[Transcriber's note: This text is derived from
http://www.archive.org/details/catholicworld07pauluoft]
{i}
The Catholic World.
A Monthly Magazine
of
General Literature and Science.
------------
Vol. VII.
April To September, 1868.
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New York:
The Catholic Publication Society,
126 Nassau Street.
1868.
{ii}
John A. Gray & Green,
Printers,
16 and 18 Jacob St., New York.
{iii}
Contents.
A Heroine of Conjugal Love, 781.
A New Face on an Old Question, 577.
Anecdotical Memoirs of Emperor Nicholas I., 683.
A Sister's Story, 707.
Ancient Irish Church, 764.
Abyssinia and King Theodore, 265.
Baltimore, Second Plenary Council of, 618.
Breton Legend of St. Christopher, 710.
Bretons, Faith and Poetry of, 567.
Bible and the Catholic Church, 657.
Bishop Doyle, 44.
Bound with Paul, 389.
Catacombs, Children's Graves in, 401.
Campion, Edmund, 289.
Catholics in England, Condition and Prospects of, 487.
Catholic Church and the Bible, 657.
Catholic Sunday-School Union, 300.
Children's Graves in the Catacombs, 401.
Crisis, The Episcopalian, 37.
Christopher, St., Breton Legend of, 710.
Constantinople, Harem Life in, 407.
Conscience, Plea for Liberty of, 433.
Condition and Prospects of Catholics in England, 487.
Confessional, Episcopalian, 372.
Conscript, Story of a, 26.
Colony of the Insane, Gheel, 824.
Conjugal Love, Heroine of, 781.
Council of Baltimore, Second Plenary, 618.
Cowper, 347.
Country Church, a Plan for, 135.
Cousin, Victor, and the Church Review, 95.
Cross, The, 21.
Count Ladislas Zamoyski, 650.
Church, Ancient Irish, 764.
Church, Catholic, and the Bible, 657.
Church Review, and Victor Cousin, 95.
Churches, United, of England and Ireland, 200.
Church, Early Irish, 336.
Draper, Professor, Books of, 155.
De Garaison, Notre Dame, 644.
Doyle, Bishop, 44.
Duties, Household, 700.
Early Irish Church, 356.
England and Ireland, United Churches of, 200.
England, Catholics of, Condition and Prospects, 487.
Episcopalian Crisis, 37.
Episcopalian Confessional, 372.
Education, Popular, 228.
Edmund Campion, 289.
European Prison Discipline, 772.
Egypt, Harem Life in, 407.
Face, New, on an Old Question, 577.
Faith and Science, 338, 464.
Flaminia, 795.
Faith and Poetry of the Bretons, 567.
Flight of Spiders, 414.
Florence Athern's Trial, 213.
Garaison, Notre Dame de, 644.
Graves, Children's, in the Catacombs, 401.
Gathering, Roman, 191.
Glastonbury, Legend of, 517.
Gheel, Colony of the Insane, 824.
Girl, Italian, of our Day, 364, 343, 626.
Glimpses of Tuscany--
The Duomo, 479;
The Boboli Gardens, 679.
Good Works, Merit of, 125.
Harem Life in Egypt and Constantinople, 407.
Heroine of Conjugal Love, 781.
History, How told in the Year 3000, 130.
Holy Shepherdess of Pibrac, 753.
Holy Week in Jerusalem, 77.
How our History will be told in the Year 3000, 130.
Insane, Colony of, at Gheel, 824.
Italian Girl of our Day, 364, 543, 626.
Irish Church, Early, 356.
Irish Church, Ancient, 764.
"Is it Honest?" 239.
Ireland, Protestant Church of, 200.
Jerusalem, Holy Week in, 77.
John Sterling, 811.
John Tauler, 422.
King Theodore of Abyssinia, 265.
Keeble, 347.
La Fayette, Madame de, 781.
Legend of Glastonbury, 317.
Liberty of Conscience, Plea for, 433.
Life of St. Paula, sketches of, 380, 508, 670.
Life, Harem, in Egypt and Constantinople, 407.
Life's Charity, 839.
Last Gasp of the Anti-Catholic Faction, 850.
Madame de La Fayette, 731.
Magas; or, Long Ago, 39, 256.
Miscellany, 139.
Merit of Good Works, 125.
Memoirs of Count Segur, 633.
Monks of the West, i.
New Face on an Old Question, 577.
Newgate, 772.
Newman's Poems, 609.
Nellie Netterville, 82, 173, 307, 445, 589, 736.
New York City, Sanitary and Moral Condition of, 553, 712
Nicholas, Emperor, Memoirs of, 683.
Notre Dame de Garaison, 644.
O'Neil and O'Donnell in Exile, 11.
Quietist Poetry, 347.
Race, The Human, Unity of, 67.
Rights of Catholic Women, 846.
Roman Gathering, 191.
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St. Paula, Sketches of her Life, 380, 508, 670.
St. Christopher, Breton Legend of, 710.
Sayings of the Fathers of the Desert, 76, 227, 572.
Sanitary and Moral Condition of New York City, 553, 712.
Segur, Count, Memoirs of, 633.
Shepherdess of Pibrac, 753.
Sterling, John, 811.
Science and Faith, 338, 464.
Sketches of the Life of St. Paula, 380, 508, 670.
Sister Simplicia, 115.
Sister's Story, 707.
Spiders, Flight of, 414.
Story of a Conscript, 26.
Story, a Sister's, 707.
Tauler, John, 422.
The Cross, 21.
The Church Review and Victor Cousin, 95.
The Episcopalian Crisis, 37.
The Rights of Catholic Women, 846.
The Second Plenary Council of Baltimore, 618.
The Story of a Conscript, 26.
Theodore, King of Abyssinia, 265.
Tennyson in his Catholic Aspects, 145.
Unity of the Human Race, 67.
United Churches of England and Ireland, 200.
Veneration of Saints and Holy Images, 721.
Wordsworth, 347.
Women, Catholic, Rights of 846.
Zamoyski, Count Ladislas, 650.
------
Poetry.
All-Souls' Day--1867, 236.
Benediction, 444.
Elegy of St. Prudentius, 761.
Full of Grace, 129.
Iona to Erin, 57.
Love's Burden, 212.
Morning at Spring Park, 174.
My Angel, 363.
One Fold, 336.
Poland, 154.
St. Columba, 823.
Sonnet on "Le Récit d'une Soeur," 306.
St. Mary Magdalen, 476.
Sonnet, 617.
Tears of Jesus, 113.
To the Count de Montalembert, 516.
Wild Flowers, 566.
------
New Publications.
Assemblée Générale des Catholiques en Belge, 431.
Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia for 1867, 574.
Appleton's Short Trip to France, 717.
Book of Moses, 142.
Campbell's Works, 720.
Catholic Sunday-School Library, 431.
Catholic Crusoe, 719.
Chandler's New Fourth Reader, 575.
Chemical Change in the Eucharist, 285.
Count Lucanor, 140,
De Costa's Lake George, 718.
Discussions in Theology, Skinner, 573.
Elinor Johnson, 576.
Folks and Fairies, 144.
Great Day, 288.
Gillet's Democracy, 719.
Hints on the Formation of Religious Opinions, 573.
Histoire de France, 719.
House Painting, 720.
Infant Bridal, by Aubrey de Vere, 143.
Imitation of Christ, Spiritual Combat, etc., 575.
Irish Homes and Irish Hearts, 576.
Life of St. Catharine of Sienna, 142.
Life in the West, 287.
Memoirs and Letters of Jennie C. White--Del Bal, 858.
Moses, Book of, 142.
Mozart, 288.
Margaret, a Story of Prairie Life, 576.
Newman's Parochial Sermons, 716.
Notes on the Rubrics of the Roman Missal, 574.
Northcote's Celebrated Sanctuaries of the Madonna, 574.
Ozanam's Civilization, 430.
O'Kane's Notes on the Rubrics, 574,
O'Shea's Juvenile Library, 719.
On the Heights, 284.
Palmer's Hints on the Formation of Religions Opinions, 573.
Prayer the Key of Salvation, 143.
Peter Claver, 142.
Problems of the Age, 715.
Queen's Daughter, 720.
Red Cross, 575.
Reforme en Italic, 143.
Rossignoli's Choice of a State of Life, 576.
Rhymes of the Poets, 718.
St. Catharine of Sienna, Life of, 143.
St. Colomba, Apostle of Caledonia, 281.
Sanctuaries of the Madonna, 720.
Tales from the Diary of a Sister, 288.
The Catholic Crusoe, 719.
The Queen's Daughter, 720.
The Vickers and Purcell Controversy, 856.
The Woman Blessed by all Generations, 860.
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{1}
THE CATHOLIC WORLD.
Vol. VII., No. 37.--April, 1868.
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The Monks Of The West.[Footnote 1]
By The Count De Montalembert.
[Footnote 1: _The Monks of tie West, from St. Benedict to
St. Bernard._ By the Count de Montalembert, Member of the
French Academy. 5 vols. 8vo. For sale at the Catholic
Publication House, 126 Nassau Street, New York.]
In the galaxy of illustrious men whom God has given to France in
this century, there is one whom history will place in the first
rank. We mean the author of the _Monks of the West_, the
Count de Montalembert. There has not been since the seventeenth
century till now such an assemblage of men of genius and lofty
character gathered round the standard of the church, combating
for her and leaving behind them works that will never die.
Attacked on all sides at once, the church has found magnanimous
soldiers to bear the brunt of the battle, and meet her enemies in
every quarter. Even though the victory has not yet been
completely won, with such defenders she cannot doubt of final
success and future triumph. How great are the names of
Montalembert, Lacordaire, Ravignan, Dupanloup, Ozanam, Augustin
Co-chin, the Prince de Broglie, de Falloux, Cauchy, and of so
many others! The natural sciences, history, political economy,
controversy, parliamentary debates, pulpit eloquence, have been
studied and honored by these men; superior in all those sciences
on account of the truth which they defend, and equal in talent to
their most renowned rivals.
The figure of the Count de Montalembert stands conspicuous in
that group of giant intellects by the universality of his eminent
gifts. A historian full of erudition, an incomparable orator, and
a writer combining the classic purity of the seventeenth century
with the energy and fire of the nineteenth, an indefatigable
polemic, a man of the world, yet an orthodox churchman, but above
all a practical and fervent Christian; this great defender of
Catholic truth has merited immortal praise from his
contemporaries and from posterity.
Among all the works of this energetic champion of the faith. The
_Monks of the West_ holds indisputably the first place.
{2}
It is the work of Montalembert's entire life. He has put into it
his Benedictine erudition, his passionate love for truth, the
charming and dramatic power of his style in the narration of
events, his inimitable talent for painting in words the portraits
of those famous characters whom he wishes to present to the eye
of the reader; and their traits remain ineffaceably stamped on
the mind. Especially does the soul of the true Christian breathe
on every page of the volumes. For more than forty years their
author bent piously over those austere forms of the Benedictine
monks of the early ages to ask them the secret of their lives, of
their virtues, of their influence on their country and their age.
He has studied them with that infallible instinct of faith which
had disclosed to him a hidden treasure in those old monastic
ruins, and in those dusty and unexplored monuments of their
contemporary literature; the treasure, namely, of the influence
of the church acting on the barbarians through the monks. This is
the leading idea of the whole work. It would be a mistake to
expect, under the title of _Monks of the West_, a history of
mere asceticism, or a species of continuation of the _Lives of
the Fathers of the Desert_. Writers no longer treat, as that
work does, the lives of the saints. Readers are not satisfied
with the simple account of the virtues practised or the number of
miracles performed by the canonized children of the church.
Modern men want to look into the depths of a saint's soul; to
know what kind of a human heart throbbed in his bosom, and how
far he participated in the thoughts and feelings of ordinary
human nature. The circumstances in which he lived and studied,
the opinions formed of him by his contemporaries, are weighed,
and the traces left by his sanctity or genius on the manners and
institutions of his country are closely considered.
The history of _The Monks of the West_ is nothing else than
a history of civilization through monastic causes. The third,
fourth, and fifth volumes just published contain a complete,
profound, exact, and beautiful account of the conversion of Great
Britain to Catholicity. No work could be more interesting, not
only to Englishmen, but to all who speak the English tongue.
Hence, but a few months after the French edition of these bulky
volumes, an English translation of them was given to the public,
and is now well known and becoming justly wide-spread in the
United States.
Irish and Anglo-Saxons, Americans by birth or by adoption,
Catholics and Protestants, there is not one of us who is not
interested in a work which tells us from whom, and how, we have
inherited our Christian faith. Even Germans will learn in the
perusal of these volumes their religious origin; for it was from
the British isles that the apostles of Germany went forth to
their labors. The English language is the most universally spoken
to-day; the sceptre of Britain rules an empire greater than that
of Alexander or of any of the Caesars. The latest statistics tell
us that there are one hundred and seventy-four millions of
British subjects or vassals. The two Indies, vast Australia, and
the islands of the Pacific Ocean belong mostly to the Anglo-Saxon
race, and feel its influence. But what are all those great
conquests compared to these once British colonies, now called
North America? Who can foresee the height to which may reach this
vigorous graft, cut from the old oak, invigorated by the virgin
soil of the new world, and which already spreads its shade over
immense latitudes, and which promises to be the largest and most
powerful country ever seen?
{3}
Is it not therefore useful and interesting to study the religious
origin of this extraordinary race? Is there an American in heart,
or by birth, who is not bound to know the history of those to
whom this privileged race owes its having received in so large a
measure the three fundamental bases of all grandeur and stability
in nations: the spirit of liberty, the family spirit, and the
spirit of religion?
The history of the conversion of England by the monks answers all
these questions. It comprises the apostleship of the Irish, and
of the Roman and Anglo-Saxon elements during the sixth and
seventh centuries. The Irish or Celtic portion of the history
centres in St. Columba, whose majestic form towers above his age,
illustrated by his virtues and influenced by his genius. The
Roman element is represented by the monk Augustine, the first
apostle of the Anglo-Saxons. Lastly, this race itself enters on
the missionary career, and sends out as its first apostle a great
man and a great saint, the monk Wilfrid, whose moral beauty of
character rivals that of St. Columba. Shortly after these, as it
were following in their shadow, walks the admirable and gentle
Venerable Bede, the first English historian, the learned
encyclopedist, alike the honor and glory of his countrymen, and
of the learned of all nations.
We cannot resist the pleasure of giving, though it be but very
incomplete and pale, a sketch of the great monk of Clonard, the
apostle of Caledonia, St. Columba.[Footnote 2] Sprung from the
noble race of O'Niall, which ruled Ireland during six centuries,
educated at Clonard, in one of those immense monasteries which
recalled the memory of the monastic cities of the Thebaid, he was
the chief founder, though hardly twenty-nine years old, of a
multitude of religious houses. More than thirty-seven in Ireland
claim him as their founder. He was a poet of great renown, and a
musician skilled in singing that national poetry of Erin, which
so intimately harmonizes with Catholic faith. He lived in
fraternal union with the other poets of his country, with those
famous bards, whom he was afterward to protect and save from
their enemies. Besides being a great traveller, like the most of
the Irish saints and monks whose memory has been preserved by
history, he had another passion for manuscripts. This passion had
results which decided his destiny. Having shut himself up at
night in a church, where he discovered the psalter of the Abbot
Finnian, Columba found means to make a clandestine copy of it.
Finnian complained of it as a theft. The case was brought to the
chief monarch of Ireland, who decided against Columba. The
copyist protested; anathematized the king, and raised against him
in revolt the north and west of Hibernia. Columba's party
conquered, and the recovered psalter, called the _Psalter of
Battles_, became the national relic of the clan O'Donnell.
This psalter still exists, to the great joy of the erudite
patriots of Ireland.
[Footnote 2: The Catholic Publication Society will soon
publish _The Life of St. Columba_, as given in the third
volume of _The Monks of the West_.]
Nevertheless, as Christian blood had flowed for a comparative
trifle, and through the fault of a monk, a synod was convened and
Columba was excommunicated. He succeeded in having the sentence
cancelled; but he was commanded to gain to God, by his preaching,
as many souls as he had destroyed Christians in the battle of
Cooldrewny. To this injunction his confessor added the hardest of
penances for a soul so passionately attached, as was that of
Columba, to his country and his friends.
{4}
The penitent was compelled to exile himself from Ireland for
ever. Columba submitted. Twelve of his disciples refused to leave
him, and embarking with them on one of those large osier,
hide-covered boats which the Celtic peoples were accustomed to
use in navigation, he landed on an island called Oronsay. He
ascended a hill near the shore, and looking toward the south,
perceived that he could still see the Irish coast. He reëmbarked
immediately, and sailed in quest of a more distant isle, from
which his native land should be no longer visible. He at last
touched the small desert island of Iona, and chose for his abode
this unknown rock, which he has made a partaker of his own
immortality.
We should read in M. de Montalembert's work the eloquent
description of the Hebrides, and of that sandy and sterile shore
of Iona, rendered glorious by so many virtues. "'We were now
treading,' wrote Dr. Johnson, the great moralist of the
eighteenth century, 'that illustrious island which was once the
luminary of the Caledonian regions, whence savage clans and
roving barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge and the
blessings of religion. To abstract the mind from all local
emotion would be impossible if it were endeavored, and would be
foolish if it were possible.'[Footnote 3] And he recited with
enthusiasm those verses from Goldsmith's _Traveller_:
'Stern o'er each bosom reason holds her state,
With daring aims irregularly great.
Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,
I see the lords of human kind pass by;
Intent on high designs, a thoughtful band.
By forms unfashioned, fresh from nature's hand.
Fierce in their native hardiness of soul.
True to imagined right, above control,
While even the peasant boasts these rights to scan,
And learns to venerate himself as man.' [Footnote 4]
[Footnote 3: _Journey to the Western Islands of
Scotland_. By Dr. Johnson,]
[Footnote 4: _The Monks of the West_, vol. iv. book xi.
ch. 3.]
Grace had accomplished its work. Arrived at Iona, Columba, one of
the most high-spirited and passionate of the Gaels of Hibernia,
became a most humble penitent, a pattern of mortification to the
monks, the most gentle of friends, and a most tender father.
Having no other cell than a log cabin for seventy-six years, he
slept in it on the bare ground, with a stone for his pillow. This
hut was his oratory and library, into which, after working all
day in the fields like the lowest of the brothers, he entered to
meditate on the Holy Scripture and multiply copies of the sacred
text. He is supposed to have transcribed with his own hand three
hundred copies of the gospels. Devoted to his expiatory mission,
he commenced by evangelizing the Dalriadian Scots, an Irish
colony formed between the Picts of the north and the Britons of
the south. This colony was on the western coast of Caledonia and
in the neighboring islands, at the north of the mouth of the
Clyde, in that tract of country afterward known by the name of
Argyle. But these colonists were his countrymen. Soon he was
called to lay hands on the head of their chief, thus inaugurating
not only a new royalty, but also a new rite, which afterward
became the most august solemnity in the life of Christian
nations. This consecration of the Scot Aidan as King, by Columba,
is the first authentic instance of the kind in the west. Later,
crossing the Grampian hills, at the foot of which the victorious
legions of Agricola stopped, and venturing in a frail skiff on
Loch-Ness and the river which flows from it, he confronted those
terrible Picts, the most depraved and ferocious of the
barbarians, disputing, through an interpreter, with the Druids,
thus attacked in their last retreat.
{5}
He returned often to these savages, so that he finished, before
his death, the conversion of the whole nation, dotting with
churches and sanctuaries their forests, defiles, inaccessible
mountains, their wild fens and their sparsely peopled isles. The
vestiges of fifty-three of those churches are still traceable in
modern Scotland, and even the most enlightened Protestant judges
of the Scottish bench attribute the very ancient division of
parishes in Scotland to the missionary monk of sacred Iona.
He never forgot, in the midst of his labors, his beloved Ireland.
He had for her all the tender passion of the exile; a passion
which let itself out in his songs, full of a charming melancholy.
"Better to die in pure Ireland, than to live for ever here in
Albania." [Footnote 5]
[Footnote 5: Vol. iii. book xi. ch. 2.]
To this cry of despair succeed more plaintive notes breathing
resignation. In one of his elegies, he regrets not being able to
sail once more on the lakes and gulfs of his fatherland, nor to
listen to the song of the swans with his friend Comgall. He
mourns especially his having to leave Erin through his own fault,
on account of the blood shed in the battles which he had
provoked. He envies his friend Cormac, who can return to his dear
monastery of Durrow, to hearken there to the murmur of the winds
among the oaks, and drink in the song of the blackbird and the
cuckoo. As for him, Columba, everything in Ireland is dear to
him, _except the rulers that govern it!_ In another poem
still more characteristic, he exclaims: "Oh! what delight to
glide over the foam-crested waves of the sea, and see the
breakers roll on the sandy beaches of Ireland! Oh! how swiftly my
bark would bound over the waters, if its prow were turned toward
my grove of oaks in Ireland! But the noble sea must only bear me
for ever toward Albania, the gloomy land of the raven. My feet
repose in my skiff, but my sad heart ever bleeds.
...
From the deck of my boat I cast my eyes over the billows, and the
big tears stand in my moistened gray eyes, when I look toward
Erin; toward Erin, where the birds sing so melodiously, and where
the priests sing like the birds; where the young men are so
gentle, and the old so wise; the nobles so illustrious and
handsome, and the women so fair to wed. ... Young navigator,
carry with thee my woes, bear them to Comgall the immortal. Bear
with thee, noble youth, my prayer and my blessing: one half for
Ireland; that she may receive seven-fold blessings! and the other
half for Albania. Carry my benediction across the sea; carry it
toward the west. My heart is broken within my bosom; if sudden
death should befall me, it would be through my great love for the
Gaels." [Footnote 6]
[Footnote 6: Vol. iii. book xi. ch. 2.]
An opportunity was afforded him of seeing once more this beloved
land of which he sang with such ardent enthusiasm. He had to
accompany the king of the Dalriadians, whom he had just
consecrated, to meet the supreme monarch of Ireland and other
Irish princes and chiefs assembled in parliament at Drumkeath.
There was question of recognizing the independence of the new
Scottish royalty, hitherto the vassal and tributary of Erin. But
as the exile had made a vow never again in this life to behold
the men and women of Erin, he appeared in the national assembly
with his eyes blindfolded, and his monk's cowl drawn over the
bandage. Columba was listened to as an oracle in the parliament
of Drumkeath. He not only obtained the complete emancipation of
the Dalriadian colony, but he also saved the order of the bards,
whose proscription had been demanded by the king of Ireland.
{6}
They were for ever won over to Christianity by the holy monk,
and, transformed into minstrels, continued for the future to be
the most efficacious propagators of the spirit of patriotism, the
indomitable prophets of national independence, and the faithful
champions of catholic faith.
Arrived at the term of his career, the servant of God spent
himself in vigils, fastings, and formidable macerations of the
flesh. He knew in advance and predicted with certainty the day
and the very hour when he should pass to a better life; and he
made all things ready for his departure. He went to take leave of
the monks who worked in the fields, in the only fertile portion
of the island of Iona, on the western coast. He wished to visit
and bless the granary of the community. He blessed the old white
horse which used to carry from the sheep-fold of the monastery
the milk which was consumed daily by the brothers. Having done
this, he was barely able to ascend an eminence from which the
whole island and monastery were visible, and from this elevated
position he extended his hands and pronounced on the sanctuary
which he had founded a prophetic benediction. "This little spot,
so low and so narrow, will be greatly honored, not only by the
kings and people of Scotland, but also by foreign chiefs and
barbarous nations; it will be even venerated by the saints of
other churches." He then descended to the monastery, entered his
cell, and applied himself to his work for the last time. He was
at that time busied in transcribing the psalter. At the
thirty-third psalm, and the verse, "_Inquirentes autem Dominum
non deficient omni bono,_" [Footnote 7] he ceased and said:
"Here I must finish; Baithan will write the rest." After this he
went to the church to assist at the vigils of Sunday; then
returning to his cell, he sat down on the cold stones which had
been his bed and pillow for over seventy years. There he
entrusted his solitary companion with a last message for the
community. This done, he never spoke more. But no sooner had the
midnight bell tolled for matins, than he ran faster than the
other monks to the church. His companion found him lying before
the altar, and raising his head, placed it on his knees. The
whole community soon arrived with lights. At the sight of their
father dying, all wept. The abbot opened his eyes once more,
looking around on all with a serene and joyous expression. Then,
assisted by his companion, Columba lifted as well as he could his
right hand, and silently blessed the whole choir of monks. His
hands fell powerless to his sides, and he breathed his last.
[Footnote 7: "They that seek the Lord shall not be deprived
of any good." Ps. xxxiii. 11.]
What a scene! Such were the life and death of this great man and
great saint. After having loved Ireland so much, he could repose
nowhere more appropriately than in her sacred soil. His body was
transported thither to the monastery of Down, and buried between
the mortal remains of St. Patrick and St. Bridget. Thus those
three names, for the future inseparable, became interwoven with
the history and traditions, and engraved in the worship and on
the memory, of the Irish people.
Such were the men to whom Ireland owed not only her
indestructible faith, but also her intellectual and moral
civilization.
{7}
It is not sufficiently known that Ireland in the seventh century
was regarded by all Europe as the principal focus of science and
piety.
There, more than anywhere else, every monastery was a school, and
every school a studio of calligraphy, where the artists were not
confined to copying the Holy Scriptures alone; but where even the
Greek and Latin authors were reproduced, sometimes in Celtic
characters, with gloss and commentary in Irish, like that copy of
Horace which contemporary erudition has discovered in the library
of Berne. Besides, in all those monasteries, exact annals of
passing events were recorded; and these annals still constitute
the chief source of Irish history. We recognize in them a vast
and continual development of serious literary and religious
studies, far superior to anything found in any other European
nation. Certain arts even, such as architecture, carving,
metallurgy applied to the objects of public worship, were
cultivated with success; not to speak of music, a knowledge of
which was a common accomplishment not exclusively possessed by
the learned, but also by the common people. The classic
languages, not only the Latin, but even in an especial manner the
Greek, were spoken, written, and studied with a sort of passion,
which shows the sway which intellectual preoccupations held over
those ardent Celtic minds.
But whatever may have been the influence of Columba on the Picts
and Scots, neither he nor his successors could exercise any
direct or efficacious action on the Anglo-Saxons, who became
daily more redoubtable, and whose ferocious incursions menaced
not only the Caledonian clans, but also the Britons. Other
missionaries were therefore needed. Whence were they to come?
From that ever-burning centre of faith and charity from which the
light of Christianity had already been brought to the Irish by
Patrick; to the Bretons and Scots by Palladius, Ninian, and
Germain--from Rome!
"Who then were the Anglo-Saxons, upon whom so many efforts were
concentrated, and whose conquest is ranked, not without reason,
among the most fruitful and most happy that the church has ever
accomplished? Of all the Germanic tribes the most stubborn,
intrepid, and independent, this people seem to have
transplanted with themselves into the great island which owes
to them its name, the genius of the Germanic race, in order
that it might bear on this predestined soil its richest and
most abundant fruits. The Saxons brought with them a language,
a character, and institutions stamped with a strong and
invincible originality. Language, character, institutions, have
triumphed, in their essential features, over the vicissitudes
of time and fortune--have outlived all ulterior conquests, as
well as all foreign influences, and, plunging their vigorous
roots into the primitive soil of Celtic Britain, still exist at
the indestructible foundation of the social edifice of England.
...
Keeping intact and untamable their old Germanic
spirit, their old morals, their stern independence,
they gave from that moment to
the free and proud genius of their race a
vigorous upward impulse which nothing has
been able to bear down." [Footnote 8]
[Footnote 8: Vol. iv. book xii. ch. 1.]
Every one knows how and by whom those Anglo-Saxons were
evangelized and converted; every one knows the scene of Gregory,
afterward pope, with the young slaves in the Roman forum, and the
dialogue related by Bede from the traditions of his Northumbrian
ancestors. Every one knows that, at the sight of those young
slaves, struck by the beauty of their countenances, the dazzling
whiteness of their complexion, the length of their flaxen locks,
a probable sign of their aristocratic extraction, Gregory
inquired about their country and their religion.
{8}
The merchant, answered him that they came from the island of
Britain, where all had the same fresh color, and that they were
pagans. Then, heaving a deep sigh, "what evil luck," he
exclaimed, "that the prince of darkness should possess beings
with an aspect so radiant, and that the grace of these
countenances should reflect a soul void of inward grace! But what
nation are they of?" "They are Angles?" "They are well named, for
these Angles have the faces of angels; and they must become the
brethren of the angels in heaven. From what province have they
been brought?" "From Deïra," (one of the two kingdoms of
Northumbria.) "Still good," answered he. "_De ira
eruti_--they shall be snatched from the ire of God, and called
to the mercy of Christ. And how name they the king of their
country?" "Alle or AElla." "So be it; he is right well named, for
they shall soon sing the Alleluia in his kingdom." [Footnote 9]
[Footnote 9: Vol. iii book xii. ch. 1, p. 347.]
We will not follow the apostolate of the monk Augustine in his
pacific conquests, nor the touching solicitude of the Pope St.
Gregory for his dear favorites. Not because this history lacks
interest--we know none more attractive, or in which the glory of
the Roman Church shines forth more brilliantly--but it is better
known than that of the monk Columba, which has delayed us longer.
"We may simply remark that, unlike the churches of Italy, Gaul,
and Spain, in all of which the baptism of blood had either
preceded or accompanied the conversion of the inhabitants, in
England there were neither martyrs nor persecutors from the first
day of Augustine's preaching, during the entire existence of the
Anglo-Saxon Church. Placed in the presence of the pure,
resplendent light of Christianity, even before they understood or
accepted it, those fierce Saxons, so pitiless to their enemies,
displayed, in the presence of truth, a humanity and a docility
which we seek in vain among the learned and civilized citizens of
imperial Rome. Not a drop of blood spilled in the name of
religion stained the English ground. And this prodigy is
witnessed at a period when human gore flowed in torrents for any
or every pretext, no matter how trivial. What a contrast between
those times and later ages, when, in the very same island, so
many pyres were lighted, so many gibbets raised on which to
immolate the English who remained steadfast in the faith of
Gregory and Augustine!"
The second volume of _The Monks of the West_ comprises a
thorough and varied account of the conversion of the
Anglo-Saxons, not only by the missionaries sent from Rome, but
also by those of England herself The great figure of St. Wilfrid
looms up in this epoch. As we cannot analyze his noble and holy
life, we will resume, at least, some of his traits, as drawn by
the pen of M. de Montalembert.
"In Wilfrid began that great line of prelates, by turns apostolic
and political, eloquent and warlike, brave champions of Roman
unity and ecclesiastical independence, magnanimous
representatives of the rights of conscience, the liberties of the
soul, the spiritual powers of man, and the laws of God--a line to
which history presents no equal out of the Catholic Church of
England; a lineage of saints, heroes, confessors, and martyrs,
which produced St. Dunstan, St. Lanfranc, St. Anselm, St. Thomas
a Becket, Stephen Langton, St. Edmund, the exile of Pontigny, and
which ended in Reginald Pole." [Footnote 10]
. . .
[Footnote 10: Vol. iv. ch. 4, p. 368.]
{9}
"In addition to all this, Wilfrid was the precursor of the great
prelates, the great monks, the princely abbots of the middle
ages, the heads and oracles of national councils, the ministers
and lieutenants, and often the equals and rivals of kings. When
duty called, no suffering alarmed, no privation deterred, and no
danger stopped his course. Four times in his life he made the
journey to Rome, then ten times more laborious and a hundred
times more dangerous than the voyage to Australia is now. But,
left to himself, he loved pomp, luxury, magnificence, and power.
He could be humble and mild when it was necessary; but it was
more congenial to him to confront kings, princes, nobles,
bishops, councils, and lay assemblies in harsh and inflexible
defence of his patrimony, his power, his authority, and his
cause." [Footnote 11]
...
[Footnote 11: Ibidem, p. 369.]
"His influence is explained by the rare qualities, which more
than redeemed all his faults. His was, before all else, a great
soul, manly and resolute, ardent and enthusiastic, full of
unconquerable energy, able to wait or to act, but incapable of
discouragement or fear, born to live upon those heights which
attract at once the thunderbolt and the eyes of the crowd. His
eloquence, superior to anything yet known in England, his keen
and penetrating intelligence, his eager zeal for literary studies
and public education, his knowledge and love of those wonders of
architecture which dazzled the Christian nation, and to which his
voice attracted such crowds, his constancy in trial, his ardent
love of justice--all contributed to make of him one of those
personages who sway and move the spirits of their contemporaries,
and who master the attention and imagination even of those whom
they cannot convince. Something generous, ardent, and magnanimous
in his nature commended him always to the sympathy of lofty
hearts; and when adverse fortune and triumphant violence and
ingratitude came in, to put upon his life the seal of adversity,
nobly and piously borne, the rising tide of emotion and sympathy
carried all before it, sweeping away all traces of those errors
of conduct which might have seemed to us less attractive or
comprehensible." [Footnote 12]
[Footnote 12: Ibidem, pp. 371-2.]
The fifth and last volume ends with an elaborate essay of great
interest on the Anglo-Saxon nunneries. It is certain that women
have taken an active part in the civilization of modern nations,
more particularly among the German tribes, whose purity of morals
astonished the old Romans of the empire. The Germanic races
considered woman as a person, not as a thing. No sooner was the
light of the gospel received among them than their women began to
distinguish themselves by the ardor of their faith and the
generosity of their devotion. If monasteries cover the land,
convents of women rival them in number, regularity, and religious
fervor. It was the kings and nobles of the Heptarchy who first
set the example of a cloistered life for men; it was also the
queens and princesses who founded the first convents and became
their earliest abbesses. Nothing is more interesting in the whole
book, and nowhere is the author more successful, than in his
portrayal of those primitive natures, still tinctured with
barbarism, passing through a complete transformation under the
law of light and charity; to see those nuns devote themselves to
as earnest a study of Greek and Latin as to that of the Holy
Scriptures; quote Virgil, compose verses during the intervals of
their religious duties and the singing of the office.
{10}
Another remarkable trait is their profound and obstinate
attachment to one or other of the parties who disputed the
possession of supreme power in those troubled times--an
attachment which is explained by the high rank of the abbesses
who governed those numerous communities. A single one of those
houses, the Abbey of Winbourne, contained five hundred nuns who
sang the office day and night. Nothing is better calculated to
give us a just appreciation of the manners of those times than
the faithful description of the interior life of those great
convents; the narration of their customs, of their lively faith,
their enthusiasm for science, of their works, their literary
correspondence, and of all the details of their existence.
Whatever may be the charm which the author has infused into the
rest of his book, that part of it, in our opinion, which excites
most the curiosity of the reader by the novelty of its incidents,
its charming legends, and which will be read with most avidity,
is the last chapter on the Anglo-Saxon nuns.
May this rapid sketch inspire our readers with the desire of
becoming better acquainted with this great and magnificent work!
In all ages, remarkable books have been scarce, and, by a sad
infirmity of the human mind, they have not always been properly
appreciated during the lifetime of their authors. Almost all have
been obliged to await the judgment of time and posterity to
consecrate their glory. Let this not be the fate of _The Monks
of the West_. Let us read and study this book. We shall find
in it the history of the conversion of England in the sixth and
seventh centuries; one of the most powerful arguments in support
of the great thesis--_that the world has been civilized by the
Catholic Church_. This point is the high aim, the noble
thought, the idea and soul of Montalembert's master-piece. By it
he has rendered an immense service to the Catholic cause, and on
this account he deserves the undying gratitude of all Christians.
--------
O'Neill And O'Donnell In Exile. [Footnote 13]
[Footnote 13: _The Fate and Fortunes of Hugh O'Neill, Earl
of Tyrone, and Rory O'Donnell, Earl of Tyrconnel: Their
Flight from Ireland; Their Vicissitudes Abroad, and their
Death in Exile._ By the Rev. C. Meehan, M.R.I.A. Dublin:
James Duffy. New York: Catholic Publication House. Pp. 383.
1868.]
The history of the Irish race presents certain features quite
exceptional, and without parallel either in the ancient or in the
modern world. For example, during these last two and a half
centuries that strange history has been dual or double--half of
it in Ireland and the other half in foreign lands. There were the
Irish in Ireland undergoing the emaciating process of
confiscations and plunder, writhing under their penal laws for
religion, with occasional gallant efforts at resistance, either
in support of a dynasty (the Stuarts) or by way of fierce
insurrection, as in 1798. And there were the Irish abroad in many
lands, refugees, exiles, emigrants, who were always plotting and
preparing a descent from France or from Spain to redeem their
countrymen from British oppression, or else giving their service
as military adventurers to any power at war with England, hoping
to deal their enemy somewhere, anywhere, a mortal blow.
{11}
But their thought was ever Ireland, _Ireland_. What country
on this earth has ever inspired its children with so deep, so
passionate, so enduring love?
These side-scenes in the drama of Irish life have duly repeated
themselves from generation to generation, down to the present
day. We see one of them in the United States this moment. Always,
alongside of the transactions in the island itself--the
confiscations, and ejectments, and famines, and packed
juries--there is a parallel series of transactions outside among
the exiles, all bearing reference to the "fate and fortunes" of
the Irish at home; all moved and inspired by that insatiable
craving to liberate the land of their fathers, and make good
their own footing among the green hills where they were born. Of
this collateral or episodical history, Fr. Meehan has selected
one of the most striking and touching scenes, has thoroughly
investigated it in all its aspects, and in this volume presented
us with a very complete _monograph_ of the outside life of
O'Neill and O'Donnell, with their followers, from the moment when
those chiefs suddenly dropped out of the large space they had so
long filled in Ireland proper, and became a part of the external
Irish world.
For this task, Fr. Meehan had unusual qualifications and
advantages. He had long lived in Rome, where the last years of
the illustrious chiefs were passed, and where, in the Church of
S. Pietro Montorio, their bones lie buried under a simple
inscription. More than thirty years ago, the sight of this
inscription (_D.O.M. Hic quiescunt Ugonis Principis O'Neill
ossa--_"Here rest the bones of Hugh the Prince O'Neill")
excited within his mind an ardent curiosity to explore the
mystery which has so long surrounded that sad flight of the
"earls," and their short, feverish life afterward. Since that day
the author never lost sight of his object. Though devoted to his
sacred duties, and occasionally occupied in illustrating some
other page of the history of his country, as in his excellent
narrative of the "Confederation of Kilkenny," (_see Library of
Ireland,_) yet he was always adding to his store of materials
for the illumination of this one dark passage in the fortunes of
those most illustrious of Irish exiles. At length we have the
result; and it leaves nothing to be desired. Yet we feel inclined
at the outset to reproach the learned author for entitling his
heroes Earl of Tyrone and Earl of Tyrconnel. Why has he done this
when O'Neill's own epitaph has no allusion to such a title,
which, indeed, was, in his eyes, a mark of disgrace and a badge
of servitude? He had, it is true, submitted to sink for a short
time formally from a high chief into an earl when he was in
England, and had an object to gain by pleasing and flattering
Queen Elizabeth; but in his own Ulster his name and title was The
O'Neill; "in comparison of which," says Camden, "the very title
of Caesar is contemptible in Ireland." [Footnote 14]
[Footnote 14: Camden: Queen Elizabeth.]
Moreover, it was not until his long and desperate resistance was
at length subdued, not till most of his warriors lay dead amidst
the smoking ruins of Ulster, and he had made his submission to
Mountjoy at Mellifont Abbey, that he consented to wear with shame
the coronet of an earl before his own clansmen and kinsmen.
{12}
It was a condition of the queen's "pardon" that he should so
abase himself. When he quitted Ireland, however, he flung down
his coronet and golden chain, and never called himself Earl of
Tyrone again. Fr. Meehan himself tells us (p. 161) while
describing the honors paid to the chiefs upon the continent:
"Wherever there was an Irish seminary or conventual
establishment, alumni and superiors vied with each other in
congratulating the _illustrious princes_, for such was the
designation by which they were recognized in Belgium, Italy,
and all over the continent."
But on this subject it may be remarked that the policy of the
British government in thus forcing the coronets of feudal
nobility upon the unwilling brows of Celtic chieftains, whether
in Scotland or in Ireland, has never yet been sufficiently
understood. It was an essential part of the invariable British
system of forcing its own form of social polity upon every part
of the three kingdoms, as each part fell successively under
English dominion. It was necessary, as Sir John Davies,
Attorney-General for Ireland under James the First, declares, to
abolish what he calls the "scambling possession" which Irish
chiefs and clansmen had in their lands, and compel them to hold
those lands by "English tenure;" in other words, that the chiefs
should become _landlords_ or proprietors of those districts
which had formed the tribe-lands of their clans, and that their
clansmen should become tenants subject to _rent_, which, in
the seventeenth century, had grown to be a commutation for all
feudal services. In short, the problem to be solved was to force
in the already corrupt and oppressive feudal polity (which had
long lost its true uses and significance) upon the free system of
clanship, the ancient and natural social arrangement of the Irish
and Scottish Gaël. Neither did that plan, of obliging chiefs to
become noblemen--and therefore both vassals and
landlords--originate with Elizabeth and James, nor with Sir John
Davies. King Henry the Eighth, a century earlier, offered to Con
O'Neill, the chief of that day, the dignity of earl, which Con
accepted as a delicate attention from a foreign monarch, but took
care to be a chief in Tyrone--no vassals, no tenants, no "English
tenure" _there_. The O'Brien of Thomond, however, upon that
earlier occasion, did lay down at King Henry's feet his dignity
of Chief _Dalcais_, and arose Earl of Thomond; his son was
made Baron of Inchiquin; and the MacGilla Phadruig consented to
become "Fitzpatrick" and Baron of Upper Ossory. For their
compliance, they were rewarded with the spoils of the suppressed
monasteries of their respective countries--places which their own
fathers had founded and endowed for pious uses.
The process in Scotland was nearly analogous, after the accession
of James to the throne of England. The Mac Callum More (Campbell)
was created Duke of Argyll, and invited to consider himself
proprietor of all Argyllshire--by English tenure--and landlord
of all the Campbells. Mac Kenzie was dubbed Earl of Cromarty on
the same terms; and so with the rest: but at home those Highland
nobles were never regarded as anything but chiefs; and it was
only by very slow degrees, and not perfectly until after 1745,
that the old clan spirit and usages disappeared. Thus, in forcing
conformity with English land-laws, and gradually bringing the
soil of the two islands into immediate dependence upon the
English sovereign, every step in advance is marked by some chief
submitting to be made earl or baron, and reducing his free
kinsmen to serfdom.
{13}
Those peerages, accordingly, are monuments of subjugation and
badges of dishonor. Hugh O'Neill certainly did not value his
title, flung it from him with impatience, quitted earldom and
country to get rid of it, and protested against it on his
tombstone. For these reasons, many readers of Fr. Meehan's book
will wish that the author had given to his heroes the titles by
which they themselves desired to be remembered.
Having thus vented our only censure, upon a matter rather
technical and formal, the more agreeable task remains, of making
our readers acquainted with all the merits and perfections of
this charming book. Fr. Meehan does not undertake to narrate the
earlier life and long and bloody wars against the best generals
of England, but takes up the story where the chief was
desperately maintaining himself, and still keeping his Red Hand
aloft in the woody fastness of Glanconkeine, on the side of
Slieve Gallen, and by the banks of Moyola water, awaiting the
return from Spain of his brother-chief, Hugh Roe O'Donnell, with
the promised succors from King Philip. But in those very same
days, that famous Hugh Roe had lain down to die in Spain, and
succor came none to the sorely pressed Prince of Ulster. His
great enemy, Elizabeth, too, was on her death-bed, almost ready
to breathe her last curse. But in her agonies she by no means
forgot O'Neill. Father Meehan says:
"It is a curious and perhaps suggestive fact, that Queen
Elizabeth, while gasping on her cushions at Richmond, and
tortured by remembrances of her latest victim, Essex, often
directed her thoughts to that Ulster fastness, where her great
rebel, Tyrone, was still defying her, and disputing her title
to supremacy on Irish soil. But of this, however, there can be
no doubt; for in February, while she was gazing on the haggard
features of death, and vainly striving to penetrate the opaque
void of the future, she commanded Secretary Cecil to charge
Mountjoy to entrap Tyrone into a submission on diminished
title, such as Baron of Dungannon, and with lessened territory,
or, if possible, to have his head before engaging the royal
word. It was to accomplish any of these objects that Mountjoy
marched to the frontier of the north; but finding it impossible
to procure the assassination of 'the sacred person of O'Neill,
who had so many eyes of jealousy about him,' he wrote to Cecil,
from Drogheda, that nothing prevented Tyrone from making his
submission but mistrust of his personal safety, and guarantee
for maintenance commensurate to his princely rank. The granting
of these conditions, Mountjoy concluded, would bring about the
pacification of Ireland, and Tyrone, being converted into a
good subject, would rid her majesty of the apprehension of
another Spanish landing on the Irish shore. It is possible that
this proposed solution of the Irish difficulty may have reached
Richmond at a moment when Elizabeth was more intent on the
talisman sent her by the old Welsh woman, or the arcane virtues
of the card fastened to the seat of her chair, than on matters
of statecraft; but be that as it may, the lords of her privy
council empowered Mountjoy to treat with Tyrone, and bring
about his submission with the least possible delay."
The author next carries us through the imposing scene of the
chief's submission and surrender at Mellifont Abbey, and gives a
vivid account of that illustrious religious house, and the lovely
vale of the Mattock in which it stands; of his gloomy resignation
to his hated earldom; of the organization of Ulster into shires
or counties, (never before heard of in those parts;) of the new
"earl's" journey to London, along with Rory O'Donnell, the other
"earl," and Lord Mountjoy, with a guard of horse:
"Nor was this precaution unnecessary; for whenever the latter
was recognized, in city or hamlet, the populace,
notwithstanding their respect for Mountjoy, the hero of the
hour, could not be restrained from stoning Tyrone, and flinging
bitter insults at him. Indeed, throughout the whole journey,
the Welsh and English women were unsparing of their invectives
against the Irish chief. Nor are we to wonder at this; for
there was not one among them but could name some friend or
kinsman whose bones lay buried far away in some wild pass or
glen of Ulster, where the object of their maledictions was more
often victor than vanquished."
{14}
The new king, James the First, was very desirous to see O'Neill,
who had, after his victory at the Yellow Ford, sent an ambassador
to James at Holyrood, offering, if supplied with some money and
munitions, to march upon Dublin, and proclaim _him_ King of
Ireland; but the Scottish king had been too timid to close with
this offer. One may imagine with what mingled feelings O'Neill
once more revisited that London, and Greenwich Palace, where in
his younger days he had been a favored courtier, had talked on
affairs of state with Burleigh, and disported himself with Sir
Christopher Hatton, "the dancing chancellor." The author
describes his reception at court:
"Nothing, indeed, could have been more gracious than the
reception which the king gave those distinguished Irishmen; and
so marked was the royal courtesy to both, that it stirred the
bile of Sir John Harington, who speaks of it thus: 'I have
lived to see that damnable rebel, Tyrone, brought to England
honored and well-liked. 'Oh! what is there that does not prove
the inconstancy of worldly matters? How I did labor after that
knave's destruction! I adventured perils by sea and land, was
near starving, eat horse-flesh in Munster, and all to quell
that man, who now smileth in peace at those who did hazard
their lives to destroy him. And now doth Tyrone dare us, old
commanders, with his presence and protection!'"
Returning to Ireland, "restored in blood," O'Neill lived as he
best could, in his new and strange character of an earl, infested
by spies upon all his movements. "Notice is taken," says
Attorney-General Davies, "of every person that is able to do
either good or hurt. It is known not only how they live and what
they do, but it is foreseen what they purpose or intend to do;
insomuch, as Tyrone has been heard to complain that he had so
many eyes over him, that he could not drink a full carouse of
sack, but the state was advertised thereof a few hours
thereafter." [Footnote 15]
[Footnote 15: Sir John Davies's Historical Tracts.]
The author has taken great pains to ascertain the real nature of
those dark intrigues against O'Neill and O'Donnell, which
resulted four or five years after in the timely escape of those
two "earls" from the toils of their enemies--the only measure
that could save them from the fate of Sir William Wallace and of
Shane O'Neill. O'Neill found himself embroiled in endless
law-suits; with Montgomery, Bishop of Derry; with Usher,
Archbishop of Armagh, who each claimed a large slice of his
estates; with the traitor O'Cahan, his own former Uriaght, or
sub-chief, who entered into the conspiracy against him, seduced
by the promises of Montgomery and the Lord-Deputy Chichester. The
truth was, that the "undertaking" English of the north coveted
his wide domains, and could not comprehend how a rebellious
O'Neill could possibly be allowed to possess broad lands in fee,
which they wanted for themselves. Fr. Meehan has cast more light
upon these wicked machinations than any previous writer had the
means and authorities for; and it now appears plain that the
chief agent of these base plots was Christopher St. Laurence, the
twenty-second baron of Howth, and one of the ancestors of the
noble house of that title, now gloriously flourishing amongst the
Irish nobility.
{15}
Fr. Meehan's researches have brought home to this noble caitiff
the famous anonymous letter dropped in the Castle-Yard of Dublin,
and also a detailed deposition, shamelessly setting forth his own
long-continued espionage, and on the faith of conversations with
several persons, charging Tyrone, Lord Mountgarrett, Sir Theobald
Burke, and others, with a plot to bring in the Spaniards, and to
take by surprise the Castle of Dublin. O'Neill knew nothing, at
the time, of the conspiracy against him; but had a very shrewd
suspicion that the Lord-Deputy Chichester and the northern
Anglican bishops were resolved to have his blood, in order to get
his estate confiscated. One of the McGuires, who was himself in
danger from these machinations, escaped to the continent. The
author says:
"Meanwhile, Cuconnaught Maguire, growing weary of his
impoverished condition, and longing to be rid of vexations he
could no longer bear, contrived, about the middle of May, 1607,
to make his escape from one of the northern ports to Ostend,
whence he lost no time in proceeding to Brussels, where Lord
Henry O'Neill was then quartered with his Irish regiment. The
latter presented him at the court of the archdukes, who
received him kindly, and evinced deep sympathy for their Irish
coreligionists, and especially the northern earls, with whose
wrongs they were thoroughly conversant, through Florence Conry,
fathers Cusack and Stanihurst. Father Conry, it would appear,
informed Maguire that King James would certainly arrest Tyrone,
if he went to London; and Maguire, on hearing this, despatched
a trusty messenger to the earls to put them on their guard, and
then set about providing means for carrying them off the Irish
shores. The influence of Lord Henry with the archdukes procured
him a donation of 7000 crowns, [Footnote 16] with which he
purchased, at Rouen, a vessel of fourscore tons, mounting
sixteen cast pieces of ordnance, manned by marines in disguise,
and freighted with a cargo of salt. From Rouen the vessel
proceeded to Dunkirk, under command of one John Bath, a
merchant of Drogheda, and lay there, waiting instructions from
Ireland."
[Footnote 16: The archdukes were greatly indebted to O'Neill,
who gave ample employment to the queen's troops in Ireland
during the war in the Netherlands, and thus prevented the
English from aiding, as they wished, the revolted provinces.]
This Bath, on his arrival in Ireland, at once sought both O'Neill
and O'Donnell, and informed them, on sure information procured by
Lord Henry O'Neill, Hugh's son, that they would both be certainly
arrested, and at the same time placed at their service McGuire's
ship, which he commanded. It needed great tact and coolness on
the part of O'Neill to conceal from the Lord-Deputy his intention
of departure. But at last--
"At midnight, on that ever-memorable 14th of September, 1607,
they spread all sail, and made for the open sea, intending,
however, to land on the island of Aran, off the coast of
Donegal, to provide themselves with more water and fuel.
"Those who were now sailing away from their ancient patrimonies
were, Hugh, Earl of Tyrone, with his countess, Catharina, and
their three sons, Hugh, John, and Bernard. With them also went
Art Oge, 'young Arthur,' son of Cormac, Tyrone's brother;
Fadorcha, son of Con, the earl's nephew; Hugh Oge, son of
Brian, brother of Tyrone, and many more of their faithful
clansmen. Those accompanying Earl Rory were Cathbar, or Caffar,
his brother; Nuala, his sister, wife of the traitor, Nial
Garve; Hugh, the earl's son, wanting three weeks of being one
year old; Rosa, daughter of Sir John O'Doherty, sister of Sir
Cahir, and wife of Cathbar, with her son, Hugh, aged two years
and three months; the son of his brother, Donel Oge; Naghtan,
son of Calvagh, or Charles O'Donel, with many others of their
trusted friends and followers. 'A distinguished crew,' observe
the four masters, 'was this for one ship; for it is certain
that the sea never carried, and that the winds never wafted,
from the Irish shores, individuals more illustrious or noble in
genealogy, or more renowned for deeds of valor, prowess, and
high achievements.' Ah! with what tearful eyes and torn hearts
did they gaze on the fast receding shores, from which they were
forced to fly for the sake of all they held dearest! 'The
entire number of souls on board this small vessel,' says
O'Keenan, in his narrative, 'was ninety-nine, having little
sea-store, and being otherwise miserably accommodated.' It was,
indeed, the first great exodus of the Irish nobles and gentry,
to be followed, alas! by many another, caused, in great
measure, by a similar system of cruel and exceptional
legislation."
{16}
There is a most interesting account of their stormy voyage in
that small vessel; but after much hardship and danger, they made
the port of Havre, and went up the River Seine to the ancient
city of Rouen. The English ambassador at the court of Henry the
Fourth of France, had the assurance to demand of the French
government to arrest the refugees, but received a short answer:
"Writing to Lord Shrewsbury, October 12th, 1607, Salisbury
alludes to O'Neill's voyage thus: 'He was shrewdly tossed at sea,
and met contrary winds for Spain. The English ambassador wishing
Henry to stay them, had for his answer, _France is free_.'"
(P. 123.)
From Normandy the party proceeded to Flanders, where they were
received by the archdukes with the highest distinction ever shown
to sovereign princes and their _suite_. At Brussels O'Neill
met his son, the Lord Henry, then commanding a regiment of Irish
for the archdukes, and also another young O'Neill, destined to do
great things in his generation, namely, Hugh's nephew, Owen Roe.
Our author thus introduces him:
"Even at the risk of interrupting O'Keenan's narrative, we may
observe that none of these Irish exiles could have foreseen
that a little boy, with auburn ringlets, then in their company,
would one day win renown by defending that same city of Arras
against two of the ablest marshals of France. Nevertheless,
such was the case; for, thirty-three years afterward, Owen Roe
O'Neill, son of Art, and nephew to the Earl of Tyrone, with his
regiment of Irish, maintained the place against Chatillon and
Meillarie, till he had to make a most honorable capitulation."
[Footnote 17]
[Footnote 17: August, 1640. See Hericourt's Sieges d'Arras.]
And the same Owen Roe, still later, in the Irish wars of King
Charles's day, fought and won the bloody battle of Benburb
against the Scottish Presbyterian army, and trampled their blue
banner on the banks of that same Blackwater which had seen the
glorious victories of the Red Hand. From Brussels the fugitives
had an intention of proceeding to Spain, but were diverted from
that purpose by the archdukes, and they finally set out for Rome.
The narrative of their journey across the Alps is exceedingly
interesting; and on their arrival at Milan, they were welcomed
with high honors by the Spanish governor, the Conde de Fuentes,
and by the nobility of the province; but it need hardly be said
that, in all their movements, they were closely watched by
British spies; and every attention shown to them was the subject
of violent remonstrance on the part of English ambassadors.
Father Meehan gives us the letter of Lord Cornwallis, then
ambassador at Madrid, to the lords of the privy council,
expressing his loyal disgust at the splendid hospitalities of the
Governor of Milan:
"'_To the lords of the privy council_.
"'Having lately gathered, amongst the Irish here, that the
fugitive earls have been in Milan, and _there much
feasted_ by the Conde _de Fuentes_, I expostulated it
with the secretary of state, who answered that they had not yet
had any understanding of their being there; that the Conde de
Fuentes was not a man disposed to such largess as to entertain
strangers in any costly manner at his own charge; and that sure
he was he could not expect any allowance from hence where there
was intended no _receipt, countenance,_ or _comfort_
to any of that condition. I sent sithence by Cottington, my
secretary, concerning one _Mack Ogg_, lately come hither,
as I have been advised, to solicit for these people; which was,
that as I hoped they would have no participation with the
principals, whose crimes had now been made so notorious in
their own countries, being both, upon public trial, condemned,
and he of _Tyrone_, as I heard, _of thirteen several
murders_; so I likewise assured myself that, in their own
wisdoms, they would not hold it fit his majesty here should
give harbor or ear to any of their ministers, and especially to
that of Mack Ogg, who could not be supposed but to have had a
hand in their traitorous purposes; _having been the man and
the means, in person,_ to withdraw them by sea out of their
own countries, in such undutiful and suspicious manner. That
myself was, in a matter of that nature, solicitous only in
regard of my own earnest desire that nothing might escape this
state whereby their intentions might be held different from
their professions. That for these fugitives, being now out of
their retreats, _weak in purse_, and _people condemned
and contemned_ by those of their own nation, and such as
could not but daily expect the heavy hand of God's justice for
their so many unnatural and detestable crimes, both of late and
heretofore committed, for _my own particular I made no more
account of them than of so many fleas_; neither did the
king, my master, otherwise esteem them than as men reprobated
both of God and the world, for their _fa??norous actions_
toward others, and inexcusable ingratitude to himself."
[Transcriber's Note: The word "fa??norous" is illegible.]
{17}
The author gives a minute and graphic narrative of the journey of
the "earls" through Italy, and their entrance into the Eternal
City, where they were affectionately received by Pope Paul V.,
who assigned them a palace for their dwelling:
"The time at which the Irish princes entered Rome was one of
more than usual festivity; for, on the Thursday preceding
Trinity Sunday, the pope solemnly canonized Sa Francesca
Romana, in the basilica of St. Peter in the Vatican. Rome was
then crowded by distinguished strangers from all parts of the
known world, each vieing with the other to secure fitting
places to witness the grand ceremonial. But of them all, none
were so honored as O'Neill, O'Donel, their ladies and
followers; for the pope gave orders that tribunes, especially
reserved for them, should be erected right under the dome.
This, indeed, was a signal mark of his Holiness's respect for
his guests, greater than which he could not exhibit. Among the
spectators were many English; and we can readily conceive how
much they were piqued at seeing O'Neill [Footnote 18] and the
earl thus honored by the supreme head of the church."
[Footnote 18: Throughout his narrative, O'Keenan styles
O'Neill according to his Gaelic title, and calls O'Donel
_the earl_. O'Keenan was not sufficiently anglicized in
accent or otherwise to respect the law which forbade the
assumption of the old Irish designation peculiar to the
Prince of Tyrone.]
And now began the long series of negotiations with the King of
Spain and the other Catholic powers, which were to enable the
"earls" to make a descent upon Ireland, reconquer their heritage,
and liberate their unfortunate people from the bondage and
oppression they were now enduring at the hands of King James's
"undertaking" planters. O'Neill had written a formal diplomatic
letter to King James, recounting the various plots and treasons
which had been practised against him by His Majesty's servants in
Ireland, demanding back his ancient inheritance, and announcing
that, in default of compliance, he would hold himself at liberty
to go back to Ireland, with a sufficient force to free his
country. This _ultimatum_ took no effect. The pope and the
King of Spain, though they treated him with high respect, and
awarded him a handsome pension, were slow to give the material
aid that was needed; and in the year 1608, his comrade Rory
(Rudraigh): O'Donnell, called Earl of Tyrconnell, died. Says
Father Meehan:
"During his illness he was piously tended by Rosa, daughter of
O'Dogherty, his brother's wife, the Princess O'Neill, and
Florence Conry, who had performed the same kind offices for
Hugh Roe O'Donel in Simancas. On the 27th July, 1608, he
received the last sacraments, and on the morning following
surrendered his soul to God. 'Sorrowful it was,' say the
Donegal, annalists, 'to contemplate his early eclipse, for he
was a generous and hospitable lord, to whom the patrimony of
his ancestors seemed nothing for his feasting and spending.'"
Soon after died O'Neill's son Hugh, whom the English called Baron
of Dungannon. O'Donnell's brother Caffar (Cathbar) died about the
same time, and the old chieftain was now left nearly alone to
carry on his almost hopeless negotiations.
{18}
The Irish exiles in Spain, when they heard of the death of the
two O'Donnells and young O'Neill, wore mourning publicly, to the
utter disgust of Lord Cornwallis, the English ambassador. He
remonstrated with the King of Spain against suffering so indecent
an exhibition, but received no satisfaction in that quarter; and
he wrote thereon, says Father Meehan:
"'The agent of the Irish fugitives in this city has presumed to
walk its streets, followed by two pages, and four others of his
countrymen, in black weeds--a sign that they are no unwelcome
guests here.' This was bad enough; but the news he supplied in
another letter was still worse, for he says: 'The Spanish court
had become the staple of the fugitive ware, since it allows
Tyrone a pension of six hundred crowns a month; Tyrconnel's
brother's widow, one of two hundred crowns a month; and his
brother's wife, one of the same sum.'"
If the British government could only have got hold of those
mourners in their "black weeds," within its own jurisdiction,
they would undoubtedly have been prosecuted and punished, like
the men who lately attended a funeral in Dublin. Nothing can be
more provoking to a government, sometimes, than public mourning
for its victims. Indeed, the Russian authorities in Warsaw have
been several times so exasperated by the sight of the citizens
all clothed in black, mourning for a crowd of innocent people,
cut down and ridden over by the cavalry in the streets, as to
feel compelled to issue instructions to the police to drag every
vestige of black apparel from every man, and every woman, and
child in the public thoroughfares, and to close up every shop or
store which should dare to keep any black fabric for sale. But in
cases where this kind of provocation is perpetrated in some
foreign country, and under the protection of its laws, then your
insulted government must only bear the affront as it best can.
The author next proceeds, with the aid of letters in the State
Paper Office, to narrate the various projects and speculations of
O'Neill and his friends, with a view to the invasion of their
native country; with all which projects and speculations the
British government was made fully acquainted by means of its
spies and diplomatic agents. England and Spain were just then at
peace, and one main hope of the exiles was that a breach might
take place between them. Our author says:
"Withal, it would appear that England had not then a very firm
reliance on the good faith of Spain. Indeed, Turnbull's
despatches show this to have been the case; and as for O'Neill,
there is every reason to suppose that he calculated on some
such lucky rupture, and that Philip would then have an
opportunity of retrieving the disaster of Kinsale, by sending a
flotilla to the coast of Ulster, where the native population
would rally to the standard of their attainted chieftain, and
drive the new settlers back to England or Scotland--anywhere
from off the face of his ancient patrimony. Yielding to these
apprehensions, James instructed his minister at the court of
the archdukes to redouble his vigilance, and make frequent
reports of the movements of the Irish troops in their
Highnesses' pay, and, above all, to certify to him the names of
the Irish officers on whom the court of Spain bestowed special
marks of its consideration. In fact, from the middle of 1614
till the close of the following year, Turnbull's correspondence
is wholly devoted to these points, so much so, that the English
cabinet had not only intelligence of Tyrone's designs, but
ample information concerning all those who were suspected of
countenancing them. Nothing could surpass the minister's
susceptibility on this subject; for if we were to believe
himself, no Catholic functionary visited the court of Brussels
without impressing on their Highnesses the expediency, as well
as duty, of aiding the banished earl and his coreligionists in
Ireland."
{19}
At last, in January, 1615, O'Neill resolved to undertake the
enterprise himself, some Catholic noblemen in Italy and Belgium
engaging to furnish him with funds. He was to quit Rome by a
certain day; but, like all his other projects, this was speedily
communicated to Trumbull, who lost no time in making it known to
the English cabinet. He did not leave Rome as he intended; but
two months later:
"The Belgian agent sent another dispatch to the king, informing
him 'that O'Neill hath sent from Rome two of his instruments
into Ireland, called Crone and Conor, with order to stir up
factions and seditions in that kingdom, where, in Waterford
alone, there are no less than thirty-six Jesuits.'"
Next we find the same vigilant English minister apprising his
government that O'Neill was about "to have some of his countrymen
employed at sea in ships of war, _as pirates_, with
commission to take all vessels," etc. In truth, it was for
England a genuine "Fenian" alarm, this constantly menacing
attitude of the veteran warrior of the Blackwater; a "Fenian"
alarm, alas! of two hundred and fifty years ago. And how many
there have been since! There was also the same eager impatience
for action, the same maddening thought that the work must be done
at once or Ireland was lost for ever. A certain physician, who
attended O'Neill in this year, 1615, writes to a friend in
London, giving him, as a sample of his patient's conversation and
manner, the following anecdote:
"Though a man would think that he is an old man by sight--no,
he is lusty and strong, and well able to travel; for a month
ago, at evening, when his frere [Footnote 19] and his gentlemen
were all with him, they were talking of England and Ireland,
and he drew out his sword. 'His majesty,' said he, 'thinks that
I am not strong. I would he that hates me most in England were
with me to see whether I am strong or no.' Those that were by
said, 'We would we were with forty thousand pounds of money in
Ireland, to see what we should do.' Whereon Tyrone remarked,
'If I be not in Ireland within these two years, _I will never
desire more to look for it._'"
[Footnote 19: F. Chamberlaine, O.S.F.]
So thought Sarsfield when he fled with the "Wild-geese" almost a
century later--if they could not return with a reenforcement of
French within one year, within two years, there was an end of
Ireland. So thought Wolfe Tone, after still another century, as
he was gnawing his own heart in Paris at the fatal delay, and
crying, "Hell! hell! If _that_ expedition did not sail at
that moment, Ireland was subdued and lost for ever and ever." It
is natural that the eager spirits of each generation of Irishmen
should be in haste to see the great work done in their own day.
But divine Providence is in no haste, and will not be hurried.
Beyond all doubt, there is a destiny and a work in store for this
Irish race, so wonderfully preserved through sore trials, and in
spite of repeated persistent efforts to extirpate it utterly. It
has a strong hold upon life, and a potent individual character.
It will neither perish from the face of the earth nor forget a
single tradition or aspiration, nor part with its ancient
religious faith. It not only does not _attorn_ to the
dominant English sentiment and character, but seems, on the
contrary, to become more antagonistic, and to cherish that
antagonism.
And it is very notable that this desperate mutual repulsion
between England and Ireland does not date from the "Reformation,"
nor does it altogether depend upon religious differences. It is
true that the acceptance of the new religion by England and its
rejection by the Irish furnished the former with a new pretext
and a convenient machinery for oppression and plunder. But two
centuries before this, Hugh O'Neill's time--and when the English
were as Catholic as the Irish--we find his ancestor, Donal
O'Neill, in his famous letter to Pope John XXII., describing the
relations of the two races in language which is still appropriate
at this day: "All hope of peace between us is completely
destroyed; for such is their pride, such is their excessive lust
of dominion, such our ardent desire to shake off this
insupportable yoke, and recover the inheritance which they have
so unjustly usurped, that as there never was, so there never will
be, any sincere coalition between them and us; nor is it possible
there should in this life; for we entertain a certain natural
enmity against each other, flowing from mutual malignity,
descending by inheritance from father to son, and spreading from
generation to generation."
{20}
The aged Prince of Ulster never saw his native land again. In the
following year, 1616, he became blind and, some weeks after,
having received the last rites of the church, he died at the
Salviati palace at Rome.
His history from first to last is a striking and remarkable one.
In the "religious" wars of the period, he was a conspicuous
figure; and Henry the Fourth of France called him the third
soldier of his age--he, Henry, being the first. But English
historians of the past and present century have made it a rule to
say nothing of him and of his great battles. They seem to desire
that the name of the Yellow Ford should be blotted out of
history. But once upon a time O'Neill occupied some attention in
England. Spenser and Bacon wrote anxious treatises to suggest the
best method of crushing him. Shakespeare delighted his audience
at the "Globe" theatre by triumphant anticipations of the return
of Lord Essex after destroying the abhorred O'Neill--
"Were now the general of our gracious empress (As, in good
time, he may) from Ireland coming, Bringing rebellion broached
on his sword. How many would the peaceful city quit. To welcome
him?"
Camden, in his _Queen Elizabeth_, has given to the Irish war
at least its due rank in the events of the time; and Fynes
Moryson tells us that "the general voyce was of Tyrone amongst
the English after the defeat of Blackwater, as of Hannibal among
the Romans after the defeat of Cannae." Mr. Hume, though he tells
us nothing of O'Neill's splendid victories over the English, yet
incidentally mentions that "in the year 1599 the queen spent six
hundred thousand pounds in six months in the service of Ireland;
and Sir Robert Cecil affirmed that in ten years Ireland cost her
three million four hundred thousand pounds," which would be about
sixty millions of pounds sterling in money of the present day. So
well, however, has the memory of all this been suppressed, that
even an educated Englishman at this time, if you mentioned to him
the great battle of the Yellow Ford would not at all understand
to what event you were alluding; so that one is not at all
astonished to find that Mr. Motley, in his voluminous book
expressly devoted to the religious wars of Europe in those days,
and especially the reign of Elizabeth, not only ignores that
transaction altogether, but does not so much as know O'Neill's
name. When he does once undertake to name him, he calls him not
Hugh O'Neill, but "Shanes MacNeil." (_History of United
Netherlands_, vol. iv. p. 94.)
{21}
The Irish, however, still cherish his name and keep his memory
green. The peasantry yet tell that strange legend of a troop of
the great chiefs lancers all lying in tranced sleep in a cave
under the royal hill of Aileagh, each holding his horse's bridle
in his hand, and waiting for the spell to be removed that will
set them free to strike a blow for their country; and when a man
once penetrated into the cave, and saw the sleepers in their
ancient mail, one of them lifted his head and asked. _Is the
time come?_ To the educated and reflective Irish, also, that
cardinal epoch of Irish history, in which O'Neill was the chief
figure, has of late become a subject of more zealous study than
it ever was before; and these will heartily thank the
accomplished author of the present work for the clear light he
has thrown upon one strange and painful episode in his country's
annals.
--------
The Cross.
In all ages, and among all nations, important events have been
commemorated and transmitted to future generations by significant
symbols. These mute symbols have served to represent the great
leading ideas and characteristics of nations, communities,
societies, and schools of religion, philosophy, morals, and
politics. Entire histories have been treasured up for ages in
these simple and inanimate emblems. In thousands of instances
they have served to call to mind the stirring events of a
generation, the glories of a great nation, epochs in human
progress, or the rise and fall of false religions, false
philosophies, and false systems of all descriptions. Each symbol
comprises a language and a history of its own, which can be
comprehended at a glance by the most ignorant of those whom it
addresses. As the ideas which they represent pertain, for the
most part, to affairs of the highest magnitude, they have always
been regarded with respect and veneration.
When the legions of the Caesars were achieving the conquest of a
world, their emblem of nationality and glory, and their
inspiration in battle, was the Roman flag emblazoned with the
Roman eagles. In the midst of the fiercest contests, a simple
glance at the national symbol would fire the heart of the soldier
with patrotic ardor, and often turn the tide of battle in his
favor. As he looked upon his flag, the Roman soldier beheld the
greatness and glory of his country, with himself as a constituent
element of all this greatness, and his heart and hand were nerved
with Herculean strength to meet the foe. In the eagles which
floated amid the din of battle, he read the history of the
empire, with her conquests, her riches, her power, her grandeur,
and her Caesar; and he cheerfully gave his life for the ideas
thus evoked.
The Saracen, as he marched out to battle, beheld the crescent of
his prophet, and was willing to die for his cause. As the
crescent waves before him, his imagination pictures the prophet
beckoning him on to battle, to conquest, to proselytism, and to
the sensual joys of paradise, and his courage rises, his blood
boils, and his cimeter leaps from its scabbard. No danger, no
fatigue, no privation daunts or deters him so long as he beholds
the emblem of his religion and his race. He loves and venerates
the silent symbol for the associations it calls to mind.
{22}
Napoleon I., with his battalions, traversed the continent of
Europe, dictating terms to kings and emperors; and finally
marshalled his victorious forces around the pyramids of Egypt.
During this triumphal march, his most potent auxiliaries were the
eagles of France draped in their tri-colored plumage. At the
bridge of Lodi, when the French hosts shrank back appalled from
the carnage caused by the terrific fire of the Austrian, Napoleon
raised aloft the emblem of France before the eyes of his
panic-stricken veterans. In an instant every heart was nerved,
and amidst storms of balls and the shrieks of the wounded and
dying, the bridge was carried and the day was won. The eagles of
the first Caesars seemed to have alighted upon the tri-colored
flags of the modern Caesar. Whether in the midst of the deadly
snows of Russia, or of the burning sands of Egypt, or of the
towering summits of the Alps, the great talisman which led the
way and gave inspiration to the soldier, was the national symbol.
It spoke to them of home, of kindred, friends, and of the glory
of France; and they were willing to risk all for the ideas thus
inspired.
How often has the tide of battle been turned in favor of England,
both on land and sea, by raising the symbol of England, and the
war-cry of St. George and the Dragon, in the thickest of the
fight! How often, in the midst of battle and slaughter, has the
drooping spirit of the Celt been roused to fierce enthusiasm and
determination by a sight of his loved national emblem, the
shamrock!
What true American can regard his own national symbol without
emotion, love, and veneration! Whether he beholds it unfurled
upon the battle-field, upon the ocean, or in a foreign land, he
reads in every star and every stripe a history of his native
land--of her struggles, her glories, and her future destiny.
Under its shadow the soldier is a braver man, the statesman a
better patriot, the citizen a truer loyalist, and the American
traveller in foreign lands more proud of his nationality.
We might cite instances _ad infinitum_; but we have adduced
a sufficient number for illustration. What is the signification
and the utility of these symbols? At the birth of nations, it has
always been the custom to devise some common symbol around which
the people could rally as a type of nationality. On all important
occasions, both in peace and in war, this common emblem is always
in the midst of the people, to remind them of the past, to
inspire them in the present, and to render them hopeful in the
future. It is associated with all their public events, their
victories, their defeats, their joys, their sorrows, their
glories, their progress, their power and greatness. Is it, then,
strange that it should be regarded with love, respect, and
veneration? Is it strange that a sight of their mute talisman in
the midst of battle should stir the soul of the soldier to its
very depths, or that the heart of the patriot should swell with
emotion and stern resolve when the honor or welfare of his
country is in danger, or that the citizen should have a higher
appreciation of the dignity and destiny of man, or that the
individual should always associate it with his love of country,
his pride of the past, his aspirations of the present, his hopes
of the future, in a word, with his nationality?
{23}
The man who has no love of father-land in his soul, who does not
love and respect the emblem of his country's glory, is fit only
for stratagems, conspiracies, and bloody tumults and disorders.
Such a man can only be regarded as an enemy of his race; and will
be frowned upon by the wise, the good, and the humane.
The emblems we have thus far alluded to refer to the worldly
affairs of men, to matters of state, of government, and national
prosperity. We now propose to refer briefly to the highest of all
symbols--the symbol of symbols--the emblem of emblems--to one
which relates to the temporal and eternal welfare of the entire
human race, the holy cross. What is its signification and
utility? What associations does it call to mind? It tells us of
the Incarnate God sent to earth to give mankind a new law, to set
them an example of a perfect life, to teach them those higher
virtues and graces which fit them for happiness here and
hereafter, and then to suffer and to die an ignominious death to
atone for the sins of man. It calls up all the dread
circumstances connected with the last days of our blessed Saviour
when on earth. It brings to mind his betrayal by Judas, his
arraignment before Pontius Pilate, his condemnation, his march to
the place of execution with the cross upon his blessed shoulders,
amidst the insults, the scoffs, the scourgings, the crowning with
thorns, and other indignities of a Jewish and pagan rabble. It
presents before us his ascent to the scaffold, his bloody
transfixion between two thieves, his dreadful agony, his bloody
sweat, his wounds, his slow and agonizing death. For whom, and
for what, has the omnipotent Redeemer suffered these ignominies,
these agonies, this cruel death? For all mankind, as an atonement
of their sins. With his almighty power he could have summoned
around him legions of destroying angels, who could have crushed
to powder his persecutors; or with his mighty breath he could
have consigned them to instant annihilation. But his love and
tenderness for man was infinite; and he mercifully refrained from
employing the power which he possessed to their injury. How vast
this condescension, this love, this devotion to mortals under
such provocations!
Since the date of the crucifixion, the cross, with the image of
our blessed Lord attached thereto, has been universally
recognized as the chief symbol of Christianity. In the days of
the apostles and their immediate successors it was their
ever-present memento, friend, solace, badge, and emblem of faith.
Recent discoveries in the catacombs of Rome have brought to light
the rude altars of the first Christians, always stamped with and
designated by the sign of the cross. When these early Christians
were hunted down like wild beasts, and driven by the sanguinary
pagans into the most secret recesses of the earth to escape
martyrdom, the holy cross ever accompanied them, ever symbolized
their faith, ever served as a beacon of light, and a
rallying-point for the persecuted followers of Jesus of Nazareth.
Whenever the missionaries of the church have abandoned country
and friends, taken their lives in their hands, and penetrated
into the remotest wilds of the savage, in order to "preach the
Gospel to every creature," the holy cross, with its divine
associations, has always led the way, beckoning them on in their
great life-work of love, mercy, and Christianity.
{24}
Often have these devoted men met the martyr's fate; but they have
died in holy triumph, with smiles and prayers on their lips, with
their eyes fixed on the sacred cross, and their souls on heaven.
If a nation's flag has been able to stir the soul of the soldier
to deeds of noble daring amid the excitement of battle, the cross
of Christ has been able, not less often, to fire the soul of the
lone missionary with holy love and zeal in the midst of the
savage wilderness. If, with flag in hand, the soldier has rushed
to the cannon's mouth, and laid down his life to win a battle, no
less frequently has the missionary, holding aloft the sacred
cross, rushed to the desert places of the earth, where barbarism,
pestilence, famine, cruelties, sufferings, and danger of
martyrdom encompass him on every side. The soldier fights his
battles under the eyes of his countrymen, cheered on by
applauding comrades, by martial music, and by hopes of speedy
preferment; but the Christian missionary fights alone, surrounded
by wild foes, far from home and friends, with no hope of temporal
reward, and where, if he is killed or dies a natural death, he
may be devoured by wild beasts, or remain uncoffined, unburied,
and unrecognized.
Statesmen, philosophers, warriors, and citizens of all ranks love
and respect their national symbols because they call to mind the
events and circumstances connected with their nationalities.
These sentiments are commended by the whole world. The true
Christian also loves and respects the symbol which calls up
before him the facts and incidents connected with the passion and
crucifixion of the Saviour. Let no one delude himself with the
absurd idea that it is the _material_ of the flag, or of the
cross, which calls forth these powerful emotions, and these high
resolutions. Let no one suppose that _idolatry_ can spring
from the contemplation and reverence of objects which place
before the mind's eye in the form of symbols the important events
of a nation, or the sufferings and death of a God. Let no one
question the motives or the propriety of his fellow man who bows
down in tears, in love, in gratitude and devotion before the
recognized emblems and mementos of great nations, and of godlike
achievements.
The cross of Christ! How vast and solemn the associations
connected with it! How significant its mute appeals to the hearts
of mortals! How eloquent its reference to a Redeemer's love for
sinful man! How glorious its history, and how prolific of
heavenly aspirations!
The cross of Christ! How beautiful, how sublime, how
soul-inspiring the ideas which encompass thee as with a halo of
light and glory! In ages past and gone, in all the lands of
earth, as it has silently ministered to the souls and thoughts of
men, and carried them back to Calvary, what an infinity of
blessings it has conferred! As we gaze at the Lamb of God, nailed
to the cross, how sad and tender the memories which pass before
the mind! Every wound of the precious body, every expression of
the godlike features, calls up some act of divine love and mercy!
Silently, sadly, solemnly, the holy cross has borne its sacred
burden to all nations, through long ages of culture and light, of
darkness and ignorance, of civilization and barbarism--a pioneer
and potent agent in all good works--a talisman and solace for the
poor and oppressed, as well as for the rich and powerful, a
beacon of heavenly light, and a rallying-point for all
Christendom!
{25}
In the dark ages, when Christianity and barbarism struggled for
the mastery of Europe, the latter achieved a physical triumph;
but spiritually the cross of Christ prevailed, and the barbarian
conquerors became Christian converts. When nations, communities,
or individuals have been bowed down with calamities and sorrows,
rays of hope and comfort have always shone from the holy cross.
However poor, unfortunate, wicked, degraded, and despised an
individual may be, the cross of Christ still beams upon him with
compassion and mercy.
Languages may be oral or printed, or pictorial or symbolical. By
the two first, ideas are conveyed _seriatim_ and slowly; by
the last _en masse_, and instantaneously. Through the first
the mind gradually grasps historical events; through the last
they are presented like a living tableaux, complete in all their
details. In the latter category stands the holy cross. It speaks
a language to the Christian which appeals instantly to every
faculty of his mind and soul. It strikes those chords of memory
which take him back to Calvary, to the jeering rabble of Pilate,
to the mocking minions of Caiphas, to the spectacle of a
scourged, tortured, and crucified Redeemer.
Who can look upon this blessed emblem unmoved? Who can regard
this mute memento of the Son of God in behalf of fallen man
without sentiments of love, respect, and veneration? May God in
his mercy grant that every one may properly appreciate this great
emblem of Christianity--the symbol of symbols. The likeness of a
crucified Redeemer sanctifies and hallows it. Not only at the
name, but at the semblance of Jesus, let every knee bend in
adoration.
--------
{26}
The Story of a Conscript.
Translated From The French.
XIX.
In the midst of such thoughts, day broke. Nothing was stirring
yet, and Zébédé said:
"What a chance for us, if the enemy should fear to attack us!"
The officers spoke of an armistice; but suddenly about nine
o'clock, our couriers came galloping in, crying that the enemy
was moving his whole line down upon us, and directly after we
heard cannon on our right, along the Elster. We were already
under arms, and set out across the fields toward the Partha to
return to Schoenfeld. The battle had begun.
On the hills overlooking the river, two or three divisions, with
batteries in the intervals, and cannon at the flanks, awaited the
enemy's approach; beyond, over the points of their bayonets, we
could see the Prussians, the Swedes, and the Russians, advancing
on all sides in deep, never-ending masses. Shortly after, we took
our place in line, between two hills, and then we saw five or six
thousand Prussians crossing the river, and all together shouting,
"_Vaterland! Vaterland!_" This caused a tremendous tumult,
like that of clouds of rooks flying north.
At the same instant the musketry opened from both sides of the
river. The valley through which the Partha flows was filled with
smoke; the Prussians were already upon us--we could see their
furious eyes and wild looks; they seemed like savage beasts
rushing down on us. Then but one shout of "_Vive
l'Empereur!_" smote the sky and we dashed forward. The shock
was terrible; thousands of bayonets crossed; we drove them back,
were ourselves driven back; muskets were clubbed; the opposing
ranks were confounded and mingled in one mass; the fallen were
trampled upon, while the thunder of artillery, the whistling of
bullets, and the thick white smoke enclosing all, made the valley
seem the pit of hell, peopled by contending demons.
Despair urged us, and the wish to revenge our deaths before
yielding up our lives. The pride of boasting that they once
defeated Napoleon incited the Prussians; for they are the
proudest of men, and their victories at Gross-Beeren and Katzbach
had made them fools. But the river swept away them and their
pride! Three times they crossed and rushed at us. We were indeed
forced back by the shock of their numbers, and how they shouted
then! They seemed to wish to devour us. Their officers, waving
their swords in the air, cried, "_Vorwärtz! Vorwärtz!_" and
all advanced like a wall with the greatest courage--that we
cannot deny. Our cannon opened huge gaps in their lines, still
they pressed on; but at the top of the hill we charged again, and
drove them to the river. We would have massacred them to a man,
were it not for one of their batteries before Mockern, which
enfiladed us and forced us to give up the pursuit.
{27}
This lasted until two o'clock; half our officers were killed or
wounded; the Colonel, Lorain, was among the first, and the
Commandant, Gémeau, the latter; all along the river side were
heaps of dead, or wounded men crawling away from the struggle.
Some, furious, would rise to their knees to fire a last shot or
deliver a final bayonet-thrust. The river was almost choked with
dead, but no one thought of the bodies as they swept by in the
current. The lines contending in the fight reached from
Schoenfeld to Grossdorf.
At length the Swedes and Prussians ceased their attacks, and
started farther up the river to turn our position, and masses of
Russians came to occupy the places they had left.
The Russians formed in two columns, and descended to the valley,
with shouldered arms, in admirable order. Twice they assailed us
with the greatest bravery, but without uttering wild beasts'
cries, like the Prussians. Their calvary attempted to carry the
old bridge above Schoenfeld, and the cannonade increased. On all
sides, as far as sight could reach, we saw only the enemy massing
their forces, and when we had repulsed one of their columns,
another of fresh men took its place. The fight had ever to be
fought over again.
Between two and three o'clock, we learned that the Swedes and the
Prussian cavalry had crossed the river above Grossdorf, and were
about to take us in the rear, a mode which pleased them much
better than fighting face to face. Marshal Ney immediately
changed front, throwing his right wing to the rear. Our division
still remained supported on Schoenfeld, but all the others
retired from the Partha, to stretch along the plain, and the
entire army formed but one line around Leipsic.
The Russians, behind the road to Mockern, prepared for a third
attack toward three o'clock; our officers were making new
dispositions to receive them; when a sort of shudder ran from one
end of our lines to the other, and in a few moments all knew that
the sixteen thousand Saxons and the Wurtemberg calvary, in our
very centre, had passed over to the enemy, and that on their way
they had the infamy to turn the forty guns they carried with
them, on their old brothers-in-arms of Durutte's division.
This treason, instead of discouraging us, so added to our fury,
that if we had been allowed, we would have crossed the river to
massacre them. They say that they were defending their country.
It is false! They had only to have left us on the Duben road; why
did they not go then! They might have done like the Bavarians and
quitted us before the battle; they might have remained
neutral--might have refused to serve; but they deserted us only
because fortune was against us. If they knew we were going to
win, they would have continued our very good friends, so that
they might have their share of the spoil or glory--as after Jena
and Friedland. This is what every one thought, and it is why
those Saxons are, and will ever remain, traitors; not only did
they abandon their friends in distress, but they murdered them,
to make a welcome with the enemy. God is just, and so great was
their new allies' scorn of them, that they divided half Saxony
between themselves after the battle. The French might well laugh
at Prussian, Austrian, and Russian gratitude.
From the time of this desertion until evening, it was a war of
vengeance that we carried on; the allies might crush us by
numbers, but they should pay dearly for their victory!
{28}
At nightfall, while two thousand pieces of artillery were
thundering together, we were attacked for the seventh time in
Schoenfeld. The Russians on one side and the Prussians on the
other poured in upon us. We defended every house. In every lane
the walls crumbled beneath the bullets, and roofs fell in on
every side. There were now no shouts as at the beginning of the
battle; all were cool and pale with rage. The officers had
collected scattered muskets and cartridge-boxes, and now loaded
and fired like the men. We defended the gardens, too, and the
cemetery, where we had bivouacked, until there were more dead
above than beneath the soil. Every inch of earth cost a life.
It was night when Marshal Ney brought up a reenforcement--whence
I knew not. It was what remained of Ricard's division and
Sonham's second. The _débris_ of our regiments united, and
hurled the Russians to the other side of the old bridge, which no
longer had a rail, that having been swept away by the shot. Six
twelve-pounders were posted on the bridge, and maintained a fire
for one hour longer. The remainder of the battalion, and of some
others in our rear, supported the guns; and I remember how their
flashes lit up the forms of men and horses, heaped beneath the
dark arches. The sight lasted only a moment, but it was a
horrible moment indeed.
At half-past seven, masses of cavalry advanced on our left, and
we saw them whirling about two large squares, which slowly
retired. Then we received orders to retreat. Not more than two or
three thousand men remained at Schoenfeld with the six pieces of
artillery. We reached Kohlgarten without being pursued, and were
to bivouac around Rendnitz. Zébédé was yet living, and unwounded;
and, as we marched on, listening to the cannonade, which
continued, despite the darkness, along the Elster, he said
suddenly:
"How is it that we are here, Joseph, when so many others that
stood by our side are dead? It seems as if we bore charmed lives,
and could not die."
I made no reply.
"Think you there was ever before such a battle?" he asked. "No,
it cannot be. It is impossible."
It was indeed a battle of giants. From six in the morning until
seven in the evening we had held our own against three hundred
and sixty thousand men, without, at night, having lost an inch;
and, nevertheless, we were but a hundred and thirty thousand. God
keep me from speaking ill of the Germans. They were fighting for
the independence of their country. But they might do better than
celebrate the anniversary of the battle of Leipsic every year.
There is not much to boast of in fighting an enemy three to one.
Approaching Rendnitz, we marched over heaps of dead. At every
step we encountered dismounted cannon, broken caissons, and trees
cut down by shot. There a division of the Young Guard and the
_grenadiers-à-cheval_, led by Napoleon himself, had repulsed
the Swedes who were advancing into the breach made by the
treachery of the Saxons. Two or three burning houses lit up the
scene. The _grenadiers-à-cheval_ were yet at Rendnitz, but
crowds of disbanded troops were passing up and down the street.
No rations had been distributed, and all were seeking something
to eat and drink.
As we defiled by a large house, we saw behind the wall of a court
two _cantinières_, who were giving the soldiers drink from
their wagons.
{29}
There were there chasseurs, cuirassiers, lancers, hussars,
infantry of the line and of the guard, all mingled together, with
torn uniforms, broken shakos, and plumeless helmets, and all
seemingly famished.
Two or three dragoons stood on the wall, near a pot of burning
pitch, their arms crossed on their long white cloaks, covered
from head to foot with blood.
Zébédé, without speaking, pushed me with his elbow, and we
entered the court, while the others pursued their way. It took us
full a quarter of an hour to reach one of the wagons. I held up a
crown of six livres, and the _cantinières_, kneeling behind
her cask, handed me a great glass of brandy and a piece of white
bread, at the same time taking my money. I drank, and passed the
glass to Zébédé, who emptied it. We had as much difficulty in
getting out of the crowd as in entering. Hard, famished faces and
cavernous eyes were on all sides of us. No one moved willingly.
Each thought only of himself, and cared not for his neighbor.
They had escaped a thousand deaths to-day only to dare a thousand
more to-morrow. Well might they mutter, "Every one for himself,
and God £or all."
As we went through the village street, Zébédé said, "You have
bread?"
"Yes."
I broke it in two, and gave him half. We began to eat, at the
same time hastening on, and had taken our places in the ranks
before any one noticed our absence. The firing yet continued at a
distance. At midnight we arrived at the long promenades which
border the Pleisse, and halted under the old leafless lindens,
and stacked arms. A long line of fires flickered in the fog as
far as Randstadt; and, when the flames burnt high, they threw a
glare on groups of Polish lancers, lines of horses, cannon, and
wagons, while, at intervals beyond, sentinels stood like statues
in the mist. A heavy, hollow sound arose from the city, and
mingled with the rolling of our trains over the bridge at
Lindenau. It was the beginning of the retreat.
XX.
What occurred until daybreak I know not. Baggage, wounded, and
prisoners doubtless continued to crowd across the bridge. But
then a terrific shock woke us all. We started up, thinking the
enemy were on us, when two officers of hussars came galloping in
with the news that a powder-wagon had exploded by accident in the
grand avenue of Randstadt, at the river-side. The dark, red smoke
rolled to the sky, and slowly disappeared, while the old houses
continued to shake as if an earthquake were rolling by.
Quiet was soon restored. Some lay down again to sleep; but it was
growing lighter every minute; and, glancing toward the river, I
saw our troops extending until lost in distance along the five
bridges of the Elster and Pleisse, which follow one after the
other, and make, so to speak, but one. Thousands of men must
defile over this bridge, and, of necessity, take time in doing
so. And the idea struck every one that it would have been much
better to have thrown several bridges across the two rivers; for
at any instant the enemy might attack us, and then retreat would
become difficult indeed. But the emperor had forgotten to give
the order, and no one dared do anything without orders. Not a
marshal of France would have dared to take it upon himself to say
that two bridges were better than one. To such a point had the
terrible discipline of Napoleon reduced those old captains!
{30}
They obeyed like machines, and disturbed themselves about
nothing. Such was their fear of displeasing their master. As I
gazed at the thousands of artillerymen and baggage-guards
swarming over the bridge, and saw the tall bear-skin shakos of
the Old Guard, immovable on the hill of Lindenau, on the other
side of the river--as I thought they were fairly on the way to
France, how I longed to be in their place!
But I felt bitterly, indeed, when, about seven o'clock, three
wagons came to distribute provisions and ammunition among us, and
it became evident that we were to be the rear-guard. In spite of
my hunger, I felt like throwing my bread into the river. A few
moments after, two squadrons of Polish lancers appeared coming up
the bank, and behind them five or six generals, Poniatowski among
the number. He was a man of about fifty, tall, slight, and with a
melancholy expression. He passed without looking at us. General
Fournier, who now commanded our brigade, spurred from among his
staff, and cried:
"By file left!"
I never so felt my heart sink. I would have sold my life for two
farthings; but nevertheless, we had to move on, and turn our
backs to the bridge.
We soon arrived at a place called Hinterthor--an old gate on the
road to Caunewitz. To the right and left stretched ancient
ramparts, and behind rows of houses. We were posted in covered
roads, near this gate, which the sappers had strongly barricaded.
A few worm-eaten palisades served us for intrenchments, and, on
all the roads before us, the enemy were advancing. This time they
wore white coats and flat caps, with a raised piece in front, on
which we could see the two-headed eagle of the _kreutzers_.
Old Pinto, who recognized them at once, cried:
"Those fellows are the _Kaiserliks_! We have beaten them
fifty times since 1793; but if the father of Marie Louise had a
heart, they would be with us now instead of against us."
For some moments a cannonade had been going on at the other side
of the city, where Blücher was attacking the faubourg of Halle.
Soon after, the firing stretched along to the right; it was
Bernadotte attacking the faubourg of Kohlgartenthor, and at the
same time the first shells of the Austrians fell among us. They
formed their columns of attack on the Caunewitz road, and poured
down on us from all sides. Nevertheless, we held our own until
about ten o'clock, and then were forced back to the old ramparts,
through the breaches of which the Kaiserliks pursued us under the
cross-fire of the fourteenth and twenty-ninth of the line. The
poor Austrians were not inspired with the fury of the Prussians,
but nevertheless, showed a true courage; for, in half an hour,
they had won the ramparts, and although, from all the neighboring
windows, we kept up a deadly fire, we could not force them back.
Six months before, it would have horrified me to think of men
being thus slaughtered, but now I was as insensible as any old
soldier, and the death of one man or of a hundred would not cost
me a thought.
Until this time all had gone well, but how were we to get out of
the houses? The enemy held every avenue, and it seemed that we
would be caught like foxes in their holes, and I thought it not
unlikely that the Austrians, in revenge for the loss we had
inflicted upon them, might put us to the point of the bayonet.
{31}
Meditating thus, I ran back to a room, where a dozen of us yet
remained, and there I saw Sergeant Pinto leaning against the
wall, his arms hanging by his sides, and his face white as paper.
He had just received a bullet in the breast; but the old man's
warrior soul was still strong within him, as he cried:
"Defend yourselves, conscripts! Defend yourselves! Show the
Kaiserliks that a French soldier is yet worth four of them! Ah!
the villains!"
We heard the sound of blows on the door below thundering like
cannon-shots. We still kept up our fire, but hopelessly, when we
heard the clatter of hoofs without. The firing ceased, and we saw
through the smoke four squadrons of lancers dashing like a troop
of lions through the midst of the Austrians. All yielded before
them. The Kaiserliks fled, but the long, blue lancers, with their
red pennons, were swifter than they, and many a white coat was
pierced from behind. The lancers were Poles--the most terrible
warriors I have ever seen, and, to speak truth, our friends and
our brothers. _They_ never turned from us in our hour of
need; they gave us the last drop of their blood. And what have we
done for their unhappy country? When I think of our ingratitude,
my heart bleeds.
The Poles rescued us. Seeing them so proud and brave, we rushed
out, attacking the Austrians with the bayonet, and driving them
into the trenches. We were for the time victorious, but it was
time to beat a retreat, for the enemy were already filling
Leipsic; the gates of Halle and Grimma were forced, and that of
Peters-Thau delivered up by our friends the Badeners and our
other friends the Saxons. Soldiers, citizens, and students kept
up a fire from the windows on our retiring troops.
We had only time to re-form and take the road along the Pleisse;
the lancers awaited us there; we defiled behind them, and, as the
Austrians again pressed around us, they charged once more to
drive them back. What brave fellows and magnificent horsemen were
those Poles!
The division, reduced from fifteen to eight thousand men, retired
step by step before fifty thousand foes, and not without often
turning and replying to the Austrian fire.
We neared the bridge--with what joy, I need not say. But it was
no easy task to reach it, for infantry and horse crowded the
whole width of the avenue, and arrived from all the neighboring
roads, until the crowd formed an impenetrable mass, which
advanced slowly, with groans and smothered cries, which might be
heard at a distance of half a mile, despite the rattling of
musketry. Woe to those upon the other side of the bridge! they
were forced into the water and no one stretched a hand to save
them. In the middle, men and even horses were carried along with
the crowd; they had no need of making any exertion of their own.
But how were we to get there? The enemy were advancing nearer and
nearer every moment. It is true we had stationed a few cannon so
as to sweep the principal approaches, and some troops yet
remained in line to repulse their attacks; but they had guns to
sweep the bridge, and those who remained behind must receive
their whole fire. This accounted for the press on the bridge.
At two or three hundred paces from the crowd, the idea of rushing
forward and throwing myself into the midst entered my mind; but
Captain Vidal, Lieutenant Bretonville, and other old officers
said:
"Shoot down the first man that leaves the ranks!"
{32}
It was horrible to be so near safety, and yet unable to escape.
This was between eleven and twelve o'clock. The fusilade grew
nearer on the right and left, and a few bullets began to whistle
over our heads. From the side of Halle we saw the Prussians rush
out pell-mell with our own soldiers. Terrible cries now arose
from the bridge. Cavalry, to make way for themselves, sabred the
infantry, who replied with the bayonet. It was a general _sauve
qui peut_. At every step of the crowd, some one fell from the
bridge, and, trying to regain his place, dragged five or six with
him into the water.
In the midst of this horrible confusion, this pandemonium of
shouts, cries, groans, musket-shots, and sabre-strokes, a crash
like a peal of thunder was heard, and the first arch of the
bridge rose upward into the air with all upon it. Hundreds of
wretches were torn to pieces, and hundreds of others crushed
beneath the falling ruins.
A sapper had blown up the arch!
At this sight, the cry of treason rang from mouth to mouth. "We
are lost--betrayed!" was now the cry on all sides. The tumult was
fearful. Some, in the rage of despair, turned upon the enemy like
wild beasts at bay, thinking only of vengeance; others broke
their arms, cursing heaven and earth for their misfortunes.
Mounted officers and generals dashed into the river to cross it
by swimming, and many soldiers followed them without taking time
to throw off their knapsacks. The thought that the last hope of
safety was gone, and nothing now remained but to be massacred,
made men mad. I had seen the Partha choked with dead bodies the
day before, but this scene was a thousand times more horrible;
drowning wretches dragging down those who happened to be near
them; shrieks and yells of rage, or for help; a broad river
concealed by a mass of heads and struggling arms.
Captain Vidal, who, by his coolness and steady eye, had hitherto
kept us to our duty, even Captain Vidal now appeared discouraged.
He thrust his sabre into the scabbard, and cried, with a strange
laugh:
"The game is up! Let us be gone!"
I touched his arm; he looked sadly and kindly at me.
"What do you wish, my child?" he asked.
"Captain," said I, "I was four months in the hospital at Leipsic;
I have bathed in the Elster, and I know a ford."
"Where?"
"Ten minutes' march above the bridge."
He drew his sabre at once from its sheath, and shouted:
"Follow me, _mes enfants!_ and you, Bertha, lead."
The entire battalion, which did not now number more than two
hundred men, followed; a hundred others, who saw us start
confidently forward, joined us. I recognized the road which
Zunnier and I had traversed so often in July, when the ground was
covered with flowers. The enemy fired on us, but we did not
reply. I entered the water first; Captain Vidal next, then the
others, two abreast. It reached our shoulders, for the river was
swollen by the autumn rains; but we crossed, notwithstanding,
without the loss of a man. We pressed onward across the fields,
and soon reached the little wooden bridge at Schleissig, and
thence turned to Lindenau.
We marched silently, turning from time to time to gaze on the
other side of the Elster, where the battle still raged in the
streets of Leipsic.
{33}
The furious shouts, and the deep boom of cannon still reached our
ears; and it was only when, about two o'clock, we overtook the
long column which stretched, till lost in distance, on the road
to Erfurt, that the sounds of conflict were lost in the roll of
wagons and artillery trains.
XXI.
Hitherto I have described the grandeur of war--battles glorious
to France, notwithstanding our mistakes and misfortunes. When we
were fighting all Europe alone, always one against two, and often
one to three; when we finally succumbed, not through the courage
of our foes, but borne down by treason and the weight of numbers,
we had no reason to blush for our defeat, and the victors have
little reason to exult in it. It is not numbers that makes the
glory of a people or an army--it is virtue and bravery.
But now I must relate the horrors of retreat. It is said that
confidence gives strength, and this is especially true of the
French. While they advanced in full hope of victory, they were
united; the will of their chiefs was their only law; they knew
that they could succeed only by strict observance of discipline.
But when driven back, no one had confidence save in himself, and
commands were forgotten. Then these men--once so brave and so
proud, who marched so gayly to the fight--scattered to right and
left; sometimes fleeing alone, sometimes in groups. Then those
who, a little while before trembled at their approach, grew bold;
they came on, first timidly, but, meeting no resistance, became
insolent. Then they would swoop down and carry off three or four
laggards at a time, as I have seen crows swoop upon a fallen
horse, which they did not dare approach while he could yet remain
on his feet.
I have seen miserable Cossacks--very beggars, with nothing but
old rags hanging around them; an old cap of tattered skin over
their ears; unshorn beards, covered with vermin; mounted on old
worn-out horses, without saddles, and with only a piece of rope
by way of stirrups, an old rusty pistol all their fire-arms, and
a nail at the end of a pole for a lance; I have seen these
wretches, who resembled sallow and decrepit Jews more than
soldiers, stop ten, fifteen, twenty of our men, and lead them off
like sheep.
And the tall, lank peasants, who, a few months before, trembled
if we only looked at them--I have seen them arrogantly repulse
old soldiers--cuirassiers, artillerymen, dragoons who had fought
through the Spanish war, men who could have crushed them with a
blow of their fist; I have seen these peasants insist that they
had no bread to sell, while the odor of the oven arose on all
sides of us; that they had no wine, no beer, when we heard
glasses clinking to right and left. And no one dared punish them;
no one dared take what he wanted from the wretches who laughed to
see us in such straits, for each one was retreating on his own
account; we had no leaders, no discipline, and they could easily
out-number us.
And to hunger, misery, weariness, and fever, the horrors of an
approaching winter were added. The rain never ceased falling from
the gray sky, and the winds pierced us to the bones. How could
poor beardless conscripts, mere shadows, fleshless and worn out,
endure all this? They perished by thousands; their bodies covered
the roads. The terrible _typhus_ pursued us.
{34}
Some said it was a plague, engendered by the dead not being
buried deep enough; others, that it was the consequence of
sufferings that required more than human strength to bear. I know
not how this may be, but the villages of Alsace and Lorraine, to
which we brought it, will long remember their sufferings; of a
hundred attacked by it, not more than ten or twelve, at the most,
recovered.
At length, on the evening of the nineteenth, we bivouacked at
Lutzen, where our regiments re-formed as best they might. The
next day we skirmished with the Westphalians, and at Erfurt we
received new shoes and uniforms. Five or six disbanded companies
joined our battalion--nearly all conscripts. Our new coats and
shoes were miles too large for us; but they were warm. The
Cossacks reconnoitred us from a distance. Our hussars would drive
them off; but they returned the moment pursuit was relaxed. Many
of our men went pillaging in the night, and were absent at
roll-call, and the sentries received orders to shoot all who
attempted to leave their bivouacs.
I had had the fever ever since we left Leipsic; it increased day
by day, and I became so weak that I could scarcely rise in the
mornings to follow the march. Zébédé looked sadly at me, and
sometimes said:
"Courage, Joseph! We will soon be at home!"
These words reanimated me; I felt my face flush.
"Yes, yes!" I said; "we will soon be home; I must see home once
more!"
The tears forced themselves to my eyes. Zébédé carried my
knapsack when I was tired, and continued:
"Lean on my arm. We are getting nearer every day, now, Joseph. A
few dozen leagues are nothing."
My heart beat more bravely, but my strength was gone. I could no
longer carry my musket; it was heavy as lead. I could not eat; my
knees trembled beneath me; still I did not despair, but kept
murmuring to myself: "This is nothing. When you see the spire of
Phalsbourg, your fever will leave you. You will have good air,
and Catharine will nurse you. All will yet be well!"
Others, no worse than I, fell by the roadside, but still I toiled
on; when, near Folde, we learned that fifty thousand Bavarians
were posted in the forests through which we were to pass, for the
purpose of cutting off our retreat. This was my finishing stroke,
for I knew I could no longer load, fire, or defend myself with
the bayonet. I felt that all my sufferings to get so far toward
home were useless. Nevertheless, I made an effort when we were
ordered to march, and tried to rise.
"Come, come, Joseph!" said Zébédé; "courage!"
But I could not move, and lay sobbing like a child.
"Come! stand up!" he said.
"I cannot. O God! I cannot!"
I clutched his arm. Tears streamed down his face. He tried to
lift me, but he was too weak. I held fast to him, crying:
"Zébédé, do not abandon me!"
Captain Vidal approached, and gazed sadly on me:
"Cheer up, my lad," said he; "the ambulances will be along in
half an hour."
But I knew what that meant, and I drew Zébédé closer to me. He
embraced me, and I whispered in his ear:
"Kiss Catharine for me--for my last farewell. Tell her that I
died thinking of God's holy mother and of her."
"Yes, yes!" he sobbed. "My poor Joseph!"
{35}
I could cling to him no longer. He placed me on the ground, and
ran away without turning his head. The column departed, and I
gazed at it as one who sees his last hope fading from his eyes.
The last of the battalion disappeared over the ridge of a hill. I
closed my eyes. An hour passed, or perhaps a longer time, when
the boom of cannon startled me, and I saw a division of the guard
pass at a quick step with artillery and wagons. Seeing some sick
in the wagons, I cried wistfully:
"Take me! Take me!"
But no one listened; still they kept on, while the thunder of
artillery grew louder and louder. More than ten thousand men,
calvary and infantry, passed me, but I had no longer strength to
call out to them.
At last the long line ended; I saw knapsacks and shakos disappear
behind the hill, and I lay down to sleep for ever, when once more
I was aroused by the rolling of five or six pieces of artillery
along the road. The cannoneers sat sabre in hand, and behind came
the caissons. I hoped no more from these than from the others,
when suddenly I perceived a tall, lean, red-bearded veteran
mounted beside one of the pieces, and bearing the cross upon his
breast. It was my old friend Zunnier, my old comrade of Leipsic.
He was passing without seeing me, when I cried, with all the
strength that remained to me:
"Christian! Christian!"
He heard me in spite of the noise of the guns; stopped, and
turned round.
"Christian!" I cried, "take pity on me!"
He saw me lying at the foot of a tree, and came to me with a pale
face and staring eyes:
"What! Is it you, my poor Joseph?" cried he, springing from his
horse.
He lifted me in his arms as if I were an infant, and shouted to
the men who were driving the last wagon:
"Halt!"
Then embracing me, he placed me in it, my head upon a knapsack. I
saw too that he wrapped great cavalry cloak around my feet, as he
cried:
"Forward! Forward! It is growing warm yonder!"
I remember no more, but I have a faint impression of hearing
again the sound of heavy guns and rattle of musketry, mingled
with shouts and commands. Branches of tall pines seemed to pass
between me and the sky through the night; but all this might have
been a dream. But that day, behind Solmunster, in the woods of
Hanau, we had a battle with the Bavarians, and routed them.
XXII.
On the fifteenth of January, 1814, two months and a half after
the battle of Hanau, I awoke in a good bed, and at the end of a
little, well-warmed room; and gazing at the rafters over my head,
then at the little windows, where the frost had spread its silver
sheen, I exclaimed, "It is winter!" At the same time I heard the
crash of artillery and the crackling of a fire, and turning over
on my bed in a few moments, I saw seated at its side a pale young
woman, with her arms folded, and I recognized--Catharine! I
recognized, too, the room where I had spent so many Sundays
before going to the wars. But the thunder of the cannon made me
think I was dreaming. I gazed for a long while at Catharine, who
seemed more beautiful than ever, and the question rose, "Where is
Aunt Grédel? am I at home once more? God grant that this be not a
dream!"
At last I took courage and called softly:
{36}
"Catharine!" And she, turning her head, cried:
"Joseph! Do you know me?"
"Yes," I replied, holding out my hand.
She approached, trembling and sobbing, when again and again the
cannon thundered.
"What are those shots I hear?" I cried.
"The guns of Phalsbourg," she answered. "The city is besieged."
"Phalsbourg besieged! The enemy in France!"
I could speak no more. Thus had so much suffering, so many tears,
so many thousands of lives gone for nothing--ay, worse than
nothing, for the foe was at our homes. For an hour I could think
of nothing else; and even now, old and gray-haired as I am, the
thought fills me with bitterness; Yes, we old men have seen the
German, the Russian, the Swede, the Spaniard, the Englishman,
masters of France, garrisoning our cities, taking whatever suited
them from our fortresses, insulting our soldiers, changing our
flag, and dividing among themselves, not only our conquests since
1804, but even those of the republic. These were the fruits of
ten years of glory!
But let us not speak of these things. They will tell us that
after Lutzen and Bautzen, the enemy offered to leave us Belgium,
part of Holland, all the left bank of the Rhine as far as Bâle,
with Savoy and the kingdom of Italy; and that the emperor refused
to accept these conditions, brilliant as they were, because he
placed the satisfaction of his own pride before the happiness of
France!
But to return to my story. For two weeks after the battle of
Hanau, thousands of wagons, filled with wounded, crowded the road
from Strasbourg to Nancy, and passed through Phalsbourg. Not one
in the sad _cortége_ escaped the eyes of Aunt Grédel and
Catharine, and thousands of fathers and mothers sought among them
for their children. The third day Catharine found me among a heap
of other wretches, with sunken cheeks and glaring eyes--dying of
hunger.
She knew me at once, but Aunt Grédel gazed long before she cried,
"Yes! it is he! It is Joseph!"
They took me home. Why should I describe my long illness, my
shrieks for water, my almost miraculous escape from what seemed
certain death? Let it suffice the kind reader to know that, six
months after, Catharine and I were married; that Monsieur Goulden
gave me half his business, and that we lived together as happy as
birds.
The wars were ended, but the Bourbons had been taught nothing by
their misfortunes, and the emperor only awaited the moment of
vengeance. But here let us rest. If people of sense tell me that
I have done well in relating my campaign of 1813--that my story
may show youth the vanity of military glory, and prove that no
man can gain happiness save by peace, liberty, and labor--then I
will take up my pen once more, and give you the story of
Waterloo!
-------
{37}
The Episcopalian Crisis.
In medical science, a _crisis_ is the change in a disease
which indicates its event, the recovery or death of the patient,
and is, therefore, the critical moment. Webster also defines
crisis to be "the decisive state of things, or the point of time
when an affair is arrived at its height, and must soon terminate,
or suffer a material change." No attentive observer of the
religious movements which are going on around us can fail to see
that the Episcopalians are, at this moment, in an interesting
condition. On the one hand, the ritualists are pushing ceremonial
and doctrine much further than even the elasticity of
Protestantism will permit, while, on the other, the
low-churchmen, alarmed at the demonstrations of their opponents,
are renewing the battle-cries of the Reformation, lest the labors
of Luther and Henry VIII, should be frustrated in their
communion. There will soon be the clashing of arms and the
interchange of active hostilities. As Catholics, we cannot but
take a deep interest in the result, and we hope that all the
combatants will, before going into battle, understand the cause
for which they are fighting, and then faithfully fight to victory
or death. An honest man should always stand by his colors, or at
least openly renounce them. The object of this article is, to
give a diagnosis of the present state of Episcopalianism, and, as
far as our abilities and kind intentions go, to prescribe a
remedy for the patient.
In the first place, we find that there is a feverish excitement
about the trial of the Rev. Mr. Tyng, who, in violation of a
canon, has had the hardihood to preach in a church of another
denomination than his own. The canon under which he is arraigned
seems to present a case against the reverend gentleman, and from
the complexion of the court appointed to try him he has little
chance of escaping conviction. But we imagine that even his
condemnation will be nominal, and appear more as the assertion of
a power than the exercise of it. The low-churchmen are quite
excited by the discussion of the points involved in the trial. A
writer in _The Episcopalian_ considers the affair as the
most important in the annals of American ecclesiastical history.
Whatever the verdict of the court may be, it is of little account
compared to the angry feelings and bitter divisions among
brethren which will flow from it, and become more or less
permanent. Certainly, there is more bitterness among the
different sections of Episcopalians, than there is between them
and other Protestants. Low-churchmen love their Protestant
brethren, with the one exception of high-churchmen, whom they
regard with a natural antipathy. High-churchmen love none but
themselves, not the sects whom they eschew, nor the Catholic
Church, which eschews them. The trial of Rev. Mr. Tyng is not the
cause of the angry feelings which are now manifested, but merely
the occasion for bringing them out. They exist before any
occasion, and are found in the very heart of the Episcopal
Church. If the Rev. Dr. Dix had preached in a Methodist place of
worship, it is quite possible that no one would have made
objection; but Mr. Tyng, being on the other side of the house,
cannot have the same liberty.
{38}
The truth is, that all rules have a wide interpretation, and are
to be explained by custom, and here the defendant in the exciting
trial has the advantage. Even if he should be condemned, he will
be likely to have nearly all the popular sympathy, and so will
become the greater man, as a kind of martyr for his principles.
The occasion, however, has brought out a bold manifesto from the
high-churchmen, which is to be understood as their platform,
around which they seek to rally their friends. Sixty-four
clergymen have joined together to form what they call "The
American Church Union," to which they invite all Episcopalians
who sympathize with them. They declare that the evils of the time
are fearful, "the young are growing up without education, the
community is familiarized with scenes of lewdness, the marriage
contract is made contemptible, the ordinances of the Gospel of
Christ are disused, and the public worship of God is neglected."
While thus the torrent of iniquity rages around them, they find
that an evil has arisen within the Episcopal fold, which
threatens the subversion of their whole system. It is nothing
less than the denial of the necessity of ordination of ministers
by bishops. "The right is claimed of preaching anywhere, at
pleasure; ministers of non-Episcopal communities are invited to
preach in our churches; and the intention is announced of
breaking down every barrier between our church and the religious
bodies around her." To counteract this destructive movement, they
associate themselves together, in a union offensive and
defensive. They promise to uphold the laws, the canons, and to
follow the "godly admonitions of the bishops," while they seek
"to maintain unimpaired principles which they have received from
their fathers, Seabury, White, Griswold, Hobart, Doane, and
Wainwright."
While we confess that our sympathies are with the signers of this
pastoral, we frankly avow that it is somewhat vague and, to our
minds, inconsistent. No doctrine whatever is clearly stated,
except that of the necessity of episcopal ordination. The creeds
are referred to, and the (undisputed?) general councils; but no
explanation of their teaching is given. And then, he will be a
_wise_ man who can follow, at the same time, in the steps of
the fathers whom they name. Seabury, Hobart, and Doane were
high-churchmen in various degrees of altitude; but White and
Griswold were quite on the other side of the fence; while Dr.
Wainwright was generally thought to have been on both sides at
the same time. To us, therefore, he seems the best and most
gentlemanly model for the rising generation of churchmen who
would be "all things to all men." Then, again, he who would
follow the godly admonitions of the bishops must be able to go to
the four points of the compass at the same time. Fancy an
adventurer who would obey the admonitions of Bishops McIlvaine
and Potter, or, at the same time, follow the counsels of Doctors
Coxe and Clark. The convulsions of Mazeppa would be nothing to
the agonies of his mind. No physician could prescribe a remedy
for such a patient. "No man can serve two masters; either he will
hate the one and love the other, or cleave to the one and despise
the other." Why, therefore, in this enlightened day, write
contradictions and talk nonsense?
{39}
Some time ago, twenty-eight bishops made a solemn declaration
against ritualism; "and," says the _Protestant Churchman_,
"one of the gentlemen who has signed this address of the American
Union not only soundly lectured, but held up to scorn and
derision" these prelates, and especially the Boanerges of Western
New York, who, smelling Romanism from afar, vaults like a beaked
bird upon his prey. "O shame!" says the writer we have quoted,
"where is thy blush?"
While thus the armies of the high-churchmen have begun to array
themselves for battle, the bugle sounds loudly from the opposing
camp, and the evangelicals are gathering together in earnest. A
church union is being formed among them, and a writer in the
_Episcopalian_ thus speaks the designs of his party: "Let
this evangelical church union be extended to every diocese and
parish in the land where its principles are approved. The
sacramental system is not the Gospel system, but its direct
antipodes, in which the sacraments are degraded from their true
position of sacred _emblems_, and made to serve as
pack-horses to carry lazy sinners to heaven. I hear hundreds of
ministers and thousands of laymen exclaim, 'Oh! that we had the
power to rescue the church from the hands of those who are
corrupting it!' These will be rejoiced to learn that nothing is
more simple and feasible. How? I reply by saying, what even
high-churchmen will hardly dare to deny, that the church of the
Reformation was eminently an evangelical church, and that the
evangelical portion of the present Episcopal Church constitutes
absolutely all of the real successors of the English Reformed
Church in this country. Ritualists and sacramentarians have no
more right in this communion than avowed Romanists." The
low-churchmen have the decided majority, and thus give letters
dimissory to their offending brethren. "God speed the Church
Union!" says a contributor to the _Protestant Churchman_;
"but let Mr. Hopkins and his friends beware lest they themselves
should be the very first upon whom this discipline shall fall.
Dr. _Guillotine_ experienced the beautiful operation of that
ingenious instrument of death invented by himself. This is a
precedent from which these gentlemen might learn a lesson."
The low-churchmen make a point that, while they prefer the
episcopal form as more scriptural and more conformed to the
primitive system, they do not unchurch other Christian
denominations, and that, in this respect, they follow the
teachings of the founders of the reformed English communion. They
also contend that the right of the church to amend or change its
laws and services is inalienable, and that the time has arrived
when some important changes should be made. Bishop Griswold,
whose "godly admonitions" the Church Union desires to follow,
thus expressed himself: "In the baptismal office are,
unfortunately, some few words which are well known to be more
injurious to the peace and growth of our church than any one
thing that can be named." "Allow me," says the Bishop of Chester,
"to omit or alter fifteen words, and I will reconcile fifteen
thousand dissenters to the church." It appears, also, that an
opinion was expressed by a late presiding bishop of the
Protestant Episcopal Church that the great body of Episcopalians
desire some change in the phraseology of their services, and that
the peace and prosperity of the church require it.
Here, then, the impartial observer can see how the ground lies.
The high-churchmen insist upon Episcopal ordination, and are
determined to resist all changes, while they are, many of them,
disposed to give a Catholic interpretation to the _articles_
and liturgy.
{40}
The low-churchmen oppose them on all these points, and insist
that a Protestant communion ought not to call itself Catholic, or
use words of doubtful meaning; and that the literal sense of the
articles which form their real confession of faith should be
imposed upon all Episcopalians. We have ventured to call this a
crisis because, if there be vitality in either party, there must
come a conflict from which one side must retire defeated, leaving
the field and the spoils of war to the victors. But as this is
not the first crisis which has occurred in the history of
Anglicanism, we opine that the battle will be fought with blank
cartridges, and that, after considerable smoke, it will be found
that nobody is hurt. Then from the unbloody field the combatants
will retire to war with words, and to be greater enemies than
ever. Individual soldiers will lay down their arms to sally in
the direction of Geneva or Rome; but the great Episcopal body
will quietly await another crisis. Yet this condition of a church
which claims (according to some of its members--the Pan-Anglican
Synod, for example) to be a _part_ of the Catholic Church,
is not healthy. In contradictories there cannot be accord, and
one is right and the other is certainly wrong. A careful
diagnosis of the malady of our patient leads us to the following
conclusions: No one is bound to impossibilities, and therefore,
before their own church, the low-churchmen are right on all
points of the controversy, while, before the Christian world,
their opponents are singularly isolated and unfortunate. The
Episcopal Church contains two opposing elements which must ever
war against each other, and, while there are inconsistencies in
both liturgy and articles, the low-churchmen stand upon the only
reasonable ground, and say with truth to their adversaries, that
they who would be sacramentarians ought to go where their system
properly belongs, and where all other things are in harmony with
it. Such, we are sure, will be the judgment of the impartial
observer.
1. The Episcopalians have a right to reform their services
whenever they choose, and are at perfect liberty to agitate the
question. By the constitution of their own church, they have the
power to alter, change, or modify both their liturgy and their
creeds. Did not the Church of England do this on several
occasions? Has not the American Episcopal Church done it also?
Did she not materially alter the prayer-book, leaving out, for
example, both the form of absolution, and also the Athanasian
Creed? That which has been done can surely be done again,
especially in a body which disclaims infallibility, and is,
therefore, sure of nothing, and is ever on all points open to
progress. Here it seems to us that the high-churchmen have no
ground on which to stand. They cannot assert that anything their
church teaches is the voice of God, because she expressly tells
them that she has no authority. They cannot hold any reasonable
theory of ecclesiastical pretensions, because, by doing so, they
would unchurch themselves. A church ought to know its own powers,
if it have any. They may have their own opinions, and press them
as such; but they have no right to lord it over the consciences
of their brethren who disagree with them, as if they (the actual
minority) were the church rather than their more numerous
opponents. Their fathers whose "godly admonitions" they seek to
follow, surely never meant to cast their "incomparable liturgy"
in an iron mould.
{41}
Besides, in sober common sense, all the extravagancies of the
low-churchmen are nothing compared to the doings of the extreme
ritualists, who have so metamorphosed the service that no
uninitiated Episcopalian could ever recognize it. Think of
changing every rubric, and engrafting upon the common prayer the
actual ceremonies and even the words of the Roman missal. We
understand that few of the signers of the union manifesto are
opposed to these advances of ritualism, and that many of them are
ready to hear confessions or celebrate Mass when a good occasion
is offered. With what face, then, can they find fault with their
brethren who exercise their liberty in another direction? And
inasmuch as there is a manifest inconsistency between various
parts of the prayer-book, it would be well for them and for truth
to have their code revised, that the world may know precisely
what they do mean.
2. On the vexed question of Episcopal ordination, we are
convinced that the high-churchmen are wrong, before their own
communion and before the world. The reformers under whose
inspirations the English Church was formed, never intended to
unchurch the religious bodies of the continent with whom they
were in sympathy. The words of the ordinal refer only to the rule
to be adopted in the Anglican body, and do not decide at all the
question of the validity of non-Episcopal orders. The
twenty-third of the thirty-nine articles is so expounded by
Burnet. He says that by common consent a company of Christians
may appoint one of their own members to minister to them in holy
things; for we are sure "that not only those who penned the
articles, but the body of this church for above half an age
after, did, notwithstanding irregularities, acknowledge the
foreign churches, so constituted, to be true churches as to all
the _essentials_ of a church. The article leaves the matter
open for such accidents as had happened, and such as might still
happen. Although their own church had been less forced to go out
of the beaten path than any other, yet they knew that all things
among themselves had not gone according to those rules that ought
to be sacred in regular times. Necessity has no law, and is a law
of itself."
The opinions of Cranmer, and of Barlow, the reported consecrator
of Archbishop Parker, were distinctly Erastian. At a conference
held at Windsor, 1547, Cranmer answers to the question, "Can a
bishop make a priest?" as follows: "A bishop may make a priest,
and so may princes and governors also, by the authority of God
committed to them." Barlow replies, "Bishops have no authority to
make priests without they be authorized by the Christian princes,
and that laymen have other whiles made priests."
To the question, "Whether in the New Testament be required any
consecration of a bishop or priest, or only appointing to the
office be sufficient?" Cranmer answers, "He that is appointed to
be a bishop or priest needeth no consecration by the Scriptures,
for election or appointing thereto is sufficient." Barlow also
expresses the same sentiment. (See Stillingfleet's
_Irenicum_, and Collier, vol. ii. appendix.)
The "judicious" Hooker undoubtedly maintains the true
Episcopalian belief, that ordination by bishops is preferable,
but not of absolute necessity to a church. A very able article in
this Magazine, published September, 1866, (Vol. III. No. 18,)
shows the truth of our view.
{42}
Passages are deduced from a work called _Vox Ecclesiae_,
which contain the high-church position, and admit that in case of
_necessity_ (which is left to the individual to determine)
"orthodox presbyters may ordain." As Archbishop Parker said,
"Extreme necessity in itself implieth dispensation from all
laws." The author of this article, to which we beg leave to refer
our readers, shows plainly that such a doctrine "overthrows the
very idea of apostolical succession, elevates human necessity
above divine law, and legitimates every form of error and
schism."
Before their own communion, therefore, the low-churchmen have
every advantage, as they are consistent with the principles of
the Reformation which brought their church into being. When
Protestants desert their own platform, on what ground can they
logically stand?
Secondly, before the Christian world the high-churchmen occupy a
very unfortunate position. They make assertions which unchurch
themselves, while they separate from their brethren, and aspire
to an ecclesiastical status which they have not, which the whole
world denies to them, and which they can never defend. If the
apostolical succession is necessary to the existence of a church,
then by the verdict of all who hold such a doctrine, they are no
church; for with all their pretensions, they have it not. It has
been shown over and over again, by arguments incontestable, that
the ordination of Archbishop Parker, if indeed it ever took
place, was wholly and entirely invalid. There is not satisfactory
evidence that any ceremony of consecration was observed; there is
no proof whatever that Barlow, the officiating prelate, was ever
ordained; and lastly, the form used (according to the theory of
the high-churchmen) was utterly inadequate to convey valid
orders. What need, then, to argue further with those who will not
see? If any Catholic bishop at this day should venture to
consecrate with the form which they tell us was used in Parker's
case, he would be subject to severe censure, and his act would be
considered totally null and valueless. One would naturally
suppose that the judgment of the Catholic Church on this question
would be held in respect. She has preserved the ancient rite, and
holds the absolute necessity of episcopal ordination; and while
she considers it a sacrilege to reiterate the sacrament of
orders, she reordains, without question and without condition,
every English minister who, coming into her fold, aspires to the
sacred priesthood. The same course has been adopted by what the
Pan-Angelican Synod calls the Eastern Orthodox Church, which no
more regards the Episcopalians as a church than she does the
Methodists or Presbyterians. Is any more evidence required by any
honest mind? If the opinion of the eastern churches is of any
weight, it has been more than once given. Dr. J. J. Overbeck, a
Russian priest, in a recent work on "Catholic Orthodoxy," treats
at some length of the English orders, which he pronounces to be
null. These are among his words:
"1. The _Anglo-Catholic_ fathers, on the point of
apostolical succession and its needfulness, held latitudinarian
views, subversive of the whole fabric of the church.
2. The boasted unity or concord of Anglicans even in essentials
is a specious _illusion_.
3. Anglo-Catholicism is _genuine Protestantism_ decked and
disfigured by Catholic spoils."
"As Parker's consecration was invalid, the apostolic line was
broken off, irremediably broken off."
{43}
"If Rome considered all ordinations by Parker and his
successors, namely, the whole present English episcopate and
clergy, to be invalid, null, and void, and consistently
reordained all those converts who wished and were fit for
orders; the Eastern Church can but imitate her proceedings, as
both, in this point, follow the very same principles. ... The
fact of the reordination is the final and conclusive verdict on
the invalidity of Anglican ordinations. By this fact all
further controversy is broken off and indisputably settled."
We fancy, then, the amusement which the pastoral of the late
Anglican Synod will produce in the Eastern churches, for whose
benefit it has been translated into the Greek language. We would
recommend to the great Patriarchs to send a commission of doctors
to the West, that they may see that _oneness of mind_ of
which the bishops so fervently speak. Then when they see it, we
would like to have them point it out to us, that we may see it
also, and rejoice with them.
It may perhaps appear to some of our readers that our sympathies
are with the low-churchmen and ultra-Protestants of the Episcopal
communion. This is, however, far from being the case. We admire
consistency and cannot accept logical contradictions. The
Protestant ground is something that our reason can comprehend,
though we believe it does away with all revelation and leads
directly to infidelity. But God has furnished us with no mental
powers by which to fathom a system which is neither one thing nor
the other, which wears a Catholic exterior over a Protestant
heart. Such will be the verdict of the world. How long
Anglicanism can last we know not. It has been a kind of half-way
house to the church, and it may occupy this position for a long
time. It seems to us that every honest high-churchman should
become a Catholic at once, when he will find what he wants, not
simply on paper but in life, not in imagination but in reality.
The movement called ritualism is an indication that the grace of
God is stirring up the dry bones; for Anglicanism in itself is
the most lifeless and unspiritual religion we know of. God grant
that the movement may bring forth its proper fruits. We only fear
that when it comes to "leaving all for Christ," to giving up
houses and lands, wives and children, position and preferment,
many will go back, (as we have seen with sorrow,) and be like the
young man in the gospel, who was, at one time, "not far from the
kingdom of heaven." Ritualism is only a yearning after the real
presence of the Incarnate God, for which the redeemed soul longs
even with anguish. "Tears were my meat, day and night, while they
said to me. _Where_ is thy God?" The true heart will find
its Lord only in that one body which is his fulness. Pray, then,
fellow-Catholics, pray for the sincere and true, that they may
have grace to forsake the land of shadows, and come where are the
bright beams of the morning; that ere the night of death overtake
them, they may, like the pure-minded Simeon, see the salvation of
God, and joyfully chant their "_Nunc dimittis_," "Lord, now
lettest thou thy servant depart in peace; for mine eyes have seen
thy salvation."
--------
{44}
Bishop Doyle. [Footnote 20]
[Footnote 20: _The Life, Times, and Correspondence of the Rt.
Rev. Dr. Doyle, Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin_. By W. J.
Fitzpatrick, J. P. 3 vols. 8vo. Boston: P. Donohoe.]
"What can you teach?" "Any thing from A, B, C, to the third book
of Canon Law." "Pray, young man, can you teach and practise
humility?" "I trust I have, at least, the humility to feel that
the more I read the more I see how ignorant I have been, and how
little can, at best, be known." Such were the pithy replies to
the equally condensed questions put by the venerable Dean
Staunton, of Carlow College, to a young Augustinian friar who had
been proposed as candidate for a professorship in that rising
institution. The friar was Father James Doyle, then in his
twenty-seventh year. Erect in stature, austere in features, the
candid earnestness of his mind beaming through his expressive
countenance, which bore the evident traces of studious habits,
and the freedom of his unpretentious manners--all these
qualities, combined in his looks and declared by his language,
immediately enlisted the sympathetic esteem of the dean. Nor was
his youth an obstacle to his acceptance. His appointment to the
position followed, and the six years spent by him in the college
served as a fit preparation for the public career of this eminent
man, the narrative of whose life forms an essential part of the
history of his country for at least fifteen years.
From the valuable work to which reference is made in the note to
this article, we find much to admire in the noble character who
forms the subject of Mr. Fitzpatrick's literary effort. There
must have been placed at his disposal a rich and abundant store
of material from which the biography was compiled. The work
itself, in a literary point of view, is creditable to the
diligence of the author; but at present we shall content
ourselves with an attempt to gather from its comprehensive pages,
and place before our readers, some of the most remarkable events
that distinguished the life and were influenced by the action of
the eminent prelate.
Of respectable and honorably rebellious ancestors, he was born in
New Ross, County of Wexford, in 1786. In an appendix to the work
before us there is a chronological article showing the descent of
the Doyle family from some ancient, royal sept--a portion of
Irish history by no means uncommon--to which we would refer those
who should doubt his original nobility of blood. For us it will
suffice to know that some of his immediate relatives had fallen
for their country and its faith, and that even as far back as
1691, there were few more distinguished than the bold Rapparee
chieftain, "Brigadier Doyle," who was sent from Limerick, by
Sarsfield, to collect men and horses for the Jacobite army.
{45}
Anne Warren, the mother of the future bishop, was a Catholic, but
of Quaker extraction, and the father had died before the child's
birth, so that young Doyle was brought into the world under
circumstances, though not of indigence, still not of superfluity
in worldly goods. But nature richly endowed him; and what
treasures can be sought more desirable than the intrinsic power
of soul which no external change can diminish, and which retains
its richness, independent of the uncertainties of variable
fortune! Nor was his childhood other than obscure, if we may
apply the term to that state which, though humble, was
illustrated by the tender care and enlightened piety of a
Christian mother. His boyhood was not remarkable for those
extraordinary manifestations of genius said to be discovered in
the younger days of great men. No phenomena indicative of unusual
fortune or success in life attended his boyish acts, although
there is a tale of some careless fortune-teller having
prognosticated the high position and distinguished labors which
afterward rendered his name so memorable. At the age of eleven he
ran the risk of being shot for his curiosity in observing, at a
distance, a battle fought between the patriots of the rebellion
and the English forces. His school-days commenced at Rathnavogue,
where a Mr. Grace was conducting a seminary of learning to whose
seats both Catholics and Protestants had equal access. Hitherto
his mother had been his instructor, and there are no impressions
so important or so lasting as those imparted to the infant mind
by the solicitous teaching of a parent. Under her guidance, the
youthful aspirations which inclined his developing reason to the
ecclesiastical state of life, were fostered and encouraged, as
she early perceived that the tendency of his mental faculties
directed in the path of a holy vocation. In the year 1800, she
placed him under the care of an Augustinian friar named Crane,
who soon discovered the talents of the boy through his eagerness
for knowledge, and his intensely studious habits. She died in
1802, leaving him an orphan, but with the prospect of his soon
becoming a member of the Augustinian order, which he entered
three years afterward. Notwithstanding that he entertained a
strong repugnance to the eleemosynary practices of religious
communities of begging from door to door--and this aversion he
ever retained--he still selected a conventual life in preference
to the more public and active labors of a missionary priest. His
respect for the dignity of the priestly office was a
characteristic trait in his life as bishop, and his ideas on the
subject seem to have originated from that natural good taste with
which he had been gifted from his infancy.
The ordeal of the novitiate passed through with fidelity, he made
his vows as member of the order in 1806, in the small thatched
chapel at Grantstown. The marked abilities displayed at this
period induced his superiors to select him to be sent with some
others to the college of their order at Coimbra, in Portugal, a
well-conducted institution, and connected with the celebrated
university of that place. As he was afforded all the ample
opportunities held out to those attending the university
lectures--a privilege accorded only to a few--his mind was
immensely enriched, and what is of still greater importance, his
ideas were enabled to attain a sturdiness of growth and
liberality of expansion which ever afterward distinguished his
writings and speeches. In his subsequent examination before a
committee of both houses of parliament, he testified to the
numerous advantages which were then, as now, derived from a
continental education for the priesthood. In his days, indeed, it
was no longer, as it had been in 1780, felony in a foreign
priest, and high-treason in a native, to teach or practise the
doctrines of the Catholic religion in Ireland. Still, the penal
laws, although relaxed, had left their evil traces long after
their name had ceased to excite terror, even if it occasioned a
thrill of hatred in the breasts of those who had so long been
subjected to the clanking of their fetters.
{46}
It seems somewhat of an anomaly for Protestantism, which was
inaugurated under the plea of freeing and enlightening the human
mind, to sanction the enactment and enforce the execution of laws
directly calculated to crush religious freedom, and make it
criminal to educate the children of the conquered Catholics. It
is, however, but one of the innumerable inconsistencies with
which the histories of nations and of creeds regale us at
intervals.
Whilst young Doyle was deeply engaged in drinking in from the
purest and deepest springs theologic lore, and treasuring up in
his capacious mind the classic and philosophic eloquence of
ancient times, the sound of war disturbed his retirement. A
French invasion overturned the independence of the country, and
so rapid was the advance of Junot that the vessel which bore away
in safety to Brazil the royal family was hastened in its
departure by some shots from the conquering army. The peninsular
war ensued, in which the Portuguese, aided by the English under
Wellington, drove out the irreligious soldiers of the empire. The
enthusiasm which inflamed the minds of the natives was taken up
by the young students, and among them Doyle shouldered his
musket, believing that the best way to prove one's fidelity to
truth and justice is to _act_ when action alone is
effective.
Mr. Fitzpatrick does not explain the short stay made by the
student in the college of Coimbra, as we find him in Ireland, in
1808, preparing for the reception of holy orders. He had
concluded a good course of study, and his natural abilities must
have rendered him fully competent to be admitted to the order of
priesthood, which he received in 1809, in the humble, thatched
chapel of his youthful days. But as there were then, to a greater
extent than at present, existing prejudices against religious
orders in Ireland, he was not only refused faculties, but even
the preparatory examination, by Dr. Ryan, Coadjutor Bishop of
Ferns. The young priest quietly remained in his convent until
called, upon the recommendation of some friends who admired his
talents, to the position of professor in Carlow College. Here he
rendered most important services. Within its walls he spent six
years most studiously occupied, both for his own advancement and
for the benefit of his pupils. The advantage of procuring
positions in seminaries or colleges for young priests of talent
and taste for prolonged study, is easily perceived when we
consider the necessity--more especially at the present day--of
fitting some for the higher duties of their order--the defence
and exposition of Catholic doctrines in a literary manner. Had
the talents of Dr. Doyle received no cultivation more than that
afforded by a superficial knowledge of theology in a rudimentary
course of three years, his life would have passed in obscurity,
and his eminent public services could never have been
successfully accomplished. The light of genius is, indeed, a gift
of nature, but the intensity of its brilliancy depends upon art
and culture. Besides this, his taste for literature excited the
enthusiasm, whilst it encouraged the efforts of the students. His
lectures on eloquence, which had, up to that time, been
considerably neglected among the Irish clergy, served as an
incentive to their ardor in pursuit of that noble science, at the
same time that it furnished his own mind with the inexhaustible
resources which he afterward wielded with such mighty effect.
{47}
We know of similar results having been attained by the late
eminent Cardinal Wiseman whilst rector of the English College at
Rome. The necessity of a learned clergy was scarcely ever felt as
much as at the present day, when men of abilities and cultivation
may be daily encountered, eager and earnest for the truth, but
not ready to admit it upon insufficient or superficial grounds.
This view, entertained by Dr. Doyle whilst in Carlow College, led
him to inculcate the same principles to those around him.
But the scene of his labors changes, and we now approach the
period of his life in which his publications procure for him that
general recognition of power and virtue, hitherto accorded him in
a humbler sphere of duty. By an unprecedented unanimity he was
elected, in 1819, to succeed Dr. Corcoran in the diocese of
Kildare and Leighlin. The selection was more remarkable, as in
those days there were feelings of strong dislike entertained
against members of religious communities, and the subject caused
no slight trouble at Rome. The wise regulations of the church for
the election of bishops were observed in Ireland then, as they
are now. Assembled together, the clergy received the Holy
Eucharist, prayed for light to direct their action, retired in
silence, strengthened and enlightened, to give their voice for
the most fitting subject; and the result showed in this case,
that, as they had the generosity to pass over the bounds of
prejudice, the Holy Ghost guided them in their deliberations. It
was not a little surprising that the choice had fallen upon an
Augustinian friar; but that the dignity should be conferred upon
one so young--he was only thirty-two years of age--and with
such universal satisfaction, went far to prove the high esteem in
which he must have been held. The custom of electing elderly
persons to the episcopal office is generally admitted to have
traditional usage in its favor, although we do not read of our
Lord having regarded age as a qualification in his apostles, and
St. John is believed to have been a mere youth. Innocent III.,
one of the most illustrious popes that ever reigned, was only
thirty-seven years of age when he ascended the chair of St.
Peter. And although the youthful appearance of the new bishop was
made the occasion of adverse criticism in some quarters, he
entered upon his office no less deeply impressed with the truth
of what St. Augustine said of the episcopate, "_Nomen sit
oneris, non honoris_," than if he were bowed down by age.
Mr. Fitzpatrick's work exposes to us many evils that had been
allowed to grow up in the diocese under the inactive government
of some of Bishop Doyle's predecessors. Incompetent persons are
found in every state of life, and many of the miseries by which
society is afflicted arise from faithlessness or incapacity in
incumbents of high positions. Energy and diligence were not
characteristic of those who had gone before him, and abuses that
had been tolerated by negligence, grew into evils which were
magnified by their proximity to the sanctuary. But Bishop Doyle
was one of those faithful ministers who felt the responsibilities
enjoined upon his office, "_quasi pro animabus reddituri
rationem_." Some customs common among the clergy were not much
in accordance with ecclesiastical propriety, and it is not easy
to eradicate what has been allowed to attain a long growth.
{48}
It is true that the penal times had but just ceased, and the
decadence in ecclesiastical discipline brought about by the
dreary night of persecution, was of such magnitude as not to be
quickly remedied. Still, the new bishop had brought with him into
the office a thorough knowledge of the laws of the church, and a
sense of the obligation of carrying these laws into execution
whenever possible. These were the two principal reasons to which
must be ascribed the successful issue of all his measures at
reform. He called the attention of his clergy to the decrees of
the twenty-fourth session of the Council of Trent, with regard to
the reformation of the church, and dwelt upon the penalties to
which he himself should be liable were he to neglect the
enforcement of those wise regulations.
For the decency of public worship, the ornaments and linens of
the altar, and everything connected with the sacred ceremonies of
religion, he had the most scrupulous regard. He instituted
regular visitations in his diocese, as he felt that he could not
be exempted from a sinful negligence in omitting to comply with
the decrees of Trent in this respect. In these visitations he
discovered the sad state to which ecclesiastical discipline had
fallen before his days. In one instance the vestments were found
to be in such an unbecoming state that he tore them asunder.
Returning next year to the same parish, he found the identical
old vestments sewn together and kept in a turf-basket. To prevent
a repetition, he consigned them to the flames, and as the parish
priest was by no means a poor man, the wretched taste displayed
by him was wholly unpardonable.
Hunting was not an unusual occupation with the clergy of those
days. Practices by no means tending to increase the respect of
the people for their pastors, had been allowed to accompany the
marriage and funeral services of country districts, and all these
claimed the diligent reformatory care of the active bishop. The
office of reformer--as the very sound has to some an odious
signification--is not the most envious one in the world, and it
acquires a peculiarly distasteful character from those whose
self-interested conduct may fall under its action. Hence the
young bishop was sometimes accused of rashness in his undertaking
to correct abuses of so long a standing, and the plea was set up
that good and wise men had tolerated them in the past. Nor was he
free from the receipt of letters of complaint, principally,
though not always, from old pastors who found great difficulty in
abandoning habits which their sense of right would not permit
them to justify. They remonstrated with him for carrying out laws
for the execution of which he was responsible. But he kindly
reasoned with them on the necessity which pressed him to be
faithful to his trust; and as he never urged his own feelings or
his own bias as the motive of his action, but always appealed to
the law of the church, he gradually effected the most beneficent
results. He never used harshness, even where it might appear, if
not necessary, at least justifiable, and never was he accused of
disregarding the reasonable explanations of the humblest of his
clergy. Law, not self; justice, not caprice, were the motives
that incited him; and, guided by such principles, he confided the
success of his efforts to God, and thus labored under the
inspiration of the church.
The sacrament of confirmation had been but rarely administered
before his time, and he frequently was affected to tears when,
instead of children to receive it, there were crowds of
gray-haired men and women.
{49}
The education of the young had been much neglected by many parish
priests, whose taste for agricultural pursuits led them to devote
more time to the cultivation of farms than to the instruction of
their people. One rural gentleman insisted that he could well
attend to his flocks of sheep without neglecting his spiritual
flock; but the bishop required that his time should be
exclusively devoted to his ministry. Many justified their
engagement with worldly occupations, or their inattention to
their duties, by pointing to the curate, and, loudly affirming
his energetic zeal, declared him fully competent to direct the
parish, whilst the old man should repose from his labors and
enjoy in ease the fruits of his past services in the vineyard of
the Lord. The persistent labors of the bishop at length produced
that good result ever to be expected from a faithful discharge of
duty. Visitations were regularly conducted throughout his
diocese, and the long-neglected canons of the church were
reestablished, to the great satisfaction of all good priests, as
well as with salutary consequences to the people.
Not less important in their results were the spiritual retreats
which he inaugurated amongst his clergy. The efficient means of
preserving and strengthening the spiritual life of the priesthood
had been long impossible in the times of persecution; but when
this obstacle was removed, his predecessors took no steps to
remedy the ill effects of their omission. One thousand priests
and almost every prelate in Ireland assembled at Carlow, in 1820,
to avail themselves of the advantages of silence and prayer under
the direction of the young bishop, who conducted the religious
exercises. He had been always known as an austere man to himself,
and most conscientiously attentive to even the minor duties of
his ecclesiastical state, and the brilliant manner in which he
guided his attentive hearers through this retreat deeply
impressed them. "These sermons," (he preached three times a day,)
writes Rev. Mr. Delany, "were of an extraordinarily impressive
character. We never heard anything to equal them before or since.
The duties of the ecclesiastical state were never so eloquently
or efficiently expounded. His frequent application and exposition
of the most intricate texts of Scripture amazed and delighted us;
We thought he was inspired. I saw the venerable Archbishop Troy
weep like a child, and raise his hands in thanksgiving. At the
conclusion of the retreat he wept again, and kissed his coadjutor
with more than a brother's affection."
Dr. O'Connell narrates that "for the ten days during which the
retreat lasted. Dr. Doyle knew no rest. His soul was on fire in
the sacred cause. He was determined to reform widely. His falcon
eye sparkled with zeal. The powers of his intellect were applied
to the good work with telling effect. At the close of one of his
most impassioned exhortations, he knelt down on a
_prie-dieu_ immediately before me. The vigorous workings of
his mind, and the intense earnestness of purpose within, affected
even the outward man. Big drops of perspiration stood upon his
neck, and his rochet was almost saturated." The fruits of these
labors were proportionate to their intensity, for the soil was
good, and needed but that cultivation, for want of which it had
long lain fallow. To reform the morals of the people, he knew
that the source of their moral teaching--the priesthood--must be
enlightened and elevated.
{50}
It seems that there can be nothing better calculated to effect a
cordial coöperation of ecclesiastical duties and responsibilities
than that a bishop should thus be willing and capable of teaching
his clergy in learning as well as in devotion; and of impressing,
by propriety of language and dignity of position, those sublime
truths that should be frequently proposed to their consideration.
Another great work undertaken by him was the revival of diocesan
conferences, which had long fallen into desuetude. He ordained
that they should be held regularly, and his own learning was a
safe guarantee of their practical utility. The many intricate
questions of moral theology, as well as local issues with which
the clergy of a well-conducted diocese should be conversant, were
usefully discussed in those assemblies with freedom and decorum.
The general non-observance of statutes and laws, arising
principally from the difficulties of the penal times, called for
more strenuous efforts than would have been otherwise needed. The
severity of penal laws against the practices of religion, or the
administration of the sacraments, diminished the number of
priests, who were obliged to hide themselves in the mountains,
and minister by stealth and under fear of death in solitary
places to the spiritual necessities of their flocks. This
accounts for the statute which was passed in a synod of Kildare
in 1614, allowing lay persons to administer the Blessed Eucharist
to each other in cases of necessity. But those times had passed,
and Dr. Doyle believed that what was then justifiably permitted
could be so no longer without sin on his part. Conscientious
fulfilment of duty alone directed him in these many salutary
reforms introduced by him for the welfare of his people; and we
dwell upon them with greater pleasure, as they evince the true
character of a bishop. These, and many other beneficent changes
introduced by Bishop Doyle, were but in accordance with the
improved condition in which the Catholics of his day found
themselves. After long and painful but finally triumphant
struggles to regain some of their lost freedom, they still felt
for a length of time the effects of that odious tyranny, by whose
means the proud, religious ascendency of a hostile sect had long
aimed at the complete subjection of the body and soul of the
Catholic population. It is pleasing to find that the first
relaxation of rigorous, repressive laws against the Catholic
Irish was owing to the influence exercised by the American
revolution upon English affairs. In 1778, Catholics were allowed
to hold property as well as their Protestant fellow-citizens;
and, although this was but a slight concession forced from the
justice of their rulers, the Irish people derived from it an
encouragement to persevere in asserting their further claims, so
often deceitfully promised and unjustly withheld. These claims of
his countrymen now assumed greater weight in the minds of
legislators, as they became more importunately urged upon their
notice by the powerful efforts of O'Connell. Bishop Doyle did not
hesitate to enter the arena, and throw the weight of his mighty
intellect and the no less important influence of his official
position, into the contest. A remarkably vigorous exposition of
the state of the question, and of the necessity of yielding to
the demands of justice, published in a letter signed J. K. L.,
inspired new hope into his friends, and drew upon him the hostile
attention of numerous opponents.
Polemics have, in our day, assumed a character quite different
from that which distinguished them in former times.
{51}
Much of the rancorous spirit, falsely called religious, which
disturbed society, and caused even domestic life sometimes to
bear an unchristian aspect, has passed away, and acerbity of
feeling which irritates, whilst it never convinces, is now less
frequently encountered than the milder tone of persuasive
argumentation. It may be that men were then more thoroughly in
earnest about religion than they are at present; but it would not
be easy to maintain that earnestness must be expressed in
language calculated to offend, and shown in acts intended to do
violence to brotherly love. It is more probable that, with the
progress of the age, men are learning more of the true spirit of
religion, and are leaving off much of that virulence which poor
human passion is likely to bring with it, even into the sanctuary
of divine faith. One thing is certain, that a change for the
better has come over the spirit which elicits religious
discussion at present; and the questions that excite our interest
and enlist our most serious consideration are agitated in a
milder manner than in the days of Bishop Doyle, when it was rare
that a religious dispute closed without abuse or vituperation,
and spiritual views were not unfrequently enforced by blows.
A discussion arose between the Bishop of Kildare and Magee, the
Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, and as both were able combatants
upon a field which afforded ample space for assault and defence,
the contest waged was long and fierce, drawing forth the wit and
sarcasm, the learning and eloquence undoubtedly possessed by both
disputants. Instead of cooling by time, it warmed as it advanced,
and increased in interest as it drew into its current many minor
warriors eager to join in the religious fray. A spirit of
domination which naturally arose from the relations between
Catholics and Protestants, determined Magee to assume a loftier
tone, with more pretentious, and, on that account, less tenable
grounds. These circumstances rendered the humiliation of his
defeat more irksome to his high position. The Marquis of
Wellesley must have been an impartial judge, and at the
conclusion of the politico-religious combat, he declared that
Magee "had evidently got the worst of it." Several other
opponents who successively assaulted "J. K. L.," were easily
disposed of by his mighty pen.
Influenced by his genius and eloquent writings, the movement led
by the great "Agitator" progressed toward its desired result. A
change was imperceptibly coming over the spirit of the times. To
retain a nation in bondage to a political or religious ascendency
not founded on the good-will of the subject, must, in the long
run, become impossible. As long as a people preserve unsubdued
their spirit of religious or national freedom, there is no power
on earth capable of frustrating their ultimate triumph. A great
writer observes that the war in which violence attempts to
oppress truth must be a strange and an arduous one. No matter how
doubtful may be the result for a time, no matter how obscure the
horizon of events, truth must in the end conquer, for it is
imperishable--it is eternal as God himself. Thus was it in the
struggle for emancipation in Ireland. The truth became at length
generally admitted, that no civil legislation, no state
authority, has a right to interfere with the sanctity of human
conscience; and that the power which attempts to violate the
natural gift of religious freedom transcends its limits, and is
guilty of a grievous crime against the established order of
Providence.
{52}
Before Dr. Doyle's entrance upon the public duties of his
episcopal office, the efforts made for their emancipation by the
Catholics had produced but little effect. Petitions crowded to
the parliament, but they were hastily and sometimes scornfully
rejected. Religious equality had been promised as a reward for
the parliamentary union of both countries in 1800; but the
insidious policy of Pitt proved the promise fallacious, and when
the nation found itself cheated out of its legislative power,
without even this slight recompense of religious freedom, deep
was the indignation felt. In the movements preceding Dr. Doyle's
efforts for the recovery of their rights, the Catholics were
unaided by the "higher order" of their countrymen, "who
sensitively shrank from participating in any appeal for redress."
(Vol. I. p. 156.) The people were thus abandoned by those whom
they regarded as their natural leaders, and, with some
exceptions, "the Catholic clergy not only held aloof, but
deprecated any attempt to disturb the general apathy." (Ibid.)
But Dr. Doyle brought new energy to the combat, and, although the
victory which crowned the labors of the great "Liberator" in 1829
was principally due to his own herculean powers and indomitable
spirit, still the assistance rendered by the Bishop of Kildare
was highly appreciated by O'Connell himself. Here it may be
remarked that the Duke of Wellington is sometimes lauded for
yielding to the claims of the Catholics. It is just to accord
praise wherever merited; but, as the hostility of Wellington to
the demands of his countrymen had been for years the greatest
obstacle to their being satisfied, and as he yielded at last
evidently through fear of revolution in case of refusal, it would
appear that a reluctant concession, rendered when it could not be
safely withheld, is but a slight groundwork upon which to erect a
monument to his generosity.
It would be a long though not an ungrateful task, to trace the
toilsome progress of the bishop through his many labors for the
temporal and eternal welfare of his people. Throughout every page
of the work before us we may perceive the deep solicitude with
which he continually watched over their moral and social
improvement. Wide-spread disaffection at long misgovernment had
evinced itself in various species of secret societies--Ribbonmen,
White-boys, Peep-o'-day men, etc.--formed either for purposes
hostile to the actual state of society, or, more frequently,
perhaps, for self-defence against the powerful and extensive
organization of Orange-men. The Ribbonmen promised "to be true
to, and assist each other in all things lawful;" but if even
justifiable in their origin and object, they not unfrequently
were guilty of acts which soon aroused the opposition of the
clergy. Bishop Doyle found his diocese extensively overrun by
numerous parties of these societies; but, as the people loved
him, his disapprobation was very effectual in checking their
progress. As most of the discontent arose from the collection of
tithes from Catholics for the support of Protestant ministers, he
reprobated the laws that were thus the cause of evils which it
was their office to remove. He himself counselled his people to
observe a negative opposition to the collection of these tithes,
by refusing to pay them, but never to resist with violence a
forcible execution of the law. To force obedience to this law was
frequently a dangerous experiment. The legal claims of the parson
were sometimes satisfied at the expense of the lives of his
unwilling supporters.
{53}
However incompatible with his character it might appear, yet it
was no uncommon occurrence to witness the meek parson at the head
of a military force, leading an assault on some undefended cabin
or directing their manoeuvres in order to possess himself of a
cow, an only pig, or even a wretched bed and bedding of a
destitute family. Goaded to fury, the people would sometimes
resist the soldiers, and the sacrifice of human life was often
the only fruit of a tithe-collecting expedition. It may be
interesting to read the following verbatim copy of a bill
announcing the sale by auction of the valuable spoil secured in a
successful foray by an evangelical gentleman in the neighborhood
of Ballymore:
"To be _soaled_ by Public Cout in the town of Ballymore on
the 15 Inst one _Cowe_ the property of James Scully one
new bed and one _gowne_ the property of John quinn seven
hanks of _yearn_ the property of the widow Scott one
_petty coate_ and one apron the property of the widow
Gallagher seized under and by virtue of leasing warrant for
tythe due the Rved. John Ugher. Dated this 12th day of May
1824."
In his celebrated examination before a committee of parliament in
1825, Dr. Doyle rendered ample testimony to the practical evils
of this system. Notwithstanding the merciless exposure to which
he subjected the entire tithe business, there was nothing done to
alleviate the misery or remedy the sufferings with which it is so
pregnant, and Ireland still labors under this, one of her most
harassing calamities--the cause of her discontent and the source
of her degradation. Not a little remarkable is the historical
fact, that before the time of the reformation the Irish nation
never consented to the system of tithes established in all other
countries by the law of the church. Before the invasion there was
no such thing known. After that lamentable period the English
conquerors attempted to establish it as in England, but "Giraldus
Cambrensis," says Doctor Doyle, "imputes it to the Irish as a
crime that they would not pay tithe, notwithstanding the laws
which enjoined such payment; and, now at the end of six hundred
years, they are found to persevere, with increased obstinacy, in
their struggles to cast off this most obnoxious impost."
A long letter addressed to his liberal friend. Sir H. Parnell, in
1831, is occupied in expounding his views on poor laws and church
property. His advocacy of laws to relieve the poor drew forth his
eloquent pleading in their behalf, whilst his extensive knowledge
of canon law made him familiar with the ancient legislations of
the church with respect to tithes. A short but characteristic
passage from this letter we cannot omit:
{54}
"I am a churchman; but I am unacquainted with avarice, and I
feel no worldly ambition. I am, perhaps, attached to my
profession; but I love Christianity more than its worldly
appendages. I am a Catholic from the fullest conviction; but
few will accuse me of bigotry. I am an Irishman hating
injustice, and abhorring, with my whole soul, the oppression of
my country; but I desire to heal her sores, not to aggravate
her sufferings. In decrying, as I do, the tithe-system, and the
whole church establishment in Ireland, I am actuated by no
dislike to the respectable body of men who, in the midst of
fear and hatred, gather its spoils; on the contrary, I esteem
those men, notwithstanding their past and perhaps still
existing hostility to the religious and civil rights of their
fellow-subjects and countrymen; I even lament the painful
position in which they are placed. What I aspire to is the
freedom of the people; what I most ardently desire is their
union--which can never be effected till injustice, or the
oppression of the many by the few, is taken away. And as to
religion, what I wish is to see her freed from the slavery of
the state and the bondage of mammon--to see her restored to
that liberty with which Christ hath made her free--her
ministers laboring and receiving their hire from those for whom
they labor--that thus religion may be restored to her empire,
which is not of this world, and men once more worship God in
spirit and in truth."
In this one paragraph we have a compendious exposition of his
views and aims with regard to the civil and religious freedom of
his country.
When the disfranchisement of the forty-shilling free-holders--a
disastrous piece of legislation--was effected in 1831, Dr. Doyle
undisguisedly expressed his liberal views of individual right and
liberty. One position maintained by him is somewhat remarkable,
and we record it, as it accords with the opinion of our
fellow-citizens.
"It is the natural right of man," he writes--"a right
interwoven with the essence of our constitution, and producing
as its necessary effect the House of Commons--that a man who
has life, liberty, and property, should have some share or
influence in the disposal of them by law. Take the elective
franchise from the Irish peasant, and you not only strip him of
the present reality or appearance of this right, but you
disable him and his posterity ever to acquire it. He is now
poor and oppressed--you then make him vile and contemptible; he
is now the image of a freeman--he will then be the very essence
of a slave. ... Like the Helot of Athens, he may go to the
forum and gaze at the election, and then return to hew his wood
and fetch his water to the freeman--an inhabitant, but not a
citizen, of the country which gave him birth."
Whilst thus battling with the injustice of the times, and
wielding with effect his powerful pen and eloquent
voice--expounding his views of human right, reproving insidious
politicians, reprobating the ungenerous legislation of the
government, and refuting the calumnies by which his religion was
assailed--he never lost sight of the humbler duties of his
pastoral office. From the turmoil and uncertain issues of public
discussion, he would revert with a sense of relief to the special
care of his own immediate flock. Great was the solicitude which
he so frequently expressed and always felt for the salvation of
his people. "Ah!" he would exclaim, "how awful to be made
responsible for even one soul! 'What then,' as St. Chrysostom
says, 'to be held answerable, not for one, but for the whole
population of an entire diocese!' '_Quid de illis sacerdotibus
dicendum, a quibus sunt omnium animae requirendae?_'" It will
tell, more than volumes, to know his character as bishop, the
exalted views he took of the value of a Christian soul. "And if
such," he proceeds to say, "be the value of one immortal soul
redeemed by the precious blood of an incarnate God, what must be
the value of thousands? And oh! what the responsibility of him
who has to answer not for one, but for multitudes--perhaps,
ultimately, for millions! How can he reasonably hope to enter
heaven, unless with his dying breath he can repeat with truth,
'Father, of those whom thou hast confided to my care, not one has
perished through my fault.'" In this spirit his efforts for the
education and moral improvement of his people were carried on to
a successful issue.
{55}
His wise restitution of the laws of the church to their proper
control over everything connected with his diocese, completely
removed the confusion which had long reigned. The statutes
decreed for the government of his clergy were rigorously
enforced. He placed upon a more intelligible basis the hitherto
unsettled relations of religious orders to regular diocesan
authority, and although a religious himself, he was never accused
of partiality toward such communities. In fact, he found it
necessary as it was difficult to induce them to undertake reforms
which he deemed very much needed in some points of discipline, in
order to render their services more efficient. He writes, (vol.
ii. p. 187,) "I have, from time to time, suggested to men of
various religious orders the necessity of some further
improvement, but in vain. They seem to me the bodies of men who
are profiting least by the lights of the age. I regret this
exceedingly," etc. In 1822, he wrote that "to suppress or
secularize half or most of the religious convents of men in
Portugal would be a good work." Thus his zeal for the cause of
truth and the benefit of the church led him, not only in this,
but in other instances, to express opinions which not many would
venture to publish. It is curious to notice his estimate of a
writer to whom but few would accord the same justice. In a letter
written to Mariana in 1830, he says, "You would like to know
something of Fleury. Well, he is the ablest historian the church
has produced; but he told truth sometimes without disguise, and
censured the views and conduct of many persons, who in return
gave him a bad name." As he loved, instead of fearing freedom of
thought, so, too, he boldly expressed his opinions; and with all
the power at his command endeavored to carry out his views. He
was no mere theorist, although he theorized extensively upon two
important subjects. One was upon the practicability of effecting
a union between the Anglican and Catholic churches, and the other
had reference to the formation of a patriarchate for Ireland. For
his action upon both of these questions, arising as they did from
the circumstances of his time, he has been made the object of
adverse, as well as favorable criticism. Of his theological
knowledge, and of the light which his own native genius threw
upon every topic he touched, there can be but one opinion, nor
will there be found any rash enough to doubt the honesty of his
intentions. This is sufficient to exonerate him from all
unbecoming charges in the minds of enlightened men, and it is
only the vicious and ignorant that stoop to the imputation of
evil motives. His view with regard to the union of the churches
appears to have been a doctrinal submission to the Catholic
Church, and a compromise in matters of discipline. The advantages
to be derived from having a patriarch in Ireland, were presented
by Dr. Doyle with his usual argumentative ability; and although
accused of having desired the office for himself, the charge is
an undoubted fabrication. Both of these projects fell through for
want of cooperation; but they show the extent to which his love
of truth, and love of peace, and love of increasing the power of
Christianity led him. Before concluding this notice of only a
small portion of his labors and of the events which attended his
career, we will transcribe the opinion formed of him by the Count
de Montalembert, who, in a tour through Ireland in 1832, visited
Dr. Doyle and Dr. Murray.
{56}
"They have inspired me," he writes, "with the greatest
veneration, not only for their piety and other apostolic virtues,
but for their eloquence and elegance of manners. Dr. Doyle is
well known to the Catholic world as one of the most solid pillars
of the true faith, and the three kingdoms will long remember his
appearance at the bar of the House of Lords, where, by his
eloquent exposition of Catholic doctrines, he confounded the
peers of England--the descendants of those men who signed the
great charter, but whose faith they have denied."
Wasted by his continual labors and incessant care for the welfare
of his people, he felt the gradual approach of the last great
combat to which all must ultimately yield. He might well exclaim
with Saint Paul, "I have fought the good fight. I have finished
my course. I have kept the faith, and now there is laid up for me
a crown of glory, which the Lord shall render to me, the just
Judge." "When exhausted nature apprised him that the last sad
struggle was approaching, he called for the viaticum. But
recollecting that his Master had expired on the hard bed of the
cross, and anxious to resemble him even in his end, he ordered
his mourning priests to lift him almost naked from his bed, and
stretch him upon the cold and rigid floor, and there, in
humiliation and penance and prayer, James of Kildare and Leighlin
accepted the last earthly embrace of his God." This was in 1834,
in the forty-eighth year of his age, and in the fifteenth of his
episcopate.
Mr. Fitzpatrick has rendered a valuable service to his country
and religion by writing the life of this eminent man. The next
thing to being a great man is to propose to our people the
example of great and good men, whom they should honor, and whose
memory should inspire those who come after them. Ireland has many
such men whose histories have not yet been written, and whose
lives would serve to raise in the souls of her sons a generous
emulation of their actions. An incident in the life of Dr. Doyle
will show that this was a principle with which he himself was
deeply impressed, and which he very emphatically expressed. A
foreign monk, dressed rather picturesquely, once approached him
with a very meek aspect, and said that he was a member of a
community from the continent just come to Ireland bearing the
relics of a man said to have been "beatified." At the same time
he offered to the bishop a considerable portion of the relics.
The bishop was somewhat ruffled in temper, and replied sternly:
"Sir, we need not the ashes of beatified foreigners while we see
the bones of our martyred forefathers whitening the soil around
us."
--------
{57}
Iona to Erin!
What Saint Columba Said To The Bird
Blown Over From Ireland To Iona. [Footnote 21]
[Footnote 21: This is a very ancient legend of the great
founder of Iona, and very characteristic of his exalted
patriotism and loving tenderness for all creatures, in which
he was an antitype of the seraphic St. Francis.]
I.
Cling to my breast, my Irish bird,
Poor storm-tost stranger, sore afraid!
How sadly is thy beauty blurred--
The wing whose hue was as the curd,
Rough as the seagull's pinion made!
II.
Lay close thy head, my Irish bird.
Upon this bosom, human still!
Nor fear the heart that still has stirred
To every tale of pity heard
From every shape of earthly ill.
III.
For you and I are exiles both;
Rest you, wanderer, rest you here!
Soon fair winds shall waft you forth
Back to our own beloved north--
Would God, I could go with you, dear!
IV.
Were I as you, then would they say,
Hermits and all in choir who join,
'Behold two doves upon their way;
The pilgrims of the air are they,
Birds from the Liffey or the Boyne!'
V.
But you will see what I am banned
No more, for my youth's sins, to see--
My Derry's oaks in council stand.
By Roseapenna's silver strand--
Or by Raphoe your flight may be.
{58}
VI.
The shrines of Meath are fair and far,
White-winged one! not too far for thee--
Emania, shining like a star,
(Bright brooch on Erin's breast you are!) [Footnote 22]
That I am never more to see.
[Footnote 22: It is said that Macha, the queen, traced out
the site of the royal rath of Emania, near Armagh, with the
pin of her golden brooch. _See Mrs. Ferguson's "Ireland
before the Conquest,"_ for this and other interesting
Celtic legends.]
VII.
You'll see the homes of holy men
Far west upon the shoreless main--
In sheltered vale, on cloudy Ben,
Where saints still pray, and scribes still pen
The sacred page, despising gain!
VIII.
Above the crofts of virgin saints.
There pause, my dove, and rest thy wing.
But tell them not our sad complaints!
For if they dreamt our spirit faints
There would be fruitless sorrowing.
IX.
Perch as you pass amid their trees,
At noon or eve, my travelled dove.
And blend with voices of their bees
In croft, or school, or on their knees--
They'll bind you with their hymns of love!
X.
Be thou to them, O dove! where'er
The men or women saints are found.
My hyssop flying through the air;
My seven-fold benedictions bear--
To them, and all on Irish ground.
XI.
Thou wilt return, my Irish bird--
I, Colum, do foretell it thee.
Would thou couldst speak as thou hast heard
To all I love--O happy bird!
At home in Eri soon to be!
--------
{59}
Magas; or, Long Ago.
A Tale Of The Early Times.
Chapter VII.
Are there any souls who can read the gospels as they would a
common history of an heroic being? Whose frames do not thrill at
the sublime words the anointed Saviour uttered? Whose hearts do
not glow with an unearthly warmth at the touching incidents which
mark the divine footsteps? Who see in the miracles only a
temporary relief from natural ailments? Who feel in the
tremendous agony of the passion only the ordinary tide of human
emotion in contemplating suffering? Such as these will not
sympathize with Lotis, as she rose from the cleansing waters with
one sole aspiration in her heart; one firm, unchangeable purpose
in her will; one object of interest for her intellect; one single
love to fill every affection she was conscious of. Long ago she
had sought the truth, the light, the life, the way. She possessed
them now; it remained for her to form herself upon the model, to
think his thoughts, to act his deeds, to live in his sight, and
be crucified in him; and all because she felt that here on earth
it was the only life worth having, the only love worth loving.
The perversion of the world had become to her the necessary
result of its having forsaken God; and because it has forsaken
God, and cannot recognize truth, it will ever persecute good; and
they that live godly in Jesus Christ must necessarily suffer
persecution--the persecution to which a blessing is promised. Day
and night did Lotis meditate on the words of God; nor was it long
ere she desired to bring them into action. After the example of
the Christians of Jerusalem, she had placed her resources at the
feet of the Bishop of Athens, and now she placed her services
under his direction. But there was one thought that haunted her,
and often she uttered one word in his presence; that word was
Chione.
"And what do you think can be done for Chione, my child?" asked
the good bishop one day.
"I do not know, father, (so let me call you, I beg;) I do not
know; but I understand her struggle now, which I did not when I
sat with her on the ruins; I see what she meant when she could
not give up Magas, or the applause of the world. She dreaded
slavery because she was not free in soul. Would I could win the
interior freedom for her by wearing the exterior chain. Father,
let me beg Chione's freedom, bodily freedom; hers is not a spirit
to be coerced into discipline. Surveillance only exasperates
her."
"I believe it, my child, when it is not of her own choosing.
Remember, however, she obeys Magas."
"Because he flatters her, fosters her pride, and maintains her in
her station; besides, she loves him, and a woman easily obeys
where she loves."
"She has bound herself to follow Christ."
"But she does not feel free to do it. Perhaps, were exterior
freedom granted to her, she might follow what she knows to be
truth. I shall never forget her appearance in the ruins of Tiryns
when first I accosted her. Chione has not lost her faith."
{60}
"Faith without works is dead," [Footnote 23] said the bishop;
"for works are the expression of our love, of that divine charity
without which we are nothing. [Footnote 24] Though we speak with
the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, we become
as sounding brass or tinkling cymbals."
[Footnote 23: James ii. 20.]
[Footnote 24: I Cor. xiii. I, 2.]
"Chione knows this," said Lotis; "she feels it intensely; it is
this feeling which occasions the struggle which she says is
destroying her."
"Well, she shall have her freedom, my daughter, though I doubt
its effecting a good result. It is scarcely in the redemptive
order. Our Lord cured those only whose souls were turned to him.
[Footnote 25]
[Footnote 25: "And he did not many mighty works there,
because of their unbelief." Matt. xiii. 58.]
Men try to penetrate the secrets of matter, and call their
guesses science. The action of mind they observe not, or they
would see that it obeys laws as unfalteringly as the insensate
stone. A soul perfectly united to God is endowed with power that
seems supernatural to those who know not that 'soul' is of divine
origin, and even in its primal attributes towers above matter.
The action of such a soul on one open to its influences is
miraculous, as all action of grace is; but it was once Adam's
privilege by conferred gift at creation; it is now the
Christian's right, purchased for him by Christ. The apostles, as
you know, heal those whom their shadow falls upon, not of their
own power, but by virtue of the Holy Spirit that dwells in them;
but the power of God thus manifests itself only when the
recipient has at least some degree of recipient power, obtained
by grace also. Christ is silent before his unbelieving judges,
works no miracle for Herod; yet he cannot exist without grace
flowing from him; but grace falling on souls who will not receive
it, but hardens them the more. [Footnote 26] This is why an
apostate is ever harder to reconvert than one who has never
received the faith; this is why we are forbidden to cast our
pearls before swine; this is why I tremble for Chione. Remorse
was busy at her heart when you left her. If she listens to the
voice of God thus speaking within her, she may yet be a saint; if
she rejects the proffered voice, I _fear_, I fear the effect
of grace rejected in such a mind as hers; it will demonstrate
itself with no ordinary power."
[Footnote 26: "And God hardened the heart of Pharao."
Exodus x. 27.]
"At the words she heard at Ephesus she fainted away," said Lotis.
"Better," answered the bishop, "better had she thrown herself at
the feet of the apostle, and said simply, 'I repent me of my
sin.' Of what service to her was her remorse? It stopped her
eloquence, paralyzed her tongue. She could no longer mystify her
hearers by vain terms of an unintelligible philosophy of which
she held the key in her hand, though she would not use it. From
what you have told me, it was remorse, and not repentance, she
felt."
"Oh! that she might be saved, though it were as by fire,"
fervently ejaculated Lotis.
The bishop looked at her face beaming with heavenly charity, and
the spirit of prophecy awoke within him.
"Lotis," said he, "all Christians are more or less sureties for
one another, and must bear each other's burdens, even as our
Master became surety for each one of us, and bore our sins upon
the cross. It is a fearful burden Chione has to endure, more
especially for one of her disposition. 'Twill be, indeed, a
saving as if by fire, when salvation comes to her.
{61}
Say, would you be willing to help her bear her burden? If the
flames are kindled, and she shrinks from them, will you pass
through them in her place?"
"To save her? Yes! Indeed I would! Father, I love Chione."
"Then offer yourself to God for her, my daughter, and strengthen
yourself by prayer for the suffering you must look forward to.
Chione will be granted to expiatory love."
......
Chapter VIII.
"Now, my Chione, we will go to Athens."
"No, not to Athens, Magas; anywhere rather than to Athens; I beg
of you not to take me to Athens."
"Why, what caprice is this? Where in all the world will you find
yourself likely to be appreciated so well as at Athens? What
audience more intelligent, more refined, more susceptible of
sublime emotions? I love Athens; you know I do, and you may judge
of the depth of my love for you, that, to ensure your freedom, I
have kept from it so long; but now, no one has a claim upon you
save myself; so we will go to Athens."
"I thought you had set your heart on going to Rome."
"That was only when I deemed Athens was out of the question. But
my--my Chione, you are free; we may go anywhere. My estates are
suffering from want of my presence; besides, I will settle some
of the revenues on you. You must come to Athens with me."
It was very unwillingly that Chione acceded; but what could she
do? Was she less a slave now than before? Sometimes she thought
she was more so; for had she gone to the Lady Damaris, resumed
the practice of her religion, which clung to her inner being,
although outwardly she gave no sign of faith, she knew she would
have been not only freed, but placed in a position to render her
independent of Magas. And why did she not do this now--why? Her
fame had preceded her to the city, and she resolved to prove
worthy of the reputation she had acquired. Poetry, art, mythic
types, and Christian dogmas, blended in euphonic union in the
discourses she delivered, while her impassioned verse thrilled
every heart; everywhere she was greeted as the modern Sappho,
everywhere honored as the tenth muse; and at last the
acclamations of her fellow-citizens called her to the very temple
of the muses in which we were first introduced to her, there to
receive the crown of music, eloquence, and poesy. How could she
refuse? How could she renounce the world? ... The throng was
immense; not only the _élite_ of Athens were there, but
strangers came in crowds to hear the celebrated Leontium. The
small temple had been somewhat injudiciously chosen, since not
one half of the crowding throng could enter. The festival had
been proposed as a private tribute of friendship from the most
exalted citizens of Athens to their adorable muse; but Leontium
(as her public name ran) was no longer a private person; it was
found impossible to distance the crowds; and hastily a platform
was erected outside the building in the sacred grove, that the
public might be accommodated and have a chance of hearing their
favorite sing the glories of Athens.
We will not attempt to describe the preparatory exercises; the
beautiful intertwinings and graceful wreathings of the various
myths represented on that day, when all the energies of the city
seemed exhausted to impart glory to the classical allegories that
were about to disappear from among mankind for ever.
{62}
There was an elegance, a chastity about the performance never
witnessed before, and an influence was felt impending that
belonged not to the types before them. To the superior taste of
Magas and Chione some of this atmosphere of exaltation was
doubtless due; yet the audience felt as if something more than
this was around them; as if the divinities themselves were
present, and insisting on receiving the homage that for so many
ages had been presented as their right.
But now it was nearly over. The walls of Thebes had risen to the
lyre of Amphion, while the slow but untiring Hours had followed
to its soft music the glorious chariot of Apollo; and so artfully
was all contrived that the spectators could not discover by what
magic the stones were moved, or the figures representing the
hours supported as they moved on the mists away.
Hermes, instructing Cadmus in the art of letters; Minerva,
introducing the distaff into the household; and Ceres, teaching
man to sow the corn; all these had followed with appropriate
poetry and music, with many others of a similar description. And
then, as if to heighten the effect by contrast, came a hush, a
calm, a silence; the stage was covered with clouds; the incense
rendered every object indistinct; low, melancholy tones uttered
at intervals, kept expectation on the stretch; then suddenly a
blast of trumpets seemed to clear away the mists; and the clouds
receding, disclosed Aurora opening the gates of the morning to
the music of the spheres, who then passed slowly out of sight as
a far more lovely vision broke upon the spectators--Venus
Urania, borne by the graces into the company of the muses,
descending from the skies to greet the votaries who, garlanded
and wreathed, were waiting to receive her in a burst of celestial
song. The illusion was complete; the daughter of Coelus and of
Light was on her first appearance greeted with a tumult of
applause; and as in wavy, measured movements, encircled by the
graces, she floated down to earth, scattering her bright
inspirations in sparks of fire upon the muses who were kindling
into enthusiasm at her approach, the whole assembly caught the
melody as it rose from the inspired sisterhood:
Beautiful daughter of Coelus and Light,
Coming in glory to gladden our sight.
Vision of loveliness! star of the day!
Grateful and glad is the homage we pay.
All girt by the graces, thou comest to earth;
With joy and with music we welcome thy birth.
Oh! stay, thou sweet goddess, to brighten our life,
To banish our sorrows, to still every strife.
O Venus Urania! we call upon thee,
Inspirer of gladness, of ecstasy!
The singers were the multitude; the sound of the voices of the
muses, or those who personified them, was lost in the thrilling
greeting which that multitude gave to their favorite--Chione.
Dressed in a dazzling robe spangled with gold, crowned with rays
so artificially disposed that they seemed to emit light as she
was descending, Chione came forward as the Venus Urania of the
Temple.
The throng hushed as she raised her arm to speak; among the
thousands there, scarce a sound was heard; the very breathing was
suppressed, for fear one tone of that eloquent voice should be
unheard. "My friends," she began.
Suddenly a low, piercing wail broke upon the throng, like the
moan of a distressed spirit, so unearthly was the sound. Again it
rang through the echoes, under ground, over head. Chione started,
and the throng was awed.
{63}
Then, in the fearful silence, these words were heard. Distinctly
they came forth, though uttered in a wild, unearthly cadence, as
if they were spoken by one of another world:
Once for silver, now for gold,
Is the Lord of glory sold!
Woe, deep woe!
Judas went to his own place;
Nor shall time the sin efface.
He must every joy forego!
For ever, woe! [Footnote 27]
[Footnote 27: It is on record that, at the first preaching of
the Gospel, numerous signs, sounds, and words were uttered in
the pagan temples, at the times of worship, to the confusion
of the multitudes therein assembled. I leave the fact as I
found it, to the construction of my readers, each one for
himself!]
Every heart was chilled; Chione paled and trembled. Magas sprang
to her relief. "It is but a trick of your own devising; you are
paid back in your own coin. Compose yourself, it is nothing." The
crowd was too dense to allow a search to be made. There was a
long pause, but at length Chione was called upon to proceed. Her
theme was, "The Glory of Athens--of Athens, the Civilizer of the
Nations."
The tremor which was still slightly apparent in the frame of the
Venus Urania when led forward by Magas, (now habited as Apollo,
that he might consistently bear a part in the scene, and watch
over any demonstration that should again affect the goddess he
worshipped with so intense a devotion,) gave an increased
interest to her appearance; the look of appeal she seemed to cast
over that mighty throng, as if to claim protection from some
invisible enemy of her peace, imparted an additional tenderness
to the sympathies of the audience. Chione regained her courage,
as she inhaled the moral atmosphere that surrounded her; she
forced back the unwelcome shades of thought that had been called
from their tombs, where she intended them to lie buried for ever.
She gazed around. The scene at the back of the stage had been
changed. The citadel of Athens had been introduced, and hovering
above it was Minerva, the tutelary divinity of the place. Chione
was evidently surprised; perhaps again she suspected an
interruption; but Magas whispered, "By my command," and she at
length made a gesture, as if to begin. There was, however, a
marked change in her inspiration; she was no longer the
commanding genius of the temple. It was evident to all that she
was under some irrepressible, some irresistible influence. Magas
looked anxious; his whole soul was bound up in Chione's success.
She was his pride, his glory, his Aspasia, his Sappho. Never yet
had he known her to fail; and he watched her words as if his very
life depended upon them. She commenced:
"Athenians, you have asked me to speak to you of the glory of our
city. Behold it! Wisdom is watching over its citadel. The
glorious Minerva, issuing from the head of the immortal father of
gods and men, presides over the welfare of Athens--has ever
presided over it! This is our crown, this our glory. The history
of this our Athens, is unlike the history of any other city in
the world; for it forms a chain of glory, a long-continued tissue
of renown. Her history is, a web of varied dyes, introducing
characters of every degree of virtue, talent, heroism, or
nobility.
"Time was, Athenians, that this beautiful land, now covered with
fertile fields and richly ornamented villas; now the splendid
resort of intelligence, philosophy, and science--time was, that
Athens, the enlightened, the refined, the artistic; Athens, whose
works of beauty will supply all time with models; Athens, whose
pathways throughout the whole region round, even to the Piraeus,
are adorned with statues of her illustrious sons--the poets,
painters, warriors, and statesmen she has produced; Athens,
within whose citadel arises the Parthenon, which would itself be
the wonder of the world, were not that wonder exhausted on
beholding the gigantic statue of our tutelary-goddess which it
contains; time was, that Athens was a drear and sandy waste, the
resort of savages who knew not the use of fire--who were clothed
in skins, and lived on roots and acorns. [Footnote 28]
{64}
But Minerva looked with complacency on the spot she had selected
for the dwelling-place of her chosen people. She sent Theseus to
Attica, to clear the land from the pirates that infested it; to
enact laws, and teach the uncultured men to submit to righteous
rule. It was first the law of force, though not unmixed; for men
unused to government must be coerced until their powers of mind
expand; until they feel what lawful government can effect; until
they know that lawlessness is not true liberty. But not long was
Athens ruled by one. Athenae, Queen, who loves this citadel, had
other views. Her chosen city was to bear the glorious palm of an
enlightened freedom.
"A deed unparalleled in the annals of nations occurred. Codrus,
her king, inspired by that sublime divinity who hath care of
Athens, devoted himself to destruction, that the favored city of
Minerva might be saved. Codrus died! more sublime in his death
than the loftiest monarch ever was in life. Who does not bow
before the shade of Codrus? Who does not feel that, by his
patriotism, his disinterestedness, his heroism, he laid the
foundation of his country's greatness?
His death--our life!
"Bear with me; I must pause a moment here."
Music filled up that pause; but music so solemn, so grand, that
the audience felt as if the spirit of the mighty dead were
hovering over them. Chione resumed:
"To so great a hero, it was impossible to find a worthy
successor! 'Man is not fit for irresponsible power. Too commonly
he uses it but to give the reign to his own passions, while he
represses in his subjects the development of those lofty
qualities of soul which distinguish man from the brutes that
scour our plains. No other king ever wielded the sceptre in
Athens; for Minerva intended that a people should be formed, and
not a single individual. She wished a body of men to rise to
greatness, not a crowned monarch to acquire renown by the
extirpation of millions.
"Athenae loved her children, and she gave them a law-giver whose
first act relieved the poor of their burdens; released them from
the oppression of the rich. Solon knew that the poor are the
sinews of a nation; he knew too, that there is a point in which
the crushing power of debt destroys the qualities that form the
man, the free-man so dear to wisdom; and Athens shook off this
oppression beneath his righteous sway. The laws of Solon shall be
honored as long as rectitude itself is honored, because they
recognize that principle of individual development which alone
can form a great people. Particular modes of bringing out this
principle may change, may pass into other modes; but the
principle itself is eternal, it is worthy of Solon, worthy of the
descendant of the immortal Codrus; it was a direct inspiration of
that wisdom which has so unweariedly watched over the formation
of the Athenian people.
{65}
"Such a principle was it to which we owe the sages and the heroes
that adorn our annals. What heart does not thrill on hearing the
name of Miltiades, of Themistocles, of Cimon, or Aristides? Who
does not glow with rapture at beholding the works of Phidias, of
Praxiteles, Apelles? Who can study with Anaxagoras, converse with
Socrates, or speculate with Plato and Aristotle, nor feel the
divine inspiration communicated to themselves? Who can read the
annals of Xenophon and Thucydides, without feeling proud that he
himself is a citizen of Athens; and which of us has not wept
tears of ecstatic emotion at beholding a tragedy of Euripides or
of Sophocles? What country in the world could ever boast of such
a galaxy of celebrated names?
"Tell me not that these men were not all of Athenian origin. What
if some few of them first saw the light in some other city than
that of Athens. Not the less to Athens do they owe their genius
and their fame; none the less from her did they receive their
inspiration, their culture, and development. The influence of
Athens is not limited to her own domain. Her great men live for
ever to kindle thoughts of greatness throughout the world. Many
far distant, both in time and space, will, to endless ages, love
to muse with Pericles on the banks of the Ilissus, while he is
planning those exquisite creations which have linked his name
with all that is sublime and beautiful in human art. Many will
rejoice with him as gently he sinks to rest, sustained by the
sublime consciousness that, during the whole of his long career,
he had never caused an Athenian to shed a tear.
"His career was for humanity, and in this he resembled Athens;
for unlike the vulgar glory that crowns the conqueror's arms, the
boast of Athens is that, although so many deeds of prowess attest
the heroic valor of her children, yet never, never did she enter
on an aggressive war for the mere sake of conquest, for the
vain-glorious motive of adding by injustice another territory to
her own. No, Athens has shed her benefits abroad; has made known
to the nations all the virtues of the earth. She has proved
herself capable of great acts, alike in war as in peace. Her
genius is godlike, it is diffusive. The very site Minerva chose
for her citadel betokens this destiny. Athens is compelled by
circumstance to seek by peaceful commerce the corn necessary for
her subsistence. The goddess gave her the honey of Hymettus, the
Pentelic marble, and the silver mines of Laurion, that her
eloquence might be sweet, her courage firm, and her commerce
gainful; but she denied her corn, that corn which is the
nutriment of the body, that, by fetching it from foreign lands,
she might, in doing so, communicate to the world those sublime
ideas which form the nobler nutriment of the soul.
"Thus is it that wisdom is the glory of Athens; it explains the
history of the past; it affords a key to our present position.
"The mighty genius of force now bestrides the nations; it keeps
down the surging emotions of half-savage men; itself, with its
stoical insensibility to beauty, with its gladiatorial
slaughters, betokening that it is hardly yet emerged from
barbarism. Is this constrained calm to effect no purpose in the
decrees of wisdom? Examine, and you will find that the glory of
Athens is still increasing, even under a supposed subjection.
[Footnote 29]
[Footnote 29: The Romans, out of reverence to letters, left
to Athens a nominal freedom a long time after they had
virtually subjugated her. It was not till the reign of
Severus that her civilization was crushed. Chione is supposed
to speak one hundred and fifty years before that period.]
{66}
"The nominal dependent refines and civilizes her conqueror. The
wisdom of Athens, which, confined within its own narrow domain,
could but have enlightened the inhabitants of a few cities, is
now spreading over the entire earth; the words of its sages are
instructing our haughty rulers; the myths of our poets are
civilizing Rome. This, then, is the glory of Athens; and such
glory must needs be eternal. Lands may change owners, and
physical force give a momentary, a seeming nobility to a
barbarian; but mind is immortal! the empire of ideas lasts for
ever. Thus is Athens the civilizer of the nations.
"Sons of Athens! heirs of the philosophic ages! children of the
poets! to you I need not explain how the beautiful devices which
surround us are types of a higher knowledge--how many a glorious
idea lies hidden under the name Minerva. The veiled Isis of
Egypt, upon whose statue was inscribed, 'I am all that has been,
all that shall be, and none among mortals has ever yet lifted my
veil,' was, as you know, but another form of our loved Deity.
Wisdom must preside at every institution designed to last. The
precepts of Anaxagoras, the reveries of the divine Plato, alike
instruct us in the eternity of ideas. Truth goes by different
names upon this earth; it is represented by the nations under
different myths, according to the conception men form of it. It
requires a high intellect to contemplate truth in the abstract;
to most minds it is simplified, endowed with power by being
personified; hence our worship. Isis in Egypt, in Athens becomes
Minerva; the veil, if not lifted, is at least rendered more
transparent; and it may be that the time of its lifting is at
hand. Portents of wondrous power are working in men's hearts; the
principle of development evolved in Athens is becoming spread
over the earth. Let us take courage. Athens is still at the head
of civilization; it remains with her children that she so
continue.
"Three words are awakened within my breast, [Footnote 30]
While dwelling on Athena's story;
Three words are a key unlocking the rest,
Illustrating Attica's glory.
These words proceed from no outward cause,
Within us they write their immortal laws.
"Man was created all free, all free,
Chains seen at his birth were never;
Believe it, in spite of the enmity
And folly of men put together.
I fear not the slave who has broken his chain,
'Tis the Godlike resuming his own again.
"And Virtue is more than an empty call.
It may guidance and practice be.
Though man may stumble, and totter, and fall,
He may strive for divinity.
And what unto reason doth seem unreal.
Full oft, to the child-like, doth Wisdom reveal.
"For a God _doth_ exist; and a Holy Will
Is there still, though the human will palters;
Over time, over space, the high thought floateth still.
All glowing with life that ne'er falters;
While all things move round in unceasing change,
That spirit breathes peace through the heavenly range.
"Oh! guard well these words within every breast,
For on them rests Attica's glory;
Proclaim and observe them, with increasing zest,
They're the keys of Athena's story.
No man can e'er forfeit his inward worth.
While wisdom within to these words giveth birth."
[Footnote 30: The German student will here recognize that
this song is an imitation, or rather a translation adapted to
the subject of Schiller's "Drei Worte neun' ich Euch,
inhaltschwer." The infidelity of Chione, like that of modern
times, does not hesitate to avail itself of truths learned
from Christianity, when such truths can adorn their unsound
philosophy; in fact, the truth that is in it, saves their
theory; error cannot stand of itself.]
Chione ceased. She had not shone as she was wont to do; she felt
conscious that in palliating paganism to please the audience, she
was paltering with her own conscience. When she proposed first to
speak her address, she had intended to give a synopsis of the
philosophy and poetry of Greece, and to avoid mythology; but the
words she had heard had embittered her spirit, rendered it
defiant; and half-angrily, half-sarcastically, had she uttered
the sentiments we have recorded. There was not, however, the
mesmeric sympathy between her and the assembled crowd that was
wont to produce electric bursts of enthusiasm, albeit they agreed
with the sentiments expressed. Her own enthusiasm had been
quelled before commencing; she could not then communicate what
she did not possess. But it had been previously arranged that she
was to be crowned; she had been invited there for that purpose;
therefore the figure representing Minerva ceased to hover in the
air, came forward, and, to very sweet music, placed the crown on
Chione's head.
{67}
Beauty, crowned by Wisdom's hand,
Reigns triumphant in the land.
Her scented dower
Is music linked to poesy,
In tones of heavenly harmony,
Attuned to earth's necessity by Eloquence,
bright power!
The pause that succeeded was filled up with throwing of bouquets
and shouts of congratulation. When a lull came, and Chione was
about to give a parting salute to the spectators, these words
came distinctly to her ear, though in so low a tone that they
were inaudible to any but herself and those close to her:
Earth's crown of glory is a crown of thorns;
Such the Saviour's head adorns,
Who died for thee.
Crowned with thorns, for thee he bled.
On the cross his life-blood shed.
All for thee!
Chione became very pale; she attempted to come forward, but fell
back in the arms of her attendants; she had fainted.
--------
Translated From The French.
The Unity Of The Human Race.
This is one of a series of popular discourses given at the
Imperial Asylum of Vincennes, France, by A. de Quatrefages,
member of the Institute, and Professor of Natural Science. After
some preliminary remarks to his audience, he proceeds to the
question, What is man? "It is not difficult to perceive that man
is neither a mineral nor a vegetable, neither a plant nor a
stone. But is he an animal? Not likely, when we reflect upon all
his attributes.
"None of you would like to be compared to those animals who feed
on grass, to the hog who wallows in the mire, nor to the dog, in
whom man has found the qualities of both friend and companion;
nor further, to the horse, though he were as celebrated as the
famous Gladiator.
"Man is not an animal. He is distinguished above the brute
creation by numerous and important attributes. We have only to
consider his intellectual capacity, the power of articulation,
which gives to every people a special language, the capacity to
write, which reproduces language; the aid of the fine arts, to
explain and materialize the conceptions of his imagination. He is
also distinguished above animals by two fundamental characters
which belong solely to him. Man is the only organized and living
being who has the abstract sentiment of both good and evil, the
only being in whom there exists a moral sense, the only one who
believes in a future state, and who recognizes the existence of
beings superior to himself, having influence upon him for good or
evil. It is this two-fold conviction which grasps and holds the
great truths which are called religion.
{68}
"At a later period I will return to these two questions of
morality and religion, not as a theologian, but as a naturalist.
At present I limit myself to this fact, that man, however savage
he may be, shows signs of morality and religion that are not
found in any animal. Consequently, man is a being apart,
separated from animals by two great distinctions which are his
own, and also by his incontestable superiority. There the
difference ceases. With regard to his body, man is nothing more
or less than an animal. Apart from some differences of form and
disposition, he is no more than equal to the superior animals
that surround us. If we take for comparison those that assimilate
to our general form, anatomy shows us that our organs are the
same as theirs; we find in them muscle for muscle, nerve for
nerve, that is found in man himself. Physiology, in turn, has
demonstrated that, in the body of man, the organs, the muscles,
the nerves, have the same animal functions.
"This fact is indisputable, taken from a purely scientific and
practical view. We cannot experiment upon man, but it is possible
to do so upon animals. Human physiology employs the means to
enlighten us upon our organic functions. Physicians have carried
to the sick-bed the result of their investigations upon animal
life. Anthropology also, we shall see, has derived useful lessons
from beings who are essentially our inferiors. Anthropology
should descend still lower than animals to enlighten us
thoroughly. Vegetables are not animals any more than animals are
men; but man, animals, and vegetables are linked together in the
same living organization. By this only, they are distinguished
from the minerals, which are neither the one nor the other, and
by certain general facts known to all.
"All organized beings have a limited duration, all are created
small and weak, all grow and become strong; during a part of
their existence, all decrease in energy and vitality, sometimes
also in size, then die. During life, all organized beings have
need of nourishment. Before dying, all produce, either by a seed
or by an egg, (I speak of species, not individuals,) which is
true of the species that seem to come directly from a shoot, a
layer, or a graft; all proceed from a grain, or an egg. Thus, all
these great phenomena, common to all living organized beings,
including man as well as plants, suppose a general law for their
government. Science confirms this conclusion every day, which is
not an invention of reasoning alone, but is regarded as an
_experienced fact_. Further explanations are not necessary
to show the magnificent result.
"How admirable, that man and the smallest insect, that the lord
of the soil and the smallest plant, are attached one to the
other, by the same links, and that the entire living creation
forms together a perfect harmony!
"In this communion, and in certain phenomena of this accordance
with certain laws, equally common, there results one consequence
upon which I would not too strongly insist. Whatever may be the
questions relating to man, that we have to examine whenever these
touch upon any one of the phenomena that are common to all living
organized beings, we must not only investigate animal life, but
also vegetable life, if we would wish to find the truth.
{69}
"When one of these questions is proposed, what can we truthfully
urge in reply? We must examine man under the general laws that
govern other living organized beings. If the investigation tends
to make man an exception to these general laws, we shall know it
is false. If you resolve the problem so as to include man in the
general laws, you may be sure that you are scientific and
correct. With these proofs, and these only, I proceed to the
second question of anthropologists. Are there several species of
men, or does there exist but one, comprising several races?
"Some explanations are necessary. Examine the designs before you,
and you will discover the principal varieties exhibited in the
human type. You have there individuals from all parts of the
world; you see that they differ considerably in color, some in
their hair, others in their size, or in their peculiar features.
It behooves us to ascertain if the differences that present
themselves in these human groups are those of _species_, or
if they merely indicate the existence of _races_ belonging
to the same species.
"In order to reply to this question, you must ascertain the true
significance of the words _species_ and _race_. The
result of the discussion depends upon these two words. Unhappily,
they are often confounded and badly defined, and we become
enveloped in mystery when we wish to consider them more closely.
Let us then form a precise idea before entering into otherwise
profitless details.
"None of you certainly confound the horse with the ass; though
the horse may be no larger than the dogs of Newfoundland, or
though the ass should attain the size of an ordinary horse--for
example, the large asses of Poitou. You will immediately say they
are different species. You will say the same if you place a dog
and a wolf side by side.
"We call by the one name of dogs the different types, such as the
spaniel, the greyhound, the lap-dog, the Newfoundland, the King
Charles; and we are right. However, if we were to judge by the
eyes only, and even after more minute observations, there is
between the dogs I have named greater differences of color,
proportion, and size, than between the horse and the ass. The
latter have certainly more similarity between them than the types
of dogs I have named.
"If I should place a black and a white water-spaniel side by
side, you would call them both spaniels, though of a different
color. When we examine vegetables, it is the same thing; a red
and a white rose are equally roses; pears that are sold two for a
penny, are the same species as those sold at twenty cents each.
"Without any doubt you have arrived at the exact conclusion of
the naturalists; like them, you have resolved the questions of
_species_ and _race_, which at first sight seemed, for
the reasons I have given, more or less confused.
"These examples fully prove that popular observation and common
sense are in many things fully as reliable as the investigations
of science. Were such deductions generalized into scientific
language, I feel sure there would be found few if any mistakes.
"These investigations prove that animals and vegetables vary
within certain limits. The dog remains but a dog, whatever may be
his general form, color, or his shape. The pear is but a pear,
whatever may be its flavor or the color of its skin. It is from
these facts that I am led to believe that variations can be
transmitted through generations. The union of two spaniels
produces spaniels, the union of two mastiffs produces mastiffs.
{70}
Thus, in a general manner, the result is, that beings of the same
species can cease to resemble each other absolutely; moreover,
take exteriorly different characters, without isolating or
forming different species; as I have said, the _dog remains a
dog_, whatever may be the modifications he presents. These are
precisely the groups formed by individuals which we have spoken
of as the remote primitive types of species that have formed
distinct secondary groups, which naturalists call _races_.
"You will understand, then, what is meant in speaking of the
races of beeves, horses, etc. We have domesticated but one kind
of beeves, which have generated the Breton race, the great beeves
of Uri, of such savage aspect, and also the gentle Durhams. We
have but one kind of domestic horse, and this has given us the
pony, as well as the enormous horses that are seen in the streets
of London, commonly used by the brewers; finally, the several
races of sheep, goats, etc., belong to one and the same species.
I place this assemblage of proof vividly before you to avoid
vagueness in your investigations, which would be attended with
serious mistakes. I will now cite examples from the vegetable
kingdom, which will be as familiar to you as the foregoing.
"Let us take the coffee-tree. Its history is quite interesting.
The coffee-tree was originally from Africa. It has from time
immemorial been cultivated in Abyssinia, on the borders of the
Red Sea. It was not until toward the fifteenth century that the
seed migrated from this sea and penetrated into Arabia, where it
has been cultivated since that epoch. It is from there in
particular that we get the famous Mocha. The use of coffee became
common immediately. From the east it was introduced into Europe
at a later period, and it was at Marseilles that it was used for
the first time in France.
"The first cup of coffee that was drank in Paris, was in the year
1667. A few grains were brought over by a French sailor called
Thevenot. Two years after, Soliman Aga, ambassador of the Porte,
under Louis XIV., gave an entertainment to some friends of the
king, where it was introduced, and the beverage pronounced
delightful. The use of coffee, however, did not become general in
France until the eighteenth century. You see, then, that coffee
has not been very long in use. It was almost a century and a half
before it became general among Europeans.
"During this time Europe became tributary to Arabia for this
luxury. All the coffee that was used in Europe came from Arabia,
and particularly from Mocha. Toward the beginning of the
eighteenth century the Dutch tried to import it to Batavia, one
of their Indian colonies. They succeeded. From Batavia, some
plants were sent to Holland, and planted in heated earth. This
also proved a success.
"One of these plants was carried to Paris in 1710, and was placed
in one of the beds of the Jardin des Plantes. It flourished, and
supplied numberless plants. Toward 1720 or 1725, a French marine
officer named Captain Destiaux, thought that, as Holland had
cultivated coffee in Batavia, it could also be acclimated in the
French colonies in the Gulf of Mexico. At the moment of embarking
for Martinique he took three plants from the Jardin des Plantes,
and carried them with him. The voyage was long and impeded by
head-winds. Water becoming scarce, it became necessary to put the
crew upon short rations.
{71}
Captain Destiaux, like the others, had but a small allowance for
each day, and this he shared with his coffee-plants.
Notwithstanding all his care, two of them died in their transit.
One only arrived safe and sound at Martinique. Planted
immediately, it prospered wonderfully, and from it have descended
all the coffee-trees in the Antilles, and in South-America.
"Thirty years after, our western colonies exported millions of
pounds each year. You see that the plant, starting from Africa,
reached the east, the extremity of Asia, then America and the
west. It has consequently made almost the tour of the world. In
this long passage it has changed.
"Laying aside the plant that we are not familiar with, let us
take merely the grain. It is not necessary to be a planter to
distinguish its different qualities and their provinces. No one
will confound the Mocha with the Bourbon, the Rio Janeiro with
the Martinique. Each grain carries in its form, in its
proportions and aroma, its extraction, so to speak.
"From whence came these changes? We cannot certainly explain the
why or the wherefore, and follow rigorously the relation of cause
and effect; but in taking these phenomena together, it is evident
that these modifications result from the differences of
temperature, climate, and cultivation.
"This example, taken from the vegetable kingdom, shows us that by
transporting the same vegetable to different places, and
subjecting it to different culture, _diverse races_ are
obtained.
"Tea that was transported to South America several years since
presents the same results.
"Now take an example from among the animals. You know that the
turkey is a native of America. Its introduction into Europe is
quite recent.
"In America the turkey is wild; and there, in the condition of
its natural existence, it presents several characteristics which
distinguish it from the domestic bird. The wild turkey is
beautiful. Of a rich brown color, its plumage presents the
reflections of blue, copper, and gold, making it truly a
beautiful ornament. It was on account of its plumage that it was
first brought to France. No one dreamed of eating it, and the
first one that was served upon a table in France, was in the year
1570, and upon the occasion of the nuptials of King Charles IX.
"When found to be such a luxury, it was considered too good to be
merely looked at, and it passed from the court to the farm-yard,
from farm to farm, from east to west, from north to south. At
this present time it is an article of commerce all over France.
"In going from farm to farm, and from country to country, this
bird has sustained different conditions of existence,
nourishment, and temperature, but never a continuation of its
primitive condition that was natural to it in America. The result
is, that it has changed, and at this present time the turkey in
France bears no resemblance to its savage source. In general, it
is smaller, and its rich plumage has undergone a marked change.
Some are yellow, others white, some mixed with black, gray, and
yellow. Almost all the localities devoted to raising the fowl
have caused several new varieties, which have transformed them
into _races_.
"To have thus changed their habits so as to lose resemblance to
their first parents, are our French fowls any the less
descendants of the wild turkeys of America? Are they less the
brothers, or cousins, if you like the term better? Have they
ceased to be of the _same species?_ Certainly not!
{72}
"That which is characteristic of the turkey is also true of the
rabbit. The wild rabbit lives around and about us, on our downs,
and in our woods. It resembles our domestic rabbits but little.
Among the latter you will see the large and the small, the
smooth-haired and the silky; the black and the white, the yellow
and the gray, and the mixed. In a word, this species comprises a
great number of different races, all constituting one and the
same kind with the wild races we see around us. From these facts,
which I could multiply, we can deduce an important consequence to
which I call your attention. A pair of rabbits left unmolested in
a field, would, in a few years, people entire France with their
descendants. We have seen how the single coffee-plant, carried by
Captain Destiaux, has propagated all the plants now found in
America.
"The wild turkeys and their domestic descendants, the wild
rabbits and theirs, reduced to captivity, could then be
considered by naturalists as all proving equally their descent
from one primitive pair.
"This is the secret of species. Having always before our eyes
numbers of single groups of animals or vegetables, for one reason
or other we hardly consider them as descendants of one only
primitive pair; we call what we see a _species_; if there
are differences observable among these groups, they are _the
races of this species_.
"Observe that, in my explanations, I have not given for a
certainty the existence of one primitive source for rabbits and
turkeys. I do not affirm the fact, as neither observation nor
experience--the two guides we must follow in science--teaches
anything in this regard. I simply say, all are as though
descended from one only primitive pair.
"In summing up the question of _species_ _and_ race, it
is not difficult to understand nor to believe, when we know the
savage type, and have historical authority which permits us to
attach to this type the groups, more or less different, according
to their domestication. But when we are ignorant of the savage
type, and in want of historical authority, the question becomes
extremely difficult at first, because the differences we find in
one and the other, and above all, in the different groups, could
hardly be considered other than such as characterize different
species.
"Happily, physiology comes then to our relief. We find in this
science one of those grand and beautiful general laws, which
holds and maintains the established order, and which we admire
the more we study it. It is the law of _crossing_, which
governs animals as well as vegetables, and is, consequently,
applicable to man himself.
"We understand by the term _crossing_, all unions effected
between animals belonging to different species or to two
different races. The result of the unions obeying these laws is,
that if the animals of _different species_ unite, in the
majority of cases the union is barren.
"Thus, for example, it has been tried a million of times all over
the world, to effect a union between rabbits and hares. It is
said to have succeeded twice.
"Much doubt is cast upon this operation by the testimony of a man
of undoubted talent, habituated to experiments, who believed
these unions to be possible. Though availing himself of all
possible means of proof, he was not more fortunate than his
predecessors, Buffon and the brothers Geoffrey St. Hilaire. Thus,
the rabbit and the hare, though presenting a great conformity in
appearance, cannot reproduce. Such is the general result of
crossing two different _species_.
{73}
"In a few cases, the union between two different species may be
fruitful, but the offspring cannot reproduce. For example, the
union between a horse and an ass. The product of this union is
the mule. All the mules in the world are the descendants of the
ass and the mare. These animals are so numerous in Spain and
South America that they are preferred to horses, on account of
their great strength and powers of endurance. The genet, which is
less desirable because it is not so robust, is the fruit of the
inverse crossing of the horse and the female ass. The genet, no
more than the mule, can reproduce. If one or the other is
desired, of necessity recourse is had to the two _species_.
In extremely rare cases, fecundity remains among some of their
descendants, but it diminishes gradually from the second
generation down to the third, fourth, and fifth. The same result
is shown in the union of the canary bird. I could here accumulate
a crowd of analogous details. Above all, two great general facts
appear that comprehend all, and are the expression of the law;
they are that, notwithstanding the accumulated observations of
years, made from experiments on certain species, not a single
example is known of an intermediate species being obtained by the
_crossing_ of animals belonging to _two different
species_.
"This general fact explains how order is maintained in the actual
living creation. Were it otherwise, the animal and vegetable
world would have been filled with intermediate groups, passing
from one to the other insensibly, and in the confusion, it would
be impossible for naturalists to recognize them. The general
conclusion to draw from these precedents is, that infecundity is
_the law of union between animals of different species_.
"Unions are always more fruitful when between two animals of the
same race. Their descendants are as fruitful as the parents and
the grandparents, where pains are taken to preserve the race
pure, and to prevent strange blood from debasing it.
"When, on the contrary, a union is effected between two different
races belonging to the same species, producing a _mongrel
race_, the contrary takes place.
"There is no difficulty in obtaining a mongrel race--the result
of a crossing of races; but the difficulty is when there is a
pure race, and it is desirable to have it maintained, that great
care is needed to prevent strange blood from changing it.
"Races crossed by mongrels--that is to say, by animals of the
same species, but belonging to different races, multiply around
us. There are the dogs in the streets, the cats of the alleys,
the coach-horses; all beasts among whom the race is undecided in
consequence of crossing indiscriminately, their characteristics
becoming confounded.
"Far from endeavoring to obtain cross races, men who are occupied
in raising stock, also bird-fanciers, know with what care they
endeavor to preserve the purity of the races they keep. This is
the general fact, and the result is, _that infecundity is the
law of unions between animals belonging to different races_.
"This is the fundamental distinction between _species_ and
_race_. This distinction ought to be the more known and
considered, as it is borrowed from experience.
"When there are two animals, or two vegetables, of whom we are
uncertain as to whether they are two distinct _species_, we
have but to observe if their union is fruitful; and if this
quality attaches to their descendants, we can then affirm that,
despite the differences that separate them, _they are the races
of the same species_.
{74}
If, on the contrary, their offspring diminishes in a remarkable
manner at the end of several generations, we can then, without
hesitation, declare them to belong to _distinct species_. In
citing these examples, I have not overlooked the subject of my
discourse, or the question at its commencement.
"In referring to the designs before our eyes, they show us that
between the human groups the differences are marked enough,
though to all appearance less considerable than they appeared at
first. We do not know the types, or the primitive types, of the
several groups.
"When we meet with one or several men presenting the
characteristics of these types, and we cannot recognize them in
spite of historical explanations, we are led to judge by our
eyes. Without taking man himself into account, we cannot decide
if these several differences that present themselves in the human
family are those of _race_ or of _species_; if man can
be considered as having had but one primitive source only, or if
he should have been derived from several primitive sources.
"I have said before, and repeat again, man is an organized and
living being. Under this head he obeys all the general laws to
which are attached all organized and living beings; he obeys,
consequently, the law of crossing. He must then apply this law to
ascertain _if there is one or several species of men_. Take,
for example, the two types farthest removed--those which seem
more separated than the others by the greatest
differences--namely, the white and the black.
"If these types really constitute _distinct species_, the
union between these species should follow the proof that we have
seen characterize the unions between animals, and vegetables, of
different species. They should be unfruitful in the majority of
cases, or nearly so. Fecundity should disappear at the end of a
short period, and they could not form intermediate families
between the negroes and the whites. If these are only _the
races of one and the same species_, then unions, on the
contrary, should be quite fruitful, and fecundity should be found
among their descendants, and they should form intermediate races.
"These facts are decisive, and admit of no doubt.
"For three centuries the whites, _par excellence_, the
Europeans, have achieved, so to say, the conquest of the world.
They have gone everywhere. Everywhere they have found local races
who have borne them no resemblance. Whenever they have crossed
with them, these unions have been fruitful; more so than with
those indigenous to themselves.
"Man, from the result of the institution of slavery--which
happily has never stained the soil of France--has transported the
negro everywhere; everywhere he has crossed with his slaves, and
everywhere they have formed a population of mulattoes. Wherever
the negro has crossed with local groups or families, there has
arisen an intermediate race, who in character manifest their
two-fold origin. The whites have finally crossed with the
mongrels of all origins, and the result is, that in certain
quarters of the globe--particularly in South America--there is an
inextricable mixture of people, comparable, under the class, to
the dogs in our streets and the cats of our alleys.
"The rapidity with which these mongrel races cross and multiply
is really remarkable. It is scarcely three centuries--hardly
twelve generations--since Europeans penetrated into different
parts of the world.
{75}
It is estimated that already the number of mongrels resulting
from the crossing of whites with natives, is a seventieth of the
whole population of the globe. Experience is indisputable, if we
even deny modern science, or at least, wish to make man an
exception to all living and organized beings. We must admit that
all men form but one species, composed of a certain number of
different races; consequently, all men can only be considered as
having descended from one primitive pair.
"We arrive at this conclusion in despite of all kinds of
dogmatical, theological, philosophical, and metaphysical
considerations. Observation and experience alone, applied to the
animal and vegetable kingdoms, in a word, science, conducts us to
the conclusion, _there exists but one species of man._
"This result, I do not fear to say, is of great and serious
importance; for it creates in our minds an idea of the universal
fraternity of science and reason, the only schools that many
persons recognize at this present time.
"I hope that my demonstrations will have convinced you;
meanwhile, I am not ignorant, and you all know, that
anthropologists differ. There are among my contemporaries a
number of men, even of great merit, who believe in the plurality
of the human species. You may possibly come into contact with
them. Listen attentively, then, to the reasons they will urge to
make you see with their eyes. You will find that their reasonings
all tend to prove that there is too great a difference between
the negro and the white for them to be of the same species. In
reply, state that between the black and the white spaniel, the
lap-dog and the mastiff, there exist greater differences than
exist between the European and the African. Yet these animals are
all dogs. They may argue, perhaps, that man, whatever may have
been his characteristics, could not have generated both blacks
and whites. Then ask why the wild turkey, whose origin, and that
of its ancestors, we are acquainted with, and the wild rabbit,
which we find everywhere, could have generated all our domestic
races?
"We cannot, I repeat, explain perfectly the how and the
wherefore; but what we know is, that the fact exists, and we
shall find a general explanation in all states of existence--in
all conditions of people.
"It is not, then, surprising that man presents, in the different
groups, the differences herein depicted; man who trod the earth
long before the turkey and the rabbit; man, who for centuries has
existed upon the surface of the globe, submitting to the most
diverse and opposite conditions of existence, multiplying again
the causes of those modifications by his manners and habits, by
his ways of living, by more or less care in his own preservation;
man, finding himself in more marked and varied conditions than
those sustained by the animals we have quoted. If anything
surprises us, it is that the distinctions are not more
considerable.
"In turn, ask the polygenists--as those _savans_ are called
who believe in the multiplicity of the human species--how it is
that when the white man locates in any country, from the
antipodes, if you will, or from America or Polynesia--that if he
unites with the natives, who differ the most completely from him,
these unions are fruitful, and that, above all, there remains
traces of this alliance in producing a mongrel race?
{76}
"If you press the question more closely, you will find them
denying the truth of species; by so doing, placing themselves in
contradiction with all naturalists, botanists, or zoologists,
without exception; consequently, with all the eminent minds who
have followed in the wake of Buffon, Tournefort, Jussieu, Cuvier,
and Geoffrey St. Hilaire, who made the animal and vegetable
kingdoms their study, without discussion, or dreaming of its
connection with man. In agitating these doctrines, polygenists
place themselves in opposition to the most firmly established
science. You will hear them declare that man, above all, is an
exception; that he is guided by laws peculiar to himself; and
that arguments deduced from the study of animals and plants, are
not applicable to him. Then reply that, in the name of all the
natural sciences, they are certainly in error, and that it is an
impossibility that a living and organized being can escape the
laws of organization and of life, having a body fortified against
the laws that govern inorganic matter; that man, to be living and
organized, obeys, under this title, all general laws, and those
of intersection like all the others. The conclusion that we have
attained is, then, legitimate, and the nature of the arguments
employed to combat them, is a proof the more in its favor.
----------
Sayings Of The Fathers Of The Desert.
A certain brother was praised in Abbot Antony's presence. He went
to visit him, and tried to see whether he would bear
mortification; and finding that he could not, he said to him:
"Thou art like a house which is fair to the eye on the outside,
but within hath been despoiled by robbers."
St. Synclitica said: "As a treasure which is exposed is quickly
spent, so, also, is every virtue which is made public soon
reduced to nothing. For as wax melteth before the face of the
fire, even so doth the soul waste away with praises, and lose the
firmness of virtue." Again, she said: "As it is impossible that
the seed and shoot should exist at the same time, even so those
who enjoy the glory of this world are unable to bear heavenly
fruit."
A certain brother said to Abbot Pastor: "What shall I do, for
when I sit in quiet I lose my spirits?" The old man replied,
"Neither despise nor condemn any one, nor cast obloquy upon him,
and God will give thee rest."
Abbot Antony said: "There are persons who wear away their bodies
by fasting; but because they have not discretion, they are far
distant from God."
A certain old man said: "If thou art ailing in body, do not lose
thy spirit; for if the Lord God desireth thee to become sick, who
art thou that thou shouldst be impatient under it? Doth he not
provide for thee in all things? Canst thou live without him? Be
patient, therefore, and beseech him to give what is expedient for
thee, that is, to do whatsoever may be his will, and to sit in
patience, eating thy bread in charity."
-----------
{77}
Holy Week In Jerusalem.
The sacred offices of the Catholic Church, wherever celebrated,
are admirably calculated to increase devotion, and render
intelligible the different events of the ecclesiastical year. In
every land the ceremonies of the great week which ends the season
of Lent have deep interest to all the faithful, since they
portray the chief events of redemption. These annual
commemorations of the passion of Christ have, however, an added
solemnity and power in the two great cities of religion, Rome and
Jerusalem. In the first, the vicar of our Lord takes part in the
holy rites; and, in the second, the whole service is more
impressive than elsewhere; for the great events here occurred,
and the remembrance of them is made, year by year, in closest
proximity to the spot where they took place. It is hazarding
little to say, that nowhere on earth does the office for holy
week have the deep solemnity which marks it in Jerusalem, for the
reason just given. While the rubrics of the Missal and Breviary
are followed with great exactness, several things peculiar to the
place have an interest which may render a description of them
worthy of attention.
On the morning of Palm Sunday, 1866, the writer of this sketch
went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, to be present at the
benediction of the palms by his excellency the Patriarch of
Jerusalem. The palms, noble branches, seven feet in length, fresh
and green, are brought every year from Gaza, a little city about
eighteen miles distant. Tied in bundles of suitable size, they
were placed within the most holy sepulchre, the patriarch being
outside the sacred place until the time for sprinkling them with
holy water and incensing, when he entered for that purpose. The
benediction completed, the distribution of the palms took place,
and the long procession began. Chanting the antiphons, the clergy
and laity went twice around the sepulchre, and once around the
stone of unction, and then passed into the Latin chapel.
The solemn Mass, to be celebrated by the patriarch, was to begin
immediately. The holy sepulchre, being about six feet square, is,
of course, much too small for that purpose, and therefore a
temporary altar of large size was promptly set up in front of the
sacred tomb. While the attendants were preparing and decorating
this, in compliance with an intimation given early in the
morning, I went into the most holy sepulchre, and offered the
Divine Sacrifice--it being the third time I had been privileged
to say Mass in that holiest of places. To me it is one of the
most memorable things in life, that this happiness should, at
such a time, have been mine--that a simple priest could say Mass
in "the new tomb of Joseph, which he had hewn out of the rock,"
while the patriarch was officiating outside the sacred place.
On Wednesday, the office of Tenebrae was said in the church. The
patriarch was present and a large number of priests, friars,
seminarians, and choir-boys, and many of the laity. The service
was very solemn, and the music good. The priests were seated in
front of the holy sepulchre, and the triangular candlestick was
placed at the right hand of the door leading to the tomb.
{78}
The chanting of the Lamentations was most impressive; and when
the words, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, _convertere ad Dominum Deum
tuum!_" were uttered, it seemed that this plaintive entreaty
even now could be addressed with fitness to the city that once
was full of people, but is solitary, and made tributary to her
enemies. There was a wild pathos and deep earnestness in the
chant when the summons to turn to the Lord God was made, as if
the singer knew that to-day there is need for the city to listen
and obey. Jerusalem is in the power of the followers of the false
prophet of Mecca; schismatic Christians outnumber the Catholics;
the Jews know not the Lord their God; and the ways of Sion mourn.
Would that the expostulation could be heard by all, that they
might be perfectly united as a company of brethren, having the
same faith and the same worship!
In the afternoon, the column of the flagellation of Christ was
exposed for an hour, or two, by removing the iron grating from
the front of it. As is well known, a portion of the column is in
Rome, in the church of Saint Praxede. The fragment here is only
about one foot high, and of the same diameter. It is kept in the
Latin chapel, in a recess over an altar named after it, and
cannot be seen during the year, as there is little light in the
chapel, and that comes through a window high above and nearly
over the altar. A popular devotion is to pray in front of the
column, and then touch it with a rod, about twenty inches long,
having a brass ferule or cap on the end; this ferule is kissed on
the place which had touched the stone. It being impossible to
reach the pillar by the hand through the grating, this method has
been contrived to satisfy the devotion of those who are anxious
to salute with reverence all the objects and places connected
with the passion of our Lord. On Thursday, at five o'clock, we
went down to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, as the office was
to begin early. We waited nearly an hour, in a dismal morning,
until it pleased the Turkish door-keeper to come and unlock the
portals. While standing here, among other subjects for
consideration, was the evident fact that Christians desiring to
celebrate the divine office, in the holiest week of the year, and
in the most sacred place on earth, were compelled to delay the
fulfilment of their wishes until permission had been given by a
Mohammedan. When we were admitted, the services were long,
occupying five and a half hours. The holy oils were consecrated.
At the end a procession was formed, and the blessed sacrament was
carried twice around the sepulchre, and once around the stone of
unction, and then was placed in a repository which stood in the
tomb where our Lord had lain centuries ago.
At one o'clock, the Mandatum, or ceremony of washing the feet of
the pilgrims, was performed by his excellency the patriarch in
front of the most holy sepulchre. He gave to each of the pilgrims
a wooden cross, about seven inches long, roughly made, and having
spaces under bits of pearl for relics from the stations of the
Via Dolorosa. Of the many objects of interest brought home from
the Holy Land, there is scarcely any one valued more than this,
because of the time, place, and occasion when it was received.
The office of the Tenebrae began at three o'clock, as on the day
before. Nothing can surpass in solemnity and deep impressiveness
the chantings of the Lamentations in this place.
{79}
The profound desolation of the soul of the prophet as he uttered
the sad words is fully expressed and realized; and the
remembrance of the calamities which have so frequently befallen
Jerusalem, and even now are her portion, gives bitterness to the
insulting demand, "Is this the city of perfect beauty, the joy of
all the earth?"
On Good Friday the patriarch officiated again in the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre. The passion was sung on Calvary by three
chanters, one reciting the narrative by Saint John, another the
words of our Lord, while the third sung the remainder. The voice
of the priest who chanted the words of Jesus was gentle and sad,
and so like what we may imagine to have been that of our Lord, as
to become painful and oppressive. When the ejaculation,
_consummatum est_, had been made, the first chanter went to
the place where the cross had been set up on which Jesus died,
and kneeling there, in a low voice uttered the words, _et
inclinato capite, tradidit spiritum_.
The prayers were chanted in front of the altar of the
crucifixion, which belongs to the Catholics, and is at the place
properly called of the crucifixion, as being that where our Lord
was nailed to the cross; it is to the right, and about twelve
feet from the spot where the cross was set up. The unveiling of
the cross, at the chant, "_Ecce lignum crucis_," was done
here also; and, when the crucifix was laid on the pavement in
front of the altar, it covered the stone which marks the locality
where our Lord was fastened to the tree. The veneration of the
cross at such a time and place was deeply impressive. After the
patriarch, the priests, monks, and laity, having put off their
shoes, came in their order, and kissed the feet of the image of
the Redeemer.
Wishing to spend as much of Good Friday on Calvary as was
possible, I returned to the church in the afternoon, and sat for
a long time on the floor, leaning against the large square
pillar, within ten feet of the spot where the great oblation was
made. While there, I meditated and prayed as well as was possible
under the circumstances. For many years the Catholics have had
exclusive possession of the church during the last three days of
holy week; and accordingly, when the faithful had been admitted,
the doors were locked, and the sacred offices performed in peace,
free from the annoyance of the crowd which generally fills the
edifice. Today, however, on returning, I found the doors open,
and every one allowed free access. Many who were not Catholics
were now present, and among them were five or six English
travellers who were out sight-seeing. Accompanied by their
dragoman or interpreter, they came on Calvary, and looked around
with idle curiosity. One of them, had he been alone, would
probably have knelt down and prayed; but, being with his friends,
he only bent one knee, and bowed his head a moment at the place
where the cross had been set up. The others of the party,
evidently, did not believe this to be the spot of the
crucifixion. They were more attracted by the gold, silver, and
diamonds on the image of the Blessed Virgin, on the little altar
of the Dolors, than by anything else, and for some time admired
the brilliancy of these as a candle was held near, and talked of
them as the most interesting objects. One glance at the place
where the Lord died was enough for them; and when they went away,
it was a relief to find the chapel again occupied by those who
came to worship. People who have no faith should not visit the
Holy Land.
{80}
If they do, they derive little benefit themselves, and give great
disedification to Christians of every name.
It was now toward the close of the day. Some persons, chiefly
Greeks, were praying on Calvary, when a Turkish officer came up,
and made signs for them to depart. Unwilling to do so, they
remained for some time, when he summoned several soldiers who,
with muskets, came up to enforce obedience to his commands. They
walked slowly around the chapel, close to the wall; and then the
people, seeing that they must go, quietly arose and descended. I
have little doubt that the church was cleared in order to prepare
for the solemn procession in the evening. Although the soldiers
behaved with as much decorum as possible, it was a sad sight for
Christians to find themselves driven from Calvary on Good Friday
by Turks, and it was the bitterest thing experienced in
Jerusalem.
There is always a company of soldiers on duty when any service of
unusual interest takes place in the church. They are there by
request of the French Consul, who is the representative of the
European protector of the Holy Land, and are designed to preserve
order and add to the display. Although the church covers a large
area of ground, there are no spaces of great extent; and thus the
presence of men to keep order is necessary. It is recorded with
pleasure that, during a residence of two months in the holy city,
I saw no act of incivility, nor even a rude look, on the part of
the soldiers. The Greeks and Armenians, not to be excelled by
Catholics, ask for the soldiers on occasion of their solemnities;
and thus, the court of the church, and the edifice itself, are
not unfrequently occupied by the military.
In the evening, the patriarch and clergy, with a crowd of laity,
assemble in the church for the great procession which is made but
on this day. The sacred building was filled to its utmost
capacity; but, owing to the perfect arrangements made, the long
service was gone through without the least irregularity or
embarrassment. There were seven sermons on the passion, in as
many different languages, by priests from the nations whose
vernacular they spoke. The office began in the Latin chapel, and
the first sermon, delivered with much fervor and pathos, was in
Italian. When this had been concluded, the procession was formed.
As it moved from one station to the next, verses of the Miserere
were sung. One of the Franciscan brothers, carrying a large
crucifix, led the procession, an acolyte being on either side of
him. At the place of the division of the garments of Christ, the
sermon was in Greek--at that of the mocking, in another Eastern
language. When we had climbed the stairs of Calvary, and were at
the place of crucifixion, the cross was laid on the ground, while
the sermon in German was preached. Then the crucifix was taken
from this place, where our Lord was once nailed to the wood, and
carried to that where Christ died. The sermon at this place was
in French, and was preached by the leader of the French caravan
of pilgrims, a venerable ecclesiastic. When the discourse was
finished, several priests came to take the body down from the
cross. The crown of thorns was first removed, very slowly, and
with great reverence. The nails were then tenderly drawn from the
hands; and, as each was removed, the arm of the figure, having
joints at the shoulders, was brought down to the side of the
body. The feet were, in like manner, disengaged from the nail; a
sheet passed under the arms, and the body lowered to the altar,
and laid on fine linen.
{81}
Holding the corners of this cloth, four priests slowly carried
the figure down the stairs to the stone of unction, where the
patriarch strewed myrrh over it, and sprinkled rose-water. The
sermon was now preached in Arabic by the Franciscan curate of the
Church of the Nativity, at Bethlehem, and was delivered in a most
energetic manner. Of the seven sermons preached, it was probably
the one understood by the largest number of those present.
Finally, the body was carried to the most holy sepulchre, and
laid in the same place where once reposed the Lamb of God, who
taketh away the sins of the world. Here the sermon was in
Spanish, in compliment to that nation of Catholic renown; and,
when it had been finished, the procession went to the Latin
chapel, whence it had started, and the service of the day was
over.
It will be readily understood that the ceremony of taking down
from the cross, and carrying the image of our Lord to the tomb,
was intended to be a representation of the manner in which the
deposition took place on the day of the earth's redemption. It
was a most powerful sermon, reaching the heart through the sight.
By it we were carried back eighteen hundred years. Standing on
Calvary, we were looking on him whose arms were stretched out on
the cross, as if, in his infinite love, he would embrace all
mankind. We saw him dying that we might live, and dead that we
might be ransomed from the grave. No word was spoken, as good
Father Jucundino came with pincers to remove the crown of thorns,
which he did in such a devout manner, as to make us feel that we
were witnessing the great transaction itself. The power and
impressiveness of the whole ceremony were such as to render the
bystanders awestruck and faint. A scene like this it is
impossible to forget, and neither pencil nor words could produce
a similar result.
On Holy Saturday I prayed a long time in the sepulchre, where our
Lord had lain, as on this day. To be on Calvary on Good Friday,
and in the Tomb on Easter eve, had been the desire of my heart.
With the realization of such a wish, any one should be content;
for he has a privilege granted to but few whose homes are distant
from the Holy Land. In the afternoon, the daily procession was
made with solemnity, the patriarch and many priests and laymen
being present. The pilgrims from Europe were also in the train.
Easter-day was the last of my sojourn in the holy city. Many
priests wished to say Mass in the holy sepulchre, some of whom
had not yet had that privilege. I said Mass on Calvary, for the
last time, that day. During the day the shrines were visited, and
the tomb was now indeed the place of the resurrection.
"_Surrexit, non est hic._" Yes! the grave is empty, and
death hath no more power over him who was once here but is risen
and gone. We see the place where the Lord lay. His day of victory
has come, and the triumph over death and hell is complete. The
tears of the Christian are dried, and the joy of the Paschal time
begins.
--------
{82}
Nellie Netterville;
Or, One Of The Transplanted.
Chapter I.
The stream which divides the county of Dublin from that of Meath
runs part of its course through a pretty, rock-strewn,
furze-blossoming valley, crowned at its western end by the ruins
of a castle, which, in the days of Cromwell, belonged to one of
the great families of the Pale--the English-Irish, as they were
usually called, in order to distinguish them from the Celtic
race, in whose land they had cast their fortunes.
A narrow, winding path leads from the castle to the stream below,
and down this there came, one cold January morning, in the year
of the great Irish "transplantation," a young girl, wrapt in a
hooded mantle of dark cloth, which, strong as it was, seemed
barely sufficient to defend her from the heavy night fogs still
rolling through the valley, hanging rock and bush and
castle-turret in a fantastic drapery of clouds, and then falling
back upon the earth in a mist as persistent, and quite as
drenching, as an actual down-pour of rain could possibly have
proved. Following the course of the zigzag stream, as,
half-hidden in furze and bramble, it made its way eastward to the
sea, a short ten minutes' walk brought her to a low hut, (it
could hardly be called a house,) built against a jutting rock,
which formed, in all probability, the back wall of the tenement.
Here she paused, and after tapping lightly on the door, as a
signal to its inmates, she turned, and throwing back the hood
which had hitherto concealed her features, gazed sadly up and
down the valley. In spite of the fog-mists and the cold, the spot
was indeed lovely enough in itself to deserve an admiring glance,
even from one already familiar with its beauty; but in those dark
eyes, heavy, as it seemed, with unshed tears, there was far less
of admiration than of the longing, wistful gaze of one who felt
she was looking her last upon a scene she loved, and was trying,
therefore, to imprint upon her memory even the minutest of its
features. For a moment she suffered her eyes to wander thus, from
the clear, bright stream flowing rapidly at her feet to the
double line of fantastic, irregularly cut rocks which, crowned
with patches of gorse and fern, shut out the valley from the
world beyond as completely as if it had been meant to form a
separate, kingdom in itself; and then at last, slowly, and as if
by a strong and painful effort of the will, she glanced toward
the spot where the castle stood, with its tall, square towers cut
in sharp and strong relief against the gloomy background of the
sky. A "firm and fearless-looking keep" it was, as the habitation
of one who, come of an invading race, had to hold his own against
all in-comers, had need to be; but while it rose boldly from a
shoulder of out-jutting rock, like the guardian fortress of the
glen, the little village which lay nestled at its foot, the mill
which turned merrily to the music of its bright stream, the
smooth terraces and dark woods immediately around it, the rich
grazing lands, with their herds of cattle, which stretched far
away as the eye could reach beyond, all seemed to indicate that
its owner had been so long settled on the spot as to have learned
at last to look upon it rather as his rightful inheritance than
as a gift of conquest.
{83}
Castled keep and merry mill, trees and cattle and cultivated
fields, the girl seemed to take all in, in that long, mournful
gaze which she cast upon them; but the thoughts and regrets which
they forced upon her, growing in bitterness as she dwelt upon
them, became at last too strong for calm endurance, and throwing
herself down upon her knees upon the cold, damp earth, she
covered her face with both her hands, and burst into a passionate
fit of weeping. Her sobs must have roused up the inmates of the
hut; for almost immediately afterward the door was cautiously
unclosed, and an ancient dame, with a large colored handkerchief
covering her gray hairs, and tied under her chin, even as her
descendants wear it to this hour, peeped out, with an evident
resolve to see as much and be as little seen as possible in
return, by the person who had, at that undue hour, disturbed her
quiet slumbers. The moment, however, she discovered who it was
that was weeping there, all thoughts of selfish fear seemed to
vanish from her mind, and with a wild cry, in which love and
grief and sympathy were mingled, as only an Irish cry can mix
them, she flung her strong, bony arms around the girl, and
exclaimed in Irish, a language with which--we may as well, once
for all remark--the proud lords of the Pale were quite
conversant, using it not only as a medium of communication with
their Irish dependents, but by preference to English, in their
familiar intercourse with each other. For this reason, while we
endeavor to give the old lady's conversation verbatim, as far as
idiom and ideas are concerned, we have ventured to omit all the
mispronunciations and bad grammarisms which, whether on the stage
or in a novel, are rightly or wrongly considered to be the one
thing needed toward the true delineation of the Irish character,
whatever the rank or education of the individual thus put on the
scene may happen to be.
"O my darling, my darling!" cried the old woman, almost lifting
the girl by main force from the ground; "my heart's blood,
a-cushla machree! what are you doing down there upon the damp
grass, (sure it will be the death of you, it will,) with the
morning fog wrapping round you like a curtain? Is there anything
wrong up there at the castle? or what is it all, at all, that
brings you down here before the sun has had time to say
'Good-morrow' to the tree-tops?"
"O Grannie, Grannie!" sobbed the girl, "have you not heard? do
you not know already? It was to say good-by--I could not go
without it. Grannie! I never shall see you again--perhaps
never."
Pity, and love, and sympathy, all beaming a moment before upon
the face of the old hag, changed as instantaneously as if by
magic, into an expression of wild hatred, worthy the features of
a conquered savage.
"It is true, then!" she cried; "it is true what I heard last
night! what I heard--but wouldn't believe, Miss Nellie--if you
were not here to the fore to say it to me yourself! It is true
that they are for robbing the old master of his own; and that
them murdering Cromwellians--my black curse on every mother's son
of them--"
But before she could bring her denunciation to its due
conclusion, the girl had put her hand across her mouth, and, with
terror written on every feature of her face, exclaimed:
{84}
"Hush, Grannie, hush? For Christ and his sweet Mother's sake,
keep quiet! Remember such words have cost many an honest man his
life ere now, and God alone can tell who may or may not be within
hearing at this moment."
She caught the old woman by the arm as she spoke, dragging rather
than leading her into the interior of the cottage. Once there,
however, and with the door carefully closed behind her, she made
no scruple of yielding to the anguish which old Grannie's
lamentations had rather sharpened than allayed, and sitting down
upon a low settle, suffered her tears to flow in silence. Grannie
squatted herself down on the ground at her feet, and swaying her
body backward and forward after the fashion of her people, broke
out once more into vociferous lamentations over the fallen
fortunes of her darling.
"Ochone! ochone! that the young May morning of my darling's life
(which ought to be as bright as God's dear skies above us) should
be clouded over this way like a black November's! Woe is me! woe
is me! that I should have lived to see the day when the old stock
is to be rooted out as if it was a worthless weed for the sake of
a set of beggarly rapscallions, who have only come to Ireland,
may be, because their own land (my heavy curse on it, for the
heavy hand it has ever and always laid on us!) wasn't big enough
to hold their wickedness."
It was in perfect unconsciousness and good faith that old Grannie
thus spoke of Nellie and her family as of the old stock of the
country--a favorite expression to this day among people of her
class in Ireland.
The English descendants of Ireland's first invaders had, in fact,
as years rolled by, and even while proudly asserting their own
claims as Englishmen, so thoroughly identified themselves both by
intermarriages and the adoption of language, dress, and manners
with the Celtic natives of the soil that the latter, ever ready,
too ready for their own interest perhaps, to be won by kindness,
had ended by transferring to them the clannish feeling once given
to their own rulers, and fought in the days we speak of under the
standard of a De Burgh or a Fitzgerald as heartily and bitterly
against Cromwell's soldiers as if an O'Neil or a MacMurrough had
led them to the combat. To Nellie Netterville, therefore, the
sympathy and indignation of old Grannie seemed quite as much a
matter of course as if the blue blood coursing through her veins
had been derived from a Celtic chieftain instead of from an old
Norman baron of the days of King Henry. Nellie was, moreover,
connected with the old woman by a tie which in those days was as
strong, and even stronger, than that of race; for the English of
the Pale had adopted in its most comprehensive sense the Irish
system of fosterage, and Grannie having acted as foster-mother to
Nellie's father, was, to all intents and purposes, as devoted to
the person of his daughter as if she had been in very deed a
grandchild of her own.
But natural as such sympathy might have seemed, and soothing as
no doubt it was to her wounded feelings, it was yet clothed in
such dangerous language that it had an effect upon Nellie the
very opposite of that which, under any other circumstances, it
might have been expected to produce. It recalled her to the
necessity of self-possession, and conscious that she must command
her own feelings if she hoped to control those of her
warm-hearted dependent, she deliberately wiped the tears from her
eyes, and rose from the settle on which she had flung herself
only a few minutes before, in an uncontrolled agony of grief.
{85}
When she felt that she had thoroughly mastered her own emotion,
she drew old Grannie toward her, made her sit down on the stool
she herself had just vacated, and kneeling down beside her, said
in a tone of command which contrasted, oddly yet prettily enough,
with the child-like attitude assumed for the purpose of giving
it:
"You must not say such things. Grannie. I forbid it! Now and for
ever I forbid it! You must not say such things. They can neither
help us nor save us sorrow, and they might cost your life, old
woman, if any evil-designing person heard them."
"My life! my life!" cried old Grannie passionately. "And tell me,
acushla, what is the value of my life to me, if all that made it
pleasant to my heart is to be taken from me? Haven't I seen your
father, whom I nursed at this breast until (God pardon me!) I
loved him as well or better than them that were sent to me for my
own portion? haven't I seen him brought back here for a bloody
burial in the very flower of his days? and didn't I lead the
keening over him at the self-same moment that I knew my own poor
boy was laying stiff and stark on the battle-field, where he had
fallen (as well became him) in the defence of his own master? And
now you come and tell me that you--you who are all that is left
me in the wide world; you who have been the very pulse of my
heart ever since you were in the cradle--that you and the old
lord are to be driven out of your own kingdom, and sent, God only
knows where, into banishment--(him an old man of seventy, and you
a slip of a girl that was only yesterday, so to speak, in your
nurse's arms)--and you would have me keep quiet, would you? You'd
have me belie the thought of my heart with a smiling face? and
all for the sake of a little longer life, forsooth! Troth,
a-lannah, I have had a good taste of that same life already, and
it's not so sweet I found it, that I would go as far as the river
to fetch another sup of it. Not so sweet--not so sweet," moaned
the old woman, rocking herself backward and forward in time to
the inflection of her voice, "not so sweet for the lone widow
woman, with barely a roof above her head, and not a chick or
child (when you are out of it) for comfort or for coaxing!"
Grannie had poured forth this harangue with all the eloquent
volubility of her Irish heart and tongue, and though Nellie had
made more than one effort for the purpose, she had hitherto found
it quite impossible to check her. Want of breath, however,
silenced her at last, and then her foster-child took advantage of
the lull in the storm to say:
"Dear old Grannie, do not talk so sadly. I will love and think of
you every day, even in that far-off west to which we are exiled.
And I forgot to say, moreover, that my dear mother is to remain
here for some months longer, and will be ready (as she ever is)
to give help and comfort to all that need it, and to you, of
course, dear Grannie, more than to all the rest--you whom she
looks, upon almost as the mother of her dead husband."
"Ready to give help? Ay, that in troth she is," quoth Grannie,
"God bless her for a sweet and gentle soul, that never did aught
but what was good and kind to any one ever since she came among
us, and that will be eighteen years come Christmas twelvemonth.
Ochone! but them were merry times, a-lannah! long before you were
born or thought of.
{86}
God pity you that you have burst into blossom in such weary days
as these are!"
"Merry times? I suppose they were," said Nellie good-naturedly,
trying to lead poor Grannie's thoughts back to the good old times
when she was young and happy. "Tell me about it now, dear
Grannie, (my mother's coming home, I mean,) that I may amuse
myself by thinking it all over again, when I am far away in the
lone west, and no good old Grannie to go and have a gossip with
when I am tired of my own company."
"Why, you see, Miss Nellie, and you mustn't be offended if I say
it," said Grannie, eagerly seizing on this new turn given to her
ideas; "we weren't too well pleased at first to hear that the
young master was to be wedded in foreign parts, and some of us
were even bold enough to ask if there weren't girls fair enough,
ay, and good enough too, for that matter, for him in Ireland,
that he must needs bring a Saxon to reign over us! However, when
the old lord up yonder at the castle, came down and told us how
she had sent him word, that for all she had the misfortune to be
English born, she meant, once she was married in Ireland, to be
more Irish than the Irish themselves, then, I promise you, every
vein in our hearts warmed toward her; and on the day of her
coming home, there wasn't, if you'll believe me, a man, woman, or
child, within ten miles of Netterville, who didn't go out to meet
her, until, what with the shouting and the hustling, she began to
think, (the creature,) as she has often told me since, that it
was going to massacre her, may be, that we were; for sure, until
the day she first saw the young master, it was nothing but tales
upon tales she had heard of how the wild Irish were worse than
the savages themselves, and how murder and robbery were as common
and as little thought of with us as daisies in the springtime.
Any way, if she thought that for a moment, she didn't think it
long; for when she faced round upon us at the castle-gates,
standing between her husband and her father-in-law, (the old lord
himself,) we gave her a cheer that might have been heard from
this to Tredagh, if the wind had set that way; and though she
didn't then understand the '_Cead-mille-failthe_ to your
ladyship!' that we were shouting in our Irish, she was cute
enough, at all events, to guess by our eyes and faces what our
tongues were saying. And that wasn't all," continued Grannie,
growing more and more garrulous as she warmed to her theme; "that
wasn't all neither; for when the people were so tired they could
shout no more, and quiet was restored, she whispered something to
the young master; and what do you think he did, my dear, but led
her right down to the place where me and my son (his own
foster-brother, that's gone, God rest him!) were standing in the
crowd, and she put out her pretty white hand and said, (it was
the first and last time that ever I liked the sound of the
English,) 'It is you, then, that was my husband's foster-mother,
isn't it?' And says I, in her own tongue, for I had picked up
English enough at the castle for that, 'Please your ladyship, I
am, and this is the boy,' says I, pulling my own boy forward--for
he was shy like, and had stepped a little backward when she came
near--'this is the boy that slept with Master Gerald' (that was
the master, you know, honey) 'on my breast.'"
{87}
"'Well, then,' said she, giving one hand to me and the other to
my boy, 'remember it is with my foster-brother I mean to lead out
the dancing to-night;' and troth, my pet, she was as good as her
word, and not a soul would she dance with, for all the fine lords
and gentlemen who had come to the wedding, until she had footed
it for a good half-hour at least with my Andie, Ah! them were
times indeed, my jewel," the old crone querulously wound up her
chronicle by saying. "And to think that I should have lived to
see the day when the young master's father and the master's child
are to be hunted out of their own by a Cromwellian upstart with
his 'buddagh Sassenachs,' (Saxon clowns,) like so many
bloodhounds at his heels, to ride over us roughshod."
So far the young girl had "seriously inclined her ear" to listen,
partly to soothe old Grannie's grief by suffering it to flow
over, and partly, perhaps, because her own mind, exhausted by
present sufferings, found some unconscious relief in letting
itself be carried back to those bright days when the sun of
worldly prosperity still lighted up her home. The instant,
however, that the old woman began, with all the ferocity of a
half-tamed nature, to pour out denunciations on the foes who had
wrought her ruin, she checked the dangerous indulgence of her
feelings by saying:
"Hush, dear Grannie, and listen to me. My mother is to stay here
until May, (so much grace they have seen fit to do us,) in order
that she may collect our stock and gather such of our people
together as may choose to follow us into exile."
"Then, may be, she'll take me," cried old Grannie suddenly, her
withered face lightening up into an expression of hope and joy
that was touching to behold. "May be she'll take me, a-lannah!"
Nellie Netterville eyed Grannie wistfully. Nothing, in fact,
would she have better liked than to have taken that old relic of
happier days with her to her exile; but old, decrepid, bowed down
by grief as well as years, as Grannie was, it would have been
folly, even more than cruelty, to have suffered her to offer
herself for Connaught transplantation. It would have been,
however, but a thankless office to have explained this in as many
words; so Nellie only said: "When the time comes, dear old woman,
when the time comes, it will be soon enough to talk about it
then--that is to say, if you are still able and willing for the
venture."
"Willing enough at all events, God knows," said Grannie
earnestly. "But why not go at once with you, my darling? The
mistress _is the mistress_ surely; but blood is thicker than
water, and aren't you the child of the man that I suckled on this
bosom? Why not go at once with you?"
"I think it is too late in the year for you--too cold--too
wretched; and besides, we are only to take one servant with us,
and of course it must be a man," said Nellie, not even feeling a
temptation to smile at the blind zeal which prompted Grannie to
offer herself, with her sixty years and her rheumatic limbs, to
the unprofitable post of bower-maiden in the wilderness. "It
would not do to alter our arrangements now," she continued
gently; "but when spring comes, we will see what can be done; and
in the mean time, you must go as often as you can to the castle,
to cheer my dear mother with a little chat. Promise me that you
will, dear Grannie, for she will be sad enough and lonely enough,
I promise you, this poor mother, and nothing will help her so
much in her desolation as to talk with you of those dear absent
ones, who well she knows are almost as precious to you as they
can be to herself. And now I must begone--I must indeed!
{88}
I could not go in peace without seeing you once more, and so I
stole out while all the rest of the world were sleeping; but now
the sun is high in the heavens, and they will be looking for me
at the castle. Good-by, dear Grannie, good-by!"
Sobbing as if her heart would break, Nellie flung her arms round
the old woman's neck; but Grannie, with a wild cry of mingled
grief and love, slipt through her embraces and flung herself at
her feet. Nellie raised her gently, placed her once more upon the
settle, and not daring to trust herself to another word, walked
straight out of the cottage, and closed the door behind her.