With the study of Plato was revived in western Europe a false and

exaggerated spiritualism, and a philosophy which denied creation

as a truth of philosophy, and admitted it only as a doctrine of

revelation. The authority of the scholastic philosophy was

weakened, a decided tendency in pantheistic direction to thought

was given, and the way was prepared for Giordano Bruno, as well

as for the Protestant apostasy. We say _apostasy_, because

Luther's movement was really an apostasy, as its historical

developments have amply proved. With Plato was revived the

Academy with its scepticism, Sextus Empiricus, and after him

Epicurus; and before the close of the sixteenth century, Europe

was overrun with false mystics, sceptics, pantheists, and

atheists, who abounded all through the seventeenth century, in

spite of a very decided reaction in favor of faith and the

church. What is worthy of special note is, that in all this

period of two centuries and a half it was no uncommon thing to

find men who, as philosophers, denied the immortality of the

soul, which as believers they asserted; or combining a childlike

faith with nearly universal scepticism, as we see in Montaigne.

Gradually, however, men began to see that, while they

acknowledged a discrepancy between what they held as philosophy

and the Christian faith, they could not retain both; that they

must give up the one or the other. England, in the latter half of

the seventeenth century, swarmed with free thinkers who denied

all divine revelation; and France, in the eighteenth century,

rejected the church, rejected the Bible, suppressed Christian

worship, rebuilt the Pantheon, and voted death to be an eternal

sleep. But the eighteenth century was born of the seventeenth, as

the seventeenth was born of the sixteenth, as the sixteenth was

born of the revival of Greek letters and philosophy, thoroughly

impregnated with paganism, supposed by unthinking men to be the

most glorious event in modern history, saving, always, Luther's

Reformation.

In the seventeenth century, Descartes undertook to reform and

reconstruct philosophy after a new method. He undertook to erect

philosophy into a complete science in the rational order,

independent of revelation. If he recognized the creative act of

God, or God as creator, it was as a theologian, not as a

philosopher; for certainly he does not start with the creative

act as a first principle, nor does he, nor can he, arrive at it

by his method. God as creator cannot be deduced from _cogito,

ergo sum;_ for, without presupposing God as my creator, I

cannot assert that I exist. Gentilism had so far revived that it

was able to take possession of philosophy the moment it was

detached from Christian theology and declared an independent

science; and as that has no conception of creation, the tradition

preserved by Jews and Christians was at once relegated from

philosophy to theologian, from science to faith. Hence we fail to

find creation recognized as a philosophical truth in the system

of his disciple Malebranche, a profounder philosopher than

Descartes himself. The prince of modern sophists, Spinoza,

adopting as his starting point the definition of substance given

by Descartes, demonstrates but too easily that there can be only

one substance, and that there can be no creation, or that nothing

does or can exist except the one substance and its attributes,

modes, or affections. Calling the one substance God, he arrived

at once at pantheism, now so prevalent.

{622}

That Descartes felt a difficulty in asserting creation in its

proper sense, may be inferred from the fact that he always calls

the soul _la pensée_, thought; never, if we recollect

aright, a substance that thinks, which was itself a large stride

toward pantheism, for pantheism consists precisely in denying all

substantive existences except the one only substance, which is

God. Spinoza developed his principles with a logic vastly

superior to his own, and brought out errors which he probably did

not foresee. Indeed, we do not pretend that Descartes intended to

favor or had any suspicion that he was favoring pantheism; but he

most certainly did not recognize any principle that would enable

his disciples to oppose it, and in former days, before we knew

the church, we ourselves found, or thought we found, pantheism

flowing logically from his premises, and we escaped it only by

rejecting the Cartesian philosophy.

Descartes revived in modern philosophy that antagonism between

spirit and matter which was unknown to the scholastic philosophy,

and which renders the mutual commerce of soul and body

inexplicable. The scholastic doctors had recognized, indeed,

matter and form; but with them matter was simply possibility,

existing only _in potentia ad formam_, and was never

supposed to be the basis or substratum of any existence whatever.

The real existence was in the form, the _forma_ or the

_idea_. They distinguished, certainly, between corporeal and

incorporeal existences; but not, as the moderns do, between

spiritual and material existences, and the question between

spiritualism and materialism, as we have it to-day, did not and

could not come up with them. The distinction with them was

between sensibles and intelligibles, the only distinction that

philosophy by her own light knows. _Spirit_ was a term very

nearly restricted to God, and _spiritual_ meant partaking of

spirit, living according to the spirit; that is, living a godly

life begotten by the Holy Spirit, as in the inspired writings of

St. Paul.

Even the ancients did not distinguish, in the modern sense,

between spirit and matter. Their gods were corporeal, but

ordinarily impassible. The spirit was not a distinct existence,

but was the universal principle of life, thought, and action, and

the spirit of man was an emanation from the universal spirit,

which at death flowed back and was reabsorbed in the ocean from

which it emanated. Their ghosts were not disembodied spirits, as

ours are, were not departed spirits, but the umbra or shade--a

thin, aerial apparition, bearing the exact resemblance of the

body, and had formed during life, if I may so speak, its inner

lining, or the immediate envelope of the spirit. It is the body

that after death still invests the soul, according to Swedenborg,

who denies the resurrection of the flesh. According to ancient

Greek and Roman gentilism it was not spirit, nor body, but

something between the two. It hovered over and around the dead

body, and it was to allay it, and enable it to rest in peace that

the funeral rites or obsequies of the dead were performed, and

judged to be so indispensable. The Marquis de Mirville, in his

work on _The Fluidity of Spirits_, seems to think the umbra

was not a pure imagination, and is inclined to assert it, and to

make it the basis of the explanation of many of the so-called

spirit-phenomena.

{623}

He supposes it is capable of transporting the soul, or of being

transported by the soul, out of the body, and to a great distance

from it, and that the body itself will bear the marks of the

wounds that may be given it. In this way he also explains the

prodigies of bilocation.

But however this may be, the ghost of heathen superstition is

never the spirit returned to earth, nor is it the spirit that is

doomed to Tartarus, or that is received into the Elysian Fields,

the heathen paradise. Hades, which includes both Tartarus and

Elysium, is a land of shadows, inhabited by shades that are

neither spirit nor body; for the heathen knew nothing, and

believed nothing, of the resurrection of the flesh, and the

reunion of soul and body in a future life. The spirit at death

returns to its fountain, and the body, dissolved, loses itself in

the several elements from which it was taken, and only the shade

or shadow of the living man survives. Even in Elysium, the ghosts

that sport on the flowery banks of the river, repose in the green

bowers, or pursue in the fields the mimic games and pastimes that

they loved, are pale, thin, and shadowy. The whole is a mimic

scene, if we may trust either Homer or Virgil, and is far less

real and less attractive than the happy hunting grounds of the

red men of our continent, to which the good, that is, the brave

Indian is transported when he dies. The only distinction we find,

with the heathen, between spirit and matter, is, the distinction

between the divine substance, or intelligence, and an eternally

existing matter, as the stuff of which bodies or corporeal

existences, the only existences recognized, are formed or

generated.

But Descartes distinguished them so broadly that he seemed to

make them each independent of the other. Why, then, was either

necessary to the life and activity of the other? And we see in

Descartes no use that the soul is or can be to the body, or the

body to the soul. Hence, philosophy, starting from Descartes,

branched out in two opposite directions, the one toward the

denial of matter, and the other toward the denial of spirit; or,

as more commonly expressed, into idealism and materialism, but as

it would be more proper to say, into intellectism and sensism.

The spiritualism of Descartes, so far as it had been known in the

history of philosophy, was only the Neoplatonic mysticism, which

substitutes the direct and immediate vision, so to speak, of the

intelligible, for its apprehension through sensible symbols and

the exercise of the reasoning faculty. From this it was an easy

step to the denial of an external and material world, as was

proved by Berkeley, who held the external world to consist simply

of pictures painted on the retina of the eye by the creative act

of God; and before him by Collier, who maintained that only mind

exists. It was an equally short and easy step to take the other

direction, assert the sufficiency of the corporeal or material,

and deny the existence of spirit or the incorporeal, since the

senses take cognizance of the corporeal and the corporeal only.

Either step was favored by the ancient philosophy revived and set

up against the scholastic philosophy. It was hardly possible to

follow out the exaggerated and exclusive spiritualism of the one

class without running into mystic pantheism, or the independence

of the corporeal or material, without falling into material

pantheism or atheism. These two errors, or rather these two

phases of one and the same error, are the fundamental or mother

error of this age--perhaps, in principle, of all ages--and is

receiving an able refutation by one of our collaborateurs in the

essay on Catholicity and Pantheism now in the course of

publication in this magazine.

{624}

It is no part of our purpose now to refute this error; we have

traced it from gentilism, shown that it is essentially pagan, and

owes its prevalence in the modern world to the revival of Greek

letters and philosophy in the fifteenth century, the discredit

into which the study of Plato and the Neoplatonists threw the

scholastic philosophy, and especially to the divorce of

philosophy from theology, declared by Descartes in the

seventeenth century. Yet we do not accept either exclusive

materialism or exclusive spiritualism, and the question itself

hardly has place in our philosophy, as it hardly had place in

that of St. Thomas. It became a question only when philosophy was

detached from theology, of which it forms the rational as

distinguishable but not separable from the revealed element, and

reduced to a mere _Wissenchaftslehre_, or rather a simple

methodology. True philosophy joined with theology is the response

to the question, What is, or exists? What are the principles and

causes of things? What are our relations to those principles and

causes? What is the law under which we are placed? and what are

the means and conditions within our reach, natural or gracious,

of fulfilling our destiny, or of attaining to our supreme good?

Not a response to the question, for the most part an idle

question, How do we know, or how do we know that we know?

Many of the most difficult problems for philosophers, and which

we confess our inability to solve, may be eluded by a flank

movement, to use a military phrase. Such is the question of the

origin of ideas, of certitude, and the passage from the

subjective to the objective, and this very question of

spiritualism and materialism. All these are problems which no

philosopher yet has solved from the point of view of exclusive

psychology, or of exclusive ontology, or of any philosophy that

leaves them to be asked. But we are much mistaken if they do not

cease to be problems at all, when one starts with the principles

of things, or if they do not solve themselves. We do not find

them, in the modern sense, raised by Plato or Aristotle, nor by

St. Augustine or St. Thomas. When we have the right stand-point,

if Mr. Richard Grant White will allow us the term, and see things

from the point of view of the real order, these problems do not

present themselves, and are wholly superseded. Professor Huxley

is right enough when he tells us that we know the nature and

essence neither of spirit nor of matter. I know from revelation

that there is a spirit in man, and that the inspiration of the

Almighty giveth him understanding, but I know neither by

revelation nor by reason what spirit is. God is a spirit; but if

man is a spirit, it must be in a very different sense from that

in which God is a spirit. Although the human spirit may have a

certain likeness to the Divine spirit, it yet cannot be divine,

for it is created; and they who call it divine, a spark of

divinity, or a particle of God, either do not mean, or do not

_know_ what they literally assert. They only repeat the old

gentile doctrine of the substantial identity of the spirit with

divinity, from whom it emanates, and to whom it returns, to be

reabsorbed in him--a pantheistic conception. All we can say of

spiritual existences is, that they are incorporeal intelligences;

and all we can say of man is, that he has both a corporeal and an

incorporeal nature; and perhaps without revelation we should be

able to say not even so much.

{625}

We know, again, just as little of matter. What is matter? Who can

answer? Nay, what is body? Who can tell? Body, we are told, is

composed of material elements. Be it so. What are those elements?

Into what is matter resolvable in the last analysis? Into

indestructible and indissoluble atoms, says Epicurus; into

entelecheia, or self-acting forces, says Aristotle; into

extension, says Descartes; into monads, each acting from its

centre, and representing the entire universe from its own point

of view, says Leibnitz; into centres of attraction and

gravitation, says Father Boscovich; into pictures painted on the

retina of the eye by the Creator, says Berkeley, the Protestant

bishop of Cloyne, and so on. We may ask and ask, but can get no

final answer.

Take, instead of matter, an organic body; who can tell us what it

is? It is extended, occupies space, say the Cartesians. But is

this certain? Leibnitz disputes it, and it is not easy to attach

any precise meaning to the assertion "it occupies space," if we

have any just notion of space and time, the _pons asinorum_

of psychologists. What is called actual or real space is the

relation of co-existence of creatures; and is simply nothing

abstracted from the related. It would be a great convenience if

philosophers would learn that nothing is nothing, and that only

God can create something from nothing. Space being nothing but

relation, to say of a thing that it occupies space, is only

saying that it exists, and exists in a certain relation to other

objects. This relation may be either sensible or intelligible; it

is sensible, or what is called sensible space, when the objects

related are sensible. Extension is neither the essence nor a

property of matter, but the sensible relation of an object either

to some other objects or to our sensible perception. It is, as

Leibnitz very well shows, only the relation of continuity. Whirl

a wheel with great force and rapidity, and you will be unable to

distinguish its several spokes, and it will seem to be all of one

continuous and solid piece. Intelligible space as distinguished

from sensible space is the logical relation of things, or, as

more commonly called, the relation of cause and effect. When we

conform our notions of space to the real order, and understand

that the sensible simply copies, imitates, or symbolizes the

intelligible, we shall see that we have no authority for saying

extension is even a property of body or of matter.

That extension is simply the sensible relation of body, not its

essence, nor even a property of matter, is evident from what

physiologists tell us of organic or living bodies. There can be

no reasonable doubt that the body I now have is the same

identical body with which I was born, and yet it contains,

probably, not a single molecule or particle of sensible matter it

originally had. As I am an old man, all the particles or

molecules of my body have probably been changed some ten or

twenty times over; yet my body remains unchanged. It is evident,

then, since the molecular changes do not affect its identity,

that those particles or molecules of matter which my body

assimilates from the food I take to repair the waste that is

constantly going on, or to supply the loss of those particles or

molecules constantly exuded or thrown off, do not compose, make

up, or constitute the real body. This fact is commended to the

consideration of those learned men, like the late Professor

George Bush, who deny the resurrection of the body, on the ground

that these molecular changes which have been going on during life

render it a physical impossibility. This fact also may have some

bearing on the Catholic mystery of Transubstantiation.

{626}

St. Augustine distinguishes between the visible body and the

intelligible body--the body that is seen and the body that is

understood--and tells us that it is the intelligible, or, as he

sometimes says, the spiritual, not the visible or sensible, body

of our Lord that is present in the Blessed Eucharist. In fact,

there is no change in the sensible body of the bread and the

wine, in Transubstantiation. The sensible body remains the same

after consecration that it was before. The change is in the

essence or substance, or the intelligible body, and hence the

appropriateness of the term _transubstantiation_ to express

the change which takes place at the words of consecration. Only

the intelligible body, that is, what is non-sensible in the

elements bread and wine, is transubstantiated, and yet their real

body is changed, and the real body of our Lord takes its place.

The nonsensible or invisible body, the intelligible body, is

then, in either case, assumed by the sacred mystery to be the

real body; and hence, supposing us right in our assumption that

our body remains always the same in spite of the molecular

changes--which was evidently the doctrine of St. Augustine--there

is nothing in science or the profoundest philosophy to show that

either transubstantiation or the resurrection of the flesh is

impossible, or that God may not effect either consistently with

his own immutable nature, if he sees proper to do it. Nothing

aids the philosopher so much as the study of the great doctrines

and mysteries of Christianity, as held and taught by the church.

The distinction between seeing and intellectually apprehending,

and therefore between the visible body and the intelligible body,

asserted and always carefully observed by St. Augustine when

treating of the Blessed Eucharist, belongs to a profounder

philosophy than is now generally cultivated. Our prevailing

philosophy, especially outside of the church, recognizes no such

distinction. It is true, we are told, that the senses perceive

only the sensible properties or qualities of things; that they

never perceive the essence or substance; but then the essence or

substance is supposed to be a mere abstraction with no

intelligible properties or qualities, or a mere substratum of

sensible properties and qualities. The sensible exhausts it, and

beyond what the senses proclaim the substance has no quality or

property, and is and can be the subject of no predicate. This is

a great mistake. The sensible properties and qualities are real,

that is, are not false or illusory; but they are real only in the

sensible order, or the _mimesis_, as Gioberti, after Plato

and some of the Greek fathers, calls it in his posthumous works.

The intelligible substance is the thing itself, and has its own

intelligible properties and qualities, which the sensible only

copies, imitates, or mimics. All through nature there runs, above

the sensible, the intelligible, in which is the highest created

reality, with its own attributes and qualities, which must be

known before we can claim to know anything as it really is or

exists. We do not know this in the case of body or matter; we do

not and cannot know what either really is, and can really know of

either only its sensible properties.

We know that if matter exists at all, it must have an essence or

substance; but what the substance really is human science has not

learned and cannot learn. We really know, then, of matter in

itself no more than we do of spirit, except that matter has its

sensible copy, which spirit has not.

{627}

Matter, as to its substance, is supersensible, and as to the

essence or nature of its substance is superintelligible, as is

spirit; and we only know that it has a substance; and of

substance itself, we can only say, if it exists, it is a _vis

activa_, as opposed to _nuda potentia_, which is a mere

possibility, and no existence at all. Such being the case, we

agree with Professor Huxley, that neither spiritualism nor

materialism is, in his sense, admissible, and that each is a

philosophical error, or, at least, an unprovable hypothesis.

But here our agreement ends and our divergence begins. The Holy

See has required the traditionalists to maintain that the

existence of God, the immateriality of the soul, and the liberty

of man can be proved with certainty by reason. We have always

found the definitions of the church our best guide in the study

of philosophy, and that we can never run athwart her teaching

without finding ourselves at odds with reason and truth. We are

always sure that when our theology is unsound our philosophy will

be bad. There is a distinction already noted between spirit and

matter, which is decisive of the whole question, as far as it is

a question at all. Matter has, and spirit has not, sensible

properties or qualities. These sensible properties or qualities

do not constitute the essence or substance of matter, which we

have seen is not sensible, but they distinguish it from spirit,

which is non-sensible. This difference, in regard to sensible

qualities and properties, proves that there must be a difference

of substance, that the material substance and the immaterial

substance are not, and cannot be one and the same substance,

although we know not what is the essence or nature of either.

We take matter here in the sense of that which has properties or

qualities perceptible by the senses, and spirit or spiritual

substance as an existence that has no such properties or

qualities. The Holy See says the _immateriality_, not

_spirituality_, of the soul, is to be proved by reason. The

spirituality of the soul, except in the sense of immateriality,

cannot be proved or known by philosophy, but is simply a doctrine

of divine revelation, and is known only by that analogical

knowledge called faith. All that we can prove or assert by

natural reason, is, that the soul is immaterial, or not material

in the sense that matter has for its sign the mimesis, or

sensible properties or qualities. We repeat, the sensible is not

the material substance, but is its natural sign. So that, where

the sign is wanting, we know the substance is not present and

active. On the other hand, where there is a force undeniably

present and operating without the sign, we know at once that it

is an immaterial force or substance.

That the soul is not material, therefore is an immaterial

substance, we know; because it has none of the sensible signs or

properties of matter. We cannot see, hear, touch, smell, nor

taste it. The very facts materialists allege to prove it

material, prove conclusively, that, if anything, it is

immaterial. The soul has none of the attributes or qualities that

are included, and has others which evidently are not included, in

the definition of matter. Matter, as to its substance, is a

_vis activa_, for whatever exists at all is an active force;

but it is not a force or substance that thinks, feels, wills, or

reasons. It has no sensibility, no mind, no intelligence, no

heart, no soul. But animals have sensibility and intelligence;

have they immaterial souls? Why not? We have no serious

difficulty in admitting that animals have souls, only not

rational and immortal souls.

{628}

Soul, in them, is not spirit, but it may be immaterial. Indeed,

we can go further, and concede an immaterial soul, not only to

animals but to plants, though, of course, not an intelligent or

even a sensitive soul; for if plants, or at least some plants,

are contractile and slightly mimic sensibility in animals,

nothing proves that they are sensitive. We have no proof that any

living organism, vegetable, animal, or human, is or can be a

purely material product. Professor Huxley has completely failed,

as we have shown, in his effort to sustain his theory of a

physical or material basis of life, and physiologists profess to

have demonstrated by their experiments and discoveries that no

organism can originate in inorganic matter, or in any possible

mechanical, chemical, or electrical arrangement of material

atoms, and is and can be produced, unless by direct and immediate

creation of God, only by generation from a preexisting male and

female organism. This is true alike of plants, animals, and man.

Nothing hinders you, then, from calling, if you so wish, the

universal basis of life _anima_ or soul, and asserting, the

psychical basis, in opposition to Professor Huxley's physical

basis, of life; only you must take care and not assert that

plants and animals have human souls, or that soul in them is the

same that it is in man.

There are grave thinkers who are not satisfied with the doctrine

that ascribes the apparent and even striking marks of mind in

animals to instinct, a term which serves to cover our ignorance,

but tells us nothing; still less are they satisfied with the

Cartesian doctrine that the animal is simply a piece of mechanism

moved or moving only by mechanical springs and wheels like a

clock or watch. Theologians are reluctant chiefly, we suppose, to

admit that animals have souls, because they are accustomed to

regard all souls, as to their substance, the same, and because it

has seemed to them that the admission would bring animals too

near to men, and not preserve the essential difference between

the animal nature and the human. But we see no difficulty in

admitting as many different sorts or orders of souls as there are

different orders, genera, and species of living organisms. God is

spirit, and the angels are spirits; are the angels therefore

identical in substance with God? The human soul is spiritual; is

there no difference in substance between human souls and angels?

We know that men sometimes speak of a departed wife, child, or

friend as being now an angel in heaven; but they are not to be

understand literally, any more than the young man in love with a

charming young lady who does not absolutely refuse his addresses,

when he calls her--a sinful mortal, not unlikely--an angel. In

the resurrection men are _like_ the angels of God, in the

respect that they neither marry nor are given in marriage; but

the spirits of the just made perfect, that stand before the

throne, are not angels; they are still human in their nature. If,

then, we may admit spirits of different nature and substance, why

not souls, and, therefore, vegetable souls, animal souls, and

human souls, agreeing only in the fact that they are immaterial,

or not material substances or forces?

It perhaps may be thought that to admit different orders of souls

to correspond to the different orders, genera, and species of

organisms, would imply that the human soul is generated with the

body; contrary to the general doctrine of theologians, that the

soul is created immediately _ad hoc_.

{629}

The Holy See censured Professor Frohshamer's doctrine on the

subject; but the point condemned was, as we understand it, that

the professor claimed _creative_ power for man. But it is

not necessary to suppose, even if plants and animals have souls,

that the human soul is generated with the body, in any sense

inconsistent with faith. The church has defined that "anima est

forma corporis," that is, as we understand it, the soul is the

vital or informing principle, the life of the body, without which

the body is dead matter. The organism generated is a living not a

dead organism, and therefore if the soul is directly and

immediately created _ad hoc_, the creative act must be

consentaneous with the act of generation, a fact which demands a

serious modification of the medical jurisprudence now taught in

our medical schools. Some have asserted for man alone a vegetable

soul, an animal soul, and a spiritual soul, but this is

inadmissible; man has simply a human soul, though capable of

yielding to the grovelling demands of the flesh as well as to the

higher promptings of the spirit.

But we have suffered ourselves to be drawn nearer to the borders

of the land of impenetrable mysteries than we intended, and we

retrace our steps as hastily as possible. Our readers will

understand that what we have said of the souls of plants and

animals is said only as a possible concession, but not set forth

as a doctrine we do or design to maintain; for it lies too near

the province of revelation to be settled by philosophy. All we

mean is that we see on the part of reason no serious objection to

it. Perhaps it may be thought that we lose, by the concession,

the argument for the immortality of the soul drawn from its

simplicity; but, even if so, we are not deprived of other, and to

our mind, much stronger arguments. But it may be said all our

talk about souls is wide of the mark, for we have not yet proved

that man is or has a soul distinguishable from the body, and

which does or can survive its dissolution, and that our argument

only proves that, if a man has a soul, it is immaterial. The

materialist denies that there is any soul in man distinct from

the body, and maintains that the mental phenomena, which we

ascribe to an immaterial soul, are the effects of material

organization. But that is for him to prove, not for us to

disprove. Organization can give to matter no new properties or

qualities, as aggregation can give only the sum of the

individuals aggregated. Matter we have taken all along, as all

the world takes it, as a substance that has properties and

qualities perceptible by the senses, and it has no meaning except

so far as so perceptible. Any active force that has no mimesis or

sensible qualities, properties, or attributes, is an immaterial,

not a material substance. That man is or has an active force that

feels, thinks, reasons, wills, we know as well as we know

anything; indeed, better than we know anything else. These acts

or operations are not operations of a material substance. We know

that they are not, from the fact that they are not sensible

properties or qualities, and therefore there must be in man an

active force or substance that is not material, but immaterial.

Material substance is, we grant, a _vis activa_; but if it

has properties or qualities, it has no faculties. It acts, but it

acts only _ad finem_, or to an end, never _propter

finem_, or for an end foreseen and deliberately willed or

chosen. But the force that man has or is, has faculties, not

simply properties or qualities, and can and does act

deliberately, with foresight and choice, for an end. Hence, it is

not and cannot be a substance included in the definition of

matter.

{630}

That this immaterial soul, now united to body and active only in

union with matter, survives the dissolution of the body and is

immortal, is another question, and is not proved, in our

judgment, by proving its immateriality. There is an important

text in Ecclesiastes, 3:21, which would seem to have some bearing

on the assumption that the immortality of the soul is really a

truth of philosophy as well as of revelation.

"Who knoweth if the spirit of the children of Adam ascend

upward, and if the spirit of the beasts descend downward?"

The doubt is not as to the immortality of the soul, but as to the

ability of reason without revelation to demonstrate it.

Certainly, reason can demonstrate its possibility, and that

nothing warrants its denial. The doctrine, in some form, has

always been believed by the human race, whether savage or

civilized, barbarous or refined, and has been denied only by

exceptional individuals in exceptional epochs. This proves either

that it is a dictate of universal reason, or a doctrine of a

revelation made to man in the beginning, before the dispersion of

the human race commenced. In either case the reason for believing

the doctrine would be sufficient; but we are disposed to take the

latter alternative, and to hold that the belief in the

immortality of the soul, or of an existence after death,

originated in revelation made to our first parents, and has been

perpetuated and diffused by tradition, pure and integral with the

patriarchs, the synagogue, and the church; but mutilated,

corrupted, and travestied with the cultivated as well as with the

uncultivated heathen. With the heathen Satan played his pranks

with the tradition, as he is doing with it with the spiritists in

our own times.

But if the belief originated in revelation and is a doctrine of

faith rather than of science, yet is it not repugnant to science,

and reason has much to urge in its support. The immateriality of

the soul implies its unity and simplicity, and therefore it can

not undergo dissolution, which is the death of the body. Its

dissolution is impossible, because it is a monad, having

attributes and qualities, but not made up by the combination of

parts. It is the form of the body, that is, it vivifies the

organic or central cell, and gives to the organism its life,

instead of drawing its own life from it. Science, then, has

nothing from which to infer that it ceases to exist when the body

dies. The death of the body does not necessarily imply its

destruction. True, we have here only negative proofs, but

negative proofs are all that is needed, in the case of a doctrine

of tradition, to satisfy the most exacting reason. The soul may

be extinguished with the body, but we cannot say that it is

without proof. Left to our unassisted reason, we could not say

that the soul of the animal expires with its body. Indeed, the

Indian does not believe it, and therefore buries with the hunter

his favorite dog, to accompany him in the happy hunting grounds.

The real matter to be proved is not that the soul can or does

survive the body, but that it dies with the body. We have seen

that it is distinguishable from the body, does not draw its life

from the body, but imparts life to it; how then conclude that it

dies with it? We have not a particle of proof, and not a single

fact from which we can logically infer that it does so die. What

right then has any one to say that it does? The laboring oar is

in the hands of those who assert that the soul dies with the

body, and it is for them to prove what they assert, not for us to

disprove it.

{631}

The real affirmative in the case is not made by those who assert

the immortality of the soul, but by those who assert its

mortality. The very term _immortal_ is negative, and simply

denies mortality. Life is always presumptive of the continuance

of life, and the continuance of the life of the soul must be

presumed in the absence of all proofs of its death.

We have seen that the immateriality, unity, and simplicity of the

soul prove that it does not necessarily die with the body, but

that it _may_ survive it. The fact that God has written his

promise of a future life in the very nature and destiny of the

soul, is for us a sufficient proof that the soul does not die

with the body. That God is, and is the first and final cause of

all existences, is a truth of science as well as of revelation.

He has created all things by himself, and for himself. He then

must be their last end, and therefore their supreme good,

according to their several natures. He has created man with a

nature that nothing short of the possession of himself as his

supreme good can satisfy. In so creating man, he promises him in

his nature the realization of this good, that is, the possession

of himself as final cause, unless forfeited and rendered

impossible by man's own fault. To return to God as his supreme

good without being absorbed in him, is man's destiny promised in

his very constitution. But this destiny is not realized nor

realizable in this life, and therefore there must be another life

to fulfil what he promises, for no promise of God, however made,

can fail. This argument we regard as conclusive.

The resurrection of the flesh, the reunion of the soul and body,

future happiness as a reward of virtue, and the misery of those

who through their own fault fail of their destiny, as a

punishment for sin, etc., are matters of revelation or theology

as distinguished from philosophy, and do not require to be

treated here, any further than to say, if reason has little to

say for them, it has nothing to say against them. They belong to

the mysteries of faith which, though never contrary to reason,

are above it, in an order transcending its domain.

We have thus far treated spiritualism and materialism from the

point of view of philosophy, not from that of psychology, or of

our faculties. The two doctrines, as they prevail to-day, are

simply psychological doctrines. The partisans of the one say that

the soul has no faculty of knowing any but material objects, and

therefore assert materialism; the partisans of the other say that

the soul has a faculty by which she apprehends immediately

immaterial or spiritual objects or truths, and hence they assert

what goes by the name of spiritualism, which may or may not deny

the existence of matter. Descartes and Cousin assert the

cognition of both spirit and matter, but as independent each of

the other; Collier and Berkeley deny that we have any cognition

of matter, and therefore deny its existence, save in the mind.

The truth, we hold, lies with neither. The soul has no direct

intuition of the immaterial or intelligible. We use

_intuition_ here in the ordinary sense, as an act of the

soul--knowing by looking on, or immediately beholding; that is,

in the sense of intelligible as distinguished from sensible

perceptions--intellection, as some say, as distinguished from

sensation. This empirical intuition, as we call it, is very

distinct from that intuition _a priori_ by which the ideal

formula is affirmed, for that is the act of the divine Being

himself, creating the mind, and becoming himself the light

thereof.

{632}

But that constitutes the mind, and is its object, not its act. No

doubt, the intellectual principles of all reality and of all

science are affirmed in that intuition _a priori_, and hence

these principles are ever present to the soul as the basis of all

intelligible as well as of all sensible experience. Yet they are

asserted by the mind's own act only as sensibly represented,

according to the peripatetic maxim, "Nihil est in intellectu,

quod non prius fuerit in sensu." The mind has three faculties,

sensibility, intellect, and will, but it is itself one, a single

_vis_ or force, and never acts with one faculty alone,

whether it feels, thinks, or wills; and, united as it is in this

life with the body, it never acts as body alone or as spirit

alone. There are then no intellections without sensation, nor

sensations without intellection; purely noetic truth, therefore,

can never be grasped save through a sensible medium.

We have already explained this with regard to material objects,

in which the substance, though supersensible, has its sensible

sign, through which the mind reaches it. But immaterial or ideal

objects are, as we have seen, precisely those which have no

sensible sign of their own--properties or qualities perceptible

by the senses. For this order of truth the only sensible

representation is language, which is the sensible sign or symbol

of immaterial or ideal truth. We arrive at this order of reality

or truth only through the medium of language which embodies it;

that is to say, only through the medium of tradition, or of a

teacher. So far we accord with the traditionalists. We do not

believe that, if God had left men in the beginning without any

instruction or language in which the ideas are embodied, they

would ever have been able to assert the existence of God, the

immateriality of the soul, and the liberty or free will of

man--the three great ideal truths which the Holy See requires us

to maintain can be _proved_ with certainty by reason; and we

do not hold that, like the revealed mysteries, they are

suprarational truth, and to be taken only on the authority of a

supernatural revelation. If God had not infused the knowledge of

them into the first of the race along with language, which he

also infused into Adam, we should never by our reason and

instincts alone have found them out, or distinctly apprehended

them; but being taught them, or finding them expressed in

language, we are able to verify or prove them with certainty by

our natural reason, in which respect we accord with those whom

the traditionalists call rationalists.

We have studiously avoided, as far as possible, the metaphysics

of the subject we have been considering, and perhaps have, in

consequence, kept too near its surface; but we think we have

established our main point, that neither spiritualism nor

materialism, taken exclusively, is philosophically defensible. We

are able to distinguish between spirit and matter, but we can

deny the existence or the activity, according to its own nature,

of neither. We know matter by its sensible properties or

qualities, We know spirit only as sensibly represented by

language. Let language be corrupted, and our knowledge of ideal

or non-sensible truth, or philosophy, will also be corrupted,

mutilated, or perverted. This will be still more the case with

the superintelligible truth supernaturally revealed, which is

apprehensible only through the medium of language. Hence, St.

Paul is careful to admonish St. Timothy to hold fast "the form of

sound words," and hence, too, the necessity, if God makes us a

revelation of spiritual things, that he should provide an

infallible living teacher to preserve the infallibility of the

language in which it is made.

{633}

We may see here, too, the reason why the infallible church is

hardly less necessary to the philosopher than to the theologian.

Where faith and theology are preserved in their purity and

integrity, philosophy will not be able to stray far from the

truth, and where philosophy is sound, the sciences will not long

be unsound. The aberrations of philosophy are due almost solely

to the neglect of philosophers to study it in its relation with

the dogmatic teaching of the church.

Some of our dear and revered friends in France and elsewhere are

seeking, as the cure for the materialism which is now so

prevalent, to revive the spiritualism of the seventeenth century.

But the materialism they combat is only the reaction of the mind

against that exaggerated spiritualism which they would revive.

Where there are two real forces, each equally evident and equally

indestructible, you can only alternate between them, till you

find the term of their synthesis, and are able to reconcile and

harmonize them. The spiritualism defended by Cousin in France has

resulted only in the recrudescence of materialism. The trouble

now is, that matter and spirit are presented in our modern

systems as antagonistic and naturally irreconcilable forces. The

duty of philosophers is not to labor to pit one against the

other, or to give the one the victory over the other; but to save

both, and to find out the middle term which unites them. We know

there must be somewhere that middle term; for both extremes are

creations of God, who makes all things by number, weight, and

measure, and creates always after the logic of his own essential

nature. All his works, then, must be logical and dialectically

harmonious.

Whether we have indicated this middle term or not, we have

clearly shown, we think, that it is a mistake to suppose the two

terms are not in reality mutually irreconcilable. Nothing proves

that, as creatures of God, each in its own order and place is not

as sacred and necessary as the other. We do not know the nature

or essence of either, nor can we say in what, as to this nature

and essence, the precise difference between them consists; but we

know that in our present life both are united, and that neither

acts without the other. All true philosophy must then present

them not as opposing, but as harmonious and concurring forces.

We do not for ourselves ever apply the term spiritualism to a

purely intellectual philosophy. We do not regard the words spirit

and soul as precisely synonymous. St. Paul, Heb. iv. 12, says,

"The word of God is living and effectual, ... reaching unto the

division of the soul and the spirit," or, as the Protestant

version has it, "quick and powerful, ... piercing even to the

dividing asunder of soul and spirit." There is evidently, then,

however closely related they may be, a distinction between the

soul and the spirit. Hence there may be soul that is not spirit,

which was generally held by the ancients. The Greeks had their

[Greek text] and [Greek text], and the Latins their _anima_

and _spiritus_. The term spirit, when applied to man, seems

to us to designate the moral powers rather than the intellectual,

and the moral powers or faculties are those which specially

distinguish man from animals. St. Paul applies the term spiritual

uniformly in a moral sense, and usually, if not always, to men

born again of the Holy Ghost, or the regenerated, and to the

influences and gifts of the Holy Spirit; that is, to designate

the supernatural character, gifts, graces, and virtues of those

who have been translated into the kingdom of God and are

fellow-citizens of the commonwealth of Christ, or the Christian

republic.

{634}

Hence, we shrink from calling any intellectual philosophy

spiritualism. If it touches philosophy, as it undoubtedly

does--since grace supposes nature, and a man must be born into

the natural order before he can be born again into the

supernatural order, or regenerated by the Spirit--it rises into

the region of supernatural sanctity, into which no man by his

natural powers can enter; for it is a sanctity that places one on

the plane of a supernatural destiny.

But even taken in this higher sense, there is no antagonism

between spirit and matter. There is certainly a struggle, a

warfare that remains through life; but the struggle is not

between the soul and the body; it is, as is said, between the

higher and inferior powers of the soul, between the spirit and

concupiscence, between the law of the mind, which bids us labor

for spiritual good which will last for ever, and the law in the

members, which looks only to the good of the body, in its earthly

relations. The saints, who chastise, mortify, macerate the body

by their fastings, vigils, and scourgings, do not do it on the

principle that the body is evil, or that matter is the source of

evil. There is a total difference in principle between Christian

asceticism and that of the Platonists, who hold that evil

originates in the intractableness of matter, that holds the soul

imprisoned as in a dungeon, and from which it sighs and struggles

for deliverance. The Christian knows that our Lord himself

assumed flesh and retains for ever his glorified body. He

believes in the resurrection of the body and its future

everlasting reunion with the soul. Christ, dying in a material

body, has redeemed both matter and spirit. Hence we venerate the

relics of our Lord and his saints, and believe matter may be

hallowed. In our Lord all opposites are reconciled, and universal

peace is established.

----------

Translated From The German Of

Conrad Von Bolanden.

Angela.

Chapter I.

Crinoline.

An express train was just on the eve of leaving the railway

station in Munich. Two fashionably dressed gentlemen stood at the

open door of a railway carriage, in conversation with a third,

who sat within. These two young men bore on their features the

marks of youthful dissipation, indicating that they had not been

sparing of pleasures. The one in the carriage had a handsome,

florid countenance, two clear, expressive eyes, and thick locks

of hair, which he now and then stroked back from his fine

forehead. He scarcely observed the conversation of the two

friends, who spoke of balls, dogs, horses, theatres, and

ballet-girls.

In the same carriage sat another traveller, evidently the father

of the young man. He was reading the newspaper--that is, the

report of the money market--while his fleshy left hand dallied

with the heavy gold rings of his watch-chain. He had paid no

attention to the conversation till an observation of his son

brought him to serious reflection.

{635}

"By the by," said one of the young men quickly, "I was nearly

forgetting to tell you the news, Richard! Do you know that Baron

Linden is engaged?"

"Engaged? To whom?" said Richard carelessly.

"To Bertha von Harburg. I received a card this morning, and

immediately wrote a famous letter of congratulation."

Richard looked down earnestly and shook his head.

"I commiserate the genial baron," said he. "What could he be

thinking of, to rush headlong into this misfortune?"

The father looked in surprise at his son; the hand holding the

paper sank on his knee.

"Permit me, gentlemen," said the conductor; the doors were

closed, the friends nodded good-by, and the train moved off.

"Your observation about Linden's marriage astonishes me, Richard.

But perhaps you were only jesting."

"By no means," said Richard. "Never more earnest in my life. I

expressed my conviction, and my conviction is the result of

careful observation and mature reflection."

The father's astonishment increased.

"Observation--reflection---fudge!" said the father impatiently,

as he folded the paper and shoved it into his pocket. "How can a

young man of twenty-two talk of experience and observation!

Enthusiastic nonsense! Marriage is a necessity of human life. And

you will yet submit to this necessity."

"True, if marriage be a necessity, then I suppose I must bow to

the yoke of destiny. But, father, this necessity does not exist.

There are intelligent men enough who do not bind themselves to

woman's caprices."

"Oh! certainly, there are some strange screech-owls in the

worlds--some enthusiasts. But certainly you do not wish to be one

of them. You, who have such great expectations. You, the only son

of a wealthy house. You, who have a yearly income of thousands to

spend."

"The income can be enjoyed more pleasantly, free and single,

father."

"Free and single--and enjoyed! Zounds! you almost tempt me to

think ill of you. Happily, I know you well. I know your strict

morality, your solidity, your moderate pretensions. All these

amiable qualities please me. But this view of marriage I did not

expect; you must put away this sickly notion."

The young man made no answer, but leaned back in his seat with a

disdainful smile.

Herr Frank gazed thoughtfully through the window. He reflected on

the determined character of his son, whose disposition, even when

a child, shut him out from the world, and who led an interior,

meditative life. Strict regularity and exact employment of time

were natural to him. At school, he held the first place in all

branches. His ambition and effort was to excel all others in

knowledge. His singular questions, which indicated a keen

observation and capacity, had often excited the surprise of his

father. And while the companions of the youth hailed with delight

the time which released them from the benches of the school and

from their studies, Richard cheerfully bound himself to his

accustomed task, to appease his longing for knowledge.

Approaching manhood had not changed him in this regard.

{636}

He was punctual to the hours of business, and labored with zeal

and interest, to the great joy of his father. He recreated

himself with music and painting, or by a walk in the open

country, for whose beauties he had a keen appreciation. The few

shades of his character were, a proud haughtiness, an unyielding

perseverance in his determinations, and a strength of conviction

difficult to overcome. But perhaps these shades were, after all,

great qualities, which were to brighten up and polish his

maturity. This obstinacy the father was now considering, and, in

reference to his singular view of marriage, it filled him with

great anxiety.

"But, Richard," began Herr Frank again, "how did you come to this

singular conclusion?"

"By observation and reflection--and also by experience, although

you deny my years this right."

"What have you experienced and observed?"

"I have observed woman as she is, and found that such a creature

would only make me miserable. What occupies their minds?

Fineries, pleasures, and trifles. The pivot of their existence

turns on dress, ornaments, balls, and the like. We live in an age

of crinoline, and you know how I abominate that dress; I admit my

aversion is abnormal, perhaps exaggerated, but I cannot overcome

it. When I see a woman going through the streets with swelling

hoops, the most whimsical fancies come into my mind. It reminds

me of an inflated balloon, whose clumsy swell disfigures the most

beautiful form. It reminds me of a drunken gawk, who swaggers

along and carries the foolish gewgaw for a show. The costume is

indeed expressive. It reveals the interior disposition. Crinoline

is to me the type of the woman of our day--an empty, vain,

inflated something. And this type repels me."

"Then you believe our women to be vain, pleasure-seeking, and

destitute of true womanhood, because they wear crinoline?"

"No, the reverse. An overweening propensity to show and frivolity

characterizes our women, and therefore they wear crinoline in

spite of the protestations of the men."

"Bah! Nonsense; you lay too much stress on fashion. I know many

women myself who complain of this fashion."

"And afterward follow it. This precisely confirms my opinion.

Women have no longer sufficient moral force to disregard a

disagreeable restraint. Their vanity is still stronger than their

inclinations to a natural enjoyment of life."

"Do you want a wife who would be sparing and saving; who, by her

frugality, would increase your wealth; who, by her social

seclusion, would not molest your cash-box?"

"No; I want no wife," answered the young man somewhat pettishly.

"And I am not alone in this. The young men are beginning to

awaken. A sound, natural feeling revolts against the vitiated

taste of the women. Alliances are forming everywhere. The last

paper announced that, at Marseilles, six thousand young men have,

with joined hands, vowed never to marry until the women renounce

their ruinous costumes and costly idleness, and return to a plain

style of dress and frugal habits. I object to this propensity to

ease and pleasure--this desire of our women for finery and the

gratification of vanity. Not because this inclination is

expensive, but because it is objectionable. Every creature has an

object. But, if we consider the women of our day, we might well

ask, for what are they here?"

{637}

"For what are women here, foolish man?" interrupted Herr Frank.

"Are they to go about without any costume, like Eve before the

fall? Are they to know the trials of life, and not its joys? Are

they to exist like the women of the sultan, shut up in a harem?

For what are they here? I will tell you. They are here to make

life cheerful. Does not Schiller say,

"'Honor to woman! she scatters rife

Heavenly roses,'mid earthly life;

Love she weaves in gladdening bands;

Chastity's veil her charm attires;

Beautiful thoughts' eternal fires,

Watchful, she feeds with holy hands.'"

Richard smiled.

"Poetical fancy!" said he. "My unhappy friend Emil Schlagbein

often declaimed and sang with passion that same poem of

Schiller's. Love had even made a poet of him. He wrote verses to

his Ida. And now, scarcely three years married, he is the most

miserable man in the world--miserable through his wife. Ida has

still the same finely carved head as formerly; but that head, to

the grief of Emil, is full of stubbornness--full of whimsical

nonsense. Her eyes have still the same deep blue; but the

charming expression has changed, and the blue not unfrequently

indicates a storm. How often has Emil poured out his sorrows to

me! How often complained of the coldness of his wife! A ball

missed--missed from necessity--makes her stupid and sulky for

days. In vain he seeks a cheerful look. When he returns home

worried by the cares of business, he finds no consolation in

Ida's sympathy, but is vexed by her stubbornness and offended by

her coldness. Emil sprang headlong into misery. I will beware of

such a step."

"You are unjust and prejudiced. Must all women, then, be Ida

Schagbeins?"

"Perhaps my Ida might be still worse," retorted Richard sharply.

Herr Frank drummed on his knees, always a sign of displeasure.

"I tell you, Richard," said he emphatically. "Your time will come

yet. You will follow the universal law, and this law will give

the lie to your one-sided view--to your contempt of woman."

"That impulse, father, can be overcome, and habit becomes a

second nature. Besides--"

"Besides--well, what besides?"

"I would say that the time of which you speak is, in my case,

happily passed," answered Richard, still gazing through the

window. "For me the time of sentimental delusion has been short

and decisive," he concluded with a bitter smile.

"Can I, your father, ask a clearer explanation?"

The young man leaned back in his seat and looked at the opposite

side while he spoke.

"Last summer I visited Baden-Baden. On old Mount Eberstein, which

is so picturesquely enthroned above the village, I fell in with a

party. Among the number was a young lady of rare beauty and great

modesty. An acquaintance gave me an opportunity of being

introduced to her. We sat in pleasant conversation under the

black oaks until the approaching twilight compelled us to return

to the town. Isabella--such was the name of the beauty--had made

a deep impression on me. So deep that even the detested crinoline

that encircled her person in large hoops found favor in my sight.

Her manner was in no wise coquettish. She spoke with deliberation

and spirit. Her countenance had always the same expression. Only

when the young people, into whose heads the fiery wine had risen,

gave expression to sharp words, did Isabella look up, and a

displeased expression, as of injured delicacy, passed over her

countenance.

{638}

My presence seemed agreeable to her. My conversation may

have pleased her. As we descended the mountain, we came to a

difficult pass. I offered her my arm, which she took in the same

unchanging, quiet manner which made her so charming in my sight.

I soon discovered my affection for the stranger, and wondered how

it could arise so suddenly and become so impetuous. I was ashamed

at abandoning so quickly my opinion of women. But this feeling

was not strong enough to stifle the incipient passion. My mind

lay captive in the fetters of infatuation."

He paused for a moment. The proud young man seemed to reproach

himself for his conduct, which he considered wanting in manly

independence and clear penetration.

"On the following day," he continued, "there was to be a

horse-race in the neighborhood. Before we parted, it was arranged

that we would be present at it. I returned to my room in the

hotel, and dreamed waking dreams of Isabella. My friend had told

me that she was the daughter of a wealthy merchant, and that she

had accompanied her invalid mother here. This mark of love and

filial affection was not calculated to cool my ardor. Isabella

appeared more beautiful and more charming still. We went to the

race. I had the unspeakable happiness of being in the same car

and sitting opposite her. After a short journey--to me, at least,

it seemed short--we arrived at the grounds where the race was to

take place. We ascended the platform. I sat at Isabella's side.

She did not for a moment lose her quiet equanimity. The race

began. I saw little of it, for Isabella was constantly before my

eyes, look where I would. Suddenly a noise--a loud cry--roused me

from my dream. Not twenty paces from where we sat, a horse had

fallen. The rider was under him. The floundering animal had

crushed both legs of the unfortunate man. Even now I can see his

frightfully distorted features before me. I feared that

Isabella's delicate sensibility might be wounded by the horrible

sight. And when I looked at her, what did I see? A smiling face!

She had lost her quiet, weary manner, and a hard, unfeeling soul

lighted up her features!

"'Do you not think this change in the monotony of the race quite

magnificent?' said she.

"I made no answer. With an apology, I left the party and returned

alone to Baden."

"Very well," said the father, "your Isabella was an unfeeling

creature granted. But now for your application of this

experience."

"We will let another make the application, father. Listen a

moment. In Baden a bottle of Rhine wine, whose spirit is so

congenial to sad and melancholy feelings, served to obliterate

the desolate remembrance. I sat in the almost deserted

dining-room. The guests were at the theatre, on excursions in the

neighborhood, or dining about the park. An old man sat opposite

me. I remarked that his eyes, when he thought himself unobserved,

were turned inquiringly on me. The sudden cooling of my passion

had perhaps left some marks upon me. The stranger believed,

perhaps, that I was an unlucky and desperate player. A player I

had indeed been. I had been about to stake my happiness on a

beautiful form. But I had won the game.

{639}

"The wine soon cheered me up and I entered into conversation with

the stranger. We spoke of various things, and finally of the

race. As there was a friendly, confiding expression in the old

man's countenance, I related to him the unhappy fall of the

rider, and dwelt sharply on the impression the hideous spectacle

made on Isabella. I told him that such a degree of callousness

and insensibility was new to me, and that this sad experience had

shocked me greatly.

"'This comes,' said he, 'from permitting yourself to be deceived

by appearances, and because you do not know certain classes of

society. If you consider the beautiful Isabella with sensual

eyes, you will run great danger of taking appearances for

truth--the false for the real. Even the plainest exterior is

often only sham. Painted cheeks, colored eyebrows, false hair,

false teeth; and even if these forms were not false, but true--if

you penetrate these forms, if, under the constraint of graceful

repose, we see modesty, purity, and even humility--there is then

still greater danger of deception. A wearied, enervated nature,

nerves blunted by the enjoyment of all kinds of pleasures, are

frequently all that remains of womanly nature.

"'Do you wish to see striking examples of this? Go into the

gaming saloons--into those horrible places where fearful and

consuming passions seethe; where desperation and suicide lurk. Go

into the corrupt, poisonous atmosphere of those gambling hells,

and there you will find women every day and every hour. Whence

this disgusting sight? The violent excitement of gambling alone

can afford sufficient attraction for those who have been sated

with all kinds of pleasures. Is a criminal to be executed? I give

you my word of honor that women give thousands of francs to

obtain the best place, where they can contemplate more

conveniently the shocking spectacle and read every expression in

the distorted features of the struggling malefactor.

"'Isabella was one of these exhausted, enervated creatures, and

hence her pleasure at the sight of the mangled rider.'

"Thus spoke the stranger, and I admitted that he was right. At

the same time I tried to penetrate deeper into this want of

sensibility. Like a venturesome miner, I descended into the

psychological depth. I shuddered at what I there discovered, and

at the inferences which Isabella's conduct forced upon my mind.

No, father, no," said he impetuously, "I will have no such

nuptials--I will never rush into the miseries of matrimony!"

"Thunder and lightning! are you a man?" cried Herr Frank.

"Because Emil's wife and Isabella are good-for-nothings, must the

whole sex be repudiated? Both cases are exceptions. These

exceptions give you no right to judge unfavorably of all women.

This prejudice does no honor to your good sense, Richard. It is

only eccentricity can judge thus."

The train stopped. The travellers went out, where a carriage

awaited them.

"Is everything right?" said Herr Frank to the driver.

"All is fixed, sir, as you required."

"Is the box of books taken out?"

"Yes, sir."

The coach moved up the street. The dark mountain-side rose into

view, and narrow, deep valleys yawned beneath the travellers.

Fresh currents of air rushed down the mountain and Herr Frank

inhaled refreshing draughts.

Richard gazed thoughtfully over the magnificent vineyards and

luxurient orchards.

{640}

The road grew steeper and the wooded summit of the mountain

approached. A light which Frank beheld with satisfaction glared

out from it. Its rays shot out upon the town that, amid rich

vineyards, topped the neighboring hill.

"Our residence is beautifully located," said Herr Frank. "How

cheerful it looks up there! It is a home fit for princes."

"You have indeed chosen a magnificent spot, father. Everything

unites to make Frankenhöhe a delightful place. The vineyards on

the slopes of the hills, the smiling hamlet of Salingen to the

right. In the background the stern mountain with its proud ruins

on the summit of Salburg, the deep valleys and the dark ravines,

all unite in the landscape: to the east that beautiful plain."

These words pleased the father. His eyes rested long on the

beautiful property.

"You have forgotten a reason for my happy choice," said he, while

a smile played on his features. "I mean the habit of my friend

and deliverer, who, for the last eight years, spends the month of

May at Frankenhöhe. You know the singular character of the

doctor. Nothing in the world can tear him from his books. He has

renounced all pleasure and enjoyment, to devote his whole time to

his books. When Frankenhöhe entices and captivates the man of

science, so strict, so dead to the world, it is, as I think, the

highest compliment to our place."

Richard did not question his father's opinion. He knew his

unbounded esteem for the learned doctor.

The road grew steeper and steeper. The horses labored slowly

along. The pleasant hamlet of Salingen lay a short distance to

the left. A single house, separated from the village, and

standing near the road in the midst of vineyards, came into view.

The features of Herr Frank darkened as he turned his gaze from

Frankenhöhe to this house. It was as though some unpleasant

recollection was associated with it. Richard looked at the

stately mansion, the large out-houses, the walled courts, neat

and clean.

"This must be a wealthy proprietor or influential landlord who

lives here," said Richard. "I have indeed seen this place in

former years, but it did not interest me. How inviting and

pleasant it looks. The property must have undergone considerable

change at least, I remember nothing that indicated the place to

be other than an ordinary farmhouse."

Herr Frank did not hear these observations. He muttered some

bitter imprecation. The coach gained the summit, left the road,

and passed through vineyards and chestnut groves to the house.

Frankenhöhe was a handsome two-story house whose arrangements

corresponded to Frank's taste and means. Near it stood another,

occupied by the steward. A short distance from it were stables

and out-houses for purposes of agriculture.

Herr Frank went directly to the house, and passed from room to

room to see if his instructions had been carried out.

Richard went into the garden and walked on paths covered with

yellow sand. He strolled about among flower-beds that loaded the

air with agreeable odors. He examined the blooming dwarf

fruit-trees and ornamental plants. He observed the neatness and

exact order of everything. Lastly, he stood near the vineyard

whence he could behold an extensive view.

{641}

He admired the beautiful, fragrant landscape. He stood

thoughtfully reflecting. His conversation made it evident to him

that his feelings and will did not agree with his father's

wishes. He saw that between his inclinations and his love for his

father he must undergo a severe struggle--a struggle that must

decide his happiness for life. The strangeness of his opinion of

women did not escape him. He tested his experience. He tried to

justify his convictions, and yet his father's claims and filial

duty prevailed.

Chapter II.

The Weather-cross.

The next morning Richard was out with the early larks, and

returned after a few hours in a peculiar frame of mind. As he was

entering his room, he saw through the open door his father

standing in the saloon. Herr Frank was carefully examining the

arrangements, as the servants were carrying books into the

adjoining room and placing them in a bookcase. Richard, as he

passed, greeted his father briefly, contrary to his usual custom.

At other times he used to exchange a few words with his father

when he bid him good-morning, and he let no occasion pass of

giving his opinion on any matter in which he knew his father took

an interest.

The young man walked to the open window of his room, and gazed

into the distance. He remained motionless for a time. He ran his

fingers through his hair, and with a jerk of the head threw the

brown locks back from his forehead. He walked restlessly back and

forth, and acted like a man who tries in vain to escape from

thoughts that force themselves upon him. At length he went to the

piano, and beat an impetuous impromptu on the keys.

"Ei, Richard!" cried Herr Frank, whom the wild music had brought

to his side. "Why, you rave! How possessed! One would think you

had discovered a roaring cataract in the mountains, and wished to

imitate its violence."

Richard glanced quickly at his father, and finished with a

tender, plaintive melody.

"Come over here and look at the rooms."

Richard followed his father and examined carelessly the elegant

rooms, and spoke a few cold words of commendation.

"And what do you say to this flora?" said Herr Frank pointing to

a stepped framework on which bloomed the most beautiful and rare

flowers.

"All very beautiful, father. The doctor will be much pleased, as

he always is here."

"I wish and hope so. I have had the peacocks and turkeys sent

away, because Klingenberg cannot endure their noise. The library

here will always be his favorite object, and care has been taken

with it. Here are the best books on all subjects, even theology

and astronomy."

"Frankenhöhe is indeed cheerful as the heart of youth and quiet

as a cloister," said Richard. "Your friend would indeed be

ungrateful if this attention did not gratify him."

"I have also provided that excellent wine which he loves and

enjoys as a healthful medicine. But, Richard, you know

Klingenberg's peculiarities. You must not play as you did just

now; you would drive the doctor from the house."

"Make yourself easy about that, father; I will play while he is

on the mountain."

{642}

Richard took a book from the shelf, and glanced over it. Herr

Frank left him, and he immediately replaced the book and returned

to his own room. There he wrote in his diary:

"12th of May.--Man is too apt to be led by his inclination. And

what is inclination? A feeling caused by external impressions,

or superinduced by a disposition of the body. Inclination,

therefore, is something inimical to intellectual life. A vine

that threatens to overgrow and smother clear conviction. Never

act from inclination, if you do not wish to be unfaithful to

conviction and guilty of a weakness."

He went into the garden, where he talked to the gardener about

trees and flowers.

"Are you acquainted in Salingen, John?"

"Certainly, sir. I was born there."

"Do strangers sometimes come there to stop and enjoy the

beautiful neighborhood?"

"Oh! no, sir; there is no suitable hotel there--only plain

taverns; and people of quality would not stop at them."

"Are there people of rank in Salingen?"

"Only farmers, sir. But---stay. The rich Siegwart appears to be

such, and his children are brought up in that manner."

"Has Siegwart many children?"

"Four--two boys and two girls. One son is at college. The other

takes care of the estate, and is at home. The oldest daughter has

been at the convent for three years. She is now nineteen years

old. The second is still a child."

Richard went further into the garden; he looked over at Salingen,

and then at the mountains. His eye followed a path that went

winding up the mountain like a golden thread and led to the top.

Then his eye rested for a time on a particular spot in that

yellow path. Richard remained taciturn and reserved the rest of

the day. He sat in his room and tried to read, but the subject

did not interest him. He often looked dreamily from the book. He

finally arose, took his hat and cane, and was soon lost in the

mountain. The next morning Richard went to the borders of the

forest, and looked frequently over at Salingen as it lay in rural

serenity before him. The pleasant hamlet excited his interest. He

then turned to the right and pursued the yellow path which he had

examined the day before, up the mountain. The birds sang in the

bushes, and on the branches of the tallest oak perched the

black-bird whose morning hymn echoed far and wide. The sweet

notes of the nightingale joined in the general concert, and the

shrill piping of the hawk struck in discordantly with the varied

and beautiful song. Even unconscious nature displayed her

beauties. The dew hung in great drops on the grass-blades and

glittered like so many brilliants, and wild flowers loaded the

air with sweet perfumes. Richard saw little of these beauties of

spring. He ascended still higher. His mind seemed agitated and

burdened. He had just turned a bend in the road when he saw a

female figure approaching. His cheeks grew darker as his eyes

rested on the approaching figure. He gazed in the distance, and a

disdainful flush overspread his face. He approached her as he

would approach an enemy whose power he had felt, and whom he

wished to conciliate.

She was within fifty paces of him. Her blue dress fell in heavy

folds about her person. The ribbons of her straw bonnet, that

hung on her arm, fluttered in the breeze. In her left hand she

held a bunch of flowers. On her right arm hung a silk mantle,

which the mild air had rendered unnecessary.

{643}

Her full, glossy hair was partly in a silk net and partly plaited

over the forehead and around the head, as is sometimes seen with

children. Her countenance was exquisitely beautiful, and her

light eyes now rested full and clear on the stranger who

approached her. She looked at him with the easy, natural

inquisitiveness of a child, surprised to meet such an elegant

gentleman in this place.

Frank looked furtively at her, as though he feared the

fascinating power of the vision that so lightly and gracefully

passed him. He raised his hat stiffly and formally. This was

necessary to meet the requirement of etiquette. Were it not, he

would perhaps have passed her by without a salutation. She did

not return his greeting with a stiff bow, but with a friendly

"good-morning;" and this too in a voice whose sweetness, purity,

and melody harmonized with the the beautiful echoes of the

morning.

Frank moved on hastily for some distance. He was about to look

back, but did not do so; and continued on his way, with

contracted brows, till a turn in the road hid her from his view.

Here he stopped and wiped the sweat from his forehead, His heart

beat quickly, and he was agitated by strong emotions. He stood

leaning on his cane and gazing into the shadows of the forest. He

then continued thoughtfully, and ascended some hundred feet

higher till he gained the top of the mountain. The tall trees

ceased; a variegated copsewood crowned the summit, which formed a

kind of platform. Human hands had levelled the ground, and on the

moss that covered it grew modest little violets. Near the border

of the platform stood a stone cross of rough material. Near this

cross lay the fragments of another large rock, that might have

been shattered by lightning years before. A few steps back of

this, on two square blocks of stone, stood a statue of the Virgin

and Child, of white stone very carefully wrought, but without

much art. The Virgin had a crown of roses on her head. The Child

held a little bunch of forget-me-nots in its hand, and as it held

them out seemed to say, "Forget me not," Two heavy vases that

could not be easily overturned by the wind, standing on the upper

block, also contained flowers. All these flowers were quite

fresh, as if they had just been placed there.

Richard examined these things, and wondered what they meant in

this solitude of the mountain. The fresh flowers and the

cleanliness of the statue, on which no dust or moss could be

seen, indicated a careful keeper. He thought of the young woman

whom he met. He had seen the same kind of flowers in her hand,

and doubtless she was the devotee of the place.

Scarcely had his thoughts taken this direction when he turned

away and walked to the border of the plot, and gazed at the

country before him. He looked down toward Frankenhöhe, whose

white chimneys appeared above the chestnut grove. He contemplated

the plains with their luxuriant fields reflecting every shade of

green--the strips of forests that lay like shadows in the sunny

plain--numberless hamlets with church towers whose gilded

crosses gleamed in the sun. He gazed in the distance where the

mountain ranges vanished in the mist, and long he enjoyed the

magnificence of the view. He was aroused from his dreamy

contemplation by the sound of footsteps behind him.

{644}

An old man with a load of wood on his shoulders came up to the

place. Breathing heavily, he threw down the wood and wiped the

sweat from his face. He saw the stranger, and respectfully

touched his cap as he sat down on the wood.

Frank went to him.

"You are from Salingen, I suppose," he began

"Yes, sir."

"It is very hard for an old man like you to carry such a load so

far."

"It is indeed, but I am poor and must do it."

Frank looked at the patched clothes of the old man, his coarse

shoes, his stockingless feet, and meagre body, and felt

compassion for him.

"For us poor people the earth bears but thistles and thorns."

After a pause, the old man continued, "We have to undergo many

tribulations and difficulties, and sometimes we even suffer from

hunger. But thus it is in the world. The good God will reward us

in the next world for our sufferings in this."

These words sounded strangely to Richard. Raised as he was in the

midst of wealth, and without contact with poverty, he had never

found occasion to consider the lot of the poor; and now the

resignation of the old man, and his hope in the future, seemed

strange to him. He was astonished that religion could have such

power--so great and strong--to comfort the poor in the miseries

of a hopeless, comfortless life.

"But what if your hope in another world deceive you?"

The old man looked at him with astonishment.

"How can I be deceived? God is faithful. He keeps his promises."

"And what has he promised you?"

"Eternal happiness if I persevere, patient and just, to the end."

"I wonder at your strong faith!"

"It is my sole possession on earth. What would support us poor

people, what would keep us from despair, if religion did not?"

Frank put his hand into his pocket.

"Here," said he, "perhaps this money will relieve your wants."

The old man looked at the bright thalers in his hand, and the

tears trickled down his cheeks.

"This is too much, sir; I cannot receive six thalers from you."

"That is but a trifle for me; put it in your pocket, and say no

more about it."

"May God reward and bless you a thousand times for it!"

"What does that cross indicate?"

"That is a weather cross, sir. We have a great deal of bad

weather to fear. We have frequent storms here, in summer; they

hang over the mountain and rage terribly. Every ravine becomes a

torrent that dashes over the fields, hurling rocks and sand from

the mountain. Our fields are desolated and destroyed. The people

of Salingen placed that cross there against the weather. In

spring the whole community come here in procession and pray God

to protect them from the storms."

Richard reflected on this phenomenon; the confidence of these

simple people in the protection of God, whose omnipotence must

intervene between the remorseless elements and their victims,

appeared to him as the highest degree of simplicity. But he kept

his thoughts to himself, for he respected the religious

sentiments of the old man, and would not hurt his feelings.

"And the Virgin, why is she there?"

"Ah! that is a wonderful story, sir," he answered, apparently

wishing to evade an explanation.

"Which every one ought not to know?"

"Well--but perhaps the gentleman would laugh, and I would not

like that!"

{645}

"Why do you think I would laugh at the story?"

"Because you are a gentleman of quality, and from the city, and

such people do not believe any more in miracles."

This observation of rustic sincerity was not pleasing to Frank.

It expressed the opinion that the higher classes ignore faith in

the supernatural.

"If I promise you not to laugh, will you tell me the story?"

"I will; you were kind to me, and you can ask the story of me.

About thirty years ago," began the old man after a pause, "there

lived a wealthy farmer at Salingen whose name was Schenck.

Schenck was young. He married a rich maiden and thereby increased

his property. But Schenck had many great faults. He did not like

to work and look after his fields. He let his servants do as they

pleased, and his fields were, of course, badly worked and yielded

no more than half a crop. Schenck sat always in the tavern, where

he drank and played cards and dice. Almost every night he came

home drunk. Then he would quarrel with his wife, who reproached

him. He abused her, swore wickedly, and knocked everything about

the room, and behaved very badly altogether. Schenck sank lower

and lower, and became at last a great sot. His property was soon

squandered. He sold one piece after another, and when he had no

more property to sell, he took it into his head to sell himself

to the devil for money. He went one night to a cross-road and

called the devil, but the devil would not come; perhaps because

Schenck belonged to him already, for the Scripture says, 'A

drunkard cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.' At last a suit was

brought against him, and the last of his property was sold, and

he was driven from his home. This hurt Schenck very much, for he

always had a certain kind of pride. He thought of the past times

when he was rich and respected, and now he had lost all respect

with his neighbors. He thought of his wife and his four children,

whom he had made poor and miserable. All this drove him to

despair. He determined to put an end to himself. He bought a rope

and came up here one morning to hang himself. He tied the rope to

an arm of the cross, and had his head in the noose, when all at

once he remembered that he had not yet said his three "Hail!

Marys." His mother who was dead had accustomed him, when a child,

to say every day three "Hail! Marys." Schenck had never neglected

this practice for a single day. Then he took his head out of the

noose and said, 'Well, as I have said the "Hail! Marys" every

day, I will say them also to-day, for the last time.' He knelt

down before the cross and prayed. When he was done, he stood up

to hang himself. But he had scarcely stood on his feet when he

was snatched up by a whirlwind and carried through the air till

he was over a vineyard, where he fell without hurting himself. As

he stood up, an ugly man stood before him and said, 'This time

you have escaped me, but the next time I will get you.' The ugly

man had horses' hoofs in place of feet, and wore green clothes.

He disappeared before Schenck's eyes. Schenck swears that this

ugly man was the devil. He declares also that he has to thank the

Mother of God, through whose intercession he escaped the claws of

the devil. Schenck had that statue placed there in memory of his

wonderful escape--and that is why the Mother of God is there."

{646}

"A wonderful story indeed!" said Richard. "Although I do not

laugh at it, as you see, yet I must assure you that I do not

believe the story."

"I thought so," answered the old man. "But you can ask Schenck

himself. He is still living, and is now seventy. Since that day

he has changed entirely. He drinks nothing but water. He never

enters a tavern, but goes every day to church. From that time to

this Schenck has been very industrious, and has saved a nice

property."

"That the drunkard reformed is the most remarkable and best part

of the story," said Frank. "Drunkards very seldom reform. But,"

continued he smiling, "the devil acted very stupidly in the

affair. He should have known that his appearance would have made

a deep impression on the man, and that he would not let himself

be caught a second time."

"That is true," said the old man. "But I believe the devil was

forced to appear and speak so."

"Forced? By whom?"

"By Him before whom the devils must believe and tremble. Schenck

was to understand that God delivered him on account of his pious

custom, and the devil had to tell him that this would not happen

a second time."

"How prudent you are in your superstition!" said Frank.

"As the gentleman has been kind to me, it hurts me to hear him

speak so."

"Now," said Richard quickly, "I would not hurt your feelings. One

may be a good Christian without believing fables. And the flowers

near the statue. Has Schenck placed them there too?"

"Oh! no--the Angel did that."

"The Angel. Who is that?" said Frank, surprised.

"The Angel of Salingen--Siegwart's angel."

"Ah! angel is Angela, is it not?"

"So she may be called. In Salingen they call her only Angel. And

she is indeed as lovely, good, and beautiful as an angel. She has

a heart for the poor, and she gives with an open hand and a

smiling face that does one good. She is like her father, who

gives me as many potatoes as I want, and seed for my little patch

of ground."

"Why does Angela decorate this statue?"

"I do not know; perhaps she does it through devotion."

"The flowers are quite fresh; does she come here every day?"

"Every day during the month of May, and no longer."

"Why no longer?"

"I do not know the reason; she has done so for the last two

years, since she came home from the convent, and she will do so

this year."

"As Siegwart is so good to the poor, he must be rich."

"Very rich--you can see from his house. Do you see that fine

building there next to the road? That is the residence of Herr

Siegwart."

It was the same building that had arrested Richard's attention as

he passed it some days before, and the sight of which had excited

the ill-humor of his father. Richard returned by a shorter way to

Frankenhöhe. He was serious and meditative. Arrived at home, he

wrote in his diary:

"May 13th.--Well, I have seen her. She exhibits herself as the

'Angel of Salingen.' She is extremely beautiful. She is full of

amiability and purity of character. And to-day she did not wear

that detestable crinoline. But she will have other foibles in

place of it. She will, in some things at least, yield to the

superficial tendencies of her sex. Isabella was an ideal, until

she descended from the height where my imagination, deceived by

her charms, had placed her. The impression which Angela's

appearance produced has rests on the same

foundation--deception. A better acquaintance will soon discover

this. Curious! I long to become better acquainted!

{647}

"Religion is not a disease or hallucination, as many think. It

is a power. Religion teaches the poor to bear their hard lot

with patience. It comforts and keeps them from despair. It

directs their attention to an eternal reward, and this hope

compensates them for all the afflictions and miseries of this

life. Without religion, human society would fall to pieces."

A servant entered, and announced dinner.

"Ah Richard!" said Herr Frank good-humoredly. "Half an hour late

for dinner, and had to be called! That is strange; I do not

remember such a thing to have happened before. You are always as

punctual as a repeater."

"I was in the mountain and had just returned."

"No excuse, my son. I am glad the neighborhood diverts you, and

that you depart a little from your regularity. Now everything is

in good order, as I desired, for my friend and deliverer. I have

just received a letter from him. He will be here in two days. I

shall be glad to see the good man again. If Frankenhöhe will only

please him for a long time!"

"I have no doubt of that," said Richard. "The doctor will be

received like a friend, treated like a king, and will live here

like Adam and Eve in paradise."

"Everything will go on as formerly. I will be coming and going on

account of business. You will, of course, remain uninterruptedly

at Frankenhöhe. You are high in the doctor's esteem. You interest

him very much. It is true you annoy him sometimes with your

unlearned objections and bold assertions. But I have observed

that even vexation, when it comes from you, is not disagreeable

to him."

"But the poor should not annoy him with their sick," said

Richard. "He never denies his services to the poor, as he never

grants them to the rich. Indeed, I have sometimes observed that

he tears himself from his books with the greatest reluctance, and

it is not without an effort that he does it."

"But we cannot change it," said Herr Frank; "we cannot send the

poor away without deeply offending Klingenberg. But I esteem him

the more for his generosity."

After dinner the father and son went into the garden and talked

of various matters; suddenly Richard stopped and pointing over to

Salingen, said,

"I passed to-day that neat building that stands near the road.

Who lives there?"

"There lives the noble and lordly Herr Siegwart," said Herr Frank

derisively.

His tone surprised Richard. He was not accustomed to hear his

father speak thus.

"Is Siegwart a noble?"

"Not in the strict sense. But he is the ruler of Salingen. He

rules in that town as absolutely as princes formerly did in their

kingdoms."

"What is the cause of his influence?"

"His wealth, in the first place; secondly, his charity; and

lastly, his cunning."

"You are not favorable to him?"

"No, indeed! The Siegwart family is excessively ultramontane and

clerical. You know I cannot endure these narrow prejudices and

this obstinate adherence to any form of religion. Besides, I have

a particular reason for disagreement with Siegwart, of which I

need not now speak."

{648}

"Excessively ultramontane and clerical!" thought Richard, as he

went to his room. "Angela is undoubtedly educated in this spirit.

Stultifying confessionalism and religious narrow-mindedness have

no doubt cast a deep shadow over the 'angel.' Now--patience; the

deception will soon banish."

He took up Schlosser's History, and read a long time. But his

eyes wandered from the page, and his thoughts soon followed.

The next morning at the same hour Richard went to the weather

cross. He took the same road and again he met Angela; she had the

same blue dress, the same straw hat on her arm, and flowers in

her hand. She beheld him with the same clear eyes, with the same

unconstrained manner--only, as he thought, more charming--as on

the first day. He greeted her coolly and formally, as before. She

thanked him with the same affability. Again the temptation came

over him to look back at her; again he overcame it. When he came

to the statue, he found fresh flowers in the vases. The child

Jesus had fresh forget-me-nots in his hand, and the Mother had a

crown of fresh roses on her head. On the upper stone lay a book,

bound in blue satin and clasped with a silver clasp. When he took

it up, he found beneath it a rosary made of an unknown material,

and having a gold cross fastened at the end. He opened the book.

The passage that had been last read was marked with a silk

ribbon. It was as follows:

"My son, trust not thy present affection; it will be quickly

changed into another. As long as thou livest thou art subject

to change, even against thy will; so as to be sometimes joyful,

at other times sad; now easy, now troubled; at one time devout,

at another dry; sometimes fervent, at other times sluggish; one

day heavy, another day lighter. But he that is wise and well

instructed in spirit stands above all these changes, not

minding what he feels in himself, nor on what side the wind of

instability blows; but that the whole bent of his soul may

advance toward its due and wished-for end; for thus he may

continue one and the self-same without being shaken, by

directing without ceasing, through all this variety of events,

the single eye of his intention toward me. And by how much more

pure the eye of the intention is, with so much greater

constancy mayest thou pass through these divers storms.

"But in many the eye of pure intention is dark; for men quickly

look toward something delightful that comes in their way. And

it is rare to find one who is wholly free from all blemish of

self-seeking."

Frank remembered having written about the same thoughts in his

diary. But here they were conceived in another and deeper sense.

He read the title of the book. It was _The Following of

Christ_.

He copied the title in his pocketbook. He then with a smile

examined the rosary, for he was not without prejudice against

this kind of prayer.

He had no doubt Angela had left these things here, and he thought

it would be proper to return them to the owner. He came slowly

down the mountain reading the book. It was clear to him that

_The Following of Christ_ was a book full of very earnest

and profound reflections. And he wondered how so young a woman

could take any interest in such serious reading. He was convinced

that all the ladies he knew would throw such a book aside with a

sneer, because its contents condemned their lives and habits.

Angela, then, must be of a different character from all the

ladies he knew, and he was very desirous of knowing better this

character of Angela.

In a short time he entered the gate and passed through the yard

to the stately building where Herr Siegwart dwelt. He glanced

hastily at the long out-buildings--the large barns; at the

polished cleanliness of the paved court, the perfect order of

everything, and finally at the ornamented mansion.

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Then he looked at the old lindens that stood near the house,

whose trunks were protected from injury by iron railings. In the

tops of these trees lodged a lively family of sparrows, who were

at present in hot contention, for they quarrelled and cried as

loud and as long as did formerly the lords in the parliament of

Frankfort. The beautiful garden, separated from the yard by a low

wall covered with white boards, did not escape him. Frank

entered, upon a broad and very clean path; as his feet touched

the stone slabs, he heard, through the open door, a low growl,

and then a man's voice saying, "Quiet, Hector."

Frank walked through the open door into a large room handsomely

furnished, and odoriferous with a multitude of flowers in vases.

A man in the prime of life sat on the sofa reading and smoking.

He wore a light-brown overcoat, brown trousers, and low, thick

boots. He had a fresh, florid complexion, red beard, blue eyes,

and an expressive, agreeable countenance. When Frank entered he

arose, laid aside the paper and cigar, and approached the

visitor.

"I found these things on the mountain near the weather-cross."

said Frank, after a more formal than affable bow. "As your

daughter met me, I presume they belong to her. I thought it my

duty to return them."

"These things certainly belong to my daughter," answered Herr

Siegwart. "You are very kind, sir. You have placed us under

obligations to you."

"I was passing this way," said Frank briefly.

"And whom have we the honor to thank?"

"I am Richard Frank."

Herr Siegwart bowed. Frank noticed a slight embarrassment in his

countenance. He remembered the expressions his father had used in

reference to the Siegwart family, and it was clear to him that a

reciprocal ill feeling existed here. Siegwart soon resumed his

friendly manner, and invited him with much formality to the sofa.

Richard felt that he must accept the invitation at least for a

few moments. Siegwart sat on a chair in front of him, and they

talked of various unimportant matters. Frank admired the skill

which enabled him to conduct, without interruption, so pleasant a

conversation with a stranger.

While they were speaking, some house-swallows flew into the room.

They fluttered about without fear, sat on the open door, and

joined their cheerful twittering with the conversation of the

men. Richard expressed his admiration, and said he had never seen

anything like it.

"Our constant guests in summer," answered Siegwart. "They build

their nests in the hall, and as they rise earlier than we do, an

opening is left for them above the hall door, where they can go

in and out undisturbed when the doors are closed. Angela is in

their confidence, and on the best of terms with them. When rainy

or cold days come during breeding time they suffer from want of

food. Angela is then their procurator. I have often admired

Angela's friendly intercourse with the swallows, who perch upon

her shoulders and hands."

Richard looked indeed at the twittering swallows, but their

friend Angela passed before his eyes, so beautiful indeed that he

no longer heard what Siegwart was saying.

He arose; Siegwart accompanied him. As they passed through the

yard, Frank observed the long row of stalls, and said, "You must

have considerable stock?"

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"Yes, somewhat. If you would like to see the property, I will

show you around with pleasure."

"I regret that I cannot now avail myself of your kindness; I

shall do so in a few days," answered Frank.

"Herr Frank," said Siegwart, "may the accident which has given us

the pleasure of your agreeable visit, be the occasion of many

visits in future. I know that as usual you will spend the month

of May at Frankenhöhe. We are neighbors--this title, in my

opinion, should indicate a friendly intercourse."

"Let it be understood, Herr Siegwart; I accept with pleasure your

invitation."

On the way to Frankenhöhe Richard walked very slowly, and gazed

into the distance before him. He thought of the swallows that

perched on Angela's shoulders and hands. Their sweet notes still

echoed in his soul.

The country-like quiet of Siegwart's house and the sweet peace

that pervaded it were something new to him. He thought of the

simple character of Siegwart, who, as his father said, was

"ultramontane and clerical," and whom he had represented to

himself as a dark, reserved man. He found nothing in the open,

natural manner of the man to correspond with his preconceived

opinion of him. Richard concluded that either Herr Siegwart was

not an ultramontane, or the characteristics of the ultramontanes,

as portrayed in the free-thinking newspapers of the day, were

erroneous and false.

Buried in such thoughts, he reached Frankenhöhe. As he passed

through the yard, he did not observe the carriage that stood

there. But as he passed under the window, he heard a loud voice,

and some books were thrown from the window and fell at his feet.

He looked down in surprise at the books, whose beautiful binding

was covered with sand. He now observed the coach, and smiled.

"Ah! the doctor is here," said he. "He has thrown these unwelcome

guests out of the window. Just like him."

He took up the books and read the titles, _Vogt's Pictures from

Animal Life, Vogt's Physiological Letters, Colbe's Sensualism._

He took the books to his room and began to read them. Herr Frank,

with his joyful countenance, soon appeared.

"Klingenberg is here!" said he.

"I suspected as much already," said Richard. "I passed by just as

he threw the books out of the window with his usual impetuosity."

"Do not let him see the books; the sight of them sets him wild."

"Klingenberg walks only in his own room. I wish to read these

books; what enrages him with innocent paper?"

"I scarcely know, myself. He examined the library and was much

pleased with some of the works. But suddenly he tore these books

from their place and hurled them through the window."

"'I tolerate no bad company among these noble geniuses,' said he,

pointing to the learned works.

"'Pardon me, honored friend,' said I, 'if, without my knowledge,

some bad books were included. What kind of writings are these,

doctor?"

"'Stupid materialistic trash,' said he.' If I had Vogt,

Moleschott, Colbe, and Büchner here, I would throw them body and

bones out of the window.'

"I was very much surprised at this declaration, so contrary to

the doctor's kind disposition.'What kind of people are those you

have named?' said I.

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"'No people, my dear Frank,' said he.' They are animals, This

Vogt and his fellows have excluded themselves from the pale of

humanity, inasmuch as they have declared apes, oxen, and asses to

be their equals.'"

"I am now very desirous to know these books," said Richard.

"Well, do not let our friend know your intention," urged Frank.

Richard dressed and went to greet the singular guest. He was

sitting before a large folio. He arose at Richard's entrance and

paternally reached him both hands.

Doctor Klingenberg was of a compact, strong build. He had

unusually long arms, which he swung back and forth in walking.

His features were sharp, but indicated a modest character. From

beneath his bushy eyebrows there glistened two small eyes that

did not give an agreeable expression to his countenance. This

unfavorable expression was, however, only the shell of a warm

heart.

The doctor was good-natured--hard on himself, but mild in his

judgments of others. He had an insatiable desire for knowledge,

and it impelled him to severe studies that robbed him of his hair

and made him prematurely bald.

"How healthy you look, Richard!" said he, contemplating the young

man. "I am glad to see you have not been spoiled by the seething

atmosphere of modern city life."

"You know, doctor, I have a natural antipathy to all swamps and

morasses."

"That is right, Richard; preserve a healthy naturalness."

"We expected you this morning."

"And would go to the station to bring me. Why this ceremony? I am

here, and I will enjoy for a few weeks the pure, bracing mountain

air. Our arrangements will be as formerly--not so, my dear

friend?"

"I am at your service."

"You have, of course, discovered some new points that afford fine

views?"

"If not many, at least one--the weather cross," answered Frank.

"A beautiful position. The hill stands out somewhat from the

range. The whole plain lies before the ravished eyes. At the same

time, there are things connected with _that_ place that are

not without their influence on me. They refer to a custom of the

ultramontanists that clashes with modern ideas; I will have an

opportunity of seeing whether your opinion coincides with mine."

"Very well; since we have already an object for our next

walk--and this is according to our old plan--tomorrow after

dinner at three o'clock," and saying this he glanced wistfully at

the old folio. Frank, smiling, observed the delicate hint and

retired.

To Be Continued.

----------

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Antiquities of New York.

It is as true of nations as it is of individuals that they "live

more in the past and the future than in the present;" and when

either are young and have a very limited past, their thoughts

dwell most upon the future. This is one marked difference between

the peoples of the old world and us on this continent. Our past

is so small in comparison with theirs, that antiquarian

societies, so common with them, are quite unknown among us, and

it is not often that we throw our thoughts back.

Yet in that respect, as in others, we are daily improving, and we

begin, now and then, to find something to think upon in the days

of our forefathers.

These thoughts have arisen in our mind from having come across a

book recently published by the State of New York: "Laws and

Ordinances of New Netherlands, 1638-1674, compiled and translated

from the original Dutch records in the office of the Secretary of

State. Albany, N.Y. E.B. O'Callaghan." From that book a good deal

can be learned of the manners and customs in our goodly city some

two hundred years ago, that cannot fail to be interesting.

It was in 1621 that the States General of the United Netherlands

incorporated a West India Company, with power to establish

colonies in such parts of America as were not already occupied by

other nations.

Under this authority, the company established a colony embracing

the land from the present State of Maryland to the Connecticut

River, and called NEW NETHERLAND.

The Amsterdam Chamber of the company exercised supreme government

over this colony until 1664, when it was captured by the English,

but recovered by the Dutch in 1673, but was finally ceded to the

English.

It was in 1609 that Hendrik Hudson discovered the country, and in

1623 it was that the West India Company sent its first colony of

families, who settled at what was then Fort Orange, now Albany,

and settled a colony of families at New Amsterdam, now New York.

The colonial government, including legislative and executive

powers, was administered by a director-general and council; and

it is from the laws which they enacted that we can gather much

knowledge of the manners and customs of our Dutch progenitors and

from which we now proceed to make some extracts.

Slavery.

On the 7th of June, 1629, the West India Company granted what we

would call a charter to all settlers in the new world, but which

they called "freedoms and exemptions," to all patroons, masters,

or private persons who would plant colonies in New Netherland.

They consisted of thirty-one articles; and among them was that

which, if it may not be considered the origin, in this country,

of that slavery which it took us some two hundred and fifty years

to get rid of, was, by one of the articles, not only tolerated,

but was actually established, with a covenant on the part of the

home government to supply the settlers with slaves.

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Article XXX.

"The Company will use their endeavors to supply the colonists

with as many Blacks as they conveniently can, on the conditions

hereafter to be made, in such manner, however, that they shall

not be bound to do it for a longer time than they shall think

proper."

On the 19th of November, 1654, the Amsterdam board allowed the

importation of negroes direct from Africa, by the ship Witte

Paert, and on the 6th of August, 1655, the director-general and

council of New Netherland imposed an _ad valorem_ duty of

ten per cent on the exportation of any of the slaves brought in

by that ship.

The Yankees.

The discord between the quiet, stolid Dutchmen of those days, and

the restless "Yengees," of whom they had so much dread, soon

began to show itself, and every once in a while we find a paper

bomb-shell fired off at them, in the shape of a law, and hitting

them in a tender spot, by forbidding trade.

Take this, the first instance:

"Ordinance

Of the Director and Council of New Netherland, prohibiting the

purchase of produce raised near Fort Hope.--Passed 3 April,

1642.

"Whereas our territory which we purchased, paid for, and took

possession of, provided in the year 1633 with a Blockhouse,

Garrison, and Cannon, on the Fresh River of _New

Netherland_, a long time before any Christians were in the

said river, hath now, for some years past, been forcibly

usurped by some englishmen, and given the name of Hartford,

notwithstanding we duly protested against them; who, moreover,

treat our people most barbarously, beating them with clubs and

mattocks even unto the shedding of blood; cut down our corn,

sow the fields by night which our people ploughed by day; haul

home by force the hay which was mowed by our people; cast our

ploughs into the river, and forcibly impound our horses, cows,

and hogs, so that no cruelty, insolence, nor violence remains

which is not practised toward us, who yet have treated them

with all moderation; Yea, even at great hazard, have redeemed

and sent back home their Women, who were carried off by the

Indians; And although we are commanded by the States-General,

his Highness of Orange, and the Honorable West India Company to

maintain our Limits and to assert our Right by every means,

which We, also, have the power to do, yet rather have We chose

patiently to suffer violence, and to prove by deeds that we are

better Christians than they who go about there clothed with

such outward show, until in its time the measure shall be

entirely full.

"Therefore, our order and command provisionally is, & We do

hereby Ordain that our Inhabitants of _New Netherland_ be

most expressly forbidden from purchasing, either directly or

indirectly, by the third or second shipment, or in any manner

whatsoever, any produce which has been raised on our land near

_Fort Hope_ on the Fresh River, on pain of arbitrary

correction, until their rights are acknowledged, and the

sellers of the produce which shall arrive from our _Fresh

River_ of _New Netherland_ and from _New England_

shall first declare upon oath where the produce has been grown,

whereof a certificate shall be given them, and thereupon every

one shall be at liberty to buy and to sell."

And finally the quarrel went so far as to give rise to the

following

"Ordinance

Of the Governor-General and Council of New Netherland further

prohibiting the entertainment of Strangers, forbidding

intercourse or correspondence with the people of New

England.--Passed, 12 December, 1673.

"Whereas, it is found by experience that notwithstanding the

previously published Ordinance and Edicts, many Strangers, yea

enemies of this State, attempt to come within this government

without having previously obtained any consent or passport, and

have even presumed to show themselves within this city of

_New Orange_; also that many Inhabitants of this Province,

losing sight of and forgetting their Oath of Allegiance,

presume still daily to correspond, and exchange letters with

the Inhabitants of the neighboring colonies of _New

England_ and other enemies of this State, whence nothing

else can result but great prejudice and loss to this Province,

and it is, accordingly, necessary that seasonable provision be

made therein.

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"Therefore, the Governor-General of _New Netherland_, by

and with the advice of his Council, reviewing the aforesaid

Ordinances and Edicts enacted on that subject, have deemed it

highly necessary strictly to order and command that all

Strangers and others, of what nation or quality soever they may

be, who have not as yet bound themselves by Oath and promise of

fealty to the present Supreme government of this Province, and

have not been received by it as good subjects, do within the

space of four and twenty hours from the publication hereof

depart from out this province of New Netherland, and further

interdicting and forbidding any person, not being actually an

inhabitant and subject of this government, from coming within

this government without first having obtained due license and

passport to that end, on pain and penalty that the contraveners

shall not be considered other than open enemies and spies of

this State, and consequently be arbitrarily punished as an

example to others. And to the end that they may be the more

easily discovered and found out, all Inhabitants of this

Province are interdicted and forbidden from henceforth

harboring or lodging any strangers over night in their houses

or dwellings unless they have previously given due

communication thereof to their officer or Magistrate before

sun-down, under the penalty set forth in the former Edict.

"Furthermore, the Inhabitants of this Province are strictly

interdicted and forbidden, from this day forward, from holding

any correspondence with the neighboring Colonies of _New

England_, and all others actual enemies of our State, much

less afford them any supplies of any description, on pain of

forfeiting the goods and double the value thereof, likewise

from exchanging any letters, of what nature soever they may be,

without having obtained previous special consent thereto.

Therefore all messengers, skippers, travellers, together with

all others whom these may in any wise concern, are most

expressly forbidden to take charge of, much less to deliver,

any letters coming from the enemy's places, or going thither,

but immediately on their arrival to deliver them into the

Secretary's office here in order to be duly examined, on pain

of being fined One hundred guilders in Beaver, to be paid by

the receiver as well as by the deliverer of each letter which

contrary to the tenor hereof shall be exchanged or delivered."

Their Currency.

Gold and silver were scarce among them. The modern device of

paper money had not then come in vogue, and so they had to use

wampum--the Indians' currency or medium of exchange.

This was made from oyster-shells, and was worn by the natives as

ornaments, and had no intrinsic value, but only a conventional

one. And it seems to have been hard work to keep it up to its

standard. Every body could make it that could catch oysters, and

its plenty or scarcity causing a fluctuation of prices, gave them

a great deal of trouble, especially when their old rock of

offence, "the Yankees," began to manufacture it and buy away from

them all they had to sell, for what was actually of no value.

So we find every once in a while "Ordinances" passed on the

subject, which in their quaint and simple way show the state of

things. Between April 18th, 1641, and December 28th, 1662, we

find in this book twelve different ordinances on the subject;

some of them fixing their value, some punishing frauds, some

making them a legal tender, some declaring them merchandise, some

providing that they shall be paid out by measure, some exempting

them from import duty, and some providing for their depreciation.

The following extracts will afford an idea of their difficulties

on the subject.

"Resolutions