts of the Greek (?)

or of the Anglican organisms. Though we have paused here, then,

though the Catholic Church must be hereabouts somewhere,

nevertheless, when we have reached our church, we have not yet

reached the Catholic Church we are in search of; when we go to

Rome, we have not yet reached that Catholic Church; and

equally, when we go to the Greeks, we have not reached the

object of our search. For we find that neither of these three

organisms, when taken as a whole, and in all its minutiae, is

accepted by the other two. _Shall we go elsewhere, then?

There is nowhere else to go._

"Let us look, then, more closely still here. As we examine, we

find that, although the three--Anglican, Greek, and Roman--

thus differ in some respects, they are marvellously alike in

all others. All three have a hierarchy of bishops, priests, and

deacons. All have the holy altar of the tremendous sacrifice as

the central object in their churches. All have robed clergy.

All have saints' days and identical ecclesiastical seasons. All

have a ritual form of worship. All have parishes, dioceses, and

provinces, All (?) date their life back into the first century.

All have stately ceremonials and processions; the Greeks the

most glorious, the Romans less, and the Anglicans the least.

"All acknowledge the authority of general councils. All have

the same apostolic succession and the same sacraments. Here,

then, I begin to find the Catholic Church. Those few

peculiarities in which the Greek, the Anglican, and the Roman

differ from each other are merely local; all those many

peculiarities in which the three are at one shape out for me

visibly, solidly, and sharply the great Catholic Church; one in

space as in organism, and one in time; to be found equally in

Russia, and Italy, and England, and America, and Mexico, and

Germany, and Brazil--everywhere; to be found, too, in the

nineteenth century, and equally in mediaeval time, and also in

the earliest days, unchanged and unchangeable.

{506}

And everything in the Anglican, Greek, and Roman bodies which

the three hold in common, and which has been held in them,

everywhere, always, and by all, is Catholic. Anything else,

any peculiarity which we have that Rome and the Easterns have

not, or which Rome has, but the Greeks and we have not, or

which the Greeks have, but Rome and we have not, is merely

local, partial, and not Catholic."

This is explicit enough. Take all that any one of the three holds

in which the other two agree, and you have the One Holy Catholic

Apostolic Church. Eliminate from all three the points in which

they differ, which are assumed to be trifling, and take their

points of agreement, and you will have what the preacher calls

"Catholicism," and which he proposes as the remedy for the evils

of Protestantism. Extend the rule so as to include all

professedly Christian churches, denominations, or sects which

professedly recognize a Christian church and a Christian

ministry, and it will be the view of the Catholic Church

generally taken by Protestants. No Protestant sect has ever had

the audacity to claim to be itself alone the visible Catholic

Church of the Creed; and none of the older Protestant sects deny

that there is, in some sense, a visible Catholic Church. In the

early Protestant teaching, if not in the later, there is

recognized one visible Catholic Church, which is what all

professedly Christian communions agree in holding, or which alike

underlies them all. In this sense, Presbyterians and

Congregationalists, Methodists and Baptists, Lutherans and

Calvinists, have always been as strenuous asserters of the

Catholic Church and of Catholicity as is Dr. Ewer himself. We

see, then, in Dr. Ewer's "Catholicism," nothing that need startle

a Protestant or especially gratify a Catholic. In principle, at

least, he asserts a very common Protestant doctrine, and in no

sense necessarily breaks, except in words, with the Protestant

Reformation.

But be this as it may, it is certain that Dr. Ewer admits no

catholic body or organic centre of unity and catholicity distinct

from the Roman, the Greek, and the Anglican churches, and

independent of them, and recognizes no catholicity but what these

three churches agree in maintaining and possess in common.

Neither of them, he contends, is by itself alone the Catholic

Church; each is a catholic church, but no one of them is the

Catholic Church herself. Whence, then, their quality of catholic

churches? Particular or local churches are catholic because they

hold from, depend on, and commune with a catholic centre of

unity, life, and authority, which is distinct from and

independent of themselves. This is not the case with the three

churches named; they hold from and depend on no common organic

centre, recognize no organic source of life independent of

themselves, are subordinated to no authority not each one's own,

commune with no centre of unity which each one has not in itself,

and not even with one another. They are each complete in

themselves, and are therefore not three inferior churches,

subordinate to one supreme catholic apostolic church, but, if

churches at all, three distinct, separate, and independent

churches. If, then, no one of them is the one holy catholic

apostolic church, no one of them is even a catholic church, and

Dr. Ewer fails entirely to recognize any Catholic Church at all.

{507}

The author is deceived in his assumption that these three

churches are particular or local churches, subordinated to the

universal church. St. Mary's church, which is my parish church,

is a catholic church, if the see of Rome is the Catholic

Apostolic See; for it depends on it, and through the bishop of

the diocese communes with that see, and through that see with

every other particular catholic church, thus establishing in the

unity and catholicity of the See of Rome, or, as the fathers

said, the See of Peter, the unity and catholicity of all

particular or local churches in communion with it. By coming into

communion with St. Mary's church, one comes into communion with

the one universal church, is in the catholic communion, and is a

Catholic; but nothing of the sort can be affirmed either of the

Greek Church or of the Anglican. They acknowledge no

subordination to any other organic body in existence; they depend

respectively on no ecclesiastical authority or organic centre

independent of themselves; they commune neither with each other

nor with the Church of Rome, which holds them to be both in

schism, and one of them in heresy. Certain Anglican ministers

would willingly commune with the Greek Church, but it repels

them, and declares that sect to be not even a church. The three

churches named cannot, then, be particular churches holding from

a common centre of unity, and Dr. Ewer must take one of them as

the Catholic Church and exclude the other two, or have no

Catholic Church at all.

The fact that there are certain points, if you will, essential

points, of agreement between these three bodies, does by no means

make them one body. Agreement is not identity. Great Britain and

the United States speak the same language; adopt the same Common

Law, which governs their respective courts; agree to a great

extent in their usages, manners and customs, and civil

institutions; and throughout they have a far closer resemblance

to each other than has the Anglican Church to either the Greek

Church or the Roman Church; and yet, are they not one nation,

with one national authority, and having one and the same national

life. Eliminate from New York and New Jersey the points in which

they differ, and retain only the points in which they agree, and

would they be one state under one and the same state government?

Not at all, because they are separate organizations, and, as

states, are each independent of the other. The Eastern churches

were once in communion with Rome under the supremacy of the

Apostolic See, and then were one with the Roman Church; but

having separated from that see, they are churches in schism

indeed, but _de facto_ independent. There was, down to the

sixteenth century, a Catholic Church in England in communion with

the Church of Rome or the Apostolic See; but the so-called Church

of England is not its continuation, and, in the judgment of both

the Roman Church and the Greek Church, is not a church at all,

for it has no orders, no priesthood, no sacrifice; its so-called

bishops and clergymen are only laymen, but for the most part

educated, refined, and highly respectable laymen, devoted to the

elegant pursuits of literature and science, the cultivation of

private and public morals, and the interests and well-being of

their families. But not to insist on this at present, we may

affirm that, even supposing Anglicans have an episcopate, and

that it resembles the Greek and Roman episcopates, it is no more

identical with them than the government of Great Britain is

identically that of Italy, Prussia, or Austria. These three

states are all limited monarchies; they also all have

parliamentary governments, and place the sovereignty in the

nation, not in a particular family.

{508}

But they are not one and the same monarchy, nor one and the same

government, for they are politically separate and independent. It

will not do to answer this by saying that each of these three

episcopates hold equally from Jesus Christ, and are one in him;

for that would either suppose the church to be in her unity and

catholicity invisible, and without any visible organ or

manifestation; or else that Christ has three churches, or three

bodies, which the author can admit no more than we, for he

professes to hold or believe ONE Holy Catholic Apostolic Visible

Church.

In the beginning of the extract from Dr. Ewer's fourth discourse,

the church is declared to be "an organism." An organism, we need

not tell a man like him, is a living body, not a simple

aggregation of parts, or an organization which, having no life in

itself, depends on the mechanical, electric, or chemical

arrangement of its several parts. In every living body or

organism, there is and must be--as the older physiologists, and

even the most recent and eminent, like M. Virchow, of Berlin, and

M. Claude Bernard, of Paris, tell us, and by their researches and

discoveries have proved--an original central cell, from which the

whole organism proceeds, in which its vital principle inheres,

and which is the type, creator, originator, and director of all

its vital phenomena. The whole life, evolution, and course of the

organism is originated and determined by this original central

cell--this germ, or ovule, without which no organic life or

living body is possible. This primitive cell or germ is never

spontaneously generated, but is always generated by a living

organism which precedes and deposits it, according to the old

maxim, _omne vivum ex ovo._ [Footnote 161]

[Footnote 161: See a very learned and scientific essay in

_Le Correspondant_, for October 25th, 1868, _De l'Idée

de Vie dans la Physiologie Contemporaine_, by Dr.

Chauffard, known to our readers by a very able essay _On

the Present Disputes of Philosophy_, translated and

published in this magazine for November last, though the

types made us call him Dr. Chauf_ai_d instead of Dr.

Chauff_a_rd.]

It is the origin and law of the unity, evolution, or growth of

the organism, and is the type and generator of all the

innumerable cells which form the whole cellular system of the

entire organism, whether normal or abnormal.

What we insist on here is that there is no organism without this

original central cell or germ, and that this central cell, whence

the unity of the organism is generated by a pre-existing

organism, that is, by ancestors of the same species, and is

neither self-generated nor made up by any possible mechanical or

physico-chemical action or combination of parts, as Messrs.

Virchow and Bernard have demonstrated. This principle or law of

all organic life is universal, and applies to the church as an

organism, notwithstanding her supernatural character, as to any

of the organisms studied and experimented upon by physiologists

in the natural order. The Creator does not work after one law in

the natural order, and another and diverse or contradictory law

in the supernatural order; and herein we discover the reason of

the perfect accord of all the Creator's works, the perfect

harmony of revelation and real science, and the aid revelation

gives to science, and, in return, the aid that real science gives

to the interpretation and clearer understanding of revelation.

God is one, and works always after one and the same law in all

orders, and is never in contradiction with himself.

{509}

The essential error of the non-catholic church theory is, that it

denies the central cell or germ whence is evolved or produced the

whole church organism, and assumes that the church derives her

life from her members, and that she is constituted in her unity

and catholicity as a living body by the combination of the

several parts, or that the central cell is created by the

organism, not the organism by the central or organic cell, which

is as much as to say, multiplicity can exist without unity to

produce it, or that dead or unliving parts can generate life and

activity! No one need be surprised that men of clear heads and

logical minds, trying to remove, on Protestant principles, the

discrepancies between science and the Protestant religion, should

rush into materialism and atheism. The principle the Protestant

adopts in his non-catholic church theory is precisely the

principle on which Mr. Herbert Spencer proceeds when he ascribes

all the phenomena of life, or of the living organism, to the

mechanical, electric, and chemical arrangement of material atoms.

The same principle applied in theology leads inevitably to

atheism; for, multiplicity given as prior to and independent of

unity, no argument in favor of the divine existence can have any

validity, nay, no argument to prove that there is a God can be

conceived. Such is the terrible injury the non-catholic or

Protestant church theory has done and is doing to both religion

and science.

Dr. Ewer, no doubt, intends to reject, and honestly believes that

he has rejected, this destructive theory, which, universally

applied, results in nihilism; but we fear that he has not. He

includes the one catholic church in what he calls the three

particular churches--the Roman, the Greek, and the Anglican. Each

of these, he says, is a catholic church, but no one of them is

the Catholic Church. Whence, then, do they or can they derive

their character of catholic? The Catholic Church, according to

him, is an organism. If an organism, it must have a central cell,

an _organite_, or organic centre, originated not by itself,

from which all in the organism proceeds, or in which, in the

language of St. Cyprian, all "takes its rise," and therefore on

which all the parts depend. This central cell, which in the

church we may call the central see or chair, and which the

fathers, whether Greek or Latin, call the Chair of Peter, and

since it is the origin of all the parts, is evidently prior to

them and independent of them. They do not constitute it, but it

produces, sustains, and governs them. On no other conditions is

it possible to assert or conceive the unity and catholicity of

the church as an organism. Particular churches are Catholic by

holding from and communing with this central see or the organic

centre, not otherwise.

But Dr. Ewer acknowledges no such central cell or central see.

His organism has no organic centre, and consequently is no

organism at all, but a simple union or confederacy of equal and

independent sees. Rome, Constantinople, or Canterbury is no more

a central see or organic centre of the church than any other see

or diocese, as Caesarea, Milan, Paris, Toledo, Aberdeen, London,

or Armagh, and to be in the unity of the church there is no

particular see, mother and mistress of all the churches, with

which it is necessary to commune. The several sees may agree in

their constitution, doctrine, liturgy, and discipline, but they

are not integrated in any church unity or living church organism.

This is the theory of the schismatic Greeks, and of Anglicans and

Protestant Episcopalians, and is simply the theory of

independency, as much so as that of the New England

Congregationalists, but it admits no organic unity.

{510}

It is also the theory which Dr. Ewer himself appears to assert

and defend. By what authority is he able to pronounce any one of

the three churches named a catholic church, since no one of them

holds from a catholic centre, or a central unity, for he

recognizes no such centre or unity? The only unity of the church

he can admit is that formed by the combination of the several

parts, a unity formed from multiplicity. He holds that we need a

great catholic reformation, a combination of the Roman, the

Greek, and the Anglican churches, which shall "evolve unity from

multiplexity." Here, it seems to us, is an unmistakable

recognition, as the basis of his catholicity, of the non-catholic

church theory, and a virtual denial of the unity and catholicity

of the church; for from multiplicity can be evolved only

totality, which, so far from being unity, excludes it altogether.

Recognizing no central see, centre and source of the unity and

catholicity of the church, how can Dr. Ewer determine what

churches are in schism or what are in union, what are catholic

and what are not? What criterion of unity and catholicity has he

or can he have? He says the Roman, the Greek, and the Anglican

are catholic, and he confines the Catholic Church to them. But

how can he call them catholic, since they have no common organic

centre, and have no intercommunion? We can find in his discourses

no answer to this question but the fact that they have certain

things in common. Why confine the Catholic Church, then, to these

three alone? Why exclude Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans,

and the Swiss, the Dutch, and the German Reformed communions? All

these have something in common with the Roman, Greek, and

Anglican communions, and even profess with them to believe the

Apostles' and Nicene creeds. The Methodists have bishops, priests

or elders, and deacons, as the Anglicans, and adopt the same

articles of faith. The churches named have presbyters, and so

have Presbyterians, the continental Reformed, and the Lutheran

churches; some of the Lutheran churches even have bishops. There

is something in common between these and the churches the author

claims to be catholic. Why, then, does he exclude them from the

list of communions of which the Catholic Church is composed? Or

why, indeed, exclude any one who professes to hold the Christian

church and the Apostles' and Nicene creeds? And why not reject as

non-catholic everything which all these do not agree in holding?

Does he not say that _catholic_ means all, not a part, and

why exclude from the _all_ any who acknowledge Christ as

their Lord and Master, and profess to be members of his church?

The author has no criterion in the case but his own private

judgment, prejudice, or caprice. He has no other rule, having

rejected the apostolic or central see, for interpreting the

_quod semper, quod ubique, et ab omnibus creditur_ of St.

Vincent of Lerins. The _all_ with us means all those, and

those only, who are, and always have been, in communion with the

central or Apostolic See, and obedient to its supreme authority;

but Dr. Ewer, who admits no such see, has, and can have, no

authority for not including in the _all_, the

_omnibus_, all who profess to follow Christ or to hold and

practise the Christian religion. His catholicity is, then, the

creature of his own private judgment, prejudice, or caprice; and

his catholic church is founded on himself, and is his own

arbitrary construction or creation. This is not the rejection of

Protestantism, but is rather Protestantism gone to seed.

{511}

Throughout the whole of Dr. Ewer's reasoning, except where he is

simply following Catholics in pronouncing and proving

Protestantism a blunder and a failure, and answerable for the

rationalism and unbelief in revealed religion now so prevalent

among scientific, intelligent, clear-headed, and honest-minded

men, there is the implied assumption that catholicity precedes

the church, and that we are to determine not what is catholic by

the church, but the Catholic Church by what we have, without her,

determined to be catholic. This is not a Catholic but a

Protestant method. We must first find the One Catholic Apostolic

Church, and from her learn what is catholic, and who are

catholics and who are not. This is the only scientific rule, if

we acknowledge a Catholic Church at all.

If the Roman, Greek, and Anglican churches are no one of them the

Catholic Church, they can be catholic, that is, be in the

catholic organism, only by communing with the organic centre from

which the life, activity, and authority of the organism proceeds,

in which is the source and centre of the unity and catholicity of

the church. But all particular churches in communion with the

organic centre, and obtaining their life from it, exist _in

solido_, and commune with one another. The three churches

named do not commune with one another; they are, as we have seen,

three distinct, separate, and independent bodies, and foreigners

to one another. Then only one of them, if any one of them, can be

a catholic church. The other two must be excluded as

non-catholic. What the author has to determine first of all,

since he restricts the Catholic Church to the three, is, in which

of these three is the original, organic, or central cell, or

central see, whence all the others proceed, or from which they

take their rise. But instead of doing this, he denies that any

one of the three is the Catholic Church, and contends that it is

all three in what they hold in common or agree in maintaining.

The meaning of this is, that no one of them contains the organic

cell, that there is no central organic see, as we hold the See of

Peter to be, and therefore no church organism one and catholic.

But this is to deny the Catholic Church, not to assert it. In

attempting to include in the One Catholic Apostolic Church

non-catholic and foreign elements, Dr. Ewer, therefore,

manifestly loses the Catholic Church itself.

Dr. Ewer, notwithstanding his vigorous onslaught upon

Protestantism, remains still under the influence of his

Protestant training, and has not as yet attained to any real

conception either of unity or of catholicity. Unity is

indivisible; catholicity is illimitable, or all that is contained

in the unity; and both are independent of space and time. The

unity of the church is her original and central organic

principle, or principle of life; the catholicity of the church is

inseparable from her unity, and consists in the completeness of

this organic principle, and in its being always and everywhere

the complete and only principle of church life. The unity of the

faith is in the fact that it, like the church, has its central

principle out of which all in it grows or germinates, and on

which all in it depends; the catholicity of the faith is in the

fact that this faith is complete, the whole faith, and is always

and everywhere believed and taught by the One Catholic Church, is

always and everywhere one and the same faith, always and

everywhere the truth of God. The catholicity of the church

depends in no sense on diffusion in space or the number of her

members.

{512}

The church is catholic, not because she is universally diffused

in space, but because she is the one only church, and includes in

her organism all that is essential to the church as the church,

or the mystic body of Christ, to the entire church life for all

men and for all times. _Catholic_ means _all_, rather

than _universal_, or universal only because it means all;

and hence the church was as truly catholic on the day of

Pentecost as she is now, or would be were all nations and all men

included in her communion, as the human race, in the order of

generation, was as complete and entire when there was no

individual but Adam, as it will be when the last child is born.

Time has no effect on either the unity or catholicity of the

church; for she is always living in her unity and catholicity, an

ever-present church, in herself the same yesterday, and to-day,

and for ever. She is in time and space, but not of them, nor, in

her internal organism, affected by the accidents of either. The

primitive church, the mediaeval church, and the church of to-day

are identically the same, and the distinctions these terms imply

are distinctions only in things externally related to her, not in

herself. Such must be the church if one and catholic, holy and

apostolic.

The central life of the church, the source of all the vitality,

force, and authority of the organism, of which--to use the

figure we have already so many times used--the central cell is

the organ, and which gives it all its generative force and

governing power, is Jesus Christ himself, who is the _forma_

of the church, as the soul is the _forma_ of the body, or

its organic principle; for the church is the _body_ of

Christ, and is nothing without him, and if separated from him

would instantly die, as does the body when separated from the

soul. But we are treating of the church, in which the unity of

Christ is made manifest in her visible unity, and therefore of

the visible, not of the invisible church. That the invisible

unity might be manifested, St. Cyprian argues, in his _De

Unitate Ecclesiae_, Christ established a central chair, the

Chair of Peter, whence all might be seen to take its rise from

one. This chair, the visible centre of unity, is to the church

organism, as we have seen, what the central or organic cell is to

every organism or living body in the natural order; but Jesus

Christ, whom it manifests or represents in the visible order, is

the living force and generative power of the central chair, as

the soul is of the organic cell of the human organism. So much we

must affirm of the _Christian_ church, if we call it, as Dr.

Ewer does, "an organism."

This organic central cell generates or produces not many

organisms, but one only. So the Chair of Peter, the central cell

of the church organism, can generate only one organism. Christ

has one body and no more. That only can be the Catholic Church in

which is, as its centre, the Chair of Peter, or, as we have

before said, the organic central see, which may justly be called

the Holy See, the Apostolic See, "the mother and mistress of all

the churches," as in the living body the original central organic

cell is the mother and mistress of all the secondary or inferior

cells generated in the evolution of the organism. Here, again,

theology and physiology coincide in principle.

We may now ask, Does the Greek schismatic church, as we call it,

contain this central organic see? Certainly not; for she admits

no such see, or, if she does, she confesses that she contains it

not, and the Roman Church does.

{513}

The Greek schismatic, as we call him, recognizes no church unity

in the sense we have explained. He recognizes only diocesan,

metropolitan, or patriarchal unity. Does the Greek Church, then,

commune with this central see? No. For it communes with no see or

church outside of itself. How is it with the Anglican Church? It

does not any more than the Greek Church claim to possess it. It

does not pretend to find it in the see of Canterbury, York,

Dublin, or Armagh, and indeed denies both the necessity and

existence of such see. She denounces the Roman see because she

claims to be it; and Dr. Ewer tells us, in his reply to Mr.

Adams, that the Protestant Reformation rendered noble service to

the Anglican Church by delivering it from papal tyranny and

oppression. Well, then, does the Anglican Church commune with the

central or organic see, or Chair of Peter? No. For she communes

with no see beyond herself. Then she is not the, or even a,

catholic church. There remains, then, only the Roman Church,

which is and must be the One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church, if

such church there is; for it can be no other. The reverend

doctor's attempt, then, to find a catholic church which is not

the Roman Church, or a catholicity which is "broader and deeper"

than what he, as well as other Protestants, calls "Romanism,"

seems, like Protestantism itself, to have failed.

Dr. Ewer would evade the force of this conclusion, which the

common sense of mankind unhesitatingly accepts, by resorting to

what is known as "the branch theory." The Roman, the Greek, and

the Anglican churches are not one or another of them exclusively

the Catholic Church, but they are catholic churches, because

branches of the One Catholic Church. But branches suppose a

trunk. Where there is no trunk there are and can be no branches;

for the trunk produces the branches, not the branches the trunk.

Where, then, is the trunk of which the three churches named are

branches, especially since the author says we are not to look

beyond them for the Catholic Church? We let him answer in his own

words:

"Permit me to close this part of my discourse by an

illustration of the Catholic Church. We will take, for the sake

of simplicity, a tree. For eight feet above the soil its trunk

stands one and entire. Somewhere along the ninth foot the trunk

branches into two main limbs. We will call the eastern the

Greek limb, and the western we will call the Latin. Six feet

further out on the Latin limb, that is to say, fifteen feet

from ground, that western limb subdivides into two vast

branches. The outmost of the two we will call the Anglican

branch, the other we will call the Roman. These two branches

and the Greek limb run up to a height of nineteen and a half

feet from the ground. There they are, the three great boughs,

each with its foliage, Anglican at the west, Roman in the

centre, Greek at the east. If now you shield your vision from

all but the top of the tree, there will appear to you to be

three disconnected tufts of vegetation; but lo! the foliage and

the flowers are the same. But remove now the shield from before

your eyes, and behold in the whole tree a symbol of the

Catholic Church--one organism from root to summit."

This assumes that the trunk is the primitive undivided church, or

the church prior to the separation of the Eastern churches from

the jurisdiction of the Roman see. But does that undivided

church, the trunk church, still exist in its integrity? No. For

if it did, there would be no difficulty. It ceased to exist in

the ninth century, and now there is no undivided church. Then

that has fallen into the past. Then there is no present living

trunk, but branches only. Branches of a trunk that has ceased to

live can be only dead branches. The alleged branches communicate

with no living root, and have no intercommunion; they therefore

are not and cannot be one living organism. The author himself

half concedes it, for he continues:

{514}

"A church that is one like the trunk of that tree for the first

nine centuries--that the Western subdividing at the fifteenth

century into Anglican and Roman. As a fact, the unity of the

organism is not broken; intercommunion between its three parts

is simply suspended for a time--suspended until that

differentiation shall take place in God's one church which, as

Herbert Spencer so admirably shows, is the law of all growth; a

differentiation which means, in its last issue, not a complete

sundering, but the eventual unity of multiplexity, the harmony

of co-ordinate parts. Did it not mix the metaphor somewhat, I

would go on and complete the illustration by supposing sundry

branches of this tree to be cut off from time to time and

inserted into vases of water standing round about the great

tree. Being without root, those cut longest ago are all dead;

while only the most recently cut are green with a deceptive

life, themselves soon to wither and die. These cut branches,

standing trunkless and rootless about the living tree, would be

apt symbols of the Protestant sects.

"We have found, then, what the Catholic Church is."