It is but a few months since a young widow lady, a convert, was

turned out of house and home, not very far from our own city,

after the decease of her father, with whom she had been residing,

by her own brother, for the sole reason that he did not wish to

live in the same house with a papist. We will not multiply

instances; but they will rise up in abundance before the memories

of many who will read these pages; and if a recording angel could

take down what will be remembered, thought, and felt by all whose

eyes will peruse these lines, they would be transformed from a

brief and tame summary into a whole volume of living and pathetic

interest far surpassing the most thrilling tales of fiction;

Tears will be shed, sad memories will throng upon many minds,

many hearts will ache, we are assured, over the words we are

writing in perfect calmness and composure, and without any direct

intention of awakening emotion. Some will think of trials past,

some of trials present, and others will recall to mind their own

weakness and timidity in the hour when they were tried and found

wanting.

{438}

There are many others, however, and will be many more hereafter,

to whom this plea for the liberty of conscience will be, as we

cordially trust, not merely a subject of personal interest, but

also a practical help in surmounting their difficulties. We

allude to those who are now turning or who will hereafter turn

their faces wistfully toward the Catholic Church, but have first

to overcome the obstacles we have described above before they can

enter its portal. For this class of persons we have the most

profound sentiment of pity and sympathy. The rich and

independent, the able-minded and able-bodied, who can take care

of themselves, men who can assert their own rights, and those

generous youths to whom a glorious career is open in the

priesthood, do not claim our sympathy, for they do not need it.

But we pity the helpless and dependent; those who struggle with

poverty and live on the bounty of others, delicate, gentle women,

and all the weak, feeble children of God who would fain follow

their conscience if they were let alone and not interfered with,

but who shrink back appalled when it is a question of nerving

themselves to meet opposition and push their way through trials.

It seems to us that there is something hard and cruel beyond all

other forms of tyranny in that usurped, unjust despotism which is

exercised over these tender consciences. What can be a more

odious or flagrant violation of all right and justice than to

attempt to crush a conscience by force, to quell it by threats,

to wear it out by opposition, to stifle it by fear, or to lure it

by selfish, temporal interests? All will answer this question

alike, and admit, at least in theory, the wrong that lies in the

attempt of any person to violate the rights of any other person's

conscience. The only point really open to discussion is, What

constitutes a violation of just and rightful liberty of

conscience? The question respecting the right or expediency of

enforcing obedience to the dictates of conscience and the

fulfilment of certain moral obligations is quite a different one,

though closely related to the antecedent question. We cannot, in

arguing with non-Catholics on these points, assume the truth of

Catholic principles, or urge any consideration which necessarily

presupposes the Catholic religion to be the true one. Of course,

in the last analysis, we must come back upon the fundamental

principle that the law of God is supreme and must be obeyed at

all hazards, let come what will. No matter what human laws, what

private interests, what dreadful penalties, may stand in the way,

God must be obeyed, conscience must be followed, duty must be

done. The authority of the state must be braved, human affections

must be disregarded, life must be sacrificed, when loyalty to the

truth and to the will of God requires it. Those who reject the

authority of the Catholic Church, however, do not admit that the

Catholic law is the law of God; and we must therefore either make

our sole issue with them on this precise point of the truth of

the Catholic doctrine, which is the same thing as a declaration

of perpetual war, or we must find some middle term common to

both, upon which the peace of social relations can be settled and

the mutual rights and liberties of conscience be secured. We are

obliged, therefore, to waive all claim of right and liberty to

practise the Catholic religion, which is based on its positive

truth, so far as this argument is concerned, and to present only

such claims as a fair-minded person, whether Protestant, Jew, or

infidel, may admit as just and reasonable, without changing in

the least his own particular opinions.

{439}

It is not to be expected that all our arguments will be equally

applicable to every class of persons, whatever their religious

opinions may be; but we will endeavor to furnish at least one or

two for each of the principal classes into which the non-Catholic

community is divided. If some of our Catholic readers are

offended by our seeming to take a tone too apologetic and

defensive, we beg them to remember that the early Christian

apologists were not ashamed to do the like. They vindicated the

Christians of their own time from such accusations as worshipping

an ass's head and drinking the blood of infants. It is painful

and humiliating to be obliged to vindicate ourselves from gross

calumnies; but it is an act of charity toward those who are

deceived by these calumnies, and still more toward these helpless

and defenceless persons who must suffer from them.

We begin on the lowest possible ground by affirming that a person

in becoming a Catholic commits no offence against the laws of

morality or against the civil and social laws commonly recognized

among non-Catholics. There is no treason against society, no

offence against domestic rights, no repudiation of any moral

duties or obligations, nothing to make a person a bad citizen, a

bad neighbor, a bad husband, wife, or child. There is no

disobedience against any lawful external authority which has any

right to inflict any penalties affecting a person's social or

civil rights. There is no reason, therefore, why a person who

embraces the Catholic religion should be treated by his

acquaintances or society in general as a criminal, and made to

suffer in his social and domestic relations. In our heterogeneous

society, everything is tolerated which is not _contra bonos

mores_. That which strikes at the order and peace of the

natural relations binding us together in society cannot be

tolerated even on the pretext of liberty of conscience or

opinion. Therefore, Mormonism has no rights under our laws, and

ought not to be tolerated, and Mohammedanism could not be

tolerated. If the Catholic Church were really what it has been

represented to be by many, it could not claim liberty or even

toleration in non-Catholic states. But it is not what its enemies

have represented it to be. A person who becomes a consistent

Catholic will be a good citizen and respect the laws. He will be

faithful to his social and domestic duties, and strictly

observant of all moral obligations. It is not the spirit of the

Catholic religion to introduce discord or trouble into families

or societies, or to interfere with any just and lawful rights.

The only annoyance which can arise will be the annoyance which

persons wishing to violate the natural laws will meet with from

the conscientious observance of morality by the Catholic party.

Suppose a Catholic lady wishes to go to Mass, to confession, to

devote a part of her time to meditation or charitable works? Does

that necessarily interfere with the perfect fulfilment of all her

duties toward her family and society? Is it any greater liberty

than that which women generally expect to be conceded to them,

and which they take at any rate, whether it is granted with a

good or a bad grace? Let the question be decided by the actual

conduct of those who have become Catholics in their relations

with others who are not of their faith, and we are not afraid of

the judgment which candid and fair judges will render. Certainly,

then, they ought to enjoy the same liberty which is conceded to

those who profess any other form of religion not contrary to the

received standard of good morals, and to those who profess none

at all.

{440}

Those who profess the latitudinarian opinion that all religions

are alike, and who claim unbounded liberty of opinion for all,

ought to be the first to give to Catholics the full benefit of

this privilege.

With those who are more strongly attached to their own form of

religion and hold it to be the only true one, the case is

somewhat more difficult. Such persons may say that a person

brought up in what they call the true, Evangelical, reformed

faith, or in the pure, apostolical, Protestant Episcopal Church,

especially if he has been a communicant, and most of all if he

has been a minister, is an apostate from his faith as a

Christian, a renouncer of his baptism, and therefore a criminal

before God and the church, if he, to use their language, becomes

a Romanist. Let it be so. When argument and persuasion have been

tried and have failed, let the church pronounce her spiritual

censures on the disobedient member. We cannot complain of that.

Let him be canonically deposed if he is a minister. We cannot

complain of that, either. But is there any reason why our

Evangelical or High-Church friends should think it necessary or

expedient to proceed any further? Suppose they do regard the

person in question as a delinquent and as an unfortunate dupe of

error and delusion. Will our Evangelical friends affirm the

principle that none but the elect are entitled to the rights and

privileges arising out of natural and social relations? Will our

High-Church friends affirm the same, substituting for the elect,

consistent members of their own communion? If not, we cannot see

why they may not allow Catholics the same indulgence which they

concede to sinners, heretics, and infidels. We put them the plain

question, whether they have any right to interfere with the

conscience and the religion of another, or to use any kind of

coercion or persecution against any one, whatever may be the

relation in which he stands toward them. Some of them may perhaps

deny that a well-instructed member of that which they deem to be

the true church can become a Catholic conscientiously and

sincerely. But suppose it is so. Where is the authority to compel

him to fulfil his conscientious obligations of a purely spiritual

nature? We are not now speaking of young children who have not

attained to years of full discretion, over whom parents certainly

have an authority which must be respected. But, apart from this

exception, what authority can be claimed for enforcing any

religious obligation by any other means than an appeal to the

conscience itself? If there are any who really think there is a

right of excommunication in their church which extends so far as

to exclude a person from his privileges as a member of society,

and to reduce him to the state of one who is _vitandus_, or

an outcast to be shunned by all, we only desire that they will

act out their doctrine impartially and universally. Is it not, at

least, _inexpedient_ to appeal to it in the present state of

society, while no kind of disability is contracted by those who

profess the principles of Bishop Colenso or Herbert Spencer?

The case may be supposed of persons, influenced by no ill feeling

at all, who would desire to withdraw from all intimacy with

relatives or acquaintances who have joined the Catholic Church,

on the ground that their conversation and influence may be

dangerous to young persons in the family. Such a motive as this

we can respect, for we can and must respect fidelity to

conscience, even when it is an erroneous conscience which is

followed.

{441}

Moreover, no one is bound to keep up any intimate relations which

transcend the bounds of ordinary courtesy with any persons

outside the immediate family circle, unless it is agreeable to

himself to do so. But what is to be said of those who, on a plea

of conscience, sunder the closest bonds of nature, or threaten to

do so? We can easily understand that a Jew, a Puritan, an

old-fashioned Lutheran, a Presbyterian, or an English Churchman

might be so thoroughly absorbed in his religion, and so intense

in his attachment to it, that the conversion of a wife or child

to the Catholic Church would be a far worse blow to his

affections, and a more blighting disappointment to his hopes,

than would be the sudden death of either one, however tenderly

loved. An intelligent Jewish gentleman once told the writer of

this article that he was deterred from receiving Christian

baptism by the fear of causing the death of his aged father; and

this is not an unusual instance either among the descendants of

the ancient Pharisees or the adherents of the "straitest sects"

of Protestant Christians. In such cases, where no softening of

the temper and no modification of the mental condition takes

place, there is no room for argument. The word of our Lord must

be fulfilled--that he came not to bring peace, but a sword. One

who has to choose between submission to the will of another and

the disruption of the most sacred human ties, must choose the

latter when the former involves the violation of a certain and

known law of God. There is, therefore, no other course open to a

Catholic in such a case except the one of professing and

practising the Catholic religion openly, without regard to

consequences. If they are excluded from their homes and abandoned

by their friends, they must try to bear it patiently. We would

scorn to appeal to the mere sentiment of human pity or to the

maxims of indifferentism, in arguing with any man who should say

that his religious principles require him to banish a wife, a

son, or a daughter out of his house. It is our opinion, however,

that in most instances, after persons have had time for cool

reflection, they will not deliberately affirm that their

religious principles do require these harsh measures. No one will

pretend that they require or authorize any kind of tyrannical or

vexatious persecution, or an abandonment of those who have a

natural claim to protection to poverty and suffering. We are

disposed to think that prejudice, passion, wounded pride, and

similar causes have a great deal to do with the line of conduct

alluded to. And one good reason for thinking so is the fact that

so many firm and consistent Protestants, and even bishops or

other clergymen of standing, have acted differently, and have

treated Catholic converts even of their own families with

kindness and courtesy. We have supposed hitherto that we were

arguing with a person who would not admit that a convert from the

religion he himself professes can be sincere and conscientious.

It is impossible, however, to sustain such a position on any

ground which the majority of intelligent non-Catholics will admit

to be reasonable; for it can be sustained only by one of three

arguments. First, that the illumination of the Holy Spirit gives

to the individual reason an infallible certainty of the truth of

some one form of anticatholic belief. Or, second, that some such

form is at least made morally certain by rational evidence of

such a kind as to exclude all probability that the Catholic

religion may be true.

{442}

Or, third, that some certain and unerring authority, to which one

is bound to submit his private judgment, exists in one of the

several communions calling itself the true church of God. The

first argument cannot be brought into the forum of discussion,

because there is no certain, external test by which it can be

proved that such an illumination exists, or by whom among various

claimants it is possessed. The second is refuted by the simple

fact that so many intelligent and learned persons are convinced

by the Catholic arguments. The third is refuted by the fact that

no one of the churches claims infallibility. High-Churchmen claim

a teaching authority for their communion, but it is not claimed

by their church itself in any such sense as to exclude the right

and duty of testing its claims and doctrines by private judgment

on the Scriptures. Those who make the claim of authority in

behalf of this church do not pretend that it is more than a

portion of the universal church, and therefore, by the very claim

they put forth, directly suggest and provoke an examination of

the question what the universal church really teaches. The most

learned and eminent theologians among them distinctly assert that

the doctrines of the Church of England must be interpreted in

conformity with the teaching of the Catholic Church. Will any

reasonable person, then, pretend that one may not examine all the

evidence that can be adduced to prove what that teaching is; or

that he may not conscientiously and sincerely adopt the

conclusion that this teaching is really identical with the

doctrine of the Roman Church? We may cite here the judgment of

Dr. Johnson, who was a staunch Episcopalian, upon this point.

Boswell relates it in these words: "Sir William Scott informs me

that he heard Johnson say, 'A man who is converted from

Protestantism to popery may be sincere. He parts with nothing: he

is only superadding to what he already had. But a convert from

popery to Protestantism gives up so much of what he has held as

sacred as anything he retains; there is so much _laceration of

mind_ in such a conversion that it can hardly be sincere and

lasting.'" [Footnote 100]

[Footnote 100: Boswell's _Johnson_. Edit, Bait., Bond,

1856, p. 168]

In truth, every form of dogmatic and positive Protestantism

presents its lines of fracture from the great mass of Christendom

so conspicuously to the eye, that it is absurd to pretend that

its relation to that mass is not a thing to be examined and

judged of by every one who is capable of judging for himself,

that is, by every one who is responsible to his conscience and to

God for his belief upon those doctrines affirmed by the Catholic

Church and denied by his own detached body. An old-fashioned,

strict Israelite can make a far more plausible claim for

authority over the conscience in behalf of the synagogue, than

any Protestant can make for his church. The Jewish hierarchy had

once authority from God, and has only been superseded by the

sovereign authority of Jesus Christ. We cannot argue with him,

therefore, that a Jew who renounces Judaism violates no

obligation of conscience toward a lawful authority, except by

adducing the evidence that Jesus is the Messias foretold by the

prophets. Upon his own premises he must regard such a person as

an apostate and a rebel. The only reason which could have any

weight with him, why he should continue to show the same kindness

to a member of his family who had been baptized as before, would

be, that it is better to leave such a case to the judgment of

God, and refrain from an exercise of severity which could do no

good, but rather aggravate the difficulty.

{443}

The majority of Jews at present are, however, rationalists. They

place the essence of religion in mere Theism and natural

morality, regarding the peculiarities of Judaism as accidentals.

On their own ground, therefore, they can have no excuse for

obtruding any claim of Judaism over the reason, conscience, or

private judgment of any of their number. Take away a divinely

appointed, infallible authority, and in all matters of purely

religious belief and practice each individual is in possession of

full liberty, for the right use of which he is responsible only

to God. Moreover, in matters of positive, dogmatic doctrine, the

majority of non-Catholics acknowledge that only probability is

attainable. Logic and good sense have brought them to this

conclusion as contained in the premises with which they started.

But in questions of probability and matters of opinion, persons

of equal sincerity and conscientiousness may differ. We are

certain that this will be admitted as an axiom by our

non-Catholic readers. But if this be so, those who profess to be

convinced of the truth of Catholic doctrines ought to be regarded

as sincere and conscientious, which we think most of our

non-Catholic friends will also admit. Every one must see, then,

how contrary to every right and honorable principle it is to

attempt to act on the minds of those who desire to become

Catholics by any other means than argument and persuasion. How

dangerous, how unjust, how mean it is to strive to terrify or

wheedle them into a forced acquiescence in the will of others

through human and worldly motives! It would be almost an insult

to our readers to argue this point gravely. Those who follow the

principles of Demas in the _Pilgrim's Progress_, and are in

favor of religion only when she walks in silver slippers, will

not publicly avow and defend any such base maxims, or maintain

seriously that their great objection to the Catholic religion is,

that it is not sufficiently genteel. Even the _New York

Herald_ flouts scornfully the religion of velvet cushions,

which makes the elect to consist solely of the _élite_ of

society.

But at last we come at what is the real _gravamen_ of the

complaint against Catholics on the part of those who are disposed

to be fair and kindly. It is not that we hold certain doctrines

as opinions, or adopt certain modes of worship as suited to our

taste. This could be allowed without difficulty as our undoubted

right, provided we would admit that the Catholic Church is only

the best and most perfect among several forms of religion. But we

maintain its exclusive truth and legitimacy, and proclaim it to

be the only way of salvation. It is unpleasant for one to have

his wife, or children, or near friends, look upon him as a person

excluded from communion with them in spiritual things and out of

the way of salvation. Very true! But what does this prove? It

proves that the ideal of society is only actualized in religious

unity. It makes no difference what your ideal is, whether it is

something purely natural, or, under some form, supernatural.

There must be unity either in some negative or some positive

form. That is, there must be something to give those who are

closely connected on the earth the same idea of the tendency and

end of this earthly life, and of the future life which is to

succeed it. Yet we find that society is not in this ideal state

among us. It is impossible for Catholics to sacrifice their

convictions and violate the dictates of their conscience, for the

sake of a unity which they believe to be chimerical.

{444}

We believe that it is only the Catholic religion which can bring

society to its ideal perfection, and therefore we shall, for this

reason, as well as for higher ones, do all in our power to make

it universal. Probably our Evangelical friends await the

millennium, and other classes of the religious community await

the universal triumph of some kind of church of the future, while

the sceptics look for a millennium of science and common sense.

Meanwhile, it is probable that some time must elapse before any

such epoch shall arrive, and we must live together in all manner

of political and social relations. It is only by a jealous regard

for the personal religious liberty of every individual that we

can live together in peace and harmony. Is it not, then, better

that, if we cannot immediately heal all the wounds of society, we

should at least alleviate them as much as possible, awaiting a

more radical cure at a future time?

We have already, in a former article, expressed our views upon

this point sufficiently, so that we need not dwell upon it any

longer at present. Happily, these are the views which are

practically carried out in a great number of cases, and are

gaining ground more and more. The state of things we have

described is becoming ameliorated even in England, but much more

in our own country. If the just, honorable, and rational temper

of the best class of non-Catholic Americans toward the Catholic

religion and its members were universal, and all persons disposed

to become Catholics were treated with the same delicate respect

for their liberty of conscience which some have experienced,

there would be no occasion for this reclamation in behalf of that

liberty. Those of our readers who can class themselves under this

category may understand, therefore, that with them we have no

controversy; but are combating an enemy as hostile to their own

domestic and social peace and well-being as to our own.

----------

Benediction.

"We go so far, and with so much trouble, to obtain the

blessings of certain holy persons, and of the holy father the

pope; yet here is the Lord of saints, and the God of whom Pius

IX. is only the vicegerent, and we cannot intermit our

socialities or forego our ease to receive his blessing!"

E. A. S.

The Invitation.

The balmy May is breathing on the air,

The rich, red sun sinks slowly down the west.

Come forth, dear soul, and be an honored guest:

One doth invite thee to his house all fair;

One great and good, this eve, doth wait thee there.

Nay, nay, not that dear friend whose hand hath prest

So oft thy own; not any ruler blest.

Of happiest clime: a nobler friendship share.

Ah! no; no poet doth such kindness move;

No wise, nor good, nor grand, nor holy, whom

The race reveres: a better friend would prove

His love; a greater asks thee to his home.

Within the tabernacle of his love,

The Lord of heaven awaits thee: wilt thou come?

---------

{445}

Nellie Netterville; Or, One Of The Transplanted.

CHAPTER IX.

To this proposition Nellie joyfully assented, and he led the way

accordingly up a rocky path winding westward toward the cliffs.

Once or twice he turned as if to give her aid, but Nellie skipped

like a young kid from rock to rock, exulting in her independence;

and, finding that she declined assistance, he went on in silence

until they reached a point among the cliffs, high enough to give

them a full sea view toward the west.

The Atlantic lay beneath them, rolling in its mighty volume of

deep waters, and dashing them against the cliffs below with the

strength and calmness of a sleepy giant. Nellie had often seen

the _sea_, that narrow strip of water, namely, which

separated her own birth-home from the birth-place of her kindred;

but of the mighty ocean, with its thousand voices coming up from

the deep caves below, its murmurings and whisperings, its

infinite variety of tints and aspects, its lights and shadows,

its clear green depths and crystal purity, such as no smaller

sheet of water can ever boast of, she had never even dreamed

before; and as her eye roamed over the smooth expanse until it

reached that uttermost point where sea and sky seem to blend

together, a sense of vastness and power fell upon her soul which

almost oppressed her. For a few minutes Roger watched her as she

stood there in hushed and breathless admiration, but just as the

silence was beginning to be oppressive he broke in by saying,

softly, "Yes, yes! it is all bright, and smooth, and shining now;

but I have stood here on an autumn evening, and watched it when

it was black and swollen, brimful beneath the coming storm--when

the wind seemed almost a living power--a thing to be seen as well

as felt--as it swept over that mighty mass of waters, mingling

its hoarse voice with theirs, and forcing on their waves, as a

general forces on his troops, until it dashed them in a very

frenzy of fruitless valor against the beetling cliffs beneath us.

And, in truth, I almost prefer it in those moods," he added, like

one thinking his own thoughts aloud; "for then it looks simply

like what it is, a huge monster ever greedy for its prey,

whereas, now, in this lazy sunshine, it seems to me nothing more

or less than a great smiling treachery, wooing its victims toward

it, only that it may afterward the more thoroughly engulf them."

"It is a great, beautiful terror, even as it is to-day," said

Nellie breathlessly. "What a height we are above it! It makes me

giddy only to look down?"

"Do not look, then," said Roger anxiously, "but rather turn

inward toward yonder isle, which is only separated from the

mainland by a narrow strip of water. There are cliffs upon that

island which look westward over the ocean and rise eighteen

hundred feet above it, and the inhabitants will tell you that,

when the weather is calm enough, you can see from thence, at the

setting of the sun, the 'Hy Brysail'--the enchanted isle, the

'Tir-na-n'oge,' or land of eternal youth and beauty, to which

death and sorrow never come, and where (so the old legend tells

us) a hundred years of this mortal life pass swiftly as a single

day.

{446}

Few, as you may well suppose, are the favored mortals who have

ever reached it, and fewer still, if any, who have ever come back

to tell the tale of their adventures."

"It is a pretty legend," said Nellie, straining her eyes over the

ocean as earnestly as though she seriously expected to discover

the fairy island of which he spoke floating on its bosom. "Have

you ever really seen anything like land in that direction?"

"If you choose, we can go some of these days on a voyage of

discovery," said Roger, smiling at her seriousness; "only, if we

do find 'Hy-Brysail,' I warn you that we shall have to stay

there. Such is the law by which adventurers to its shores are

bound. It does not seem a hard law either, does it? Would you

object to it. Mistress Netterville?' to be young and beautiful

for ever! Sorrow forgotten as if it had never been, beneath the

spells of that magic land!"

Nellie drew a long breath, and her blue eyes grew well-nigh black

with suppressed feeling as she looked westward toward the ocean.

But she did not answer.

"Well," he said, finding she would not speak, "will you try the

adventure with me, or do you still prefer earth and its passing

showers to this land of eternal sunshine?"

Nellie sighed--it almost seemed as if she were making a real

choice; and when he playfully repeated, "Have you decided? which

shall it be--this old kingdom of Grana Uaille or Tir-na-n'oge?"

she quite seriously replied:

"Not Tir-na-n'oge, certainly; though a year ago, perhaps, I might

have chosen otherwise. But youth and its sunshine is not real

happiness, after all, although sometimes it looks very like it;

and even if it were, there is something to me in a life of

happiness, simple and unalloyed, less noble, and less like the

choice of a soul predestined to eternity, than in one of sorrow

bravely borne."

"Sorrow has done its work well for you, at all events," said

Roger, moved to a higher feeling of reverence than, two minutes

before, he would have thought it possible to have entertained for

a creature so young and still so childish."

"Woe to the soul upon which it does it not, once that soul has

been delivered to its guidance," Nellie answered softly, and

almost as it were beneath her breath.

Roger gazed upon her silently. It seemed as if she were changing

beneath his very eyes from a bright, impulsive child into a woman

of deep and earnest feeling--a woman in every fibre of her fine,

strong nature--and yet still in the untried freshness of her

sixteen years as innocent and confiding as a child.

"Then you prefer a happiness which would bring with it the zest

of contrast?" he added, as if to prove her further.

"I would prefer, at all events, a happiness founded upon duty,"

she answered gravely; and then, as if half-ashamed of her own

earnestness, she asked him lightly:

"Is it not strange to find these floating traditions of a

paradise of peace and plenty among a people so completely bereft

of both as these poor creatures, by their very condition as a

conquered race, must necessarily be?"

"For that very reason!" he answered quickly; "for that very

reason! Men despised as savages and treated as wild beasts, will

either brood over schemes of real vengeance or soothe themselves

with dreams of unreal bliss.

{447}

Is it wonderful, therefore, that these poor people, with their

dreamy and imaginative natures, should sometimes look wistfully

over the broad ocean, and fancy they see a land where (if once

only it could be reached) flowers, and joy, and eternal sunshine,

would console them for the misery endured among these barren

rocks, in which they have been forced by their enemies to seek--I

was going to say, a home--it would have been far more correct to

have said--a prison?"

"Nay, but now it is you that are unjust," said Nellie,

smiling--"unjust to this fair land you live in. The kingdom of

Grana Uaille can in no sense of the word be called a prison; and

even were it ten times less beautiful than it is, to me it would

still remain the one bright memory left me to look back to in

this great year of sorrow."

Roger turned quickly round, but Nellie met his eye with such a

look of frank candor and unconsciousness as to the possibility of

any hidden meaning being attachable to her words, that he felt

tacitly rebuked beneath it, and merely said:

"Ay; but, Mistress Netterville, I was talking of a home."

"Home!" said Nellie softly--"home, after all, is but the place

where the heart garners up its treasures. These were almost the

last words my dear mother said to me, and now I feel their truth;

for if she were but once more at my side, the barrenest island in

Clew Bay would become to me, I think, at once as home-like almost

and dear as Netterville itself."

Again Roger seemed on the point of saying _something_, but

again he checked himself and was silent.

Nellie saw the flush upon his brow, and interpreted it her own

way.

"You are not angry. Colonel O'More," she said, with the

simplicity of a child; "surely you do not fancy, because I spoke

of Netterville, that I am ungrateful for the kindness which has

made this island like a second home to me."

"No, indeed," he answered, with a smile so bright that it must

have reassured her even if he had not said a word in answer. "No,

indeed. I was, or at all events I _am_, only thinking how I

can best persuade you and Lord Netterville to consider this

island as your home, even in the absence of its lawful owner."

"Absence," said Nellie; "are you going then, and wherefore?"

"Wherefore?" said O'More quickly. "I marvel that you cannot

guess. Because, Mistress Netterville, though I live upon this

island, and though its inhabitants acknowledge me as their

chieftain, it is yet a sorry fact that I am poor, poorer in

proportion than the poorest of the number; an outlaw besides,

with every man's hand and sword against me, and nothing but the

traditions of past greatness to soothe, or, which much oftener is

the case, to add bitterness to the meanness of my present

station."

"Why call it meanness?" said Nellie, flashing up. "You have

fought and lost for your king and country, as we all have fought

and lost; and your enemies may take your lands indeed, but they

cannot rob you of the glory of the cause for which you have

contended, nor can they make you other than you are, a descendant

of brave old Grana Uaille and the inheritor of her kingdom."

"Kingdom!" said Roger, with a little bitter laugh. "Turn your

eyes inland, Mistress Netterville, and look from the northern

point of Clew Bay southward toward the spot where Croagh Patrick

casts its shade upon the bright waters.

{448}

That was the old kingdom of Grana Uaille, and my inheritance upon

the day that I was born. My earliest recollections therefore are

connected with this wild land, and every rock and cave in its

fair winding coast-line was as familiar to me in my childish days

as the toys in their nursery are to more tenderly nurtured

children. But they sent me at last to Spain for that education

which would have been denied me here, and I only came back (while

still a mere raw boy) to fight under the banner of my kinsman, I

will not trouble you with a history of that war; you know it,

alas, too well already! But when Preston took refuge in Galway,

and the other chiefs of the confederation dispersed in different

directions, I made the best of my way hither, hoping, amid the

wilds and fastnesses of my own country, to be permitted to remain

at peace. Rumors reached me on the way of the great scheme of the

transplantation, and of the numbers flocking from the eastern

counties to usurp, against their will, the possessions of their

poorer brethren in the west. Soon after that, came tidings that

the enemy had reserved the coast-line for themselves, then that

they had swarmed over into some of the Clew Bay islands, and

then, at last, that they had taken possession of and fortified

Carrig-a-hooly, the old castle of Grana and the spot where I was

born. Still I pressed unhesitatingly forward; for I remembered

the 'Rath,' and knowing that it was, or used to be, almost a

ruin, I hoped it would have escaped them, and that I might find

there a refuge and concealment for the moment. Mistress

Netterville, you can guess at the result. I went as you went, and

found as you found, that it was occupied already. Major

Hewitson--"

"What of Major Hewitson?" a voice asked impatiently at his elbow.

Roger turned, and found himself face to face with Henrietta, who

had glided so quietly up the mountain path that neither he nor

Nellie had an idea of her presence until she announced it by this

question.

Remembering her kindness of the day before, Nellie's first

impulse had been to greet her eagerly; her next was to retreat a

step behind O'More, with an uncomfortable though only half

acknowledged consciousness that she herself would be considered

by Henrietta as one too many in the coming conversation. There

was, in truth, a flush on the young lady's brow and a sparkle in

her eye, by no means inviting to familiarity, and without seeming

conscious even of Nellie's presence, she repeated the question

angrily to O'More:

"What of Major Hewitson? What of the owner of yonder castle?"

Roger looked at her steadily, then removing his cap, and speaking

in his most courtly tones, he answered quietly:

"Nothing, Mistress Hewitson, nothing at least, unfit to be said

in the presence of his daughter."

"That won't do!" cried Henrietta passionately, "that won't do. I

heard his name as I came up, and I will know what you were saying

of him."

Roger laughed a bright, merry laugh, which Nellie thought no

ill-humor could have resisted, and he answered frankly:

"Nay, for that matter. Mistress Hewitson, if you insist upon it,

you are quite welcome to hear not only all that I did say, but

all likewise that I was about to say on the subject of your

father. I had just observed to Mistress Netterville (whose person

you seem somehow to have forgotten since yesterday) that I found

Major Hewitson in possession of my last refuge on the mainland,

and I was going to add that, as he had thus made _his_

fortune at my expense, I trusted he would not endeavor to prevent

me seeking mine, where in these days Irishmen most often find

them, under the golden flag of Spain."

{449}

Spain! Nellie's heart leaped up suddenly, and then grew very

still. This, then, was the meaning of that word "absence" which

had already startled and, even against her will, disturbed her.

This was his meaning. He was about to leave Ireland for ever, and

make a home for himself in his mother's land. Nellie's heart

leaped up, and then grew very still!

When she returned to a consciousness of the outward world around

her, Henrietta was saying eagerly:

"Do not wait to know what he may think upon the subject; but go

at once. Remember you are an outlaw, and that an outlaw is one

whom the law permits to be hunted like a wild beast, and slain

whenever or however he may be taken."

"And this, then, is the fate which your worthy father is

preparing for me?" Roger asked in a tone of bantering politeness,

which, considering the circumstances and Henrietta's evident

excitement, Nellie could not help thinking almost unkind. "It is

thus, like a wild beast, as you rightly term it, that he is about

to set upon me and slay me unawares."

"I do not say it! I do not know it!" said Henrietta, almost

sobbing. "I only say--only know that there are fresh troops of

soldiers coming in to-day; that there have been for at least a

week past prayer-meetings and preachings and waitings on the

Lord, things which all portend a coming danger, and one that

probably will point toward you. Colonel O'More, be merciful; take

my warning for what it may be worth, and ask no further

questions. Remember, that if I think not with my father in these

matters, I am still, at all events, his daughter. And now I must

begone, for with all my skill at the oar, and little Paudeen's to

boot, I shall have hard work to get back in time for the mid-day

meal, and the long and weary homily by which it is seasoned and

made pleasant to unbelievers like myself."

Henrietta turned as if to depart, but yet she did not. She seemed

to be struggling hard with some hidden feeling, and at last, with

an effort so violent that it was visible, at least to Roger's

eyes, she flung her arms round Nellie's neck.

"I know nothing of you but your name, young mistress," she said

in a smothered voice; "but I know, at least, that I and mine have

wrought you a great injustice. That injustice unhappily I have no

power to repair; but yet, if ever you have need of any help that

I can give, and will come and ask me for it, believe me, instead

of heaping coals of fire on my head, you will be giving me the

only real happiness I can feel, so long as I know that, by my

residence in these lands, I am usurping the rights of others."

Henrietta almost flung Nellie from, her as she finished speaking,

and then, without another word, either to her or Roger, she took

the down path of the cliff, and was out of sight in a moment.

The two whom she left behind her continued silent, until they saw

the "corragh," or small boat, in which she had come, and which

had been waiting for her beneath the cliffs, gliding once more

out into the open bay; then they also turned their steps

homeward, and Roger, with no small dash of enthusiasm in his

manner, exclaimed:

{450}

"Brave girl! would you believe it, this is the second time she

has given me notice of a snare? only the first time," he added,

with perhaps some intuitive guess at the sort of questioning that

might be going on in Nellie's mind, "only the first time it was

by Paudeen, who sails her boat, and who, she well knows, may be

trusted in all that regards the safety of his chieftain. But what

is the old white-haired gospeller up to now, I wonder? I own I am

fairly puzzled!"

"We are not, I trust, the cause of this fresh trouble to you?"

said Nellie timidly.

"Oh! no. I think not; for your sake I trust not," he answered

thoughtfully. "It seemed to me to be altogether personal to

myself; for if it had been about the priest, I think she would

have said so."

"The priest! where is he?" Nellie asked. "I did not even know

that there was one upon the island."

"Not upon this island, but on another, as you shall see to-morrow

if you choose to make one of his Sunday congregation. But yonder

is your grandfather watching for you: had we not better go and

join him?"

Nellie assented, and quickening her pace almost to a run, she was

in her grandfather's arms ere Roger, who came on more leisurely,

had time to join them.

Lord Netterville gazed lovingly into Nellie's face, and smiled as

he saw the bright color which exercise had called into her pale

cheeks. Then he turned courteously toward his host. Perhaps he

had some vague idea in his old head that the fate of his

grandchild was to be henceforth, in some way or other, connected

with that of Roger; perhaps he was not himself aware of the

significance of his action; but this at all events is certain,

that, instead of relinquishing Nellie's hand, he kept it tightly

in his own, and when the young chieftain approached to greet him,

laid it silently in that of Roger.

There was enough in the action itself, and still more in the way

in which it was done, to send the blood scarlet to Nellie's brow,

and she struggled to release her hand. For one moment, however,

Roger held it, gently but firmly, he even made a movement as if

he were about to raise it to his lips; instead of doing so,

however, he dropped it quietly, and said in a low voice:

"Not now, not yet; but when you are once more at your mother's

side, will you permit me to remind you of this moment, and to ask

for the treasure which I now relinquish, at the hands of her who

is your only lawful guardian?"

Chapter X.

Early the next morning, Nellie found herself gliding over the

waters of Clew Bay in one of the native corraghs of the country,

under the protection of her host. He was captain and crew all in

one, and she was his only passenger; for it had been decided on

the previous evening that Lord Netterville was not in a fit state

to endure the fatigue of such a voyage, and with old Nora to look

after his creature comforts, and Maida to guard him in his lonely

fortress, Roger assured his granddaughter that she need have no

scruple in leaving him during the two or three hours required for

their enterprise. And Nellie had readily obeyed; for, if the

truth must be told, she had begun to rely implicitly upon his

judgment, and to submit to it as unquestioningly as if she had

been a child.

{451}

The little shyness produced by Lord Netterville's thoughtless

action of the day before had entirely worn off, partly because

she herself had striven _womanfully_ against the feeling,

but chiefly because Roger, thoroughly comprehending how needful

it was to her comfort that, during her residence in his lonely

kingdom, she should be entirely at her ease in his society, had

adopted, as if by instinct, precisely the affectionate, brotherly

sort of manner which was of all others the best calculated to

produce this result. Nellie therefore gave herself up without a

thought to the pleasant novelty of a brotherly sort of petting

and protection which seemed to call for nothing more than quiet

acceptance on her part, and she listened to Roger with the keen

and unsated interest of a child as he told her the names, one

after another, of many of the clustered islands and rugged

rocklets, glittering like jewels in the deep bosom of the bay,

almost always contriving to add some little legend or stray scrap

of history, which gave each for the moment an especial, and (if

the expression may be allowed toward inanimate objects) an almost

personal interest in her eyes. At last he turned her attention

toward the mainland, pointing out the graceful windings of Clew's

varied shore, its wave-worn caverns and rocky arches, its cliffs

with their mantles of many-colored lichens which made them look

at that distance as if nature had stained them into an imitation

of most curiously-colored marble; and beyond these again, its

broad tracts of uncultivated bog-land, purple with heath in

autumn, but now yellow with gorse or dark with waving fern, its

hills rising one above another in lonely, savage grandeur, with

Croagh Patrick, the monarch of them all, standing up on the south

side of the bay, and looking down in haughty, cold indifference

upon its waters as they flowed beneath him. Nellie followed his

eye and finger eagerly as he pointed out each individual feature

in the scene before her; but observing that he lingered for a

moment on Croagh Patrick, she turned toward him for explanation.

"It is Croagh Patrick," he said; then perceiving that she was not

much the wiser for the information, he added in some surprise,

"Do you not know the legend, that it was from the cone of yonder

hill St. Patrick pronounced the curse which banished all venomous

hurtful things from Ireland? Had the saint lived in these days,"

Roger added, in that undertone which Nellie had by this time

discovered to be natural to him in moments of deep feeling, "it

is not, I think, against toads and snakes that he would have

directed his miracle-working powers, but against the men who,

coming to a land which is not their own, make war in God's name

against God's creatures, hunting them down with horn and hound,

and snaring and slaying them with as little compunction as they

would have snared or slain a wolf."

"Would he then have expelled me also?" asked Nellie, with a

wicked smile. "You know that I, too, (and more's the pity!) have

blood of the hated Saxon in my veins."

"Certainly not," said Roger promptly, "with your blue-black eyes

and blue-black hair, he would without a doubt (saint and prophet

though he was) have been deluded into believing you a Celt."

"And so I am almost," said Nellie, with childish eagerness; "only

consider, Colonel O'More, we have been in the country almost

three hundred years, and in all that time, until my dear father's

marriage with my mother, (who is unfortunately an Englishwoman,)

it has been the boast and tradition of our race that its sons and

daughters have never wedded save with the sons and daughters of

their adopted land."

{452}

"Remember, then, that it will be for you to renew the tradition,"

said Roger suddenly, and without reflection. He repented himself

bitterly a moment afterward, as he caught a glimpse of the flush

upon Nellie's half-averted face, and in order to undo the evil

which he had done he added hastily, "Yonder is our destination,

that bare, black rock jutting out from the mainland far into the

deep waters."

"It is not then an island?" said Nellie a little disappointed. "I

fancied you said yesterday that it was one."

"Perhaps I did, for it juts out so far and so boldly into deep

water that, from many parts of the bay, it looks almost like an

island. You cannot see the hermitage from this, but yonder is the

church, perched right upon the cliffs above."

"Perched!" repeated Nellie, with a sort of shudder. "I should

hardly say even that it _was perched_, for to me it looks as

if it were actually toppling over."

"And so it is," said Roger; "the tower is out of the

perpendicular already, and I never hear a winter storm without

picturing it to myself as going (as go most certainly it will

some day) crash over the cliff. It is safe enough, however, in

this calm weather," he added, for he saw that Nellie was

beginning to look nervous, "or I never should have thought of it

as a refuge for its present occupant, though, for that matter, it

was but a choice of evils, his life being in jeopardy whichever

way he turned."

"Is he then especially obnoxious?" Nellie asked; "or is it only

that, like all our other priests, he is forced to do his mission

secretly?"

"Especially obnoxious? I should think, indeed he was," said

Roger; "for he was chaplain to the brave old bishop whom they

hanged at the siege of Clonmel, and was present at his death. How

he managed to escape himself, has always been a marvel to me; but

escape he did, and came hither for a refuge. I stowed him away in

the ruined hermitage overhead, with a few other poor fellows who

are outlawed like myself, and in greater danger, and his presence

has never been even suspected by the enemy; so that he might, if

he had been so minded, have escaped long ago by sea. But when he

found us here, without sacraments or sacrifice, (for our priests

have been long since driven into banishment,) he elected to

remain, and now, at the peril of his life, he does duty as a

parish priest among us."

"Brave priest! brave priest!" cried Nellie, clapping her hands.

"He must feel very near to heaven, I think, engaged in such a

mission, and living like a real hermit up there on that barren

rock."

"And so in fact he is; or at least he lives in a real hermit's

cell," said Roger. "It was built in the time of Grana Uaille by a

holy man, in whose memory the rock is sometimes called 'the

hermit,' though more generally known as 'the chieftain's rock.'"

"But why the change of names?" asked Nellie.

"Because," he answered, with the least possible shade of

bitterness in his manner, "because, as often happens in this

wicked world, persons who have been made heroes in the eyes of

men are made more account of than those who are heroes only in

the sight of God. This hermit had lived here for many years in

peace and quiet, when the chief of a tribe of Creaghts, at enmity

with Grana Uaille, having been beaten by her in a battle, took

refuge with him among these rocks.'

{453}

The hermit hid him in the church, which, being an acknowledged

sanctuary, even Grana Uaille, stout and unscrupulous as she was

in most things, did not dare invade in order to drag him from its

shelter. But she swore--our good old Grana could swear upon

occasion as lustily as her rival sovereign your own Queen

Bess--Grana swore that neither the sanctity of his hermit friend

or of his place of refuge should avail him aught, and that,

sooner or later, she would starve him into submission. She landed

accordingly with her men, and surrounded church and hermitage

upon the land side, that toward the sea being left unguarded and

unwatched because, owing to the height and steepness of the cliff

itself, and the position of the church tower, built almost

immediately upon its edge, there seemed no human possibility of

evasion that way. The chief, however, and his hermit proved too

many for her after all; for by dint of working day and night,

they succeeded, before their store of provisions was entirely

exhausted, in cutting through the floor and outer wall of the

church, and so making a passage which gave them instant access to

the cliffs outside. This was by no means so difficult a task as

at first sight it seems; for the floor of the building is only

hardened earth, and its walls a mere mixture of mud and rubble,

the very tower itself being only partially built of stone. I have

often, when a boy, crept through the aperture, but it is nearly

filled up with rubbish now, and almost, or I think quite

forgotten among the people, who have been using the church for

the last twenty years as a storehouse for peat and driftwood for

their winter firing. Useful enough, however, the poor chieftain

found it; for one fine moonlight night he walked quietly through

it into the open air, swung himself down the cliffs as

unconcernedly as if he had been merely searching for puffins'

nests, and finally escaped in a boat left there by his friends

for that very purpose. Next day, the hermit threw the church

gates open, and sent word to Queen Grana that her intended victim

had escaped her. You may imagine what a rage the virago

chieftainess was in at finding herself thus outwitted; but I have

not time to tell you now, for here we are close into shore, and

it is time to think of landing."

Roger had lowered the sail while speaking, and he now began

sculling the boat round a low sandy point which hid the harbor

from their view. While he was occupied in this manner, Nellie,

chancing to turn her head in the direction of Clare Island,

perceived another corragh fast following in their track, and

rowed by a boy, who was evidently working might and main in order

to overtake them. She mentioned the matter to Roger, who

instantly ceased his toil, and turned round to reconnoitre.

"It is Paudeen," he said at once. What, in Heaven's name, has

sent him to us here?"

The boy saw that he was observed, and without stopping a moment

in his onward course, made signs to them to await his coming.

Roger did as he was desired; and in a few minutes more the two

corraghs were lying together side by side, and so close that

their respective occupants could have conversed easily in a

whisper.

"What is it, Paudeen?" asked O'More; "have you any message for

me, or is there anything the matter that you have followed us so

far?"

{454}

"It's Mistress Hewitson who is wanting to see you," said the boy.

"She was prevented leaving as soon as she intended, and she sent

me on before to ask you not to quit the island until she had

spoken to you. You were gone, however, before I could get there;

so, guessing well enough where you would most likely be upon

Sunday morning, I followed you down here."

"But if you came straight from the mainland, how is it that I did

not meet you in the way?" asked O'More suddenly, a strange

suspicion of even Paudeen's simple faith passing rapidly through

his mind.

"Because I didn't come from it at all, at all," the boy answered

curtly. "It is yonder they're staying now," he added, pointing to

Achill Island; "and they do say in the house that Clare Isle will

be the next to follow."

"And is it to tell me this that Mistress Hewitson is about to

honor me with a visit?" Roger answered bitterly. "The formality,

methinks, was hardly needed, considering all that her father has

robbed me of already."

"Sorrow know, I know what she will be wanting; but this at all

events I know for certain, that it is for nothing but what is

good and kind," said Paudeen; adding immediately afterward in a

musing tone, "though how _she_ can be what she _is_,

considering the black blood that is running in her veins, it

needs greater wits than I can boast of to be able to discover."

"Well, well," said Roger, "I believe you are about right there,

Paudeen. So now go back at once, and say to Mistress Hewitson

that she shall be obeyed, and that I will return to Clare Island

in time to receive her at the landing-place."

"Let me go back also," said Nellie, in a smothered voice. "If I

and my grandfather have brought this danger to your door, it is

only just that we should share it with you."

"Share it. Mistress Netterville? Nay, but you would double it!"

cried O'More vehemently. "In the face of anything like real,

present danger, I should infallibly lose my life in anxiety for

yours. In point of fact, however, he added, seeing that she still

looked distressed and anxious; in point of fact, the danger

(whatever it is) cannot be immediate, since it is evident that

Mistress Hewitson expects by her intended visit to give me such

information as may enable me to evade it. Possibly she has heard

further details concerning those plans of the old man, her

father, at which yesterday she obscurely hinted. It may even be,

as Paudeen seems to think, that they intend to put an English

garrison on the island, and she may hope to soften matters for us

by giving me this previous notice. Any way, I entreat you not to

be over anxious; for though I acknowledge that we live in

perilous times and places, yet still, and if only for that very

reason, it behoves us to keep our common sense intact, and not to

allow it to be scared by every passing cloud that seems to

threaten us with storm."

After such words as these, Nellie felt there was nothing for it

but to land the moment the boat reached shore, and Roger helped

her out with a sort of graceful tenderness, which seemed tacitly

to ask forgiveness for the constraint he had been compelled to

put upon her inclinations.

Then he pointed to a scarcely discernible path among the

brushwood, and said hastily:

"That path will take you straight to the church. If any one ask

you any questions, the watchword is, 'God, our Lady, and Roger

O'More.' Farewell! Get as near the altar as you can; tell them

not to wait for me, but I will be back in time to fetch you."

{455}

He waited one moment, to make sure that she understood him, then

pushed the boat out into deep water, and without even venturing

to look back, pursued his way diligently homeward.

The breeze had died away, so that he would, he knew, be

infinitely longer in returning to Clare Island than he had been

in coming from it. As he passed Paudeen, he had half a mind to

hail him, but reflecting that he would probably lose more time by

the stoppage than he could gain by the boy's assistance, he

changed his mind and went on his way alone. It was hot and weary

work, but he put all his strength and will to it, and did it in a

shorter time than he had expected. Not, however, before his

presence was apparently sorely needed; for just as he neared the

harbor, the deep, angry bay of the wolf-dog Maida reached his

ear. This was followed by a woman's voice, endeavoring probably

to soothe the dog, and this again by a long, shrill whistle which

came like a cry for aid across the waters. Thus urged, O'More

pulled with redoubled energy, and next moment was in the harbor.

A corragh, ownerless and empty, was lying loose beside the pier,

and a few yards from the landing-place he saw a girl standing

motionless as a statue, one hand raised in an attitude of

defence, confronting Maida, who, with head erect and bristling

hair, seemed to bid her advance further at her peril. Had she

attempted to retreat, had she shown even a shadow of timidity or

of yielding, the dog would undoubtedly have torn her into pieces;

but, with wonderful nerve and courage, she had so far stood her

ground, and, rebuked by her stillness and unyielding attitude,

Maida, up to that moment, had fortunately contented her sense of

duty by keeping a close watch upon her proceedings. Horrified at

the sight, and dreading lest Maida might mistake even the sound

of his voice for a signal of attack, Roger hastily leaped on

shore. Henrietta heard him, and without even daring to turn her

head in his direction, whispered softly:

"Call off your dog--for God's dear sake, call her off at once!"

Roger made no reply, (for, in fact, he did not dare to speak,)

but he made one bound forward and placed himself between her and

her foe. Maida instantly abandoned her threatening look to greet

her master, and for one half-moment he employed himself in

caressing and calming down her fury. Then he turned eagerly to

Henrietta:

"How is this. Mistress Hewitson? For God's sake, speak! The dog

has not injured you, I trust?"

Henrietta did not at first reply. She was as white as ashes, and

her eyes glittered with a strange mingling of courage and of

desperate fear. "Send away the dog," she cried at last; "send

away the dog. I cannot bear to see her," and then burst into

tears.

Roger said one word, and Maida instantly flew toward the castle.

He was about to follow in the same direction in order to procure

some water, but the girl caught him by the arm, and held him so

that he could not move.

"Calm yourself, I entreat you," he said, fancying she was still

under the influence of terror. "No wonder that even your high

courage has given way. Let me call Nora. She will help you to

compose yourself."

"Call no one," Henrietta gasped.

"Call no one; but tell me, is there not a priest and some other

outlaws in hiding on the chieftain's rock?"

{456}

"What then?" he asked, the blood suddenly rushing to his heart as

he thought of Nellie.

"What then?" she repeated fiercely; "because, (oh! that I had

known it but an hour ago,) because death is there, and treachery

and woe! But whither are you going?" she cried, following him as

he broke suddenly from her grasp, and began to retrace his way

toward the pier.

"Whither? whither?" he answered, like one speaking in his sleep.

"There, of course. Where else? My God, that I should have left

Nellie there!"

"The girl!" cried Henrietta; "and you have been there already,

and have had time to row all this way back? My God, then it will

be too late to save her. The church must be in flames ere now."

O'More made no reply, but leaped at once into the boat. "What do

you want?" he asked, almost savagely, as Henrietta followed him.

"What do you want here--you, the child of her assassin?"

"I want to save her, and, still more, to save my father, if I

can, from this most fearful guilt," she answered promptly. Roger

made no further opposition. Once fairly out of harbor, he rowed

with all the energy of despair, and Henrietta helped him nobly.

They were obliged to trust entirely to their oars, and the delay

was maddening. Roger never cast a single glance toward the spot

where all his soul was centred, but Henrietta could not resist a

look once or twice in that direction.

Suddenly she cried out.

"What is it?" he asked nervously; "what is it?"

"They have fired the church," she said, in smothered tones.

"There is a cloud of smoke; and now--my God!--a jet of flame

going through it to the sky!"

He made no reply, but he bent to the oar until the bead-drops of

mingled agony and toil stood thick upon his brow.

"God help them! They must be trying to escape," she muttered yet

again, as something like a shot or two of musketry reached her

ear.

Faster he rowed, and faster. The boat leaped like a living thing

along the waters. They were close to the cliff at last. Overhead,

the sky was hidden by a canopy of heavy smoke, with here and

there a streak of fire flashing like forked lightning athwart it.

Underneath, the water lay black as ink, in the reflection of the

clouded heavens, as the boat rushed through it. One more effort,

and they were in the cove--another, and they were flung high and

dry upon the beach. Roger jumped out without a word. Was he in

time? or was he not? His whole soul was engrossed in that fearful

question.

"What are you going to do?" asked Henrietta, uncertain as to what

her own share in the enterprise was to be. He had been searching

in the bottom of the boat for something; but he looked up then

with a kindling eye, and said:

"Will you be true to the end?"

"So help me God, I will!" she answered in that quiet tone which

tells all the more of steady courage that it has no touch of

bluster in it. He had found what he wanted now--a cutlass and a

coil of rope--and answered rapidly:

"Take the boat out of this, then, and wait beneath the cliffs.

Wait till I come, or until yonder tower falls, as fall it must,

and soon. After that, you may go home in peace. Yes, peace! For

happen what may, your soul, at any rate, will be guiltless of

this day's murder."

He shoved the boat back into deep water as he finished speaking,

and then, without even looking back to see if Henrietta followed

his directions, strode rapidly up the cliffs.

{457}

Chapter XI.

Happily unconscious of the peril by which her own life was so

speedily to be placed in jeopardy, Nellie stood for a few minutes

after Roger left her, watching his progress through the water,

and speculating anxiously enough upon the nature of the summons

which had been delivered to him by Paudeen. In spite of his

apparent coolness, there had been something in the way in which

he had almost forced her to leave him--something in the haste

with which he had given her his last directions--something (if it

must be confessed) in the very fact of his having rushed off

without even a parting word or look, which made her suspect the

danger to be more real and immediate than he wished her to

suppose it. And now, as she watched him bending to the oar as if

his very life depended on his speed, suspicion seemed all at once

to grow up into certainty, and she bitterly regretted the shyness

which had prevented her insisting on returning with him to the

island. Regrets, however, were now in vain, and remembering that,

if she delayed much longer, she would in all probability be too

late for Mass, and so lose the only object for which she had

remained behind, she turned her face resolutely toward the path

pointed out by Roger. It was less a path indeed than a mere

narrow space left by the natural receding of the rocks and loose

boulders, which lay scattered about in all directions. Such as it

was, it led Nellie in a zigzag fashion upward toward the cliffs,

turning and twisting so suddenly and so often, that she could

hardly ever see more than a yard or two before her, while the

boulders on either side, being generally higher than her head,

and the intervals between them filled up with tall heather and

scrubby brushwood, she might as well, for all that she could have

seen beyond, have been walking between a couple of stone walls.

The congregation had in all probability already reached the

church, or else they were coming to it by another path; for not

the sound of a voice or of a footstep either before or behind her

could she hear, though she paused occasionally to listen. Once

indeed, but only once, at a sudden opening among the boulders,

she fancied she saw something like the glistening of a spear in

the brushwood underneath, and a minute or two afterward the air

seemed tremulous with a low sighing sound, as if some one were

whispering within a few yards of her ear. Nevertheless, when she

paused again in some trepidation to reconnoitre, everything

seemed so lonely and so still around her, that she was obliged to

confess that her imagination must have been playing her sad

tricks. The light which she had seen was, in all probability, a

mere effect of sunshine on some of the more polished rocks, while

the sough and sigh of the waters, as they lapped quietly on the

beach below, might easily have assumed, in that distance and in

the calm summer air, the semblance of a human whisper. Once she

had satisfied herself upon this point, she resolved not to be

frightened from her purpose by any nervous fancies; and

stimulating her courage by the reflection that, if an enemy

really were lurking near, her best chance of safety would be the

church, in which her countrymen and women were already gathered,

she toiled steadily upward until she reached the platform upon

which it was erected.

{458}

A sudden turn in the path brought her face to face with it almost

before she fancied that she was near, and she only comprehended

how heartily she had been frightened on the way, by the sense of

relief which this discovery imparted. It was a low, mean-looking

edifice enough, with the hermit's cell built aslant against the

wall, and forming in fact a kind of porch, through which alone it

could be entered. From the moment it first came in sight, the

path had narrowed gradually until there was barely room at last

for the passing of a single person, and while it appeared to

Nellie to descend, the rocks on either side rose higher, slanting

even somewhat over, so as partially to impede the light. From

this circumstance she was led to fancy that both cell and church

had been built originally below what was now the present surface

of the land, a fact which, joined to its desolate, ruinous

condition, might easily have pointed it out to Roger as a fitting

place for the concealment of his friends. The low door of the

porch was closed and fastened upon the inside, so that she was

obliged, very reluctantly, to knock on it for admittance. A

moment afterward she heard the sound of footsteps, the door was

drawn back an inch or two, and some one from behind it whispered

in Irish, "Who are you, and for whom?"

"For God, our Lady, and Roger O'More," Nellie promptly answered.

"Enter, then, in the name of God," the voice replied; and a

strong hand being put forth, she was drawn within the building as

easily and unresistingly as if she had been a child, and the door

was again closed behind her. The cell into which she had been

thus unceremoniously introduced was very dark, and she could only

just perceive that the person who had played the part of porter

was a tall, soldierly-looking fellow, and therefore, she

concluded, one of the outlaws, of whose residence in the building

Roger had informed her.

"You have been long a-coming," said the man. "Why is not the

chieftain with you?"

"How do you know that he brought me hither?" asked Nellie,

startled by the knowledge he seemed to have of her proceedings.

"We keep a good look-out seaward upon Sunday mornings," he

answered significantly. "Why did he go back?"

"A message--summons from the island," said Nellie; not well

knowing how much or how little it would be prudent to

communicate. "It was nothing of any consequence, I believe; and

he said you were not to wait. He will probably be here before all

is over."

"Good," said the man; "then follow me." He went on as he spoke,

Nellie stumbling as well as she could after him in the dark,

until they reached the thick matting of dried grass which

separated the church from the porch outside. Here the descent

became so sudden that she would inevitably have been precipitated

face foremost into the midst of the congregation, if her

conductor had not caught her by the arm in time to prevent this

catastrophe, and landed her safely on the other side. The

interior of the building, as Nellie saw it in that dim light, had

a much nearer resemblance to a ruinous barn than to a place of

Christian worship. As Roger had already told her, it had been so

long dismantled and forgotten as a church that the people had

come to look upon it simply as a storehouse for their winter

firing, a fact amply attested by the piles of drift and brushwood

which rose in all directions, blocking up the narrow windows, and

forming a gigantic stack against the wall behind the altar.

{459}

This latter was of stone, facing the door by which she had just

entered, and so placed that there was a considerable distance

between it and the wall beyond.

In this desolate-looking building about twenty or thirty people

were assembled, most of them women and young girls, with a

sprinkling of old men and half-a-dozen younger ones, in whom

Nellie fancied she recognized the outlawed soldiers of the royal

army. Two or three of these last stole a curious glance upon her,

as she moved onward toward the altar; but the greater part of the

congregation were so absorbed in earnest and loudly-uttered

prayer, that they seemed absolutely unconscious of the entrance

of a stranger. Passing quietly, so as not to disturb them in

their devotions, Nellie made her way to a spot from whence she

had a full view of the priest as he sat, a little on one side,

engaged in hearing the confessions of those who presented

themselves for that purpose. He was in truth a hero in Nellie's

eyes--the best of all heroes--a Christian hero. He had stood by

that brave old bishop who had gone to death for an act of

patriotism which, in the old heroic days of Rome, would have set

him as a demigod upon pagan altars. Quiet and self-possessed, he

had knelt, amid the thunders of the battle-field, to hear the

confessions of the wounded soldiers. He had plunged into the fell

atmospheres of plague and fever, braving death in its worst and

most loathsome forms in the exercise of his ministerial

functions. He had buried the dead--he had consoled the widow and

orphan, made such by the reckless cruelty of man; and now, when

he had exhausted all the more heroic forms of service to his

Lord, he had come hither, like that Lord himself--like the good

Shepherd of the Gospel--to gather up the young lambs into his

arms, and to comfort a conquered and stricken people; to pour the

consolations of religion upon hearts wrung and disconsolate in

human sorrow; to preach of heaven to men forsaken of the earth,

and to teach them, houseless and hapless as they were, to lift up

those eyes and hands, which had been lifted in vain to their

brother man for mercy, higher and higher still, even to that

Almighty Father to whose paternal heart the life of the very

least of his little ones was of such unspeakable and unthought-of

value that not a hair might fall from one of their heads without

his express permission. Thoughts like these passed rapidly

through Nellie's mind as she watched the old man bending

reverently and compassionately to receive, in the exercise of his

ministerial functions, each new tale of sin or sorrow which, one

after another, the poor people round him came to pour into his

sympathizing ear.

We have called him "old," for his hair was white and his face was

ploughed into many wrinkles; yet Nellie could not help suspecting

that the look of wearied, patient age upon his features was less

the effect of years, than of the toil and suffering by which

those years had been utilized and made fruitful in the service of

his Master. Altogether she felt drawn toward him by a feeling of

reverent admiration, which would probably have found vent in

words, if he had not been so completely occupied in his

ministerial duties as to make it simply impossible to interrupt

him. For in a congregation deprived, as this had been, of a

pastor for many months, there was of course much to be done ere

the commencement of the Sunday service.

{460}

There were confessions to be heard, and infants to be baptized,

and more than one young couple--who had patiently awaited the

coming of a lawful minister for the reception of that

sacrament--to be united in holy wedlock. At last, however, all

this was over, and Nellie had just made up her mind to go and

speak to him in her turn, when, to her infinite annoyance, he

rose from his place and commenced robing himself at the altar.

Kneeling down again, therefore, she endeavored to withdraw her

thoughts from all outward things, in order to fix them entirely

upon the coming service. In spite, however, of her most earnest

efforts, she felt nervous and unhappy at the prolonged absence of

O'More, and she could not help envying the people round her, as

with all the natural fervor of the Celtic temperament, they

abandoned themselves to prayer; prostrating, groaning, beating

their breasts, and praying up aloud with as much naive

indifference to the vicinity of their neighbor, as if each

individual in presence there imagined that he and his God were

the sole occupants of the church. Poor Nellie could obtain no

such blest absorption from her cares. Her eyes would glance

toward the door for the coming of Roger, and her ears would

listen for his footsteps; once or twice, indeed, she felt quite

certain that she heard him moving quietly behind the screen of

matting, which shut in the church from the porch outside, and

became, in consequence, nervously anxious to see him lift it and

take his promised place beside her. He never came, however, yet

the sounds continued, accompanied at times by a slight waving of

the screen, as if a hand had accidentally touched it; and this

occurred so often that Nellie began at last to be seriously

alarmed. She thought of Paudeen's mysterious message to his

chieftain, and her own half extinguished fancy of having seen a

spear among the brushwood recurred vividly to her mind. What if

she had seen rightly, after all? What if an enemy were really

lurking in the neighborhood; or, worse still, crouching behind

that terrible screen, ready to massacre the congregation as they

passed through it to the open air after service? The thought was

too terrible for solitary endurance, and she was just about to

lessen the burden by imparting it to her nearest neighbor, when

she found herself forestalled by a heavy, stifling cloud of

smoke, which rolled suddenly through the church and roused every

creature present to a sense of coming danger. There was a rustle

and a stir, and then they all stood up, men and women and little

children, gazing with wild eyes and whitened faces on each other,

uncertain of the "how or from whence" of the threatened peril.

The priest alone seemed to pay no attention to the circumstance;

nevertheless he felt and comprehended far better than they did

the nature of the fate awaiting them, and hurried on to the

conclusion of the Mass, which was by this time, fortunately,

well-nigh over.

He had hardly finished the communion prayer before the heat and

suffocation had become unbearable. In an agony of terror, the

people made a rush to the gates, and tore down the screen of

matting which separated the church from the porch beyond.

Then arose a wild cry of despair, filling the church from floor

to ceiling--the cry of human beings caught in a snare from

whence, except by a cruel death, there was no escaping. The porch

was already a blazing furnace, filled almost to the roof, with

fagots burning in all the fury that pitch and tar, and other

combustibles flung liberally among them, were calculated to

produce.

{461}

These, then, were the sounds which had disturbed Nellie during

Mass. The enemy had profited by the rapt devotion of these poor

people to build up, unheard and unsuspected, their death-pile in

the porch, after which doughty deed they had retired, closing the

gates behind them, and trusting the rest to the terrible nature

of the ally they had so recklessly invoked.

To attempt a passage through that sea of fire in its first wild

fury would have been instant death; and amid the cries of women

and children, many of whom were well-nigh trampled to death

beneath the feet of their fellow-victims, the crowd swayed

backward.

Then came another horror. An unhappy girl, one of the foremost of

the throng, in her eagerness to escape, had rushed so far into

the porch that her garments caught fire, and, mad with pain and

fear, she flung herself face downward upon a heap of driftwood

near her. It was all that was needed to complete the work of

destruction. The wood, dry and combustible as tinder, ignited

instantly, and in two minutes more was a mass of flame. In vain

some of the men, with the priest at their head, leaped on it in a

wild effort to trample it out before it could spread further. As

fast as it was stifled in one place it broke out in another, the

subtle element gliding along the walls and seizing upon stack

after stack of wood with an ease and speed that mocked at all

their efforts to extinguish it. No words can paint the horrors of

the scene that followed! Heavy volumes of black smoke, ever and

anon rolling upward from some new spot upon which the fire had

fastened, at times shut out the light of day, and made the

darkness almost palpable to the senses. Fire, bright and angry,

flashing at first here and there at intervals, like forked

lightning, through the gloom; then coming thicker and quicker, as

it grew with what it fed on, hurrying and leaping in its exultant

fury, licking up and devouring with hungry tongues all that

opposed its progress--now spreading itself in sheets of molten

flame, now contracting into red, hissing streams, bearing a

terrible resemblance to fiery serpents, but never for a moment

slackening in its work of woe, winding hither and thither, and in

and out, and fastening with all the malice and tenacity of a

conscious creature upon everything combustible within its reach,

until the very rafters overhead were wreathed in flame--and

underneath that awful canopy the panting, shrieking crowd,

struggling in that sulphurous atmosphere of smoke and fire,

rushing backward and forward, they knew not whither, in search of

a safety they knew too well they could never find; for even while

obeying the animal instinct to fly from danger, there was not a

creature there who did not feel to the very inmost marrow of his

being, that unless a miracle were interposed to save him, he was

doomed then and there to die.

Nellie was the only person in the church, perhaps, with the sole

exception of the pastor, who made no vain effort at escaping.

Driven by the swaying of the others, after their first rush to

the door, backward toward the altar, she had remained there

quietly ever since, praying, or trying to pray, and shutting eyes

and ears as much as might be to the terrible sights and sounds

around her. Accident had, in fact, brought her to the only spot

in the building where safety was for the moment feasible.

{462}

The altar was built, as we have already said, of stone, and being

placed at some distance from any of the walls, the space in

front, though stifling from heat and smoke, was clear of fire,

and consequently of immediate danger.

Hither, therefore, the priest, who, having done all that man

could do toward the stifling of the flames, now felt that another

and a higher duty--the duty of his priestly office--must needs

be exercised, endeavored to collect his flock, and hither, at his

bidding, one by one they came, every hope of rescue extinguished

in their bosoms, and scorched, and bruised, and half-suffocated

as they were, lay down at his feet to die. There was no loud

shrieking now--the silence of utter exhaustion had fallen upon

them all, and only a low wail of pain broke now and then from the

white, parched lips of some poor dying creature, as if in human

expostulation with the sputtering and hissing of the flames that

scorched him. Once, and only once, a less fitting sound was

heard--a curse, deep but loud, on the foe that had so ruthlessly

contrived their ruin.

It reached the ear of the priest as he stood before the altar,

sometimes praying up aloud, sometimes with look and voice

endeavoring to calm his people, waiting and watching with wise,

heroic patience for the precise moment when, all hopes of human

life abandoned, he might lead them to thoughts of that which is

eternal.

But that muttered curse seemed to rouse another and a different

spirit in his bosom, and filled with holy and apostolic anger, he

turned at once upon the man who spoke it.

"Sinner!" he cried, "be silent! Dare you to go to God with a

curse upon your lips? What if he curse you in return? What if he

plunge you, for that very word, from this fire, which will pass

with time, into that which is eternal and endures for ever? O my

children, my children!" cried the good old man, opening wide his

arms, as if he would fain have embraced his weeping flock and

sheltered them all from pain and sorrow on his paternal bosom,

"see you not, indeed, that you must die!--with foes outside, with

devouring flames within, all hope of life is simple folly. Die

you must. So man decrees; but God, more merciful, still leaves a

choice--not as to death, but as to the spirit in which you meet

it. You may die angry and reviling, as the blaspheming thief, or

you may die (O blessed thought!) as Jesus died--peace in your

hearts and a prayer for your very foes upon your lips. Have pity

on yourselves, my children; have pity on me, who, as your pastor,

will have to answer for your souls, as for my own, to God--and

choose with Jesus. Put aside all rancor from your hearts.

Remember that what our foes have done to us, we, each in our

measure, have done by our sins to Jesus. Pray for them as he did.

Weep, as he did for _your_ sins (not _his_) upon the

cross, and kneel at once, that while there yet is time I may give

you, in his name and by his power, that pardon which will send

you safe and hopeful to the judgment-seat of God."

Clear, calm, and quiet, amid the confusion round him, rose the

voice of that good shepherd, sent hither, as it seemed, for no

other purpose than to perish with his flock; and like a message

of mercy from on high his words fell upon their failing hearts.

They obeyed him to the letter. Hushed was every murmur, stifled

every cry of pain, and, prostrate on their faces, they waited

with solemn silence the word which they knew would follow. And it

was said at last.

{463}

With streaming eyes, and hands uplifted toward that heaven to

which he and his poor children all were speeding, the priest

pronounced that _Ego te absolvo_, which speaking to each

individual soul as if meant for it alone, yet brought pardon,

peace, and healing to them all. Something like a low "Amen,"

something like a thrill of relief from overladen bosoms,

followed; and then, almost at the same instant, came a loud cry

from the outside of the church--a crashing of doors--a rush--a

struggle--a scattering of brands from the half-burned-out fagots

in the porch--and, blackened with smoke and scorched with fire,

O'More leaped like an apparition into the midst of the people. A

shout almost of triumph greeted his appearance, for they felt as

if he _must_ have brought safety with him. It seemed, in

fact, as if only by a miracle he could have been there at all.

Unarmed as he was, he had rushed through the English soldiers,

and they, having all along imagined him to be in the church with

their less noble victims, were taken so completely by surprise

that they suffered him to pass at first almost without a blow. By

the time they had recovered themselves, their leaders had staid

their hands. It was better for all their purposes that he should

rush to death of his own accord than that they should have any

ostensible share in the business. No further opposition,

therefore, being offered to his progress he easily undid the

gates, which were only slightly barricaded on the outside, and

having cleared the porch at the risk of instant suffocation to

himself, he now stood calling upon Nellie, and vainly endeavoring

to discover her in the blinding atmosphere of smoke around him.

She was still where she had been from the beginning--at the foot

of the altar, faint and half-dead with heat and fear. But the

sound of his voice seemed to call her back to life, and, with a

cry like a frightened child, she half-rose from her recumbent

posture. Faint as was that cry, he heard it, and catching a

glimpse of her white face, rushed toward her. In another moment

he had her in his arms, wrapped carefully in his heavy cloak, and

shouting to all to follow and keep close, he rushed behind the

altar.

Half an hour before this had been the hottest and most dangerous

position in the church, but O'More had well calculated his

chances. The real danger now was from the roof, which, having

been burning for some time, might fall at any moment. Below, the

fire, having rapidly exhausted the light material upon which it

had fed its fury, was gradually dying out, and boldly scattering

the fagots upon either side as he moved on, Roger made his way

good to the only spot in the building from whence escape was

possible. Here the floor sank considerably below the general

surface, and dashing down a heap of brushwood which still lay

smouldering near, he lay bare an aperture effected in the wall

itself, and going right through it to the cliffs beyond.

Through this he passed at once, carrying Nellie as easily as if

she had been a baby, and landing her safely on the other side.

The people saw, and with a wild cry of hope rushed forward. Even

as they did so the roof began to totter. They knew it, and

maddened by the near approach of death, pressed one upon another,

blocking up the way and destroying every chance of safety by

their wild efforts to attain it.

{464}

In the midst of this confusion, a shower as of red-hot fire

poured down from the yielding rafters. Then came another cry (oh!

so different from the last)--a cry of grief and terror

mingled--then a crashing sound and a heavy fall--and then a

silence more terrible even than that cry of terror--a ghastly,

death-like silence, only broken by the hissing and crackling of

the flames above, and the deep sough of the sea below--and all

was over.

To Be Continued.

-------

Translated From The French Of M. Vitet.

Science And Faith.

Meditations On The Essence Of The Christian Religion,

By M. Guizot.

Conclusion.

III.

The way is found. Man has the gift of believing not only the

things he sees and knows by his own intellect, but also those he

does not see and which he learns through tradition. He admits, he

affirms with confidence the facts which are asserted by others,

when the witnesses seem competent and reliable, even in cases

where he cannot verify their truth or submit them to a rigid

criticism. Thus in the authority of witnesses we have that which

constitutes faith; faith properly so called, which is the belief

in the divine truths, as well as purely human faith, which is

confidence in the knowledge of another. Both require the same act

of intelligence; but, if it concerns the affairs of this world,

the authority of the witness is easily established, for he has

only to prove his competence and his veracity; while for

superhuman things it is necessary that he himself should be

superhuman, that he should prove it to us, that we should feel by

the way he speaks that he knows and has dwelt in the heaven of

which he is speaking, and that he has descended from it. If he is

only a man, he is without a claim upon us. Manifest signs of his

mission and authority are necessary; such signs must be unusual

and incomprehensible; they must command respect and force

conviction; they must be miraculous facts entirely beyond mere

human power.

Such is the supreme and necessary condition for every solution of

these natural problems, or, what amounts to the same, for any

great and true religion. The appearance of a being eminently

divine is necessary, who will show the character of his mission

and his right to claim obedience by miracles. Miracles and

religion are, then, two correlative terms, two _inseparable_

expressions. Do not try to preserve one and get rid of the other;

the attempt will fail. If you could effect this divorce, both

would disappear. Religion without miracles is only a human

doctrine; it is simply philosophy, which has no right to

penetrate the mysteries of the infinite, and which can only speak

in hypotheses, without force and without authority.

There is no way, then, to help it: miracles must be admitted.

This is the great stumbling-block.

It is said: "That would be allowed when the world was young, and

when man himself, ignorant and a novice, had not demonstrated for

so many centuries the stability of nature's laws!

{465}

Then he could suppose that there was some hidden power, which at

certain times and for certain ends played with these laws and

suspended them at will; but to-day, in this advanced age, wise as

we are, how can we be expected to bend our enlightened reason to

these uncertainties? how can we give science these injurious

contradictions?"

Yes, you believe yourselves to be extremely learned. You think

that you thoroughly understand the laws of nature, because from

time to time you have wrested some of her secrets from her; and

these being always more or less marvellous, you immediately

conclude that she has spoken her last word! Strange assumption!

Look behind, and you are right, you have accomplished an immense

distance. Look ahead, and the end is as far as in the days of

your fathers, the distance to be overcome remains always the

same, you have not advanced a single step. Far from adding to

your presumption, the progress of your knowledge should rather

make you feel more keenly your ignorance. The more conquests you

make, the more your radical impotence is shown. Yet you presume

to say that the laws of this world allow or do not allow this or

that, as if you completely understood them, while at every moment

new and unexpected facts, which are granted by yourselves, defeat

your calculations, mock your predictions, and derogate from laws

which you proclaim absolute and eternal!

No one doubts that a general and permanent order reigns in this

world; but that this order is inexorably determined in its

trifling details, that nothing can alter it, that it will remain

the same for ever, you cannot say any more than can we; or

rather, you, as well as we, are living witnesses that an

unbending mechanism does not govern all things here below.

Indeed, what do you do, you, a feeble atom, an imperceptible

creature, when you forbid the Sovereign Master the great ordainer

of things, the least deviation, the slightest infraction, of the

laws he has made? Do you not violate these laws so far as you are

able every day, every hour, and in every way? The plant that the

natural order would cause to bloom in summer, you cover with

flowers in winter; you change the flavor and the form of the

fruit, and the color of the flowers; you bend the twigs and

branches, and make them grow against their nature. And it is not

only over vegetation and inanimate objects that you exercise your

caprices. How many living beings have you transformed, and

completely altered their natural mode of life! What unexpected

missions and what strange destinies has your fancy made them

undergo!

It may be said that these are only little miracles; but after

all, how do the greatest ones differ from them? They are both

infractions upon the apparent order of nature. Is the real order

subverted by this? Is the relation of cause and effect broken

because our gardeners derive and propagate from a graft new and

innumerable varieties? No; and since this is true, there can be

no good reason for refusing to admit a series of deviations above

these of every-day experience. The miraculous cures, the

wonderful transitions from extreme feebleness to health, and the

intuitive power of a saint, which enables him to read the very

thoughts of men, can all be effected without compromising or

menacing the universal order. Everything depends upon the degree

of power you grant the Author of these acts, to him who, holding

all things in his hand, can make the exception as easily as the

rule.

{466}

There is but one way to deny absolutely the possibility of

miracles, which has been in all times by instinct and by nature

affirmed by the human race, and that is to suppress God and

profess atheism, either atheism simply in its gross crudity, or

that more delicate and better disguised form which finds favor in

our times, and which honors God by pronouncing his name, but

gives him no other care than the servile protection and the dull

supervision of the worlds he has created, but which he does not

govern. If this is the way in which God must be considered, if

fatalism is the law of the world, let us speak no more of

miracles or of the supernatural; for this is already decided, and

there can be no discussion about it. If, on the contrary,

entering into yourselves, you feel that you are intelligent and

free, ask yourself, Where did I get these wonderful gifts,

liberty and intelligence? Do you get them from yourself? Are they

born in you and only for you? Do you possess them completely? Do

they not emanate from a higher, more perfect, and more abundant

source, in a word, from God himself? Then, if God, if the

Omnipotent, is also the sovereign intelligence and the sovereign

freedom, how do you dare to forbid him to mingle with affairs

here below, to follow with attention the beings he has created,

to watch over their destiny, and to declare his wishes to them by

striking manifestations of his power? He can most certainly do

this, for he is free and all-powerful. With the idea of God thus

presented to the mind, a complete and living God, the question is

completely transformed. And it must be acknowledged that we have

no longer to demonstrate the possibility of miracles: it is for

our opponents to prove their impossibility.

But the great critics of to-day, at least those who have the most

ability, have carefully refrained from attempting this task. They

attack supernatural facts in a different way, not as being

impossible in themselves, but as lacking proof: in the place of

openly denying them, they try to weaken the authority of those

who attest them. What testimony would then be destroyed by them?

Let it be noted that in the historical statement of natural

facts, even those which are extraordinary and more or less

uncertain, the testimony of men, sustained and strengthened by

constant tradition, is allowed to be sufficient; and, indeed, to

what, in most cases, would our historical knowledge amount, if

this sort of proof were not admissible? But for supernatural

facts they are far less accommodating. Many other guarantees are

demanded. They require ocular proof, which must be made in a

proper way and duly announced by them to be certain. This is the

condition upon which they offer to yield; without it, there is to

be no belief. Whence it would follow, that, whenever the Divinity

proposed to do anything beyond the ordinary laws of nature, it

would be bound to give these opponents notice, so that they could

produce their witnesses. The work would then proceed in their

presence, and, when the miracle was accomplished, they would

immediately begin their statement. Perhaps our readers may think

that we are trying to excite a laugh at their expense, or, at

least, that we are exaggerating. Such is not the case; we are

only echoing their own words, and we could quote from the very

page where this system is set forth as the sole method of

establishing the truth of miracles. However, it is useless to

dwell upon this way of asking for impossible proofs and

proclaiming a readiness to believe, but placing one's belief upon

unheard-of conditions. This is only a subterfuge, an attempt to

evade what they dare not solve, and an effort to destroy in

practice that which they seem theoretically to concede.

{467}

There are others more frank, less diplomatic, and perhaps also

less learned, who call things by their right name, and who loudly

declare a new dogma as the great principle of reformed criticism,

and this is the complete denial of supernatural facts. The

manner, the air, and the lofty disdain with which they look down

upon those simple souls, who are credulous enough to believe that

the Almighty is also intelligent and free, should be seen. They

announce that all intercourse between them and us is broken, that

we have nothing to do with their books; they do not care for our

praise or for our censure, since they do not write for us. One is

almost tempted to repay their disdain with interest; but there is

something better to be done. We have just shown that man, with

his limited power and liberty, can modify the laws of nature. Let

us see, now, if God in his infinite sphere has not the same

power, and if there is not some well-known and striking example

of it.

There is one instance which both in time and by its evidence is

the most convincing of all. It is not one of those facts which we

have learned by narration or by testimony, whether written or

traditional. All narratives can be contested and every witness

can be suspected; but here the fact is its own witness, it is

clear and irrefutable. It is the history of our first parents, of

the commencement of the human race; for our race has had a

commencement, of this there can be no question. No sophist would

dare to say of man, as they have said of the universe, that he

has existed from all eternity. On this point science confirms

tradition, and determines by certain signs the _époque_ when

this earth became habitable. Upon a certain day, then, man was

born; and he was born, as it is hardly necessary for us to say,

in an entirely different manner from that in which one is born

to-day. He was the first of his kind: he was without father or

mother. The laws of nature, on this occasion at least, did not

have their effect. A superior power, working in his own way, has

accomplished something beyond these laws, and in a more simple

and prompt manner, and the world has seen an event take place

which is evidently supernatural.

This is the reason why some _savants_ have taken so much

pains to find a plausible way to explain scientifically, as a

natural fact, this birth of the first man. Some would persuade us

that this enigma is explained by the transformation of species--

a singular way of avoiding a miracle, only to fall into a

chimera. Indeed, if anything is proved at all and becomes more

certain as the world grows older, it is that the preservation of

species is an essential principle of all living beings. You may

try, but you cannot succeed in infringing upon this law. The

crossings between closely allied species, and the varieties

produced by them, are smitten after a certain time with

sterility. Are not these impotent attempts, these phantoms of

quickly disappearing creations, the manifest sign that the

creation of a really new species is forbidden to man? Yet would

they try to convince us that in the earliest ages, in times of

ignorance, these kinds of transformations were accomplished

without any effort; while to-day, notwithstanding the perfection

of instruments and of methods, notwithstanding the aid of every

sort that we draw from science, they are radically impossible!

Try, then, to make a man. But, we are answered, this is a matter

of time. It may be so. But only begin, let us see you at work,

and you can have as much time as you please.

{468}

Take thousands of centuries, and yet you can never transform the

most intelligent baboon into a man, even of the most ignorant and

degraded type.

This dream having disappeared, another is invented. The absurdity

of the transformation of species is admitted, and another theory

is adopted, that of spontaneous generation. The intention is to

establish that man can be born either with or without parents;

that nature is induced by various circumstances to choose one of

these two ways, and that one is not miraculous more than the

other. It is well known what vigorous demonstrations and what

irrefutable evidence science brings against this theory; yet, in

spite of its absurdity, it has been often reproduced and

considered worthy of refutation. But supposing that doubt was yet

possible, and that we could believe in the birth of little

beings, without a germ, without a Creator; now could this mode of

production aid us in solving the question of the birth of the

first man? What is the highest pretension of the defenders of

spontaneous generation? In what state would they put man in the

world? As an embryo, a foetus, or as one newly born? For no one

is permitted to believe in the sudden birth of an adult, in

possession of a body, of physical power, and of mental faculties.

Yet this is exactly the way in which the new inhabitant of the

earth must have been created. He must have been born a man, or

else he could not have protected himself, he could not have found

food to prolong his life, and he could not have perpetuated his

race as the father of the human family. If he had been born in

the state of infancy, without a mother to protect and nourish

him, he would have perished in a single day of cold or hunger. If

this theory, then, had been able to answer the tests to which it

has succumbed, it would yet be of no service in clearing up the

question we are discussing. The only way to solve it

satisfactorily is to admit frankly that it must have been

something superior and unknown to the laws of nature. In order to

explain the appearance of the first man upon this earth, the man

of Genesis is necessary, made by the hand of the Creator.

This is not a _jeu d'esprit_, an artifice, or a paradox. It

is the undeniable truth. It must be admitted by every one who

will reflect. Every sound mind, which is in good faith and which

carefully considers this question, is invincibly compelled to

solve it in the way that it is solved in the book of Genesis.

There may be doubts about the complete exactness of certain words

and details; but the principal fact, the supernatural fact, the

intervention of a Creator, reason must accept as the best and

most sensible explanation, or rather as the only possible

explanation of that other necessary fact, the birth of an

adolescent or an adult man.

Here, then, we have a miracle well and duly proved. If this were

the only one, it would be sufficient to justify belief in the

supernatural, to destroy every system of absolute fatalism, to

demonstrate the freedom of the Divinity, and to assert his true

position. But it may be well for us to say, if since the

existence of the human race it had received no proof of the care

of its Creator other than this miraculous act in which it was

created, if no intelligence, no help, or no light had come from

above, what would it know now of the mysteries of its destiny, of

all these great problems which beset it and occupy its attention?

The creation of man does not give us the reason why he was

created.

{469}

This is not one of those miracles from which the light bursts

forth to flood the world. It is a manifestation of divine power:

it does not teach us the divine will. We shall see another fact,

on the contrary, which, though not less mysterious, will speak

far more clearly. This did not happen amid the fleeting shadows

of chaos upon the scarcely hardened earth; but in a completely

civilized world, and at a historical period which can be fully

investigated, this new miracle took place. The clouds will

disappear, and the broad day will gladden all hearts. Blessed

Light! Long promised and awaited, the complement of man's

creation, or, rather, a true and new creation, bringing to

humanity, with love and heavenly pardon, the solution of every

question, the answer to every doubt!

During the long series of centuries which separates these two

great mysteries, these two great supernatural facts, the creation

and the redemption of man, the human race, guided by its own

light, has not for a moment ceased to search after divine truths

and the secret of its destiny. But it has sought ignorantly, it

has groped in the dark, and it has wandered astray. In every part

of the world the people solved the enigma in their own fashion,

each making its own idol. It is a sad, an incoherent spectacle;

and of all these curious and imperfect forms of worship, which

sometimes become impure and disgusting, there is not one which

gives a complete and satisfactory answer to the moral problems

with which one is harassed. Their pretended answers really answer

nothing, and are but a collection of errors and contradictions.

Has man been created for such ends as these? Has not his Creator,

in forming him with his hands, in teaching him by an intimate

communication the use of his faculties, made him to see, to love,

and to follow the truth? Yes; and this explains the instinctive

gleams of truth that are found in every portion of the race; but

man has received liberty at the same time that he received

intelligence, and it is this supreme gift which assimilates him

to his Author, and imposes, together with the honor of

personality, the burden of responsibility. He was tried, he had

the power to choose, and he chose the bad; he has failed, he has

fallen. Clearly the fault was followed by the greatest disorder

and distress, and the offended Father withdrew his grace from the

disobedient son. They are separated: the erring one, because he

fears his Judge; the Judge, from his horror of the sin; but the

father lies hid beneath the judge. Will the exile, then, be

eternal? No; for the promise is made to the very ones whose fault

is punished, and the time of mercy is announced in advance, even

at the moment of chastisement.

Every tie is not yet broken between the Creator and this

unfaithful race. A single bond is maintained, a handful of worthy

servants preserve the benefit of his paternal intercourse. Who

can doubt this? For several thousand years the entire human race,

in all places and in every zone, bows before the works of nature,

deifies them, and adores them. How, then, can it be explained

that one little group of men, and only one, remained faithful to

the idea of a single God? It may be answered that this is

something peculiar to one race; that it embraces more people than

is generally supposed; that it is true of all the Semitic tribes

as well as of the Hebrews. A truly impartial and exceedingly

learned philology, recently published, affirms the contrary. It

is demonstrated that the Jews alone were monotheists.

{470}

Reason certainly cannot forbid us to believe that this unique and

isolated fact was providential, since it was at least most

extraordinary and marvellous. Thus, while the ancient alliance

between man and his Creator continued in a single part of the

globe, a part scarcely perceptible in the immense human family,

while the divine truth, as yet veiled and incomplete, though

without any impure mixture, is revealed as in confidence, and, so

to speak, _privately_ to the modest settlement chosen for

the designs of God, all the rest of the world is abandoned to

chance and wanders at random in religious matters.

Why, then, only in religious matters? Because it was in this that

the fault took place. Man has foolishly wished to make himself

equal to God in the knowledge of the divine, of the infinite, of

those mysteries which no mind can fathom without God's

assistance. It is another thing in regard to the knowledge of the

finite, to purely human science. God is not jealous of this. What

does he say in exiling and chastising the rebel? Work, that is to

say, use not only your arms, but your mind; become skilful,

powerful, ingenious; make masterpieces; become Homer, Pindar,

AEschylus, or Phidias, Ictinus, or Plato. I allow you to do all,

save attaining to divine things without my aid. There thou wilt

stumble, until I send thee the help I have promised to show thee

the way. Thy reason, thy science, and even thy good sense will

not prevent thee from becoming an idolater.

Indeed, is it not remarkable that religion in the world of

antiquity should be so inferior to the other branches of human

understanding? Think of the arts, literature, philosophy;

humanity cannot excel them. They were at the summit of

civilization. All that youth and experience combined could bring

forth of the perfect and the beautiful, you see here. These first

attempts are the works of a master, and will live to the latest

ages, always inimitable. But return for a moment, consider the

various religions, question the priests. What an astonishing

disparity! You would believe yourself to be among uncultivated

people. Never were such dissimilar productions seen to spring

from the same evil at the same time and in the same society. On

one side, reason, prudence, justice, and the love of truth; on

the other, a degrading excess of falsehood and credulity. It is

true that, here and there, under these puerile fables, great

truths shine forth; these are the remnants of the primitive

alliance between God and his creature; but they are only

scattered, and are lost in a torrent of errors. The great fault,

the infirmity of these ancient religions, was not the symbolism

which surrounded them, but their essential obscurity and

sterility. These were not capable of saying a single clear and

definite word in regard to the problems of our destiny. Far from

making them clear to the great mass of men, they seemed rather to

try to conceal them under a thick cloud of enigmas and

superstitions.

This was, however, the only moral culture that the human race,

evidently punished and separated from God, received for thousands

of years. In the place of his priests it had philosophical sects,

schools, and books to tell man his duty. But how many profited by

this help? Who understood the best, the purest, and the greatest

philosophers? How far could their warnings reach? Outside the

limits of Athens, the words of Socrates himself could not

penetrate to relieve a soul, to break a chain, or to make a

virtue take root. Do we say his words? Why, even his death, a

wonderful death, the death of a just man, remained unfruitful and

ignored!

{471}

The time became critical; pagan society was entering upon its

last phase and made its last effort; the empire was just born,

and, although it may be said that it could boast, during its long

career, of many days of repose and even of greatness, it was not

without its revolting scenes; and one can say, without any

exaggeration or partisan feeling, that from the reign of Tiberius

it was shown by experience that all purely human means to elevate

the race were visibly at an end. Then it was that, not far from

the region where primitive traditions located the creation of

man, under this sky of the Orient which witnessed the first

miracle, a second was to be accomplished. A sweet, humble,

modest, and at the same time sovereign voice speaks to the people

of Judea in language before unknown; speaks words of peace, of

love, of sacrifice, and of merciful pardon. Whence does this

voice come? Who is this man who says to the unhappy, "Come to me,

I will relieve you, I will carry your burdens with you"? He

touches the sick with his hand, and they are cured; he gives

speech to the mute; he makes the blind see and the deaf hear. As

yet there is nothing excepting these things; but this man knows

the enigma of this world completely; he knows the real end of

life and the true means of attaining it. All these natural

problems, the vexation of human reason, he resolves, he explains

without an effort and without hesitation. He tells us of the

invisible world; he has not imagined it, his eyes have seen it,

and he speaks of it as a witness who had but lately left it. What

he tells us is unassuming, intelligible to every one, to women,

to children, as well as to the learned. How does he come by this

marvellous knowledge? Who were his masters and what were his

lessons? In his early childhood, before lessons and masters, he

knew already more than the synagogue. Studies he never made. He

worked with his hands, gaining his daily bread. Do not seek for

his master upon this earth: his Master is in the highest of the

heavens.

Is not this the witness of whom we have spoken above, the

superhuman, the necessary witness for the solution of natural

problems and the establishment of true religious dogmas? To say

that such a man is more than a man, that he is a being apart from

and superior to humanity, is not saying enough. We must learn

what he really is. Let us open the candid narratives which

preserve the story of his public mission, of his preaching though

Judea; open the gospels, where the least incident of his acts,

his words, his works, his sufferings, and his bitter agony are

written. Let us see what he says of himself. Does he declare

himself simply a prophet? Does he believe himself to be only

inspired? No; he calls himself the Son of God, not as every other

man, remembering Adam, could have been able to say it. No; he

meant the Son of God in the exact and literal interpretation of

the word, son born directly of the father, the son begotten of

the same substance.

Try to force the meaning and distort the texts to make them say

less than this, but you cannot succeed. The texts are plain, they

are numerous, and without ambiguity. There are only two ways in

which the divinity of this man can be denied: either his own

testimony must be attacked, if the gospels are admitted to be

true; or the gospels themselves must be rejected.

{472}

In order to attack his own evidence, it must be supposed that, by

a lack of sagacity, he in good faith formed a wrong judgment

about his own origin, or perhaps better, by a deceitful

intention, he knowingly attributed to himself a false character.

This being, whose incomparable intelligence forces you to place

him above humanity, this is he who is not capable of discerning

his father. And on the other side, this inimitable moralist, this

chaste and beautiful model of all virtues, this is he whom you

suspect of a disgraceful artifice. There is no middle course:

either this mortal must be the Son of God, as he has declared, or

you must put him in the last rank of humanity, among the innocent

dupes or the cunning charlatans.

Or, on the contrary, do you wish to attack the gospels? Nothing

is less difficult, if you remain at the surface. Arm yourself

with irony, provoke the smile, treat everything in a superficial

manner, and you will certainly gain the sympathy of the scoffers.

But if you wish to investigate the things, and to take, in the

name of science, an impartial view, you will be compelled to

acknowledge that most of the facts in the gospels are

historically established; that they are neither myths nor

legends; that the place, the time, and the persons are absolutely

put beyond all doubt. What right, then, has any one to refuse

credence to this series of facts, where another series, which is

admitted, is sustained by no better witnesses, nor more direct

proofs, nor any other superiority, except a pretended probability

which is determined by each for himself? Nothing can be more

arbitrary and less scientific than this way of making a choice,

deciding that this evangelist should be implicitly believed when

he is mentioning such a speech, but that, when he tells us what

he saw himself, he is no longer trustworthy; and that this one,

on the contrary, falsifies the discourses that he reports, but

that he announces certain facts with the certitude of an ocular

witness. All this is only pure caprice. But it is certain that

the gospels, however closely they may be examined, bear the

criticism successfully, and ever remain imperishable. What book

of Herodotus or of Titus Livius carries such an intrinsic

evidence of good faith and veracity as the recitals of St.

Matthew or of St. John? Are you not charmed with these two

apostles, who frankly tell us what they have seen with their eyes

and heard with their ears? If you, who were not there and who saw

nothing of these things, believe that you can give them a lesson,

and tell them, in virtue of your scientific laws, how all these

things happened without their understanding them, and by what

subterfuges their adorable Master deceived them, it will not be

only the orthodox and faithful who will resent and controvert

your boldness--voices that you dread more, from the midst of

your own ranks, will openly proclaim your falsehoods. [Footnote

101]

[Footnote 101: "The human soul, as some one has said, is

great enough to enclose every contrast. There is room in it

for a Mohammed or a Cromwell, for fanaticism together with

duplicity, for sincerity and hypocrisy. It remains for us to

ascertain if this analogy should be extended to the Founder

of Christianity. _I do not hesitate to deny it_. His

character, when impartially considered, opposes every

supposition of this kind. There is in the simplicity of

Jesus, in his artlessness, in his candor, in the religious

feeling which possessed him so completely, in the absence of

all mere personal designs, of every egotistic end, and of all

cunning; in a word, there is in all that we know concerning

him something which entirely repels the historical

comparisons by which M. Rénan has allowed himself to be

governed."--M. Edmond Scherer, _Mélanges d'Histoire

Réligieuse_, pp. 93, 94.]

After all, suppose they were deceived, that the hero of this

great drama was only a skilful impostor, what do you really gain

by it? The miracles cannot be thrown aside. On the contrary, you

have one miracle more, and one which is more difficult than all

the others to explain. It is necessary to account for this most

wonderful fact, that cannot be suppressed by any critic, the

establishment of Christianity in the Roman Empire.

{473}

Take every sentence of the gospels, accept these supernatural

facts without reservation, the cures, the exorcisms, the elements

stilled, the laws of nature violated or suspended: all these

things are not too much, rather they had hardly enough to make us

understand the triumphant progress of such a doctrine, in such a

time, and among such a people. Nothing less than miracles could

transform the world in this manner, changing all the opinions

commonly received, completely altering the moral and social state

of the people, and not only giving them purer and more

enlightened views, but truths which were entirely unknown to

them. If, then, you tell the truth, if this stupendous revolution

rests upon a comedy, if we must consider the partial miracles

false which surround and explain the principal miracle, which

precede and seem to prepare and open the way for the great

miracle, what will be the result? You have not destroyed, and

cannot destroy, the principal miracle: it has become still more

miraculous.

IV.