There can be no suspension of intercommunion of the branches so

long as their communion with the root, or organic cell, through

the trunk, is not suspended; for through communion with that they

intercommune. But any interruption of that communion is not only

the suspension, but the extinction of intercommunion. The

restoration of intercommunion once extinct cannot be affected

except by a living reunion of each with the root or organic cell

of the organism. Probably, then, the author has been too hasty in

exclaiming, "We have found what the Catholic Church is." He seems

to us to have found neither unity nor catholicity.

Dr. Ewer seems to forget that the church never has been and never

can be divided. Has not he himself said that she is one, and does

he need to be told that one is indivisible, or that its division

would be its death? The tree with successive branches which he

adduces in illustration is, no doubt, a living organism; but it

can illustrate only the unity and catholicity of the central and

ruling see, and the particular churches holding from it. Branch

churches are admissible only as particular churches produced by

and dependent on the organic centre, or apostolic see, mother and

mistress of all the churches of the organism. But we have already

shown that the Roman, the Greek, and the Anglican churches are

not particular churches, for they are independent bodies,

subordinate to or dependent on no organic centre which each has

not in itself. As the Catholic Church is one, not three, and as

we have shown that it is neither the separated Greek Church nor

the Anglican, it must be the Roman See and its dependent

churches, in which is the primitive, original, productive, and

creative life of the church, since, as we have seen, it can be no

other. We have refuted the "branch theory" in refuting the

author's assumption that the Roman, the Greek, and the Anglican

churches hold from and are subordinate to the one universal

church, which, as independent of them, has no existence.

The failure of the author to find the Catholic Church is due to

the fact that, from first to last, though he calls the church

one, he really recognizes no church unity, since he recognizes no

visible centre of unity whence emanates all her life, activity,

and authority. Till the ninth century the East and West were

united, and the church was one; but it had no centre of unity at

Rome any more than at Antioch, at Alexandria, or Constantinople,

in the successor of St. Peter in the See of Rome any more than in

any other patriarch or bishop.

{515}

Hence no church could be convicted of schism, unless its bishop

refused to commune with another, or another refused to commune

with him; but which was the schismatic was indeterminable, unless

the whole church should come together in General Council and

settle the question by vote. This is the author's theory of

unity, a unity which has no visible centre. It is the common

Anglican theory, and appears to some extent to be that of the

schismatical Greeks. But this theory makes the unity of the

church a mere collective federative unity, or an aggregation of

parts, which is simply no unity at all, and at best only a union.

The unity of the church implies that all in the church proceeds

from unity, and is generated, upheld, and controlled by it. The

unity is the origin of the whole organism, and what does not

proceed from it or grow out of it is abnormal--a tumor, or an

excrescence to be exscinded. Hence the impossibility of arriving

at the unity of the church by aggregating the parts which have

lost it or have it not. It is impossible to assert the unity of

the church without asserting a central see, and its bishop as its

visible manifestation. There is, we repeat, no organism without

the central cell, and no visible organism without a visible

centre of unity. The author would do well to study anew the

treatise _De Unitate Ecclesiae_ of St. Cyprian, to which we

have already referred.

There is and can be no visible unity of the church without a

central see, the centre and origin of unity, life, and authority;

and when you have found that see, you have found the Catholic

Church, but not till then. Every see, or particular or local

church in communion with that see; and dependent on it, is in the

unity of the church and catholic; and every one not in communion

with it is out of unity and not catholic, nor any part of the

Catholic body. Admitting that there is the Catholic Church, the

only question to be settled is, Which is that See? Reduced to

this point, the controversy is virtually ended. There is and

never has been but one claimant. Rome has always claimed it, and

nobody in the world has ever pretended or pretends that it is any

other. Constantinople and Canterbury have disputed the supremacy

over the whole church of its pontiff; but neither claims nor ever

has claimed to be itself the central organic see, the visible

centre of the church organism, and organ of its life and

authority.

With no recognized central and ruling see with which all, in

order to be in unity, must commune, and with only particular, or

rather independent and isolated, churches in existence, without

any intercommunion one with another, and all of which, as

separate and independent churches, have failed, how can those

several branches, which are only trunkless, be restored, "unity

evolved from multiplexity," and intercommunion re-established? If

there is an organic see, the centre of unity, mother and mistress

of all the churches, particular churches that have failed can

easily be restored if they wish. They have only to abjure their

schism or heresy, be reconciled with that see, submit to its

authority, and receive its teaching. They are thus reincorporated

by the mercy of God into the church organism, and participate in

its unity and the life that flows from it. But on the author's

church theory, we can see no possible way in which the separate

bodies can be restored to the unity of the church.

{516}

Unity cannot be constructed or reconstructed from multiplicity;

for there can be no multiplicity where there is no unity.

Multiplicity depends on unity, which creates or generates and

sustains it. Suppose we grant for the moment the Catholic Church

is no one of the three churches, yet is not separable from or

independent of them, and, in fact, underlies them, but inorganic,

or having only these for its organs. How shall they be brought

into organic unity? By a General Council? Where is the authority

to convoke it, to determine who may or who may not sit in it, and

to confirm its acts? You say, Summon all the bishops of the

Roman, the Greek, and the Anglican bodies. But who has authority

to summon them, and why summon these and no others? Who shall

say? It is the same question we have had up before. Why extend or

why confine the Catholic Church to the three churches named?

Where there is no recognized centre of authority, that is to say,

no recognized authority, there is authority to admit or to

exclude. It is necessary that authority define which is the

Catholic Church, before you can say what organizations it

includes or excludes, or what prelates or ministers have the

right to be summoned as Catholic prelates or ministers, and what

not.

A nation disorganized, as the author assumes the church now is,

though he trusts only temporarily, can reorganize itself; for the

political sovereignty resides always in the nation, or, as we

say, in modern times, in the people. The people, as the nation,

possess, under God, or rather from him, the sovereign power to

govern themselves, which they can neither alienate nor be

deprived of so long as they exist as an independent nation or

sovereign political community. When the old government which, as

legal, held from them, is broken up or dissolved, they have the

inherent right to come together in such way as they choose or

can, and reconstitute government or power in such manner and vest

it in such hands as they judge best. But the church disorganized

cannot reorganize itself; for the organic power does not vest in

the church as the faithful or the Christian people. Authority in

the church is not created, constituted, or delegated by the

Christian people, nor does it in any sense hold from them. Church

power or authority comes immediately from God to the central see,

and from that see radiates through the whole body; for the author

agrees with us that the church is an organism. Hence we recognize

the Council of Constance as a General Council only after it was

convoked by Gregory XII., who was, in our judgment, the true

Bishop of the Apostolic See, and hold legal only the acts

confirmed by Martin V. The disorganization of the church is,

then, its dissolution or death. It has no power to raise itself

from the dead. If the central see could really fail, the whole

organism would fail. The church is indefectible through the

indefectibility of the Holy See, and that is indefectible because

it is Peter's See, and our Lord promised Peter that, however

Satan might try him, his faith should not fail: "Satan has

desired to sift thee as wheat; but I have prayed the Father that

thy faith fail not." The prayer of Christ cannot be unanswered,

and is a promise. The attacks on the Holy See have been violent

and continual, but they have never been successful. Our Lord's

prayer has been effective, and Peter's faith has never failed. No

doubt there is the full authority to teach and to govern in the

church; but this authority is not derived from the faithful nor

distributed equally among them, but resides primarily and in its

plenitude in the Holy See, and therefore in the bishop of that

see, or the pope, Peter's successor, in whom Peter lives and

continues to teach and govern the whole church.

{517}

All Catholic bishops depend on him, and receive from him their

jurisdiction, and by authority from God through him govern their

respective dioceses. The church is papal in its essential

constitution, not simply episcopal; for we have seen that it is

an organism, and can be an organism only as proceeding from an

organic centre, or central see, on which its unity and

catholicity depend. The Apostolic See cannot be separated from

the _Sedens_; for without him it is empty, incapable of

thinking, speaking, or acting. It is, then, it seems to us, as

utterly impossible to assert the church as really one and

catholic, without asserting the pope, or supreme pastor, as it

would be to assert an organism without asserting a central

organic cell. The failure of the pope would be the failure of the

whole church organism, with no power of reorganization or

reconstruction left--an important point in which the church and

the nation differ. The overlooking of this point of difference is

the reason why our catholicizing Anglicans suppose that the

church, though disorganized, is able to reorganize herself. The

reorganized church, if effected, would be a human organization,

not a divine organism as created by our Lord himself. But the

church, as we have seen, has never been disorganized, and could

not be without ceasing to exist, and cease to exist it cannot, if

catholic. The organic centre from which the whole organism is

evolved and directed has remained at Rome ever since Peter

transferred thither his chair from Antioch, and the particular

churches holding from it and continuing subject to it are

integral elements of the catholic organism, which is as perfect,

as complete, and as entire as it was when the Oriental churches

acknowledged and submitted to the supremacy of the successor of

Peter, or when the church in England was in full communion with

the Apostolic See of Rome. The separation of these from the Roman

communion, though it destroyed their unity and catholicity, did

not break the unity and catholicity of the organism; it only

placed them outside of that organism, and cut them off from the

central see, the source of all organic church life. The revolt of

the Anglo-American Colonies from Great Britain, in 1776, and the

Declaration of their Independence of the mother-country, did not

break her unity or authority as a nation, and indeed did not even

deprive her of any of her rights over them, though it enfeebled

her power to govern them, till she herself acknowledged them to

be independent states.

The author seems to suppose that the Greeks and Anglicans, in

separating from Rome, broke the unity of the church, and carried

away with them each a portion of her catholicity, so that there

now can be no One Catholic Church existing in organic unity and

catholicity, save in reminiscence and _in potentia_, unless

these two bodies are reunited with Rome in one and the same

communion. But the Greeks and Anglicans had both for centuries

recognized the authority of the Apostolic See, as the centre of

unity and source of jurisdiction. When the Greeks separated from

that see and refused to obey it, they took from it neither its

organic unity nor its catholicity; they only cut themselves off

and deprived themselves of both. The same may be said of

Anglicans in separating from Rome and declaring themselves

independent.

{518}

They deprived themselves of unity and catholicity, but left the

original church organism in all its integrity, and only placed

themselves outside of it. The separation in both cases deprived

the church of a portion of her population, and diminished her

external power and grandeur, but took away none of her rights and

prerogatives, and in no respect impaired, as we have already

said, the unity or catholicity of her internal organism. All that

can be said is that the separated Oriental churches and

Anglicans, not the church, have lost unity and catholicity, and

have ceased to be Catholics, even when agreeing with the church

in her dogmas and her external rites and ceremonies.

There is, then, on the side of the church, no broken unity to be

healed, or lost catholicity to be restored. If the Oriental

churches wish to regain unity and catholicity, all they have to

do is to submit to the jurisdiction of the Apostolic See, and

renew their communion with the mother and mistress of all the

churches. Not having lost their church organization, and having

retained valid orders or the priesthood and the august sacrifice,

they can return in their corporate capacity. There is in their

case only a schism to be healed. The Anglicans and Episcopalians

stand on a different footing; for they have not even so much as a

schismatic church, since the Episcopalians hold from the

Anglicans, and the Anglicans from the state. They have no orders,

no priesthood, no sacrifice, no sacraments--except baptism, and

even pagans can administer that--no church character at all, if

we look at the facts in the case, and therefore, like all

Protestants, can be admitted to the unity of the church only on

individual profession and submission. There is much for those out

of unity to do to recover it and to effect the union in the

Catholic communion of all who profess to be Christians, but

nothing to render the church herself one and catholic. Her unity

and catholicity are already established and unalterable, and so

are the terms of communion and the conditions of church life. No

grand combination, then, is needed to restore a divided and

disorganized church.

But if the church were disorganized and a restoration needed, no

possible combination of the several disorganized parts would or

could effect it. The disorganization could not take place without

the loss by the whole organism of the organic centre, and that,

once lost, can be recovered only by an original creation, by our

Lord, of a new church organism, which, even if it were done,

would not restore us the Catholic Church; for it would not be a

church existing uninterruptedly from the beginning, and there

would be a time since the Incarnation when it did not subsist,

and when there was no church. The author assumes that unity may

be evolved from "multiplexity," which is Protestant, not Catholic

philosophy; without unity there can be, as we have said, no

multiplicity, as without the universal there can be no

particulars. The universal precedes the particulars and generates

them, and when it goes they go with it. Unity precedes

multiplicity, and produces, sustains, and directs it. This is

implied in every argument used, or that can be used, by

philosophers and theologians, to prove the existence of God and

his providence. Atheism results from the assumption that

multiplicity may exist by itself, independently of unity;

pantheism, from the assumption that unity is a dead, abstract

unity, like that of the old Eleatics, not a concrete, living, and

effective unity, and the denial that unity creates multiplicity.

{519}

Physiology is refuting both by its discoveries, confirming what

has always been affirmed in principle by traditional science, the

fact that there is no organism or living body, in either the

animal or vegetable world, without the original central cell,

born of ancestors, which creates or generates and directs all the

vital phenomena, normal or abnormal, of the organism, as has

already been stated, thus placing science and the teaching of the

church in harmony.

Dr. Ewer probably does not in his own mind absolutely deny the

present unity on which depends the catholicity of the church; but

he supposes it is in some way involved in multiplicity, so that

it needs not to be created, but to be evoked from the existing

"multiplexity" which now obscures it and prevents its

effectiveness. But this we have shown is not and cannot be the

case, because the unity not only produces, but _directs_ or

_governs_ the manifold phenomena of the church, and must

therefore be always distinct from and independent of them. Also,

because so long as unity and catholicity remain, no

disorganization or confusion requiring their evolution can take

place, except in the parts exuded or thrown off by the organism,

severed or exscinded from it, that is, only in what is outside of

the One Catholic Church, and forming no part of the catholic

body. That schismatics and heretics lack unity and catholicity,

is, of course, true; but they cannot obtain either by an

evolution from such organization as they may have retained when

the separation took place, or may have subsequently formed for

themselves, but must do it, if at all, by a return to the organic

centre, where both are and have never ceased to be, on the terms

and conditions the Holy See prescribes.

Dr. Ewer maintains that the Catholic Church is restricted to the

Roman, Greek, and Anglican Churches, and consists in what these

have in common or agree in holding. These, he maintains, have all

failed, have taught and still teach grievous errors, set up false

claims, and one or more of them at least have fallen into

superstitious practices; yet he contends that the universal

church has not failed. But as the universal church has no organic

existence independent of these, has no organs of speech or

action, no personality but in them, how, if he is right in his

theory, can he maintain that the whole church has not failed? If

he held that the unity and catholicity of the church were in the

central or organic see, he might hold that particular churches

have failed, and that the One Catholic Church has not failed.

Then he could assert, as we do, that the organism remains, acts,

teaches, and governs through its own infallible organs, in its

own individuality, or the supreme pontiff who is its personality

or person. But on his theory, the failure of each of the three

parts which comprise the whole church, it seems to us, must carry

with it the failure of the whole.

Dr. Ewer's difficulty would seem to grow out of his wish to be a

Catholic and remain in the Anglican or Episcopalian communion in

which he is a minister, or to return from Protestantism to

Catholicity without any change of position. This would be

possible, if holding, on private judgment, Catholic dogmas, and

observing, on no authority, Catholic forms of worship,

constituted one a member of the Catholic Church. But he should

understand that what he wishes is impracticable, and that all his

efforts are labor lost.

{520}

So long as a man is in a communion separated from the present

actual living unity of the church, he can become a Catholic only

by leaving it, or by its corporate return to the Holy See and

submission to the supreme pontiff.

A corporate return is practicable in the case of the Eastern

churches; but even in them the individual who is personally aware

of the schismatic character of his church should abandon it for

unity at once without waiting for its corporate return; but in

the case of Anglicans and Episcopalians, as in the case of all

Protestant communions, the return must be individual and

personal.

We are surprised at Dr. Ewer's statement that the Greek Church

has no cultus of St. Mary ever-Virgin, as we are that many

Anglicans, like Dr. Pusey, who object to the Roman Church on

account of that cultus, should seek communion with the schismatic

Greeks, with whom that cultus is pushed to an extreme far beyond

anything in the Latin Church. The truth is, that all that offends

Protestants in the Church of Rome, except the papacy, exists in

even a more offensive form in the Greek schismatic Church. The

schismatic Greek bishops exercise over their flocks a tyranny

which is impracticable in the Roman Church, where the papal

authority restricts that of bishops and tempers their

administration of their dioceses.

But it is time to bring our remarks to a close. We are unable to

recognize the Catholicity we profess in that proposed by Dr.

Ewer. The one holy catholic apostolic church he sets forth does

not appear to us to be the church of the fathers, nor the one of

which we are an affectionate if an unworthy son. In our judgment,

Dr. Ewer is still in the Protestant family, and following private

judgment as his rule, though denouncing it. He has not grasped

the central, or, as Dr. Channing would say, the "seminal"

principle of the Catholic Church. Yet he seems to be well

disposed, and to be seeking it, and has made large strides toward

it. We think his discourses are not only brilliant, bold, and

energetic, but fitted to have great influence in turning the

public mind toward the Catholic Church. We have given our reasons

why we do not admit that he has as yet found that church; but

still we think his discourses will help many to find it, though

he himself may not find it. He has, as yet, strong prejudices

against the Church of Rome, and is undeniably anti-papal. But

still there can be no doubt that he would like to feel himself a

Catholic, and have done once for all with Protestantism. Dr. Ewer

stands not alone. There are large numbers in his communion, and

other Protestant communions, who think and feel as he does, who,

from the top of Mount Pisgah, have obtained--if not the clear

vision Moses had--at least some glimpses, more or less confused,

of the promised land, and are attracted and charmed by what they

see of it. We have a feeling of respectful tenderness toward

these men, and of great sympathy with their trials and struggles.

While we must tell them the truth in firm and manly tones, treat

them as men, not as children, we would, on no account, say or do

anything to wound their susceptibilities, or to create an

impression that we do not take a deep and lively interest in

their efforts to arrive at Catholicity. The spirit is working in

them to bring them to light and life. They are not against us,

and to some extent are with us. We would, for their sakes, they

were wholly with us, and we never cease to pray God that they may

find the haven of security and rest it has pleased him that we

should find for ourselves.

{521}

We once were one of their number, thought and felt with them,

struggled with them, and we can have for them only words of

encouragement and hope. In what we have said we have had only the

desire to assist them to find and understand the One Holy

Catholic Apostolic Church.

----------

The Evening Primrose.

Of twilight and fresh dews,

Most odorous flower, thou art the child;

Adorning evening's pensive hues

With splendors mild.

A vesper acolyte,

Born, but for this one night,

To swing thy golden censer of perfume,

While stars the tranquil firmament illume,

For heaven's delight.

Thy term of service, fleet,

Creative wish doth meet;

A swift existence; but which this rare grace

Of ceaseless worship, filling life's brief space,

Crowns as complete.

Thy blissful vigil keep,

Rapt flower, while others sleep:

Adoring angels claim thee from above

A dear companion in their task of love;

And I would fain present,

With worshipful intent,

Thy dewy blossoms on my evening shrine;

A contrite homage; sighing to repair,

With the accepted incense of thy prayer,

For sloth like mine.

----------

{522}

Heremore-Brandon; Or,

The Fortunes Of A Newsboy.

"Howe'er it be, it seems to me

'Tis only noble to be good;

Kind hearts are more than coronets,

And simple faith than Norman blood."

Chapter I.

Four little boys: two of them had soft fair hair, and were

dressed in the finest cloth; the other two had very bushy heads,

and were dressed in whatever they could get. It was early

Christmas morning, and the two rich boys were sitting by the

window of a handsome brown-stone house, and they had each a

stocking plump full of dainties; the two poor boys were calling

the morning papers on the stone-cold sidewalk, and if they had

any stockings at all, you may be very sure they were plump full

of holes.

"An't he funny," remarked the smaller of the two in the house,

looking at the larger of the two in the street; "an't he

_too_ funny!" And between laughing and eating, little Fred

came near choking himself. "See his old coat, Josie, it trails

like Aunt Ellie's blue dress! And such a queer old hat; don't it

make you laugh, Josie?"

"I have seen so many of 'em," explained Josie.

"What are you laughing at, Fred," asked their sister Mary, coming

up to them.

"Those newsboys," he answered, and imitated their "Times, 'Erald,

Tribune! Here's the 'Erald, Times, Tribune!" so perfectly that

their father thought it was a real newsboy calling, and cried out

to them from another room to "hurry up and bring a Herald," at

which command the children rushed eagerly into the hall, and

tugged with their united strength to open the doors, each anxious

to be the first to speak to the odd-looking newsboys, and also to

be the fortunate one to take the paper to their father. In the

mean time, the two newsboys had not been unmindful of the faces

behind the plated window.

"I say, Jim," said the big boy, who was about twelve or thirteen

years old, "did you ever see the beat of that young 'un there?

Don't you choke yerself, youngster, f'fear you'd cheat a friend

from doing that same when you're growed up.--Ere's the 'Erald!

Tribune! Times!--George! Jim, I wish to thunder there'd some new

papers come up. An't yer tired allers a hollerin' out them same

old tunes?--Times! 'Erald! Tribune!--How d'ye s'pose a feller'd

feel to wake up some of these yere mornin's in one o' them big

houses?"

"Heerd tell of stranger things 'n that, Dick," replied Jim, who

read the weekly papers. "'Turn again, Whittington, Lord-Mayor of

London,' as the cat said! Turned out true, too."

"_You'd_ better get a cat, Jim, you're such a stunnin'

feller; shouldn't wonder if you'd turn out alderman some of these

days!" At which, for no apparent reason, Dick laughed until every

rag was fluttering.

"They wants a paper; better 'tend to yer business," answered Jim,

at which the other newsboy instantly grew grave, and, shuffling

his old shoes across the street, mounted the steps where the

children were waiting and calling for him.

{523}

"I want a New York Herald," said Fred very grandly.

"Han't got no 'Eralds," answered the newsboy.

Fred rushed into the house saying, "His Heralds are all gone."

"Tribune, then, and don't keep the door open," instructed the

rough voice from some invisible spot. Mary shut the door all but

a little crack. "Papa wanted a Herald," she said; "you ought to

have one when my papa wants it."

"Thought I had, but couldn't help it; 'Erald's got a great speech

to-day, and I've sold 'em all."

"Do you sell papers every day?" Mary asked.

The bushy head made a sort of bow, as the poor newsboy looked at

the fair-haired little girl on the stoop, who condescended to

question _him_.

"Yes, miss," he answered, "since ever I wasn't bigger'n a

grasshopper."

"An't he funny?" said Fred.

"Don't you get tired?" asked Mary.

"Well, I can't say I doesn't, 'specially sometimes."

"An't you glad it's Christmas?" Josie asked, as questions seemed

the fashion.

"I kinder am," replied the newsboy.

"Did you have many presents?" questioned Mary.

"Me? Bless you, who'd give 'em to me, miss?"

"Didn't you hang up your stocking last night?" Fred asked.

The newsboy seemed much amused at the question; for it was plain

that he could hardly keep from laughing right out.

"Well, no, I didn't," he answered. "Don't think things would

stick in one long, if I did!"

"Do you put your money in a savings bank? By and by you'd have

enough to build a house maybe, if you were careful," said Josie.

"Jim and me likes takin' it out in eatin' best," answered Dick.

"Why don't you bring me that paper?" cried their father's voice.

And the two boys ran hastily into the house.

"You may have my candy," said Mary in a stately way. "I can have

plenty more." And she put her store of dainty French candy into

the boy's hand, and, while he was still looking at her in

amazement, followed her brothers into the house and shut the

door.

"Just you pinch me, Jim," Dick said, joining his companion.

"Drive in hearty, now. An't I asleep?"

"Well, I dunno; what yer got there?"

"She give it to me."

"Who's that?"

"Her on the steps; didn't you see her?"

"You tell that to the marines! Guess you took it."

"No, I didn't," Dick said indignantly. "I never took nothin' as

warn't mine yet."

"Let's have a look," said Jem, reaching out his hand for the

package; but Dick would not let him touch it. "I'm going to keep

it always to remember her," he said.

"Guess you want ter eat it yerself," Jem said. "I wouldn't be so

mean."

"I an't gen'rally called mean," Dick answered with great dignity.

"Don't you wonder, Jim," said Dick, as they made friends and

passed on--"don't it seem curious how some folks is rich and

purty like them there, and others is poor and ugly like me and

you, Jim?"

"George! speak for yerself, if ye like. Guess I'd pass in a

crowd, if I'd the fine fixin's!"

{524}

"S'posin' me and you had dandified coats and yeller gloves, and

the fixin's to match, s'pose anybody'd know we was newsboys?"

Dick asked thoughtfully.

"I _rayther_ think," said Jim, "we'd be a deal sight

handsomer'n some of them chaps as has 'em now."

"Let's save our money and try it, Jim."

"'Nuff said," answered Jim, laughing. And the newsboys in their

queer garments, and with their light hearts, passed out of sight

of Mr. Brandon's brown-stone house and fair-haired children.

But not out of all remembrance. The children had a party that

Christmas afternoon; and when they were tired of romping, and

were seated around the room, the girls playing with their dolls;

the Catholic ones telling the others in low voices about the

flowers and lights, and the wonderful manger which they had seen

at Mass that morning; and the boys eagerly listening to the

stories of faraway lands, which one of the older people was

telling, little Mary knelt in an arm-chair, and looked out of the

window at the people hurrying through the driving rain and snow,

and at the street-lamps glaring through the wet and cold. Her

kind little heart had been very light, and a strange joyousness

had surrounded her all day, making her more gentle than ever, so

that she had not spoken one hasty word, or once hesitated to take

the lowest part in any of the plays. Though she did not know it,

the little infant Jesus had smiled on her that morning when she

was kind to the poor, homeless newsboy; and now she

understood--for charity had enlarged her mind--more distinctly

than she ever had before, that there were many cold and desolate

children for whom there were no earthly glad tidings that day,

yet who were as much God's own as the little ones grouped around

her father's pleasant parlors. Then, just as she did the best she

could, and prayed in her heart for the children of the poor, she

thought she saw the newsboy to whom she had spoken in the morning

standing close to the railing by the window; but before she could

be sure of it, the servant lighted the gas; she heard the

children calling her for a new game, and she ran lightly away.

But there was one crouched in the cold outside, who wondered at

the sudden light and glow within; and as the bewildered newsboy

saw her dancing past the lighted windows, it seemed to him that

it was not so far, after all, to the heaven and the angels of

whom he had heard; for the "glad tidings" had come to Dick, even

Dick, and they woke up the good, the will to do right, which is

in every heart, and which did not sleep again in him, even when

the little, uncared-for, outcast head rested on the stone steps

that Christmas night.

Chapter II.

Very little idea had poor Dick of right or wrong. No fond mother

took him to her heart when he was a toddling wee one, just big

enough to half understand, and between her kisses told him of

angels and saints, of heroes and martyrs, and of that Queen

Mother up in heaven, dearer than them all, who never forgot those

who once had loved her, and of the beautiful world with its

flowers and fruits, its great rivers and high mountains, its

delicious green and its glorious blue, which a good Father had

given to men for their enjoyment. No loving sister, with bright

eyes and tender voice, tossed him in her strong young arms, and

sang to him how knights and warriors, the great and good of

earth, and loved of heaven, had all been children once like him,

only never half so sweet and dear.

{525}

No noble father, true in the midst of trials, ever watched with

anxious care that those little feet should walk only in the

straight and narrow path. So it was a hard thing for poor Dick,

when he rubbed his brown hands through his bushy, uncombed hair

the next morning, and pushed the worn old hat over his still

sleepy eyes, to know just what to do to find the temple of

Fortune. At times, though, he had followed the crowd of noisy

boys and girls whom you may see around the doors of any Catholic

church at about nine o'clock on Sunday mornings, and had listened

with a critical air, and slightly supercilious, from some dark

corner near the door, to the talking and the prayers which he did

not wholly understand, but portions of which he did once or twice

take into his "inner consciousness" and fully approve. In some

way, he then seemed to feel that which made him less rough in all

his answers, readier in all his responses to the call for papers,

not always gently called for; and, though he knew not why, there

were fewer wicked words on his lips that day than for many a day

before.

It happened that he kept his eyes open and grew thoughtful, and

did not forget his wish to be better; so that, from being a

newsboy, he became an errand-boy in a book-store, where he

learned to be honest and to tell the truth, which was a rapid

advance in his education; for you know it is more than some

people have learned who have lived to be six times Dick's age.

Sometimes a little lady came to that very store to choose her

picture-books and Christmas stories; and it was his place to open

the door for her; or perhaps some one would call out, "Dick, a

chair for this lady," and then he was as happy as a prince.

Sometimes he would be sent home with her purchases, and mounted

the steps, entered her father's house, and always felt "good"

again; for always the same picture of a little girl in blue, with

fair hair, and her hands full of dainty French candy, and a

ragged newsboy, dirty and amazed, would be there before him.

Christmas had come and gone more than once, and it was coming

again, when Dick turned up the gas in a mere closet of a room

very high up in a dingy boarding-house, and made a ghost of a

fire in an old rusty stove. It wouldn't seem to us a very

enlivening prospect; for the room was but slightly furnished, and

the stove smoked, while the wind beat at the not overclean

windows, on which there were no curtains to shut out the dark and

cold. But Dick seemed to think it something very luxurious; for

he rubbed his hands before the blue apology for a flame, and sat

down on the broken wooden stool, with as much zest as that with

which I have seen grand people sink into a great arm-chair after

a walk.

"Christmas eve again," he said to the fire, for it was his only

companion. "Let me look at you, Mr. Coals, and see what pictures

you have for me to-night. How many nights, worse nights than

this, I have been glad to crouch under an old shed, or in some

alley, and now to think, thanks to the good God, I have a fire of

my own! Poor little bare feet on the icy pavement to-night, I

wish I had you round my jolly old stove. When I am rich, I will!"

Then he laughed at the idea. "But I won't wait until I am rich,

or I would never deserve to have the chance."

"How are you, Dick?" said a cheery voice, though deep and rough,

at the door. And a man came into the room, which either his

figure, or his coat, or his voice, or the flute under his arm,

seemed to fill to such an extent that the very corners were

crowded.

{526}

"How are you, Dick? It's blowing a hurricane outside, and you're

as cold as Greenland here. It may do for you, but not for me; old

blood is thin, my boy, old blood is thin." At which Dick laughed

heartily, while putting more coal on the fire; for Carl Stoffs

was in the prime of life, hale and hearty, weighing at least two

hundred pounds, I am sure, and with a round face, very red, but

also very solemn, for Carl Stoffs was a German every inch of him.

The stove grew very red also under his vigorous hands; but

whether from anger or by reflection I will not attempt to say.

"And now," he said, seating himself on the wooden chair, Dick

having given it up to his guest, while he occupied a box

instead--"and now, how are you, boy? Ready for merry Christmas,

eh? You'll come to us to-morrow, so says my wife. In America, you

all do mind your wives; mine tells me to bring you."

"Then I must, I know," Dick said, looking at the other, who was

near three times his size. "I would have a poor chance in

opposing you!" But Carl Stoffs knew well how gratefully the

friendless boy accepted the thoughtful invitation.

"Now, shall we have some music," said he, as he drew out his

flute, and, without waiting an answer, put it to his mouth, and

brought forth such rich, full tones from the instrument that

Dick, as he stared at the now bright fire, seemed to be in a land

of enchantment.

"You are the only man, from the queen of England down, whom I

really envy," said Dick, in one of the pauses. "You can have

music whenever you wish it; I am only a beggar, grateful for

every note thrown in my way. Were you out, last night?"

"Yes, all night in Fourteenth street, at the rich Brandons. Madam

is very gay, this winter."

"I wish I were a musician," said Dick. "It must be jolly to see

all the dancing and the bright dresses!"

"And the pretty ladies, eh? who don't mind you no more than if

you were a stick or a stone. Indeed, my boy, you'd soon get tired

of it; it seems so grand at first, the beautiful picture all in

motion; but your eyes--they ache after a little. Too much light,

my boy, too much light." And the musician went long journeys up

and down his wonderful flute before he spoke again. "They'll go

music-mad over some fool at the piano; but you play until your

own music makes you wild, and never one thinks or cares about

you. Last night, I played only for one. She was always dancing,

and she seemed to go on the wings of the music just as it said to

her _go_. I was not tired last night."

Awaiting no answer, he turned again to his flute, and all through

the dingy, crowded house rang a joyous "_Gloria in

excelsis_." Rough captives of labor heard it, and answered to

it, knowing well the glad tidings, the most glorious ever sung,

and yet sung to kings and shepherds alike. The old sinners heard

it, and thought of the strange days when even they were young and

innocent.

"Finis," cried the German, rising slowly, and putting on his

shaggy overcoat. "I promised my wife that I would be home at

nine, and, as do all the people here, I mind my wife; but it is

one inconvenient thing. You will come to us after Mass,

to-morrow?"

"You are too good to me. When I am rich, perhaps I shall know how

to thank you."

{527}

"You should think yourself rich now. You are young; there is no

riches like that."

"I wish I were older, though," sighed Dick.

"Never say that, never, never. The poorest youth is better than

the richest age," said the German earnestly. I shouldn't wonder

if Mr. Stoffs had just found his first gray hair, and was

speaking under its influence. At all events, he did not convince

Dick, who said, with equal earnestness and more quickness:

"I must say it: every day seems too long, every hour goes too

slowly, until I can get at my life's work. This waiting for it

kills me."

"My friend, do you call this waiting?" laughed the German. "Was

it waiting and doing nothing that changed you from--"

"But think," interrupted Dick, "of what ought to have-been. Some

day--some day I will get my hand to the plough, you'll see! At

least," a little ashamed of the seeming conceit, "I hope you

will."

"And what makes you care?"

"I think it's born in us all to like to be active--to be doing

something. Indeed, it's about the only legacy my poor parents

left me. It may be, for I know nothing of them, that they were

just the same as other people, out of whom bitter poverty has

taken all pride and ambition; but I can't think it, somehow."

"Do you really know nothing of them?"

"Nothing. I have a little sealed box, with an injunction on the

outside of it that I am not to open it until I am of age. I don't

know where I first got it, nor from whom it came. It may be some

trick to tease me for years, and disappoint me at last, for all I

know; and still I have always kept it, for it is all I have. And

I think it came from them."

"It may tell you something wonderful," said his visitor,

laughing. For it was easy for _him_ to understand that some

young mother, who even in her poverty had found the means of

reading and believing stones of princes in disguise, and

countesses in cellars, disowned and disinherited, all for true

love's sake, had made a mystery of leaving a lock of her hair,

and perhaps a cheap wedding-ring, to her boy; and he could not

forbear a little ridicule of the folly. "It may tell you

something wonderful. If it gives you possession of half of New

York, don't forget your friends, will you, Dick?" And then,

buttoned up to his chin, and with his cap covering half his face,

and looking just like Santa Claus, Carl Stoffs bundled his

cherished flute under his arm, and obediently went home to his

wife.

Dick lingered a moment, after he left, before closing the door.

The room was not wholly his own; but his companion had a father

and a mother in New Jersey, and he had gone home to them, with

something in his pockets for the children's Christmas; so for

that night Dick was in undisputed possession. The passages were

dark and cold; the snow had got through some of the broken

windows, and lay in several little hills on the entry floor; the

sash rattled, and Dick shivered, as he stood irresolute at the

door of his room. But the irresolution did not last long. He

bundled up, as well as his scanty wardrobe permitted, closed the

door firmly behind him, and went down the creaking, broken

stairs, and through the dreary passages, where he could see the

snow huddling up to the dark window-panes, as if it were a white

bird trying to get in and beating its wings against the dirty

glass. Dick had not far to walk, after leaving the house, before

he found that which he had come out to find--somebody without a

shelter from the storm.

{528}

And I should not wonder if any night, however bitter and cold,

that you or I should take a notion to go out on the same errand,

we should not have to go far for equal success, and that even if

we started from the most delightful dwelling-place in all New

York.

Under the remains of some broken steps, or more truly by the side

of them, for they were too broken to shelter a kitten, two dark

figures were lying close together. In one of the pauses of the

storm, when the street-lamp had a chance to shine a little, Dick

could see that the figures were those of two boys asleep. He did

not wait long to rouse them. One woke up at once, cross, and, if

I must tell the truth, with some very wicked words on his lips.

"Get up, and come with me," said Dick.

"What yer want 'long o' me? I an't doing nothin'," he muttered.

"I know that; but I will give you a better place to sleep in.

Come."

Bad words again. "I an't done nothin' to you. Le' me 'lone."

"I want you to come home with me. Did you ever hear of a newsboy

called Big Dick? That's me."

"I an't afeard o' nothin'. H'ere goes!" And the poor little

fellow, still believing the other was "chaffing," got on his

feet. "Do you want t'other? He an't worth nothin', but he'll keep

dark."

"Yes, both of you. Hurry him up; it is a terrible night."

"Come along, Joe. Where's yer spunk? I an't afeard o' nothin'."

"There's nothing to be afraid of," said Dick, as gently as the

roaring storm would let him. "Don't talk now, but come on. I'll

take you to a room with a fire in it," added Dick, in spite of

himself feeling that he was _bon prince_ to the little

newsboys.

"Come on, Joe," urged the other, dragging and pushing the little

newsboy, who was hardly more than a baby, but who seemed to

whimper, sleepy and frightened, as no doubt he was, until, as

quietly as the old stairs would permit, and almost holding their

breath, they followed Dick to his room.

"An't this bully, now?" said Jack in an undertone, when he stood

before the fire in the lighted room, and Joe, with round, staring

eyes, but not a word of complaint or fear, had been put on the

wooden chair. "I say, now, Joe an't much, but he'll never blab;

but I'se all right. What yer want us to do, now, sir?"

"To get warm," answered Dick. "I was once a newsboy, and slept

under stoops and sheds, like the rest of them; but now I've got a

fire of my own, and I wanted company; so I went out and got you

and Joe, and now make yourselves at home for tonight. Here's some

crackers and cheese, and when you've had something to eat you can

go to sleep here. It's better than out there, isn't it?"

The newsboy stared at Dick, and grunted something which sounded

very much as if he did not believe a word that his host had said.

The other sat silent, stolid, and seemingly ready to hear

anything. He ate his share of the crackers and cheese greedily,

but with a watchful eye on the giver. The warmth, however, soon

proved too much for his vigilance, and, though his eyes were

still fixed on Dick's face, they were heavy and expressionless.

At last, Dick took him up, undressed him, and laid him in his bed

in the corner; and then, for the first time, Joe's tongue was

loosened. "There, now," he said, as he lay exactly as Dick had

placed him, "I are dead and gone at last. Twasn't no lies about

t'other world; they wasn't a foolin' on us, after all. Here an't

no more Heralds and Tribunes. I are dead and gone at last!" And

so rejoicing, Joe's eyes closed securely, and it is likely he

dreamt of angels, if he dreamt at all, until morning came.

{529}

"He an't much," said Jack, whom this act of Dick's, together with

the fire and the food, had made less incredulous and more

confidential. "He's a soft 'un; he an't got the right pluck.

He'll never be nobody."

"Is he your brother?" asked Dick. "Do yer think I'd have him for

my brother? He's a youngster, come from nobody don't know where.

He was fetching up in my quarters last winter, and didn't know

his name nor nothin'; so we gives him a start, us fellers, and

he's stuck on to me ever since."

Then Dick asked more about his new friend's life, and told him a

little his own, and a story or two that he thought suited to his

understanding; and, having won the child to believe a little in

his good intentions, had the satisfaction of seeing him at his

ease, and willing to go to sleep with Joe in the corner. When

this was accomplished, Dick put out the fire and the light, and

lay down on the floor to sleep soundly and well, until the

joy-bells from the great city churches should wake his guests and

himself to the glad tidings that Christmas had come again.

Chapter III.

And now I am sure you are satisfied that Dick was on the right

road, acting religion as fast as he learned it; trying to be all

he knew--to live a truthful, generous, self-respecting life. He

had little help, you know, and, if he followed that crowd that I

told you of oftener than before, and heard much that enabled him

to take whole books into his "inner consciousness" which would

otherwise have been a dead letter to him, he was not one to make

a flourish of trumpets about it, or to dream of complaining that

the world would not stand still until he got up to it. He had but

one intimate friend, it is true; but he was a friend you and I

might be glad to win; a friend who never argued or lectured, but

only quietly built his life on the only true foundation--the true

faith--and then left it to show for itself. So, simply trusting

in whatever was good, yet so fierce against whatever was evil,

scornful of everything wrong and weak, practising as well as

believing, you may be sure Carl Staffs would never have held out

his honest hand to Dick, if Dick were not worthy of it. And this

makes me think great things of my hero, of whom scarcely anybody

thought at all. He had his place in Ames & Harden's store, and he

had his talks, too, now with one person, now with another, and

perhaps thought of things he heard. He was only a boy yet, and

had his follies, without doubt, fancying at times that there was

something in him, if circumstances would only draw it out, which

would prove him a great deal worthier of high places than those

now occupying them. I am not sure but that, if he had had a

country-home, he might sometimes have lain down under the trees,

and, while watching in a dreamy way the clouds sailing down to

the west, and the vigilant stars coming out to guard the earth in

the sun's absence, and listening to the wind among the trees, the

twittering of some wakeful bird, or the rustling of some grand

old river, he might have had yearnings no one could explain, and

not have felt the sky too far to climb or the river too deep to

fathom; for Dick's was only a boy's heart, that had still to

learn that we cannot go from the Broadway pavement to Trinity

spire in one step.

{530}

Even in his city home, if home it could be called, it may be

that, just after he had been to church with Carl, he had glowed

with the thought that he--even he--might some day be a Loyola or

a Francis Xavier, for "the thoughts of youth are long, long

thoughts."

But as yet his life consciously held but one romance--one dream

of earth. There were few to care for him; but there was a little

girl once who had made Christmas memorable to him, and Dick had

not forgotten her. She had grown a beautiful young lady now, in

Dick's eyes, though to all others she was merely a thin, dark

school-girl. They still lived in the handsome house on Fourteenth

street, and Carl Stoffs and his band played for many a dance

there, although I am sorry to say that, even after a New Year's

party, Dick had to be sent more than once to Mr. Brandon's office

with a little bill, due to Ames & Harden, mostly for

school-books, novels, and gilt annuals. But then that was no

fault of Mary's, you know.

Mr. Brandon was not a pleasant man to go to with a bill, or for

much of anything in the money line. "The deuce take it, my dear!"

he often said to his wife. "Are you bent on ruining me?"

"Don't be silly, Charley, love," the dauntless little woman would

say, not in the least disturbed by the angry voice and black brow

that were so terrible to Dick. "For people of our position, we

live very shabbily."

"Hang our position! I tell you, madam, we are going the road to

beggary; we are, indeed."

"O Charles! do be quiet," was her ready answer. "I am so sick of

that sort of stuff."

"Then _be_ sick of it," this dreadful man would exclaim;

"for I'll tell it to you every day and every hour, until it gets

through your silly head. Money! money! money! I never hear

anything else in this house. I've sold myself for it, body and

soul, and much good it has done me! I'll not give you a penny,

madam; not a penny."

But that was all talk; for, of course, he had to give his wife,

who was a nice little body, very sweet and good-tempered, but

rather fond of the good things of this world, whatever she had

set her heart upon having.

"If papa should be right--" Mary would sometimes urge.

"Nonsense! they all say the same thing; why shouldn't they? If I

didn't spend your father's money in making things pleasant at

home, he'd be spending it on clubs, or whatever it is which uses

up their money when they have the spending of it all to

themselves. You'll have a husband, likely enough, one of these

days, who'll scold for every pocket-handkerchief you buy; but you

won't mind it. They must scold about something, you know, dear."

"O mamma! I'd never live a day--if--" At which sentence, never

completed, Mrs. Brandon would laugh, and the subject would be

dropped for the present; but, of course, after such scenes, Mr.

Brandon wouldn't be very amiable to a boy like Dick with a bill

in his hand. But Dick to him was a mere machine, belonging to a

store over the way, and as such he treated him, with as little

malice in his hard words as if he were swearing at a table or

chair. To Dick, Mr. Brandon was Mary's father, and that meant a

great deal; Dick could never talk openly to him, nor stand in his

presence quite as he did in the presence of other men.

{531}

For, though Dick had never been outside the city limits, and had

never seen a hill, nor a field of corn, he was a trifle romantic,

I am afraid, after all.

Yes, it is true that he grew to be almost a man without having

ever climbed a hill or seen a field of grain. But there was a

good time coming.

"Dick," said Carl Stoffs, that true and faithful friend--"Dick,

would you like to go to the country?"

"Would I like to go to the country?" he repeated, finding no

words of his own to say, so great was his bewilderment at such a

question--"Would I like to go to the country?"

"Any time you're ready," said the German, seating himself. "Take

your time to answer, my lad."

"What would I do in the country? I was never there in my life!"

"And you don't look more pleased than though I'd asked you to go

to--to--the end of the world."

"I have often wished to see the country," returned Dick, in the

tone in which we might wish to see China if we had nothing else

to do; "but I don't see my way to doing so at present."

"I do believe, Dick, that you have lined the walls with gold

pieces, you are so miserly of your time, and so stuck to this old

place. Come now, we shall take you to the country, my wife and I.

Now, to think there should be one on earth who never saw the

green fields and the woods! It is to me a very odd thing! You are

the blind man who never saw the sun, and does not think the sun

worth seeing."

"Oh! no, indeed; not so bad as that; but--"

"Then you shall go. My sister has a house, with room for many,

and we have taken half, keeping one room for you. Come and take

your week with us."

"But, Mr. Stoffs, I intended during that week to read so much to

take long walks about the city--and Mrs. Stoffs--"

"My wife sent me; I would not of myself have such a blind man

with me, to read, to study, to walk; how can you in the city now?

You will be wild when you have been once with us. You will go

to-day with me--I will be waiting for you at my place at five.

Will you come?"

"Indeed--"

"You will come." And, in truth, Mr. Stoffs had previously said so

much of that wonderful land in which he was now living that Dick

could not resist his last appeal, and afraid and shy as he well

might be, having never spent twenty-four hours in a home circle

in his life, he gave his promise to be at the appointed place of

meeting in good time for the train.

But when the magnetism of his friend's presence was taken from

him, Dick's heart grew heavy in his breast. If it had been to go

to another city, or on a matter of business, Dick's excitement

would have been delightful; but "the country," of which he knew

nothing, and of which he had such strange fancies, picked up he

could not tell where, that was another thing. City boys always

laughed at country people when they came to the city--they had

such queer ways--and yet--and yet--he felt strange and shy about

going among them. Perhaps he felt that the tables would be turned

on him there, and that his ways would be as queer in their eyes

as theirs had been in his; perhaps he felt the full force of the

homely old saying that "a cock can crow best in his own

farm-yard."

{532}

But, as the day wore on, Dick's spirits rose; he thought of all

the stories he had read of fresh country life; a poem or two of

cows and brooks came vaguely among his thoughts, and by the time

he reached his little room, and began to pack his not abundant

wardrobe, he was eager for the first glance at "the country."

"Then, may the Lord's blessing go with you," said his kind but

very slovenly landlady. "I hope you'll come back as brown as a

berry, sir. I was two year in the country once, and, though I

won't say I'd like it for always, yet my heart do get to wishing

these days for a sight o' the flowers and the fields. You'll mind

the fruit, sir, and the dews o' night; there does be great dews

fallin', and a deal of ague, I'm told. Good-by to you." And Dick

said "good-by" to her with something like emotion; for it was his

first "good-by" to any one, and the woman had been good to him,

and if her hair was in a blouse, and her garments ill made and

not clean, Dick was not startled, for he had never seen them

otherwise.

Then he walked on to meet Mr. Stoffs, and found he was nearly an

hour before the time. It seemed as if the moment of departure

would never come; but it did, at last, and, as in a sort of

dream, the dusty city youth was whirled by cottages nestling

among proud, protecting trees, past the green hills, and through

fields "all rich with ripening grain," until the panting train

pulled up between a pile of stones and a little yellow

station-house, with a narrow platform running beside it.

"Now, then, here we are!" said the German, and took up his

bundles and basket; for who ever saw a Carl Stoffs in the cars

that had not a bundle and basket, and a quantity of household

furniture besides? This last Dick took in charge, and so laden

the two made their way out of the cars. Around the little yellow

station-house dodged two splendid bays with silver harness, that

were being driven rapidly round a corner close to the narrow

platform, and went out into the dusty road; for sidewalks there

were none. Soon the sound of carriage-wheels made them turn

aside, and Dick stumbled, as he walked for the first time on the

soft green grass.

When you take a mountain lassie to Rome and show her St. Peter's,

she is not enthusiastic; indeed, she is terribly disappointed.

She expected something so much greater than her mountains, so

much brighter than her green valleys. If Dick was disappointed

when he put his foot on nature's velvet carpet and found it only

caused him to stumble, I cannot say. I think he felt surprised

that a brook beside the way and far blue hills before him wrought

no emotion within him. Fortunately Carl asked no raptures.

"That was the Brandons' turnout," he said in a prosaic way, as

Dick recovered his footing, and returned to the road.

"Is that so?" asked Dick. "Do they live here?"

"Yes," said Carl, "and a fine place it is too; but I think the

man's going too fast."

Then Dick was thoughtful for a minute or two, pitying the

daughter, if it were so; but it is hard to think that a man's

family are near to want when his stylish carriage has just turned

you out of the road, and the pity soon seemed misplaced.

{533}

The walk seemed long to Dick; he did, indeed, enjoy the cool

breeze, fresher and purer than any he had ever felt before but he

had his own baggage and Carl's curtain-rods besides, and he was

used to pavements. They had already passed many fine houses, with

lawns and carriage-ways, shaded by great trees in front of them,

and now and again a little house, with flowers and clustering

vines, and groups on the porches; but Carl's steps lingered at

none. At last they turned out of the dusty road into a shaded

lane, a veritable lane, as new to Dick as the Paris Boulevards

would be to Mrs. Partington; two or three more cottages, smaller

and not so much garden-room, and then Carl said:

"Eh! but I'm glad to get home! Come here, Will! Come, boys!"

The last call seemed to fill the lane with children. They might

have come down from the trees, or up from the earth, for all Dick

could tell; but at the sound of Carl's voice the place was

alive--big boys and little boys, great girls and small girls, all

round and fat, brown-eyed and yellow-haired, with all manner of

greetings, gathered around the travellers, eagerly drew their

baggage from their hands, and with baskets, bags, bundles, and

curtain-rods, made a grand triumphal procession before them,

shouting, laughing, pushing against each other, the big ones

stumbling over the little ones, and yet nobody hurt.

A few steps more and a rustic gate was opened and some one came

and stood under the archway of evergreen branches, intertwined

with some drooping vines. She was facing the West, looking down

the lane, shading her eyes with her hand, although the sun was

almost down. Just for a moment she stood in the bright sunset

glow, under the green archway, shading her brown eyes from the

light, looking down the shadowy lane; and, as she so stood, she

seemed a very fair and graceful girl indeed. An instant more and

the children, in the importance of their mission as

baggage-carriers, pushed past her, and she retreated with them

toward the house.

"Come, Rose! Here we are!" called Carl to her. And she turned and

met them as they reached the gate.

"You are welcome," she said to Dick when he was introduced at the

gate.

"You are welcome," said Mrs. Stoffs, coming toward them from the

porch.

"You are welcome," repeated Mrs. Alaine, at the door. And Dick

had not a word of answer to any one of them.

They were to him as grand as princesses and as gracious as

queens, as they came forth to receive him and bid him welcome to

their little cottage; and Dick was not used to courts or to

queens and princesses, so he could only bow and shake the hands

so cordially extended to him.

I am afraid my hero was not at all happy for the first few

minutes that he sat on the stoop between Mrs. Stoffs and Mrs.

Alaine, not knowing what answer to make to even their simplest

remark, and that he was much relieved when they joined their

voices to the hubbub the children were making around Carl. Such

shyness as Dick's is very painful to the spectators, as well as

to the embarrassed one; but, then, there's this to be said about

it, when it is once entirely conquered it never can come back

again, and I fancy there are some very nice people in the world,

now very self-possessed and perfectly well-bred, who would give

much to feel again the awkwardness and embarrassment which, once

upon a time, caused them such keen annoyance.

{534}

The women pitied Dick, but liked him none the less for the color

that would come into his face and the hesitation of his replies;

but their feeling for the stranger was greater than any pleasure

to themselves, and so it was not long before they went into the

house with the declared intention of "getting tea." But going

into the house was not going away altogether, for the room which

served for parlor, library, sitting-room, dining-room, and all,

had a low window opening on the stoop, and Carl and Dick could

see them well, and speak, if they chose, without raising their

voices, as they went-back and forth from the table to the closet,

and from the closet to the table, not to mention innumerable

visits to Carl's basket, which seemed a pantry in itself. The

children ran in and out, and one jolly little one, called Trot,

who was as round as a dumpling, and was too young to be shy for

very long, informed Dick she was glad he had come, for they were

to have sweet-cakes for tea. Occasionally Rose would come and

stand at the window and say something to tease "Uncle Carl," who

was not slow to "give her as good as he got." Thus gradually Dick

became more at ease, and began to distinguish a difference in the

tones of the children's voices, and to take note of the strange

Sunday-like stillness which, except for the merry noises in the

house, was complete, and, to him, wonderful.

I think a tea-table is one of the nicest sights in the world. If

there is a grain of poetry in a woman, and I believe that there

is no woman without a grain of poetry in her, it will surely,

mark my words, however rough and prosaic she may be, come out

about tea-time. That was a very pretty tea-table at which Dick

took his place that evening; there was no silver nor China, and

there was, perhaps, too great an abundance of good things; but it

startled Dick, and I contend that it was nice and pretty, if only

for the reason that it had a clean table-cloth, a bunch of

flowers, and every dish in its proper place. Mrs. Alaine, who was

only a feminine edition of her brother Carl, sat at the head of

the table, in a clean calico dress, with a white collar and a

blue ribbon. She had a child on each side of her, whose glee, at

the prospect of sweet-cakes and peaches (out of Carl's basket)

after they had eaten their bread and butter, she tried to

moderate with a smiling, "Hush, children! What will Mr. Heremore

think of you?" Mrs. Stoffs, who had also a round flat face, and

was dressed in a clean calico, with white collar and a knot of

pink ribbons, Dick had seen many times before, and dearly loved

the good humor that bubbled all over her face whenever she spoke.

She also had a child on each side of her, whose audible whispers

about the good things coming she answered and mysteriously

increased by promises of the same again another day. But opposite

Dick was a face that was not round nor especially good-humored;

for the two children under charge of Rose were the least

repressible of the whole flock, and they tried her slender stock

of patience sorely; especially, as she said afterward to her

mother, with many blushes and half crying at the recollection,

"as they would say _such_ things right before the strange

gentleman!" Rose had a pretty blue muslin, with a tiny bit of

lace around the neck, for her raiment, and there was a something

red, green, brown, blue, pink, or yellow, that fluttered here and

there before Dick's eyes whenever she moved to help the children,

or turned her young face, with its flitting colors, toward him.

{535}

But whether it were a ribbon, or a blush, or the hue of her hair,

or an aureole around her head, and whether it were no color at

all, or all colors together, or a rainbow out of the clouds, I do

not think Dick had, for one moment, a definite idea--at least,

while it was flitting before his eyes.

After tea, Carl took out his pipe, and settled into his big chair

on the porch; and the children, having got somewhat over their

awe of the stranger, volunteered to take him down the lane, and

show him where there had been a robin's nest last spring, an

expedition, however, that was vetoed by Carl on the ground that

you couldn't see even a robin's nest in the dark. Then Rose came

out to tease Uncle Carl again; but, forgetting her purpose, stood

where the light from within seemed to set her in glory, like the

angels in pictures; and by and by, it came about, no one knew

how, that her shrine was vacant, and she, a very nice little girl

with her hands in the pockets--very impracticable pockets they

were--of her muslin apron, was telling Dick, with the children as

prompters and commentators, the full particulars of the finding

of the robin's nest, and what work she had had to keep the

children from bringing sorrow and dismay to the hearts of the

parent robins by stealing away their little ones. Then, as the

moon rose, there was no reason why the children should not take

Dick down the lane to show to him the tree where the nest had

been; and then it was needful that he should know just how far it

was from sister Rose's window, and yet how quickly, on hearing

the shouts of rejoicing, she had come to Mrs. Robin's assistance.

Then it was so funny to see a man who had never climbed a tree,

that it was needful two or three should go up one to show how it

is done. Then, too, there were lightning-bugs by the million

around them, and as Dick had never seen anything like them,

unless it was fire-crackers on Fourth of July night, they had to

catch several for his investigation. When Rose told how those

little things are really the people of the forest, who are so

timid they do not dare to come out in the daytime, but do all

their praying by night, and have always been good friends to

children, showing them their way home when lost, and driving away

the ghosts that would frighten the wanderers, then the children

opened their brown hands and let them fly away, promising never

to make prisoners of them again.

And so, though Dick still felt strange and shy, it was not in

such an unpleasant way as when he sat on the porch trying to

answer Mrs. Alaine and Mrs. Stoffs when they spoke to him. When,

at last, he closed his eyes that night, he was half ready to

admit that "the country" might almost be the enchanted land some

people had made it out to be.

----------

{536}

Letter Apostolic Of Our Holy Father The Pope Pius IX.

To All Protestants And Other Non-catholics.

To All Protestants And Other Non-Catholics, Pius IX., Pope:

You already know that We, having been elevated, notwithstanding

our unworthiness, to this Chair of Peter, and therefore

invested with the supreme government and guardianship of the

whole Catholic Church by Christ our Lord, have judged it

reasonable to summon to Us Our Venerable Brethren the Bishops

of the whole earth, and to unite them together, to celebrate,

next year, an OEcumenical Council; so that in concert with

these our Venerable brethren who are called to share in our

cares, we may take those steps which seem most opportune and

necessary, to disperse the darkness of the numerous

pestilential errors which everywhere rage to the increasing

overthrow and the intoxication of many souls; and also to

confirm and increase daily more and more among the Christian

people entrusted to our watchfulness the dominion of true

Faith, Justice, and the Peace of God. Confidently relying on

the close ties and most loving union which in so marked a way

unite to Ourselves and to this Holy See these our Venerable

Brethren, who, through all the time of our Supreme Pontificate,

have never failed to give to Ourselves and this Holy See the

clearest tokens of their love and veneration; We have the firm

hope that this OEcumenical Council, summoned by Us at this

time, will produce, by the inspirations of Divine Grace, as

other General Councils in past ages have done, abundant fruits

of benediction, to the greater glory of God, and the eternal

salvation of men.

Sustained by this hope, and roused and urged by the love of our

Lord Jesus Christ, who gave his life for the whole human race,

We cannot restrain Ourselves, on the occasion of the future

Council, from addressing our Apostolic and paternal words to

all those who, whilst they acknowledge the same Jesus Christ as

the Redeemer, and glory in the name of Christian, yet do not

profess the true faith of Christ or hold to and follow the

Communion of the Catholic Church. And we do this to warn, and

conjure, and beseech them with all the warmth of our zeal and

in all charity, that they may consider and seriously examine

whether they follow the path marked out for them by Jesus

Christ our Lord, and which leads to Eternal Salvation. No one

can deny or doubt that Jesus Christ himself, in order to apply

the fruits of his redemption to all generations of men, built

his only church in this world on Peter; that is to say, the

Church, One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic; and that he gave

him all the power necessary to preserve the deposit of Faith

whole and inviolable, and to teach the same Faith to all

kindreds, and peoples, and nations; so that all men who through

baptism become members of his mystical body, and of that new

life of grace, without which no one can ever attain to life

eternal, may always be preserved and perfected in them; and

this church, which is his mystical Body, may always in its own

nature remain firm and immovable to the consummation of ages,

that it may flourish, and supply to all its children all the

means of Salvation.

Now, whoever will carefully examine and reflect upon the

condition of the various religious societies divided among

themselves, and separated from the Catholic Church, which from

the days of our Lord Jesus Christ and his Apostles has ever

exercised, by its lawful pastors, and still does exercise, the

divine power committed to it by this same Lord; will easily

satisfy himself that none of these societies, singly nor all

together, are in any way or form that one Catholic Church which

our Lord founded and built, and which he chose should be; and

that he cannot, by any means, say that these societies are

members or parts of that Church, since they are visibly

separated from catholic unity.

{537}

For such like societies, being destitute of that living

authority established by God, which especially teaches men what

is of Faith, what the rule of morals, and guides them in

everything that relates to eternal life, are always varying in

their doctrines, and this changing and instability is

increasing. Every one therefore must perfectly understand, and

clearly and evidently see, that such societies are distinctly

opposite to the church instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ; for

in that church truth must always continue firm and inaccessible

to change, so as to preserve absolutely inviolate the deposit

confided to her, for the guardianship of which the presence and

aid of the Holy Ghost has been, promised to her for ever. Every

one also knows that from these divergent doctrines and

opinions, social schisms have had their birth, which have again

generated within themselves sects and communions without

number, which spread themselves continually to the great injury

of Christian and civil society.

Indeed, whoever observes that religion is the foundation of

human society, must perceive and confess the great influence

which this division of principles, this opposition, this strife

of religious societies among themselves, must have on civil

society, and with what force this denial of the authority

established by God, to determine the belief of the human mind,

and direct the actions of men as well in private as in social

life, has fostered, spread, and supported those deplorable

changes of times and circumstances, those troubles which at

this day overwhelm and afflict almost all peoples.

Let all those, then, who do not profess the unity and truth of

the Catholic Church, avail themselves of the opportunity of

this Council, in which the Catholic Church, to which their

forefathers belonged, affords a new proof of her close unity

and her invincible vitality, and let them satisfy the longings

of their hearts, and liberate themselves from that state in

which they cannot be assured of their own salvation. Let them

unceasingly offer fervent prayers to the God of Mercy, that he

will throw down the wall of separation, that he will scatter

the darkness of error, and that he will lead them back to the

Holy Mother Church, in whose bosom their fathers found the

salutary pastures of life, in whom alone the whole doctrine of

Jesus Christ is preserved and handed down, and the mysteries of

heavenly grace dispensed.

For Ourself, to whom the same Christ our Lord has entrusted the

charge of the supreme Apostolic ministry, and who must,

therefore, fulfil with the greatest zeal all the functions of a

good Pastor, and love with a paternal love, and embrace in our

charity all men, wherever dispersed over the earth, We address

this letter to all Christians separated from Us, and We again

exhort and conjure them quickly to return to the one fold of

Christ.

For We ardently desire their salvation in Jesus Christ, and We

fear to have one day to render account to him who is our Judge,

if We do not show them, and if we do not give them, as far as

is in our power, the sure means to know the way which leads to

eternal salvation. In all our prayers, beseeching and giving

thanks, we cease not, day or night, to ask earnestly and humbly

for them, of the Eternal Pastor of souls, the abundance of

light and heavenly grace. And since, notwithstanding our

unworthiness, We are his Vicar upon Earth, with outstretched

hands We wait, in the most ardent desire, the return of our

erring sons to the Catholic Church, so that We may receive them

with love into the mansion of our Heavenly Father, and enrich

them with his unspeakable treasures. On this longed-for return

to the truth and unity of the Catholic Church depends not only

the salvation of individuals, but still more Christian society;

the whole world cannot enjoy true peace unless it becomes one

Fold under one Shepherd.

Given at St. Peter's, in Rome, the 13th day of September, 1868,

and the twenty-third year of our Pontificate.

The remarks which follow are extracted from _The London

Saturday Review_:

The Pope And The General Council.

We read the Pope's Address to all Protestants and non-Catholics

at some disadvantage. It reaches us only through a French

version, furnished to the _Moniteur_, and published in

that journal of Monday. And we may, in the first place,

complain to His Holiness of the slovenly and parsimonious way

in which he discharges the function so dear to him. He

expatiates on his zeal for all Christian souls, and he is

assured that he shall have to give account for us all at the

Great Day. He, the Good Shepherd--such is his title, and we

ought perhaps to write it, "His," entrusted to him by Christ

Himself our Lord--is bound by the charge of his Supreme

Apostolic Ministry to embrace in his paternal charity all men

in the whole world, and therefore he addresses this letter to

all Christians separated from him. So lofty a purpose might

have justified some care in carrying it out. But what has His

Holiness done that his epistle should reach his erring people?

Does he expect that the whole human race is bound to read the

Government journal of Rome? Is his conscience satisfied that

his tremendous responsibility is fulfilled by the cheap and

easy method of publishing his behests in an obscure newspaper,

and leaving to those most concerned to find out, as they can,

what so nearly concerns their eternal salvation, through the

medium of unauthorized versions and newspaper reports?

{538}

This is the difficulty of a Vicar of Christ who has heavenly

functions to discharge, and only human means to work with. As

it is quite certain, as things stand, that the awful words

which concern the immortal destinies of every human being who

names the name of Christ will not reach one in a hundred

thousand of them, it seems to follow that if the Pope has these

duties toward all mankind, he ought to have been entrusted with

an archangelic trumpet to address himself to so very large an

audience. It is a sad come-down from the appeal _urbi et

orbi_ to have to hoist it up in a penny Dublin paper. Who

knows how many the Pope would not influence if he would be at

the trouble of addressing us by some such mundane

instrumentality as the penny post? The Archbishop of

Canterbury, for example; has he, as courtesy would seem to

require, received in any authoritative way this communication

from Rome, or heaven, or wherever it was indited?

We say it with all respect, that the Pope's address was

calculated not so much to attract as to repel. He does not

condescend to argue; although he assures us that we are

enveloped in a cloud of error, he is at no pains to dissipate

it; with a bold _petitio princitii_ he sonorously assumes

the very point at issue--the point, be it added, at issue not

only between him and his bishops on the one hand, and the

imposing ranks of the vast oriental church, our own church, and

the vast Protestant communities of Europe and America, on the

other, but the point which has been most keenly debated by the

theologians and canonists of the western obedience. The Pope's

address rests upon one, and upon only one, huge assumption. It

is that the Pope, in his single capacity as monarch and

autocrat of the church, advanced to the supreme government of

the whole Catholic Church, has the inherent right of

prescribing the faith of the church; that he is the one and

supreme legislator as well as administrator. This is what even

the church of Rome has not yet formally decreed, even by the

easy method which a few years ago decreed the Immaculate

Conception. Ultra-montanism--or, in other words, and to express

it generally, the personal infallibility and supreme authority

of the pope--is not yet _de fide_. But this is what the

Pope assumes; and it is most likely as a step toward what it is

understood will be the next Roman development of doctrine, and

probably the end aimed at in summoning this so-called

oecumenical council that the Pope, in his letter, takes up the

position of autocrat. He addresses us, but it is only to assist

his next move as regards his own subjects, and to help to

settle the vexed question which his predecessors have found to

be so inconvenient when denied by Bossuet, De Marca, Van Espen,

and the Doctors of the Sorbonne, to say nothing of the Councils

of Constance and Basle.

In the mean time let us see what it is the Pope in his

exuberant charity offers us. It is, we regret to say, extremely

little. He bids us stay at home and pray to be united; at least

we hope that he goes as far as this. But as he cannot count

much upon the efficacy of the prayers of obstinate heretics, it

would be perhaps nearer to the truth if we said that all that

the Pope has to say is to invite us to return to his fold. The

Vatican Eirenicon is of the simplest--no conditions, no

explanations, no discussion of difficulties, no healing of

wounds, no solemn canvassing of controversies, no arguments.

Return first, and discuss afterward, when there is nothing to

discuss. Might we venture to hint to Archbishop Manning who is

polite enough to consider the present attitude of the Church of

England toward Pius IX. as exactly similar to the state of

things as between Gregory I. and the Pagans and Goths and

Arians of his time--that even Arius got a hearing, and was

allowed his say? Not so with us. There is a controversy between

Rome and those whom Rome calls non-Catholics, as to the, not

primacy, but exclusive autocracy of the See of Rome. There is

only one way of deciding it--_rixá est ubi tu pulsas, ego

vapulo tantum_. All that we have to do is to be kicked, and

submit. This is good schoolmaster's language; but, as far as we

remember, it is not the old way of dealing with even heresy and

schism. The huge series of councils might have been reduced to

a single and very portable volume, had this mode of settling

controversy been the church's old and compendious method.

One misunderstanding, or misrepresentation, it seems to be well

at once to remove. The Westminster _Gazette_--writing, we

hope, without having read the Pope's address speaks of it as an

invitation to those to whom it is addressed to repair to the

OEcumenical Council of 1869, adding that the church will ever

be ready to offer explanations, and to labor to remove

obstacles to reunion. This is just what the Pope does not do.

He does not invite non-Catholics, either in any corporate or

private capacity, to repair to Rome. He simply says that he

will pray for them, and bids them be reconciled.

{539}

Invitation there is none; offers of explanation there are none.

We are seriously to lay to heart our condition, and give it up.

We are invited to conform, and nothing else. To the council

neither our bishops nor pastors are asked. And this is the more

noticeable because the Orientals are invited. "We raise our

voice once more to you, and with all the power of our soul we

pray you, we conjure you to come to this Council, as your

ancestors came to the Council of Lyons and to the Council of

Florence." Such is His Holiness's language to the Oriental

bishops, as we find it in his Apostolic letter of September

8th, translated in the Westminster _Gazette_. This

Florentine precedent will hardily be reassuring to the

Orientals; and though, after all, the summons to them is

substantially only what the summons to us is, as the Pope in

either case takes up the same position--that of the exclusive

supremacy of the See of Peter, and denies that the Eastern

bishops are really bishops till they have submitted to him--yet

we must remind not only the Westminster _Gazette_ but the

_Univers_, that their statement that the Pope has issued

anything like an invitation to attend the council, or rather

his council, to "all those whose separation dates from the

sixteenth century," is simply untrue. Even if we had been

asked, and even were it announced that we should have ample

liberty to state our case, we say, as Laud said more than two

centuries ago, "To what end freedom of speech, since they are

resolved to alter nothing?"

The following report of the action of the New School Presbyterian

Synod of New York and New Jersey we clip from the columns of one

of the daily papers:

The Presbyterians And The Pope.

The following memorial and resolutions were presented by Rev.

Dr. Adams:

_Whereas_, The Pope of Rome, called Pius the Ninth, did,

on the 13th day of September, in the year of our Lord 1868,

issue a certain letter, a proclamation addressed to all

Protestants and non-Catholics throughout the world, the import

of which is to unite and urge all persons and organizations

thus designated to hasten to return to the only fold, meaning

the Church of Rome.

_Whereas_, The said Pope in the said letter, called

paternal and apostolic, has in an unwonted manner, as if

pleading at the bar of public opinion, assigned several and

various reasons for its preparation and publication.

_Whereas_, Among the reasons so mentioned are the

assertion of his own supremacy over the human conscience as the

vicar of Jesus, and "the authority to govern the persuasions of

the human intellect and to direct the actions of men in private

and social life," as also this, that the rejection of this

authority and protest against it by so many has promoted and

nourished those perturbations in human affairs, in this our

day, which the said Pope pronounces miserable and grievous, but

which must be regarded by every friend of his species as

eminently hopeful and auspicious.

_Whereas_, All such claims and assertions on the part of

the Pope of Rome are to the last degree unfounded in fact,

contrary to the truth, reason, Scripture, and the whole genius

of Christianity, and, if allowed, would prove subversive to all

human rights and liberties.

_Whereas_, Recent movements, especially in Austria and

Spain, nations long in subjection to the monstrous pretensions

of the Papacy, command the prompt recognition, sympathy, and

support of all friends of humanity, freedom, and religion

throughout the land; therefore, be it

_Resolved_, That the facts here recorded furnish and

present a proper and fitting occasion for all Protestant

churches throughout Christendom, each in the mode which its own

wisdom shall suggest, to prepare and set forth for general

distribution, through the same channels which the Pope himself

has chosen, a suitable response to his letter, which response

shall contain a statement of the reasons why his claims can in

no wise be recognized, as inconsistent with a catholicity more

catholic than Rome the authority of infallible Scripture and

the glorious supremacy of Jesus Christ.

_Resolved_, That a committee be appointed by the Synod,

whose duty it shall be to consider the expediency of

corresponding with other Protestant bodies in this country and

in Europe as to the propriety of such timely action for the

furtherance of free Biblical Protestant Christianity.

_Resolved_, That it be referred to the same committee, if

they deem it wise, to prepare and publish a reply to the said

letter of the Pope, which shall be regarded as an expression of

the sentiments of this Synod concerning the matters therein

contained as of vital importance to all civil and religious

liberty throughout the world, and to the salvation of the human

race.

{540}

It was suggested that a committee consisting of three ministers

and three elders, be appointed to carry out the objects of the

resolutions. Dr. Cox wanted to see the committee larger. It was

an important subject, and we want names on the document which

will encourage our brothers in England and in all parts of

Europe. The following committee was appointed to take the whole

subject into consideration: Rev. William Adams, D.D., Rev.

Henry B. Smith, D.D., Rev. Roswell D. Hitchcock, D.D., Rev.

Jonathan F. Stearns, D.D., Rev. Edwin F. Hatfield, D.D., Rev.

Samuel T. Spear, D.D., Rev. George L. Prentiss, D.D., Hon.

William E. Dodge, Professor Theodore W. Dwight, LL.D., Hon.

Daniel Haines, Hon. Edward A. Lambert, J. B. Pinneo, Esq., S.

F. B. Morse, Esq., Cyrus W. Field, Esq.

We subjoin another report of the action of the central authority

of the Evangelical Church of Prussia, from _The New York

Herald_:

The Berlin Evangelical Consistory On The Pontifical Letter.

The pastoral letter in connection with his oecumenical circular

addressed by Pope Pius IX. to non-Catholic Christians has

roused Prussian evangelic church authority. The following

circular has been addressed to its consistories: "An open

letter of the 13th ult., by the chief of the Roman Catholic

Church, is directed to all Protestants, thus including the

members of our Evangelical State Church. As this document

contains, besides unjust accusations, many expressions of

respect and kindness toward Protestants, we are ready and

willing to consider it as a pledge of friendly and peaceable

relations for the future between both confessions for the sake

of the state and its citizens, and for the efficiency and

triumph of Christian truth. Every sincere evangelic Christian

acknowledges the duty of loving other confessions and deplores

the separation in the church, especially among members of a

common country. But as the chief of another church undertakes

in the said letter to demand, with assumed authority, from the

members of ours a renunciation of their cherished creed,

founded upon the inviolable word of God, and a retractation of

evangelical truth won by the blessed Reformation, without

offering on his part the least prospect of a reconciliation on

the basis of evangelical truth, we must decidedly reject his

action as an unjustifiable trespass upon our church, and in so

doing we are sure of the agreement of all Evangelicals. An

appeal to the members of our church not to heed this voice may

be deemed unnecessary; but it is proper to keep still more in

mind, opposed to such pretensions, the numerous members of our

persuasions who in the midst of Roman Catholicism are exposed

to the temptations of infidelity toward the Evangelical creed;

therefore, to procure the means for preaching to them, giving

them the sacraments, the Evangelical school and pastoral care,

collections are directed soon to be made in all our churches.

The royal consistories will communicate this to the ministers

of the dioceses, who on the days of collection on the following

Sundays are to make proper mention of it to their

congregations.

There was also an announcement in the papers that some sort of a

letter to the Pope was proposed by members of the late General

Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church, although we do not

know what came of the affair eventually.

We must give justice to one portion of the comments of the

_Saturday Review_, namely, that which refers to the

publication of the pontifical letter. It is a matter of great

inconvenience to Catholics throughout the world, that the

publication of important official documents at Rome is so tardy

and insufficient. This is a defect which ought to be, and we hope

will be, remedied. We have not yet seen the Latin text of the

letter addressed by the Sovereign Pontiff to Protestants, and

have been obliged to take a translation of it which is not

remarkably well-executed, and in which we have corrected

forty-seven typographical errors, from an English Catholic

newspaper. The English translations of the grand and dignified

pontifical documents which are sent forth by the Holy See, are

generally wretched, and make them appear to readers who are

unacquainted with the originals in a very unfavorable light.

{541}

It seems to us that it would have added very much to the effect

of the Holy Father's paternal address to his erring and strayed

children, if authentic copies had been at once sent to all the

bishops, with a command to publish both the original Latin text,

and also a translation authorized by themselves, with their own

official counter-signature appended, for the benefit of all

Christians within their several dioceses. As it is, however, the

letter of the Holy Father has become very generally known through

the indirect channel of the newspapers, and has not failed to

produce a great sensation. It is just such an admonition as the

head of the Church, who is conscious that his authority to teach

the world is indubitable, might be expected to issue. It is in

the style and manner which become the Vicar of Jesus Christ

speaking to all the baptized, who, by virtue of their baptism,

are lawfully subject to his pastoral jurisdiction. The Pope

speaks as one having authority, and must necessarily do so, just

as our Lord and the Apostles did, because he knows that he has

authority, and that the evidence of his authority is so plain and

clear, that at least all the educated pastors and teachers of the

different Christian sects are capable of perceiving it and bound

to acknowledge it. The _Saturday Review_ complains that the

Pope does not argue on the subject, or adduce reasons to convince

those who reject his authority. This is a most unreasonable

objection. How would it be possible, within the limits of a brief

letter, to address arguments, at length, to all the hundred and

one different sorts of Protestants? The letter is not destitute

of that kind and amount of argument which are alone suitable in a

document of the kind. It appeals to the manifest fact that

Protestants are divided among a multitude of differing sects and

doctrines, without any principle of unity or certain criterion of

truth; whereas the Catholic Church, in communion with the See of

Peter, possesses that unity and universality which are the sure

and evident marks of the presence of the Holy Spirit within her

body, leading her perpetually into all truth, according to the

promise of Christ. Our Lord, when he demanded the obedience of

faith under the peril of eternal damnation from all his hearers,

did not enter into long arguments. He presented brief and simple

reasons in an authoritative manner to his auditors, and appealed

to the evidences by which his divine mission was attested from

heaven. In like manner the Holy Father, who is Christ's

vicegerent upon the earth, affirms his own authority, commands

submission to his teaching, and presents a simple, obvious

argument addressed to the reason and conscience of all men, which

they have the means of easily verifying if they will. The

affirmation of his authority, and the command or exhortation to

submit to it, are not made gratuitously, and do not rest upon a

mere personal declaration of the Pontiff, to which men are to

yield an assent which is blind, unreasoning, or destitute of

solid motives. The motives are not expressed explicitly and at

length in the letter; but they are appealed to as existing within

the reach of those who are addressed, and the claim of submission

is based upon them. The Holy Father speaks as the head of a

communion embracing almost two thirds of all Christendom, which

has existed in an unbroken continuity of doctrine and

organization from remote antiquity, with the entire united moral

force of all the bishops, doctors, and saints of the church in

the present and the past ages, to back and support him. He speaks

to those whose ancestors acknowledged his authority, and who have

been severed from his communion by a violent revolution, whose

justification three centuries have not been able to establish;

but whose condemnation has been unmistakably pronounced by the

disastrous results it has produced.

{542}

He has, therefore, a _prima-facie_ claim of prescription,

possession, and general acknowledgment in his favor, which gives

an immense moral weight to his utterance. Moreover, he speaks

after having for three hundred years argued the whole case

between himself and Protestants in the most thorough and complete

manner, by the means of the theologians and writers of the

Catholic Church, whose works are accessible in all languages. His

bishops and priests are everywhere to be found, ready to argue

and explain the doctrines of the church for the benefit of all

those who desire it. At the council itself, instructions and

conferences in various languages will be given upon all the

points of controversy by the ablest and most learned preachers of

all nations, and theologians will be ready to give private

conferences to those who desire them. It cannot be said,

therefore, that the Holy Father shuts out inquiry, argument, or

discussion; for he does everything to invite and favor them, and

by his act in summoning a council, and challenging the attention

of the whole world, throws open all the doors and windows of the

church to the light of all the intelligence of Christendom.

The reviewer complains, moreover, that the Pope claims an

authority above that which is admitted by a school of Catholic

theologians, or even required by any formal pontifical decree to

be acknowledged as of obligatory doctrine. This is an utterly

reckless and baseless assertion. Whatever may be the teaching of

Van Espen, Von Hontheim, Richer, and other court canonists and

lawyers, whose erroneous and schismatical doctrine is condemned

rejected in every Catholic school, Bossuet, De Marca, and all

orthodox Gallicans have always recognized and supported every

whit of that authority which is affirmed or implied in the

pontifical letter.

As for the schismatical Orientals, who are supposed to be

aggrieved by the terms of the invitation which the Pope has

extended to them to attend the council, they are forced, in

consistency with the doctrine they have evermore admitted, to

acknowledge the primacy of the Roman Pontiff, and his right to

call an oecumenical council. The Patriarch of Constantinople,

although some of the bishops of his synod are said to have

favored the acceptance of the Pope's invitation, has refused even

to receive the letter containing it. The Armenian Patriarch will

probably follow suit, and the Synod of St. Petersburg, which is

only a bureau of the imperial government, will, of course, not

only reject the invitation to the council in the most decisive

manner, but will put forth the entire political influence which

Russia possesses in the East to hinder the Oriental prelates from

attending. This line of conduct, however, is totally inconsistent

with the principles and professions of the Eastern communions.

They all recognize the primacy of the Roman bishop, and his right

to convoke a council. They acknowledge that their separation from

the Western church is an abnormal condition, and that all

portions of Christendom ought to be in unity. Their refusal to

attend the council will therefore be a condemnation of

themselves, and will manifest most clearly the schismatical

spirit by which they are actuated. It may be said that the terms

on which they are invited are such that they cannot attend.

{543}

The gist of this excuse is, that the Pope demands a submission to

his supremacy which they cannot admit. This, however, does not

really excuse them. Admit, for the sake of argument, that the

Roman Church has usurped a supremacy which does not belong to it,

and is really to blame for the existing schism. They are invited

to attend the council and sit in it as bishops. If they are

confident of the justice of their cause, why do not they embrace

the opportunity to send their patriarchs, metropolitans, and

fifty or a hundred of their principal bishops, together with

their most learned archimandrites and theologians, and the

diplomatic representatives of Russia and Greece, who may argue

their cause before the council and in presence of all

Christendom. If they had any moral force at all, now would be the

opportunity to show it. But they have none, and therefore they

dare not go, and by their open manifestation of cowardice and

utter recklessness of the common good of Christendom, they will

give a death-blow to their own cause.

The Pope is blamed for not having invited the Protestant bishops

to attend the council. It is impossible for him to invite them,

because it is impossible for him to recognize their episcopal

character. The Orientals themselves would not sit with them in

council as fellow-bishops. Their claim even to an exterior

succession is so extremely doubtful that at the highest it has

only probability in its favor. Aside from all question, moreover,

concerning the alleged fact of Parker's consecration by Barlow,

and of the consecration of Barlow himself, the essential defect

of form in the English ordinal of Queen Elizabeth must prevent

the recognition of any true episcopal succession in the

Protestant Episcopal Churches. This is no reason, however, why

the Protestant bishops should not make an attempt to gain a

hearing and present their claim before the council. They cannot

be admitted to the council as bishops, but they might, and no

doubt would, be received with courtesy and urbanity as

distinguished personages, and as representatives of some millions

of baptized Christians. Do they believe themselves to be a

portion of the Catholic episcopate? One of their most learned

divines, Palmer, to say nothing of many others, acknowledges that

the Roman Bishop, when he is in communion with the whole Catholic

Church, is the centre of unity and the presiding bishop of all

Christendom. Why, then, do they not depute a large body of their

number to go to the council, attended by their most learned

theologians, and ask for a hearing? Nothing could give them a

better chance of manifesting the full strength of their position,

and bringing into the light all the justice there is in their

cause, than such a demonstration as this, if they only had

courage, independence, and concert of action enough to make it.

We would say the same of other Protestant communions making no

pretension to any Episcopal succession. They very generally

profess a desire for union among Christians. Surely there must be

some basis upon which this union is possible. Those who profess

that Jesus Christ has established a religion, given a revelation,

taught a doctrine and way of salvation, must admit that there is

some way of ascertaining with certainty what Christianity really

is, and refuting the claims of every kind of pseudo-Christianity.

Why can they not make a bold and generous effort, then, to bring

the matter to a test, send their representatives to Rome, and try

to have at least some beginning of a conference respecting the

cause of dissension and disunion?

{544}

We are glad to see the action taken by the Presbyterians of New

York and New Jersey and the Evangelicals of Berlin. We could have

wished that the former had exhibited equal courtesy and amenity

in their language with the latter. However, we let that pass.

What we desire above all things is, that attention should be

drawn to the letter of the Holy Father, and to the great and

vital matters which it presents. Our Protestant brethren can do

us, in this respect, a much greater service than we can do

ourselves. Their resolutions, replies, discussions, and indignant

denials of the authority of the successor of Peter only bring

before the minds of the multitude more distinctly and universally

the claim which he makes to be heard and reverenced as the Vicar

of Christ. This is precisely what we desire. We do not ask, and

the Holy Father has never demanded, that those who are separated

from his communion should submit to his authority without having

just and adequate reasons presented before their minds. We ask

only that they lay aside their inherited prejudices, and that

animosity which is their result; examine, inquire, and weigh

calmly, with a pure desire to know the truth, and with prayer to

God, the evidence of the supreme authority bequeathed to the

Roman Pontiff by St. Peter, the Prince of the Apostles. It is

idle to pretend that the claims of the Roman See are unworthy of

a hearing, and can be set aside by a simple denial. There is no

other human being except the Pope who has the slightest claim to

call himself the Father of all the faithful, or who would dream

of doing it. Whoever should attempt it would receive no

attention, but would be disregarded as an idiot. No church, even,

however large its numbers, can gain any general attention to its

pretensions of possessing that doctrine and polity which are

truly apostolic, or its invitations to the rest of Christendom to

conform to its peculiar type of Christianity. The Pope alone

compels the attention of the world when he speaks. The emphatic

protests which his majestic and paternal admonitions to all

Christians to return to the fold of unity call forth, are

themselves witnesses to the immense power which he possesses as

the successor of St. Peter and the heir of that promise which was

made by Jesus Christ: "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will

build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against

it: and I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven;

whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and

whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

There is no humiliation in being admonished and instructed by the

voice of one who is the inheritor of such a promise, or in being

invited to return under the guidance of such a majestic and

ancient pastoral authority. It is not in the spirit of pride or

disdain that we urge upon our fellow-Christians the duty of

returning to the bosom of the Mother Church. We ardently desire

that they may be our brethren, united with us in faith and

fellowship, sharers with us in the glorious privilege of Catholic

communion, and in the noble work of propagating Christianity

throughout the world. We desire to judge as favorably as possible

of the motives and intentions of those who, with mistaken zeal,

repulse the earnest and paternal exhortations of the Father of

Christendom, and trust that when they have more calmly and

thoroughly investigated the grounds of their separation, many of

them will obey the voice of truth and conscience, and retrace the

path which led their ancestors away from the doctrine and fold of

the successor of St. Peter.

{545}

We are not sanguine enough to expect that the approaching Council

of the Vatican will be followed by the immediate and universal

return of all Christians to Catholic unity. We have no doubt,

however, that it will mark a great epoch in ecclesiastical and

human history, and, like the Council of Trent, will inaugurate a

new period of progression and triumph for the church. To what

extent the separated Christians of the East and West will become

reconciled to the Catholic Church, we will not venture to

predict; but we will hazard a prophecy that within the next

half-century the great mass of those who are not reabsorbed into

catholicity will have melted away into some form of infidelity,

or have been swept up by some new false religion which is openly

anti-Christian. What course the body of the Protestant clergy

will take remains to be seen; but if they are not wise enough to

anticipate and lead the movement which must inevitably bring back

the most religious portion of their people to the unity of the

See of St. Peter, they will be left behind by it, and will ere

long find themselves without flocks and without churches.

----------

Sonnet (XIII.) From The _Vita Nuova_ Of Dante Alighieri.

So gentle seems my lady and so pure

When she greets any one, that scarce the eye

Such modesty and brightness can endure,

And the tongue, trembling, falters in reply.

She hears; but heeds not, people praise her worth--

Some in their speech, and many with a pen--

But meekly moves, as if sent down to earth

To show another miracle to men!

And such a pleasure from her presence grows

On him who gazeth, while she passeth by--

A sense of sweetness that no mortal knows

Who hath not felt it--that the soul's repose

Is woke to worship, and a spirit flows

Forth from her face that seems to whisper, "Sigh!"

T. W. P.

----------

{546}

Christmas Gifts.

A pleasantly-furnished parlor, looking out upon noble trees and

gray shrubbery.

Within, books, pictures, portfolios, and a superb piano.

At the piano a lovely girl of twenty summers, whose face, figure,

and fair white hands give token that no care, or sorrow, or labor

has ever reached her.

A footfall on the piazza startles her; the bell rings, and is

answered.

"George!"

"Isabel!"

And in another moment brother and sister are locked in each

other's arms. He put her from him a little, and looked in her

face.

"You are more than ever _Bella_," he said, while two or

three times he kissed her fair forehead.

"How is my mother? Didn't I hear some strains of Mozart's

'Twelfth' as I came into the gate?"

"Yes, I was just playing the _Agnus Dei_. Mother is nicely;

and I was enjoying my music immensely; for it is the first day in

two or three weeks that I have been allowed to touch the piano."

Why?"

"Because mother has been so sick. Don't look so frightened; she

is quite well now. Did you know you had a little sister

up-stairs?"

"No, indeed!" he exclaimed, with an expression of delight, at

which Isabel laughed again, while she went on to say:

"Mother was so nervous, and so excited by the storms and

shipwrecks that the papers were full of, that for nights and

nights she did not sleep at all, and the doctor was afraid she

would die or lose her reason; but for some time past she has

slept, and now she seems quite recovered."

"Let us go to her--can I go up?"

Just then a little girl of six years came into the room, with

wide expectant eyes, and, "Mother says--"

"Ah! little one," said the young man caressingly, "do you

remember brother George?"

"Yes, indeed I do."

"Then give me a hug," said he, folding her in his arms, and then

releasing her. "It is a long time since you saw me. I should not

wonder if you had forgotten me."

"But I have not forgotten you; and mother says," she went on,

dancing up and down in great glee, "if it's brother George,

you're to come right up-stairs; only you mustn't make a noise for

the sake of the baby. What did you bring me?"

"If you have a baby, you ought not to expect me to bring you

anything. Isn't the baby enough?"

She smiled rather doubtfully, and trotted on before them

up-stairs.

"Isabel," said George, "wait a minute." Then, as if something in

his sister's face failed to invite the meditated confidence, he

asked, as they slowly ascended the stairs, their hands locked,

"Is Philip here?"

"No; he will not be here till next Monday--the Monday before

Christmas."

"And you are to be married--"

"On Christmas eve; how glad I am you've come!"

"Is my father well?"

"Yes; he will be so sorry not to have met you at the wharf; but

he had to go to W---- on Thursday, and will not be home till

evening."

{547}

They entered Mrs. Hartland's room, and the son, so hardly parted

from, so anxiously and long expected, was pressed to his mother's

heart. "My darling boy, you are indeed a Christmas gift."

"Yes, dear mother, we ought to have been back long ago; sometimes

I was afraid I should never get back to you. Besides that

hurricane off the Cape, which obliged us to put in for repairs,

we have had very heavy weather since we crossed the line. But I

have accomplished the business father sent me to do, thank God,

and am with you all once more. Are Mary and Fanny well?"

"Yes, they have gone out to buy Christmas presents, and Robert

with them."

"And Charlie?"

"Is spending a few days with Aunt Ellen, and will come back with

them on Monday for the wedding and for Christmas."

"O mother dear!" said Isabel, "whom was your letter from?"

"From Aunt Ann. They are all well, and are coming on Monday."

"And Lucy and Jane?"

"Yes."

"But, my darling mother," exclaimed George, with a look of

distress, "you will be perfectly worn out with all this company."

"Mother has nothing to do with that," said Isabel; "we take care

of that. If mother takes care of the baby, that is all we expect

of her; and Mrs. Reilly is to stay till Philip and I are off."

"And how is this dear little Christmas present?" said George,

stooping tenderly over the sleeping infant.

"Lovely," said his mother, smiling.

"As lovely," said Isabel, with a slight laugh, "as such little

nuisances ever are."

"Why, Bella dear, don't you love her?" asked George.

"Oh! yes, to be sure, I love her; but I don't see the use of her;

nobody wants her."

"I beg your pardon, dear, I want her," interrupted her mother.

"Oh! yes, mother, I don't mean that; I know you want her, and I

am sure I am glad you have her; only I mean to say that she has

chosen to come at the most inconvenient time possible, as babies

always do; and that there is no place here for a baby, and that

she deranges everything; and turns the whole house upside down;

and I think babies are a nuisance; and then Kate is six years

old, and we had no right to expect any more babies; and there

were enough of us without her; and I am just going to be married,

and it all seems so odd and queer."

Mother laughed, and seemed to think it not at all odd and queer,

nor yet did she take to heart Isabel's repugnances; but George

said musingly:

"And yet you are going to be married yourself next week?"

"That is precisely why it is such a nuisance," said Isabel.

"Would there have been enough of us without her," said her

mother, "if brother George had never come back, as for so long a

time we feared he would not?"

"There are never enough of us without George," replied Isabel,

reddening, partly from vexation, and partly from the

consciousness that the brother, of whom she was so fond and

proud, was regarding her, she really did not know why, with

something like surprise and disappointment.

Just then the baby stirred, woke, was taken up, admired,

discussed, and caressed, and in the midst of a consultation as to

what her name should be, a noise of feet and voices was heard in

the hall below.

{548}

By a mutual instinct that "mothers room" should be spared the

disturbance of too noisy greetings, the young people ran

down-stairs. There were tender embraces on the part of the girls,

more vehement and tumultuous ones from Bob, and confused cries

of, "Are we not glad to see you!" and "How long you staid!" and

"We thought you would never come back!" with "I was in danger of

never coming back;" and "How you have grown!" and "How pretty you

are!" at which Mary and Fanny laughed and blushed.

"I say, old fellow," cried Bob, "hadn't you a terrible time? were

you frightened?"

"I hadn't time to be frightened," returned George, "there was too

much to do."

"What could you do?"

"Not so much as a sailor, of course; but every one can do

something--every one who is cool and not afraid."

"By Jove! but I should think 'twould be fun! only I should be

afraid; I shouldn't like to go to the bottom."

"No, most of us would object to that."

"I wish you wouldn't say 'by Jove,' Robert," said Isabel; "I wish

you wouldn't take up expressions from your school-fellows that

you never hear at home."

"Isabel isn't fond of foreign importations," said Fanny.

"Yes, she is, though," retorted Robert wisely, "what is she made

of, from top to toe, but foreign importations?"

Amid the general laugh which followed this thrust, Mrs.

Hartland's voice was heard at the head of the stairs:

"Fanny! brother George will want to go to his room; is it ready

for him?"

"Yes, mother, it is all ready; I will go and see. You will have

plenty of time, George; for dinner is half an hour later to-day,

on account of father."

Not long after this, there was a thundering rap at George's door,

which opened and admitted his youngest brother, a lad of ten

years.

"Why, Charlie, boy," he exclaimed, as the lithe little fellow

sprang into his arms, "I didn't expect you; I thought you weren't

coming till Monday."

"No, I wasn't; but father saw by the paper that the ship was in,

and I told Aunt Ellen I couldn't stay any longer."

"You've grown a head taller since I saw you."

"I should think I'd had time enough to grow; how long have you

been gone?"

"Fourteen months; but let's go down and see father."

"But, George," said the little boy, looking round the room, "do

let me come back and chum with you now. I've slept with Robert

ever since you went away, and I like it very well with Robert,

but I'd rather come back to you, mayn't I?"

"Certainly you shall, if mother and Robert agree to it." And

Charlie made one leap to the first landing, another to the

second, and with a third bound reached his father's door.