To these written records we must add the expressive testimony of

the catacombs. It is impossible to visit them without feeling

that the Roman Christians looked on the apostles Peter and Paul

as the founders of their local church. Eusebius was struck by the

"monuments marked with the names of Peter and Paul," which he saw

in the cemeteries at Rome, and these have been discovered, in

modern times, by the indefatigable industry of Christian

antiquarians; they are a living testimony to the fact that St.

Peter, as well as St. Paul, labored in Rome. The illustrious

Cardinal Borgia has traced the tradition in regard to the

presence of St. Peter's body in the Vatican from the beginning of

the third century, [Footnote 106] when, as we have seen, Cajus, a

priest of Rome, in a work against heretics, [Footnote 107] spoke

of the trophy of Peter in the Vatican, down to the days of Pope

Urban VIII. And thus the most splendid monument Christianity has

erected to the worship of the living God is also an authentic

record of the fact that the chief of the apostles selected the

city of Rome, in a special manner, as the scene of his labors,

and there consummated his glorious career in the service of his

Master. No wonder learned Protestants are ashamed to join with

their more ignorant brethren. One learned German writer of this

century says: "There is, perhaps, no event in ancient (church)

history so clearly placed beyond doubt by the consenting

testimony of ancient Christian writers as that of Peter having

been at Rome." [Footnote 108] Another more forcibly, if possible,

remarks: "Nothing but the polemics of faction have induced some

Protestants, especially Spanheim, in imitation of some mediaeval

opponents of the popes, to deny that Peter ever was at Rome."

[Footnote 109]

[Footnote 106: In the work _Vaticana Confessio B.

Petri._]

[Footnote 107: _The Montanists._]

[Footnote 108: Berthold, _Historisch-Krit. Inlet. in A. und

N. T. apud_ Perrone.]

[Footnote 109: Gieseler, _Lehrbuch der Kirchengesch._

Ibid.]

A caviller may, indeed, say that all these witnesses prove, at

most, that Peter was at Rome, not that he was bishop of Rome. And

this is the point made by Bishop Browne, in the work to which we

have referred.

"It is not to be doubted," he says, "that a tradition did exist

in early times that St. Peter was bishop of Rome. But if that

tradition be submitted, like others of the same kind, to the

test of historical investigation, it will be found to rest on a

very slender foundation.

{379}

In the first place, Scripture is silent about his having been

at Rome--a remarkable silence, if his having been bishop there

was a fact of such vital importance to the church as Roman

divines have made it to be. Then, the first tradition of his

having been at Rome at all does not appear for more than a

century after his death. It is nearly two centuries after that

event that we meet with anything like the opinion that the

Roman bishops were his successors. It is three centuries before

we find him spoken of as bishop of Rome. But when we reach

three centuries and a half, we are told that he not only was

bishop of Rome, but that he resided five and twenty years at

Rome; a statement utterly irreconcilable with the history of

the New Testament." [Footnote 110]

[Footnote 110: Loc. cit.]

There is, indeed, no good reason to doubt that St. Peter was at

Rome; that he assisted St. Paul to order and establish the

church there; that, in conjunction with Paul, he ordained one

or more of its earliest bishops, and that there he suffered

death for the sake of Christ. But there is no reason to believe

that he was ever, in any proper or local sense, bishop of

Rome." [Footnote 111]

[Footnote 111: _Ibid_.]

We leave aside for the present the alleged silence of the New

Testament. In the first place, it is not true that "the first

tradition of Peter's having been at Rome does not appear for more

than a century after his death." Clement of Rome, Ignatius of

Antioch, Papias, Dionysius of Corinth, belong to this period, and

all unmistakably testify to Peter's having been at Rome. Irenaeus

may be fairly counted also, as he was sent from Lyons to Rome in

A.D. 177. Of these, Bishop Browne mentions only Papias and

Irenaeus. He quotes Papias's opinion about the word

_Babylon_ in St. Peter's first Epistle, and tries to set it

aside. But, whatever the exegetical value of the opinion, it is

proof that Papias held it as an undoubted fact that St. Peter was

at Rome; besides, he also states that Mark wrote his gospel at

Rome, under the eye of Peter. Nor is it at all pertinent to say

that Eusebius tells us that Papias was a narrow-minded man, and

an enthusiast about the Apocalypse. Neither narrow-mindedness nor

enthusiasm prevents men from being competent witnesses to simple

facts, and the one about which we are now inquiring is a simple

fact. The only question is--Could Papias have known for certain

whether St. Peter was at Rome or not? He lived in the apostolic

age, not half a century after the death of the apostle. This is a

sufficient answer, and his views about either Babylon or the

Apocalypse cannot impair its sufficiency. As to Irenaeus, our

lord bishop quibbles in a way that is not handsome. He tries to

break down his and other writers' testimony by alleging, first,

that they disagree as to the first bishop of Rome after St.

Peter; second, that they disagree about the _time_ St. Peter

came to Rome.

We are almost ashamed to have to answer such quibbling. Neither

disagreement at all touches the substantial part of the

narrative. Neither is as great as our expounder of the articles,

in his despair, tries to make it. Neither could ever have been

alleged in ordinary controversy. All authors, save Tertullian,

mention Linus as first bishop of Rome after Peter. The African

father in reality says only that Clement was ordained by Peter;

the context, however, would suggest that he supposed he was the

immediate successor of the apostle. The truth appears to be that

Linus, Cletus, and Clement were consecrated bishops by one or the

other of the apostles. This was commonly done in the first age;

only one person in every city possessed episcopal jurisdiction,

but more clergymen than one were frequently invested with the

episcopal order. This was done in the Roman Church. St. Peter was

its first bishop; after his death, Linus, Cletus, Clement

governed it in succession, all three having been ordained by the

apostles.

{380}

There is nothing in this supposition at all at variance with what

is known to have been the common practice of the first age, a

practice which it is not ingenuous in the lord bishop of Ely to

suppress. As to the discrepancy about the time of the apostle's

coming to Rome, it is easily explained on the commonly received

hypothesis that St. Peter twice visited Rome. Eusebius says that

he went first under Claudius. He was obliged to leave Italy in

consequence of that emperor's decree banishing thence the Jews.

He returned thither, toward the end of his life, and there

suffered martyrdom. But it is plain that such discrepancies

cannot affect the substance, namely, that Peter was at Rome;

indeed, they are intelligible only on the supposition that all

the authors quoted held the main fact as certain. It is plain

also that there is not the slightest foundation for the lord

bishop's assertion that "at whatever time St. Peter came to Rome,

there was some one else bishop of Rome then." The courage

required for this assertion can be measured from another

statement, just four lines above: "All (the early writers) agree

in saying that the first bishop of the see was Linus." This is

simply shameful. Put after "see" the words _after Peter_,

and the quotation will be correct. But then what becomes of the

bishop's argument? He says Linus was bishop of Rome when Peter

went thither; and he also admits that "some (early writers) say

that St. Paul, others that St. Peter and St. Paul, ordained him."

These latter writers surely did not suppose that St. Peter

ordained a man in Rome before he himself ever went to Rome. The

bishop clearly does not stick at trifles. His chronology is also

entirely at fault. He says that it "is three centuries (after St.

Peter's death) before we find him spoken of as bishop of Rome."

But St. Cyprian, whom even Bishop Hopkins admits spoke thus of

the apostle, was put to death before the end of the second

century from St. Peter's martyrdom. He sneers at the statement

that St. Peter was five-and-twenty years bishop of Rome; yet he

admits that it is based on the authority of that eminent and

judicious critic, St. Jerome, who, from his high position under

Pope Damasus, had abundant opportunity for an accurate

examination of the then extant records. In reality, it is based

on an earlier authority, the great historian Eusebius. It is

plain that his polemic system is simply factious; he ignores some

authorities, misconstrues others, miscalculates dates, and

mistakes mere accessories for the principal fact; such a course

is not only a crime against historical truth, it is also a

blunder, for it can mislead only the unlearned or the unwary

reader.

The writers of the first age do not, it is true, assert in so

many words that St. Peter was bishop of Rome. The reason is

obvious. Treating of other matters, their allusions are merely

incidental, such as we might expect immediately after the death

of SS. Peter and Paul, and relating chiefly to the fact of the

apostle's connection with the Roman Church, or his martyrdom

there. For these facts they are unanswerable authority. These are

a necessary preliminary to the assertion of St. Peter's Roman

bishopric. This fact is broadly stated as soon as we meet with

the polemical development of the doctrine of apostolic

succession. Tertullian, in the text we have quoted from the book

_On Prescriptons_, where he accurately defines in what this

succession consists, namely, that the first bishop was appointed

and preceded by an apostle or an apostolic man, (_Apostolum ...

habuerit auctorem et antecessorem,_) says that in the Roman

Church Clement was ordained by Peter.

{381}

Tracing thus the succession in Rome from Peter, not from Paul,

whose death in the imperial city he mentions, he shows that he

knew Peter was the bishop of the see. St. Cyprian uses

unmistakable language on the same subject, and Eusebius asserts

positively that St. Peter was bishop of Rome. We might quote

other catalogues, but, though of great authority, they are of a

more recent date. But we shall give two more authorities which

can be connected with the period to which we have confined

ourselves. St. Jerome [Footnote 112] positively states that St.

Peter held the episcopal chair (_cathedram sacerdotalem_) of

Rome for twenty-five years. His historical knowledge and critical

acumen give to his words the authority of a statement based on

the very best records of the early age. No one can deny that in

the latter half of the fourth century there were such records at

Rome. St. Optatus of Millevi, in Africa, (A.D. 370,) in a

controversial work against the Donatists, speaks of St. Peter's

Roman bishopric as a matter of notoriety, which no one would dare

deny. "You ought to know," says he to the Donatist leader,

Parmenian, "and _you dare not deny_, that Peter established

at Rome an episcopal chair, which he was the first to occupy, in

order that through (communion with) this one chair all might

preserve unity." [Footnote 113]

[Footnote 112: In Catal.]

[Footnote 113: Contr. Parmenianum.]

A statement made so positively, so unhesitatingly, so boldly,

must have been founded on the very best historical evidence. And

the nineteenth century must accept the judgment of competent

writers of the fourth on such a subject. Unless, then, we wish to

deny all authority to authentic record of the early age of the

church, we must conclude, with the good leave of the lord bishop

of Ely, that there is excellent reason to believe that St. Peter

was bishop of Rome. Nor is there any force in the bishop's remark

that all the apostles had the world for their diocese, and were

not confined to any particular city. We do not, of course mean to

say that St. Peter confined his preaching to Rome. He was apostle

as well as head of the church. As apostle, he preached chiefly to

the Jews. As head of the church, he chose for his episcopal see

the capital of the world, in order that there might be no doubts

about the legitimate heir of his great dignity. For this reason

we find him in Rome among the Gentiles, though St. Paul had a

special mission to them. Dr. Browne says Peter was St. Paul's

_assistant_ at Rome; and this, in the face of the facts that

every writer, from Clement down, puts him before the great vessel

of election, and that St. Paul himself, as we shall see, speaks

of his ministry to the Romans as one merely of mutual

consolation, a tone he never adopted toward a church which he

himself had founded. We have purposely left to the last the

argument based on the alleged silence of the New Testament,

because we wished to clear an historical question of all purely

exegetical difficulties. We have established our thesis on

indubitable evidence; we might rest here and simply say that,

inasmuch as no one pretends that the New Testament contains the

entire history of the apostles, its silence cannot affect the

certainty of our proposition. This silence may puzzle the curious

reader; it may be variously interpreted, according to the

theological bent of the student; but it cannot disprove facts

which are proved by historical authority.

{382}

Bishop Browne feels the force of this, and does not insist much

on the silence of the New Testament. He merely remarks that this

silence is strange, if St. Peter's Roman bishopric be as

important as Roman divines make it out to be. Strictly speaking,

we might let this pass, as we are not now concerned in

establishing the supremacy of the Roman pontiffs, but merely

treating the historical question, Who was first bishop of Rome?

We may observe, however, that no believer in the doctrine of

apostolical succession can consistently urge this silence. How

does Dr. Browne trace _his_ succession in the office of

bishop from the apostles? Is it from St. Peter? Then he has to

meet the same objection about the silence of the New Testament on

what, from his point of view, is a vital matter. Is it from St.

Paul? But there is no scriptural evidence that St. Paul ever

ordained a bishop in Rome, or anywhere in the west. Is it from

any other apostle? The same remark holds good. No claim to

apostolical succession can be established for any see in the

western church unless on the evidence of tradition. This is

virtually admitted by Dr. Browne himself.

Since, however, the silence of the New Testament is commonly

urged as affording presumptive evidence that St. Peter never was

at Rome, we shall examine all that Protestants have to say on the

subject. The principal text--the only one having direct reference

to the subject--is I Peter v. 13: "The church which is in

Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you, and so doth

Mark, my son." Nearly all ancient writers, commencing with

Papias, say that this letter was written at Rome, which city St.

Peter designates under the name of Babylon. Our Protestant

opponents, of course, reject this interpretation. Now, we wish it

to be understood that we do not allege this text to prove that

St. Peter wrote from Rome. We admit that, taken in itself, apart

from tradition, it is obscure, and can afford, at best, ground

but for conjecture. But, having established beyond all doubt the

fact that St. Peter was at Rome, we follow the interpretation of

the respectable ancient writers whom we have quoted. When the

letter was written, old Babylon of Assyria was in ruins,

according to Strabo and Pliny; and the Jews, to whom St. Peter

wrote, had been banished from Assyria, according to Josephus;

and, though Seleucia was afterward called Babylon, it had not

received the name at this early period. Some think that the

Babylon referred to was in Egypt, the place now called Cairo. But

it was then but a fort, or fortified village, (_castellum_,)

and the Christian church of Egypt has always looked on Alexandria

as its birthplace. St. Peter, moreover, warns the Christians of

the approaching persecution, and exhorts them to be subject to

the emperor and his subordinates. These allusions come very

naturally from the pen of one writing at Rome, but are almost

unintelligible if we suppose the writer in Babylon of Assyria,

out of the Roman empire. The opinion that the letter was written

at Rome, called Babylon by St. Peter for some reason which we can

only conjecture, is based on excellent ancient authority, agrees

with well-known facts of history, and with the internal evidence

of the letter itself. Leaving aside its bearings on the main

question we are discussing, it is by far the most probable view,

and, in any other case, would be accepted without difficulty.

[Footnote 114]

[Footnote 114: Occasionally the love of novelty induces some

Catholic writer to differ from his brethren. This is the case

with Hug, who holds that we cannot admit mystical names in

the letters of the apostles, as there is no instance of their

use, save in this disputed case. This is criticism based on

internal evidence run mad. One would suppose that there was a

perfect course of sacred epistolary literature in the New

Testament, based on fixed rules, instead of a few detached

letters, written by different authors at different times,

without any communication or agreement with one another about

literary style. There is nothing more fallacious than the

interpretation of any of the letters of the apostles on mere

internal evidence. Hug's remark at most shows that internal

evidence does not afford any proof that St. Peter meant Rome,

which no one will deny.]

{383}

Protestants, moreover, commonly allege the absence of any mention

of St. Peter's voyage to Rome in the Acts of the Apostles, and

the absence of any reference to him, either in St. Paul's Epistle

to the Romans or in those he wrote from Rome. The silence of the

Acts is easily explained. After the council of Jerusalem, the

writer relates only the missionary labors of St. Paul, so that we

could not expect any mention of St. Peter's voyages. Dr. Browne

infers from Acts xxviii. 22, that "the Jews of Rome had had no

communication with any chief teacher among the Christians." This

inference is not borne out by the text, "We desire to hear from

thee what thou thinkest; or as concerning this sect, we know that

it is everywhere opposed." The obvious meaning is that the Jews

of Rome knowing that Paul was a Pharisee learned in the law,

wished to hear what he had to say in favor of the new religion.

They must have looked on St. Peter as a Galilean fisherman, who

had no right to attempt to expound the law and the prophets. It

is puerile for Dr. Browne to allege that they should have heard

him with respect because he was the apostle of the circumcision;

for, of what importance could this title be in their eyes, if

they did not believe in Him who sent the apostles?

If St. Peter went to Rome in the reign of Claudius, he certainly

was afterward absent from the city, as we find him after this

period at the council of Jerusalem. His absence from Rome

accounts for the fact that St. Paul does not salute him in his

Epistle to the Romans, a straw at which some Protestant writers

clutch with great avidity. The great respect with which St. Paul

speaks of the Roman Church, whose faith, he says, was spoken of

in the whole world, agrees with the supposition that St. Peter

had already preached there. On these words, [Footnote 115] "For I

long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift,

that ye may be strengthened; that is, I may be comforted together

with you, by that which is common to us both, your faith and

mine." Theodoret remarks as follows: "Because the great Peter had

first given them the doctrine of the gospel, he said merely,'that

ye may be strengthened.' I do not wish, he says, to bring a new

doctrine to you, but to confirm that which you have received, and

to water the trees which have already been planted." [Footnote

116]

[Footnote 115: Ch. i. 11, 12.]

[Footnote 116: In locum.]

The words certainly indicate that the faith had already been

firmly established by some teacher of high rank, and are a very

apposite commentary on Dr. Browne's reason why the Jews, some

years afterward, were anxious to hear St. Paul. We cannot really

understand what hallucination led him to quote these words to

show that St. Paul writes much as "if no apostle had ever been

amongst the Romans." But we admire his prudence in giving purely

a reference, not the words of the text. His other reference to

Rom. xv. 15-24 is even more unlucky. St. Paul therein says

plainly that he generally preached, "not where Christ was named,"

lest he should build on another man's foundation.

{384}

"_For which cause_," he adds, "I have been much hindered

from coming to you." Therefore some other apostle _had_

preached to the Romans. He even goes on to say that he hoped to

be gratified in his desire of seeing them, _when on his way to

Spain_, so that it is plain that he, though apostle of the

Gentiles, considered there was no necessity for his making a

journey to Rome on purpose to instruct the Roman Church. St.

Paul, then, writes very much as if an apostle _had_ been

with the Romans. Whatever else Dr. Browne does, he ought to quote

Scripture fairly. St. Paul's allusions, obscure though they may

be to us, were, of course, clear to those to whom they were

written. No familiar letter can be fully understood without

taking into account the facts which, being well known to those to

whom he writes, the author merely alludes to in a passing way.

The letters which St. Paul wrote from Rome were all written

during his first stay there, with the probable exception of the

second to Timothy. Colossians iv. II, and 2 Timothy iv. 16, are

quoted to show that St. Peter was not at Rome, else he would have

stood by St. Paul. But the epistle to the Colossians was written

during St. Paul's first imprisonment, when St. Peter, as we have

seen, must have been absent, and in the second to Timothy he

speaks expressly of his "first defence." Most writers think he

refers to his first imprisonment. Others suppose him to speak of

a preliminary hearing before Nero, during his second

imprisonment. Admitting this interpretation, he cannot include

St. Peter, who was his fellow-prisoner, in the list of those who

had forsaken him. The words apply to persons at large, who had

influence with the authorities, which they did not use.

We have thus fully examined all that Protestants allege

concerning the silence of the New Testament. The candid reader

will see that there is nothing in the sacred pages to contradict

the historical facts we have established; the allusions of St.

Paul to the instruction of the Romans in the faith by a teacher

of high rank, and the interpretation of the word _Babylon_

in St. Peter's first letter, which has come down to us from the

apostolic age, must be counted in their favor.

It is on historical evidence that the case must rest; and on it,

as we have rehearsed it, we are satisfied to submit it to

unprejudiced criticism. The testimony of the apostolic age, and

the two immediately following, is conclusive; it cannot be

explained away; much less can it be impeached. We must give up

all belief in well-authenticated history, or else admit that St.

Peter went to Rome, founded the church there, and was its first

bishop, and there died a martyr of Christ.

"O Roma felix, quae duorum principum

Es consecrata glorioso sanguine

Horum cruore purpurata ceteras

Excellis orbis una pulchritudines."

"O happy Rome! whom the great Apostles' blood

For ever consecrates while ages flow:

Thou, thus empurpled, art more beautiful

Than all that doth appear most beautiful below."

Note By The Editor On The Chronology Of St. Peter's Life.

Eusebius says that St. Peter established his see at Antioch in

the last year of Tiberius, who died March fifteenth, A.D. 37. It

was probably, therefore, in the year 36; and St. Ignatius, the

second successor of St. Peter in that see; St. John Chrysostom,

who had been a priest there; Origen and St. Jerome, as well as

Eusebius, state that he governed that church seven years; which

probably means, not that his episcopate was just of that length,

but, that seven calendar years were included (the first and the

last partially) in it.

{385}

At any rate, this would make the establishment of his see in Rome

in A.D. 42 or 43; and the day celebrated by the church is January

18th. Now, Eusebius, St. Jerome, Cassiodorus, and others say that

SS. Peter and Paul were put to death in the fourteenth year of

Nero, that is, in A.D. 67; and their martyrdom is celebrated on

June 29th. This gives twenty-four and a half or twenty-five and a

half years for St. Peter's Roman episcopate, or twenty-five years

in the sense that the Antiochan was seven, if he came to Rome in

43; in which case he may even have established his see at Antioch

in 37.

St. John Chrysostom says that St. Paul's life after his

conversion was thirty-five years; which would make that event to

have occurred in A.D. 32 or 33. He himself says (Gal. i.) that

three years afterward he went to Jerusalem, and thence to Tarsus,

as is also stated in Acts ix. From this place he was called to

preach to the church at Antioch, as mentioned in Acts xi.; and

this visit, which could not have much preceded the establishment

of St. Peter's see there, may well have been in A.D. 35 or 36,

agreeing with the chronology given above.

These dates do not agree with that commonly assigned for the

crucifixion; but numerous evidences show that this occurred in

the year 29. As late a date as A.D. 31 might, however, be

allowed.

----------

A Ruined Life.

It was the saddest, saddest face I ever saw.

She stood before the stove in my front office, on that dark

December day, and the steam from her wet, heated garments almost

concealed her from my sight. Yet the first glimpse I caught of

her, through the partition door, excited my interest to an

unusual degree; and, though I saw her not again for a half hour,

that one glance fixed her features in my memory as indelibly as

they are printed there to-day.

It was term time, and the second return-day of the term. For ten

days my eyes and brain had both been crowded with all that varied

detail of business which sessions aggregate upon the hands and

conscience of a rising lawyer; and the musty retinue of

_assumpsit, ejectment_, and _scire-facias_ had nearly

vexed and worn out the little life I had at the beginning. But

the criminal week, which was my peculiar sphere, was close at

hand, and I looked to its exciting, riskful cases as a relief

from the dull, dreary current of civil forms and practice.

The little room I dignified with the name of "_front

office_" was filled, as far as seats went, with rough

backwoodsmen, witnesses on behalf of a gentleman who occupied

with me the snugly carpeted "_sanctum_" in the rear. While

we discussed together the points of strength or weakness to be

tested at the impending trial, the voices of the rude laborers

reached us brokenly, and more than once words fell upon my ear

which made me tremble for the sensibilities of the lonely woman

who was with them.

{386}

They meant no harm, those bluff, hearty men. A tear from her

drooping eyes would have unmanned them. But they were not

well-bred, nor tender to the weakness of the other sex. My poor

client, as she afterward became, stood while they sat, kept

silence while they laughed and jeered each other. It was not

their fault that they never minded her. They were not hypocrites,

that's all.

At length I had the happiness to see the door close on the last

of them, and, after arranging the maps and diagrams which would

be needed on the morrow, I called to the stranger to come in. She

obeyed, hesitatingly, and then, for the first time, I saw that

she belonged to that most forlorn and pitiable of all the many

classes who throng around our mining districts, the recent Irish

emigrant. The very clothes she wore were the same with which she

dressed herself in the green isle far away, and her voice and

manner had not yet caught that flippancy and pertness which pass

among the longer landed for tokens of American independence and

equality. She was certainly very poor, or the rough, wintry winds

would not have been permitted to toss her long, black hair in

tangled masses around her shoulders, or drop their melting

snowflakes on her uncovered head. My chivalric interest died

without time to groan, and whatever thought of profit or romance

in assisting her I might have had, at the first sight of her,

perished at the same instant. But I saw poverty and sorrow, and I

determined in my heart, before she told her errand, that my life

of legal labor should embrace at least one act done thoroughly

and for nothing.

Her story was a short one. Her husband and herself had lived in a

neighboring village. Others of their own people dwelt around

them, and among these was an old woman and her son. No

difficulty, that she knew of, had ever risen between her family

and theirs. But, a few days before, as her husband was gathering

fuel by the roadside, these two had rushed out on him, and in

cold blood murdered him. The son had fled, and the murderer's

mother, with barred doors and windows, forbade the vicinage of

friend or foe. The broken-hearted wife, urged on to take such

vengeance as the law afforded, had come to me and asked my

counsel and assistance.

It was of little use to question her. Like most of her peculiar

class, her mind could entertain but one idea, and that, in some

form or other, recurred in answer to every inquiry I could make.

Satisfying myself, however, that a murder had really been

committed, and taking down such names and dates as were necessary

for the initial steps of prosecution, I sent her home, with the

assurance that justice should be done her, and her dead husband's

ghost avenged.

The warrant was issued, the arrest made, the indictment found,

the trial finished. There was no doubt of guilt. The murder was

committed in the broad light of day, and many eyes had seen it.

The counsel for the defence had felt the untenability of his

position before a tithe of the evidence was in, and slipped down

from innocence to justifiability, until his last hope for the

prisoner was in the allegation of insanity, late suggested and

faintly urged. It was useless. The twelve inexorable men brought

in their verdict of "wilful murder," and Bridget Davanagh was

sentenced to be hanged by the neck till she was dead.

{387}

It has never been my custom to follow cases, on which the solemn

judgment of the law has been pronounced, beyond those immediate

consequences of that judgment which the connection between a

lawyer and his client has compelled me to superintend. But there

was something in this case which both attracted and disquieted

me, and one day in vacation I found myself at the grated

prison-door, seeking admission to the cell of the condemned. The

old woman received me quietly. She seemed to have forgotten me,

or, at least, how active a part I had taken in the proceedings

which had ended in dooming her to a shameful death. She was

taciturn and moody; and, the longer I remained, the more

satisfied I became that her mind was now unsettled, if it had not

been before. I went several times after that, and gradually, by

kind words and the gift of such simple comforts as aged matrons

most desire, I won her confidence so far that, in her faltering,

disconnected way, she told me all that sad history of woe and

wrong and suffering which had brought an untimely grave to

Michael Herican, and a felon's fate to her. It was one of those

tales of falsity and sorrow which we cannot hear too often, and

whose moral none of us can learn too well.

The little village of Easky, in the County Sligo, was, when this

present century was young, one of those lonesome, scanty-peopled

hamlets whose very loneliness and isolation render them more dear

and homelike to their few inhabitants. The waters of the Northern

Ocean foamed about the rocks where its fisher-boats were moored.

The feet of its rambling children trod the rough paths and

crumpled the grey masses of the wild Slieve-Gamph hills. Thus

hemmed in between the mountains and the sea, it was almost

separated from the world. The white sails that now and then

flitted across the far horizon, and the slow, lazy car that twice

a month brought over his majesty's mail-bags from Dromore, were

all that Easky ever had to tell it that there were nations and

kingdoms on the earth, or that its own precipices on the one

side, and its weed-strewn rocks upon the other, did not embrace

the whole of human joys and sorrows.

In this solitary village the forefathers of Patrick Carrol had

dwelt for immemorial years. So far back as tradition went they

had been fishermen, and the last remaining scion now followed the

ancestral calling. He was a sort of hero among his

fellow-villagers. True, he was as poor as the poorest of them

all, and had no personal boast save of his vigorous arms and

honest heart. But his father, contrary to the custom of his race,

had refused to lay his bones within an ocean bed, and had died

fighting in the bloody streets of Killala. All victims of '98

were canonized by those rude freemen, and the mantle of honor

fell from the father upon the children, and gave to Patrick

Carrol a deserved and well-maintained pre-eminence. And so, when

Bridget Deery became his wife, the whole hamlet agreed that the

village favorite had found her proper husband, and, when the

little Mary saw the light, the christening holiday was kept by

every neighbor, old or young.

Four years of perfect happiness flew by. Death or misfortune came

to other families, but not to theirs. The little hoarded wealth,

hid away in the dark corner, grew yearly greater. Health and

affection dwelt unremittingly upon the hearthstone, and the

hearts of the father and mother were as full of gratitude as the

heart of the child was of merriment and glee. But the four years

had an end, and carried with them, into the trackless past, the

sunshine of their lives.

{388}

One long, long summer day the wife sat among the rocks, watching

for her husband's boat, and playing with the prattler at her

side. The boat came not. The sun went down. The gathering clouds

in the offing loomed up threateningly. The hoarse northwesters

felt their way across the waters, and whistled in her ears, as

she clasped the child to her bosom and hurried home out of the

storm. As the gale strengthened with the darkness, she fell upon

her knees, and all that wakeful night besought the Mother and the

saints to keep her baby's father from the awful danger. In vain;

for when the morning dawned, the waves washed up his oars and

helm upon the beach, and an hour later his drowned corse was

found beneath the broken crags of Anghris Head.

For the first few years after that fatal shock the widowed mother

lived she knew not how. One by one the treasured silver pieces

went, till destitution stared her in the face. The charity of her

neighbors outdid their means, but even that could not keep her

from actual suffering, and work for the lone woman there was

absolutely none. What wonder was it, then, that, when the flowers

had bloomed three times above the peaceful bed of Patrick Carrol,

his widow, more for her child's sake than her own, consented to

violate the sanctity of her broken heart, and become the wife of

Bernard Davanagh?

Bernard was a bold, reckless, wilful man, and both the mother and

the child soon felt the difference between the dead father and

the living. As time passed on, and the boy Bernard was born, the

passions of the man grew stronger, and cruel words, and still

more cruel blows, became the daily portion of the helpless three.

Oh! how often did the widow yearn to lie down with her children

by her dead husband's side, in the drear churchyard, and be at

peace for ever. But not _without_ them. No, not even to be

united with the lost, could she have left them, and so they clung

together, closer and closer, as the years rolled on--knowing

little of life except its dark page of sorrow.

There never yet was a life without some ray of joy, and, even in

the midnight darkness which hung around the childhood of Mary

Carrol, there were faint gleams of happiness. Next door but one

to their poor cot lived James Herican. He too was a fisherman,

and, in better days, had been Patrick Carrol's most intimate and

faithful friend. He had remained such to the widow and the

fatherless, and, but for him, the family of Bernard Davanagh also

might sometimes have perished from want and cold. He was the

father of one child, the boy Michael, older by two years than

Mary, and doubly endeared to his heart by the mother's early

death. The gossips of Easky had wondered, in their simple way,

why James Herican and Bridget Carrol did not marry, but the

memory of his dead wife and his dead friend forbade the one ever

to entertain the thought, and the poor widow was as far from

wishing it as he. They were happier as they were; he, by his

kindness and true Christian charity, laying up heavenly

treasures, which, as the second husband of a second wife, he

never could accumulate; she, keeping ever fresh and pure the one

love of her maiden's heart, the one hope of reunion in the skies.

What, and how different, the end had been, if they had married,

the eye of the Eternal can alone discern.

{389}

The friendship of these parents descended to the children. In all

their sports, their rambles, their labors, (for in that toiling

hamlet even tender childhood labored,) Michael Herican and Mary

Carrol were together. When her half-brother, eight years younger

than herself, grew into boyhood, Michael was his champion against

the impositions of larger boys, and taught him all those arts of

wood and water craft which village youth so ardently aspire to,

and so aptly learn. It could not happen otherwise than that these

constantly recurring kindnesses should beget firm and fast

affection, and knit together these young hearts in bonds

difficult, if not impossible, to sunder.

It may have been the law of nature, it may have been the

chastening of God, that Michael Herican and Mary Carrol should

come, in later years, to love each other. It was simply fitting,

to all human sight, that it should be so; and it was so. The

father and the mother thanked God for it, day by day, and

bestowed upon them such tokens of encouragement as the bashful

lovers could comfortably receive. The boy Bernard, when he heard

of it, (and there could be no secrets in Easky,) threw up his cap

for joy, and the old village crones for once smiled on the

prospects of a happiness they had never known. Only Davanagh

appeared displeased, but his abuse of the poor girl had been so

extreme for years that it could scarcely suffer any increase, and

all the influence he exerted over her or them was by his ruthless

fist and cursing tongue. This at last ceased; for ears less

patient than her own received his stinging insults, and a blow,

quicker than his drunken arm could parry, stretched him upon the

ground to rise no more.

Mary Carrol reached her twentieth birthday. She was a frail,

delicate girl, below the middle height, and with that beautiful

but strange union of large blue eyes and pearly complexion with

jet black hair and lashes which tells at once of the pure Irish

blood. We should not have called her handsome; perhaps no one

would, except those who loved her, and in whose sight no

disfigurement or disease could have made her homely. But she was

one of those superior natures which solitude and suffering must

unite with Christian culture to produce; and the whole

neighborhood, for this, and not for her beauty, claimed her as

its favorite and charm. Michael had grown to be a stalwart man,

half a head taller than his sire, and his fellows said that none

among them promised better for diligence and success than he. His

devotion to Mary Carrol knew no bounds, and she, in turn,

cherished scarcely a thought apart from him. Her mother had

rapidly grown old and broken. Grief, and that yearning for the

dead which is stronger than any sorrow, had made her an aged

woman long before her time, and the fond daughter, between her

and the one hope of her young life, had no third wish or joy. Her

only trouble was for her brother. The wild elements of his

father's nature became more apparent in him every day, and,

though he loved his mother and half-sister with an almost inhuman

passionateness, they frequently found it impossible to restrain

his turbulent and curbless will. The stern control of a seafaring

life seemed to be their only chance of saving him, and so, at

little more than twelve years old, he was torn away from home and

friends and sent out on a coasting merchantman to be subdued.

This parting nearly broke his mothers's heart, but her discipline

of suffering had been borne too long and patiently for her to

rebel now. It was only another drop to her full cup of

bitterness, when, a few months later, news came, by word of mouth

from a sailor in Dromore, that the merchantman had foundered in

the stormy Irish Sea.

{390}

It would be beyond the power of human pen to describe how these

lone women now clung to Michael Herican. His father went down to

the grave in peace, and he had none but them, as they had none

but him. Already the one looked on him as a husband and the other

as a son. When a few more successful voyages were over, and when

the humble necessaries, which even an Easky maid could not become

a wife without providing, were completed, the benediction of the

church was to fulfil the promise of their hearts, and give them

irrevocably to each other in the sight of God and man.

It was an ill-starred day for Michael Herican and the Carrols

when the Widow Moran and her daughter came to live in Easky.

Pierre Moran, deceased, had been a small shopkeeper in Sligo,

where he had amassed a little competence, and, now that he was

dead, his widow returned to her native village to pass her

remaining life among her former neighbors. There were few among

them who had not known more or less about the reckless girl who

ran away with the half-French half-Irish shopman, twenty years

ago, and her name and memory was none of the best among those

virtuous villagers. But she cared less for this because she had

enough of filthy lucre to command exterior respect, and it was

better, so she thought, to be highest among the lowly than to be

low among the high. In coming to Easky she had had two ends in

view: to queen it over her former associates, and to secure a

steady and good husband for her daughter. Kitty Moran was like

her mother, but without her mother's faults. She was a girl of

dash and spirit, and with a pride as quick and a nature as

impressible as her mother was emotionless. She was a thorough

brunette, with a brunette's violence and passion, with a

brunette's power to love and power to hate. In actual beauty no

maiden of the neighborhood could vie with her, and she had just

enough of city polish and refinement to give her an appearance of

superiority to those around her. Between her and Mary Carrol the

angels would not have hesitated in choosing--unless, indeed, they

were those ancient sons of God who took wives from among the

daughters of men because they saw that they were fair, and then,

like men, they would have chosen wrongly.

It was not many days before the Widow Moran heard of Michael

Herican, or many weeks before she had decided that he should be

the husband of her child. True, she knew of his betrothal, for

his name was rarely spoken unconnected with the name of Mary

Carrol, but this made no difference. The pale-faced step-daughter

of the drunken Davanagh was of no consequence to her, and to the

right or wrong of her designs she never gave a thought. Whatever

she wished, she determined to have. Whatever she determined to

have, she set herself industriously to secure. So when she

marketed, it was Michael's boat from which she purchased. When

there was a message to send to Sligo, or packages from thence to

be brought home to her, it was Michael's boat that carried it.

When she had work to be done around her cottage, it waited until

Michael had an idle day, and then he was hired to do it. Well

skilled, as every woman is, in arts like these, she used her

knowledge and her chances all too well.

{391}

It is but just to say that Kitty Moran had no share in her

mother's wicked plans. She was young and gay. Michael Herican was

the finest young man in the village. It was not disagreeable to

her to watch him and to talk with him, as he worked by her

directions in the little garden, or to sit beside him at their

noontide meal. Unconsciously, she grew to miss him when he was

away at sea, to have a welcome for him in her heart when he came

home, to look for him with impatience when she knew that his

vocation brought him back to her. Before she was aware of it, she

loved him; and when she realized her love, she threw herself into

it, as her one absorbing passion, without a dream of its results

or a suspicion of her error. She would not, for an empire, have

deliberately wronged the patient girl whom, by the stern law of

contraries, she had already learned to cherish, but to her love

there was no limit, no moderation. She could not help loving

Michael Herican, and no more could she mete out or restrain her

love. So, when it mastered her, it _was_ her master, and her

reason and her conscience were whirled away before the rushing

tide of passion like bubbles on the bosom of a cataract.

How Michael Herican came to love this new maiden not even he

himself could tell. Rochefoucault says, "It is in man's power

neither to love nor to refrain from loving." And false as this

may be as a general law of life, there are cases in which it

appears almost divinely true. It was so in his. He simply could

not help it. When he compared the calm, deep, tried affection of

the heart that had been his for years with the tumultuous

outburst of this impetuous soul, his judgment taught him there

ought to be no such comparison between them. He never had one

doubt as to his duty. He fought nobly and manfully against the

spell that seemed to be upon him. He would gladly have left

Easky, and have stretched his voyages beyond the northern seas;

but he could not leave Mary and her mother there alone. He

thought of hastening his marriage, thereby to put an end to all

possibility of faithlessness, (and this is what he should have

done,) but he had no reason for it that he dared to give. It was

a fearful trial for him, and would have bred despair in stronger

hearts than his, if such there be. He became lax and careless in

his business, harsh and moody in his intercourse with others. A

few tattling croakers, here and there, wiser than the rest, laid

the evil at the Widow Moran's door; but they could give no proof

when asked for it, and the frowns and chidings of the

neighborhood soon put them down.

In this way things went on for months. The day drew near when the

wedding-feast should usher in a new life to the waiting pair. It

was a drawing near of doom to him. The enchantment had not

weakened by indulgence. The siren's song was as soft and

seductive as when its first notes took possession of his soul.

Feeling as he did toward Kathleen Moran, he would not marry Mary

Carrol, although from his heart of hearts he could have sworn

that his love for her had known no change or diminution. Nor did

he dare to tell her that the fascinations of the stranger had

enchained him; for he knew that he was all she had, and all she

loved. But it could not go on thus always, and he knew it.

Something must be done. Had it been the mere sacrifice of

himself, he would not have hesitated for a moment. As little did

he hesitate between marrying where he did not love supremely, and

not marrying at all.

{392}

He had a conscience, and when his conscience decided between

these, and told him that he must not marry Mary Carrol, it

compelled him also to go to her and in plain words tell her so.

It almost killed her. The shock was so great, at the moment,

mightily though she strove to command herself, that her life was

in immediate danger. After a while she rallied again, a very

ghost to what she had been, though little else before. Her mother

bore the blow less calmly. She could not understand the

powerlessness of the one to save himself, or the self-sacrifice

of the other, which gave up her life's last greatest hope without

a murmur. She felt the disappointment keenly, but the injury

more. Dispositions, that through all her sorrows had never been

apparent in her character, began to show themselves. She grew

stem and vengeful in place of her old meekness and submission,

and brooded over their cruel wrong until it became a second

nature with her to impute to Michael Herican all her troubles,

and curse him in her heart as the destroyer of her child.

Of course all Easky soon knew the grief that had come to Bridget

Davanagh's household; and, not unnaturally, most of them sided

with her in her condemnation of Michael Herican. They could not

understand, they would not have believed, that he was under the

dominion of a passion which he could neither escape nor resist.

To them there was no fascination in the Widow Moran's daughter,

and they loved the mother too little for them to suppose that any

one could love the child. It was a hard lot for her, poor girl,

to hear their cutting censures passed upon her as the cause of

Mary Carrol's sufferings; for the people of that uncultivated

neighborhood did not care to conceal their bitterness beneath

soft-spoken words, and did not hesitate to tell her to her face

all that they felt concerning her. Nor spared they Michael

Herican. Old men and young greeted him now with looks askance and

cold, instead of the warm welcomes which every hearth had had for

him a month before. And every woman in Easky, except the few old

crones who grudgingly had wished him well when all was well with

him, went by him on the other side, and prayed the saints to

deliver their young maidens from such faithless lovers as he.

Intolerable as all this was to him, and unjust as it would have

been, even in their sight who did it, could they have known how

he had fought against his destiny, it still had its inevitable

effect upon him. As there was but one house in Easky where he met

a cordial greeting, that house became his continual resort. As

there was but one heart into which he could look and find

responsive love, he sought his consolation in that heart alone.

To Mary Carrol he would gladly have continued to be a friend and

brother, but her mother would not suffer him to come inside the

doors, and if the broken-hearted maiden could have received his

kindnesses, they would have been to her a mockery worse than

death. Thus Kathleen Moran's was sometimes the only voice he

heard for days, her smile the only smile ever bestowed upon him,

and she became, in time, as necessary to his existence as Eve to

Adam. They were almost always together. He made longer voyages,

and took longer rests; and, when on shore, rarely left the roof

under which she dwelt. But he had no definite aim and purpose for

which to earn, or to lay up his earnings. He never trusted

himself to plan for, or look upon the future.

{393}

He never yet had dreamed of marrying Kitty Moran. The light had

fallen out of his life as effectually as out of Mary Carrol's;

and it would have seemed to him as bootless to have heaped

together money as it would to her to have finished and arranged

her bridal gear.

A year like this told terribly upon him. The indignation of the

villagers did not abate with time, and more and more did Michael

Herican become an outlaw. It was strange that an event which, in

the swift whirl of our metropolitan career, we meet almost every

day, should have made such an impression on the minds of sturdy

men and women. But it was the first time, in the memory of man,

that an Easky lover had proved faithless to an Easky maid, and

these rude hearts were as honest in their hate as in their love.

He bore it as long as he could, but he was only human; and when

the Widow Moran, herself made most uncomfortable by the active

hostility of her neighbors, determined to return to Sligo, he was

only too willing to go with her. He sold the little cottage where

his forefathers had lived and died for many generations, and bade

farewell for ever to the home where he had known so many years of

happiness, such months of weary suffering.

If Mary Carrol suffered less in conscience and in self-respect

than Michael Herican, her suffering made far more fearful havoc

with her bodily and mental health. The privations of her

childhood had sown the seeds of premature decay; and, at her best

and strongest, she was frail and weakly. The shock she had

sustained when her life's hopes were shattered had partially

unsettled her mind, and physical disease, now slowly developing,

sank her into hopeless imbecility. She was not violent or

peevish. She never needed any restraint, and, usually, but little

care. She would sit all day in the sunlight, listening to the

roaring of the sea, her hands folded in her lap, and her great

blue eyes gazing out vacantly into the sky. She knew enough to

keep herself from danger, and, at long intervals would go alone

into the narrow street, and wander up and down, groping her way

like a blind person, yet taking no notice of anything that passed

around her. It was a sad sight, indeed, for any eyes to see, but,

far more so to those who knew her history, and could repeat the

story of the cruel wound she bore. There was not among them a

heart that did not bleed for her, and scarce a hand that could

not have been nerved to vengeance, if the blood of her destroyer

could have put away her doom.

The old woman--God knows how old in sorrows!--became more firm

and resolute as her daughter grew more helpless. She never

wearied in doing all that a mother's heart could prompt, but it

was gall and bitterness to her that Mary suffered so

uncomplainingly. If she could once have heard her say one hateful

word of Michael Herican, it would have satisfied her, but she

never did. She learned that Michael had left his home, and had

gone with the Morans, and she felt as if she were robbed of her

prey. Not that she ever purposed ill to him, but she did wish it,

and the scoffs and denunciations of his neighbors seemed to her

so many weapons in her hands against him. Alas! for her that this

should be the lot of Patrick Carrol's bride.

{394}

It might have been a half year since the widow and her victim

left Easky, and the midsummer days had come. Mary Carrol had been

so long an invalid, and, in her many wanderings, had been so

singularly free from harm, that her absence from the cottage

caused her mother no surprise or fear. The village children, as

they met her rambling in the fields, would sometimes lead her

home, and the seaward-going fishermen would often watch her

footsteps on the beach with fond solicitude; but they became

accustomed to it by and by, and let her have her way.

One cloudless day in July she had strayed out at early dawn while

the dew was scarcely dry, and wandered off along the shore,

beyond the furthest cottage. The matron of that house, as she

went by, sent out her little boy to see that she came to no

danger, but in a moment he returned to say that she was sitting

on a broken rock out of the water's reach, and so for the time

she was forgotten. The day wore on, and Bridget Davanagh grew

lonely in her desolate home. A dread of coming evil fell upon

her, and, though her cup already so ran over that she could

hardly realize the possibility of further misfortune, she could

not shake off the new shadow. Restless and uneasy, she started

out to seek her child. She hurried past the village eastwardly

along the sands. She peered into every crevice of the rocky coast

that was large enough to hide a sea-gull's nest, and hunted

behind every fallen fragment that might conceal the object of her

quest. Slowly, for it was severest toil to her aged feet, she

groped over one mile after another, until the lofty cap of

Anghris Head rose up before her. She had never been so near it

since that fearful day, long years ago, when she came out to see

the mangled body of her young husband lying underneath its stormy

crags. And now there came over her an impulse to go there once

again; again to visit the place where the waves cast him in their

murderous wrath; the place whither she event last to meet him

when he last came home to her. So she climbed over the huge

boulders, one by one, in the declining sunlight, till she stood

directly underneath that ragged spire which Anghris lifts aloft

above the waves, and there she saw the spot where her beloved had

lain in his sad hour of death. There, too, she found her

daughter, lying on the same rocky couch where her father lay

before her, one arm beneath her head, her face turned up to

heaven in the unbreaking slumber of the dead.

This same midsummer's day brought news, from Sligo to Easky, that

Michael Herican had married Kitty Moran, and that the widow's

heartless schemes had been accomplished.

The house of Bridget Davanagh was now desolate indeed. Her son

lost for ever in the unknown waters. Her daughter sleeping in the

village churchyard, bearing the burden of her cross no more.

There was no cheer for her in the well-meant gossip of her

neighbors. There was no comfort for her in the promise of a land,

beyond this mortal, of perpetual rest. If her religious instincts

and principles were still alive, they remained dumb and dormant.

She could not read. She loved not company. Her few personal

necessities rendered much bodily toil superfluous, and, when her

work was done, she had no other occupation than to sit down and

brood over her sorrows. The range of her thought was narrow. She

had no future to look forward to. Her eyes were only on the past,

and the past held for her but two figures--her murdered Mary and

her Mary's murderer. It was in vain that the good parish priest

sought to divert her mind and lead her to better things; for,

though she said but little and that quietly, he could see, like

all who now came intimately near her, that her faculties were

clouded and her control over her will and imagination almost

totally destroyed.

{395}

How long she might have lived thus without becoming fully crazed

was, fortunately, never tested. A letter came to her one evening,

bearing a foreign post-mark, and dotted over with the many

colored stamps which tell of journeys upon sea and land. It was

the first letter she had ever received. No relative or friend, no

acquaintance except Michael Herican, has she out of Easky, and

she was sorely puzzled, as she broke the seal and turned the

pages up and down and sideways, in the useless attempt to tell

from whence it came. She called in a passing school-child to

decipher it, and, as he blundered through its weary lines, she

sat with her face buried in her hands, rocking her body

ceaselessly to and fro. He reached the end and read the signature

of "Bernard Davanagh." The widow's boy still lived. She lifted

her worn face out of her hands and the tears chased each other

down her cheeks. They eased her throbbing brain, and she bade the

child go over it again, for of its first reading she had scarcely

heard a word except the name. And now she learned that he was in

America. He had been left sick on shore, at the last voyage of

his ill-fated vessel, and escaped alive. Since then he had been

tossed on every sea which bears a name, till, tired of the toil

and danger, he had settled in the far-off mining regions of the

western continent. He now sent for her and Mary to come out to

him, enclosing money and passage certificates for each, and

saying that in two month's time he hoped to have them both with

him in his new home. It was a long time before the old woman

could comprehend the message; but, when she once really

understood that Bernard was alive, she would have started on the

instant to reach her boy. Her idea of the distance was, that

America lay somewhere out beyond Dromore, as far, perhaps, as

that was from Easky, and it was with difficulty that the

neighbors, who came flocking in when the news went flitting up

and down the street, could control her. Those who stayed with her

through the night, and those who went back homeward, had settled

it, however, before morning dawned, that, though the journey

might be fearful and the chances few, it was better she should go

and perish by the way, than stay at home to grieve, and craze,

and die.

There was not much preparation. Her cottage sold, her furniture

distributed among her friends, the other passage-paper given to a

woman in Dromore, who eagerly grasped the chance of going out to

seek her husband, and Bridget Davanagh left Easky and its graves

for ever. The emigrant best knows the weariness and hardship of a

steerage passage in a crowded ship, and this old and worn-out

woman endured them as a thousand others, old and feeble, have

done since then and before. But the long voyage had an end some

time, and, in a day after the ship was moored at New York

wharves, the mother had found her son. He had a cabin built and

furnished, deep in the wild gorge of a mountain, out of whose

sides the glittering anthracite was torn by hundreds of tons a

day; and here he took her to live and care for him. Not a face

around her that she ever saw before; the dialect of their

language so differing from her own that she could only here and

there make out a word; Bernard himself grown up into a tall,

stout, burly man, black with dust and reeking with soot and oil,

she longed almost fiercely for her home by the green sea, and

wished herself back again a score of times a day.

{396}

When her homesickness wore off, as it slowly did, and she formed

new acquaintances, and grew familiar with the scenes around her;

above all, when she began to realize the comforts which the new

world gave beyond the old--she became reconciled to her strange

life, and seemed almost herself again. Only when, now and then,

her spite and hatred to the name of Herican broke out again did

her mind reel with its fury; otherwise, she was more like Bridget

Davanagh in her early days of second widowhood than she had been

for years.

Meanwhile, of Michael Herican. He had married Kitty Moran, as the

Easky story said. It was, on his part, an act of sheer despair.

Not that he did not love her. His passion had grown stronger and

more absorbing every hour, and she well returned it. But it was

no calm conclusion of his judgment that led him to unite his life

with hers. It was more like the suicide of a felon who sees his

fate before him, but would rather die by his own free act,

to-day, than anticipate inevitable death to-morrow. When the

Widow Moran "went to her own place," her fortune fell to them. He

opened a little store, and, for a while, life, cheered by

business, seemed more bearable; but misfortune followed him and,

by one loss and another, both his credit and his stock were

sacrificed. Honest to the last farthing, he stripped himself of

everything to pay his debts, and turned himself and his young

wife, to whom privation had ever been a stranger, into the

streets--to work, or beg, or starve. Then, for a time, he went to

sea; but the lone hours of watchful idleness upon the deep gave

him too many opportunities for recollection, and he could not

endure it. As a common hireling he worked about the docks, and

earned by this chance toil a meagre pittance for the bare

necessities of life. But he could not settle permanently to

anything. Of good abilities, with strong arms and a willing

heart, it was this mental burden only which unmanned him, and

this pursued him everywhere and always, like an avenging ghost.

Then he began to wander. From Sligo they went to Ballina, and

thence to Galway, and thence to Dublin, living awhile in each,

but evermore a restless, wavering, aimless man. His poor wife

suffered fearfully. Deprived of all the comforts she had ever

known, and cut down sometimes to a mere apology for food and

clothing, she rued the day when she was born; but she never

blamed her husband. Through all, she clung to him faithfully; and

when she found herself, at last, in the lowest portion of the

capital, and living among those whose touch in other days would

have been infection, however else she murmured, it was never

against him. They stayed in Dublin for a year and more. A child

was born there, but it soon died from exposure and insufficient

food, and this made the mother's heart uneasy, and she longed to

move. A berth fell in his way on board a homeward-bound Canadian

timber-ship, and he agreed to go. He also paid the passage of his

wife with labor, and, in due time, their weary feet were standing

on the shores of a new world, ready for other journeys and,

perhaps, better paths.

{397}

But it did not so eventuate. He was the same man still, though

under other skies. There was a doom upon him. His family grew on

his hands and opened in his heart new chambers of affection, but

they could give no ballast to his brain. He could not anchor

anywhere. The weird ship that sails up and down antarctic seas in

an eternal voyage is no more harborless than was he. He fought

the forests, axe in hand, and smote down many pillars of the

olden fane. He toiled on board the river-craft that drift to and

fro upon the broad St. Lawrence. He was a stevedore in Quebec, a

laborer in Montreal. So he worked on from one town to another,

fretting away his own existence, wearing out the health and

strength of his devoted wife, until he reached the "States," and,

by some mysterious fatality, came into the very village where

Bernard Davanagh and his mother lived. Here he found work

congenial to his tastes. The dark gloom of the long tunnels

underground, the ghastly lamps, and, more than all, the exciting

danger of the labor, kept his mind on the stretch and drowned his

memory more effectually than it had ever been before. He did not

know the nearness of Mary Carrol's mother. He would as soon have

dreamed of meeting his dead children in the street as her, and

his work late and early kept him out of sight, so that they did

not hear of him.

But it happened on one Sunday morning, as he went to Mass in the

great town, two miles away, that he heard the name of "Bernard"

called by some one in the throng. He looked anxiously around him,

and had no difficulty in recognizing, in the features of the man

addressed, the son of the detested Bernard Davanagh of his youth.

Had he not known the contrary, he might have thought it that very

father stepped out of his grave. The recognition was not mutual,

but the unquiet heart of Michael Herican reeked little of the

sacrifice that day, for thinking where this new phase of his life

would end. He feared no bodily injury. He had not lost his animal

courage by his sufferings. But he felt like Orestes at the

banquet, when he dispels with wine the knowledge of the

ever-present furies, and then suddenly beholds the gorgon face

pressed closely up to his. He saw in this an omen that, go where

he would, the wrongs of Mary Carrol must live on outside him, as

they did within.

How Bridget Davanagh and her son became aware that Michael

Herican and his family were near them, it is of little

consequence to know. When they did find it out, however, it was

an evil greater in its results to them than to their enemy.

Bernard had warmly espoused his mother's hatred, and added to it

the natural fierceness of his own disposition. The discovery of

her child's betrayer, and an occasional glimpse of him as he went

by, revived all the old woman's vengefulness, and aggravated it

beyond control. If Kathleen Herican had known all this, sick of

her wandering life as she might be, she would not have stayed

near them for a single hour. But she did not know it. Bernard and

Bridget she had never seen in Easky, and Michael never told her

they were here. Thus she, at least, lived on unconsciously, while

vengeance sharpened its relentless sword for retribution, and

hung it by an ever-weakening hair over the head of him she loved

most of all.

Up to the morning of the fatal day no word or sign had passed

between Michael Herican and either of the Davanaghs. But, as he

went by to his work that morning, they both stood in their cabin

door. The old woman could not resist the impulse to curse him as

he passed her, and Bernard was as ready with his malison as she.

{398}

Michael turned up the path that led toward them, and tried to

speak in friendliness, but they would not hear him. At last,

exasperated by their violence and abuse, he told the mother she

was mad--mad as her daughter had been before her. It was a cruel

word for him to speak, cruel for them to hear; but he did not

mean it. It smote upon him as he hurried off to his work, and the

image of the dead Mary came back and upbraided him many times

that day. He left his work early, and went home. There was a

strange look in his eye which made the timid heart of Kathleen

beat faster when she saw it, and he was more than usually kind

and tender to her and his child. His half-eaten supper over, he

took his woodman's basket, and went out to gather fagots for the

morning's fire. On his way home with others who had been on the

like errand, as he came opposite the Davanagh cottage, the mother

and the son came out and rushed upon him. One struck him with a

stone, and felled him to the earth. The other smote him with an

axe, and cleft his skull. It was all over in an instant. Not a

word was said. The horror-stricken neighbors stood aghast a

moment. When they came to their senses, Bernard Davanagh was

climbing up the mountain on the further side of the ravine, and

Bridget Davanagh, with bolted doors, kept ward in her devoted

house alone.

They would have lifted Michael Herican from the roadside where he

lay, but he was dead. The red blood oozed out of the gaping

wound. It trickled on in narrow streamlets down the path. It

clotted on the feet of men and women who came to gaze upon the

mangled corpse. It stained the hands, and face, and garments of

his wife and baby as they lay sobbing and shrieking on his

pulseless breast. It dried up in the purple sunlight of the dying

day, and soaked away into the dust and ashes of the trampled

street.

I have little else to tell. The circumstances of the story, as I

heard them, piece by piece, left on my mind an impression which

would not let me stand by and do nothing. I was satisfied that,

if not absolutely crazed, the murderess had acted in a moment of

exceeding passion, no doubt resulting from the rankling words her

victim spoke to her on the morning of that day; and, in her

unsettled state of mind, the ordinary presumptions of the law,

that passion cannot last, were not reliable. It seemed unjust, to

me, that she should suffer the highest penalty known to our law,

when probably her guilt was actually less than that of hundreds

whom a few years in the state prison give their due. I therefore

drew up a petition which the presiding judge and nearly all of

the convicting jury signed, praying a commutation of her sentence

to imprisonment for life. The prayer was granted, and Bridget

Davanagh lives and will die an inmate of the Eastern Penitentiary

of Pennsylvania.

-------

{399}

The Philosophy Of Immigration.

It is strange that while so many of the most enlightened minds of

the country are engaged in the investigation of the mysteries of

social and physical sciences, so few, if any, appear to give the

least attention to the phenomenon of American immigration; a

study which is equal in importance to any that can come within

the purview of the economist, and of much more practical value to

us, nationally, than most of the developments of nature,

considered in her material aspect.

The researches of geologists and astronomers often supply us with

curious and pleasing discoveries, and the laws which regulate

commerce and labor, manufactures and capital, are doubtless well

worth the attention of intelligent public men; but not more so

than the habits, qualifications, and destiny of the millions of

foreigners who of late years have made their homes among us, and

who are still annually coming in myriads to our shores.

It may safely be said that neither ancient nor modern history

presents a parallel to this American immigration. The emigration

from the plains of Shinar was a dispersion of one people over the

surface of the globe, a disintegration of a nation into several

fragments, each particle the nucleus of a separate and

independent race, speaking a peculiar tongue, and destined to

establish distinct laws and forms of religion. Ours is the

convergence of many peoples to one common centre, silently

arraying themselves under a uniform system of public polity,

yielding up their own political predilections, and to a certain

extent their creeds and language, and destined eventually to

profess one faith and speak one language. Subsequent migrations

in the old world offer points as strikingly dissimilar as the

first great exodus. Those were nothing else than succeeding waves

of population borne from one portion of the earth to the other,

generally preceded and heralded by fire and sword, and ending in

the subjugation and spoliation of the inhabitants of that country

over which they swept with irresistible violence. Our immigrants,

on the contrary, come to us in detail, peaceably to enjoy the

benefits of our laws and to respect our institutions, with no

thought of conquest but such as may be suggested by our yet

untilled fields of the west and our comparatively undeveloped

mineral treasures.

Viewed in this light, our knowledge of the past gives no rules of

guidance in our relations with this new and very important

element of our population, and it becomes the duty of every

patriot jealous of the welfare and reputation of his land to draw

lessons of wisdom from every-day, experience, in order to help

direct this perennial flood of life into the most proper and

useful channels. A country's true wealth lies primarily in its

population; the product of its soil is its surest and most

permanent concomitant. To give a helping hand and a word of cheer

and advice to those future citizens and parents of citizens is

the common duty of humanity and patriotism; to protect them until

sufficiently domiciled to be able to protect themselves, is the

absolute duty of our legislators.

{400}

The city of New York, being the centre of the commerce of the

country, is necessarily the objective point of European

emigration, though many of our neighboring seaports receive their

proportionate share of the precious human freight. It will be

scarcely credited that in the space of twenty-one years, ending

with 1867, there arrived at this city alone no less than _three

million eight hundred and thirty-two thousand four hundred and

four_ immigrants, or a number almost equal in amount to the

entire white population of the country at the time of the

Revolution. [Footnote 117] Those arrivals included natives of

every country in Europe, China, Turkey, Arabia, East and West

Indies, South America, Mexico, and the lower British Provinces.

Emigrants from Ireland and Germany were of course largely in

excess of all others. Until 1861, these two countries were nearly

equally represented, the numbers from them for fourteen years

previously being respectively 1,107,034 and 979,575, or nearly

four fifths of the whole arrivals. Since that year the German

element has largely preponderated, and is now equal to one half

the entire immigration. England, Scotland, France, and

Switzerland follow next in rotation, the northern countries of

Europe supplying a respectable number in proportion to their

sparse population, and the southern countries, like Spain and

Portugal, comparatively few.

[Footnote 117: We are indebted to Bernard Casserly, Esq., the

efficient General Superintendent under the Commissioners of

Emigration, for the following official report of arrivals at

Castle Garden:

1847, 129,062

1848, 189,176

1849, 220,791

1850, 212,603

1851, 289,601

1852, 300,992

1853, 284,945

1854, 319,223

1855, 136,233

1856, 142,342

1857, 183,773

1858, 78,589

1859, 79,322

1860, 105,162

1861, 65,539

1862, 76,306

1863, 167,844

1864, 182,396

1865, 196,352

1866, 233,418

1867, 242,730

Total, 3,832,404]

It were beyond the scope of this article to enter into an

extended inquiry as to the cause of this unequal abandonment of

nationality on the part of our new denizens. The misgovernment of

Ireland, which culminated in the terrible famine of 1846-7-8, and

the natural affinity of the people of that country for the

advantages afforded by free governments, will easily account for

the immensity of their numbers who have sought political and

social independence in this republic; while the low rewards of

labor and the heavy burdens of taxation experienced by the German

in his own home, form powerful incentives in his economical mind

to change his condition and abandon the fatherland of which he is

so justly proud. The same reasons, to a lesser extent perhaps,

operate on Englishmen and Scotchmen, with the additional one of

the rapid growth of our infant manufactures requiring the

experience of the workmen of Leeds, Birmingham, and Glasgow.

Spain and Portugal, the pioneers of immigration in former ages,

though now not essentially an emigrant people, as a general rule

prefer Central and South America, where their languages are

spoken and their religion universally established; while France,

of all European countries the least disposed to colonization,

has, on account of political troubles, sent us many of her best

mechanics, and Italy some of her finest artists.

With the influx of such vast unorganized masses of strangers,

representing all conditions, ages, and degrees, into one port,

and considering the unusual trials and dangers of a long

sea-voyage, it is not to be wondered at that a great amount of

sickness and distress should be developed; but we are glad to

know that all that private benevolence and judicious legislation

could do has been done for the unfortunate.

{401}

Refuges for the destitute and hospitals for the sick have been

established in this neighborhood. Employment for the idle, food

for the hungry, and transportation for the penniless have been

provided by the Commissioners of Emigration with a free and even

profuse liberality. Nearly thirty _per centum_of the total

arrivals, each year, have been thus benefited without any cost

whatever to the state, the money required being derived from a

fund created mainly by a small commutation-tax on each emigrant

passenger. Though this fund, as we have said, is especially

intended for the protection and support of immigrants, a portion

of it has necessarily been expended in the erection or purchase

of valuable buildings, requisite for the purposes of the

commission, all of which will revert to the state when no longer

required for their original objects.[Footnote 118]

[Footnote 118: This property, besides some on Staten Island,

consists of one hundred and eight acres of land with water

rights, etc., on Ward's Island, in the East River, upon which

the commissioners have built very spacious and substantial

structures, such as five hospitals capable of accommodating

eight hundred patients; four houses of refuge for destitute

males and females; a nursery, lunatic asylum, and two

chapels, besides a number of residences for the officers of

these institutions, out-offices, etc.--_See Commissioners'

Report_, 1868.]

But this is not the only direct pecuniary advantage which we

derive from immigration. In 1856 it was ascertained that the

average cash means of every person landing at Castle Garden was

about sixty-eight dollars, a sum which, considering the improved

condition of those who have since arrived, must amount to much

more _per capita_, still, taking the standard of that year,

we find that in twenty-one years over three hundred and twenty

millions of dollars have been brought to the country and put into

direct circulation. Its effect on our shipping interest will be

appreciated when we learn that during 1867 there were engaged in

the passenger business alone, at this port, two hundred and

forty-five sailing vessels and four hundred and four steamships,

requiring large investments of capital and employing thousands of

men.

It would be impossible to estimate the indirect stimulus given to

the general interests of the Union by the acquisition of so much

skilled labor and brawny muscle. We can see its developments,

however, in the rapid rise of our towns and cities, the superior

condition of arts and manufactures, and the extraordinary

increase of our agricultural productions. Coming from so many

lands, each heretofore celebrated for some peculiar excellence,

the European artisan, while he does not necessarily excel his

American fellow-workmen in the aggregate, contributes his special

knowledge to the general stock of industrial information. The

Swede brings his knowledge of metallurgy, the Englishman of

woolens, the Italian of silk; the German, of grape culture, and

the Frenchman, of those finer fabrics and arts of design for

which his country has been so long famous. When the ancient

Grecian sculptor designed to make a representation of the human

form in all its perfection, he selected, it is said, six

beautiful living models, copying from each some member more

perfect than the rest, and thus, by the combination of several

excellences, modelled a perfect and harmonious whole, in which

were combined grace, beauty, and harmony. So the republic,

availing itself of the genius and skill which every country sends

us so superabundantly, may attain that general superiority in the

arts of peace which was formerly divided among many nations.

{402}

The destination of this flood of knowledge and strength forms not

the least interesting phase of this subject. From the data before

us, we find that the State of New York retains about forty-four

per cent; the Western States receive over twenty five; the Middle

States, eleven; the New England States, eight; the Pacific slope,

two, and the Southern States a little less than two per cent, the

residue being scattered among various portions of the continent

outside of our jurisdiction. The comparatively small number who

have sought homes in the South may be accounted for partly by the

occurrence of our late civil war, but principally by the peculiar

organization of labor in that section before the abolition of

slavery. In [the] future we may expect a much greater percentage

of people, particularly from Southern Europe, to assist in

developing the almost inexhaustible wealth of such states as

Georgia and Tennessee. It is to be regretted that no record has

been kept of the nationalities and occupations of those who so

instinctively choose their favorite sections of our country; but

our own everyday experience, and the laws of labor and climate,

enable us to form a sufficiently accurate general opinion.

Irishmen, though not adverse to agricultural pursuits, generally

prefer large cities and towns, like those of New England, where

skilled labor is least required in the production of fabrics. The

Germans, on the contrary, though quite numerous in New York,

Philadelphia, and St. Louis, avoid New England, and prefer

farming in the Western States, in some of which they already form

a majority of the rural population. Englishmen are to be met with

either in the Eastern factories or in the Atlantic cities,

keeping up a business connection with their countrymen at home.

Frenchmen find a market for their superior mechanical skill amid

the luxury of large cities, and are seldom tillers of the soil,

while a Welsh miner (if he do[es] not find his way to Salt Lake)

goes as naturally to Pennsylvania, and the slate quarries of New

York and Vermont, as the Swede and Norwegian do to the northern

parts of Michigan and Wisconsin. The mode of emigration may have

something to do with these selections. The continental nations,

particularly the Germans, understand migration better than their

insular neighbors, always leaving home in families and groups,

and settling down in small colonies where, as in all new

countries, union is strength; but the inhabitants of Ireland and

the other islands of the United Kingdom too frequently emigrate,

one member of a family at a time, without system or organization,

to the great disruption of those ties of relationship which are

always a bond of unity and a source of comfort, amid the

hardships attendant on great changes of habitation.

Considering the various manners, habits, and opinions of so many

nationalities, some of them, if not repugnant, at least strange

to the native-born of America, the power of absorption possessed

by the people of the United States is astonishing. Columbia,

taking to her ample bosom the fiery Celt and the phlegmatic

Teuton, the self-asserting Briton and the _débonnaire_ Gaul,

smiles complacently at their peculiarities, or, remembering the

good qualities which underlie such eccentricities, waits

patiently for time and example to cure them; and we venture to

assert that the German feels himself as free to indulge in his

national games and festivals in New York or Buffalo as if he were

in Vienna or Berlin, and the Irishman can dance as lively and

attend a wake or a wedding with as light a heart, and as free

from hindrance as if he had never left his own green isle.

{403}

In justice, also, to the immigrant, it must be said that, once

settled in America, he gives to its government his hearty and

unqualified allegiance, notwithstanding the occasional spasmodic

attempts of a despicable few to subject him to ridicule and

social ostracism. How many instances do we find of worthy men

who, having gained a competency here, acting upon that natural

and beautiful love of native land, return to the homes of their

childhood to end their days, but who almost invariably return to

us and the scenes of their manhood's toils and triumphs!

There are two other sources of accession to our population,

independent of that of acquisition of territory, which are worthy

of notice. The first, of present importance, is the passage of

our borders by natives of Lower Canada, and which, though now

more than usually remarkable, has been going on quietly but

steadily for at least a hundred years. [Footnote 119]

[Footnote 119: Five hundred French Canadians took passage at

Montreal, C. E., for the United States, in one week, during

March, 1869.]

The French Canadians are a decidedly _unique_ people.

Originally from Normandy, early deprived of the protection of

France, and practically cut off from their fellow-countrymen by

the cessation of emigration, they have still retained all the

primitive simplicity, keenness, and hardiness of their ancestors.

Increasing in numbers with extraordinary rapidity, they have

tenaciously adhered to their faith, language, and manners of

life, in face of the opposition of a dominant and intolerant

master. They have not only, so far, held their own against

English laws and customs; but, despite the increase of British

colonists among them, they have nearly, if not altogether, kept

pace in numbers with the English-speaking inhabitants of the two

Canadas. They have likewise constantly shot forth numerous hardy

offshoots which have taken root and flourished in the far west.

Detroit, La Salle, Dubuque, St. Louis, St. Paul, Sault Ste.

Marie, and many other western centres of wealth and population,

were first selected and settled by those enterprising followers

of Jacques Cartier and the missionary fathers, and their names

are still honored in those places. Many of the later immigrants

from Canada find employment in our seaboard cities, but the

majority either still seek the northwest, as being more congenial

in climate, and offering more opportunities for that spirit of

adventure which distinguishes the race, or go directly to

California, where so many of the French people have already

settled.

The Chinese immigration to the Pacific coast is one of the most

unaccountable events in the history of that section of our

country, and one which may well attract serious public attention.

Those people, remarkable for centuries for their ingenuity and

industry, as well as for their exclusiveness and dislike to

foreigners, have at last crossed the Rubicon that confined them

within the limits of the Celestial empire, and when we reflect

that that empire contains within itself nearly half the

population of the world, we can readily suppose that a few

millions, more or less, transplanted to the new world would not

very perceptibly diminish its influence or strength. The Chinamen

are represented as quiet and docile, economical in their way of

living, and working for small wages, and as being eminently

adapted for the building of railroads, and the development of the

mineral wealth with which nature has so lavishly enriched the

territory on both slopes of the Rocky Mountains, and, being as

yet only a moiety of the population, are easily controlled. But,

should the tide of Asiatic emigration commence to flow freely

eastward, the gravest fears are entertained by many that it would

lead either to the systematic oppression or even partial

enslavement of the Chinese themselves, or to the deterioration of

the Caucasians of that beautiful region, soon destined to become

the garden of America.

{404}

Taking into account, however, the great adaptability of all

classes of immigrants in this country to the condition of affairs

by which they find themselves surrounded, the fears of even a

Chinese invasion appear groundless. Every day and year bring with

them large accessions of energetic and healthy minds to the ranks

of the native-born Americans--some the children of the sons of

the soil; others, of adopted citizens; but all American in spirit

and purpose, no matter what their parentage. Even this uniformity

extends to their _physique_, and it has been remarked by

visitors to our shores that the native-born boy or girl, however

dissimilar the peculiar physical traits of their progenitors,

presents strong points of resemblance in figure and face to each

other. Something of this may be accounted for by food and

climate, training and association, but much more by the fact of

the admixture of races constantly going forward. The heavy

features of the northern European are more or less elongated and

brightened into thoughtful cheerfulness in his American child,

while the angularity and pugnacity supposed to be characteristic

of the Celtic countenance are reduced to finer lines of grace and

repose in their cis-Atlantic descendants.

Taking American character as it stood at the beginning of this

century, we cannot deny our admiration of its essential features,

though many of its details were susceptible of improvement. Our

stateliness had a tendency to what is now generally called

Puritanism, and our simplicity was apt to degenerate into

parsimoniousness. Our ancestors wanted a little more breadth of

view, a little leaven of the poetry of life to mix with its stern

realities, and a great deal more love for innocent amusements,

and taste for the fine arts, which make man feel more kindly to

his fellow, and raise him so high above irrational animals.

Immigration has done much for us in this way, and we have done

something for ourselves. If we have extended to the strangers

within our gates hospitality, protection, and the rewards of

labor, they have paid us with the sculpture of Italy, the music

of Germany, the melodies of Ireland, and the fashions of France.

It has not only done this, but it has reproduced and naturalized

the love for them, and made them "racy of the soil." But what is

of more importance than all, it has efficiently helped the spread

of true religious faith over this portion of the continent. True,

there were Catholics and very good ones here, even in colonial

times; but they were few in number, and so scattered over the

country that they were in constant danger either of losing their

faith for want of spiritual ministration or were powerless to

assert their proper position before the opposing sects. We have

now not only numbers, but the influence that flows from numbers,

and generously and judiciously has our immigrant population used

the power inherent in it. During the late civil strife which so

afflicted our country, and endangered the Union, citizens by

adoption vied with citizens by birth in defence of our

institutions, and in their contributions to works of piety,

charity, and education they have been so profuse that to others

the results of their charities seem little short of miraculous.

{405}

Even those who have come among us of a different creed, or no

creed at all, have here a better opportunity of learning the

truth than they have had in their own countries. Unfettered by

statecraft or sectional laws, the Catholic priesthood have a

field of labor in America such as the whole of Europe cannot

present, and an audience composed of as many races as the sons of

Adam represent. Realizing the great things done by our

immigrants, and what may yet be expected from them, we hope to

see their protection and welfare occupy a portion, at least, of

the attention of our national and state authorities. But it is

not enough that the law has so completely thrown its protecting

shield over them. Individual charity can do much to supply the

deficiencies which every general law presents. In the city of New

York, especially, where a great deal has already been done by the

commissioners to whose especial care the immigrants are entrusted

by law, much remains still to be performed, in view of the

hundreds of thousands of strangers who may annually be expected

among us, for the next decade, at least.

----------

Vigil.

I.

Mournful night is dark around me,

Hushed the world's conflicting din;

All is still and all is tranquil--

But this restless heart within!

II.

Wakeful still I press my pillow,

Watch the stars that float above,

Think of _One_ for me who suffered;

Think, and weep for grief and love!

III.

Flow, ye tears, though in your streaming

Oft yon stars of his grow dim!

Sweet the tender grief _he_ wakens,

Blest the tears that flow for him!'

Richard Storrs Willis.

-------

{406}

The Geography of Roses.

Wherever man has found a dwelling-place, bounteous nature has

conferred on him not only the necessaries of life, but a share

also of its pleasures. From "sultry India to the pole," the

useful and the beautiful are met with side by side. The bright

poppy and the blue cornflower rise with the wheat-ear in the same

broad field; the sweet-smelling amaryllis and the delicate iris

unfold their variegated petals among the thick stalks of the

African maize, while the marsh-rose and the water-lily float on

the surface of the waters that inundate the rice-grounds of Egypt

and India.

It is evident that nature regards these fair blossoms as

indispensable to man's happiness as those other more substantial

gifts are to his comfort and existence; and so, with lavish hand,

she scatters them on the mountain and in the valley, amidst

plains of burning sand, or half-buried in snow and ice.

"Floral apostles! that in dewy splendor

Weep without woe, and blush without a crime,

Oh! may I deeply learn, and ne'er surrender,

Your law sublime.

"Not useless are ye, flowers! though made for pleasure.

Blooming o'er field and wave, by day and night,

From every source your sanction bids me treasure

Harmless delight.

"Ephemeral sages! what instructors hoary

For such a world of thought could furnish scope?

Each fading calyx a _memento mori_,

Yet fount of hope."

The rose, fairest of the floral train, has been said by some

botanists to take its birth in Asia. "The east, the cradle of the

first man," writes a French author, "is also the native place of

the rose; the flowery hillsides near the chain of the frowning

Caucasus were the first spots on earth adorned with this charming

shrub." We do not incline to this opinion, for the researches of

science have proved that the lovely flower is found in every

clime, from the arctic circle to the torrid zone, and that under

every sun it seems to be endowed with some different grace. The

same species is sometimes met with over a whole continent;

another is unknown beyond the limits of a certain province; while

another again never leaves the mountain or dale where it first

shed its sweetness on the air. Thus Pollin's rose (_rosa

Pollinaria_) is never found but at the foot of Monte Baldo in

Italy, nor the Lyon rose (_rosa Lyonii_) out of the State of

Tennessee; while the field-rose (_rosa arvensis_) trails its

long branches and clusters of white flowers all over Europe, and

the dog-rose (_rosa canina_) displays its pale pink petals

and scarlet hips, not only throughout Europe, but also in

northern Asia and a part of America.

So numerous, indeed, are the varieties of this favorite of

nature, that we will not attempt to describe all that are

peculiar to each country; we will confine our attention to those

only most remarkable for their beauty, and most easy of culture.

First on the list of American roses, and far away among the

eternal ice that covers the almost desert regions which lie

between the seventieth and seventy-fifth degrees of north

latitude, blooms _rosa blanda_, the charming

_soft-colored_ rose, which as soon as the sun has melted the

snow in the valleys opens its large corolla, always solitary on

its graceful stem, to the warm breathings from the south.

{407}

We can picture to ourselves the delight of the stunted,

amphibious Greenlander, when, the long months of the fierce

winter past, he suddenly meets the expanding blossom. He smiles

as he remembers how his young wife mourned last year over the

death of the flowers, and he plucks the first rose of Greenland's

short summer to carry back to her as a proof that she must ever

hope and trust.

"Why must the flowers die?

Prisoned they lie

In the cold tomb, heedless of tears and rain.

O doubting heart!

They only sleep below

The soft white ermine snow:

While winter winds shall blow,

To breathe and smile on you again!"

_Rosa blanda's_ nearest neighbor is the pretty _rosa

rap_ of Hudson's Bay, whose slender, graceful branches are

laden in the early summer with corymbs of pale pink double

flowers. Nature herself has doubled _rosa rapa's_ sweet

corolla, as if she had foreseen that the wandering tribes of

Esquimaux who inhabit those inclement shores would have too much

to do in their never-ending struggle to pick up a precarious

existence ever to busy themselves with the culture of the cold,

unyielding soil.

_Rosa blanda_ and _rosa rapa_ are still at home in

Labrador and Newfoundland, but with them two remarkable

varieties--the ash-leaved rose, (_rosa fraxinifolia_,) with

small red heart-shaped petals, and the lustrous rose, (_rosa

nitida_,) which shelters its brilliant red cup-like flower and

fruit beneath the scraggy trees that grow sparsely along the

coast. The lustrous rose is a great favorite with the young

Esquimaux maidens, who dress their black hair with its shining

cups, and wear bunches of it, "embowered in its own green

leaves," in the bosom of their seal-skin robes.

The United States possess a great number of different roses. At

the foot of almost every rocky acclivity we meet the rose with

diffuse branches, (_rosa diffusa_,) whose pink flowers,

growing in couples on their stem, appear at the beginning of the

summer. On the slopes of the Pennsylvanian hills blooms the

small-flowered rose, (_rosa parviflora_,) an elegant little

species bearing double flowers of the most delicate pink; it may

fairly vie in beauty with all other American roses. In most of

the Middle States, on the verge of the "mossy forests, by the

bee-bird haunted," we find the straight-stemmed rose, (_rosa

stricta_,) with light red petals, and the brier-leaved rose,

(_rosa rubifolia_,) with small, pale red flowers, growing

generally in clusters of three.

The silken rose (_rosa setigera_) opens its great red

petals, shaped like an inverted heart, beneath the "cloistered

boughs" of South Carolina's woods, and in Georgia the magnificent

smooth-leaved rose, (_rosa loevigata_,) known in its native

wilds as the Cherokee rose, climbs to the very summit of the

great forest trees, then swings itself off in festoons of large

white flowers glancing like stars amidst their glossy, dark green

leaves.

When we leave the hills and woodlands, we find the marshes of the

Carolinas gay with the _rosa evratina_, the _rosa

Carolina_, and the _rosa lucida_, the resplendent rose,

whose corymbs of brilliant red flowers overtop the reeds among

which they love to blossom; while, nearer to the setting sun, we

see the pink petals of Wood's rose (_rosa Woodsii_)

reflected in the waters of the great Missouri.

The last American rose we shall note in this slight sketch is the

rose of Montezuma, (_rosa Montezumae_,) a solitary,

sweet-scented, pale red flower with defenceless branches. It was

discovered by Humboldt and Bonpland on the elevated peaks of the

Cerro Ventoso, in Mexico, and is perhaps the very rose of which

the unhappy Guatimozin thought when writhing on his bed of

burning charcoal.

{408}

These are some of the species yet known to belong peculiarly to

the western hemisphere; but it is highly probable that many

others remain still to be discovered. When we remember the

prodigality with which nature lavishes her gifts, we cannot

believe that while France alone possesses twenty-four varieties

of roses, all described by De Candolle in his _Flore

Française_, the great American continent owns but fifteen.

We will commence our European rose search in that most

unpromising of all spots, Iceland; there, where volcanic fire and

polar ice seem to dispute possession of the unhappy soil. So

scarce is every kind of vegetation in this rude clime, that the

miserable inhabitants are frequently compelled to feed their

cows, sheep, and horses on dried fish. And yet even here, growing

from the fissures of the barren rocks, a solitary cup-shaped rose

opens its pale petals to the transient sunbeams of summer. This

hardy little plant is, as its name, _rosa spinosissima_,

indicates, covered all over with prickles. Its cream-colored

flowers, numerous and solitary, are sometimes tinged with pink on

the outside, and its fruit, at first red, becomes perfectly black

when ripe.

In Lapland, too, a country almost as disinherited by nature as

Iceland, the pretty little May rose (_rosa maïalis_) expands

its bright red corolla even before the tardy sun has melted away

all the snow that has covered it during nine long months. A

little later on, in the full blush of the short summer, "when the

pine has a fringe of softer green," the Lapp maidens gather the

blood-red flowers of the _rosa rubella_ among the stunted

trees whose parasitical mosses and lichens afford a scanty

nourishment to the flocks of reindeer, sole riches of the land.

The May rose is also found in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and

Russia, together with the cinnamon rose (_rosa cinnamomea_,)

and several other species.

England claims ten indigenous roses, many of them, however,

exceedingly difficult to distinguish from each other. The most

common is the dog-rose or Eglantine, found in every hedge and

thicket, and very precious to rose-cultivators, its elegant,

straight, vigorous stems being admirable for receiving grafts.

The light pink corolla is slightly perfumed. In olden times the

scarlet fruit was made into conserve, and highly esteemed in

tarts, but it seems now to be abandoned to the birds. The _rosa

arvensis_, a small shrub with long trailing branches and white

flowers, and the burnet-leaved rose, which resembles the _rosa

spinosissima_ of Iceland, are also very frequently met. But

the pride of the southern counties is the _rosa rubiginosa_,

the true sweet-briar, with deep pink petals and leaves of the

most delicious fragrance; a flower that seems to belong as

peculiarly to the soft English spring as the primrose and violet,

and like them to be emblematic of the English girl, delicate in

her beauty, modest and retiring in her garb and manners, and

diffusing around her an atmosphere of gentle sweetness. Such, at

least, was the English girl five-and-twenty years ago; it is said

that hoops and boots and croquet have produced strange changes.

Alas! that simplicity and modesty and sweetness should ever go

out of fashion.

{409}

In the Scotch fir-woods is found the rose with rolled petals,

(_rosa involuta_.) The large flowers are red and white, and

the remarkably sombre leaves when rubbed between the fingers give

forth a strong smell of turpentine, an odor the plant has

probably acquired from the resinous trees that shelter it. All

the rugged mountains of Scotland possess their roses; the _rosa

sabini_, with clustering flowers, and the villous or hairy

rose, (_rosa villosa_,) with white or deep red, are the most

worthy of notice.

It is only in the environs of Belfast that we encounter the Irish

rose, (_rosa hibernica_,) a species somewhat resembling both

the _spinosissima_ and the _canina_. The other roses of

beautiful Ireland are identical with those of England.

The fields and forests of France have been richly endowed with

nature's favorite flower. Our now well-known friend _canina_

flourishes there also in every hedge and by every wood-side,

together with a pretty white rose, (_rosa alba_,) which has

been very successfully cultivated in gardens. The smiling

hill-sides around Dijon are gay with the lovely little crimson

double flowers of the rose of Champagne, (_rosa

parviflora;_) and, in the south, the yellow rose (_rosa

eglantaria_) and its varieties surpass all others in the

richness of their coloring; their petals sometimes gleaming with

the brightest gold, sometimes deepening into a brilliant orange

red, sometimes reproducing both hues in vivid flecks and streaks.

The woods of Auvergne are bedecked with the small red solitary

corollas of the cinnamon rose, (_rosa cinnamomea_,) so

called from the color of its stalks; and in the department of the

eastern Pyrenees the musk-rose blooms spontaneously in

magnificent corymbs. This exquisitely scented species is also

extensively cultivated for its aromatic essential oil; one of its

kindred is the nutmeg rose, a pretty flower that smells of the

spice.

The Province rose, so often remarkable for its variegated petals

of white, crimson, and pink, is a variety of the rose of France,

(_rosa gallica_,) a species that has given horticulturists a

great number of beautiful offshoots.

Crossing the Pyrenean mountains, we again meet with the

musk-rose, but this time in close companionship with the rose of

Spain, (_rosa hispanica_,) whose bright red petals expand in

the month of May.

In the Balearic Islands the climbing branches of the evergreen

rose (_rosa semper-virens_,) are seen constantly arrayed in

lustrous green leaves mingled with innumerable white perfumed

flowers. This beautiful rose is also found in other parts of the

south of Europe, and in Barbary.

We have already mentioned Polin's rose, a sweet Italian blossom

which never strays from the foot of Monte Baldo, in the

neighborhood of Verona. Its large crimson corollas open in

handsome clusters.

Sicily and Greece possess the gluey rose, (_rosa

glutinosa,_) a small, red, solitary flower, with glandular,

viscous leaflets.

Germany is poorer in native roses than any other part of Europe;

nevertheless nowhere do the blossoms of the field-rose display

such beauty, unless, indeed, among the mountains of Switzerland.

Nowhere else are they so large, so deeply tinted, and

_double_. Germany also gives birth to the curious turbinated

rose, (_rosa turbinata_,) whose double corolla rests on a

top-shaped ovary.

The whole chain of the Alps abounds with roses. The field-rose,

and the ruby-red Alpine rose, (_rosa alpina_,) an elegant

shrub which has contributed many esteemed varieties to our

gardens, bloom in admirable luxuriance in every forest glade and

mountain dingle; while the red-leaved rose, (_rosa

rubrifolia_,) with red stalks and dark red petals, stands out

in the summer landscape, a charming contrast to the green foliage

of the surrounding trees.

{410}

The leaves of another species growing among the pines and firs of

these elevated regions, the rose with prickly leaflets, (_rosa

spinulifolia_,) emit when rubbed the same odor of turpentine

that we have already noticed in the _rosa involuta_of

Scotland. It is singular to observe that the only two roses we

know with this smell are both natives of pine-covered mountains.

The east has for ages been esteemed the home of flowers; almost

as soon as we can lisp, we are taught that

"In eastern lands they talk with flowers,

And they tell in a garland their loves and cares;

Each blossom that blooms in their garden bowers

On its leaves a mystic language bears."

And in joyous youth who has not dreamed of that "bower of roses

by Bendemeer's stream," so sweetly sung by the Irish bard? The

very name of India reminds one of Nourmahal and of that most

enchanting of all feasts, "the feast of roses."

It will then scarcely surprise any one to be told that Asia, the

birthplace of the great human family, is also the birthplace of

more varieties of roses than all the other parts of the world put

together. Thirty-nine species have been discovered indigenous to

this favored portion of the globe, fifteen of which belong to the

Chinese empire.

One of the prettiest of these fifteen is the Lawrence rose,

(_rosa Lawrenceana_,) a fairy-like bush, six inches high,

with flowers not much larger than a silver dime, blooming all the

year round. By the side of this pigmy tree, which we must not

forget to observe is remarkable for the symmetry of its

proportions, is often found the many-flowered rose, (_rosa

multiflora_,) whose flexible branches, rising sometimes to the

height of sixteen feet, are covered in the early summer with

magnificent clusters of pale pink double flowers.

Among the many double Chinese roses, the small-leaved one

(_rosa microphylla_) is highly prized and most assiduously

cultivated in its native land. Its delicate foliage and pale pink

very double flowers are well known also to the rose-fanciers of

the United States. Another beautiful variety, the _rosa

Banksiae_, climbs the rocky fells of China, hiding their

rugged barrenness with a living curtain of verdure, enamelled

with multitudes of little drooping flowers of a yellowish white,

which exhale the sweet odor of violets.

Cochin-China, with these same species, lays claim to two others

that we must notice; the very thorny rose, (_rosa

spinosissima_,) with scentless flesh-colored petals, and the

white rose, (_rosa alba_,) which we also find indigenous in

France, Lombardy, and other parts of Europe. Japan, besides the

roses of China, possesses the _rosa rugosa_, the only one

peculiar to the clime.

Passing on to Hindostan, we may believe that the tiger which

prowls along the burning shores of the Bay of Bengal ofttimes

crouches under the boughs blooming with the lovely white corollas

of the many-bracted rose (_rosa involucrata_) to make his

deadly spring, and that the crocodiles of the Ganges find secure

hiding-places to lie in wait for their prey, beneath the

ever-succeeding red blossoms and never-fading luxuriant foliage

of the _rosa semperflorens_. How often, all the world over,

are sweetest things but lurking-places for pain and death!

{411}

Among the hills of the peninsula we meet the large-leaved rose,

(_rosa macrophylla_,) the tips of whose white petals are

each stained with a small bright red spot; and on the margin of

the sunny lakes of cool Cashmere, the milk-white flowers of

Lyell's rose, (_rosa Lyellii_,) a beautiful species that has

been successfully acclimatized in France.

In the gardens of Kandahar, Samarcand, and Ispahan the rose

_tree_ (_rosa arborea_) is cultivated; a real tree,

with wide-spreading branches, covered in the spring with snowy

flowers of the richest perfume, making fragrant the surrounding

hill and dales. In Persia we also find the barberry-leaved rose,

(_rosa berberifolia_,) a singular variety which displays a

star-like yellow corolla marked in the centre with a deep crimson

stain. So unlike is this flower to all others of the family that

one feels almost inclined to deny its claim to any relationship

with the queen of flowers. Science, however, has decided that the

_rosa berberifolia_ is a true rose.

Further on to the west, beneath "the sultry blue of Syria's

heaven," we encounter the lovely corymbs of the damask rose,

(_rosa damascena_,) with crimson velvet or variegated petals

and gold-colored stamens. It is said that the valiant knights who

accompanied the French king Saint Louis to the Crusades brought

back with them to France this beautiful flower, an ever-living

witness of their prowess in the Holy Land. It is as beloved by

the honey-bees of Europe as its wilder sisters on the sweet banks

of Jordan have ever been by the blossom-rifling rovers of

Palestine.

As the rose-seeker wanders forth from Syria toward the north he

is arrested for a moment by the vivid yellow double flowers of

the _rosa sulfurea_, but has scarcely time to admire them,

graceful though they be, before he catches sight of the loveliest

and most fragrant of all roses, the _rosa centifolia_, the

hundred-leaved rose, the rose of the nightingale, the rose of the

poet!

"Rose! what dost thou here?

Bridal, royal rose!

How, 'midst grief and fear,

Canst thou thus disclose

That fervid hue of love which to thy heart-leaf glows?

"Smilest thou, gorgeous flower?

Oh! within the spells

Of thy beauty's power

Something dimly dwells

At variance with a world of sorrows and farewells.

"All the soul forth-flowing

In that rich perfume,

All the proud life glowing

In that radiant bloom,

Have they no place but _here_, beneath th' o'ershadowing tomb?

"Crown'st thou but the daughters

Of our tearful race?

Heaven's own purest waters

Well might wear the trace

Of thy consummate form, melting to softer grace.

"Will that clime enfold thee

With immortal air?

Shall we not behold thee

Bright and deathless there?

In spirit-lustre clothed, transcendently more fair!"

The valleys of Circassia and Georgia are the birthplace of this

most beautiful of flowers, of whose exquisite form, color, and

perfume even Mrs. Hemans's rapturous verses can give no idea.

The fierce rose (_rosa ferox_) is sometimes found mingling

its great red flowers with those of _rosa centifolia_, and

the pulverulent rose (_rosa pulverulenta_) dwells near them

on the declivities of the Peak of Manzana.

As we hasten on through the dreary steppes of Russian Asia, we

meet the sad-looking yellowish rose, dismal in aspect as the land

it lives in, and more remarkable for its great pulpy hip than for

its flower. A little nearer to the north, the handsome,

large-flowered rose (_rosa grandiflora_) expands its elegant

corolla in the form of an antique vase, and on the plains lying

at the foot of the Ural mountains the reddish rose, (_rosa

rubella_,) with petals sometimes rich and deep in color, but

more often faint and faded-looking, gladdens for a moment the

heart-sore Polish exile as he wends his weary way to his living

grave, faint and faded-looking as the flower that reminds him of

his distant home.

{412}

Despite the cold breath of the frozen ocean, the acicular rose

(_rosa acicularis_) lives and thrives on its shores, and

regularly opens its pale-red solitary blossoms at the first call

of the short-lived Siberian summer. The icy breezes of the frigid

zone may have done much, however, toward developing the

ill-natured tendency to long, needle-like thorns to which this

rose owes its uncouth name.

Omitting ten or twelve other varieties, we will conclude the list

of the indigenous roses of Asia with the rose of Kamtschatka,

(_rosa Kamtschatica_,) a beautiful solitary flower of a

pinkish white color, and bearing some resemblance to the _rosa

rugosa_ of Japan.

The roses of Africa are still to be discovered; its vast

unexplored regions perhaps contain many as beautiful as those we

possess, but at present we are only acquainted with four or five

species, one of which, the dog-rose, so common all over Europe,

is a native of Egypt. Among the mountains of Abyssinia blooms a

pretty red variety with evergreen foliage, and on the borders of

that "wild expanse of lifeless sand," the great Sahara in Egypt,

and on the plains of Tunis and of Morocco, the corymbs of the

white musk-rose (_rosa moschata_) perfume the ambient air.

This charming flower is also indigenous to the Island of Madeira.

We have thus taken a bird's-eye view of the rose's

_habitat_, passing over much of interesting, much of curious

that has been written about the favorite flower. We might go on

and mention the singular and marvellous virtues attributed to it

by the ancients; we might (were we learned) learnedly discourse

on the Island of Rhodes, whose coins are found bearing the effigy

of the rose; of the rose-noble, and the old English fashion of

wearing a rose behind the ear; we might describe the gardens of

Ghazipour and the whole process of extracting the delicious attar

of roses; we might hint at the mysterious influence the scented

blossom appears to exercise over some strangely organized

individuals, who seem capable "of dying of a rose, in aromatic

pain;" but we prefer to conclude here our sketch of the geography

of roses.

Unlearned and superficial as we well know it is, it may show some

pleasant meanings to the young lover of flowers, and awaken his

curiosity to examine for himself the floral treasures that bloom

in every field, garden, and grove. Such a study will do more

toward filling his heart with a spirit of love and peace, and

elevating his mind above purely material cares, than any other

pursuit; for

"Where does the Wisdom and the Power divine

In a more bright and sweet reflection shine?"

"From nature up to nature's God" is the natural result of all

scientific investigations which are carried on with a real

capacity of observation and a sincere love of truth. Feeling and

thought, purified and sanctified by constant intercourse with the

high objects of life, with the enduring things of nature, fail

not to recognize the "Wisdom and the Spirit of the universe" in

his works.

"Were I, O God! in churchless lands remaining,

Far from all voice of teachers or divines,

My soul would find, in flowers of thy ordaining,

Priests, sermons, shrines!"

----------

{413}

Spanish Life and Character. [Footnote 120]

[Footnote 120: _Impressions of Spain_. By Lady

Herbert. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.

1869.

_Letters from Spain_. By William Cullen Bryant. 12mo.

New York: D. Appleton & Co.

_Voyage en Espagne_. Par M. Eugène Poitou. 8vo, pp.

483. Tours: A. Mame et Fila. 1869.]