As soon as the news got abroad of a delegation from the pope, the

whole city was in a joyful commotion, and a deputation, consisting of

the cathedral chapter, four other secular priests, and two Dominican

fathers, came to the ship to pay their respects to Mgr. Muzi, who was

also invited on shore and pressed with every offer of assistance by the

most honorable representatives of the laity. These kind attentions could

not induce the party to land; and as soon as damages were repaired and

a pilot received, sail was made for Buenos Ayres, which was sighted at

two P.M. of January 5; but just while the passengers were all on deck

watching the approaches to the city, they were assailed and driven below

by myriads of mosquitoes. Sallusti is very vehement against these sharp

little insects, and bewails the lot of those who must live among them;

but he carefully avoids a comparison with the _fleas_ of his native

Italy. Although the passengers remained on board that night, crowds of

people lined the shore, and, after salutes of artillery, greeted them

with cries of “Long live the vicar apostolic!” “Cheers for America!”

“Success to Chili!” On the following day the captain of the port and his

suite came off to the brig, bringing a courteous note from the governor,

offering a public reception (for which preparations had already been

made) and the hospitalities of the city to the members of the mission.

This was declined, for reasons that are not very clear; but although the

archbishop gave his bad health as the principal excuse, we suspect that

Cienfuegos impressed upon the Italians that, the mission being directed

to _his_ country, it were uncourtly to parade it before reaching its

destination. By their minds such a view would be accepted as _assai

diplomatico_. When the party did land, they put up at a hotel called

“The Three Kings,” kept by a jolly Englishman, who treated them right

royally--and made them pay in proportion. During their twelve days’ stay

in Buenos Ayres, the archbishop and his suite received every mark of

reverence from the people; yet the officials maintained a cold reserve

since the refusal to accept their invitation. Even the ecclesiastical

authority--such as it was--put on very bad airs; Zavaletta, a simple

priest, but administrator of the diocese, having the audacity to withdraw

from Mgr. Muzi permission, which had been previously granted to give

confirmation. At the time of the arrival of the apostolic mission the

provinces of the Rio de la Plata, which had formed part of the Spanish

viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres, had been united from 1816 to 1820, but were

now in a state of political isolation, somewhat like that of the States

of the American Union before the federal Constitution was adopted. Soon

after the arrival of the mission, another General Congress was called.

Still, the Italians were not impressed--as it was important that they

should be to obtain proper consideration at Rome,--with the idea of a

strong government holding sway over a vast and wealthy territory. On the

16th of January, at nine o’clock in the forenoon, the party began the

journey across the continent. Three great covered wagons, each drawn

by four horses and guided by twelve postilions, composed the train;

while a courier went ahead to hunt up quarters, and a mounted orderly,

with a very long sword and a fierce-looking beard, brought up the

rear or pranced about the flanks of the line. The drivers kept around

in no particular order, sonorously cracking their whips and uttering

loud sounds which probably were not oaths to the unaccustomed ears of

Sallusti. Besides the three Italians, there was Cienfuegos with four

young Chilians in his company and two servants, so that the whole party

was pretty numerous, and the more so when, a little further on, six

gallant guachos were added as an escort. Only fifteen miles were made

the first day, which brought the party to Moron, where confirmation was

given. At a miserable rancho called Lujan the archbishop said his first

Mass on the pampas at a rich altar improvised for him by the _padre_

of the place, and surmounted by four massive silver candlesticks. The

room was hung round with rich damask hangings. It was like a jewel in a

dung-heap. The Arecife stream was crossed in boats by the travellers, but

forded by the wagons and horsemen. The superb Parana River was reached

at San Pedro; and thence the route lay through a rich and beautiful

country to the important town of Rosario, on the high, precipitous banks

of the great river. At the outskirts of this place the party was met by

the parish priest; and confirmation was administered the next day to an

immense number of the faithful, long deprived of this sacrament. From

Rosario, which they left on the morning of the 23d, the journey was long,

weary, and dangerous, on account of the roving bands of Indians which at

that period scoured the plains in all directions to cut off herdsmen and

small parties of travellers or traders, making a booty of their baggage,

killing the men, and carrying women and children into captivity. At a

little station called Orqueta the party caught sight for the first time

of a wild Indian, who was lurking about the place in a very suspicious

manner, but kept at a respectful distance from the guachos. When Sallusti

saw this man apparently spying out the route and strength of the party,

the marrow nearly froze in his bones; and he certainly had good cause

for alarm. It happened that leaving Buenos Ayres a few days earlier

than had been given out was lucky; for a large band of these mounted

savages, armed with lances and lassos, had got wind of the arrival of

great personages from Europe, carrying (it was reported) an immense

amount of treasure to the Pacific coast, and had formed a plan to attack

them, which was defeated only by mistaking the day of their departure,

whereby their arrival at the lonely and ill-famed post of Desmochados

was miscalculated. Three days after the mission party had passed, the

Indians, to the number of about three hundred, swooped down upon the

place, but, instead of finding the rich foreigners, they surrounded only

a miserable set of twenty peons escorting a lot of goods across the

plains. These were all massacred except one, who, although badly wounded

and left for dead, survived to tell the story and describe the fiendish

disappointment of the savages at not capturing the prey they expected.

At Frayle Muerto Mgr. Muzi received, through the agency of Cienfuegos,

a polite message from the clergy of Cordova;[224] but having sent his

return compliments directly instead of through the channel of original

communication, the Chilian thought himself slighted, and separated from

the mission party, preceding it a good distance, and taking with him,

besides his own attendants, the orderly in brilliant uniform, who, the

Europeans had the mortification of seeing, was meant to distinguish the

_native_, although a subordinate in clerical rank. Such is human nature,

whether at courts or on a dusty plain.

After passing through several small settlements and the more important

town of San Luis--being everywhere well received--the fine old city of

Mendoza was reached on the 15th of February. It seemed as if the entire

population had turned out to honor the distinguished arrivals. Triumphal

arches were erected, troops were drawn up under arms, processions of

citizens and clergy marshalled; from every house richly-colored tapestry

was suspended, while the balconies were filled with ladies, who threw

down flowers in the path of the apostolic vicar as he entered the town

and proceeded to the house of a noble and wealthy lady, Doña Emmanuela

Corbalan, in which everything had been prepared on the grandest scale

of provincial magnificence, and where Cienfuegos, in all his glory

and recovered temper, was waiting to receive him and Canon (Count)

Mastai, who were to be lodged there during their stay; the secretary,

Sallusti, being handed over to a less worshipful host. Religious and

civic festivals, excursions in the environs to the vineyards, gardens,

farms, and silver-mines, with other congenial occupations, detained

the party very agreeably during nine days in this neat and pleasant

town, the climate of which is noted for its salubrity. On the 24th

they left Mendoza, and had a delightful trip on horseback over good

roads and through a civilized country for seventy-five miles to the

foot of the mighty Andes. They were now on the eastern range of the

Cordilleras, at the Paramilla Mountains, which are about ten thousand

feet high and partly covered with wood. Between these and the western

range they traversed, near thirty-two degrees south latitude, a wide

valley, sterile and impregnated with salt, for over forty miles, called

the Uspallata. For fifteen miles the road was level, and the remainder

winding up and down the hills which skirt both ranges. After crossing

this valley, they struck the great range of the Andes, which is between

fifty and sixty miles in width, consisting of four or five parallel

masses of rock, divided from one another by deep and dangerous ravines

and sombre glens. The road which leads over them is called the _Cumbre_

(summit) Pass, and attains an elevation of twelve thousand four hundred

and fifty-four feet above the level of the sea. Our travellers crossed

on mules by this road, getting to the north of them, amidst piles of

perpetual snow, a magnificent view of the grand volcano of Aconcagua,

which is nearly twenty-four thousand feet high. The passage of the

mountains was grand and impressive, but was not made without danger to

the lives of some of the party, particularly on the 29th of February.

From La Cumbre there is a gradual descent to the city of Santiago. On the

1st of March the travellers cast their admiring gaze upon the Pacific

slope, which, from that day until they entered the capital of Chili, on

the 6th of the month--passing through Villa-de-Santa-Rosa and over the

magnificent plains of Chacabuco--was a continually shifting panorama of

natural beauty, enhanced by villages, convents, and churches perched on

the side of verdant hills or nestling in the fruitful valleys. At every

halting-place their hearts were filled with a holy joy to witness the

demonstrations of faith among the people, and of loyalty to their great

spiritual chief on earth, represented by Mgr. Muzi. The party entered

Santiago, as was said, on the 6th, and, going to the cathedral, the

archbishop intoned pontifically the _Te Deum_, with the assistance of a

future pope and of the historian of the apostolic mission. The members of

the legation were lodged in a house near the _Cappucinas_; and although

we know little of the occupations of Canon Mastai in Chili, it is certain

that he made himself personally very agreeable. How could it be otherwise?

“A man of letters, and of manners too:

Of manners sweet as virtue always wears,

When gay good nature dresses her in smiles.”

--(_Cowper._)

We have been told by a distinguished Chilian that Canonico Mastai was

a frequent guest in Santiago at the house of his uncle, Don Francisco

Ruiz Tagle, and used to go out with him quite often to his country-seat.

Although the mission was received with an almost universal outburst of

enthusiasm, and notwithstanding the majority of the clergy and people

was well disposed, it met with considerable opposition from a fierce

and fanatical party of Freemasons, which threw every obstacle in the

way of close relations with Rome. Cardinal Wiseman says, in the article

in the _Dublin Review_ from which we have already quoted, that “there

was jealousy and bad faith on the part of the Chilian government, and

want of tact and bad management, we fear on the part of the head of the

mission.” Unfortunately, the government was in a transition state between

the presidency of O’Higgins and the election of his successor, Freire,

and administered by a _Junta_. Where there were so many voices there was

much confusion. Cienfuegos, however, seems to have done his duty, and

he was rewarded in 1832 by the bishopric of Concepcion, which had been

vacant for fourteen years. He died in 1839. With regard to the causes of

the failure of the mission, we will not conceal what we have heard from

an excellent senator of Chili, although we mention it reservedly--that

one, at least, of the reasons was a suspicion that Muzi intended to put

Italians in the sees vacant or to be erected in Chili.

From Santiago Mgr. Muzi and his party went to Valparaiso, and embarked

for their return voyage on the 30th of October, 1824. The remarks of the

celebrated Spaniard Balmes upon the visit of the future pope to the New

World find their place here: “There is certainly in nature’s grand scenes

an influence which expands and nerves the soul; and when these are

united to the contemplation of different races, varied in civilization

and manners, the mind acquires a largeness of sentiment most favorable to

the development of the understanding and the heart, widening the sphere

of thought and ennobling the affections. On this account it is pleasing,

above all things, to see the youthful missionary, destined to occupy the

chair of S. Peter, traverse the vast ocean; admire the magnificent rivers

and superb chains of mountains in America; travel through those forests

and plains where a rich and fertile soil, left to itself, displays with

ostentatious luxury its inborn treasures by the abundance, variety,

and beauty of its productions, animate and inanimate; run risks among

savages, sleep in wretched hovels or on the open plain, and pass the

night beneath that brilliant canopy which astonishes the traveller in the

southern hemisphere. Providence, which destined the young Mastai-Ferretti

to reign over a people and to govern the universal church, led him by

the hand to visit various nations, and to contemplate the marvels of

nature.”[225]

A remote but very providential consequence of the visit of Pius IX. to

America, during his early career, was the establishment of the South

American College at Rome, called officially in Italian the Pio-Latino

Americano,[226] which educates aspirants to the priesthood from Brazil

and all parts of the American continent where the Spanish language is

spoken. A wealthy, intelligent, and influential Chilian priest, Don

Ignacio Eyzaguirre,[227] who had been vice-president of the House of

Representatives in 1848, and was an author of repute, was charged by

Pius IX. in 1856 to visit the dioceses of South and Central America and

Mexico, to obtain the views of the several bishops upon the necessity of

founding an ecclesiastical seminary at Rome. The project was universally

acceptable, and funds having been provided--the Holy Father giving

liberally from his private purse--a beginning was made in 1858, when a

part of the Theatine Convent of San Andrea _della Valle_ was given up

to the students, who were put under the direction of Jesuit Fathers.

This location was only temporary; and the college was soon transferred

to the large house of the general of the Dominicans, attached to the

convent of Santa Maria _sopra Minerva_, and facing the piazza. However,

it has been moved again, and in 1869 occupied the right wing of the

novitiate at San Andrea on the Quirinal, with fifty-five inmates. As

if this worthy establishment had to figure in its shifting fortune the

unsettled state of so many of the Spanish American countries, it has

again been disturbed; yet to suffer at the hands of Victor Emanuel and

his sacrilegious band is the indication of a good cause, and will prepare

to meet other, although hardly worse, enemies in the New World.

FREE WILL.

I.

The river glideth not at its sweet will:

The fountain sends it forth;

And answering to earth’s finger doth it still

Go east, west, south, or north.

II.

The soul alone hath perfect liberty

To flow its own free way;

And only as it wills to follow thee,

O Lord! it findeth day.

NELLIE’S DREAM ON CHRISTMAS EVE.

They had quarrelled, these two--it matters not about what trifle--till

the hot, bitter words seemed to have formed an impassable barrier and a

silence fell between them that the lowering brow and compressed lip told

would not be easily broken. Both had loving hearts, and treasured each

other above all earthly things. They had real sorrows enough to make

imaginary ones glance off lightly; for the second Christmas had not yet

cast its snows on their mother’s grave. The thought of each was, “Had

_she_ been here, this would not have happened”; but pride was strong, and

the relenting thoughts were hidden behind a cold exterior.

It was the week before Christmas, and Laura, the eldest, was assisting to

trim the village church, and in the Holy Presence the dark thought faded

and tender memories seemed to reassert their olden sway; and on returning

from her occupation she formed the resolution to stop this folly, and

make advances towards assuming the old, happy life.

“Father Black asked after you, Nell,” she said, as she laid aside her

wrappings, and turned cheerily to the fire. “He wants you to play during

the rehearsal of the new Benediction to-morrow; for Prof. C---- will be

away.” But she was met by a stony look and closed lips. “Come, Nell,”

she said half impatiently, “don’t be so dignified; why do you love that

temper of yours so dearly?”

“You said let there be silence between us, and I am content,” was the

rejoinder. “I shall take care not to trouble you in future.”

Pride and love struggled for mastery in the heart of the eldest, and it

was a mingling of both that brought the answer, in tones cold enough to

freeze the tenderness of the words: “There will come a silence between us

one day, Nell, you will be glad to break.” And she passed from the room.

“Let it come,” was the almost insolent reply; but there was a mist in the

flashing black eyes that contradicted the words.

They passed the day apart from each other, and at night, although

kneeling for prayer in the same little oratory, and occupying the same

little white-draped chamber, the chilling silence remained. So passed the

next day, and it was now Christmas Eve. The evergreens were all hung in

the village church; the altar was radiant with flowers and tapers; the

confessionals were thronged; but both sisters kept aloof, and both hearts

were aching over the pride and anger that was strangling even religion in

their souls. Alas! alas! how the angels must have mourned to see days of

such especial grace passing in sin. Christmas gifts had been prepared,

but neither would present them. How different other Christmas Eves had

been!--the gentle mother overseeing every preparation for the next day,

that was always celebrated as a feast of joy. Those busy hands were idle

now, and the white snow was coldly drifting over the mound that loving

hearts would fain have kept in perpetual summer. A mother’s grave! Except

to those who have knelt beside that mound--that seems such a slight

barrier between the aching heart and its treasure, and yet is such a

hopeless, inexorable one--these words have little meaning.

They retired early, and, as Nell knelt for prayer, the hot tears rolled

through her fingers as she thought of other Christmas mornings, when they

had been awakened for early Mass by the “Merry Christmas! girls,” that

earth would never, never hear again. But the icy bands of pride that had

frozen around her heart would not melt, and sleep came again in that

stony stillness.

Morning came to Nellie’s perturbed visions, and in the gray dawn “Merry

Christmas” broke forth from her lips; but the memory of the past few

days checked the words, and they died in whispers. But as she glanced at

Laura, she saw that her eyes were open, but that their expression was

fixed and rigid. She sprang up with a vague alarm, and laid her hand upon

the low, broad forehead. It was icy cold. Shriek after shriek rang from

her lips, but they reached not the death-dulled ear.

“I never meant it, Laura--I never meant it! Only come back that I may

speak one word!” she moaned. “O my God! give her back to me for one hour,

and I will submit to thy will.” But her voice only broke the silence,

and the white, smiling lips on the bed seemed a mockery of the passionate

anguish wailing above them. She threw herself before the little altar in

her room. “Blessed Mother!” she prayed, “I promise, solemnly promise,

that never, never again will I give way to the passionate temper that has

been my bane, if she may only come back for one hour to grant forgiveness

for the awful words I have spoken.” And for the first time since she had

realized her sorrow tears fell from her eyes.

“Why, Nellie, Nellie, what ails you?” said a familiar voice. “You are

crying in your sleep on this merry Christmas morning; _do_ waken.” And,

oh! the heaven that met those unclosing eyes--Laura bending over her,

smiling, yet with a look of doubt in her face as if the icy barrier had

not yet broken down.

“O my darling, my darling!” sobbed the excited girl, winding her arms

around her sister. “Thank God it is only a dream; but never, never again

will I give way to my awful temper. I have promised it, Laura, and I will

keep my vow.”

And she did. For though she lived long enough for the dark hair to lie

like snowy floss under the matron’s cap, never did those lips utter

stinging sarcasm or close in sullen anger. And often, when her gentle

voice seemed unable to stem some furious tide of passion among her

grandchildren, would she tell the story of her dream on Christmas Eve.

ALLEGRI’S MISERERE.

AT the base of a cliff flowed a tiny rivulet; the rock caught the

rain-drops in his broad hand, and poured them down in little streams to

meet their brothers at his feet, while the brook murmured a constant song

of welcome. But a stone broke from the cliff, and, falling across the

rivulet, threatened to cut its tender thread of life.

“My little strength is useless,” moaned the streamlet. “Vainly I struggle

to move onward; and below the pebbles are waiting for their cool bath,

the budding flowers are longing for my moisture, the little fish are

panting for their breath. A thousand lives depend on mine. Who will aid

me? Who will pity me?”

“Wait until Allegri passes; he will pity you,” said the breeze. “Once the

cruel malaria seized me, and bound messages of death upon me. ‘Pity!’ I

cried. ‘Free me from this burden, from which I cannot flee.’ ‘Hear the

wind moan,’ said some; but no one listened to my prayer till I met a

dreamy musician with God’s own tenderness in his deep eyes. ‘Have mercy!’

I sobbed; and the gentle master plucked branches of roses, and cast them

to me. I was covered with roses, pierced with roses, filled with roses;

their redness entered my veins, and their fragrance filled my breath;

roses fell upon my forehead with the sweetness of a benediction. The

death I bore fled from me; for nothing evil can exist in the presence of

heaven’s fragrance. Cry to the good Allegri, little brooklet; he will

pity you.”

So the rivulet waited till the master came, then sighed for mercy. The

rock was lifted, and the stream flowed forward with a cry of joy to share

its happiness with pebble and flower and fish.

A little bird had become entangled in the meshes of a net. “Trust to the

good Allegri,” whispered the breeze; “it is he who gave me liberty.”

“Trust to the good Allegri,” rippled the brook; “it is he who gave me

liberty.” So the bird waited till the master passed, then begged a share

of his universal mercy. The meshes were parted, and the bird flew to the

morning sky to tell its joy to the fading stars and rising sun.

“Oh! yes, we all know Allegri,” twinkled the stars. “Many a night we have

seen him at the bed of sickness.”

“Many a day I have seen him in the prison,” shouted the sun with the

splendor of a Gloria. “Wherever are those that doubt, that mourn, that

suffer; wherever are those that cry for help and mercy--there have I

found Allegri.”

The people of the earth wondered what made the sun so glorious, not

knowing that he borrowed light from the utterance of a good man’s name.

A multitude of Rome’s children had gathered in S. Peter’s. The Pope was

kneeling in the sanctuary; princes and merchants were kneeling together

under the vast cupola, the poor were kneeling at the threshold; even a

leper dared to kneel on the steps without, and was allowed the presence

of his Lord. All souls were filled with longing, all hearts were striving

for expression.

Then strains of music arose: O soul! cease your longing; O heart! cease

your strife; now utterance is found.

Sadder grew the tones, till, like the dashing of waves, came the sigh:

“Vainly I struggle to move onward. Have mercy, Father!” The lights

flickered and died, a shadow passed over the worshippers, and the Tiber

without stopped in its course to listen.

Sadder grew the tones, till the moan was heard: “Vainly I strive to

escape these meshes. Have mercy, Father!” The shadow grew deeper, and a

little bird without stopped in its flight to listen.

Still was the music sadder with the weight of the sob: “Vainly I flee

from this loathsome burden. Have mercy, Father!” Vaster and darker grew

the shadow, and the very breeze stopped in its course to listen.

And now the music mingled sigh and moan and sob in one vast despairing

cry: “Vainly I struggle against this rock of doubt. Have mercy, Father!

Vainly I strive to escape these meshes of sin. Have mercy, Father! Vainly

I flee from this evil self. Have mercy, O Father! have mercy.” Darker

and deeper and vaster grew the shadow, and all sin in those human hearts

stopped in its triumph to listen.

All light was dead, all sound was dead. Was all hope dead? “No!” wept

a thousand eyes. “No!” sobbed a thousand voices; for now high above

the altar shone forth the promise of light in darkness, of help in

tribulation--in sight of Pope and prince, in sight of rich and poor, and

even in sight of the leper kneeling without, gleamed the starry figure of

the cross.

“How was this Mass of Allegri so completely formed,” cry the three

centuries that have passed since then, “that we have been able to add

nothing to its perfection?”

The calm voice of nature answers: It is because his own love and mercy

were universal; because he had learned that all creation needs the

protecting watchfulness of the Maker; because he gave even the weakest

creatures voice in his all embracing cry of Miserere.

TO-DAY AND YESTERDAY.

I.

“That city knoweth nor sign nor trace

Of mutable land or sea;

Thou who art changeless, grant me a place

In that far city with Thee.”

So spake she, gazing on the distant sea,

That lay, one sheet of gold, in morning light;

And then she cried, “God, make my blindness sight!”

Heart-sore, heart-hungry, sick at heart, was she,

And did mistrust no other hope could be,

This side the grave, than shifting sea and land;

Yet dreamed she not her house was built on sand,

But fearless thought of dread eternity.

And men admired the house she builded fair,

Until a tempest, risen with sudden shock,

Rent it. Then God made answer to her prayer:

Showed her _on earth_ a city, calm, and old,

And strong, and changeless; set her on a rock;

Gave her, with him, a place in his true fold.

II.

“For, oh! the Master is so fair,

His smile so sweet to banished men,

That they who meet it unaware

Can never rest on earth again.”

Such were the words that charmed my ear and heart,

In days when still I dwelt outside the fold;

But now they seem to me too slight and cold,

For I have been with thee, dear Lord, apart,

And seen love’s barbed and o’ermastering dart

Pierce thee beneath the olives dark and old,

Until thy anguish could not be controlled,

But from thy veins the Blood of life did start.

O Word made flesh, made sin, for sinful man!

I seek not now thy smile, so fair, so sweet;

Another vision, haggard, pale, and wan,

Of one who bore earth’s sin and shame and smart,

Hath drawn me, weeping, to thy sacred feet,

To share the unrest of thy bleeding Heart.

THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1875.

The year 1875 has not been a specially remarkable one as distinct from

the years immediately preceding it. Great questions, which affect

humanity at large beyond the line of nationality, and which were rife

three or four years ago, are undecided still. No wars, or revolutions,

or discoveries, or mighty changes have occurred during the year to

alter sensibly the current of human affairs. What the world at large

quarrelled and wrangled over a year, two years, three, four years ago,

it wrangles over still, and may for years yet to come. Much as science

and culture have done to break down the barriers that separate men and

bring the human family nearer together, nations, nationally considered,

stand as far apart as ever they did, and the imaginary line that divides

neighboring peoples finds them wide apart as the antipodes.

To begin a rapid and necessarily incomplete review at home, the past

year can scarcely be regarded as either a happy or successful one,

commercially speaking, in the United States. Preliminary echoes of the

Centennial year of the great republic have been heard, but amid them the

crash of falling banks that had no legitimate excuse for falling, and

of business firms that followed in due order. This, however, is only a

repetition of the two preceding years, which it is as painful as it would

be useless to dwell upon here. In a word, business at large--instead of

recovering, as it was hoped it would, during the past year--if anything,

fell behind, and so continues. The election did not tend to enliven it.

There are hopes, however, of a real revival during the coming Centennial

year, or at least of a beginning on the road of improvement. There is the

more reason to hope for this that large branches of our industries, such

as cereals, iron, and cotton goods, are beginning to find a good foreign

market.

Looked at largely, there are some things on which Americans may

congratulate themselves during the year. Chief among these are their

very misfortunes. Extravagance in living, foolish and vulgar display

in dress and equipage, have disappeared to a satisfactory extent. Of

course where wealth abounds and fortunes are rolled up easily, there

will be shoddy; but then let it be marked off, and the world will not

be the loser. Again, there was a good sign on the part of the people to

form opinions of their own regarding the questions up before them and

the respective merits and qualifications of the various candidates for

election. To be sure, many, too many, persons were elected who were a

disgrace to their constituencies; and while such men are set in high

and responsible positions it is vain to look for reform in the thousand

abuses that afflict the conduct of public affairs. Still, there was a

hopeful indication of the right feeling among the people.

Perhaps the most memorable, certainly the most significant, event to

Catholics in the history of this country took place during the year.

The venerable Archbishop of New York was raised by the Holy Father to

the dignity of the cardinalate, and thereby set in the senate of the

church of which Christ is the invisible, and the Pope, the successor of

Peter, the visible, head. To speak of the fitness of the Holy Father’s

choice in selecting Archbishop McCloskey for this high office and

proud privilege of being the first American cardinal is not for us. It

is sufficient to say that not Catholics alone, but their Protestant

fellow-countrymen also, all the land over, received the news and hailed

the choice with acclaim. But what moves us most is the significance of

the act. In the appointment of an American cardinal in the United States

the wish expressed by the Council of Trent has in this instance been

realized. That great council ordained, respecting the subjects of the

cardinalate, that “the Most Holy Roman Pontiff shall, as far as it can be

conveniently done, select (them) out of all the nations of Christendom,

as he shall find persons suitable” (Sess. 24, _De Ref._, c. i.) Were this

recommendation completely carried out, it would probably be one of the

greatest movements that have taken place in the Catholic Church for the

last three centuries.

Suppose, for example, that the great Catholic interests throughout the

world were represented in that body by men of intelligence, of known

virtue, and large experience; suppose every nationality had there its

proportionate expression--a senate thus composed would be the most august

assembly that ever was brought together upon earth. It would be the only

world’s senate that the world has ever witnessed. This would be giving

its proper expression to the note of the universality of the church.

The decisions of the Holy Father on the world-interests of the church,

assisted by the deliberations of such a body, would have more power to

sway the opinions and actions of the world than armies of bayonets. For,

whatever may be said to the contrary in favor of needle-guns and rifled

cannon, the force of public opinion through such agents as electricity

and types moves the world, above all when supported by the intelligence,

virtue, and experience of men who have no other interests at heart than

those of God and the good of mankind.

Who knows but the time has come to give this universality of the church

a fuller expression? Is not divine Providence acting through modern

discoveries, rendering it possible for the human race to be not only one

family in blood, but even in friendship and unity of purpose? Perhaps the

present persecutions of the church in Italy are only relieving her from

past geographical and national limitations, to place her more completely

in relations with the faithful throughout the world. Who knows but the

time is near when the Holy Father will be surrounded by representatives

of all nations, tribes, and peoples, from the South as well as from the

North, from the East as well as from the West; by Italians, Germans,

Frenchmen, Spaniards, Englishmen, Belgians, Portuguese, Austrians,

Irishmen, Americans, Canadians, South Americans, Australians, as well as

by representatives of the faithful from the empire of China? Would this

new departure be anything more than the realization of the wish expressed

by that great and holy council held at Trent three centuries ago?

In passing from our own to other lands, we cannot do so, at the opening

of the second century of our country’s life, without a glance at

something larger and wider than the mere local interests of every-day

life which touch us most nearly. Beyond doubt there is much to criticise,

much, perhaps, to be ashamed of, much to deplore, in the conduct of our

government, local and national, and in the social state generally of

our people. Still, we see nothing at present existing or threatening

that is beyond the remedy of the people itself. It is a fashion among

our pessimists to contrast the America of to-day with the America of a

hundred years ago. Well, we believe that we can stand the contrast. The

country has expanded and developed, and promises so to continue beyond

all precedent in the history of this world. When the experiment of a

century ago is contrasted with the established fact--the nation--of a

free and prosperous people of to-day, we can only bless God. And allowing

the widest margin for the evils and shortcomings in our midst, when we

glance across the ocean at nations armed to the teeth, looking upon one

another as foes, and either rending with internal throes or threatening

to be rent, pride in this country deepens, and the heart swells with

gratitude that in these days God has raised up a nation where all men may

possess their souls in peace.

We have some alarmists among us who look in the near future to the

occurrence of scenes in this country similar to those now being

transacted in Europe, where men are persecuted for conscience’ sake.

We cannot share in these alarms. As we see no evils in our midst which

are beyond the remedy of the people, so we see no religious or other

questions that may arise which cannot be civilly adjusted. This is not

a country where the raw head and bloody bones thrive. The question of

religion is decided once for all in the Constitution. Catholics, of

course, have a large heritage of misrepresentation to contend against,

but that is rapidly diminishing. A Bismarck may strive to introduce into

our free country, through a band of fanatics and weak-minded politicians,

the persecuting spirit which he has attempted to introduce into England

by a Gladstone, which he has succeeded in introducing into Italy by a

Minghetti, and into Switzerland by a Carteret; but before they reach the

hundredth part of the influence of the disgraceful Know-Nothing party,

the good sense and true spirit of our countrymen will, as it did in the

case of that party, brand all who have had any prominent connection with

the movement with the note of infamy. The fanatical cry of “No Popery”

is evidently played out at its fountain-source in old England, while the

attempt to revive its echoes will meet with still less success in _new_

England. We see no clouds on the American horizon that should cause

Catholics any grave apprehension.

The end of such attempts always is that those who strike the sparks only

succeed in burning their fingers. All we have to do is to walk straight

along in the path we have been following of common citizenship with those

around us, in order to secure for ourselves all the rights which we are

ready to concede to others.

The European situation during the past year may be summed up under two

headings--the struggle between church and state, and the prospects of

war. To enter at any length into the question between church and state

in Germany and in other countries in Europe would be going over old

ground which has been covered time and again in THE CATHOLIC WORLD. Only

such features of the contest will be touched upon as may set the present

situation clearly before the mind of the reader.

The official _Provincial Correspondence_, at the opening of the past

year, said in a retrospective article on the events of 1874: “The

conviction has been forced upon the German government that the German

ultramontane party are a revolutionary party, directed by foreigners

and relying mainly upon the assistance of foreign powers. The German

government, therefore, are under the necessity of deprecating any

encouragement of the ultramontane party by foreign powers. It was for

this reason that the German government last year thought it incumbent

on them to use plain language in addressing the French government

upon the sayings and doings of some of the French bishops. France had

taken the hint, and had prevented her ultramontanes setting the world

on fire merely to vent their spite against Germany.… It was, perhaps,

to be expected under these circumstances that, abandoning at last all

hope of foreign assistance, the German ultramontanes would make their

peace with the government in Prussia, and no longer object to laws they

willingly obey in Baden, Bavaria, Würtemberg, and Oldenburg, not to speak

of Austria and other states. At all events, it was very desirable that

the ultramontanes should yield before the church was thrown into worse

confusion by their malicious but impotent resistance.”

Such was the pleasant prospect held out for the Catholics by the official

organ at the opening of the year. The programme sketched in it has been

faithfully carried out, and Germany has taken another step in the path of

freedom, internal peace, and consolidation by planting its foot nearer

the throat of the church. It is useless to enter into a refutation of

the falsehoods contained in the extract from the official journal.

They have been refuted in the German Reichstag and all the world over.

It is needless, also, to call attention to the tone of the official

journal, and the manner, become a fashion of late with German statesmen

and writers at large, of warning foreign powers to keep a civil tongue

in their heads respecting German matters, or it may be the worse for

them. How far the Catholics have yielded to the kindly invitation held

out to them the world has seen. We have before this remarked on the

strange anxiety manifested by a government, convinced of the justice of

its cause and the means it was pursuing towards its end, to stifle the

expression of public opinion, not only at home, but abroad. Moreover, the

very fact of its being compelled to deprecate “any encouragement of the

ultramontane party by foreign powers” says as plainly as words can say it

that those powers see something in the party to encourage.

Here is a sample--one out of hundreds such--of the manner in which the

members of the “revolutionary party” have been treated during the year,

and of the crimes, sympathy with which on the part of foreign powers is

so earnestly deprecated by the German government. That extremely active

agent of Prince Bismarck, the Prussian correspondent of the London

_Times_, tells the story of the deposition of the Bishop of Paderborn

by the “Ecclesiastical” Court thus: “He has been sentenced to-day (Jan.

6) to innumerable fines, chiefly for appointing clergymen without the

consent of the secular authorities. [Is this a crime, reverend and right

reverend gentlemen of the Protestant churches?] Never paying any of

these forfeits, he has been repeatedly imprisoned and forcibly prevented

from exercising his functions. [And now for the perversity of the man,

the “malicious but impotent resistance.”] Notwithstanding the measures

taken against him, he has continued his opposition to the state. He would

not allow his clerical training-schools to be visited by government

inspectors; he has declined to reappoint a chaplain he had excommunicated

without the consent of the government [What criminals SS. Peter and Paul

would be were they living in Germany to-day!]; and he has continually

issued pastorals and made speeches to deputations breathing the most

hostile sentiments against crown and parliament [sentiments not quoted].

He has received addresses covered with more than one hundred thousand

signatures, and on a single day admitted twelve thousand persons to his

presence, who had come to condole with him on the martyr’s fate he was

undergoing.” Let it be borne in mind that this is not our description,

but that of an agent of the Prussian government. Could words establish

more clearly the side on which the criminality lies?

Only passing mention can be made of events which have been already

anticipated and commented on. The extension of the civil registration

of births, deaths, and marriages from Prussia to the whole German

Empire passed in January. Perhaps no measure yet has so aroused the

indignation, not only of Catholics, but of believing Protestants also.

As the correspondent already quoted tersely puts the matter: “In all

Germany this law does away with the services of the clergy in celebrating

the three great domestic events of life.” That is to say, there is no

longer need to baptize Christian children in the name of God; there is no

longer need of God in the marriage service; finally, as man comes into

the world, so he may go out of it, without the name or the invocation of

God, without God’s blessing over his grave or the ceremonies of religion

attending the last act. Like a dog he may come, like a dog he may live,

like a dog he may go. And yet this is an evangelical power! Verily,

but of a strange evangel. The result of it is shown already. Since the

Prussian Civil Registration Law was passed, only twenty-five per cent.

of all Berlin marriages have been celebrated in churches, while only

thirty per cent. of the children born in the capital have been baptized

by clergymen.

The passing of the Landsturm Bill converts the whole German Empire into

an armed camp. “Henceforth every German sound in wind and limb must be a

soldier. From the age of seventeen to forty-two, every man not belonging

to the army or the reserve is to be liable to be called out in the case

of an actual or even a threatened invasion,” says the London _Times_. “At

the word of command Germany is arming _en masse_, and the surrounding

nations--that is, the best part of the world--cannot but do as she does.”

They are doing as she does, and all the European powers to-day sleep

beside their arms. In face of this fact, what comfort can men take from

the meeting and hobnobbing of the crowned heads of Europe here, there,

and everywhere, or of their assurances of peace? Who is strong enough to

keep the peace, who too weak to enkindle war? No man and no people. It

is this arming and incertitude of one another that alone prevented what

locally was so insignificant an affair as the outbreak within the year

of the Bosnian insurrection against Turkey from lighting a universal

conflagration. The eagles of the great powers gather around the Turkish

carcase. England seizes beforehand on the control of the Suez Canal by

way of preparing for eventualities, and the Eastern question begins at

last to resolve itself into this simple form: not, How shall we uphold

the empire? but, How shall we divide the spoils?

The present rulers of Germany profess to look upon their Catholic

subjects as the great foes of the German Empire. The mistake is a fatal

one; for in binding the church they bind the only power that can stop

the dry-rot which is slowly eating into the heart, not alone of Germany,

but of all nations to-day. That dry-rot is socialism, the first-born of

infidelity. That socialism prevails in Germany the rulers of that empire

know, and its utterances are as dreaded as an encyclical of the Pope.

Here are the elements of socialism as pictured by the Cologne _Gazette_

at the opening of the year: “In 1874, although the great bubble schemes

burst in the summer of 1873, and although last year a plentiful harvest

of corn and wine came to our relief, the consequences of the crisis

are still felt. Numerous undertakings are depreciated, and even more

lamentable than the losses of the promoters are the mischievous results

of the sudden excessive rise in wages, which could not possibly last, the

luxurious habits, the strikes, and all that these involve on the laboring

classes and the whole industrial life of the German nation. Habits of

indolence and gluttony have been established which it will be hard to

eradicate,” and much more in the same strain.

This is only a straw showing which way the wind blows. Persecution of the

church has not yet exhausted itself, though, beyond the actual taking of

life, it is hard to see what remains to be done. The final measure has

been resorted to of abrogating the articles of the Prussian constitution

of 1850, which were specially drawn up to provide freedom of religion and

worship in their fullest sense. Of the attitude of the German Catholics,

the prelates, the clergy, and the laity, it is needless to speak. The

world has witnessed it; and the very fierceness of the persecution simply

serves to show forth more gloriously the divinity of the church; for no

human institution could live under it. One result of the persecution has

been the return of a Catholic majority to the Bavarian Parliament. We

hope for the unity of the German Empire, and its true consolidation; but

it is not in our hearts to support tyranny, under whatever name, least

of all when it attacks all that we hold most sacred. The German policy

must be totally altered before it can command the sympathy of freemen.

It must be totally altered before it can command the respect and full

allegiance of its subjects, so large and important a section of whom are

Catholics. The Catholic majority in Bavaria is but one sign of many of

opposition to the one-sided policy of which Prince Bismarck is the author

and expounder. Who knows but that the threatened dissolution of an empire

erected on so false and narrow a basis has not already begun in Bavaria?

All the sacrifices made to establish the empire--not the least of which

were made by Bavaria--the German chancellor, by his determined and

senseless religious persecution, would now seem foolishly to ignore. And

these Bavarians, of all the Germans, once aroused, and their religious

rights infringed upon, are not the men quietly and meekly to subside

under opposition.

We have dwelt more at length upon Germany because it is the centre of the

strife that convulses, and threatens to convulse, the world. Other topics

must consequently be hastily dismissed.

Of France there is nothing but good to report. After a series of fiery

debates in the Assembly, the constitution of a conservative republic

was definitively formed and agreed upon towards the end of February.

The nomination of councillors of state was given to the President, who

resigned the nomination of the senators. Of course France is still open

to surprises, and the various parties seem as unable to coalesce as

ever. But there is no question that the government of Marshal MacMahon

has deserved well of the country, and, could only a true republic

be established in France, it would serve as a safe counter-check to

the absolutisms that threaten the east of Europe. The commerce and

industries of the country have advanced even on the preceding year,

though the imports of 1874 amounted to 3,748,011,000 francs, and the

exports to 3,877,753,000 francs, these figures being in excess of those

of any former years. The returns for the Paris savings-banks in 1874

indicate how the poorer and lower middle classes, who chiefly patronize

these establishments, are recovering from the effects of the war and

the Commune. The deposits amounted to 14,500,000 francs, while in 1873

they were 13,500,000 francs, and in 1872 12,629,000 francs. There is

every reason to believe that the ratio of the past year will show a

corresponding increase.

While the tokens of reviving prosperity are thus encouraging, those of a

revival of religious feeling and coming back to the old ways and the old

faith among the people at large are not less so. A noble and patriotic

work is being accomplished in the rapid formation and spread of Catholic

Working-men’s Clubs--a direct offset to the socialism fostered by the

spirit of irreligion in other places. The part taken by Catholic laymen

of standing and ability in this work, so full of happy promise, is in

itself a significant feature, and one that may well be recommended to the

attention of Catholic laymen all the world over. The pilgrimages to holy

shrines and to Rome have continued, spite of the laugh of the infidel

and the scorn of the unbeliever. The solemn consecration of the church

in Montmartre to the Sacred Heart was one in which the whole world was

interested. But the most encouraging measure of all was the obtaining,

after a fierce battle between religion and infidelity, of permission to

found free universities in France, where students who believe in God

might, if they chose, apply themselves to the study of their faith, or

at least carry on their studies under the divine protection and under

professors who, lacking nothing in intellect, recognize a higher than

themselves, whose law they have the courage to recognize and the sense

and piety to obey.

Surely, France was never so worthy of the esteem and profound respect of

all the world as it is to-day. What a wonderful vitality is displayed by

this Latin-Celtic race! What people could so suddenly recover from what

seemed so fatal a blow? What other nation would have shown so much wisdom

and self-control as these Frenchmen, whom the outside world stamped as

“unstable as water”? Is France to be the leader of the Latin-Celtic

races, to conform itself, consistently with its past history and

traditions, after a century of throes, into a political form of society

fitted to its present needs, its future prosperity, and the renewal of

religion? God grant that it be so!

England, true to its peace policy, still keeps aloof from the troubled

current of European affairs, beyond its recent move Eastward, which has

already been noticed. It steadily refused to accept the invitation of

Russia to join the International Conference on the Usages of War, which

in reality resembled a consultation among surgeons before beginning

to operate on an interesting subject. Mr. Disraeli’s premiership has

been marked by some irritating mistakes, though the securing control of

the Suez Canal was undoubtedly a move in the present critical state of

Eastern affairs that compensates for many a blunder--if he can only hold

the control. Mr. Gladstone finally retired from the leadership of the

liberal party, and was nominally succeeded by the Marquis of Hartington.

The ex-leader, abandoning a position which, take him all in all, he

undoubtedly adorned, went paddling in theology and got shipwrecked. The

Gladstone fulminations on “Vaticanism” are now a thing of the past, and

only afforded another melancholy instance of the facility with which

even great men can go beyond their depth. The portentous charges against

the Pope, the _Curia Romana_, the rusty arsenals, and the rest of the

papal “properties” were received by the English people themselves with

honest laughter or with passive scorn, until finally Mr. Gladstone lost

his temper, and then the world became tired both of him and his “rusty

tools.”

Materialism is taking deep root in the English mind. The leading organ of

English opinion, itself highly respectable, but by no means religious,

complained more than once during the year of the general apathy with

which the public regarded the doings of the various convocations and

general assemblies of the Protestant churches in England. And the success

with which the onslaught by such a man as Mr. Gladstone against the

Catholic Church met with at the hands of Englishmen reveals anew the fact

that religious feeling has fallen to so low an ebb in England that even

the most eloquent of bigots could not arouse an anti-Popery cry. And

this, for England, is the last stage of religious apathy.

Is this again the immediate precursor of a reaction in favor of the true

church in that land for which so many prayers have been offered up, and

the blood of so many martyrs has been shed?

Ireland has been quiet, calm, and peaceable, and though, in common with

England, suffering from the commercial depression which spread from

this country to them, it has shown a strong tendency to advance in

prosperity. For its peace the Catholic clergy, according to the testimony

of the London _Times_, and, as we believe, the Home-Rule party, are

jointly answerable. Men who believe in God and obey the laws of the

church will, with honest and able representatives, seek for no heroic

measures of reform, while the legislature is fairly open to complaints.

The London _Times_ says that the peaceful record of the year reads like

a fairy tale. Yet the Peace Preservation Acts were renewed, for which

the same journal could find no better reason than that “you cannot

break off abruptly from the past,” and goes on to say: “It is possible

that, if there never had been a resolution to impose upon a conquered

people a church which they rejected, and to endow it with the spoils

to which they remained attached; if there never had been a neglect so

little creditable to our statesmanship as the conditions under which

agricultural land was held in Ireland; if laws had never been passed to

deprive Roman Catholics of political privileges and the right to possess

property; if the attempt had never been made to rule the inhabitants of

the sister-island by a hostile garrison, that state of feeling would

never have been created which imposes upon the legislature of to-day the

sad necessity of maintaining an exceptional coercive legislation.” The

bitterest foe of England could scarcely add one iota to the force of this

terrible indictment of English legislation in Ireland.

But we look with all hope to the speedy dispersing of the clouds which

so long have hovered over this real “island of saints,” which has done

so much in the past and promises so much in the future for the spread of

faith among the peoples of the earth. More pleasing topics to touch upon

are the celebration of the centennial of Daniel O’Connell, the fiftieth

anniversary of the consecration of the venerable Archbishop McHale, and,

though last, far from least, the visit to Ireland of Cardinal McCloskey,

and his reception by Cardinal Cullen and the Irish people. The scene was

indeed a memorable one; the meeting on a soil consecrated with the blood

of saints and martyrs--a soil every inch of which could tell a tale of

a struggle of centuries for the faith--of two cardinals of the church

that guards the representatives, in their own persons, of the newest and

one of the oldest heritages of the church, and the one Irish by birth,

the other Irish by blood. A meeting no less significant was that in

England between the Cardinal of New York and Cardinal Manning, the first

convert probably who ever wore the title: a man of indomitable activity,

a fearless asserter of the rights of the church, and always foremost in

every movement which aims at the amelioration of the condition of the

working classes.

Russia continues her strides in the East, nearing Hindostan, and with

Hindostan the sea, at every step. Despite occasional reverses, her march

against the conflicting tribes and peoples that lie in her path can

only be regarded as irresistible. Meanwhile, at home she is eaten up by

sects and the socialistic spirit that pervades other nations, and which

tyranny may stifle for a time, but cannot destroy. Again the mistake

occurs of regarding the Catholic Church as her enemy, and dragooning her

Catholic subjects with a creed which their consciences reject. Austria

is engaged in the attempt to set her internal affairs in order, and to

recover from the defeat at Sadowa. She finds time, notwithstanding, to

attack the church, though without the persistent brutality of her German

neighbor, whose offer to procure a joint interference among the nations

in the election of the next pope was politely but firmly rejected by

Austria. In this path Italy also walks. Rejecting the rough hempen cord

with which Germany binds and strives to strangle the church, Italy, true

to her national character, chooses one of silk, which shall do the work

softly and noiselessly, but none the less securely. _Sensim sine sensu._

Thus the Law of Guarantees of 1871, which was founded on Cavour’s maxim

of “a free church in a free state,” provided for the absolute freedom of

the Pope in spirituals. This Germany resents, and early in the year made

strong remonstrance with Italy, to see, in plain English, if some plan

could not be devised by which the Pope might be muzzled and prevented

from issuing encyclicals and bulls and so forth, save only such as might

please the mind of present German statesmen. Italy refused to alter the

law. But now in November we find Minghetti, the president of the Council,

stating to his electors at Cologna-Veneta that there are defects in the

law of papal guarantees. The church--says that excellent authority, M.

Minghetti--is the congregation of all the faithful, including, of course,

M. Minghetti himself. But the state, on whom with the _jus protegendi_

devolves also the _jus inspiciendi_, is bound to see that the right of

the laity and the interest of the lower clergy be not sacrificed to the

abuse of papal and episcopal authority. Wherefore, M. Minghetti, urged

solely by the desire of seeing that no injustice is done, pledges his

electors that he will bring in a bill empowering the laity to reclaim the

rights to which they are entitled in the government of the church. How

far those rights extend, of course, remains to be seen.

The Holy Father is still spared to us in the full enjoyment of his

health and powers of mind. Pilgrims flock to him in thousands, and the

eyes of the world, friends and foes alike, look with sympathy upon him.

Surely now is the real triumph of his reign, and in his weakness shines

forth his true strength. No earthly motives, if ever they affected the

allegiance of Catholics to him, could affect it now. Yet what does the

world witness? As men regard things, a weak and powerless old man,

ruling, from the palace that is his prison, the hearts of two hundred

millions of people in the name and by the power of Jesus Christ, whose

saintly vicar he is. The Pope, lifted above all entanglements by recent

events with the political policy of so-called Catholic countries--his

voice, as the head of the church, is heard and respected by all nations

as perhaps it never was at any other period of time.

Spain opened with a new revolution--the re-entering of Alfonso, the son

of the exiled queen, to the kingdom and the throne from which she was

driven. This being said, the situation remains in much the same condition

that it has done for the past two years; if anything, notwithstanding

some defections and reverses, Don Carlos has gained in strength and

boldness. The move that brought in Don Alfonso was a good one, but it

came too late.

The customary chronic revolutions prevail in South America. The

assassination of Garcia Moreno, the able and good President of Ecuador,

by members of a secret society, added a unique chapter of horrors and

dastardly cowardice to the records of these societies, showing that to

accomplish their purpose they are ready to stab a nation. Garcia Mareno

died a martyr to his faith. From a far different cause, though by the

same means, died Sonzogno, the editor of the _Capitale_, the trial of

whose assassins furnished food for thought as to the force at work in

regenerated Italy. An event that might have been of great importance was

the death of the youthful Emperor of China, which was followed by that of

his wife. He was succeeded by a child five years old, and the government

seems to have passed into the hands of the same men who held it before,

so that a change for the better towards Christians is scarcely to be

hoped for, while Christian residents are still exposed at any moment to a

repetition of the Tien-Tsin massacre.

With the year closes the third quarter of the most eventful century,

perhaps, which the world has yet known, the first century of the

Christian era alone being excepted. It opened on what Lacordaire has well

called “a wild and stormy morning,” and he would be a bold prophet who

should predict a clear sky at the close. A writer of the day describes

nations within the past year as engaged in “a wild war-dance.” The

same is true of the century. Nations seem to have learned nothing, but

forgotten much. In forgetting the faith that made them whole they have

forgotten the secret of the elixir of national life. Hence, bitter as the

struggle is, a Catholic cannot but hope much in the near future from the

present trials of the church. The blows of Germany have crushed shams to

the earth, and caused the truth to shine forth resplendent and beautiful.

Whatever may be this faith that the nations have forgotten, that has been

a mockery among men of the world, it is manifest, at least, that there

is a profound reality in it, and a vitality that no power on earth can

hope to destroy. This testimony of strength in weakness, of the purest

devotion and loftiest sacrifices that this world can show, if it do

nothing else, at least brings men to ponder and look back, and compare

and inquire, and arrive at some conclusions. For the world cannot remain

an indifferent spectator to a question that is wide as the world. The

vagaries of belief, the churches with fronts of brass and feet of clay,

the parasites and the flatterers who, professing to worship and believe

in God alone, bow down in secret before the prince of this world, now

slink away in shame or stand abashed before the unbeliever.

Again, considering the intensity of the activity of the age, induced

in a great measure by the facilities of expressing and communicating

our thoughts, of reaching the uttermost parts of the earth in a

flash of time--all of which enhances the responsibility of our free

will--religion, in view of these facts, will have to keep pace with

this activity in order to perform the office for which God established

it upon earth. That she will do so is as much a matter of certitude

as her existence; for that same “Spirit which fills the whole earth”

finds in her bosom his dwelling-place. The general tendency to material

science, and the material interests of nations, which have so wonderfully

increased within the century, tend all to obscure the supernatural. But

there is nothing to be feared from the advocates of material science.

There is no escaping from God in his creation. And these men, in their

way, in common with the more open persecutors, are preparing for the

triumph of the church, and in the providence of God are co-workers in the

more complete demonstration of his divine truth.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

LIFE OF THE APOSTLE S. JOHN. By M. L. Baunard. Translated from

the first French edition. New York: The Catholic Publication

Society. 1875.

The life and character of S. John are so beautiful and so closely

connected with our Saviour that true believers have always craved to know

more about him.

On the other hand, his testimony is so positive and his language so

clear that all who blaspheme the divinity of our Lord have sought to

thrust him and his gospel out of sight. The distinguished French author

has a warm personal devotion to S. John, and has devoted himself with

great enthusiasm to the task of collecting all the historical facts

which remain to us as connected with the virgin apostle. His style is

manifestly infused with his spirit, and hence the work is one rather of

devotion than of cold, scientific dissertation.

“It is,” says the author in his preface, “a book of doctrine. I address

it to all those who desire to instruct themselves in the truth of God.

Truth has no school above that of the Gospel, and nowhere does it appear

fairer or more profound than in the gospel of S. John.

“It is a book of piety. I dedicate it to Christians: to priests--the

priesthood has no higher personification than S. John; to virgins--John

was a virgin; to mothers--he merited to be given as a son to the Mother

of God; to youth--he was the youngest of the apostles; to old men--it

is the name he gives himself in his epistles. I offer it to suffering

souls--he stood beside the cross; to contemplative souls--he was on Mt.

Thabor; to all souls who wish to devote themselves to their brethren, and

to love them in God--charity can have no purer ideal than the friend of

Jesus.”

It goes to fill up a most important gap in our English hagiography, and

will be greeted with much satisfaction by those desirous of having a

complete series of lives of the saints.

THE SHIP IN THE DESERT. By Joaquin Miller. Boston: Roberts

Brothers. 1875.

The _ad captandum_ title of this work leads one to look for an Arabian

romance; whereas the story has scarcely anything to do with it, and is

a very slender story at that. It is difficult to say whether the book

is worth reading or not; for while, no doubt, it contains passages of

considerable force and beauty, we are quite sure the poet himself does

not know half the time what he means. Now, this kind of thing is “played

out.” Far be it from us to accuse the divine Tennyson of straining and

affectation; but we do say there are peculiarities in his style which

it is dangerous to imitate. Taken as a model for classic and scholarly

verse, he has no equal in the English language. But the subjectivism of

his “enchanted reverie” may be easily “run into the ground.” Hence he has

given rise (we suspect he is full sore over it) to what may be called the

“Obscurantist” school of poetry. We think this school has had its day.

We hope the coming poets will happily combine the faultless diction of

Tennyson with the clear, strong thought of such masters as Milton, Byron,

and Longfellow.

THE THREE PEARLS; OR, VIRGINITY AND MARTYRDOM. By a Daughter of

Charity. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1875.

We presume this book is meant for a Christmas present. It is admirably

fitted for that purpose--beautifully printed and tastefully bound. But

the contents are still better worth having.

These “Three Pearls” were indeed “of great price”; three

virgin-martyrs--S. Cæcilia, S. Agnes, and S. Catharine of Alexandria.

No three saints, perhaps, could have been more happily chosen by the

gifted author as models for the young Catholic women of the day, and

particularly here in America. If it be objected that such heroines are

not imitable, the answer is obvious--that the virtues which led them to

become heroines are imitable by all. And, again, the “modern paganism”

with which we are familiar has many features in common with that amid

which they lived.

There is a prose sketch of each saint, followed by a tribute in verse.

The “Editor’s Preface” is from the pen of a learned priest in the Diocese

of Boston.

MEDULLA THEOLOGIÆ MORALIS. Auctore Augustino Rohling, S.

Theologiæ et Philosophiæ Doctore, Monasterii Guestfaliæ in

Academia Regia quondam, nunc in Seminario Salesiano prope

Milwaukee S. Theologiæ Professore. Cum permissu Superiorum. St.

Ludovici: Excudebat B. Herder, 19 South Fifth Street; et B.

Herder, Friburgi, Brisgoviæ. 1875.

The plan of the author in this work, as is implied in its title, has not

been to write a complete treatise on moral theology, but to furnish a

compendium containing the points necessary for confessors in the ordinary

discharge of their duties. Desirable as such a book is, there is of

course a difficulty in compiling it, arising from the variety of sound

opinions on many questions, which cannot all be given without extending

it beyond the limits which give it its special convenience, and which

opinions, nevertheless, it is at least expedient that every priest should

know. This difficulty is one, therefore, which cannot be overcome, and a

manual of this kind can never entirely supply the place of a larger work.

But it nevertheless has its use, and, when it is well done, cannot fail

to be a welcome addition to any theological library.

And this book is extremely welcome for it is extremely well done. It is

very well arranged; every point of importance is, we believe, given; it

is clearly written; it is adapted to the times and to this country, and

(which is a great merit) it is by no means dry. There is a little danger

in it on this last account, and that is that its superior attractiveness

may tend to induce neglect of larger works, and too great confidence in

statements which space will not allow the author to modify, as we have

said above.

One excellent feature of it is the sound and practical advice which it

contains, which is almost as important as the statement of theological

conclusions or of matters of law. It would be worth far more than its

price on this account alone.

THE HISTORY OF THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION IN GERMANY,

SWITZERLAND, ENGLAND, IRELAND, SCOTLAND, THE NETHERLANDS,

FRANCE, AND NORTHERN EUROPE. Seventh Edition. By the Most Rev.

M. J. Spalding, D.D. Baltimore: J. Murphy & Co. 1875.

THE EVIDENCES OF CATHOLICITY. Sixth Edition. By the Most Rev.

M. J. Spalding, D.D. Baltimore: J. Murphy & Co. 1875.

In the present editions an article on “Rome and Geneva” has been added

to _The History of the Reformation_, and a “Pastoral Letter on the

Infallibility of the Pope” to _The Evidences of Catholicity_--both having

been prepared by the late archbishop with a view to publication in his

collective works.

The same general criticism which we passed in our December number on

the revised edition of the _Miscellanea_ will apply to these volumes.

Archbishop Spalding’s works constitute a very complete armory from which

to select weapons to meet the opponents of the church in this country;

though the writings of European Catholics may be more to the purpose as

answers to the misrepresentations urged against her in their respective

localities. And there is no one writer to whom we would with greater

confidence refer Protestants who are willing to learn the truth (and we

would fain hope there are very many such), as his works relate to so many

supposed stumbling-blocks. Whether conscious of it or not, our separated

brethren are very blind followers of tradition--accepting unhesitatingly

the representations of writers of the last three centuries, while

faulting us for adhering to the unbroken traditions of all the Christian

centuries. Hence they are accustomed, when unable to reply to our

doctrinal arguments drawn from their translation of the Holy Scriptures,

to fall back on their own version of the religious revolution of the

XVIth century, and other historical events, the comparative condition of

Catholic and Protestant countries, etc., etc., all of which are treated

of at length in these volumes.

At a time when it is sought to revive the fell spirit of the defunct

Know-Nothing party, it is well to refresh our memories by a re-perusal of

the writings which were prompted by the previous manifestation.

The first-named work is at once a history of the Reformation and a review

of the most prominent books on the same subject, including D’Aubigné’s

popular romance. This treatment very much augments the interest with

which we pursue historical inquiries.

MR. GLADSTONE AND MARYLAND TOLERATION. By Richard H. Clarke,

LL.D. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1875.

This able pamphlet will wear a familiar look to our readers, its

principal contents having appeared as an article in our December number.

The writer has added biographical sketches of the first and second

Lords Baltimore, the Lawgivers of 1649, and of Father Andrew White, the

historiographer of the expedition which founded Maryland, and who was

intimately associated with the early fortunes of the colony.

It was really too bad in Dr. Clarke to deny asylum to the ex-premier on

our (reputed) hospitable shores, after the relentless logic to which he

was subjected at home, when proving so clearly to his own satisfaction

the disloyalty of Catholics--to spoil, in fact, his nice little story

that it was the Protestants, and not those hateful Catholics, who made

Maryland a refuge for fugitives from English persecution for conscience’

sake. And what makes the matter all the more aggravating is that our

author is in league with ever so many Protestants in this design. For

shame, gentlemen!

HISTORICAL SCENES FROM THE OLD JESUIT MISSIONS. By the Right

Rev. William Ingraham Kip, D.D., LL.D., member of the New

York Historical Society [and Protestant Episcopal Bishop of

California]. New York: A. D. F. Randolph & Co. 1875.

The author of this work had the good fortune while in England some years

since to secure a copy of _Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses écrites des

Missions Etrangéres_, in forty-seven volumes, “containing the letters

of the Jesuit missionaries from about 1650 to 1750.… He selected those

letters which relate to the labors of the Jesuits within the bounds of

our own land, and published a translation, with notes, under the title

of _The Early Jesuit Missions in North America_.” In the present work

he takes a wider range, and makes selections, from the same source, of

letters from parts of the world widely remote from each other--from

China and California; from Cape Horn and the far north; from the shores

of South America and the Mediterranean; from the monasteries of Mount

Lebanon and the Thebaid Desert.

Bishop Kip and his publishers have laid both Protestants and Catholics

under great obligations by the publication of this valuable and beautiful

volume. We can scarcely commend too highly the evident fairness of the

translation and of the accompanying remarks and notes. It could not well

be otherwise than that a Protestant should have some qualifications to

offer respecting statements of fact and doctrine such as would naturally

occur in these letters; but the Catholic reader will be gratified to

find much that is laudatory, and scarcely anything to which he would

object; the notes being for the most part historical and philological in

character. The naïve simplicity of these relations constitutes one of

their chief charms and the best answer to any suggestion of guile on the

part of the writers.

The principles and operations of the Jesuits have been, and to a

great extent are still, believed by our Protestant fellow-citizens to

constitute a vulnerable point in Catholicity, so that we rejoice at the

facilities offered by such writers as Parkman, Shea, and Kip for a better

understanding of the matter. Nothing can give Catholics greater pleasure

than that their Protestant friends should have full opportunities for

studying our doctrines and history.

LIFE OF S. BENEDICT, surnamed “The Moor,” the Son of a Slave.

Canonized by Pope Pius VII., May 24, 1807. From the French

of M. Allibert, Canon of the Primatial Church of Lyons.

Philadelphia: P. F. Cunningham & Son. 1875.

This volume is a concise and well-written account of a holy life,

showing what abundant graces are often bestowed upon the meek and lowly,

and how those who humble themselves are exalted by Almighty God.

S. Benedict, the child of an enslaved negro parent, was born at

Sanfratello in Sicily, A.D. 1524. Early instructed in religion by his

parents, he offered himself to God, and became eminent for sanctity as a

religious. Seeking always the lowest and most humiliating employments, he

served for twenty-seven years as a cook in a convent. Already, during his

lifetime, regarded as a saint, he was venerated by all classes. “At the

door of his humble kitchen,” says his biographer, “were to be seen the

nobles of Palermo, who sought to honor the saint and recommend themselves

to his prayers, the learned who came for advice, the afflicted who

desired consolation, the sick who hoped for the recovery of their health,

and the indigent who desired assistance.”

Winning by his wisdom and virtues the confidence of his brethren, he

was chosen guardian of the convent, and afterwards vicar, and master of

novices--positions which he accepted with extreme reluctance, and in

which he proved his great charity and humility.

But the more he sought to abase and hide himself, the greater the graces

bestowed upon him. Though blessed with the spirit of prophecy, the

power of performing miracles, and the gift of ecstasy, so great was his

humility that he again turned to his simple occupation, and retained it

till his death, which occurred in 1589.

THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF PAUL SEIGNERET, Seminarist of S.

Sulpice (shot at Belleville, Paris, May 26, 1871). From the

French. New York: P. O’Shea. 1875.

The title of this work can scarcely fail to awaken an interest in the

youthful hero who gave his life for his faith--an interest which is

enhanced by the knowledge that this youth, frail as a girl and possessed

of a highly-cultivated mind and rare sensibility, was so filled with

the spirit of self-sacrifice that he may well be classed with those

“courtiers of martyrdom” whose lives are the glory of the church and the

wonder of the world.

Paul Seigneret’s is a name that must be dear to all Catholics at all

familiar with his saintly life and death. To a heart overflowing with

love for all who had claims upon his affection and charity for all

mankind, and to those quick and delicate perceptions which retain all

that is good and instinctively reject all that is evil, was added a

fervent piety and ardent zeal for the glory of God. Animated by these

sentiments, he sought the priesthood, and soon turned his thoughts to

the cloister--“‘that pure and shining height’ whither he would go to fix

his dwelling nearer heaven.” While yet a student in the Seminary of S.

Sulpice, he fell a victim to the Commune, and was permitted to win the

crown of martyrdom, which had been the object of his most ardent desires.

The volume before us is one which we would especially recommend to our

youthful readers, who will find in it much that is edifying and worthy of

imitation. In an age in which respect for authority and filial obedience

are so much ignored, we cannot place too high a value on the example of

Paul Seigneret, whose devotion and submission to his parents were second

only to his love of God.

If a work so admirable in most respects may be criticised, we would

say that it would be quite as interesting if the author had condensed

the valuable materials of which it is composed. We are aware of the

difficulties under which many translations from the French are made.

Innumerable things in that versatile, flexible language will bear many

repetitions and much minutiæ in description, which will not admit of more

than the simple statement in our unyielding vernacular. Readers should

therefore hesitate in pronouncing a book dull because some of the aroma

escapes in the transition from one medium of thought to another.

PASTORAL LETTER OF THE RIGHT REV. P. N. LYNCH, D.D., BISHOP

OF CHARLESTON, ON THE JUBILEE OF 1875. New York: The Catholic

Publication Society. 1875. 8vo, pp. 299.

The reader will rightly infer from the size of this pastoral that it

differs in many respects from other documents of the kind. The learned

author has taken occasion to enter very fully into the doctrinal and

historical aspects of his subject, thereby making the publication a

valuable reference to all who would understand the history and nature of

this observance.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XXII., No. 131.--FEBRUARY, 1876.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by Rev. I. T.

HECKER, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.

A SEQUEL OF THE GLADSTONE CONTROVERSY.[228]

“It is wonderful,” wrote Proudhon, “how in all our political questions we

always stumble on theology.” Mr. Gladstone will doubtless concur in this

sentiment; for he cannot take a step without stumbling on the Catholic

Church. She is everywhere, and everywhere she is to him a cause of alarm.

So potent is her influence growing to be, so cunningly laid are the

plans by which her policy is directed, so perfect is the organization

and discipline of her forces, so insidious are her methods of procedure,

as he would have us believe, that it is full time all Christendom should

be warned of the approaching danger. She is in his eyes an ever-present

menace to the civilization of the world.

He at least bears testimony to her power and vitality. She is not a

relic of a past age; she lives, and, what is more, it does not seem

that she is willing to die. If we consider the various efforts by which

men are seeking to weaken and destroy the church, we shall find in them

no mean evidence of her divine strength. And first of all, in an age

intellectually most active, she is the subject of universal criticism,

and is cited before every tribunal of human knowledge to be tried on

an hundred different and often contradictory counts. Her historical

relations with the world, extending over eighteen hundred years and

co-extensive with Christendom, are minutely examined into by men who,

shutting their eyes to the benefits which she has conferred upon the

human race, are eager to discover charges against her. She is made

responsible for the crimes of those who called themselves Catholics,

though she was the first to condemn their evil deeds. The barbarism, the

ignorance, and the cruelty of the middle ages are set to her count, when,

in fact, she was the chief source of civilization, of enlightenment, and

of mercy during that period. When she opposes the tyranny of kings,

she is called the enemy of the state; when she seeks to restrain the

lawlessness of the people, she is proclaimed the friend of tyrants.

Against her dogmas and institutions all the sciences are brought to

bear--astronomy, geology, ethnology, and the others. Not in politics

alone, but in all the physical sciences, men in our day stumble on the

Catholic Church.

We are told that she is the one great spiritual organization which is

able to resist, and must as a matter of life and death resist, the

progress of science and modern civilization. These men profess to find

innumerable points of collision between her dogmas and the conclusions

of science, and are surprised when she claims to understand her own

teachings better than they, and is not prepared to abandon all belief in

God, the soul, and future life because physical research has given men

a wider knowledge of the phenomena of matter. Now we hear objections to

her moral teaching--that it is too severe, that she imposes burdens upon

men’s shoulders too heavy for human nature to bear, that she encourages

asceticism, celibacy, and all manner of self-denial opposed to the spirit

of the age and of progress; then, on the contrary, that her morality is

lax, that she flatters the passions of men, panders to their sensual

appetites, and grants, for gain, permission to commit every excess.

At one time we are told that her priests are indolent, immoral,

ignorant, without faith; at another, that they are ceaselessly active,

astute, learned, and wholly intent upon bringing all men to their own

way of thinking. Now we are informed that her children cannot be loyal

subjects of any government; and immediately after we hear that they

are so subservient, so passively obedient, that they willingly submit

to any master. And here we come more immediately upon our subject; for

whereas Mr. Gladstone has declared that the loyalty of Catholics is not

to be trusted, M. de Laveleye asserts that “despotic government is the

congenial government of Catholic populations.”

The pamphlet from which we quote these words, and which we propose now

to examine, has been presented to the English-reading public by the

special request of Mr. Gladstone, and has been farther honored by him

with a prefatory letter. The author, it is true, takes a fling at the

Church of England, and plainly intimates that in his opinion it is little

better than the Catholic Church; but the ex-premier could not forego the

opportunity of striking his enemy, though he should pierce his dearest

friend in giving the blow. He takes the precaution, indeed, to disclaim

any concurrence in M. de Laveleye’s “rather unfavorable estimate of the

Church of England in comparison with the other reformed communions.” The

question discussed in the pamphlet before us, as its title implies, is

the relative influence of Catholicism and Protestantism on the liberty

and prosperity of nations; and the conclusion which is drawn is that the

Reformation is favorable to freedom and progress, and that the Catholic

Church is a hindrance to both.

This has long been a favorite theme with Protestants--the weapon with

which they think themselves best able to do good battle in their cause;

and doubtless it is employed, in most favorable circumstances, in an

age like ours, in which material progress is so marked a feature that

its influence may be traced in everything, and in nothing more than in

the thoughts and philosophies of the men of our day. It is worthy of

remark that Protestantism, professing to be a purer and more spiritual

worship, should have tended to turn men’s thoughts almost exclusively

to the worldly and temporal view of religion; so that it has become the

fashion to praise Christianity, not because it makes men humble, pure,

self-denying, content with little, but rather because its influence is

supposed to be of almost an opposite nature. Much stress is laid upon the

physical, social, and mental superiority of Christian nations to those

that are still pagan, and the inference implied, if not always expressly

stated, is that these temporal advantages are due to the influence of

Christianity, and prove its truth and divine origin. Without stopping

to consider the question whether the material and social superiority of

Christian nations is to be attributed to their religious faith, we may

ask whether, admitting that this is the case, it may with propriety be

adduced in proof of the truth of the religion of Christ?

In the case of individuals no one, certainly, would think of arguing

that prosperity proves a right faith, or even consistent practice. To

hold that wealth and success are evidences of religious life, whatever

it may be, is certainly not Christianity. Does the teaching of Christ

permit the rich to lay the unction to their souls that they are God’s

favored children? Were they his friends? Did they flock around him? Did

they drink in his words gladly? If men who claim to be his disciples

have deified worldly success, and made temporal prosperity a sufficient

test of the truth of his religion, they cannot plead any word of his in

excuse.

He certainly never paid court to the great, or stooped to flatter the

rich. Was it not he who said, “Woe be to you rich: ye have received your

reward”? and again, “It is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of

heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle”? Did he not

take Lazarus to his bosom when Dives was in hell?

“Blessed are ye,” he said, “when men shall revile you, and persecute

you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake.

Rejoice and be exceeding glad; for great is your reward in heaven: for so

persecuted they the prophets which were before you.”

The preaching of Christ was wholly unworldly. He sternly repressed the

earthly ambitions of his disciples, and declared that, as the world

hated him, it would also hate those who believed in him. They would be

outcasts for his name’s sake; if this life were all, they of all men

would be most miserable. Indeed, he rarely speaks of human happiness in

the customary sense; he passes over what might be said in favor of this

life, and brings out in bold relief its vanity and unsatisfactoriness. He

draws no pictures of domestic bliss, and says but little of even innocent

pleasures or those temporal blessings which are so sweet to all; and as

he taught that worldly prosperity is no evidence of God’s favor, he was

careful to correct the error of those who looked upon misfortune as a

proof of guilt, as in the case of the man born blind and of those upon

whom a tower had fallen.

Christ was poor, his apostles were poor, his disciples were poor,

nearly all the Christians of the first ages were poor; and yet every

day we hear men talk as though they considered poverty and Christianity

incompatible. This is manifestly the opinion of M. de Laveleye. His

argument may be stated in this way: England and Scotland are rich,

Ireland is poor. The Protestant cantons of Switzerland are rich,

the Catholic are poor. “In the United States,” says De Tocqueville,

“the greater part of the Catholics are poor.” In fact, wherever the

two religions exist together, the Protestants are more active, more

industrious, and consequently richer than the Catholics.

This is the substance of what is spread over a dozen pages of the

pamphlet. The conclusion is not difficult to draw: Protestants are richer

than Catholics, and therefore better Christians.

“No man can serve two masters,” said Christ: “you cannot serve God and

Mammon.” On the contrary, says M. de Laveleye, the success with which you

worship Mammon is the best proof that you serve God truly. Of course it

would be foreign to M. de Laveleye’s purpose to stop to inquire whether

the poverty of Ireland be due to the Catholic faith of her people or to

the rapacity and misgovernment of England; whether that of the Catholic

cantons of Switzerland might not be accounted for by the fact that they

are mountainous, with an inhospitable climate and a barren soil; and

whether even M. de Tocqueville’s assertion that the greater part of the

Catholics of the United States are poor might not be satisfactorily

explained by stating that the greater part of them are emigrants who

have recently landed upon these shores without a superabundance of this

world’s goods.

He had also good reasons, while treating this part of his subject, for

not looking nearer home. He had in Belgium, under his very eye, one of

the most thrifty, industrious, and prosperous peoples of Europe, and

at the same time one of the most Catholic. Why did he not compare the

wealth of Belgium with that of Sweden or Denmark? Why did he not say a

word about Catholic France, whose wealth and thrift cannot be denied. He

does, indeed, make mention of two French manufacturing towns, in which,

he states, on the authority of M. Audiganne, the capitalists are for

the most part Protestants, whilst the operatives are Catholics; though

what this has to do with any debatable question between Catholicism and

Protestantism is not easily seen.

The assertion (p. 14) that “wherever the two religions co-exist in the

same country the Protestants are more active, more industrious, more

economical, and consequently richer than the Catholics,” is not borne

out by facts. A single example will suffice to show how rash M. de

Laveleye has been in making so wide an affirmation. The Catholics of the

Rhine Province are universally acknowledged to be among the most thrifty

and enterprising populations of Prussia, and are far richer than, for

instance, the Protestants of Pomerania.

It would not be difficult, by adopting M. de Laveleye’s mode of

reasoning, to turn his whole argument on this point against his own

position. Whether or not national wealth, we might say, is evidence of

orthodox Christian faith, there can be no doubt but that the Christian

religion is favorable to even the temporal interests of the lowest and

most degraded classes of society. Its doctrines on the brotherhood of the

race and the equality of all before God first inspired worthy notions

of the dignity of man. Then the sympathy which it created for the poor,

the suffering, and the oppressed naturally set men to work to devise

means for the relief of human misery. It is to its influence that we

must ascribe the abolition of slavery, the elevation of woman, and the

thousand ministries which in Christian lands attend on the wretched and

the weak.

We must infer that those nations in which this influence is most

powerful--which, in other words, are most truly Christian--will have, in

proportion to their population, the smallest class of human beings cursed

by the worst plague known to modern civilization, bearing with it, as it

does, a threefold degradation, moral, physical, and social. We of course

refer to pauperism.

Now, in England, from whose wealth M. de Laveleye would infer the

superiority of her religion, we find that this pauper class, compared

with the whole population, is as 1 to 23; whereas in Ireland, which is

poor--and, according to this theory, for that reason under the ban of

a false religion--there is but 1 pauper to 90 inhabitants; in other

words, pauperism is four times more common in England than in Ireland.

Now, whether we refer this fact to England’s wealth or to England’s

religion--and in M. de Laveleye’s opinion they are correlative--our

conclusion must be either that the influence of the Christian religion,

which necessarily tends to promote the temporal well-being of the most

degraded classes of society, is less felt in England than in Ireland,

or else that national wealth is hurtful to the interests of these same

classes, and consequently opposed to the true Christian spirit; and

in either case we have Catholic Ireland more fairly Christian than

Protestant England. We would not have our readers think for a moment that

we are seriously of the opinion that our argument proves anything at all.

We give it merely as a specimen of the way in which the reasoning of this

pamphlet may be turned against its own conclusions, though, in fact, we

have done the work too respectably.

We cannot forget, if M. de Laveleye does, that, of all sciences, the

social--if, indeed, it may be said as yet to exist at all--is the

most complex and the most difficult to master. The phenomena which it

presents for observation are so various, so manifold, and so vast, our

means of observation are so limited, our methods so unsatisfactory, and

our prejudices so fatal, that only the thoughtless or the rash will

tread without suspicion or doubt upon ground so uncertain and so little

explored.

M. de Laveleye himself furnishes us an example of how easily we may go

astray, even when the way seems plain.

“Sectarian passions,” he writes (p. 11), “or anti religious prejudice

have been too often imported into the study of these questions. It

is time that we should apply to it the method of observation and the

scientific impartiality of the physiologist and the naturalist. When

the facts are once established irrefragable conclusions will follow.

It is admitted that the Scotch and Irish are of the same origin. Both

have become subject to the English yoke. Until the XVIth century Ireland

was much more civilized than Scotland. During the first part of the

middle ages the Emerald Isle was a focus of civilization, while Scotland

was still a den of barbarians. Since the Scotch have embraced the

Reformation, they have outrun even the English.… Ireland, on the other

hand, devoted to ultramontanism, is poor, miserable, agitated by the

spirit of rebellion, and seems incapable of raising herself by her own

strength.” The conclusion which is drawn from all this, joined with such

other facts as the late victories of Prussia over Austria and France, is

that “Protestantism is more favorable than Catholicism to the development

of nations.”

We may as well pause to examine this passage, which, both with regard to

the statement of facts and to the interpretation put upon them, fairly

represents the style and method of the pamphlet before us.

“It is admitted that the Scotch and Irish are of the same origin.” This

is true, as here stated, only in the sense that both are descended of

Adam; and hence it would have been as much to the point to affirm that

all the nations of the earth are of the same origin. The Scots were,

indeed, an Irish tribe; but when they invaded Caledonia, they found it

in the possession of the Picts, of whom whether they were of Celtic or

Teutonic race is still undecided. The power of the Scots themselves

declined in the XIIth century, when Scotland fell under the influence

of the Anglo-Norman Conquest, and the Celtic population either withdrew

towards the north, or, by intermarriage with the conquerors, formed a new

type; so that the people of that country are even yet divided into two

great and distinct stocks differing from each other in language, manners,

and dress.

“Until the XVIth century,” continues M. de Laveleye, “Ireland was much

more civilized than Scotland. During the first part of the middle ages

the Emerald Isle was a focus of civilization, while Scotland was still a

den of barbarians.” Now, it was precisely in those ages in which Ireland

was “a focus of civilization” that the Catholic faith of her people

shone brightest. It was then that convents sprang up over the whole

island; that the sweet songs of sacred psalmody, which so touched the

soul of Columba, were heard in her groves and vales; that the sword was

sheathed, and all her people were smitten with the high love of holy life

and were eager to drink at the fountains of knowledge. It was then that

she sent her apostles to Scotland, to England, to France, to Germany,

to Switzerland, and to far-off Sicily; nor did she remit her efforts in

behalf of civilization until the invading Danes forced her children to

defend at once their country and their faith.

But let us follow M. de Laveleye: “Since the Scotch have embraced the

reformed religion, they have outrun even the English.… Ireland, on the

other hand, devoted to ultramontanism, is poor, miserable, agitated by

the spirit of rebellion, and seems incapable of raising herself by her

own strength.”

We cannot think that Mr. Gladstone had read this passage when he

requested the author to have his pamphlet translated into English; for

we cannot believe that he is prepared to lay the misfortunes of Ireland

to the influence of the Catholic faith upon her people, and not to the

cruelty and misgovernment of England.

The Irish Catholics are reproached with their poverty, when for two

hundred years the English government made it a crime for them to own

anything. They are taunted with their misery, when for two centuries

they lived under a code which placed them outside the pale of humanity;

of which Lord Brougham said that it was so ingeniously contrived that

an Irish Catholic could not lift up his hand without breaking it; which

Edmund Burke denounced as the most proper machine ever invented by

the wit of man to disgrace a realm and degrade a people; and of which

Montesquieu wrote that it must have been contrived by devils, ought to

have been written in blood and registered in hell!

Ireland is found fault with because she is agitated with the spirit of

rebellion, when even to think of the wrongs she has suffered makes the

blood to boil. Is it astonishing that she should be poor when England,

with set purpose, destroyed her commerce and ruined her manufacturing

interests, fostering at the same time a policy fatal to agriculture, the

aim of which, it would seem, was to force the Irish to emigrate, that the

whole island might be turned into a grazing ground for the supply of the

English markets?

“What a contrast,” further remarks M. de Laveleye (p. 12), “even in

Ireland, between the exclusively Catholic Connaught and Ulster, where

Protestantism prevails!”

Mr. Gladstone certainly cannot be surprised at this contrast, nor will he

seek its explanation in the baneful influence of the Catholic Church. He

at least knows the history of Cromwell’s invasion of Ireland; he has read

of the massacres of Drogheda and Wexford; he knows the fate of the eighty

thousand Catholic Irishmen whom Cromwell drove into the ports of Munster,

and shipped like cattle to the sugar plantations of the Barbadoes, there

to be sold as slaves; nor is he ignorant of what was in store for those

Irish Catholics who were still left; of how they were driven out of

Ulster, Munster, and Leinster across the Shannon into Connaught--that is,

into the bogs and wild wastes of the most desolate part of Ireland--there

to die of hunger or cold, or to survive as best they might. Five-sixths

of the Catholics had perished; the remainder were driven into barren

Connaught; the Protestants settled on the rich lands of Ulster, Munster,

and Leinster; and now here comes good M. de Laveleye to find that

Connaught is poor because it is Catholic, and Ulster is rich because it

is Protestant. But we must not forget Scotland.

“Since the Scotch,” says M. de Laveleye, “have embraced the reformed

religion, they have outrun even the English.”

We shall take no pains to discover whether or in what respect, or how

far the Scotch surpass the English. The meaning of the words which we

have just quoted is evidently this: The progress which the Scotch have

made during the last three centuries, in wealth and the other elements of

material greatness, must be ascribed to the influence of the Protestant

religion.

To avoid even the suspicion of unfairness in discussing this part of the

subject, we shall quote the words of an author who devoted much time

and research to the study of the character and tendencies of Scotch

Presbyterianism, and whose deeply-rooted dislike of the Catholic Church

is well known:

“To be poor,” says Buckle (_History of Civilization_, vol. ii.

p. 314), describing the doctrines of the Scotch divines of

the XVIIth century--“to be poor, dirty, and hungry; to pass

through life in misery and to leave it with fear; to be plagued

with boils and sores and diseases of every kind; to be always

sighing and groaning; to have the face streaming with tears

and the chest heaving with sobs; in a word, to suffer constant

affliction and to be tormented in all possible ways--to undergo

these things was a proof of goodness just as the contrary was

a proof of evil. It mattered not what a man liked, the mere

fact of his liking it made it sinful. Whatever was natural was

wrong. The clergy deprived the people of their holidays, their

amusements, their shows, their games, and their sports; they

repressed every appearance of joy, they forbade all merriment,

they stopped all festivities, they choked up every avenue by

which pleasure could enter, and they spread over the country

an universal gloom. Then truly did darkness sit on the land.

Men in their daily actions and in their every looks became

troubled, melancholy, and ascetic. Their countenance soured and

was downcast. Not only their opinions, but their gait, their

demeanor, their voice, their general aspect, were influenced

by that deadly blight which nipped all that was genial and

warm. The way of life fell into the sere and yellow leaf; its

tints gradually deepened; its bloom faded and passed off;

its spring, its freshness, and its beauty were gone; joy and

love either disappeared or were forced to hide themselves in

obscure corners, until at length the fairest and most endearing

parts of our nature, being constantly repressed, ceased to

bear fruit and seemed to be withered into perpetual sterility.

Thus it was that the national character of the Scotch was in

the XVIIth century dwarfed and mutilated.… They [the Scotch

divines] sought to destroy not only human pleasures, but human

affections. They held that our affections are necessarily

connected with our lusts, and that we must therefore wean

ourselves from them as earthly vanities. A Christian had no

business with love or sympathy. He had his own soul to attend

to, and that was enough for him. Let him look to himself.

On Sunday, in particular, he must never think of benefiting

others; and the Scotch clergy did not hesitate to teach the

people that on that day it was sinful to save a vessel in

distress, and that it was a proof of religion to leave ship

and crew to perish. They might go; none but their wives and

children would suffer, and that was nothing in comparison with

breaking the Sabbath. So, too did the clergy teach that on

no occasion must food or shelter be given to a starving man,

unless his opinions were orthodox. What need for him to live?

Indeed, they taught that it was a sin to tolerate his notions

at all, and that the proper course was to visit him with sharp

and immediate punishment. Going yet farther, they broke the

domestic ties and set parents against their offspring. They

taught the father to smite the unbelieving child, and to slay

his own boy sooner than to allow him to propagate error. As

if this were not enough, they tried to extirpate another

affection, even more sacred and more devoted still. They laid

their rude and merciless hands on the holiest passion of which

our nature is capable--the love of a mother for her son.… To

hear of such things is enough to make one’s blood surge again,

and raise a tempest in our inmost nature. But to have seen

them, to have lived in the midst of them, and yet not to have

rebelled against them, is to us utterly inconceivable, and

proves in how complete a thraldom the Scotch were held, and how

thoroughly their minds as well as their bodies were enslaved.”

The XVIIth century, which was the golden age of French literature, and

also of the Catholic Church in France, threw almost total darkness over

Scotland, which during that period was most completely under the power of

Protestantism. The clergy governed the nation; they were the only men of

real influence; and yet there was no philosophy, no science, no poetry,

no literature worth reading. “From the Restoration,” says Laing, “down

to the Union the only author of any eminence whom Scotland produced was

Burnet.”

If the thrift and industry of the Scotch are due to Protestantism,

to what shall we ascribe the enterprise and commerce of the Catholic

republics of Venice and Genoa during the middle ages?

If England’s wealth to-day comes from the Reformation, how shall we

account for that of Spain in the XVIth and XVIIth centuries? And if the

decline of Spain has been brought about by the Catholic faith, to what

cause shall we assign that of Holland, who in the XVIIth century ruled

the seas and did the carrying trade of Europe?

M. de Laveleye’s way of accounting for the prosperity of nations is

certainly simple, but we doubt whether it would satisfy any respectable

schoolboy. Unfortunately for such as he, there is no rule of three by

which social problems may be solved. Race, climate, soil, political

organization, and many other causes, working through ever-varying

combinations, must all be considered if we would understand the history

of material progress. As labor is the most fruitful cause of wealth,

there is a necessary relation between national wealth and national

habits, which are the outcome of a thousand influences, one of the most

powerful of which undoubtedly is religious faith. But who does not know

that climate influences labor, not only by enervating or invigorating

the laborer, but also by the effect it produces on the regularity of

his habits? If the Italian loves the _dolce far niente_, while the New

Englander makes haste to grow rich as though some demon whom gold could

bribe pursued him, shall we find the secret of their peculiar characters

in their religious faith or in the climate in which they live, or shall

we not rather seek it in a combination of causes, physical and moral?

We have assuredly no thought of denying the intimate connection which

exists between faith and character or between a nation’s religion and its

civilization. We are willing even to affirm that not only the general

superiority of Christian nations, but their superior wealth also, is in

great measure attributable to their religion. And now, bidding adieu to

M. de Laveleye for a while, we propose to discuss this subject, to which

we have already alluded, somewhat more fully.

Christianity certainly does not measure either the greatness or the

happiness of a people by its wealth, nor does it take as its ideal that

state of society in which “the millionaire is the one sole god” and

commerce is all in all; in which “only the ledger lives, and only not all

men lie.”

Whether we consider individuals or associations of men, the Catholic

Church does not hold and cannot hold that material interests are the

highest. To be noble, to be true, to be humble, to be pure, is, in her

view, better than to be rich. Man is more than money, which is good only

in so far as it serves to develop his higher nature.

“The whole aim of man is to be happy,” says Bossuet. “Place happiness

where it ought to be, and it is the source of all good; but the source of

all evil is to place it where it ought not to be.”

“It is evident,” says S. Thomas, “that the happiness of man cannot lie

in riches. Wealth is sought after only as a support of human life. It

cannot be the end of man; on the contrary, man is its end.… The longing,

moreover, for the highest good is infinite. The more it is possessed,

the more it is loved and the more all else is despised; for the more it

is possessed, the better is it known. With riches this is not the case.

No sooner are they ours than they are despised, or used as means to some

other end; and this, as it shows their imperfect nature, is proof that in

them the highest good is not to be found.”

If wealth is not the highest good of individuals, is it of nations? What

is the ideal of society? The study of the laws which govern national life

must necessarily begin with this question, which all who have dealt with

the subject, from Plato to Comte and Mill, have sought to answer. It is

manifest that each one’s attempt to solve this problem will be based upon

his views on the previous question: What is the ideal of man? This, in

turn, will be answered according to each one’s notions of the ideal of

God; and here we have the secret of the phenomenon which so surprised

Proudhon--the necessary connection between religion and society, theology

and politics.

Is there a God, personal, distinct from nature? Or is nature the only

god, and science her prophet? It is right here at this central point that

men are dividing; it is here we must place ourselves, if we would view

the two great armies that in all Christendom are gathering for a supreme

conflict.

There is a form of infidelity in our day--and it is the one into which

all unbelief must ultimately resolve itself--which starts with this

assumption: “Whether or not there is a God must for ever remain unknown

to man.” It reasons in this way: “This whole subject belongs within

the region, not only of the unknown, but of the unknowable. It is an

insoluble riddle, and the philosophies and theologies which have sought

to unravel it, if only idle, might deserve nothing more than contempt;

but they have been the bane of human thought, have soured all the

sweetness of life, and therefore ought to be visited with the execration

of mankind. Since religion is a subject about which nothing can be known,

what is so absurd as to spend time upon it? What so absurd as to divert

the thoughts of men from subjects in which thinking is fruitful to those

in which it must for ever remain barren of all except evil results? What

so absurd as to set them working for a future life, of which we can

never know whether it exists at all, when we might at least teach them

how to make the present one worth having? The paradise of the future,

which the prophetic eye of science can already descry, is _in_ the world,

not _beyond_ it; and to seek to hasten its approach is the highest and

only worthy object in life.” As we take it, this is the creed of modern

unbelief, to which as yet few will openly subscribe, but toward which all

its hundred conflicting schools of thought are moving. Few men indeed are

able to perceive the logical outcome of their opinions, and still fewer

have the courage to confess what they more than half suspect.

This superstition is a return to the nature-worship of paganism, but

under a different aspect. Of old, nature was worshipped as revealed to

sense, and now as revealed to thought; then as beautiful, now as true

or useful. The first was artistic, and form was its symbol; the last is

scientific, and law is its expression. The religion of humanity is only a

phase of this worship; for in it man is considered, not as the child of

God, but as the product of nature.

And now what has this to do with the ideal of society or the wealth of

nations? At the basis of all social organization lies morality, as it

is by conduct that both individuals and nations are saved or lost. The

history of the human race shows that religion and morality are intimately

related. That there have been good atheists does not affect the truth

of this proposition any more than that there have been bad Christians.

Men are usually better or worse than their principles; practice and

profession rarely accord; and this is remarked because it ought not to

exist.

Conduct, to be rational, should be motived, and consequently referable to

certain general principles by which it is justified. To be particular, a

man who believes in God, the Creator, a Father as just as he is good, has

fundamental motives of action which are wanting to the atheist. The one

should seek to approve himself to his heavenly Father; the other cannot

go farther than conform to the laws of nature. To the one this life, as

compared with that which is to be, is of value only as it relates to it;

to the other it is all in all. And since the ultimate end of society

is the welfare of the associated, the one will regard this end from a

transcendental point of view, taking in time and eternity; the other will

consider it merely with reference to man’s present state. Their notions

of life, of its ends, aims, and proper surroundings, will be radically

different.

Suppose for a moment that religious beliefs are mere dreams, fancies of

sick brains; is it not at once manifest that human life is a much poorer

and sorrier thing than it is commonly thought to be? As the light of

heaven fades away, do not all things grow dark, leaving us in the shadow

of death, despairing or debauched, sullen or frantic? The poet’s dream,

the mother’s fond hope, the heart’s deep yearning, the mind’s flight

towards the infinite, all become flat, meaningless, and unprofitable. Men

are simply animals chained to this clod, too happy if the heaven-seeking

eye permitted them to see it alone. Trouble, danger, and physical

pain are the only evils, and virtue is the sharp-sighted prudence

which enables us to avoid them. Self-denial is not only useless, it is

irrational. Our appetites are good and ought to be indulged. Nothing,

of its own nature, is sinful; excess alone is wrong; all indulgence,

provided it hurt no one, is good--nay, it is necessary. Whoever denies

any one of his appetites the food it craves cripples himself, is maimed

and incomplete. “He may be a monk; he may be a saint; but a man he is

not.”

When these views are transferred to questions of political economy and

social organization, they lead to materialistic and utilitarian theories.

Society must be organized on the basis of positivism; the problem of the

future is how to give to the greatest number of individuals the best

opportunities of indulgence, the greatest amount of comfort, with the

least amount of pain. This is the greatest-happiness principle of Bentham

and Mill. Culture, of course, intellectual and æsthetic, as affording the

purest pleasure, must form a feature of this society; but its distinctive

characteristic is wealth, which is both the means and the opportunity of

indulgence.

“We constantly hear of the evils of wealth,” says Buckle, “and

of the sinfulness of loving money; although it is certain that,

after the love of knowledge, there is no one passion which has

done so much good to mankind as the love of money.”

“If we open our eyes,” says Strauss,[229] “and are honest

enough to avow what they show us, we must acknowledge that

the entire activity and aspiration of the civilized nations

of our time is based on views of life which run directly

counter to those entertained by Christ. The ratio of value

between the here and the hereafter is exactly reversed; and

this is by no means the result of the merely luxurious and

so-called materialistic tendencies of our age, nor even of its

marvellous progress in technical and industrial improvements.…

All that is best and happiest which has been achieved by us

has been attainable only on the basis of a conception which

regarded this present world as by no means despicable, but

rather as man’s proper field of labor, as the sum total of the

aims to which his efforts should be directed. If, from the

force of habit, a certain proportion of workers in this field

still carry the belief in an hereafter along with them, it

is nevertheless a mere shadow, which attends their footsteps

without exercising any determining influence on their actions.”

This is the cosmic religion, which is preached as “the new faith, the

religion of the future.” This world is all in all--let us make the most

of it; or, as the pagans of old put it: “Let us eat and drink, for

to-morrow we die.”

In its essence it is sensualism; in its manifestations it will be refined

or coarse, according to the dispositions of the persons by whom it is

accepted. Now its worship will be accompanied with music and song and

dance; at other times it will sink to those orgies in which man becomes

only an unnatural animal.

Let us now turn to the Christian religion, and consider its teachings

in their bearing upon the subject we are discussing. They are the very

opposite of those which we have just read, and proceed from principles

which are in direct contradiction to the cosmic philosophy. God is the

highest, the Creator of all things, which are of value only as they

relate to him and are in harmony with the laws of his being. The earth

is but the threshold of heaven or of hell, as the case may be. This life

is a preparation for a future one, which is eternal; and all human

interests, whether individual or social, to be rightly understood, must

be viewed in their relation to this truth. Man is essentially a moral

being, and duty, which is often in conflict with pleasure, is his supreme

law. He is under the action of antagonistic forces; seeing the better

and approving it, he is drawn to love the worse and to do it. Thus

self-denial becomes the condition of virtue, and warfare with himself his

only assurance of victory.

“But he said to all: If any one wishes to come after me, let him deny

himself, take up his cross every day, and follow me.”

Wealth, which is the world’s great slave and idol, and universal

procurator of the senses, though in itself not evil, is yet a hindrance

to the highest spiritual life. “If thou wouldst be perfect, go sell what

thou hast, and give it to the poor, and thou shall have treasure in

heaven: and come and follow me.”

As duty is the supreme law of the individual, it follows that we must

seek the ideal of society in the moral order, to which all other social

interests should be made subservient, or else they will beget only an

unbounded and lawless activity. Even education is valuable only in so far

as it gives man a deeper sense of his responsibility to God, and enables

him more thoroughly to understand and perform his duty.

The social problem as between Christianity and modern paganism may

be stated in this way: is it the end of society to grow strong in

virtue through self-denial, or to increase indefinitely the means and

opportunity of indulgence? On which side is progress, on which decline?

We cannot now go farther into this subject, but before leaving it we

wish to quote the words of Fitzjames Stephen, who will hardly be called a

Christian, on modern progress.

“I suspect,” he says,[230] “that in many ways it has been

a progress from strength to weakness; that people are more

sensitive, less enterprising and ambitious, less earnestly

desirous to get what they want, and more afraid of pain, both

for themselves and others, than they used to be. If this should

be so, it appears to me that all other gains, whether in

wealth, knowledge, or humanity, afford no equivalent. Strength,

in all its forms, is life and manhood. To be less strong is

to be less a man, whatever else you may be. This suspicion

prevents me, for one, from feeling any enthusiasm about

progress, but I do not undertake to say it is well founded.… I

do not myself see that our mechanical inventions have increased

the general vigor of men’s characters, though they have no

doubt increased enormously our control over nature. The greater

part of our humanity appears to me to be a mere increase of

nervous sensibility in which I feel no satisfaction at all.”

The general superiority, and even the greater wealth, of Christian

nations as compared with others we would attribute, in great part at

least, to the influence of their religious faith, to which they owe their

sentiments on the dignity and sacredness of human nature in itself, apart

from surroundings; on the substantial equality of all men before God,

which tends to produce as its counterpart the equality of all before the

law, thus leading to the abolition of slavery, the elevation of woman,

and the protection of childhood. To it also they owe their ideas on the

family, which, in its constitutive Christian elements, lies at the very

foundation of our civilization. To Christianity they owe the principles

of universal charity and compassion, which have revolutionized the

relations of social life; and, finally, to it they are indebted for the

rehabilitation of labor, the chief source of wealth, which the pagan

nations looked upon as degrading.

“I cannot say,” writes Herodotus, “whether the Greeks get their contempt

for labor from the Egyptians; for I find the same prejudice among the

Thracians, the Scythians, the Persians, and the Lydians.”

“The Germans,” says Tacitus, “cannot bear to remain quiet, but they love

to be idle; they hold it base and unworthy of them to acquire by their

sweat what they can purchase with their blood.” In the same way the Gauls

looked upon labor with contempt.

We shall have to take up M. de Laveleye’s pamphlet again; for the present

we lay it aside with the following remark: If we should grant, to the

fullest, all that is here said about the greater wealth and material

prosperity of Protestant as compared with Catholic nations what are we

thence to conclude? Shall we say that the greed of gain which is so

marked a feature in the populations of England and the United States

is at once the result and proof of true Christian faith? May it not be

barely possible that the value of material progress is exaggerated? Is

there not danger lest, when man shall have made matter the willing slave

of all his passions, he should find that he has become the creature

of this slave? However this may be, might not a Catholic find some

consolation in the words of Holy Writ?

“And the angel that spoke in me, said to me: Cry thou, saying,

Thus saith the Lord of hosts: I am zealous for Jerusalem and

Sion with a great zeal. _And I am angry with a great anger with

the nations that are rich_; for I was angry a little, but they

helped forward the evil.”

TO BE CONTINUED.

ARE YOU MY WIFE?

BY THE AUTHOR OF “PARIS BEFORE THE WAR,” “NUMBER THIRTEEN,” “PIUS VI.,”

ETC.