Chapter XII.

"Indeed, Lotis, you must give me more hope than that; you must

not bid me despair."

The words were spoken somewhat louder than was intended. They

were heard by one who was passing by. The speaker was Magas; the

passer-by was Chione. Magas was lamenting over the account he had

heard of Chione's continued resistance to grace. Chione applied

to the words another meaning; she ascribed them to a passion felt

for Lotis, and her heart burned with rage and jealousy.

"Magas was then returned to Athens. What was he doing?" She set

spies on his steps. He was often at the bishop's house, often in

the Christian assembly; but also often had interviews with Lotis.

This fact, which might have been easily explained by the

occupation of Lotis, who supplied copies of books, and kept

various accounts for the church, was otherwise interpreted by the

misled woman, and she resolved on the destruction of Lotis.

{263}

If she could not regain the love of Magas, at least she would not

have a rival. She had influence in the city. Nero's persecution,

though but little felt in the colonies, could be brought to bear.

Lotis should not live to triumph over her by a Christian

marriage. The idea was insupportable.

Up to this point, Chione had kept herself unfettered from human

ties since Magas had departed. She had loved Magas, and though

many had made her offers of marriage, she could not resolve to

accept them. Magas was alike elegant and profound. Who was worthy

to succeed him? Athenian after Athenian paid court to her; gay,

witty, and attractive to all, Chione accepted none. This was a

matter of great wonder in so licentious a city as Athens.

But a greater wonder still was to ensue. A new Roman praetor

arrived. A rude barbarian he seemed to the fashionables of

Athens: certainly he was not distinguished for refinement, for

learning, or for elegance; but it was soon observed that Chione

held him enthralled, and, what was more remarkable, that she

seemed to favor him.

How it happened, people could hardly tell, but a different spirit

seemed animating Athens. The Christians, from being despised were

becoming feared, and at length hated. When Nero's edict had been

first made known, it made little impression; but gradually a

voice was found, to proclaim that there were Christians in Athens

practising magic to the detriment of all good citizens.

A few poor slaves were seized and brought before the praetor;

they were ruthlessly condemned on acknowledging themselves

Christians. People were startled, but poor slaves have few

friends, and the matter blew over. Suddenly the praetor grows

more religious, decrees foreign to the usual spirit of Athenian

government are enacted; a test is instituted, and several free

citizens of Athens have to abide the scrutiny; executions follow,

and Chione's reputation suffers, for it is currently reported

that it is she who instigates the inquiry and persecutes the new

sect.

The Roman praetor evidently takes counsel of her. But there comes

one concerning whom even he hesitates; a young lady, daughter of

a philosopher, one beloved for her private virtues, is brought

before the judge. "Sacrifice to the genius of the emperor." "I

cannot." "Why not?" "I am a Christian." How often have the words

been repeated; they are so simple, yet so fraught with

consequence; how many perished under that simple interrogatory!

Lotis undergoes it; she is remanded; the praetor seeks to release

her; he is sick of his office when it hits upon the young, the

innocent, the lovely; the outside interests him, he cannot see

the soul. Faith, ever young, has sustained many an aged slave,

wrinkled with age; has adorned many a worker embrowned and

toil-worn, bearing marks on his frame that his life has not been

spent in uselessness; but these excited only a passing interest,

if any--they were common people (would that the toiling saints

were more common!) they went to their doom, by fire or by the

headsman, unmarked by men and unpitied, though Heaven assumed

their souls with hymns of joy, dressed them in white garments,

crowned them with brilliants, endowed them with perpetual youth

and with beauty that never will fade. But here comes a lady. The

praetor understands that she has slaves to wait upon her, every

luxury attends her; she may lead a life of indolence, if she

pleases. These are the exterior signs, the signs that awaken

commiseration. The praetor hesitates.

{264}

Chione does not hesitate. The prisoner is not only a Christian,

she is a member of a conspiracy just laid open to Chione's

apprehension. She has lived in the city longer than the praetor,

she knows its dangers. This Lotis is a dangerous person, she is a

personal enemy to Chione; she must die; nay, Chione names the

manner of her death; she is to die by fire. The praetor,

infatuated by his passion for the guilty woman who prescribes to

him the sentence he is to pronounce, submits, gently hinting that

he looks for his reward. "Reward!" says Chione to herself, "is

not a smile from me reward enough for a barbarian like him?" And

in her egotism, she really believes she is speaking the simple

truth.

The sentence is pronounced; horror seizes the city; to-morrow the

flames are to consume the conspirators, who are many in number;

and Lotis is among them; there is no escape.

The ancient bishop contrives, however, to visit his condemned

flock, bearing consolation, courage, and, above all, the blessed

sacrament, with him. To each and all he addressed himself

according to their needs; if he, too, staid a little longer with

Lotis than with the others, it arose out of a previous

conversation, and because he wished to promote a holy work.

"My daughter, do you know who has stirred up this accusation

against you?"

"I rather guess than know it, father. What have I done to draw

down Chione's hatred?"

"She is jealous of Magas in your regard. She cannot appreciate

the depth of Christian devotedness; she can understand selfish

aims alone."

"Poor Chione!"

"Do you, from your heart, forgive her?"

"I have not thought about forgiveness; I pity her too much."

"Do you remember the conversation we had years ago?"

"About laying down my life for her? Father, I do."

"Are you willing to do so now?"

"If I thought it would save her soul, I am more than willing."

"Pray for her, then, my daughter."

......

'Twas a wild shriek that rang through the streets that morning,

as Magas arrived just in time to see the procession set forth, to

recognize Lotis, to hear Chione's name as the one who had

procured her condemnation. "Stop, stop!" he had cried to the

Roman soldiery; "stop! It is all a mistake; stop! In a few

minutes it will be rectified. Stop for a short time, in the name

of all that is holy!" Had Magas donned his patrician's dress and

scattered largess, as in times of yore, his words would have been

heeded; a few minutes would have been granted. Even now, his air,

his manner, his authoritative gestures occasioned a slight pause;

but his weather-stained appearance caused him to be considered as

a plebeian, and the pause was not long. He flew rather than ran

to Chione's abode. "Come," said he, "it seems you are omnipotent

in Athens; come and prevent a murder." He dragged her with him to

the praetor's house, but the great man was absent. A bright flame

lit up the sky! "My God, if we are too late!" he cried. Almost

carrying Chione in his arms, Magas hurried through the streets,

till they came to a place set apart for the execution. It was

already commenced; singing hymns of glory to God, one soul after

another departed homeward. Magas paused opposite to Lotis; she

made a sign of recognition. Magas turned to Chione. "Are you a

devil," he shrieked, "that you have dared to do this?" "Forgive

her, Magas, as I forgive her," said the dying Lotis. "Farewell,

Chione! Friends we were in youth, and we shall yet meet in

heaven." Lotis was gone.

{265}

"Meet in heaven! meet in heaven! meet in heaven! I and Lotis meet

in heaven! meet in heaven! Magas, tell me, Magas, can it be?"

The brain of Magas was on fire with excitement, and he held a

murderess in his arms; but he was a Christian priest, and he

answered solemnly:

"God is merciful; Christ died for sinners. Do penance; it may be

yet."

Conclusion.

Very many years have passed away, and if the dignity of person is

considered, a more solemn martyrdom than the last we have

commemorated is to take place. The venerable bishop and his

companions, some priests, some laymen, are to lay their heads

upon the block--among them Magas. A woman veiled, bearing but few

remains of beauty or of youth, was also there; but not a

prisoner; she was there to kneel at the bishop's feet, to pray

for his blessing. That morning, for the first time for long, long

years, had that woman knelt within a Christian church--had

received the adorable sacrament of the body and blood of our

Lord, after years of penance heroically, _lovingly_

performed at the entrance to the building. That morning she had

been absolved, that morning communicated. Ere he went to his home

in heaven, the venerable bishop, who had sustained the fainting

and often faltering soul through so many years of expiation, had

thought fit to pronounce her purified, to command that she should

again take her place among the faithful. She came to thank him;

to accompany him--him and Magas! Consoled, the procession moved

along. Chione--such was the name of the penitent--knelt as the

victims knelt. The bishop, ere he surrendered himself, gave his

blessing to all the assembly. Magas preceded him to the block.

When the axe fell, the woman fell also. Magas and Chione stood

together before the judgment-seat of God.

-------

Translated From Le Correspondant.

Abyssinia And King Theodore.

By Antoine D'Abbadie.

A Spanish bull having accidentally strayed on a railroad, which

spoiled the beauty of his beloved country, met a locomotive. The

king of the pasture-lands, fired with anger at the violation of

his right, and listening only to the voice of his courage,

lowered his head and butted with his horns so accustomed to

victory against the mail-clad invader of his verdant fields. This

battle is an image of that which is going to take place between

England and Theodore, King of the Kings of Ethiopia. It is plain

that it is not Theodore who represents the locomotive.

{266}

Before explaining the true motives of the costly English

expedition to Abyssinia, it may be well to look at the physical

and moral condition of the country which is to be the scene of

conflict, and where I passed more than ten years of my youth.

The whole extent of territory from Suez and Aquabah to the Strait

of Mandeb, or _affliction_, along the shores of the Red Sea,

is barren and desolate. The small, scattered towns in this region

owe their existence to commercial travelling; and even in the

most favored portions of the land it takes a two or three days'

journey from the salt water into the interior, before meeting

cultivated fields.

The only deep bay in the south of the Red Sea is that of Adulis,

which the natives designate by the "Gulf of Velvet," perhaps on

account of the smoothness of its waters, sheltered by the

palisades which guard it on the eastern side. The English, who

are fond of baptizing territories before conquering them, have

called this part of the sea, "The bay of Annesley." This name is

said to be that of the family of Lord Valentia, who, little

versed in geography, imagined that he had discovered in 1809

those celebrated districts anciently frequented by Egyptian

merchants in the time of the Ptolemies. The island of Desa,

formed by a row of schistous hills, shelters the entrance to the

bay of Adulis, which we call by this name in memory of that

flourishing city of Adulis, which stood by its waves up to the

sixth century of our era. The natives still show the site of that

Grecian city, and inform the traveller that it was swallowed up

by an earthquake. Of its past greatness, there remain but a small

number of carved capitals in the lava of the environs, and some

sculptured marbles which seem to display the Byzantine style.

Near these ruins is the large village of Zullah, which contained,

in 1840, two hundred and fourteen cabins, and a population of

about one thousand souls. It is from Zullah that the shortest

route lies to the plains and highlands of Ethiopia, or, as the

English call it, Abyssinia.

Except during January and February, when the weather is still

warm, Zullah suffers from the frightful heat which pervades the

whole of that stretch of low land called Samhar, which lies along

the sea. Wishing to take a bath during the summer, I could not,

by reason of the seeming excessive coldness of the water. But

placing a thermometer in it, I found the temperature 36 degrees,

while in the shade the air was at 48 degrees. I found it at 65

degrees in the between-decks of a French steamer; and when

evening brings a refreshing breeze to cool this burning

atmosphere, one is tempted to say with a Frenchman after having

escaped during the bloody "reign of terror:" "I have done a great

deal, for I have managed to live."

Travellers at this season start at midnight, and traverse, on

their way into Ethiopia, a plain as barren as desolation itself.

Sometimes they encounter the _Karif_, an atmospheric column

of a red brick color, which appears on the horizon like a living

phantom. This column seems to increase in volume as it

approaches, the air that drives it along roaring like a

whirlwind. Man and beast are obliged to turn their backs to it,

and it covers them with a dry, black cloud, as with a mantle of

horror. In a few minutes the _Karif_ passes away; and men

are glad to be out of its hideous gloom, even though it be but to

wander again through that intense but quiet heat which broods

over the Samhar. Sometimes, also, the _Harur_, which the

Arabs call the _Simoom_ or _paison_, surprises the

traveller.

{267}

This wind comes without any previous sign of warning, belching

out burning death like a furnace. The patient camel then puts his

head on the ground, rejoiced to find relief even in the relative

freshness of the scorching earth; the strongest of the natives

succumb; and such is the sudden and complete prostration of human

strength during the simoom, that in the open country I have been

unable to hold up a small thermometer, to learn at least the

temperature of this strange wind, which science has as yet failed

to explain. This Harur lasted five minutes. They say that men and

beasts die if it lasts a quarter of an hour.

After crossing those desert plains, the traveller finds the

country gradually assume an undulating character. A stream is

met. Mountains rise up before him, and deep, verdant valleys

extend among them.

I often visited those valleys with, the vain hope of seeing a

phenomenon very rare in Europe. During the summer season caravans

repose or march in perfect safety under a serene sky, when

suddenly the practised ear of a native hears a strange noise in

the distance, rapidly increasing in loudness. He cries out, "The

torrent!" and climbs breathlessly up the nearest height. In less

than half a minute after, the whole valley disappears under a

broad and deep stream, which carries with it trees, pieces of

rock, and even wild beasts. Rising in an instant, those torrents

vanish in a day, and leave no trace of their passage, save ruins

of all sorts, and pools of stagnant water in the indentations of

the soil. The general nakedness of the mountains explains these

strange phenomena. From the bottom of the funnel in which the

traveller stands when he is in one of those valleys, he cannot

see the small clouds which let fall their liquid burdens with an

abundance unknown out of the tropical climates. There is very

little loam, and still less of roots of trees to absorb this

sudden rain; so that it rolls from rock to rock, as on a roof,

rushes through every little valley, and mingles in one common

river, as frightful as it is transitory. One day, as I arrived

just too late to behold it in all its grandeur, I found a

solitary individual, who, with a stupefied look, regarded the

still humid earth. "God save you," said I, "what news have you?

Where are your arms? Can a man like you remain without lance or

buckler?" "May you live long and well!" he replied. "The torrent

has carried away my lance, my buckler, my ass, my camel, and my

whole substance, my wife and my children. Woe is me! Woe is me!"

I then turned to my guide and asked him: "Does thy brother speak

truly?" "Doubtless," answered he, "and if the torrent came at

this moment, unless we were warned of its approach by the small

noise of which I have spoken, it is not the most swift-footed,

but the most lucky, who would be saved." Then turning toward the

son of his tribe--"May God console thee, my brother!" We all

repeated this pious wish, and continued our route, without being

able to give anything to this wretched man, for we had neither

victuals nor money; and from the summit of the neighboring hills

we could hear him repeating for a long time, "Woe is me! Woe is

me!"

For more than two centuries the civilization and native wealth of

Ethiopia have been concentrated around Lake Tana. Just on its

shores stands Quarata, the largest city of oriental Africa--proud

of its sanctuary and its twelve thousand inhabitants. A little

further on is Aringo, the Versailles of the dusky kings.

{268}

Near it is Dabra Tabor, the capital, or rather the camp of the

last chiefs, as well as of the actual sovereign; and finally, on

a spur of mountain which projects to the south, appears

Gondar--the famous Gondar, which I have seen, still powerful,

although reduced to eight thousand inhabitants, only a fourth of

its former population. Of all the faults of King Theodore, that

which the Ethiopians will be least ready to forgive is his having

systematically burned the city of Gondar. Of seventeen churches,

only two have escaped this cool and useless cruelty of the

despot.

The Ethiopians are a people of very mixed origin. Languages,

institutions, usages, and prejudices, even the shades of color

and the formations of the human body, are placed in strange

juxtaposition with one another. Except the Somal, who afford

instances of tall stature, the Ethiopians are of medium height,

have thick lips, white and well-formed teeth, and are of slender

frame. Their hair is curly; but straight hair, though rare, is

sometimes seen. The Semites have often the aquiline nose of the

Europeans. As to the color of the skin, all degrees, from the

copper color of the Neapolitan to the jet black of the negro, are

found. This latter color is often allied to European features.

There is an unconscious and natural grace in all the movements

and actions of the Ethiopians. Our sculptors might study their

gestures and drapery with profit.

On the coast, to the north of Zullah, live the Tigre, whose

language, traditions, and customs entitle them to be considered

among the descendants of Sem, like the Hebrews and Arabs. The

same must be said of the Tigray, who inhabit the neighboring

plateau, and speak a kindred idiom to that of the Tigre. The

Amaras, more lively, more intelligent, and more civilized, live

in the interior, and use a language of Semitic origin, yet

modified by associations with the sons of Cham. This is the

language used by most European travellers, for it is commonly

employed by the merchant, by the learned, and in diplomacy. The

Giiz, or Ethiopian, closely connected with the Tigre, is the dead

language, the Latin of those distant countries. It is used in

quotations, in philosophical and religious discussions, and

sometimes to conceal the sense of a conversation from the vulgar.

From Tujurrah to the environs of Zullah, a common language,

entirely different from those which we have mentioned, unites all

the fractions of the Afar nation, often called Dankalis, but

improperly, for the Dankalas, the Adali, etc., are only tribes of

the Afar. The Sahos, who are the most numerous among the

inhabitants of Zullah, and extend along all the slopes of the

neighboring plain, consider themselves as strangers to the Afar,

and speak a distinct but affiliated dialect. Another idiom much

more important by the number of the nations who use it, has also

the same origin as the Afar tongue. We mean the Ylmorma used by

the Oromos, whose name in war is Gallei or Galla, and who, by

reason of their conquests, have extended their sway from the Afar

country as far as to the still unknown regions of interior

Africa. Called Gallas by all the Christians of Ethiopia, the

Oromos threaten, by their proximity, the stronghold of Magdala,

where the English prisoners have been awaiting for four years the

arrival of their avenging countrymen.

A serious calculation of the population of any African nation has

never been made. As to the centres of population, a fatigued and

disgusted traveller, looking at them from a distance and but for

a moment, might state the census of such or such a city to be ten

thousand souls.

{269}

An optimist, on the contrary, might gravely affirm that at least

thirty thousand should be admitted as the correct number. It is,

in fact, almost impossible to form a proper estimate of the

population of Ethiopia. Considering its extent of territory, I

should say there are three or four millions in it, though if some

other traveller were to maintain that it contains six or eight

millions I could not refute his opinion, owing to the fact that I

do not know the proportion between the inhabited and the desert

portions of the country.

II.

The Jews were formerly numerous in Abyssinia. There are not

eighty thousand of them left now, and they are gradually

disappearing under the influence of the powerful civilization of

the Amara.

The origin of the Ethiopian Jews probably dates from the time of

the prophet Jeremias, when commerce was carried on between

Alexandria and Aksum. At a later period, similar facilities

brought to Ethiopia the first Christian missionaries. This

happened in the beginning of the fourth century, when the

inhabitants of Gaul, or France, were still plunged in the

darkness of paganism. The truth, however, progressed slowly in

Abyssinia; for the local Judaism, though notably separated from

that of the Hebrews, preserved its political power during five or

six hundred years, notwithstanding the wonderful efforts of

native missionaries, whose feasts and martyrdoms are still

celebrated in the country. Even up to the 14th century there were

pagans in it; and there are, very probably, some there still.

After the Mussulman invasion of the fifteenth century, Islamism

filtered through Egyptian society. The Christianity of the

country became corrupt, and we can liken it to nothing better now

than to those lepers who abound in this part of Africa, whose

bodies are at first attacked in their extremities, and fall away

piecemeal. In the same way, her Christianity perished on the

frontiers of Ethiopia. Twenty years before our arrival among the

Tigre, they were Christians, or rather they lived in the

recollection of their faith; but without baptism or sacrifice,

and guided in their prayers by the descendants of their last

priests. They became Mussulmans under our eyes, with the

exception of their principal chief, who said, with a touching and

proud respect for ancient usages, that "a king ought to die in

the faith of his fathers." One becomes irritated on reflecting

that two or three fervent missionaries could have, at the

beginning of this century, rolled back the tide of advancing

Mohammedanism, by evangelizing or rather reviving that ancient

Christianity whose history goes back as far as St. Athanasius,

and which we have seen expire after ages of agony.

If we study Christianity in the centre of Ethiopia, we find a

somewhat confused schism, but of all schisms the one least

removed from Catholic orthodoxy. The only dogmatic points which

we regret in this schism are the _one_ procession of the

Holy Ghost, which has been condemned among us only at a late

period, and the belief in only _one_ nature in Jesus Christ,

which is publicly professed by the African schools. But the term

in the Abyssinian vernacular which we translate by _nature_,

has such a vague and obscure signification that, if the word

could be destroyed, the schism would no longer exist.

{270}

It must be remembered that the Ethiopians do not understand the

art of defining; and when I restricted this ambiguous term

according to our method, they understood the dogma exactly as we,

and congratulated themselves on being, without knowing it,

attached to the same faith as Rome, that seat of St. Peter which

always commands their respect.

What particularly distinguish their Christianity from ours, are

vicious or irregular practices. Like many of the Eastern

Christians, they allow the marriage of the clergy; but in the

abbeys, where there are professors, they allow no priest to say

Mass who is not a celibatarian by vow. "Among you," said an

Ethiopian who had visited Europe, "the important practice is to

go to church." "And among you," I answered, "the one thing

necessary is to prolong your fastings." One is tempted to say

that the active people of the West, and the slow and

repose-loving nations of the East, have made the principal merit

of a Christian to consist in _those pious exercises which cost

the least trouble_.

It is impossible to leave this subject without saying a word

about the Dabtara, or secular clerics. They were organized by a

king who found himself, like many of his royal brethren in

Europe, very much embarrassed by those mixed questions, in which

the spiritual power seems to invade the domain of the temporal.

To keep the balance, between them, he created an intermediary

body, called the Dabtara. This order is filled from all classes

of society; and it possesses the usufruct of all the churches. It

alone takes charge of the temporal affairs of the church, and

frequently its members act as parish priests, which is a purely

temporal office in Abyssinia. The Dabtara hire by the month,

rebuke or dismiss the priest who says Mass. Their essential

function consists in singing in choir. This duty requires a

certain education. In Europe the music of our church hymns may be

changed, the words remaining unaltered. The contrary is the case

among the Ethiopians. Their music is traditional and sacramental,

and in every well-ordered church, the rhymed words of every hymn

are specially composed for every festival. The twelve Dabtara of

every church display their piety, wisdom, and especially their

wit in these productions. They use hymns learnedly ambiguous, to

criticise the bishop, to give a lesson to the head of the monks,

and even political hints to the sovereign. By recalling an act of

some personage of the Old Testament, they find occasion to

criticise the government of the city, to praise some Maecenas who

is expected to be present at the service, or even, if necessary,

to satisfy a personal grudge. When a Dabtara advances into the

choir to whisper into the ear of the principal chanter the hymn

which has just been written by the Dabtara, and which the singer

must know by heart, the other Dabtaras surround the composer,

examine the sense of the rhyme, and no matter what may be the

result of their investigation, they always congratulate the happy

author. Sometimes it is discovered that the hymn has not been

made by a member of the order, but by some young candidate in

distress, who, for a measure of meal, often sells to the wealthy

the fresh inspirations of his genius.

After the teacher of plain-chant, the most important professor is

he who teaches grammar, the roots of the sacred language, its

dictionary, and particularly the art of composing

hymns.

{271}

After the lesson, the pupils spread over the lawn before the

church, repeat the precepts just heard from their professor, and

essay to make rhymes or compose hymns, which they afterward

recite to him in order to obtain the benefit of his criticism. As

in our middle ages, these scholars ask alms and live in misery;

often they are the only servants of their preceptors. Lively and

frolicsome, like our collegians, they play many tricks on their

fellow-students, but never on their teacher, whom they love and

almost worship. Having once chanced at Gondar to describe how my

college-fellows in France had eaten the dinner of their

professor, and left a sermon on fasting and patience on his

plate, I was met with such a torrent of invective, that I never

ventured on a repetition of the scandal.

In Abyssinia, education is essentially public and gratuitous. As

all explanations must be made in the vernacular, which I spoke

but poorly in the beginning, I was obliged to have recourse to a

private tutor, and when I wished to recompense him for his

trouble, I was answered that science should not be sold like any

other vile merchandise, and that the honor of the teaching body

required knowledge to be transmitted gratuitously, just as it had

been acquired. The Ethiopian students are generally very

diligent. If they play truant, their parents bring them into the

church where the school is being held, and tie their feet

together with an iron chain. Sometimes this disciplinary measure

is ordered by the professor, and pupils are often seen who,

distrusting themselves, ask for those chains, which are not

considered symbols of dishonor. They are rarely worn by the

higher scholars.

The university course of the Ethiopians is composed of four

branches, which might be compared to the four faculties of our

own. A fifth branch, devoted to astronomy and replete with

traditional ideas, has not been cultivated for some time past. I

knew the last professor of this science, who had only one pupil.

The other classes are occupied with the study of the New

Testament, the fathers of the church, civil and canon law, and

the Old Testament. This last requires an effort of memory of

which few Europeans are capable; for I have never heard but of

one man in the West who knew the whole Bible by heart. No one can

be a teacher in Ethiopia without knowing by heart the text of the

book he is to explain, the variations of four or five

manuscripts, and especially the ingenious commentary, sometimes

even learned, but always traditional and purely oral, on the

text. The degree of bachelor is unknown in that country; that of

doctor is given to the student who is chosen by his professor as

capable of explaining in the evening to his comrades the lessons

given in class in the morning. In the case of a doubt of his

capacity, the teacher is consulted, and his affirmation is

considered a sufficient diploma. Great attention and much

perseverance are required to make this system of unmethodical

education profitable. An aged professor informed me that he had

learned to read in three years. He spent two years afterward in

learning the liturgical chant, and five years in studying grammar

and in composing hymns. He learned how to comment on the New

Testament in seven years; and spent fifteen years on the Old

Testament, for the strain on his memory was very great.

I have dwelt somewhat on the Ethiopian colleges because M. Blanc,

one of the English prisoners of Magdala, says expressly in his

narration: "The Abyssinians have no literature; their

Christianity is only a name; their conversational power is very

limited."

{272}

To this testimony, altogether negative, I oppose the statement

first made, and which I could prove and extend farther. I will

merely add that in Gojjam, as well as at Gondar and elsewhere, I

have held disputes with native. Christians, on religious,

philosophical, and other scientific subjects, and found them as

well informed as if they had been brought up in Paris or at

London.

With rare exceptions, the regular clergy alone has preserved its

virtues and its _prestige_. The secular priests have lost a

great part of their importance by the singular institution of the

Dabtara. Yet the Ethiopians, jealous of their political

independence, and capable of preserving it by the natural

influence of their traditional customs, wish to keep religious

authority powerful and undivided. To avoid schisms, and as

several bishops can consecrate others, they recognize only one,

who must be of white race and a stranger to the country. He has

always been consecrated by the schismatical patriarch of

Alexandria; but, since the last consecration, I was assured that

the Abyssinians would make application elsewhere for the future.

The title of their bishop is abun. The last abun or aboona was

Salama, who having only a semi-canonical appointment, and besides

being addicted to all kinds of vice, had very little influence

over the inferior clergy or the people. Suspected by the

professors and hated by the Dabtara, he planted more thorns than

blessings in the hearts of his subjects. A Copt by birth, he at

first frequented the English Protestant school at Cairo, and

carried afterward to the convent where he made his vows such

doctrines of disobedience and incredulous opinions, that the

Patriarch of Alexandria thought it would be wise to exile him to

Ethiopia as abun, though he was under the canonical age. In fact,

the abun was more anxious for money than for the faith. He

received the 36,000 francs, which are usually given as a present

at the investiture of the Abyssinian bishop; and the patriarch

thus delivered up distant Ethiopia, too much despised by the

Copts, to the vices and vague doctrines of Salama. This ornament

of the episcopacy had no sooner arrived in his diocese, than he

devoted himself to commerce, especially to the traffic in slaves,

which is most profitable. His vices were such that our pen cannot

describe them. He told me himself that by mistake he had ordained

priest a boy only ten years old, and laughed heartily at the

trick played on him in his case. Having learned from Monseigneur

de Jacobis the cases which annul an ordination, I told them to

the professors of canon law. They kept silence in public; and

when I pushed them with questions, they all gave me this answer:

"Your objections are true; only, in the name of God, do not

scatter them among the Dabtara. Except the Masses said by old

priests ordained by the preceding abun, there are none valid, and

there is no holy sacrifice in Ethiopia; but the ignorance and

strong faith of the faithful will suffice before God for their

salvation." Abun Salama, busied with intrigues, in which he

thought himself very skilful, was nevertheless, only the tool of

the princes, who attached him to them in order to help their

political combinations. It was he who consecrated King Theodore,

who, after frequently insulting his consecrator, finally cast him

into prison, where he lately died.

{273}

III.

No matter what the English prisoners may say to the contrary, the

Ethiopian soldiers are very brave, and fight fiercely if they are

well commanded. As in Europe during the middle ages, the flower

of their army is composed of cavalry. The battle is begun by the

fusiliers, who shoot well; but their importance had not yet been

comprehended by the native chiefs in my time. Soon the charge is

sounded, the cavalry rushes to the conflict, the victory is

quickly won, and the infantry, badly furnished with blunt sabres,

lances, and bucklers, hardly does anything but make prisoners.

Every soldier keeps all the spoils of those he may vanquish,

except the guns and blood-horses, which by right belong to the

general. During this latter phase of the victory, the

commander-in-chief, deserted by his eager soldiers, is left

almost unattended. In speaking with Ethiopian officers, I often

mentioned to them, but always in vain, how important it is to

have a body-guard for the commander. The first victory of Kasa,

now King Theodore, attracted attention to this necessity

afterward. Let us say a word here about the mother of this chief,

since she is involuntarily one of the remote causes of the

English expedition. This good old woman once did me a great

service, and in 1848, notwithstanding the recent elevation of her

son to royalty, she was still so polite as to rise at my

approach. She was then courted as a power behind the throne. But

a short time previously, she was the despised mother of Kasa, an

obscure rebel, living in misery, and reprobated by all. His poor

mother, in her old age, joined a religious order, and put on the

little white bonnet which is its distinctive sign. But she was

penniless. The convents had been robbed, and every one shunned

the mother of a rebel. She was finally compelled to turn vendor

of _koso_, a drug which the Ethiopians take six times a

year, to kill the tape-worm, with which most of the inhabitants

are afflicted.

Kasa, the rebel of Quara, grew more powerful day by day, and the

proud Manan grew angry. Manan was the mother of Ali, the most

powerful prince of Central Ethiopia, and the real mayoress of the

palace of that _fainékant_ king who ruled at Gondar, only

within the precincts of his dwelling. Manan, desiring to be

called _ytege_, or queen, an exclusive title in that

country, caused the nominal king to be dethroned by her son, and

placed her husband, _Yohannis_, or John, in his stead. This

prince was an estimable man, and honored me with his friendship.

In 1847, war was waged against the rebel Kasa. The soldiers of

Manan insulted their adversary. One gasconading cavalier

exclaimed, at a review: "Manan, my great queen, depend on my

valor, for I shall lead before you in chains this fellow; this

son of a vendor of _koso!_" But Kasa won the battle, and

chained the boaster in a hut, where, after a fast of twenty-four

hours, he received the following message from Kasa, delivered

verbally by a waggish page: "How hast thou passed the night, my

brother? How hast thou passed the day? May God deliver thee from

thy chains! May the Lord grant thee a little patience! Be sad

with me, for yesterday mamma remained at market all day, and

could not sell a single dose of _koso_. I have therefore no

money to buy bread for thee or for me. May God grant thee

patience, my brother! May God break thy chains! It is Kasa who

sends thee this message." The next day the officer received the

same message. On the third day the irony of the conqueror was

slightly changed.

{274}

After the usual salutations, the page joyfully informed the

captive that "Mamma had succeeded in selling a dose of

_koso_, and bought a loaf, which Kasa sends him."

A few days after, I heard these details at Gondar. The

news-mongers praised the mockery; but they only half-smiled, for

the flower of society had fallen into misfortune. Then they

regretted the good king Yohannis, and suspected the still

undeveloped wickedness of the character of Kasa, the adventurous

rebel of Quara. I saw Kasa, or Theodore, frequently at Gondar in

1848. He was dressed as a simple soldier, and had nothing, either

in his features or language, which presaged his high destiny. He

loved to speak of fire-arms. He was about twenty-eight years old;

his face rather black than red; his figure slim; and his agility

seemed to arise less from his muscular power than from that of

his will. His forehead is high and almost convex; his nose

slightly aquiline, a frequent characteristic of the pure-blooded

Amaras. His beard, like theirs, is sparse, and his thin lips

betray rather an Arabian than an Ethiopian origin. Kasa conquered

all his competitors, became King of Ethiopia, and was consecrated

by the abun, taking the name of Theodore, to verify an old

prophecy current among the Jews and Christians, that a king of

this name should rule over the ancient empire of Aksum. But the

Ethiopians, like all people of mountainous regions, tenacious of

their independence, and accustomed to liberty, did not yield at

once to an upstart usurper, who owed his success less to ability

and valor than to good luck.

In the beginning of his reign he acted with much clemency, owing,

it is said, to the happy influence exercised over him by his

first wife. When she died, he caused her body to be embalmed,

according to the custom of the Ethiopian princes of the race of

Solomon. Her coffin was carried after Theodore everywhere he

marched. A special tent was erected in the camp for her remains,

and the conqueror of Ethiopia was often seen entering it to

meditate on his past happiness, and ask of God, as it was said,

prudence and wisdom for the future. It is at this time that he

had real thoughts, though always eccentric, of a good government.

Civil divorce, and the consequent confusion of marriage, are the

plague-spot of Abyssinian society. They uproot the foundations of

the family, and are opposed to all ideas of order and stability.

Without understanding that a radical change in society cannot be

effected by a mere proclamation, Theodore decreed the obligation

of regular marriages, and the abolition of divorce. An able

statesman would have sought to destroy gradually, abuses of such

long standing. Another of his decrees did him equal honor, and

might have succeeded better, for he revived the old law of the

Ethiopians against the slave-trade.

But the heart of man is fickle. Prince Wibe, falling into the

hands of the conqueror, recommended his daughter to the Dabtara

and monks of Darasge, his favorite abbey, where he had his family

burial vault. One day the faithful guardians of the spot saw a

band of soldiers rushing toward them. They thought it was Tissu,

a recent rebel. They immediately concealed the sacred vessels,

and for safety shut up the daughter of Wibe in the vault. Their

surprise was great when they found it was Theodore himself, who

was, according to custom, marching over his kingdom in quest of

insurgents.

{275}

He wanted to see everything; and when they refused to open the

cavern for him, maintaining that a tomb prepared for Wibe, who

was still a chained captive, could have no interest for his

conqueror, Theodore suspected some plot, and caused the stone of

the sepulchre to be removed. His surprise was great when, instead

of a coffin, he beheld a beautiful girl, bathed in tears, and in

the attitude of prayer. Theodore forgot his first love. He set

Wibe at liberty, and married his daughter. This union was not

happy. The _ytege_, or queen, having interceded to save the

life of a rebel whom she had known at the court of her father,

Theodore refused at first her request, and becoming angry,

finally struck her. In order to humiliate her the more, he made a

common camp follower his concubine. From this moment his decree

on Christian marriage became a dead letter, and the slave-trade

was renewed. Men must have stronger virtue than that of King

Theodore, that their good thoughts may bear full fruit.

IV.

Let us here give some account of the English missions in

Ethiopia; for they have helped to bring about and inflame the war

now pending. M. Gobat, a Swiss Protestant, went as far as Gondar

about forty years ago, and acquired a knowledge of the language

of the country. After his return to Europe, he published a book

of such seeming good faith, that it deceived me at first, as it

must have deceived the English projectors of the missions.

Charity obliges me to write that M. Gobat, in giving an account

of his sermons to the people, has rather described what he

desired to say and the answers he would like to hear, than what

he actually said or heard. Without citing other witnesses of this

fact, that of an educated Dabtara will suffice, who was ignorant

of the existence of the Protestant missions. "Samuel Gobat," said

he, "was a prepossessing person, who deceived one at first. I,

who followed him, can affirm that he was really an unbeliever, or

that he pretended to be so. He proposed frightful doubts and

objections in matters affecting the Christian religion, but under

the form of hypotheses. He always began his strange assertions by

an _if_. Could he express them boldly? If he had, you know

that in Gondar, at least, he would not have been allowed to

continue, and he would have been denied a residence in our city."

The missionary societies in England did not know this condition

of the Ethiopian mind, and influenced by the specious arguments

of M. Gobat, they sent him a re-enforcement of three ministers,

whom he left to return to Europe. They preached much more

honestly and openly than he in Adwa and Tigray, where they were

established. They were expelled in 1838, fifteen days before my

arrival in the country. Two of them then went to Suria, from

which they were also driven. With a perseverance worthy of a

better cause, they returned again to Tigray, and again to Suria.

Always exiled, they had at last the prudence, in 1855, to make no

further attempt at evangelizing the country.

Seventeen years before this last date I met at Cairo a young

Lazarist priest, whom I persuaded to accompany me into Ethiopia,

to found a Catholic mission. He preceded me, went to Adwa about

eight days before the first expulsion of the Protestant

missionaries; and as my project seemed to him sensible, requiring

only time and patience to realize it, I brought letters from him

to Europe in 1838.

{276}

His holiness, Gregory XVI., favored our attempt, and sent two

missionaries to Ethiopia under the charge of Monseigneur de

Jacobis, who soon became known all through that region by the

name of Abuna Ya'igob. In spite of some imprudence, inevitable,

perhaps, in a country where there are such strange contrasts, he

succeeded beyond my most sanguine hopes, and when I left the

country in 1849, there were twelve thousand Catholics in it, and

many of the priests were natives. Last year an English account

gives the number as sixty thousand; for the influence of true

doctrines could not fail to be extended among a people so

intelligent as are the Abyssinians. Monseigneur de Jacobis helped

much to obtain this result, by his unchangeable mildness, and by

that personal influence which is always exercised by a priest

devoted to incessant prayer.

The fate of the Protestant missions was different. The ministers,

instead of attributing their want of success to themselves, have

blamed the Catholics as the movers of their expulsion from

Ethiopia. Even the English Consul Plowden in his official report

says that Theodore, after perusing the history of the Jesuits in

Abyssinia, decided to allow no Catholic priest to teach in his

states. The English are fond of decrying the memory of the

Jesuits who taught in Ethiopia up to 1630. It is, however, very

singular that I never heard of this history, and that the most

learned anti-Catholic professors at Gondar never mentioned it to

me in our controversies. On the contrary, they spoke of Peter

Paez and his co-laborers with admiration mingled with regret, and

quoted touching legends concerning them. A little further on in

his account, Plowden, who seems ignorant of the fact that sermons

are unknown in Ethiopia, adds that Theodore prohibited all

preaching contrary to the Copt Church. We cannot expect that an

English soldier, more or less Protestant, should comprehend fully

religious questions; but although he was a mere soldier, he ought

to have known that Theodore was attached to one of the three

national sects, and had forbidden all other creeds, and condemned

Catholics as well as Protestants.

It was in consequence of this decree that Monseigneur de Jacobis

was compelled to leave Gondar in 1855. This pious bishop went to

Musawwa, and there continued to govern his mission, which has

been left almost undisturbed by the natives for almost thirty

years. The chief proselytes of Gondar retired also to the shores

of the Red Sea, and the Protestant ministers, always on the

watch, imagined they had at length found a good opportunity to

teach in the capital. They went thither under the guidance of M.

Krapf, who, in default of other qualities, has at least uncommon

activity and persistence, but which have been so far sterile of

results. At their first expulsion in 1838, the four Protestant

missionaries left but _one proselyte in the whole of

Ethiopia_. This was a quondam pilgrim. He was going to

Jerusalem with an Ethiopian priest, who, falling short of money,

sold his companion into bondage. M. Gobat having ransomed him,

had no difficulty in inspiring him with hatred of the priests,

and of all their doctrines. We can only regard this single

convert as an apostate induced to desert his faith by resentment

and a spirit of revenge. Another young and intelligent Ethiopian,

after studying for years in the Protestant schools of Europe,

when asked, answered me frankly that the numerous dissensions in

religion witnessed by him among Protestants, had destroyed all

religious belief in his mind.

{277}

Religious England always believing, though erroneously, ought to

be startled by the consideration that her missionaries, real

mercenaries as they are, only succeed in propagating doubt and

incredulity instead of spreading the gospel.

M. Gobat, who was somewhat of a diplomatist, in writing to King

Theodore, did not state his object to be the foundation of a

Protestant mission. He merely announced that skilful mechanics,

desiring to improve the physical condition of the country, wished

to settle in it. King Theodore, who was desirous of obtaining

blacksmiths, gunners, and engineers, to make cannon and mortars,

and build bridges and roads, gave his consent. M. Gobat hinted

that the workmen wanted the free exercise of their religion.

Theodore referred the matter to the abun, who, knowing the tricks

of his old teachers, bluntly told Mr. Sterne, one of the

missionaries, who spoke of his intention to convert the Talasa,

or native Jews, as the sole object of his coming to Gondar, "This

mission to the Jews is only a pretext to plot against the faith

of the Christians." Pretending not to take the hint, Mr. Sterne

repeated his assertion, and the king consented to receive the

English mechanics, who were to be the instruments in the hands of

the pious missionaries in "evangelizing" the barbarous

Ethiopians. But on the testimony of Mr. Sterne himself, and that

of other Protestants, the scheme was a complete failure. Many of

the "mechanics," or "pious laymen," became as immoral as any of

the natives. Besides, in violation of their solemn promise made

to the abun, the missionaries distributed, as Plowden informs us,

"hundreds of Bibles, and taught the great truths of salvation to

many pagans and Christians." We extract these facts from the work

of the Rev. Mr. Badger, considered a most trustworthy witness in

official circles in England. [Footnote 54] After a short stay at

Gondar, Mr. Sterne went to London, was made bishop, and published

a wordy volume containing but one fact worth noticing, namely,

the intrinsic proof that the author was ignorant of the most

ordinary customs of Ethiopia. By an imprudence which has cost him

dear, Mr. Sterne related the story of the vender of _koso_

in his book. A former student of the English missionaries

informed Theodore of the fact, and the Protestants had reason to

feel bitterly that a man's friends often prove to be his greatest

enemies.

[Footnote 54: _The Story of the British Captives in

Abyssinia_, 1863, 1864. By the Rev. George Percy Badger.]

V.

The English government was indignant that its agent Plowden, as

it is known, should have been massacred on the highway near

Gondar. Theodore avenged his death, however, by the barbarous

slaughter of its authors and their associates. But the party of

the "saints" in England was not satisfied with this reparation.

Theodore was weak, and no match for England. It was safe,

therefore, to insult him. Had he been as powerful as the United

States, England would have been as loath to touch him as she is

afraid to refuse satisfaction to America for the ravages of the

Alabama on the high seas. She, however, suppressed the consulship

of Gondar, and sent Captain Cameron as her consul to Massowah,

under the protection of the Turkish flag. Captain Cameron was a

brave officer who had served in the Crimea, but he was no

diplomatist.

{278}

We all know that, as much from lack of this quality as from the

semi-barbarous habits of King Theodore, who thinks himself

all-powerful because he has been so successful in conquering

rebels in his own kingdom, Cameron and five other English

subjects, among them M. Rassam--another unskilful English

agent--and two Germans, were imprisoned at Magdala on the 8th of

July, 1866.

Magdala, where the prisoners still remain, is a stronghold in the

Abyssinian highlands, 3,000 feet above the level of the sea, and

the climate there is less warm than in most parts of the torrid

zone. There are a church, a treasury, a prison, and huts in the

place, and a population of about three or four thousand persons,

of whom four hundred are prisoners of every description; a

garrison of six hundred sharpshooters and as many common soldiers

armed with lance and shield. Although this fortress is considered

strong by the natives, one of the prisoners writes that a single

shell would suffice to blow up a place which the Ethiopians have

looked upon as impregnable for three centuries.

Besides the European prisoners at Magdala, Theodore keeps

fourteen others, mostly German mechanics, near his own quarters.

These artisans, exported at the expense of a Protestant

missionary society as "_pious laymen_" began their

evangelical labors as messengers of peace in a very extraordinary

fashion, by fabricating mortars and other engines of war. As for

the spiritual welfare of the Christians of Ethiopia, they looked

well to it by distilling bad brandy; and as for the temporal,

they drove the profitable trade of slave-mongers. This is what M.

Rassam, an Arabian, who turned Protestant to get employment from

the English government, tells us. He was nine years at Aden as

_lieutenant-governor_, and is considered one of the ablest

English agents in the East, if we are to believe the

parliamentary eulogium passed on him in a recent debate in the

House of Commons. The last account heard from this unfortunate

ambassador does not warrant the belief in his ability. The abun,

Salama, having died, M. Rassam advises the English to choose

another abun in Egypt, and put him at the head of the invading

army as a kind of palladium! This advice, if put into execution,

would be as absurd as if, on the death of Pius IX., Premier

Disraeli, imitating the policy of Pitt, and wishing to restore

the Marches to the Holy See, should send an army against the

Sardinians, with a pope at its head elected at Canterbury or

elsewhere, Jansenist or Catholic, no matter which, and should

expect all the Italians to respect him as sovereign pontiff.

VI.

England has undertaken the Abyssinian expedition to preserve her

_prestige_ in the East, and she is determined to gain her

point. The dusky King Theodore, pretended descendant of Solomon,

cannot complain that he has not received diplomatic notice. When

the German who brought him the British ultimatum, told him that

if he did not deliver up the prisoners he would have both the

armies of England and France against him--"Let them come," said

Theodore, "and call me a woman if I do not give them battle." We

know not if there be more of folly or of intrepid valor in this

proud answer. In fact, notwithstanding the narrations of some

travellers, naturally suspected of exaggeration, the Ethiopians

have no idea of the military power of the Western nations, and

their king may believe that he is a match for them.

{279}

The Bay of Adulis, usually so silent, is now swarming with ships.

There were in it, a short time ago, seventy vessels, without

counting those of the Arabians and East-Indians. The English have

built two quays to assist the debarkation of troops. The English

have the Snider gun, which they pretend to be superior to the

Chassepot rifle. They have even forty elephants to frighten

Theodore. One of them, an elephant of good sense if ever there

was one, behaved himself so badly at the debarkation of the

troops, that he was sent back to Hindostan.

England is determined to succeed. Instead of borrowing, she has

levied a tax of ten millions of dollars. She will need at least

six times that amount before the end of the war. Every English

prisoner to be freed will cost at least ten millions. But her

object is not merely the freeing of the prisoners, though she

asserts that it is. She has to provide water for sixty-five

thousand men and many beasts on the plains of Zullah, where, in

default of natural fresh water, the troops drink a distillation

of sea water. They need every day one hundred and eighty thousand

quarts to drink; and this quantity has been provided at the

enormous cost of twenty thousand dollars for every twenty-four

hours. To transport the munitions of war, mules were bought and

brought to Zullah from Egypt, Turkey, Spain, and France. The

English soldiers, not knowing at first how to manage them, tied

them with hay ropes. Many of the mules ate the ropes, escaped

into the desert, and were lost. A railroad has been built,

running from the sea to Sanafe, the first border station of

Ethiopia, a distance of almost one hundred miles.

The line of march has been well chosen. The English could have

crossed the plains of Tigray, which are level and oppose no

obstacle; and then crossed through Wasaya without meeting any

noteworthy difficulty except the river Takkaze, and Mount

Lamalmo. Farther on, at Dabra Tabor, where Theodore usually

resides, they might have chosen either the plains of the Lanige,

or the cool and verdant hills of the Waynadaga territory as the

sites of their encampment. But this route is not the shortest.

Besides, the Wasaya begins to be unhealthy in the month of May,

and there is no forage as far as Wagara.

The shorter route, which the English have taken, is by Agame and

Wag. On those elevated plateaux they may keep all their energy,

and they will find a territory less ravaged by civil war, and

good pastures. The distance from Zullah to Magdala is about the

same as from Paris to Lyons. But artillery is with difficulty

transported over many of the gullies on the route; and perhaps

for the elephants it will be found impracticable. But the leader

of the expedition, Sir Robert Napier, will not balk at these

details. He will push rapidly on to Delanta before the rainy

season, which begins about the 10th of July. According to the

prisoners, if he should invest Magdala at the beginning of May,

the want of water would soon force the garrison to surrender. If

the first rains have fallen before his arrival, the English will

occupy Tanta among the Wara Haymano, and from that point open

fire on Magdala. Soldiers living in huts, without casemates or

caverns, could not stand a day against the English guns. In, any

case, Magdala, the great Ethiopian fortress, will be taken, and

it will remain to be seen whether the troops will march to Dabra

Tabor to burn the camp of King Theodore, and kill him, or make

him prisoner.

{280}

Nevertheless, the use of diplomacy will not be despised. When

Theodore put M. Rassam in prison, with great protestations of

friendship, he promised him his liberty on the arrival of certain

machines and expert workers. England sent both to Massowah, but

required first the liberation of the prisoners without having

used any of those forms which render a contract binding in the

eyes of the Abyssinians. On his side, Theodore did not understand

the value of a simple signature. Besides, he had been deceived by

Plowden, who denied his character of consul, and cheated by the

denials of the Protestant missionaries as to their attempts to

proselytize the native Christians. He did not, therefore, believe

the protestations of the English. The want of a sensible agent

caused the failure of this negotiation, which might have

succeeded if more skilfully conducted. Moreover, the English

army, on entering the Tigray, issued a proclamation, of which the

_Times_ published a literal copy, as ridiculous in

_Amariñña_ dialect as in English. Besides, the language used

is almost unknown in Agama, where this document has been

published. The English officers do not seem to have known that a

proclamation is never published in Ethiopia in a written form.

But what will King Theodore, the pretended descendant of Solomon,

do? It is difficult to answer this question. The natives report

that Theodore is often out of his senses when he drinks brandy,

which the "_pious laymen_" of the Protestant mission

zealously manufacture for his _spiritual_ comfort. From the

very beginning of his reign, Plowden informs us that he

manifested symptoms of insanity. The English prisoners tell us

more explicitly that Theodore himself informed them that his

father was insane, and that he believed himself attacked with the

same disorder. Several traits in his conduct toward the

prisoners, and the massacre of one hundred of his own soldiers in

his camp, on mere suspicion, give gravity to the assertions. If

this be true, England has declared war against an adversary

unworthy of her dignity. In case of defeat, the only refuge for

Theodore is to retreat to his native province of Quara, on the

border of a terrible desert, breathing pestilence on all the

region around. Woe to the English soldiers if they attempt to

follow him thither!

Of all the ancient empire of Yasu the Great, that Ethiopian Louis

XIV., Theodore has only Quara, that he can call his own. His

governors of the Tigra have been expelled by rebels, or have made

themselves independent of his authority. Gojjan has proclaimed

its independence; Wag also has risen in arms; Suria is free, and

gives asylum to all refugees. Yet these are regions but recently

subjected to the conquering arms of Theodore. Tissu Gobaze rules

the lower Tigray, Wasaya, Walguayt, Simen, Wazara, and as far as

Dambya, where Gondar stood before Theodore destroyed it.

What then is left to this unfortunate tyrant, resisted at home by

numberless insurgents, and threatened by foreign force with

destruction? The Awamas, whose rights he has respected because

they know how to defend themselves, but who will seize the first

opportunity to rebel; Tagusa, Acafar, Alafa, and Meca stretching

along the Tana, but which he has made solitudes by his systematic

pillage; and finally Bagemdir, that beautiful portion of the

country, which obeys him with regret.

{281}

A disease, a slight cheek, or a courageous peasant, would be

sufficient to destroy Theodore, that royal meteor, which, after

shining for a few years, will soon be extinguished in the night

of oblivion. Considering the greatness of the English

preparations, we are led to suspect that she has the intention of

holding Northern Ethiopia after conquering it. Appearances seems

to favor this conjecture, and no matter what the English journals

may say, the idea is not of French origin. Plowden urged its

realization in his official letters thirteen years ago; Cameron

is in favor of it; and General Coghlan timidly hints its

practicability in his military monograph on Ethiopian affairs.

The English have been masters of Aden for the last thirty years,

and they wish to make the Red Sea an English lake. They desire

Ethiopia; for from it they could invade Egypt, where "King

Cotton" would rule in all his glory. They allege the case of

Algiers annexed to France in justification of their project. But

let it be observed that Charles X., who ransomed at his own

expense, the Greek slaves sold in the markets of Constantinople

and in Egypt, could not allow the Dey of Algiers alone to keep

French, Spanish, and English Christians in bonds; while the

English have never done anything to prevent the slave-trade in

Abyssinia. Many Christian slaves are annually bought within

gunshot of the British ships on the Red Sea, to be brutalized in

Mussulman harems. _England has never made an effort to stop the

traffic there_. Can we blame King Theodore then, who,

according to his degree of intelligence and power, wished to put

an end to this inhuman commerce, for saying with at least as much

modesty as her majesty's government has at command, "Which of us

two is the greater barbarian?"

----------

New Publications.

St. Columba, Apostle of Caledonia.

By the Count de Montalembert, of the French Academy,

New York: Catholic Publication House,

126 Nassau street. 1868.

Irish ecclesiastical history is something unique in the world,

and presents to us the spirit of Christianity run into an

entirely new and original mould. The Celtic race, whose most

perfect and completely actualized type exists in the people of

Ireland, is a singular specimen of humanity, as it used to be in

the primitive ages just after, and perhaps long before the flood,

preserved, continued, and apparently incapable of being destroyed

or changed, in the midst of other races of totally opposite

character. The sudden and entire conversion of this people to

Christianity, and the invincible tenacity with which it has clung

to its first faith, together with the marked individuality of the

expression which it has given to the Christian idea, form a

phenomenon in history which cannot be too much studied or

admired. It was a happy moment for Ireland when that Chevalier

Bayard of Catholic literature, the Count de Montalembert, felt

his chivalrous soul moved by the story of her ancient princely

monks and dauntless, adventurous apostles, and set himself to the

task of writing a work which unites all the romantic, poetic

charm of the lyric strains of her bards, with the accuracy and

minuteness of her monastic chronicles.

{282}

His narrative, partly owing to the nature of his subject, and

partly to his own genius, is like the _Scottish Chiefs_ and

the _Waverley Novels_. The most striking, original, and

grand of all the characters depicted by him in that part of the

_Monks of the West_ which is devoted to Ireland, is St.

Columba or Columbkill. This great man, who was by birth heir to

the dignity of Ard-righ, or chief king of Ireland, the founder of

Iona, and the apostle of Scotland, is the favorite saint of the

Irish people after St. Patrick. He is a more thoroughly Irish

saint than the great apostle of Ireland, who was the father and

founder of the Irish people as a Christian nation, but was

himself, probably, by birth and extraction a Gallo-Roman. A

warrior, a poet, a chieftain, a monk, a statesman, an apostle,

and, it is supposed, a prophet; the most intensely devoted and

patriotic lover of his native island, perhaps, that ever lived;

and yet sentenced by his stern old hermit confessor to perpetual

banishment from it; the life of Columba overflows with all the

materials of the most romantic and heroic interest.

The Life of Columba, whose title is placed at the head of this

notice, is, as we have implied already, a monograph extracted

from the great work on the _Monks of the West_, by

Montalembert. It is a small book of only 170 duo-decimo pages,

and therefore readable by almost everybody who ever reads

anything better than newspapers and dime novels. It is, above all

others, a book for every one, young or old, who has

Celtic-Catholic blood in his veins. It is time now to use that

English language which was forced by the haughty conqueror upon

the Irish people, from a cruel motive which God has overruled for

their glory and his own, as the means of diffusing the treasures

hidden hitherto, so to speak, under a _cromlech_. Those who

put this unwilling people into a compulsory course of English,

little thought what a keen-edged weapon they were placing in

their hands, and training them to use. They could not foresee

what use would be made of it by Curran, O'Connell, Thomas Moore,

Bishop Doyle, and Father Meehan. The possession of the English

language places the Irish people in communication with the whole

civilized world, without depriving them of their rich patrimony

of traditional lore, legend, and song. It is incumbent on all who

love the faith, and sympathize with the wrongs and hardships, of

the Irish people, to strain every nerve to increase the number

and diffuse the circulation of books, in which this religious and

patriotic tradition may be perpetuated. Wherever the Irish people

are, in Ireland, England, America, Australia, they are deriving

their intellectual nutriment more and more from English books;

and thus, in proportion as they become readers, are coming under

the influence of writers who write in the English language. It is

most important, therefore, for those who are charged with the

responsibility of watching over their religious, moral, and

intellectual culture, to see to it that their minds are not

flooded with an excess of purely secular literature, which has in

it no mixture of the Catholic tradition. The greatest danger and

misfortune of our rising generation of Catholics in America is

the lack of this tradition in historical, poetic, and romantic

literature. Even those who are the descendants of parents and

progenitors of the old Catholic stock, must necessarily lose by

degrees all vivid sentiment of any other nationality than the

American, and be more influenced by the _genius loci_ than

by any other genius, whether Celtic or Teutonic. The danger to be

guarded against is a peril of becoming so much Americanized as to

be reduced to a _caput mortuum_ in the process. An American

citizen, without faith and religion, even though he may be born

and live in Boston, is involved in the consequences of original

sin as well as others. It is no gain to transform a poor, simple,

believing, fervent Catholic immigrant, in the second or third

generation, into an intelligent, well fed, healthy animal, with a

comfortable farm and the elective franchise, but with no more

soul than the man with the muck-rake in the _Pilgrim's

Progress_, or those dirty heathen in the suburbs of the holy

city of New York, who spend their Sundays in weeding cabbages.

{283}

This deleterious change must be prevented, not only, by purely

spiritual means, but also by preserving and fostering as much as

possible the natural bonds which connect our youth of Catholic

origin with the traditions of their ancestry. Hence, we are in

favor of multiplying and circulating as much as possible those

books which relate the history of the Catholic Church of Ireland,

of her saints and prelates, her gallant chieftains and noble

martyrs, her sufferings and persecutions. The English Catholic

tradition, and the Scottish, are unfortunately broken. A dreary

gap of three centuries intervenes between the present and the

Catholic past; but in Ireland the continuity is perfect from the

fifth century to the present moment. This is the great artery of

life to the Catholic Church of the British empire and its

colonies, and it must not be severed. There is an intense

sympathy between the people of the United States and the people

of Ireland. This is chiefly a sympathy with their oppressed

condition as a people, and with their just demands for expiation

and redress for the wrongs they have suffered from the hands of

the British government. It would be prudent for the gentlemen of

the English parliament to take note of this, and to be wise in

time, by conceding all those rights and privileges at once with a

good grace, which Ireland is sure to obtain sooner or later,

whether parliament is willing or unwilling. This merely political

sympathy will, we trust, prepare the way for a higher and holier

sympathy with the faith, the constancy, the invincible fortitude

of the Irish people as a Catholic nation, the Spartans of a

sacred Thermopylae, who have immolated themselves to save the

faith. It is time that the American public should learn what is

the _Irish Version of the History of the Reformation_. This

presupposes a previous knowledge of the first planting and

cultivation of Christianity. When it is seen that the Irish

fought and died for the very same religion which was planted

among them by their first apostles, it will be easy to judge of

the claims which the religion of Elizabeth and Cromwell had upon

their submission. The labors of Montalembert are therefore

invaluable, as bringing to light the hidden treasures of Irish

ecclesiastical history, and in all his great work there is no

chapter to be found more charming than the biography of the great

patriarch of Iona. We conclude with the eulogium which Fintan, a

contemporary monk, pronounced upon St. Columba in an assembly of

wise and learned men, and which is justified by the history of

his life. "Columba is not to be compared with philosophers and

learned men, but with patriarchs, prophets, and apostles. The

Holy Spirit reigns in him; he has been chosen by God for the good

of all; he is a sage among all sages, a king among kings, an

anchorite with anchorites, a monk of monks; and in order to bring

himself to the level even of laymen, he knows how to be poor of

heart among the poor; thanks to the apostolic charity which

inspires him, he can rejoice with the joyful, and weep with the

unfortunate. And amid all the gifts which God's generosity has

lavished on him, the true humility of Christ is so royally rooted

in his soul that it seems to have been born with him."

----

Ecce Homo. By the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone.

Strahan & Co., London. G. Routledge & Sons,

416 Broome street, New York. 1868.

On the day of writing this notice, Mr. Gladstone is introducing

his motion for overthrowing that monstrous iniquity, the Irish

Establishment. We feel, consequently, especially well-disposed

toward him. Nevertheless, with all our respect for his talents

and character, we cannot help being reminded of his illustrious

countryman, that great ornament of the sea-faring profession.

Captain Bunsby. Our English brethren, when they take up solid

topics, appear to think laborious dulness and tedious obscurity

the evidence of deep learning and sound judgment. Their essays

are like those of collegians, who affect to write on political or

philosophical subjects in an extremely old-mannish,

old-cabinet-minister-like style.

{284}

This is remarkably the case with the venerable university dons

who advocate rationalistic opinions. The style of arguing adopted

by these worthy and dignified gentlemen bears a striking

resemblance to the movements of one who is carefully wending his

way among eggs. As an instance, we may cite the _Essays and

Reviews_, perhaps the dullest book ever written, unless the

_Treatises on Sacred Arithmetic and Mensuration_, by Dr.

Colenso, may be thought worthy to compete for the prize. The

_Ecce Homo_ is not to be placed in precisely the same

category. It is, nevertheless, in our humble opinion, a very

vague, wearisome, and unsatisfactory book. We cannot account for

its popularity in any other way than by ascribing it to the

restless, sceptical, misty state of the English mind on religious

subjects; the uneasy desire to find out something more than it

knows about Christianity and its author. After eighteen centuries

have rolled by, the question. Who is Jesus Christ? still remains

a puzzle to all those who will not submit to learn from the

teacher commissioned by himself. The author of _Ecce Homo_

has endeavored to throw himself back to the time and into the

period of the disciples of Christ, to examine with their eyes his

words and actions, and from these to abstract a mental conception

of his true character. What that conception is, remains as much a

puzzle as the gospels themselves are to a rationalist, or the

Exodus to Dr. Colenso. The language of _Ecce Homo_ is

certainly irreconcilable with the definitions of the Catholic

Church respecting the divine personality of Christ. Some of its

statements respecting the nature of the work accomplished by him

on the earth, and the evidence thereby furnished of his divine

mission, are forcible and valuable, and perhaps to rationalists,

Unitarians, and doubters, the work may be useful. No one,

however, who understands Catholic theology, and believes in the

true doctrine of the Incarnation, can read it without a strong

sentiment of repugnance and dissatisfaction. Mr. Gladstone,

nevertheless, although professing to accept the Catholic doctrine

of the Incarnation, undertakes the defence of the book, and even

apologises for its most offensive passages. By doing this he

shows that he himself does not grasp the full meaning of the

formulas to which he gives his assent; and although he is not a

rationalist, yet, from perpetual contact with them, and the

influence of that halting, inconsequent state of mind produced by

Anglicanism, he has acquired something of that dark-lantern style

of which we have spoken above. There are gleams of light and

passages of beauty here and there, especially on those pages

where the author treats of the Greek Mythology as an imperfect

effort to realize the idea of Deity incarnate in human form. As a

whole, the essay, which is a mere review of another book, was

well enough for a magazine article, but not of sufficient

importance to warrant its publication in book form. Every person

who acknowledges the true divinity of Jesus Christ while

rejecting the authority of the Catholic Church, stands in a

position logically absurd, and is therefore incapable of

adequately advocating the cause of Christ and Christianity

against the infidelity of the age. No one but a Catholic, endowed

with genius, and fully imbued with the spirit of Catholic

theology, can ever write in a satisfactory manner upon the Life

of Christ, so as to meet that demand which causes the abortive

efforts of unbelievers and half-Christians to find such an

extensive circulation.

----

On the Heights. A Novel.

By Berthold Auerbach.

Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1868.

This volume, professing to be a translation from the German, is

most thoroughly permeated with German _mysticism_; one can

hardly give it the dignified name of theology. It carries one

back in its bewildering metaphysics to the days of _The

Dial_, when every girl of eighteen belonging to a certain

clique, was devouring Bettina's correspondence with Goethe, and

listening with rapt soul to lectures on "Human Life," from the

oracular lips of a favorite seer; discourses utterly beyond the

comprehension of the maiden's papa, but which she understood

perfectly.

{285}

We are led to wonder, in our republican ignorance, if people in

court life converse and act in the stilted, theatrical manner in

which they are here represented; every person being what in these

days would be called "highly organized." In this particular, and

in the tedium and repetition of court detail, we were forcibly

reminded of the voluminous works of Miss Mühlbach, with this

difference, that _On the Heights_ makes no historical claim.

There are, however, very many sweet touches of nature in the

book, gems of thought; and now and then a rare pearl of good

counsel, near which, in reading, one involuntarily draws a

pencil-line, that they may be found again. Maternal love is

beautifully portrayed, both in high and low life, in the queen,

and in the foster-mother of the prince.

The author evidently, knows but little of the Catholic faith, and

less of its results, since the life of the _religieuse_ is

continually referred to (with a slight sneer) as "_a life in

which nothing happens_."

We close this volume with a sensation of weary sadness; there

seems to run through its pages "the cry of that deep-rooted pain,

under which, thoughtful men are languishing," like the distant

tones of an AEolian harp wafted on the night breezes. There is a

reaching forth in these mystic yearnings for the good, the true,

and the _enduring_, which the priceless gift of faith alone

brings to the weary and heavy-laden, in submission to God's

appointed teacher, the church.

The mechanical execution of the work is excellent, the type

clear, and the double-columed pages furnish a vast amount of

reading in a small compass.

------

Chemical Change in the Eucharist.

From the French of Jacques Abbadie.

By John W. Hamersley, A.M.

Jacques Abbadie was born in Switzerland, in 1654; "studied at

Saumur," writes Mr. Hamersley in his preface, "was doctorated at

Sedan, and installed pastor of the French (Huguenot) Church of

Berlin, at the instance of Count d'Espence."

He left his pastorate, became chaplain to Marshal Schomberg, and

came to England with William of Orange in 1688. After Schomberg's

death, in the battle of the Boyne, Abbadie was presented to the

deanery of Killaloo, in Ireland, where he died in 1727.

His book against transubstantiation in the Eucharist, is such as

might be expected from the literary leisure, taste, learning, and

piety of one of Schomberg's exemplary camp-followers. We read the

book with the hope of finding some objection in it worth a

refutation; but we have found nothing but the stale, oft-refuted

arguments of Protestants against the real presence. Led by the

title of the work, _Chemical Change in the Eucharist_, we

expected to meet some profound chemical discoveries that should

at least seem to contradict Catholic belief. But there is not

one. There is not even an allusion which would show the author to

be conversant with chemistry or any of the natural sciences.

Abbadie argues against the Catholic exegesis of the sixth chapter

of St. John, and against the words of consecration, "This is my

body," in the usual Protestant way. He insists that Christ's

words are to be taken figuratively; while Catholics claim that

they are to be taken literally.

One general answer will do for all heterodox interpretations of

Scripture on this and on other points. If Protestants urge that

private reason is the supreme judge of Scripture, how can they

deny to Catholics the right to use it? And if the private

judgment of Catholics finds that Christ spoke of a real presence

in the Holy Eucharist, and that his words are to be taken in

their plain, literal signification, why should Protestants

object? In point of fact, Catholics do admit private judgment,

properly understood, in the interpretation of Scripture. They

affirm that the interpretation of the church or of the fathers is

identical with the rational exegesis.

{286}

The interpretation of Protestants is _not_ a rational

interpretation, and does not give the true sense of Scripture.

They misinterpret the Scriptures by an _abuse_ of private

judgment. They gratuitously assume that Catholic interpretation

is contrary to the rational sense of the Bible; while Catholics

hold that their interpretation alone is rational. As a prudent,

sensible man, when he meets with a difficult passage in Homer or

Sophocles, consults the best commentators to aid him in

discovering the true sense; so, for a much greater reason, should

a Christian seek an authoritative explanation of those hard

passages of Holy Writ "which the unstable and unlearned wrest to

their own destruction." One who denies that there are difficult

texts in Scripture can never have read it. From the first text of

Genesis to the last in the Apocalypse, the Scripture is replete

with difficulties, which even the most learned commentators do

not always succeed in explaining.

All Abbadie's scriptural arguments against the real presence may

be, therefore, met with one remark. He explains certain texts in

a figurative sense. Catholics, however, interpret them to mean

what they plainly and literally express. Catholics do not need in

this case to appeal to the authority of the church or to the

fathers. Christ says, "This is my body;" Catholics believe him.

Christ says, "My flesh is meat indeed;" Catholics believe his

words. Abbadie and his sect admit that Christ says, "This is my

body;" that he affirms his flesh to be meat indeed; yet they will

not believe him. Who authorizes them to contradict the express

words of Christ? We ask _impartial_ reason to judge between

Catholic and Protestant in this controversy.

But where Abbadie shows his complete ignorance of the first

elements of the higher sciences is in "Letter Fourth" of his

book, p. 98. We quote from Mr. Hamersley's translation. "_All

our ideas of faith rely solely on sense;_ and their value to

us is measured by its certainty; and to faith, which is a

conviction of divine truth, there are four essentials: God

exists; he is truthful; he has revealed himself; each mystery of

our faith appears in such revelation. Sir--it is noteworthy--that

the _senses are the sole channels of all those truths, and

their_ SOLE _vouchers_." Again, "Thus the _senses are

the media of all evidence_." (P. 99.) The materialism of

d'Holbach, Cabanis, Helvetius, and Condillac is identical with

this doctrine of the doughty dean of Killaloo. If the senses

"_are the sole channels of truth_," instead of being the

mere occasions of reflection, then the whole order of

intelligible ideas, the ideas of God, spirit, and cause, are

illusions. The senses can only tell us the sensible or

phenomenal. Now, as the ideas of God, cause, spirit, truth,

justice, goodness, substance, etc., are all supersensible, they

cannot come from the senses. If the senses "_are the media of

all evidence_," the only things we can know are modes or

phenomena, colors, forms, sounds, etc. The senses tell us nothing

more. We must, therefore, deny the existence of God, of truth, of

goodness, cause, substance, etc.; and turn atheists, pantheists,

sceptics, or materialists, as all who logically follow out

Abbadie's or Locke's metaphysics really become. The philosophy of

the warlike chaplain of Schomberg's army is thus shown to be

essentially immoral.

Did Mr. Hamersley know this when he translated the book? We think

not, for he is evidently too innocent of logic and too ignorant

of truth to be able to understand fully even the arguments of the

superficial dean of Killaloo.

We shall make good our assertion by quoting a few of Mr.

Hamersley's own references: "In 1845, the pope made the

Immaculate Conception a part of the Roman creed and a condition

of salvation." (P. 113.) The gentleman probably was thinking of

the pope's decree of 1852.

"A.D. 597, Gregory I. instructs St. Augustine to accommodate the

ceremonies of the church to heathen rites." (P. 125.).

"The Maronites, _originally Monothelites_, protected by the

Emperor Heraclius, are now incorporated in the church of Rome."

(P. 126.)

{287}

"A.D. 1295, Boniface VIII. confines ex-pope Celestine V. in _a

cell about the size of his body_, lest he may elect to resume

the pontificate he has resigned--guards him night and day with 6

knights and 30 soldiers. Celestine dies of cruelty." (P. 129.)

"Gregory VII. threatens to anathematize all France, unless King

Philip _abandons simony_. (P. 135.) This was one of

Gregory's _crimes_ in the judgment of Mr. Hamersley.

"Alexander VI. (Borgia) is elected pope--his Holiness is

forthwith _adored by the cardinals_:" (P. 143.) What

idolatry!

"_Penance--a sacrament by which venial sins, committed after

baptism, are forgiven._" (P. 146.)

"The Nestorians were excommunicated A.D. 431, for holding, among

other views, two natures of Christ."

"The Council of Chalcedon, A.D. 451, confirmed the doctrine of

the two natures of Christ, which the church had repudiated." (P.

148.)

As instances of schisms in the church, the _learned_

translator cites the following: "Dominicans and Franciscans--on

immaculate conception." "Thomists and Scotists--efficacy of grace

and immaculate conception." "Jesuits and Jansenists--on the

doctrine of grace." (P. 150.)

"Dec. 17, 1866, the _leading Romanists of the Council of

Baltimore_ invite the pope by letter to visit the United

States." (P. 157.)

"Jesuit pestilence." (P. 159.) "_Plague-spots--Roman Catholic

churches and institutions_." (P. 160.) This is a good instance

of Mr. Hamersley's rhetoric.

"The Papal Church in the United States _has recently adopted

the title of Roman Catholic_." Evidence: "It appears in large

iron gilt letters over the gate of the asylum in Fifth avenue,

New York--_Roman Catholic Male Orphan Asylum_." (P. 160.)

_This is one of the plague-spots_!

These are but a few of the literary beauties to be found in Mr.

Hamersley's additions to Abbadie. A Catholic could afford to

smile at both the original and his translator, if, unfortunately,

there were not found many persons so credulous as to believe

their falsehoods. The original work of Abbadie is tolerable. He

attempts to argue; and we have no doubt his military logic was

satisfactory enough to the square-headed soldiers of Schomberg's

army. Besides, when Abbadie wrote, civilization had not arrived

at such a degree of progress as it has now attained. But Mr.

Hamersley writes his falsehoods _now_. His ignorance and

fanaticism, of which we have culled but a few of the many

instances in his book, _are of our own day_. We cannot

understand why he should repeat them, since there is hardly any

moderately educated Protestant who does not know that most of his

allegations are false. If there be any so dull or fanatical as to

believe them, we feel for them more of pity than contempt.

In conclusion, we regret that the translator does not show as

much good sense or taste in choosing the subject as the

publishers manifest in the binding and printing of the work. We

are sorry to see such fine print wasted on a bad, worthless book.

Mr. Hamersley could have found nobler themes in foreign

literature, even though they might be the productions of

Protestants, to exercise those talents as a translator which he

has failed to show as a lover of truth, a logician, or a man of

good sense.

------

Life in the West; or, Stories of the Mississippi Valley.

By N. C. Meeker, Agricultural Editor of the New

York _Tribune_. New York: Samuel R. Wells.

"A long residence in the Mississippi Valley, frequent journeys

through its whole extent, and years of service as the Illinois

correspondent of the New York _Tribune_, have furnished the

materials for the following stories." Hence, it is almost

unnecessary to state that their claim to our careful

consideration rests upon something more substantial than the fact

of their being pleasingly told, varied in incident, and

unobjectionable in tone. Their real worth, and it is not slight,

arises from this, that they are made the agreeable medium of

conveying much valuable information concerning "life in the

West;" no less the hardships unavoidably to be endured by the

emigrant, the difficulties to be overcome, and the dangers to be

encountered, than his almost assured ultimate triumph.

{288}

Of general interest, but designed especially for those intending

to emigrate, is the appendix, containing a brief description of

the soil, climate, products, area, and population of each State

and territory lying in the great Valley of the Mississippi; and

also the locations of the several land-offices where application

must be made and all needful information can be obtained.

----

Mozart: A Biographical Romance.

From the German of Heribert Rau.

By E. R. Sill. New York: Leypoldt & Holt. 1868.

A poor translation of a frothy production. On the first page, the

child, Mozart, is called a "three-years-old son." Mr. Sill

evidently does not know that a three-year-old is English for

colts and heifers. Mozart's sister is also denominated a

"seven-years-old." The writer, if Mr. Sill has translated him

correctly, is exceedingly ignorant, or worse. On page 54 we read:

"They sought the pope's chair," (that is, the worshippers

crowding to St. Peter's for the services on Maundy-Thursday,)

"partly because it was the fashion, partly because they wanted to

be on hand to see everybody else do it, and partly because, to an

Italian, a hundred days' absolution in advance is always a

pleasant and convenient thing to have." The recitation of the

Tenebrae, in the evening, is called, on page 58, "the performance

of Mass." Would it not be well for our enterprising publishers in

this enlightened country, to employ a proof-reader who has

received a passable education?

------

The Great Day; or, Motives and Means of Perseverance

after First Communion.

Translated from the French by Mrs. J. Sadlier. New York, 1868.

A pretty and good little volume, intended for a gift to children,

as a memento of the happy day of their first communion. We have

only one criticism to make, which is, that its tone of thought is

too foreign. We wish that the accomplished translator had made

use of the original French only, as matter from which to compile

a delightful little book under this title, (a task which she

could so admirably perform,) suitable, in the freshness of its

thought, to the minds of American children. In lieu, however, of

the wished-for better book of Mrs. Sadlier's, we heartily

recommend this present volume to the attention of all pastors,

parents, and superintendents of Sunday-schools, who will find in

it, we are sure, just what very many of them have long desired to

procure as a worthy memento for "The Great Day."

------

Tales from the Diary of a Sister of Mercy.

By C. M. Brame.

New York: Catholic Publication Society. 1868.

We all remember _Passages from the Diary of a Late

Physician_, by Dr. Warren, and the intense interest everybody

felt in these sketches of the tragic scenes with which the

persons whose profession leads them among the sick, the

suffering, and the dying are familiar. This book is on a similar

plan, and is composed of graphic descriptions of what a Sister of

Mercy may be supposed to see and observe in her charitable

ministrations. The light of the Catholic religion thrown in among

these painful, tragic scenes, relieves their shadows, and leaves

a more healthful impression on the mind; in short, becoming their

pathetic effect. Those who love sensation stories will find their

taste gratified in this volume, and, at the same time, may be

able to derive from it some good moral and religious lessons.

------

We regret that a notice of _The First Report of the Catholic

Sunday-School Union_ was crowded out of the columns of this

number. It will appear in our next.--Ed. C. W.

-----------------------

{289}

The Catholic World.

Vol. VII., No. 39.--June, 1868.

--------

Edmund Campion.

In the spring of 1580, Elizabeth being then queen of Great

Britain, and England being in the midst of the turmoil which

accompanied the final establishment of Protestantism as the

religion of the realm, two expeditions set out from Rome, to

restore the faith in the British isles. One consisted of two

thousand armed soldiers, enlisted as a sort of crusaders, and

animated by the papal blessing and the promise of indulgences,

not to speak of the visions of worldly glory and profit which

even soldiers who fight under consecrated banners are apt to find

alluring. The other was composed of less than a score of

missionaries, Jesuits, secular priests, and others, whose most

enticing prospect was one of martyrdom. The soldiers were to land

in Ireland and help the rebellion of the Geraldines. The

missionaries were to penetrate in disguise into England, and

exercise the ministry of the proscribed and persecuted faith in

the secrecy of private houses and hidden chambers.

Looking at the history of those times in the light of subsequent

experience, it seems hard to account for the policy which could

imperil not only the lives of the missionaries, but the cause of

the church, by complicating the peaceful embassy of the priests

with the mission of war and insurrection. For it was no secret

that the troops came from Rome, and that large subsidies from the

Roman treasury were sent with them. Associated with them, too,

went an eminent ecclesiastic. Dr. Saunders, with the functions of

a legate. We must remember, however, that the accession of

Elizabeth had never been popularly acquiesced in. Her legitimacy

had never been generally acknowledged. Her reign thus far had

been a series of rebellions. The party which opposed her had a

fair title to the character of belligerents, and the continental

powers which espoused their cause were only doing what, by the

customs of the age, they had a perfect right to do. The pope had

issued a bull, excommunicating the queen, absolving her subjects

from their oath of allegiance, and even forbidding them to obey

her; and although he had afterward so far modified the bull as to

permit the English people to recognize her authority, _rebus

sic stantibus_, "while things remained as they were," he had

never ceased, in conjunction with other European powers, to

promote attempts in Ireland and elsewhere to overthrow her and

place the Queen of Scots upon the throne.

{290}

At this distance of time, with a line of successors to ratify

Elizabeth's title to the crown, and the fact of their failure

arguing against the insurgents, it is easy to condemn the papal

policy; but we must remember that affairs bore a different aspect

then; that Elizabeth's right to the throne was open to question;

and that the Catholic faith which she was striving to suppress

was still the faith of a large majority of the English people.

We have little to do, however, with this Irish expedition. It was

a miserable failure, and its only effect was, to aggravate the

sufferings of the Catholics and expose the missionaries to

increased danger. Our purpose in this article is rather to trace

the history of the more peaceful and strictly religious embassy,

so far as it bore upon the life of the illustrious martyr from

whom it derives its chief renown.

Edmund Campion, [Footnote 55] the son of a London bookseller, was

born on the 25th of January, 1539, (O. S.,) the year which

witnessed the commencement of the English persecution, of which

he was destined to be a victim, and the solemn approval of the

Society of Jesus, of which he was to be the first English martyr.

At St. John's College, Oxford, where he was educated and obtained

a fellowship, he was so much admired for his gift of speech and

grace of eloquence, that young men imitated not only his phrases

but his gait, and revered him as a second Cicero. It was the year

after he obtained his fellowship that Queen Mary died and

Elizabeth succeeded to the throne. The new sovereign allowed but

a few weeks to pass before she manifested her preference for the

Protestant doctrines; yet there was no attempt at first to force

the heresy upon the university of Oxford, her Majesty wisely

trusting to the insidious influences of time, persuasion, and

high example to bring the students and professors over to her

views. It is no great wonder, perhaps, that Campion, intoxicated

by the incense of adulation and enervated by the worldly comfort

of his position, shut his eyes to the dreadful gulf of heresy

into which the English Church was drifting, and seemed hardly to

realize the necessity which was being forced upon him of choosing

between God and the queen. He was not required for some years to

take any oath at variance with his fidelity to the church. So he

gave up the study of theology, to which he had hitherto devoted

himself, and applied his mind to secular learning. He was a

layman, and controversy might be left to the priests. When he

took his degree in 1564, he was induced to subscribe to the oath

against the pope's supremacy, and by the statutes of his college

he was also compelled to resume the study of divinity; yet he

still managed to stave off important questions and to confine his

reading to the old settled dogmas which had no direct bearing

upon the questions of the day.

[Footnote 55: _Edmund Campion: A Biography_.

By Richard Simpson. 8vo, pp. 387. London:

Williams & Norgate. New York:

The Catholic Publication Society.]

{291}

The time came, at last, when the theological neutral ground had

been thoroughly explored, and Campion turned to the Fathers. In

their venerable company he seemed to grow more thoughtful and

conscientious. The problem of his life now was not how he could

postpone serious considerations, and shake off religious

responsibility, but how he could reconcile true principles with

false practice; how he could remain in the Established Church of

England, and yet hold to all the old Catholic doctrines which the

Establishment denied. His position, in fact, was almost identical

with that of the modern Tractarians, and his college at Oxford

was the home of a party which entertained nearly the same

opinions. There was one of the Elizabethan bishops, Cheney of

Gloucester, who, having retained a good deal of the orthodox

faith, sympathized heartily with Campion's aspirations and

perplexities. He was the actual founder of the school represented

in later times by Newman and Pusey, and he had fixed upon Campion

to continue and perfect the work after he himself had passed

away. The bishop persuaded our young scholar to take deacons'

orders, so that he might preach and obtain preferment. But the

effect of this step upon Campion was such as Cheney little

anticipated. Almost immediately troubles beset his mind. He found

his new dignity odious and abominable. The idea of preferment

became hateful to him. He wished rather to live as a simple

layman, and in 1569 he resigned his appointments at the

university and went to Dublin, where it seemed that a more

agreeable career awaited him. A project was then afoot for

restoring the old Dublin university founded by Pope John XXI.,

but for some years extinct. The principal mover in the matter was

the Recorder of Dublin and Speaker of the House of Commons, James

Stanihurst, a zealous Catholic, and the father of one of

Campion's pupils. In his house Campion received a generous

welcome, and there he remained for a while, leading a kind of

monastic life, and waiting for the opening of the new seminary,

in which he hoped to find congenial employment. The scheme fell

through, however, and the chief cause of its failure was the

secret hostility of the government to Stanihurst, and the

Lord-Deputy, Sir Henry Sidney, who were most actively concerned

in it, and to Campion, who was to have the principal share in its

direction. Campion was not yet reconciled to the church, but he

was already distrusted as a papist, and only saved from arrest by

the protection of Sidney. Such protection, however, could not

avail him long. The rebellion of some of the English Catholic

nobles, the publication of the pope's bull against Elizabeth

which Felton had posted on the Bishop of London's gates, and the

designs of the king of Spain upon Ireland, had roused a

persecution, and Campion was one of those especially designated

to be arrested. The Lord-Deputy found means to warn him a few

hours before the officers arrived, and he saved himself by

flight. For two or three months he dodged the pursuivants about

Ireland, lurking in the houses of his friends, and working, in

the intervals of the pursuit, at a _History of Ireland_,

which he had begun while lodging with Stanihurst. At last, seeing

that he must soon be captured if he remained on the island, and

fearing to compromise the friends who gave him shelter, he

resolved to return to England, and accordingly, in the disguise

of a lackey, took ship at the little port of Tredagh, near

Dublin. The officers came on board to search for him, and

questioned everybody on the vessel except the fugitive himself.

They seized the manuscripts of his history, and then went away,

cursing "the seditious villain Campion." He reached England in

time to witness the trial of Dr. Storey, who was executed for the

faith in June, 1571.

{292}

We are told nothing of the progress of his conversion after he

left Oxford, but by this time it was complete, and he had

resolved to repair to the English college at Douai, there to fit

himself for more effective labors in the Catholic cause. In

mid-channel the ship in which he had taken passage was overhauled

by an English frigate, and Campion, having no passport, and

being, moreover, suspected and denounced by his fellow-passengers

as a papist, was taken off and carried back to Dover. The captain

appropriated all his prisoner's money, and then set out to

conduct him to London. It was soon evident, however, that the

officer cared more for the purse than the captive; and without a

word being said on either side, Campion understood that he might

run away provided he said nothing about the money. This was

enough. He escaped in one direction while his guard pretended to

pursue him in another; and having obtained a fresh supply of

money from some of his friends, succeeded at last in making his

escape over to France.

He staid long enough at Douai to complete his course of

scholastic theology and to be ordained sub-deacon. After the

lapse of a little more than a year, he resolved to go to Rome

with the purpose of becoming a Jesuit. His biographers generally

attribute this determination to the remorse which he still felt

on account of his Anglican deaconship; but Mr. Simpson is

inclined to lay rather more stress upon a disagreement between

Campion and Dr. Allen, the president of Douai College, upon

political questions. The friendly and even affectionate relations

of these two eminent men were never interrupted; but Dr. Allen

had many opinions which his disciple could not share. Campion,

devoted as he was to the church and the Holy See, was always

loyally obedient to the civil powers of his native country, save

when the laws were in conflict with his conscience. Allen, who

had been many years in exile, was a devoted servant of Philip of

Spain, and was thick in the plots for the overthrow of Elizabeth

and the various schemes for foreign invasion. It is not

impossible that a divergence of sentiment on some such point as

this may have influenced Campion's decision, if not wholly, at

least in part. However it was, the two friends bade each other an

affectionate farewell, and the future martyr, in the guise of a

poor pilgrim, set out afoot for Rome. In shabby garments, dusty

and footsore, he entered the holy city in the autumn of 1572,

only a few days before the death of St. Francis Borgia, third

general of the Society of Jesus. A successor to the saint was not

chosen until April, 1573, and meanwhile Campion had to wait. He

was the first postulant admitted by the new general. Father

Mercurianus, and soon afterward he was sent to Brünn in Moravia

to pass his novitiate. In a letter which he wrote to his brethren

there, after he had taken his vows, we find a pleasing picture of

the humble and happy life which he spent in that retreat. "O dear

walls!" he exclaims, "that once shut me up in your company!

Pleasant recreation-room, where we talked so holily! Glorious

kitchen, where the best friends--John and Charles, the two

Stephens, Sallitzi, Finnit and George, Tobias and Gaspar--fight

for the saucepans in holy humility and charity unfeigned! How

often do I picture to myself one returning with his load from the

farm, another from the market; one sweating stalwartly and

merrily under a sack of rubbish, another under some other toil!

...

{293}

I have been about a year in religion, in the world thirty-five;

what a happy change if I could say I had been a year in the

world, in religion thirty-five!" There is something very touching

and instructive in the record of his first years in the Society

of Jesus; and the chroniclers of his order, who reckon it among

the chief glories of the brotherhood in Bohemia that the English

martyr received his religious training among them, and taught

them at the same time by his illustrious example, have set down

that record with careful and affectionate minuteness. How the man

whom Oxford had revered as a guide was content in a moment to

become the humblest of pupils; how he by whom the young nobility

of England had set the fashion of their thought, their reading,

their elocution, their very walk and manner, was happy in the

privilege of being allowed to put on a dirty apron, roll up his

sleeves, and scour saucepans in the scullery--these are the chief

points in the story of his life at Brünn, and afterward at

Prague, whither he was sent to teach rhetoric. It is a strange

life to read about, yet it probably differed little from the

ordinary life of his brethren in religion, and hundreds of Jesuit

houses to-day exhibit no doubt the same model of industry,

devotedness, and humility. For a certain number of hours daily he

was in the class-room; when his pupils went to play, he went to

wash dishes in the kitchen. He was called upon for poems,

orations, and sacred dramas, to celebrate the college festivals;

for funeral discourses on the death of great persons. He taught

catechism to the children; he visited the hospitals and prisons;

he preached; he heard confessions; he spent incredible pains in

preparing the young Jesuits for the work of disputing

successfully with heretics when they should be sent out to their

various fields of duty. His brethren were amazed that any one man

should have strength to carry so many burdens. He seems, however,

to have borne up well under them. "About myself," he writes to

Father Parsons, "I would only have you know that from the day I

arrived here I have been extremely well--in a perpetual bloom of

health, and that I was never at any age less upset by literary

work than now, when I work hardest. We know the reason. But,

indeed, I have no time to be sick, if any illness wanted to take

me." It was while Campion was thus occupied at Prague, that Sir

Philip Sidney, who had known him at Oxford, came over from

England as ambassador. The young nobleman had many an interview

with his old friend, and seems to have awakened in Campion a

strong hope of his conversion--a prospect to which his friends

and political associates were by no means blind; for they watched

him so closely that the interviews between the ambassador and the

Jesuit were not managed without a great deal of difficulty.

Campion writes to one John Bavand, commending "this young man, so

wonderfully beloved and admired by his countrymen," to the

earnest prayers of all good Catholics. He saw what an effect upon

the faith in England the conversion of a nobleman of Sidney's

brilliant parts and distinguished position must have, and the

re-establishment of the faith in his native island was something

which he had especially at heart. His letters are full of anxiety

on this score. He speaks of catching and subduing his recreant

countrymen "by the prayers and tears at which they laugh;" but we

find no political allusions, and it is plain enough that, in the

various schemes for Catholic insurrections and for foreign

invasions, he had neither share nor heart.

{294}

He had been between five and six years at Prague when he was

summoned to Rome to take part in the mission about to be sent

forth for the conversion of England. The little band of heroes

comprised Dr. Goldwell, Bishop of St. Asaph, who had long been

residing on the continent, several English secular priests, old

men who had been in exile, and young men fresh from their

studies, a few zealous laymen, and three Jesuits, Campion,

Parsons, and a lay brother named Ralph Emerson. To assist them in

their labors, collect alms for them, and find safe hiding-places,

a Catholic Association had just been organized in England by

George Gilbert, a young man of property, whom Father Parsons had

converted in Rome the preceding year. The Jesuits were furnished

with a paper of instructions for their guidance.

Father Parsons was a younger man than Campion, and had been a

shorter time than he in the Society; yet there were good reasons

why he should be appointed the superior in the mission. He was

not only zealous and devout, but he had a good knowledge of men

and affairs, he was well versed in the ways of cities; he was

adroit, versatile, and prudent; and he was somewhat familiar with

the schemes of the pope and other Catholic powers against the

government of Elizabeth. A knowledge of these secret designs

would have been but a sorry safeguard had he fallen into the

hands of the authorities of the crown, and the consciousness must

have heightened his sense of the danger incurred in the

expedition; but Parsons had all the courage of a martyr, though

he did not win a martyr's crown. The party left Rome on the 18th

of April, 1580, and were not more than fairly started on their

journey when the English Secretary, Walsingham received from his

spies a full description of them and a list of their names.

Passing through Geneva, they resolved to have an interview with

Theodore Beza; and the account of it gives a curious picture of

the state of society in those times, and of the manner in which

theological controversy mingled with the ordinary affairs of

life. The travellers made no secret of their religion, though

they disguised their persons and calling. Campion dressed himself

as an Irish servant, waiting on Mr. John Pascal, a lay gentleman

of their party, and the only one who failed in the final day of

trial. Sherwin, one of the secular priests, used to relate with

uncontrollable merriment how naturally Campion played his part.

Beza, under one pretext or another, got rid of them as politely

as possible, and promised to send to their inn an English scholar

of his, the son of Sir George Hastings. Instead of young

Hastings, there came his governor, Mr. Brown, and a young

Englishman named Powell, and we have a strange account of the

priests disputing hotly in the streets of Geneva with the two

Protestants until almost midnight, and challenging Beza to a

public controversy, with the proviso that he who was justly

convicted in the opinion of indifferent judges should be burned

alive in the market-place! Powell had known Campion at Oxford, so

the _soi-disant_ servant kept out of his sight, and when the

former gentleman offered to accompany the missionaries a little

way on their road next morning, Campion was sent forward in

advance. But meeting on the road a minister studying his sermon,

the temptation was too strong for the enthusiastic Jesuit, and he

buckled with him at once.

{295}

The rest of the party came up while they were still at it, hammer

and tongs, and Powell recognized Campion, and saluted him with

great affection. After that, the missionaries made a pilgrimage

of eight or nine miles over difficult paths to St. Clodovens in

France, by way of penance for their curiosity.

We have said that Parsons was privy to some of the political

expeditions against England; but he had no knowledge of the one

which set out about the same time that he did, and the news,

which he learned on his arrival at Rheims, filled him with

dismay. The queen had issued a proclamation which plainly

indicated a purpose to proceed against the Catholics with

increased severity, and the peril of the undertaking had become

greater than ever. It does not appear, however, that one of the

company faltered. Dr. Goldwell had been obliged to turn back and

defer his voyage--which, indeed, he never made at all; but others

joined the mission, and among them was a fourth Jesuit, Father

Thomas Cottam. At Rheims, the party broke up to find their way

across to England by different routes. Campion, Parsons, and

Brother Ralph Emerson were to go by way of St. Omer, Calais, and

Dover. Parsons crossed first, disguised as a soldier returning

from the Low Countries, and in his captain's uniform passed

inspection so easily and was so well treated by the searcher at

Dover that he bespoke that officer's courtesy for his friend,

"Mr. Edmunds, a diamond-merchant," who was shortly to follow him.

He reached London without trouble; but his dress was outlandish,

and people were unusually fearful and suspicious, so he was

turned away from the inns. He knew of a Catholic gentleman,

however, who was held in the Marshalsea prison for his faith, and

he applied to see him. Through him he was brought into

communication with George Gilbert and the Catholic Association,

who had apartments in the house of the chief pursuivant, where up

to this time, thanks in part to the connivance of influential

friends, they had managed to have a daily celebration of Mass.

Father Parsons had induced the friendly searcher at Dover to send

over a letter for him to "Mr. Edmunds," at St. Omer, bidding him

make haste to London with his diamonds, and Campion, as soon as

he received it, set out with Brother Ralph. But, in the mean

time, the English officers had grown more strict; the searcher

had been reprimanded for letting certain persons pass who were

supposed to be priests; and there was a report, moreover, that a

brother of Dr. Allen was coming over, and his description agreed

pretty well with Campion's appearance. The two Jesuits were

accordingly arrested and taken before the mayor; but they were

dismissed after a short detention, and the next day were welcomed

by the association in London.

This pious club was such an admirable illustration of the truth

that the salvation of souls is not the exclusive duty or

privilege of the priesthood that we may spare a moment from our

survey of Campion's life to glance at its history and character.

The missionary career is open to all. Members of religious

orders, secular priests, men of the world, soldiers, lawyers,

shop-keepers, doctors, laborers, farmers, the beggars on the

street, the fashionable lady in her carriage--we can all do

something for the advancement of the great cause; and if we only

knew how to systematize our efforts, how to economize our zeal,

the Catholic Association of Campion's day is an evidence of the

enormous service we might render to the church.

{296}

The founder of the association, George Gilbert, had been anxious,

immediately after his conversion, to expend his first fervor in a

pilgrimage to Jerusalem; but Father Parsons persuaded him rather

to return to England and spend his money there in advancing the

Catholic cause. He drew together a number of young men of his own

rank in life and with somewhat of his own spirit. They hired

rooms together; they bribed officers whose vigilance they could

not elude; they gave shelter to priests; they furnished places

for the celebration of Mass; they kept the Catholics in

communication with each other; they supplied the missionaries

with money; and they organized the tours which the priests made

through the country. The Catholics were beset with spies, and the

government held out strong inducements to weak brethren to betray

their pastors. It was necessary, therefore, that the priests

should be extremely cautious to whom they trusted themselves; and

since they could not carry credentials, it was necessary, too,

that the gentlemen who harbored them should be quite sure whom

they were receiving. This perfect intelligence could only be

obtained by a thorough organization of the Catholic gentry; and

it was not the least part of the duty of the association to see

that, whenever a priest travelled, some one should be with him as

at once an endorser and a guide. It was their part, likewise, to

undertake the preliminary work of converting heretics. In those

fearful times a doubting Protestant could not be admitted to see

a priest until he had given some evidence of the sincerity of his

search after truth. The members of the club took him in hand

first, and brought him to the priest when they felt it to be

safe.

When Campion reached the asylum of their rooms in London, Parsons

had already gone on a tour in the country, leaving word for his

companion to await his return. There was a great desire among the

Catholics who had learned of the arrival of the missionaries to

hear the famous preacher with whose eloquence years ago Oxford

had resounded, but it was no easy matter to find a place where he

might speak in safety. At last, arrangements were made for a

sermon in the servants' hall of a private house, and there, while

trusty gentlemen watched all the avenues of approach, Campion

delivered a discourse with which all the Catholic circles of

London were soon ringing. The faithful and the wavering rushed to

him in crowds. The government got wind of what was going on, and

redoubled their exertions to entrap him. Several priests were

captured, and many Catholics were thrown into prison. The danger

of remaining in London soon became too pressing to be

disregarded. So, after a council had been held, several questions

of discipline settled, and each man's special work assigned, the

priests all went away to different parts of the kingdom.

The pursuit was much hotter after Campion than after any of his

brethren, and it was intensified by the imprudence of a Catholic

layman who had allowed a document entrusted to his care by the

missionary, to be made public. This was a paper drawn up by

Campion on the eve of the separation of their little company,

setting forth the reasons of their coming to England, and

inviting the Protestants to a public conference. It was intended

to be used only in case he should be arrested; but Thomas Pounde,

to whom, for greater surety, he had given a copy, thought it too

good to be kept entirely secret, and thus it soon came to the

hands of the government.

{297}

This, of course, increased their anxiety to capture a man whom,

by his personal influence, his eloquence, and his still brilliant

reputation at Oxford, they felt to be especially dangerous.

Proclamation followed proclamation; the pursuivants were

unceasing in activity; spies were sent into every quarter of the

kingdom; some of the Catholics themselves were corrupted;

watchers were set about the houses of the principal Catholic

gentlemen. Many a time was the Mass or the sermon interrupted by

the coming of the officers and the priest compelled to take

refuge in the woods. Once, when the pursuivants came upon him

suddenly at the house of a private gentleman, a maid-servant, to

make them think he was merely one of the retainers, affected to

be angry with him and pushed him into a pond. The disguise was

effectual, and the good father escaped.

All this while he was engaged in writing his famous book against

the Protestants, known as the _Decem Rationes_. It was

finished about Easter, 1581, and sent to London for the approval

of Parsons, who had a private printing-press in a hidden place,

whereat he had already published certain writings of his own. By

great efforts a number of copies were got ready for the

commencement at Oxford in June; and when the audience assembled

at the exercises, they found the benches strewed with the books,

to the reading of which they gave far more attention than to the

performances of the students. The title-page bore the imprint of

Douai, but the government was not long in ascertaining by the

examination of experts that the work had been done in England.

Campion had gone to London while his book was passing through the

press, to superintend the correction of the sheets; but the

danger was now so imminent that Parsons ordered him away into

Norfolk, in company with Brother Ralph Emerson. The two fathers

rode out of the city together at daylight on the 12th of July,

and, after an affectionate farewell, parted company, the one

going to the north, the other back into the town.

The Judas who was to betray him, however, was on the alert. This

was one George Eliot, formerly steward to Mr. Roper in Kent, and

latterly a servant of the widow of Sir William Petre. He was a

Catholic, but a man of bad character, and had been for some time

a paid informer to the Earl of Leicester. How he knew of

Campion's visit to Lyford is not certain; but he had been looking

for him at several Catholic houses in the neighborhood, and on

the 16th, armed with a warrant and attended by a pursuivant in

disguise, he presented himself at the gate just as Mass was about

to begin, and applied for admission. One of the servants knew him

for a Catholic, but little suspected his real character; so with

much ado he got leave to pass in, having first sent off the

pursuivant to a magistrate for a _posse comitatus_. He heard

the Mass, he heard Campion's sermon; but he was afraid to make

the arrest until the magistrate arrived. As soon as the service

was over, he hurried off. The company--comprising some sixty

persons besides the members of the household--were at dinner when

word was brought that the place was surrounded by armed men.

After a long search, Campion and three other priests were found

concealed in a closet, and taken prisoners.

{298}

The prisoners were carried up to London and committed to the

Tower, making their entrance into the city through the midst of a

hooting mob, Campion leading the procession with his elbows tied

behind him, his hands tied in front, his feet fastened under his

horse's belly, and a placard on his hat, inscribed "_Campion,

the seditious Jesuit_." The governor, Sir Owen Hopton, at

first placed Campion in the narrow dungeon known as

"Little-ease," in which one could neither stand nor lie at

length. He remained there until the fourth day, when, with great

secrecy, he was conducted to Leicester's house, and courteously

received by the earl and several other persons of mark, and

shortly found himself in the presence of the queen. He gave a

truthful account of his motives in coming to England; he

satisfied Elizabeth, as it would appear, of his loyalty; and

could he have accepted the conditions proposed to him, he might

have been dismissed with honors and riches. As it was, Hopton

received orders to treat him more leniently. It was now the

purpose of the government to coax him into compliance.