that one shall not be stifled by the other, but that all,
forming a sweet harmony, may rise toward him who created us,
and for whom alone we must live. May he alone be the end of all
our actions and of all our thoughts! Then fatigue will never
overcome our courage, our duties will never seem too heavy, our
life will be calm, our intentions pure, and we shall taste even
here below that interior peace,
"Which no one knows but he who feels it."
Such is the plan of our life. I have but lightly sketched it,
fearing that I might seem to be giving counsels and prescribing
rules to you. All this is possible only by the grace of God.
Let us beg it through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin at
the approaching festival of the Assumption; we have so great
need of her protection and guidance.
"We pray for grace and it obtain
From her who is its mother."
September 15.
To-day I am as sad as I was joyous yesterday. Your departure,
the thought of an inevitable separation from my father and
mother, a thousand conflicting feelings in my heart,
undefinable to myself, have made me weep. Alas for us women! we
are weaker than the leaves which are stripped from the trees
and scattered by the first wind of autumn; and, childhood
scarce passed, our hearts, capable only of loving and
suffering, are torn by a thousand contrary emotions of joy and
sadness. Pardon me these murmurs, O my God! No, I ought not to
weep, but ought rather to pour out my soul in thanksgiving.
I open my whole heart to you, Gaetano, because it is you who
are to be the support of my life; to share all my thoughts,
dispel my fears, and be my counsellor and guide. Singular
thing! my new hopes have made all my feelings more keen and
ardent. Hence those alternations of joy and sadness, to whose
deepest emotions I was till lately a stranger. As it is, I do
not know how I am to tear myself from the arms of those who
watched over my childhood and who love me so much. But let us
forget all this to-day. I can no longer speak of my mother
without my eyes filling with tears. It is drawing near that
dear October. If I cannot enjoy your ruralizing, I can, at
least, be happy in thinking of the pleasure you will find in
it. You are going to see your mountains again, and those
pine-groves, which from my childhood I have ever loved and
admired. In the midst of the flowers, the plants, the trees,
you will think often of him who created us with souls capable
of loving the beautiful and good; of him who this year has
opened to you the horizon of a new life, in which I hope you
will never find either regrets or thorns. Oh! how easy, as it
seems to me, does the beauty of the country make the love of
God. How sweet it is to think that the same God who gives the
dews and the fertilizing rains to the earth, foliage to the
trees, flowers and harvests to the fields, is also that loving
Father who supports us in all our trials and so sweetly invites
our souls to repose in himself! Let me speak to you of the good
God, Gaetano; I love so much to think of him.
September 25.
I cannot express the pleasure it is to me to gaze into the deep
azure of the beautiful mornings of which
"The air is sweet and changeless,"
and of the lovely evenings when the stars seem to speak, and
tell in a sacred language the wisdom of God. The country does
good to our souls. In admiring its beauties and its treasures
ever new, we are led more easily to think that, if earth was
made for man, man was created to love God. I often say to
myself, What, then, will heaven be, if there is so much of
beauty on this poor earth, where we are not so much dwellers as
pilgrims? ... On the eve of St. John's day, all Florence was
illuminated. There was nothing to be heard but games and noisy
laughter among the people. Every one was gazing eagerly at the
fireworks and the illuminations; but no one thought of admiring
the most beautiful ornament of the feast--I mean the moon,
whose tremulous rays were reflected in the Arno, lengthening
the shadows of the trees.
{548}
September 28.
Next year we will go to the country together. If you knew how I
love your mountains, with their tall pines, their flowers,
their streams, and their green summits. I still remember the
moment I left them. It was a November morning. The faint rays
of a cloud-veiled sun shed a pale light on the horizon, the
leaves were falling from the trees, and the snow of the day
before still covered the summits. All nature was solitary and
sad. Who could have told me then, that to this melancholy spot
which I was leaving as a child, I should return with you a
happy bride?
October 23.
Enjoy well your ruralizing; its pleasures are a thousand times
sweeter than those of our towns. How pleasant it is of an
evening to climb the heights, and thence behold the vast
expanse of heaven still purpled by the sun's last rays; to see
at one's feet the fields, the pine groves, the pale olives, the
elms, yellow-tinted by autumn, the little, scattered cottages
of the peasants, with the smoke of the evening fire rising from
the roof, and the village church, which seems by the tolling of
its bell "to mourn the dying day,"
"Il giorno pianger che si muore!"
[Transcriber's note: This sentence is blurred.]
I am far from all this now, but I often think of it. Again I
see our happy day at Cuccigliana, our mountain walk, and that
beautiful horizon, with its luminous depths, which promised me
a joyous future. How many things nature can say! How she can
speak to the heart! How, above all, she can speak to it of God!
Flowers, hills, forests, earth, and sky--all are more
beautiful when we have learned to discern in them the beauty of
God. How many times already, Gaetano, have I gone over again
our walk on the Serchio, where the rustling of the leaves was
the only accompaniment to our long conversations! Ah! may God
bless thee, may he render thee happy, and all my desires will
be satisfied.
Eve of All Saints' Day.
Oh! if the feast of to-morrow should one day be our feast! Do
not suppose, however, that I am presumptuous enough to hope
that we shall ever be like the saints of our altars. No; but I
believe that not only those great saints, but also all the
souls of the just who are admitted to the beatific vision of
God, are invoked on this great day by the church. This it is
that emboldens my desires. ...
If you are sad, recollect that it has pleased God thus to
alternate in this world our joys and sorrows, in order to
implant more deeply in our souls the desire of that life in
which weeping shall be no more. Then shall we be united I hope,
in the love and blissful contemplation of that God whom we now
adore under the veil of faith.
{549}
Meanwhile it is sweet to say to one's self: God loves me
infinitely more than I can love myself. He thinks of me and
watches over me with a tenderness surpassing all the tenderness
of a mother. What, then, should I fear? And besides, how be
Christians and not be willing to suffer for love of a God who
has suffered so much for us? I would share these thoughts with
you, Gaetano, because I find in them my strength and
consolation every day. Treasure them in your heart, call them
often to mind, and your sadness will disappear as
"La neve al sol si disigilla." [Footnote 159]
[Footnote 159: "The snow dissolves before the sun."]
I do not think we shall lose by the exchange when, having
finished Milton, we read Virgil together. That great man seems
to me indeed
"The light and honor of the other poets,"
as our Dante says. We shall reap from this reading the great
advantage of being able to compare the principal episodes of
the AEneid with the best passages of other poems. I assure you
I do not regret the time I give to my little studies; if I had
to commence them again, I should apply myself only with more
diligence and attention. I owe to them the best pleasures that
I have known; above all, I owe to them community of
intellectual life with you. [Footnote 160]
[Footnote 160: I would for a moment call the reader's
attention to this sentiment. Such should, indeed, be the
chief end of the studies of every Christian woman--community
of intellectual life with her husband, community of
intellectual life with her sons.]
Now that I do not take lessons, and that, consequently, I have
no more leisure, I know no more lively pleasure than to shut
myself up in my little room with my books and my pen; and even
during those hours which I ought and which I am determined to
devote to needlework, I love still to think of what I have read
and to beguile the time by these pleasant memories. Having had
some time for study to-day, I resumed the reading of Muratori,
taking the history of the wars of Odoacer and Theodoric. The
subject is a familiar one, but I return to it always willingly,
because I think the history of the middle ages even more
important for us to know than ancient history. And then what
joy of soul to see the church, in all places and in the most
barbarous ages, the mother and guardian of civilization, the
friend and consoler of the vanquished, the last bulwark of the
oppressed against the unbridled pretensions of power!
Poor Italy! how she has suffered! What carnage! How much blood
shed in vain! How many tears!
January 1, 1857.
Let us pray God, let us pray him with our whole heart to-day,
Gaetano, to bless our union, our souls, our actions, our
thoughts, our life. May he deign to preserve long those who are
dear to us, to shield us from great misfortunes, and, above
all, never to withdraw his grace from us! Such are the prayers
that we will offer together, united in heart, though separated
by distance. God will see the sincerity of our desires, and he
will grant them.
The serenity of the heavens gladdens all nature, and rejoices
also our souls, which in the light of the sun seem, as it were,
a reflection of the Increated Light. I do not think I am
superstitious, Gaetano; and if the new year had commenced in
the midst of lightning, thunder, and dismal rains, I should
certainly not, on that account, have augured ill for our
future. But now, contemplating the calmness and pureness of the
sky and of the whole horizon, I ask of God to give us a life
like to this beautiful day, that is to say, such a life that
nothing may ever be able to disturb in our souls that peace
whose source is in God, its eternal fount.
{550}
January 4.
After some cold days, the weather has again become very mild,
and the air is balmy as with the first perfumes of spring. How
brightly the sun shines to-day! Its warm beams inundate my
little room. Seated at my table, at some distance from the
window, my eye wanders involuntarily to what I can see of the
sky. I fancy I see a great blue eye looking down lovingly on
me. Ah Gaetano! how good is God!
I have just learned the death of a very dear friend. Young,
beautiful, brought up in opulence, the only daughter of a
mother who idolized her, she wished to become a Sister of
Charity in order to serve God in his poor. For ten years she
has been a tender mother to the orphan, and she has just died
in the bloom of her days. Dear and good Sister Maria! how happy
I should have been to see her again! I do not cease thinking of
her! Schiller would say here: "Cease to weep: tears do not
resuscitate the dead." Ah! with what a far different power do
the words addressed by the Redeemer to the afflicted come home
to our hearts: "Blessed are they that weep, for they shall be
comforted!" The more I meditate on these words, and then look
on earth in its renewal, the pure light and deep azure of the
sky, the more I am impressed, death notwithstanding, with the
infinite goodness of God and the ineffable bliss of a future
life. I hear sometimes of the good being oppressed by the
wicked; I often see virtuous persons in misfortune; will not,
then, the just also have their day and their recompense? Ah!
often, when at night I raise my eyes toward the twinkling
stars, I think of those happy souls who are there on high,
higher than the stars, in the eternal enjoyment of the beatific
vision, of adoration and love without end. If man would only
fix his soul on such thoughts, what is there on earth that
could discourage him?
I received your dear letter this morning, Gaetano, and lest you
should suppose I thought it too gloomy, I must tell you that I,
too, have been thinking of death the whole day, and that I even
offered a special prayer to our Lord to be merciful to me when
the hour shall have come for me to pass from time to eternity,
and, as I hope, "from the human to the divine." We have need of
abandoning ourselves with a child-like confidence into the arms
of God, if we wish to keep alive in our hearts the hope of
seeing in heaven him whom we adore on earth. For my part, if,
instead of thinking of him alone, I turned to think of myself,
I really know not whither my reflections might lead me. But
hope, which is a Christian virtue, is a firm expectation of
future glory, I will, then, forget my fears and believe that,
despite our imperfections, we may one day taste in the bosom of
God a happiness even of the shadow of which we cannot catch a
glimpse on this earth. We shall then know in what overflowing
measure the Lord rewards even the feeblest efforts of his
friends. We shall know how everything here below was inevitably
passing away with ourselves, how this earthly life vanished
more lightly than a dream, and that there remains nothing to
man after death but love, that ethereal part of the soul which
God claims all for himself. Yet more: I believe that the love
which shall unite and commingle our souls on high will not be
absorbed in the contemplation of the divine essence in such a
manner that the sweetness of loving each other still shall
escape our perception.
{551}
I believe, on the contrary, that it will be the triumph of love
to exist and to endure in God, and to unite in one canticle of
praise the souls which God made to love one another.
More sorrow--Matilda is dead! [Footnote 161] Oh! how we loved
her. She was an angel! It is we only who suffer, for to her it
is pure happiness to have quitted earth. Not a murmur was ever
heard from her lips. She found all peace and all strength in
the love of God. Her soul so easily opened itself to joy. The
day before her death, seeing some flowers, "What beautiful
things our God has made!" she exclaimed. Her friends wished to
inform her father of her imminent danger. This she constantly
opposed, wishing to spare that poor father the agony of a last
farewell. Here are examples.
[Footnote 161: Matilda Manzoni, daughter of the celebrated
author of _I Promessi Sposi_.]
I do not know the introduction you speak of; but my mother has
read to me the admirable verses of Manzoni which are prefixed
to it. How many things these verses recall to me. They have
affected me powerfully. Returning in memory to the times that
are past, I fancied as I listened to them that I heard the
sweet voice of my poor Matilda, who, in reciting this beautiful
poetry, evinced so tender an admiration for her father's
genius. We were at Viareggio. It was a beautiful summer
evening, and the peace of a starlit sky penetrated deep into
our souls. Matilda said to me: "Rosa, if you could only tell me
the first verse of those stanzas, I am sure I could recite the
whole." For some time I ransacked my poor memory in vain.
Suddenly came the word, "Pause awhile." That word was enough.
Matilda recited without failing in a word--and oh! with what
feeling--the whole piece of poetry. Dear friend! she is with
us no longer, and we shall see her no more on earth. When I
parted with her last, I said to her: "Farewell till we meet
again." I ought to have said: "Farewell till we meet in
heaven."
When the storm came upon us, [Footnote 162] two terrific peals
of thunder were heard at once. I confess, Gaetano, I did not
expect to reach Pisa. And oh! how terrible is the thought of
death, when all around reminds one of the almighty power of
God. I trembled as I thought of eternity. I saw my own
nothingness, and that my only refuge was in the bosom of God.
There did I cast myself with all the confidence of my soul.
Unperceived by any one, I drew from my bosom my crucifix, and,
concealing it in my hand, I pressed it to my lips. I felt then
what help religion will give us in our last moments, for I
immediately regained courage, and all my fears vanished.
[Footnote 162: Signorina Ferrucci was, with her parents,
returning from Leghorn to Pisa, when they were surprised by a
violent storm, which is the subject of this letter.]
To Signorina Louisa B----.
I received your sad and tender letter yesterday, my dear
Louisa, and I answer it without delay, to prove to you that
your sorrows are mine. Poor Antonietta! Yet, why weep for her?
Her soul has winged its flight to the celestial regions, where,
as she said in her delirium, all was ready to receive her. It
is not to her, then--it is to you, to your family, to
ourselves, that our tears belong.
{552}
As soon as I heard the sad tidings, I raised my heart to God,
and offered him a fervent prayer for your mother and yourself.
As to Antonietta, I could not pray for her, because I saw her
truly in the midst of the angelic choirs.
Dear friend, would that I could console you; but I feel with
sadness my utter inability. It is God alone who has the secret
of true consolation. Is not he our good Father? Does not he
await us in that blessed abode where there are neither sorrows
nor tears, but where reign eternal peace and happiness? And
then, my poor Louisa, if life seemed to promise your dear
sister happiness and joy, has not death put her in possession
of joys more pure, happiness more profound, than she could ever
have desired? Oh! how enviable is her lot. She will never know
the troubles, the disappointments, the disenchantments of this
life. She will be spared all the suffering which is inseparable
from a long existence. Death has been to her a beautiful angel,
come from heaven to crown her with flowers. Dry your tears,
Louisa: your sister is happier than we.
To Gaetano,
Each day is bringing you nearer the mournful anniversary you
spoke of in your last letter. I beg, I conjure you, Gaetano, to
allow to your heart no sentiment but that of resignation.
Remember that we shall see in heaven those who are taken from
us on earth; and that the sufferings of this life are the means
by which we are to attain endless beatitude. I speak thus, not
to preach patience to you, which it would ill become me to do,
but to give you a word of consolation; for I know all that you
have suffered, all that you still suffer in secret. The cares
of business and the multiplicity of exterior duties will not
prevent sorrowful memories from taking possession of your soul.
You can, then, but offer your sufferings as a sacrifice,
believing that they will render us more worthy of the divine
love. If I already shared your life, I would do everything in
my power to console and encourage you on these sad days.
Meanwhile let us both strive each day to lessen our
imperfections, and to let the love of God have fuller scope in
our hearts. Thus shall we, if not without fear, at least
without remorse, reach that solemn moment of our life, the one
that will end it. May God, who, we hope, will one day unite us
on earth by holy ties, deign to unite us also in heaven!
January 21.
(Three days before the commencement of her illness.)
Truly we must be always ready to die when and as God wills, and
to love him infinitely more than all the things of this world
which are passing away with our frail lives. Our immortal soul
is not made for this world, where all is fleeting, dissolving,
changing. By the very nature of its being, it yearns for
heaven. For me, living or dead, in this world or the next, I
will be ever thine, my Gaetano, in the love that God knows and
blesses.
This letter is the last that Rosa Ferrucci wrote.
Concluded In Next Number.
----------
{553}
The Sanitary and Moral Condition of New York City.
A glance at New York City, embracing the entire of Manhattan
Island, will show that its geographical position, its advantages
for sewerage and drainage, in fact for everything that would make
it salubrious and healthy, cannot be surpassed by any city in
this or any other country. And still, with its bountiful supply
of nature's choicest gifts, many of our readers will be surprised
to hear that our death-rate is higher than that of any city on
this continent, or any of the larger cities of Europe. We append
a table showing the relative per annum mortality in various
cities:
Death. Population.
New York 1 in 35
London 1 in 45
Paris 1 in 40
Copenhagen 1 in 36
Christiansund,
(Norway.) 1 in 40
Liverpool 1 in 44
Philadelphia 1 in 48
Boston 1 in 41
Newark, N. J 1 in 44
Providence 1 in 45
Hartford 1 in 54
Rochester 1 in 44 [Footnote 163]
[Footnote 163: _Health in Country and Cities_. W. F.
Thorns, M. D.]
Let us first examine the conditions which favor and cause this
excessively high death-rate, and then approximate as nearly as
possible what our percentage of mortality should be, under good
hygienic regulations.
The primary cause of the present condition is, evidently, in the
packing system of the tenant-houses; and how the unfortunates
exist in the fetid air and dirt of these dens, it is impossible
to imagine. The name tenant-house is applied to all buildings
containing three or more families. There are at present in our
city 18,582 of these residences. In these live over a
half-million of people, or more than half of our entire
population. These houses vary in condition, from the apartments
over stores on our prominent thoroughfares, which often contain
all the comforts and conveniences of more aristocratic and
imposing structures, through many gradations to the cellar,
garrets, and model tenant-houses, occupied by the most miserable
of our inhabitants. Such an economy of space was never known to
be displayed in sheltering cattle as is here shown in the houses,
if they can be so called, of the laboring classes. We give a
description of one of these establishments, for the benefit of
those who have never examined a "model tenant-house." On a lot 25
by 100 feet two buildings are erected, one in the front, the
second in the rear. Between the houses is a yard or open space,
in which are located rows of stalls to be used as water-closets.
The buildings are frequently seven and eight stories high,
including basement. Through the middle of each house runs a hall
three to four feet wide. On each side of the hall are the
apartments, as they are termed, more properly coops or dens.
There are sometimes three or four sets of these coops to each
half, making six or eight families to the floor; and so they are
packed, from the cellar to the roof of the establishment. As the
term "suites of apartments" is rather deceptive to the
uninitiated, we will state this means simply two--one, the
common room, where all the cooking, washing, and other family
work is performed, and in some instances used additionally for
manufacturing purposes, as shoe-making, tailoring, etc.; the
other is the sleeping-room.
{554}
The first is generally 8 feet by 10, and the second 7 by 8, with
an average height of 7 feet. "Not unfrequently two families--yea,
four families--live in one of these small sets of dens; and in
this manner as many as 126 families, numbering over 800 souls,
have been packed into one such building, and some of the families
taking boarders and lodgers at that. And worse yet, all around
such tenements, or in close proximity to them, stand
slaughter-houses, stables, tanneries, soap factories, and
bone-boiling establishments, emitting life-destroying
exhalations." [Footnote 164]
[Footnote 164: Mr. Dyer's Report on the Condition of the
Destitute and Outcast Children of this city.]
Imagine rows of such houses, so close to each other as to shut
out the air and sunlight from their inmates, and you have a
picture of the condition of some portions of the lower wards of
New York City. Of the 18,582 tenant-houses. Dr. E. B. Dalton, the
Sanitary Superintendent, reports "52 per cent in bad sanitary
condition, that is, in a condition detrimental to the health and
dangerous to the lives of the occupants, and sources of infection
to the neighborhood generally; 32 per cent are in this condition
purely from overcrowding, accumulations of filth, want of
water-supply, and other results of neglect." Dr. E. Harris, the
efficient Register of Vital Statistics for the Board of Health,
informs us that, although the Fourth ward has given up nearly one
half its space for mercantile purposes, it still retains the
population it had in 1864. This is effected by driving the poor
tenants into smaller space and more miserable dens, which they
are obliged to accommodate themselves to, as there is no rapid
transportation at their command by which they could reach homes
in more salubrious districts, and still retain their employment
in this section. The result is, that in some locations the people
are packed at the rate of nearly 300,000 to the square mile. Here
are congregated the vilest brothels, the lowest dance-houses, and
other dens of infamy. It is doubtful if throughout Europe, and
certainly in no other part of America, in the same amount of
space, so much vice, immorality, pauperism, disease, and fearful
depravity could be found, as some of the worst of these locations
present daily for our consideration. Our readers must not
suppose, from our frequent references to the Fourth ward, that it
contains all of this character of trouble existing in New York.
This is not the case. In portions of all the wards in the lower
part of the island, as well as up-town by either river-side as
high as Fiftieth street, will the same condition be found, but
not in so concentrated a form as in the Fourth Ward and its
immediate surroundings, which has for a long time held the
unenviable reputation of being the worst locality on the island.
Practical hygienists give 1000 cubic feet as the standard amount
of air-space for each individual. Dr. W. F. Thoms, in his
pamphlet on _Tenant-Houses_, thinking that quantity
impracticable in this character of building, gives 700 cubic feet
as the minimum in which a person can live and not be injured by
the carbonic acid he constantly expires. With many of the
'fever-nests' not more than 300 to 400 feet to the individual are
given; and Captain Lord's report shows that in 289 houses the
quantity allowed each inmate is only between 100 and 300 cubic
feet.
{555}
The zymotic or foul-air diseases, as they are termed by some,
formed 29.36 per cent of our total mortality during last year.
[Footnote 165]
[Footnote 165: Dr. Harris's Report.]
Belonging to this class are the diarrhoeal maladies, Asiatic
cholera, cholera-morbus, typhoid and typhus fevers, small-pox,
measles, scarlet fever, and others of this kind; also the
dietetic disorders, inanition, scurvy, etc. It will be readily
seen that, in such locations as are above described, a very large
proportion of the mortality from this class must arise.
Consumption also, which might properly be termed the constant
scourge of the human family, assists largely in running up our
death-table. The late Archbishop Hughes, in speaking of this
disease, said "it was the natural death of the Irish emigrant in
this country." This remark is equally true of persons coming from
all other countries, partially on account of foreigners not being
acclimated to the vicissitudes of our climate, but more
particularly because so many of them dwell in damp, leaky
shanties, or in cellars which are frequently below the level of
high water. Here the seeds of the disease are planted by which
the miserable victims of hectic fever, night-sweats, and other
attendant evils are hurried to their untimely graves. In the
fifteen months ending December 31st, 1867, 4123 persons died in
our city of this disease. The largest number of these were
between the ages of 25 and 40. One thousand seven hundred and
sixty-five were natives of Ireland, 1430 were Americans, 600
Germans, and 328 from other foreign countries.
Upon the infants, however, of these polluted districts death
fastens his relentless grasp, and from their ranks under the age
of five years he claimed last year over one half the entire
mortality of the city. The blood of these innocents is poisoned
from birth by the noxious influences of bad air and adulterated
food; consequently their nutrition is defective, and the majority
of them are found frail, puny, and miserable. In this condition
they are little able to stand the irritation attendant upon the
process of dentition, and during this period a large number of
them rapidly sink from diarrhoea, marasmus, or some kindred
disorder.
Seven thousand four hundred and ninety-four of these little ones
died last year under twelve months of age. This is supposed to be
little less than one fourth of all the infants born alive during
the same period. Is it not enough to send a thrill of horror to
the breast of every mother, to think that one out of every four
infants born, must perish before it reaches its first birthday?
"This is well known to be twice too high a death-rate for the
first year of infant life, and experience demonstrates, that the
infant death-rate is a safe index of the general rate of
mortality, both in the total population and in the adults of any
city or district. That is, if in the Sixth ward we find a high
death-rate in children, and if it is vastly higher than that in
the children of the Fifteenth ward, then we shall find (as we
actually have found) that the death-rate is excessively high in
the total number of adult inhabitants of the Sixth, while there
is a very low death-rate in the Fifteenth that buries the
smallest percentage of its infants." [Footnote 166]
[Footnote 166: Dr. Harris's Report.]
An easy solution to this is found in the greater susceptibility
of early infancy from extreme delicacy of formation. Just as the
accurate thermometer indicates immediately every change in the
temperature, so these frail organizations blight first under
detrimental influences, before the more matured portion of the
population are perceptibly affected by the same causes.
{556}
The following will strikingly elucidate the greater expectation
for human life to persons living in even comparatively salubrious
districts. The death-rate in the Fourth ward, in 1863, was about
1 in 25 of the population; in the Fifteenth, in the same year, it
was 1 in 60.
Why should this wide difference in the mortality exist in two
sections of the same city adjacent to each other? The reason is
obvious: there are but few of the densely over-crowded
tenant-houses in the Fifteenth or healthy ward, while the Fourth
presents a population of nearly 20,000 souls packed in these
buildings. Thus it is shown that persons living in the Fifteenth
ward, have two and a half times more chances for life than those
residing in the Fourth.
The all-important question to the social economist now recurs:
What is the necessary or inevitable mortality of the total
population of this city? We cannot do better than refer to the
mortality above given for the Fifteenth ward, which is 1 in 60.
Why is it not practicable to bring our sanitary regulations to
such perfection as to reduce the mortality of the entire city to
near this standard? Thus we would save many lives, now sacrificed
by diseases which we have the power in a great measure to
control; and we would lessen the general death-rate of the city
to between 16,000 and 17,000 to the 1,000,000, instead of
ranging, as it now does, from 23,000 to 26,000 to the same amount
of population.
To look at this fearful drain of human life is painful enough;
but the moral aspect of the subject will be found even more
deplorable. The constant inhalation of vitiated air lowers the
vitality and poisons the entire organism, and, as a natural
consequence, predisposes these unfortunates to a continual desire
for stimulation. This, in fact, is a manifestation of nature,
which, by a wise dispensation of Providence, when depressed or
disordered from any cause, has a constant tendency toward health.
They, however, do not appreciate that pure air, cleanliness, and
substantial food would quench this natural longing; but they seek
that which is more gratifying to their depraved appetites; as for
the time being it steals their reason and blunts their
sensibility to present misery. These facts account to a great
extent for the large number of rum-holes found in the
neighborhood of these tenant rookeries, which is reported in
certain localities to be one for less than every two houses. Many
of these low groggeries are so disgustingly filthy, and their
poisonous compounds so corrupting of every moral feeling, that
they can properly be placed on an equality with the despicable
Chinese opium-dens found in the neighborhood of Whitechapel in
London. The following figures demonstrate the immense number of
votaries who frequent drinking-saloons in this city, and the vast
sums of money squandered annually in these degrading haunts:
"There are at present 5203 licensed rum-shops in New York;
697,202 persons visit these daily, 4,183,212 in a week, and
218,224,226 in a year. The total amount of money paid out for
drinks across the bar and at the drinking-tables of the
liquor-shops of New York is $736,280.59 a week, or $38,286,590.68
a year." [Footnote 167]
[Footnote 167: Dyer's Report.]
This is the account of the licensed bar-rooms: how many
unlicensed ones exist it is impossible to know. When we consider
that the highest estimate made of our population gives us only
1,000,000 of inhabitants, the foregoing figures certainly are
astounding, and deserve most earnest consideration.
{557}
In connection with this subject, it will be interesting to
examine the annals of crime for the past year. There were 80,532
[Footnote 168] arrests made during the twelve months ending
October 31st, 1867.
[Footnote 168: Report Metropolitan Police.]
These embrace offences of every grade, from petty larceny to
murder. The number of the latter is 59, or an average of more
than one a week. This total number of criminals amounts to nearly
one twelfth of our entire population, and certainly shows a very
low grade of morals in our community. It would be most
interesting to know what proportion of these criminals date the
commencement of their career in crime, from the time they began
to drink intoxicating liquors.
One of the saddest features in our city is the condition of the
homeless children. "The number of these between the ages of five
and fifteen years is stated to be 200,900, of which not more than
75,000 attend Sunday-school, leaving the vast number of 125,000
of our children unreached and uncared for, of which it has been
estimated that nearly 40,000 are vagrant children." [Footnote
169] "Hundreds of these children are confirmed drunkards, and
thousands of them are accustomed to strong drink. Children from
the age of fourteen years down to infants of four are daily met
in a state of intoxication. They come drunk to the
mission-schools. The little creatures have many a time lain
stretched upon the benches of this institution, (Howard Mission,)
sleeping off their debauch. Hundreds of them have become veteran
thieves, and thousands more are in training for the same end.
Nine hundred and sixty girls and 3,958 boys, between the ages of
ten and fifteen years--making a total of 4618--were arrested
during the year ending October 31st, 1867, for drunkenness and
petty crimes." [Footnote 170]
[Footnote 169: R. G. Pardee, Esq., communication to _New
York Observer_.]
[Footnote 170: Dyer's Report.]
The arrests for the same period between the ages of ten and
twenty years amounts to the fearful number of 13,660. Is it not
melancholy to contemplate these little creatures, "made to the
image and likeness of God," allowed to develop in such haunts of
crime, every faculty as soon as awakened blunted by the
atmosphere of sin surrounding them? If not rescued from their
fate at an early age, we know they are the embryo criminals who
will in the future fill our prisons and grace our scaffolds. How
can it be otherwise? Nurtured in a hot-bed of crime from infancy,
educated in pilfering and beggary in childhood, it is but human
that they should develop these accomplishments in rank luxuriance
as they grow to manhood. It seems strange that Mr. Bergh's
attention has never been drawn to the condition of the miserable
tenants and the homeless children. He and the rest of his society
take every means to remedy the complaints of ill-used quadrupeds;
but unfortunate biped humanity may be stalled in filthy dens with
imperfect drainage and no ventilation, or, the little ones starve
and die on our thoroughfares, without finding a humanitarian to
raise a voice in their behalf. It is true, our cattle should be
cared for, but a just God will demand at our hands some
protection for his poor.
"He has said--his truths are all eternal--
What he said both has been and shall be--
What ye have not done to these my poor ones,
Lo! ye have not done it unto me." [Footnote 171]
[Footnote 171: Proctor.]
The radical relief for the evils growing out of the tenant-house
system can only be reached by, first, condemning and tearing down
the worst class of these buildings; and, secondly, remodelling
those which, by their construction, are susceptible of such
improvement as will insure the inmates at least the blessings of
sunshine and pure air.
{558}
These stringent measures are unfortunately, for the present,
impracticable, as, should they be carried into effect, two thirds
of the inhabitants of these dens would be thrown upon the streets
without shelter. Space must be found adjacent to the city where
neat and comfortable cottages can be built for the laboring
classes, and transportation of such character provided as will
enable them to reach these abodes in as little time and at as
small an expense as it now consumes to get to their tenant
dwellings. The beautiful shores on the opposite sides of the
Hudson and East rivers must eventually be dotted by the villages
of these working people. It has been reported that a very wealthy
gentleman of our community proposes building a number of such
houses somewhere in the vicinity of New York. To be the projector
of such a philanthropic enterprise would entitle him to the love
and admiration of the people now, while in after-years it would
be pointed out as a monument of his generosity to the struggling
poor. The proposed "Hudson Highland Bridge," the "East River
Bridge," and the tunnel under the East River, all of which, we
hope, will be pressed rapidly to completion, will form the first
of the links which are to bind our Island City to the surrounding
rural districts. The location where the first will span the
Hudson is near Fort Montgomery, in the Highlands; the second is
intended to connect the lower part of the city with Brooklyn; and
the iron tubular tunnel is, as its name indicates, a wrought-iron
tunnel, to be laid at the bottom of the East River; it also is to
connect Brooklyn with New York. In a sanitary point of view, we
think these proposed means for rapid communication between our
island and the neighboring country vie in importance with the
gigantic enterprise which gives us the water of the Croton river
for our daily consumption, and the Central Park for the
recreation and amusement of our pent-up population. Over the East
River Bridge it is intended to run cars by an endless wire rope,
worked by an engine under the flooring on the Brooklyn side. The
minimum rate of speed is put down as twenty miles an hour. It is
such travelling facilities as these structures will afford which
are necessary to enable the workingmen to reach healthful and
salubrious homes outside of the metropolis. We would thus be able
to disgorge the immense surplus of population which it is
impossible for us to accommodate in our midst.
But while we keep this in our minds as the great ultimatum which
will eventually relieve us, we must in the mean time use every
effort in our power to ameliorate as much as possible the misery
surrounding us.
Since the establishment of the Board of Health, in March, 1866,
strenuous efforts have been made by that body to remedy the most
glaring defects in the tenant-houses. Nothing could bear better
evidence of the good results effected by the wise sanitary
measures they have adopted than the saving in our mortality rates
during the last year. It has been asserted that "our present code
of health laws are better than those of any other city on this
planet;" and had the commissioners, in the execution of these
laws, been sustained in their laudable efforts for the public
good by the courts of justice, no doubt much more would have been
effected.
{559}
The Sanitary Superintendant, Dr. E. B. Dalton, reports 35,045
inspections made during the last year; 11,414 of these were in
tenement-houses, 11,473 to yards, cellars, waste-pipes, etc.; the
remainder, to private dwellings, slaughter-houses, establishments
for fat-melting and bone-boiling, stables, piggeries, etc. This
amount of visitations by the sanitary inspectors shows great
activity in their department, and entitles them to much credit.
The evils, however, attending the entire of the present systems
are so numerous that, without a good deal of active legislation,
it is to be feared the root of the trouble cannot be reached. In
the first place, no person should be allowed, in the future, to
build a house to be occupied by more than three or four families,
without its plan of construction being first officially approved
of by an appointed superintendent. This would confine the
sanitary evils, so far as the internal arrangement of tenements
are concerned, to those we now have; and, in the second place, as
Dr. Dalton suggests, the erection of a front and rear tenement on
the same lot should be strictly prohibited. The importance of
these means cannot be overestimated. In addition, many changes
apparently slight in themselves can be effected in the existing
houses, which would materially add to the comfort and chances of
life of the inmates. Miss F. Nightingale says: "It is a fact
demonstrated by statistics, that in the improved dwellings the
mortality has fallen in certain cases from 25 to 14 per 1000; and
that in the common 'lodging-houses,' which have been hot-beds of
epidemics, such diseases have almost disappeared through the
adoption of sanitary measures." One condition probably more
pregnant with disease to the tenants than almost any other is,
that so large a percentage of the water-closets in the tenant
buildings are not connected with the regular sewers. The
consequence is, these places become choked up with accumulations
of filth, and give forth noisome and offensive odors, most
detrimental to health. This alone is sufficient to cause a large
amount of the diarrhoeal diseases which pervade our community
during the hot season with such fatal results. The inspector of
the Fourth Sanitary District, for the Citizens' Association, in
1864, reported "less than 30 per cent of the privies in his
district as being connected with drains or sewers." He also says:
"There is a section of my district, embracing at least nine
blocks, in every part of which the peculiar odor arising from
privies is always distinctly perceptible during the summer
months. From this region fever is never absent. I refer to typhus
and typhoid, for intermittent and remittent fever do not prevail
in this neighborhood, even in the low tract adjoining the river.
Such a gentle fiend as paludal miasma flies affrighted from the
terrific phantoms of disease that reign supreme in this domain of
pestilence." The landlords who grind the last cent of rent
possible from their tenants should be obliged, at least, to do
all in their power to preserve them from palpable occasions of
disease. At a small expense in comparison to the income this
class of property yields, the proper connections with the sewers
could be made, and thus much suffering avoided.
One great trouble the sanitarian encounters is, the
disinclination of a large portion of this class to adopt habits
of cleanliness. They seem actually to riot in and be proud of
their filthy surroundings. And their example is unfortunately
contagious, as it is known frequently to be the case that where
neat, clean, and respectable families are thrown in contact with
them, they, too, soon degenerate into the same condition.
{560}
"It would be true of many thousands that, if left to the
uncontrolled indulgence of their reckless and filthy habits, they
would convert a palace into a pig-sty, and create 'fever-nests'
and hot-beds of vice and corruption under circumstances most
favorable to health, comfort, and social elevation." [Footnote
172]
[Footnote 172: Report of Association for Improving the
Condition of the Poor in New York. 1863.]
This fact, although discouraging, should be but a greater
incentive to keep constantly over them a vigilant sanitary
inspection, to show them the baneful effects of their habits of
living, and to cause a spirit of emulation to assist themselves
in purifying their homes and surroundings. This can be done.
Their "reckless and filthy habits" are, in many instances, but
the indication of a lowered moral and physical status, the result
of the poverty, starvation, and misery they have endured. A
little encouragement, and a constant stimulation as to the right
means to be adopted, would soon cause many of them to overcome
their vitiated and depraved tastes.
These combined facts, we think, necessitate a thorough house to
house examination of all this character of property in the city,
by competent sanitary persons, so that the Sanitary
Superintendent may know the exact condition of each tenement.
With such knowledge many advantageous improvements could be made
and many nuisances abated, without waiting for a report from
either the occupants or sanitary police, as is now done. This
action is at present rendered more essential as the summer is
coming on, and under the influence of its long, hot days the
animal and vegetable decomposition will make the air putrid with
its "life-destroying exhalations." Our death-rate from the
diarrhoeal, and other miasmatic diseases, will, as usual, run up
to the highest mark; and should cholera get a foothold in the
city, it is questionable if it could be controlled by the Health
Commissioners as readily as it was in the summer of 1866.
The question, how to deal wisely with the abuse of alcoholic
stimulants, has been earnestly discussed and considered by the
press, by municipal and legislative bodies, from the pulpit, and
also by countless temperance associations, without reaching a
solution of this great problem. Philanthropic efforts are
constantly made to stop the tide of self-destruction without
avail; and the originators of such movements seem all to arrive
at the conclusion that it is impossible to thoroughly restrain
the appetite for strong drinks by any character of laws which may
be enacted. The only resource that remains is to throw around the
trade such restrictions as will confine it to its narrowest
limits. This is to be effected not alone by legislative
enactments, but also by a moral and religious influence. Public
opinion has great weight, and every man who loves the well-being
of his race should frown down this social evil to the utmost of
his power. Ministers of the gospel should persistently teach the
enormity of the ills resulting, as they alone fully know, from
this cause.
A great many persons think the present laws have no influence in
restraining drunkenness, and that as much liquor is consumed now
as formerly. As a proof of their efficacy, we will give here a
portion of a table, taken from the report of the Excise
Commissioners for last year, comparing the number of arrests for
offences actually resulting from the excessive indulgence in
intoxicating drinks on Sundays, when the rum-sellers were obliged
to keep their glittering shops closed the entire day, and
Tuesdays, when the prohibition applied only to before sunrise.
{561}
Months. Year. Days. Arrests.
March, 1867 5 Sundays, 210
March, 1867 4 Tuesdays, 471
April, 1867 4 Sundays, 195
April, 1867 5 Tuesdays, 480
May, 1867 4 Sundays, 123
May, 1867 4 Tuesdays, 380
As it is well known that before the enaction of these laws the
arrests on Sunday far exceeded those of any other day in the
week, this should convince the most sceptical of the effect of
the Sunday prohibition.
The estimated number of vagrant children in this city is nearly
40,000. Forty thousand immortal beings floating, day by day,
toward physical and moral destruction! Throw aside all the
dictates of Christianity, and look upon these children in the
future. According to our free institutions, they will have the
same amount of control over the destinies of the nation as our
own offspring, although the latter may be thoroughly educated to
make good and intelligent citizens. Here we are allowing to be
nurtured the element which, in the riots of 1863, threatened to
deluge the length and breadth of the island with tumult,
conflagration, and bloodshed. Every year, with the constantly
increasing tide of emigration, new material is added to develop
this character at a more rapid rate. Such being the case,
self-protection demands that something be done to give these
children homes and draw them from the pollution surrounding them.
In the lower portion of the city, there are some institutions
intended particularly to take care of these little vagrants, and
they form the only breakwater to this torrent of infantile
depravity. The first of these is the Five Points Mission. This
was established under "An Act," passed in March, 1856, by the
Senate and Assembly of the State of New York, "to incorporate the
Ladies' Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal
Church." The intentions of the ladies forming this association
are shown in the second paragraph of the above-named act, and
reads: "The objects of said society are, to support one or more
missionaries, to labor among the poor of the city of New York,
especially in the locality known as the 'Five Points;' to provide
food, clothing, and other necessaries for such poor; to educate
poor children and provide for their comfort and welfare; and, for
that purpose, to maintain a school at the Five Points, in said
city, and to perform kindred acts of charity and benevolence."
The "Old Brewery," a most notorious den of infamy, just at the
Five Points, was selected by the association as headquarters for
their missionary labors; and to gather round them here the little
ones of this worst location of the city, to be fed, clothed, and
instructed in the rudimentary English branches, as well as the
Methodist Episcopal faith, became a labor of love. This
enterprise prospered, and now, in place of the "Old Brewery,"
stands a large, commodious mission-building. A peculiar feature
in the management is, that entire families are taken in, and
given work of some kind to do, so that it forms a character of
tenant-house. The institution contains some 18 families,
including between 60 and 70 children. One thousand and nineteen
children have been taught during the year in the day-school.
Immediately opposite and facing this is the second of these
institutions, the "Five Points House of Industry."
{562}
This was established under the supervision of the same gentleman
who at first had control of the Five Points Mission, the Rev. L.
M. Pease. Through some misunderstanding, he withdrew from the
mission and founded the House of Industry. His beginning was very
small, and consisted of an effort to obtain work for a number of
unhappy females who desired to escape from their criminal way of
living. His next step was the establishment of a day-school; soon
afterward men and women were employed in making shoes, baskets,
etc. The success of the enterprise was quickly assured, and it
rapidly enlarged its sphere of usefulness. Some time since, the
manufacturing of baskets, shoes, etc., was given up, and it is
now simply a house of refuge, where homeless children are
educated, fed, and clothed. During the winter, a meal was given,
in the middle of the day, to destitute adults. One of the
gentlemen informed us that 325 men and women partook of this meal
daily during the cold weather. The average number of children
given three meals was also 325, making 1300 meals given by this
institution daily. The whole number of children taught here
during the last year was 1289. An interesting feature connected
with this enterprise is the boarding-house which has recently
been established for working-girls. A large tenement-house was
bought, and fitted up in the most complete manner; and here
homeless working-girls can get good, substantial board for three
dollars and a quarter a week. This is of great advantage to these
poor young women, who are overworked at meagre pay, and enables
them to live for about one half the price they would be obliged
to pay for board in a respectable lodging-house. In the internal
arrangements, everything is done to add to the comfort as well as
the mental improvement of the inmates. In the public parlor there
are an organ and a piano, also several sewing-machines. These are
at the disposal of any one in the house, at all times. Two
evenings in the week they have night-school. The Germans teach
their language in exchange for English. The matron states:
"Through the kindness of some publishers, we have 5 daily papers,
12 weeklies, and 4 monthlies. Three daily German papers are sent
us; also a German magazine, published at Leipsic, Germany." Some
six years ago, the third of the houses for this special work was
established at No. 40 New Bowery, by the Rev. W. E. Van Meter.
The Howard Mission (as this establishment is called) far exceeds
the House of Industry in its internal appearance. The latter,
with its massive bare walls and iron gratings resembles more a
prison for culprits than a home for little ones. The former, to
the contrary, is built with a desire to surround the children
with everything that can please and attract them. The assistant
superintendent remarked to us that "their wish had been to make
their mission home more beautiful and enticing than any saloon
could be." The two large halls are neatly finished and
artistically adorned. In the lower one, through the benevolence
of a gentleman, a fountain is constantly playing, several hanging
baskets of moss and evergreens swing from the ceiling, and at the
base of the fountain is a pretty reservoir containing gold-fish.
This institution has received, in six years, 7581 children; and
the March number of the _Little Wanderers' Friend_,
published by this house, states that "for this month (February)
619 children have been fed at its tables, clothed from its
wardrobes, and taught in its schools."
{563}
These houses all have their regular religious services, morning,
noon, and night, with Sunday-schools, singing, and
prayer-meetings. On Sunday mornings, the prisoners from some of
the station-houses, under arrest for disorder and drunkenness the
night previous, are taken to the Howard Mission, and furnished
with coffee and bread, and then, before leaving, they have a
religious discourse preached to them. In addition, these houses
have regular visitors, who call at the homes of those making
complaints, to assist and comfort the sick, and, at the same
time, to find out if the statements given by them are correct. In
order that those not familiar with the workings of such
institutions may see the charitable work these ladies effect, we
extract the first two items from the visitors' diary in the April
number of the _Monthly Record of the Five Points House of
Industry_, 1866:
"Called on Mrs. L---- , Irish Catholic; is a widow, with two
small boys; tells me she cannot get enough work to support the
family; would be willing to sew, wash, pick hair, or any of the
various female employments, if she could get it. We offered to
feed and clothe her boys if she would send them to our school,
which she readily promised.
"Visited Mrs. G----, 31 M---- street, Irish Catholic. She lives
in a small attic room, rear building; is a widow, with one
child; has been but a few days out of the hospital; found her
little girl sick with fever; promised to send a doctor and give
her necessary assistance."
Although these institutions are doing something by their work to
alleviate the condition of a portion of this vast army of 40,000
stray waifs, still it is most evident that they are utterly
inadequate to provide for more than a small fraction of this
number. It is well known that nearly one half the population of
this city profess to be members of the Roman Catholic religion;
and, to show the great excess of persons belonging to this church
among the lower classes in our city, we extract the following
analysis of a block of buildings from the _Little Wanderers'
Friend_ for March, 1868: "Fifty-nine old buildings occupied by
382 families, in which are 2 Welsh, 7 Portuguese, 9 English, 10
Americans, 12 French, 39 negroes, 186 Italians, 189 Polanders,
218 Germans, and 812 Irish. Of these, 113 are Protestants, 287
Jews, and 1062 _Roman Catholics_."
The Catholic Reformatory in Westchester county, established by
the late Dr. Ives, is doing everything possible for the children
under its control; but the little vagrants, unless arrested for
some petty crime and thus committed to that institution, are not
within reach of its benefits.
The Rev. F. H. Farrelly, the pastor of St. James's church, has
labored most zealously during the last three years in the cause
of the Catholic children in his immediate vicinity. He has
established a poor-school in the basement of his church, under
the charge of the Sisters of Charity. The average daily
attendance here is 200, and these are furnished with a meal at
noon, in order to facilitate their remaining in the institution
the entire day. During the year, two suits of clothing are
furnished to as many as the good father's means will permit. This
school will be removed to the very elegant five-story
mission-house, now nearly completed, on the corner of James
street and New Bowery. This structure is of brick with freestone
trimmings, and has a front of 111 feet on New Bowery, and 83 feet
on James street. It will be divided into 21 class-rooms.
{564}
This enterprise will take more means for its support than St.
James's parish can possibly furnish, and it deserves and should
have the sympathy and pecuniary assistance of all Catholics.
It is impossible to calculate the amount of good to be effected
by the establishment of a large home, under the supervision of
the Sisters of Charity or Mercy in this location. These good
ladies are peculiarly adapted to care for the wants of the poor,
the sick, and the afflicted, as they devote all their energies,
according to the intention of their institution, to these classes
of society. And why? Because simply in so doing they fulfil the
wishes of "The Master." Thus their mission is one of love, and to
strictly attend to duty the greatest pleasure of their lives.
This is the solution of their great success in the management of
hospitals, schools, and charitable institutions; and the large
number of their magnificent edifices devoted to these purposes,
found throughout almost every portion of the known world, attest
the success with which God blesses their labors. To these good
sisters the poor emigrants could appeal, without even apparently
denying their religion, for a little sustenance to keep their
miserable bodies from perishing; the sorrow-burdened could
communicate their troubles, confident of a ready sympathy; and to
these the homeless little vagrant could come, knowing a mother's
tender love and gentle forbearance awaited him. In the home a
room should be devoted to the use of mothers--a place where they
could leave their babes to be fed and taken care of for the day.
This would enable poor widows to do washing and other kinds of
work, and thus many could support their families who are now
entirely dependent upon public charity. In addition to the home,
a large farm should be procured near the city, where the children
taken permanently under the care of the institution could be
raised and educated. This is advisable, because, in the first
place, it would be more economical, and secondly, experience
demonstrates that a large body of children do not thrive well in
such establishments when located in cities. We feel confident
there would be no trouble in supporting this home, as the great
Catholic heart always responds liberally to appeals made for the
poor, and in this institution the weight of the burden should be
equally borne by all the Catholics in the city. In addition to
all this, to take care of these little wanderers is a matter of
great import in the light of political economy. They form the
fountain-head from which a large proportion of our criminals are
developed. If they could be made useful members of society, it
would relieve the city of a large proportion of the taxation
which is now necessary to support our various prisons; and the
energy now shown in the commission of crime would become a source
of material wealth to the country.
There is one other subject we wish to mention before concluding
this paper: it is, the condition of the night-lodgers at the
station-houses. From the report of the Board of Metropolitan
Police, we find that 105,460 persons were accommodated with
lodgings at the various precincts during the last twelve months.
Mr. S. C. Hawley, the very accommodating chief clerk of this
department, informs us that the number this year will be much
greater. Over 100,000 sought refuge in the station-houses, glad
to obtain the bare floor to rest their weary limbs; but how many
pace our streets nightly, poverty-stricken and despairing, but
too proud to seek a shelter in these abodes of crime! It is a
stigma on the fair fame of this great city that, throughout its
length and breadth, there is not one refuge, established by
religious or philanthropic efforts, where the homeless can find
shelter from the wintry night blasts.
{565}
"Our beasts and our thieves and our chattels
Have weight for good or for ill;
But the poor are only his image,
His presence, his word, his will;
And so Lazarus lies at our doorstep,
And Dives neglects him still." [Footnote 173]
[Footnote 173: Proctor.]
In Montreal, Canada, refuges are connected with the church
property, and are superintended by the female religious orders,
we think more particularly by the Gray Nuns. In 1860, the
Providence Row Night Refuge was established in London, under the
care of the Sisters of Mercy. There is no distinction made as
regards religious creed, and the only requisites necessary for
admission are, to be homeless and of good character. Before
retiring, a half-pound of bread and a basin of gruel are given to
each lodger, and the same in the morning, before they are allowed
to commence another day's efforts to obtain work. What charity
could so directly appeal to our hearts as this? Think how many
men and women arrive daily in this metropolis, in search of
employment! For days they eagerly seek it without success,
hoarding their scanty means to the uttermost. Finally the time
comes when the last dime is spent for bread, and they wander
along, their hearts filled with dread, as night covers the earth
with her sable mantle, knowing not whither they shall turn their
weary steps. Think of the poor woman wending her way through the
pelting storm; garments soaked and clinging to the chilled form;
heart filled with despair, and crying to Heaven for shelter; head
aching, temples throbbing, brain nearly crazed with terror;
finally, crouching down under some old steps to wait the first
gleam of day to relieve her from her agony. If one in such
condition should reach the river-side, what a fearful temptation
it must be to take that final leap which ends for ever earth's
cares and sufferings, or, still worse for the poor female, the
temptation to seek in sin the refuge denied her in every other
way!
"There the weary come, who through the daylight
Pace the town and crave for work in vain:
There they crouch in cold and rain and hunger,
Waiting for another day of pain.
"In slow darkness creeps the dismal river;
From its depths looks up a sinful rest.
Many a weary, baffled, hopeless wanderer
Has it drawn into its treacherous breast!
"There is near _another river_ flowing.
Black with guilt and deep as hell and sin:
On its brink even sinners stand and shudder--
Cold and hunger goad the homeless in." [Footnote 174]
[Footnote 174: Proctor.]
What a mute appeal for such institutions is the case of the
little Italian boy found dead on the steps of one of our Fifth
avenue palaces last winter! Think of this little fellow as he
slowly perished that bitter night, at the very feet of princely
wealth. How his thoughts must have reverted to his dark-browed
mother in her far-off sunny home! And think of that mother's
anguish, her wailing
"For a birdling lost that she'll never find,"
when she heard of her boy's death, from cold and starvation, in
the principal avenue of all free America! We consider we are safe
in saying that in no other work of charity could a small amount
of money be made to benefit so many as in the founding of these
refuges. In the police report it is recommended that "several of
these be established in different parts of the city, to be under
the supervision of the police." This is a great mistake. These
people always associate station-houses and the police with crime;
consequently it is bad policy for them to come constantly in
contact with either.
{566}
This is the objection to the lodging-rooms used in the various
precincts. Official charity, as a rule, hardens those who dole it
out, and degrades its recipients.
There are thousands of noble-hearted women attached to our
different churches, who, if they once thoroughly understood this
subject, would not cease their efforts until societies were
established and refuges opened. How could it be otherwise! How
could they nestle their little ones down to sleep in warm,
comfortable beds, and think of God's little ones freezing under
their windows? How could they go to sleep themselves, and feel
that some poor woman was probably wandering past their doorways,
dying from want and exposure? We hope, before the chilling winds
of next November remind us of the immensity of suffering the
winter entails upon the poor, some philanthropic persons will
have perfected this design, and have the refuges in working
order. If such should be the case, the founders will find an
ample reward in the words of Holy Writ, "He that hath mercy on
the poor, lendeth to the Lord: and he will repay him."
If we could thus, by the adoption of every possible sanitary
precaution, deprive our death-tables of all avoidable mortality;
and by a proper religious influence elevate the moral character
of the people, we should, in the first place, save thousands of
lives, now necessary to develop our vast resources; and,
secondly, our advance toward perfection in healthfulness and
public virtues would go hand in hand with the gigantic strides
being made in the adornment of our beautiful island. Our people
would no longer seek other places in quest of health, as none
more salubrious than New York could be found; and strangers,
instead of saying, as is said of that most beautiful of Italy's
fair cities, "See Naples, and die!" would exclaim, "Go to New
York, and live!"
----------
Wild Flowers.
The child, Mercedes, youngest of the three
Whom God has sent me for a mother's crown.
Brought me wild flowers, and with childish glee
Thus prattled on, as at my feet she cast them down:
"See, mamma! here are saucy flowers I found
Hiding behind the hedge, like boys at play.
Just peeping up their heads above the ground.
To watch if any one should chance to pass that way.
"'Aha!' said I, 'whose little flowers be you,
And from whose garden have you run away?
Your leaves are dripping with the morning dew.
Fie, naughty things! What, think you, will the gardener say?
{567}
"'Come, let me take you to my mamma's home;
And she will put you in a golden vase,
Where you shall stand and look around the room,
And see your pretty, rosy faces in the glass.'
"I took them softly up, and here they are.
And now, my mamma, I should like to know
Whose garden they have wandered from so far.
And why they did not stay at their own home to grow?"
I said: "My child, these flowers have never strayed
From any other home. Their place to grow
Is just behind the hedge, down in the glade.
Though no one may their beauty see or sweetness know."
Then she: "Why, mamma dear, how can that be?
What use for them to grow there all alone?
Why look so pretty if there's none to see?
Or why need they smell any sweeter than a stone?"
"No one on earth may see," I then replied--
"No one may know that flowers are blooming there
But God." Mercedes clapped her hands, and cried,
"God's flowers! Oh! keep _them_, mamma, in your book of prayer."
Methinks the child did choose a fitting place
To put those unnursed blossoms of the field:
Like them, our humble prayers with beauty grace
The heart's rough soil, and unto God their perfume yield.
-----------
Translated From The French.
Faith And Poetry Of The Bretons.
The bay of St. Malo is strewn here and there with rocks, upon
which forts have been erected to protect the town by their cross
fires. One of these, the Grand Bé, was formerly armed with
cannon; but the fort is now abandoned, and only recognizable
midst its ruins by the cross at the extremity of the beach,
resting apparently on the blue sky above. To this cross all eyes
are attracted, to this all steps turn, so soon as the breakers
leave a shore of sand and granite for a pathway for the
travellers.
After having ascended a rough and steep declivity, a naked and
desert plateau is attained, where a few sheep find with
difficulty a herb to browse upon; then a turn through a defile of
rocks, and on the steepest point a stone and cross of granite.
This is the tomb of Chateaubriand.
{568}
No longer a poetical tomb; leaning against the Old World, it
contemplates the New; under it, the immense sea, and the vessels
passing at its feet; no flowers, no verdure around it, no other
noise than the incessantly moving sea, covering in its tempests
this naked stone with the froth of its waves. Here he chose his
last resting-place; and we wonder what thought inspired the wish
that not even his name should be inscribed upon his tomb. Was it
pride, or humility that actuated him? To me it appears that this
humility and this pride were from the same source--a perfect
disenchantment with the world. This man, who had proved so many
projects abortive, so many ambitions misplaced; this traveller
who had overrun the universe, visited the East, the cradle of the
Old World, and the deserts of America, where was born the New;
the poet who could count the cycles of his life by its
revolutions, was overwhelmed at the end of it by a sadness that
knew no repose. He, whose youth was preluded by _Considerations
on Revolutions_, so comprehended life in his latter years as
to write _The Biography of the Reformer of La Trappe_. The
silence and solitude of the cloister were in harmony with the
sadness of his soul. Having been charged with the most important
missions, having accomplished the highest employments, and set to
work the most skilful and powerful men, he retired from the
whirling circle of the world, penetrated with the overpowering
truth, how little man is worth, how little he knows, and how
seldom he succeeds in what he undertakes. The usual source of
joy--pride, the intoxication of the world--only provoked in him a
smile; for all men he had the same contempt--did not even except
himself--and knew well, according to the ancient proverb, that
there is very little difference between one man and another.
[Footnote 175]
[Footnote 175: Thucydides.]
Through humility, then, he cared not for any inscription on his
tomb, not even a name. What mattered it who read it! Men were
nothing, and he was one of them! But through pride also, he chose
this naked stone. Travellers would come from all parts of the
world, they would contemplate it and say, _Chateaubriand!_
His name would be echoed by the waves that came from, and those
that parted for, distant shores; and men were obliged to know
where he lay.
Thus--ever-recurring instability of the human soul!--in him were
united the most contrary sentiments--the disenchantment of glory,
and the belief in the immortality of a name; the disdain of
scepticism, and the thirst for applause; the impression of the
Christian's humility, and an instinct of sovereign pride.
Here, however, we find truth: this cross, the sign of eternity on
this stone marked by death, is the immutable testimony of the
emptiness of human pride. Chateaubriand desired only a cross on
his tomb, while Lamennais, his compatriot, rejected it: both
obedient to the same preoccupation, in negation as in faith. The
cross, dominating the tomb where the Breton poet reposes, is the
symbol of the genius of his country, of Catholic Brittany.
Faith, in Brittany, has a particular character, allied to a
poetry peculiar to Breton genius. In this country material
objects speak; the very stones are animated, and the fields
assume a voice to reveal the soul of man conversing with his God.
This is not imagination; no one can be deceived in it. So soon as
one enters Brittany, the physiognomy of the country changes, and
the sign of this change is the cross. On all the roads, at all
the public places, is raised the cross; of every epoch from the
twelfth to the nineteenth century we find them, and of every
form.
{569}
There, simple crosses of granite raised on a few steps; here,
crosses bearing on each side the image of Christ and the Virgin,
rude sculptures in themselves, but always impressed with a
sincere sentiment. The Bretons not only understand the tenderness
of the Blessed Virgin, but they feel her grief; they share it
with her, and express it with an energetic truth. Look at the
picture of the Virgin holding her dead son on her knees, in the
church of St. Michael at Quimperlé. It is a primitive painting by
an unskilled hand, and one totally ignorant of the resources of
art; the design of it is incorrect; yet what an expression of
grief! The painter wished to portray the living suffering of the
mother; the mouth is distorted, the eyes are fixed, the pupil
seems alone indicated: yet this fixedness of look seizes upon
you; you stop, you remain to examine it, you forget that it is a
representation, and see the Virgin herself, immovable in her
grief, with no power to express her sorrow; petrified, yet
living.
At one side, leaning against the wall, is a statue of the Virgin,
conceived with as contrary a sentiment as possible. She is all
tenderness and delicacy, and has a leaning attitude, the head
inclined, with the gentle look of the Mother who calls the sinner
to her side. Her robe falls in numberless plaits, her mantle
envelops her with a harmonious grace; for she is no longer the
Mother of sorrow, but the sweet consoler of human kind, holding
her Son in her arms, whom she presents to bless the earth,
_Notre Dame de Bot Scao_, The Virgin of Good News.
The faith of sailors in the Blessed Virgin is well known, that of
the Breton sailors particularly. At Brest, we look in vain for a
museum of pictures. Brest is not a city of art; it breathes of
war; the port, filled with large ships, the arsenal and its
cannon, its shells, its gigantic anchors, the forts built on the
rocks, the animated movement of the streets, where soldiers of
all kinds go and come, and sailors constantly arriving from all
parts of the world, give to it an air of intense reality--a
character at once powerful and precise. Man has built on the rock
his granite home, and we may believe it is immovably established.
But ascend the steps that lead from the lower to the upper town,
and under a vault you will find four pictures appended to the
wall. Here is the museum of Brest. Sea pictures dedicated to the
Blessed Virgin, the departure of the vessel, women and children
on the beach on their knees during a tempest, the vessel tossed
by the waves, and the arms of the sailors extended to heaven; and
on their return, the rescued sailors, bending their steps, with
tapers in their hands, toward the chapel of Notre Dame; and
underneath, touching legends, cries of the soul that implores,
humbles itself, or renders thanks. _Holy Virgin, save us! Holy
Virgin, protect those who are now at sea!_ Man we see in his
weakness, his aspirations, and his hopes--the true man; the rest
was but the mask.
They seize every opportunity and use every pretext to testify
their faith. At Saint Aubin d'Aubigné between Rennes and Saint
Malo, you go along a tufted hedge; you see a cross cut of
thorn--a cross which grows green in the spring, among the
eglantines and roses. [Footnote 176]
[Footnote 176: At St. Vincent les Redon, a tree is cut in the
form of the cross.]
You return to visit the land of Carnac--a land so pale and
desolate, where the standing stones are squared by thousands,
gigantic and silent sphinxes that for twenty centuries have kept
their impenetrable secret--what is that cross that rises on an
eminence?
{570}
One that they have planted on an isolated ruin in the land--a
cross on a Druidical altar, and before the army of stones which
mark, perhaps, a cemetery of a great people.
Elsewhere, at the cross-way of a road near Beauport, a spring
gushes out and flows among the rocks, forming both basin and
fountain on the heaped-up stones; in an arched niche is enclosed
a Virgin crowned with flowers; all around, the field
morning-glory, the periwinkle, and the eglantine have peeped
through the moss and herbs, and enlaced the rustic chapel with
their flowery festoons, and fallen again on the infant Jesus.
Opposite lie fields of green thorn-broom, and above their long,
slender stalks appear the half-destroyed walls of an ancient
abbey, roofless, opened to heaven, and silent. Through the
blackened arches appears the blue sea, whose prolonged and
incessant roaring fills the air.
In this Catholic country _par excellence_, all the churches
are remarkable. There is no village, however small, of which the
church does not form an interesting part; and here and there, as
at Guérande and Vitré, we find the beautifully carved pulpits
enclosed in the wall, from which the missionary fathers, on
certain extraordinary occasions, speak to the people assembled in
the square. At Carnac and Rennescleden we have the arched roofs
so exquisitely painted; at Roscoff, Crozon, and elsewhere,
medallions of stone and wood framing the altar with quaint gilded
sculptures; then, again, we meet with a tabernacle formed for an
architectural monument, a sort of palace in miniature, with its
wings, pavilions, columns, domes, galleries, and statues, (as at
Rosporden;) then an antique confessional greets us in a little
chapel near Chateaulin, and a canopy sculptured in wood or even
crystal, at Landivisiau. An odd ornament, which is found in only
one church--that of Notre Dame de Comfort, on the way to the Bec
du Raz--is called _the wheel of good fortune_, and is
composed of a large wheel suspended from the roof of the church,
and entirely surrounded by bells. On days of solemn feasts, for
baptisms and weddings, the wheel is turned, and, agitating all
the bells at once, forms a noisy chime, which times the march of
the procession, and adds a joyous and silver-toned accompaniment
to the voices of the young girls chanting the canticles to the
Blessed Virgin. Finally, we meet with one of those trunks of
trees, large squared pillars of oak, encircled with heavy bands
of iron, and placed in the middle of the church, by the side of a
catafalque of blackened wood, but sowed with whitened tears; the
trunk and the coffin, emblems of the fragility of life, and the
Christian principle above all others, charity.
The churches in the towns are truly _chefs-d'oeuvres_, the
cloisters of Tréguier and Pont l'Abbé, for example, where the
arcades are so light and so finely carved; or the
_bas-reliefs_ inside the portal of Sainte Croix, at
Quimperlé, a vast page of sculptured stone, finished with the
delicacy and richness of invention, the charming qualities of
youth and of the _Renaissance_. Then, in all these churches,
near the altar, you perceive immediately the painted statue of
the parish saint, one of the Breton saints, not found
elsewhere--Saint Cornély, Saint Guénolé. Saint Thromeur, Saint
Yves especially.
{571}
Saint Yves has the privilege of being represented in almost all
the churches, even in those of which he is not patron; the
remembrance of this great, good man, this wise priest, this
incorruptible judge, is indelibly impressed on the heart of every
Breton. Sometimes he is seen in his judge's robe, his cap on his
head, and listening to two litigants, one in red velvet,
embroidered in gold, with his grand wig, his silken stockings,
and sword; the other, the poor peasant, all in rags, holes on his
knees and his elbows, and naked feet in his wooden shoes. The
great lord, with his cap on his head, and an air of pride,
presents the saint a purse of gold; the peasant, with timid look
and attitude, his head bent down, his cap in his hand, humbly
awaits his sentence. He has nothing to give, but justice will not
fail him. Saint Yves turns toward him with a gracious smile, and,
handing him the judgment written on parchment, lets him know it
is his. And thus the history of the middle ages: the church
protecting the peasant, the weak against the powerful and the
strong.
As to monuments, properly called, nowhere can we find more of
these beautiful churches of the middle ages, testimonies of the
piety, the science, and the taste of so glorious an epoch. Here,
the Cathedral of Dol, of the best day of Gothic art--the
thirteenth century--imposing by its massiveness, its grandeur,
and the noble simplicity of its ornaments and the harmony of its
proportions, the granite of whose towers, in the lapse of ages,
is permeated with the air of the sea, has a color of rust, we
might say built with iron; there, Tréguier and its exquisite
wainscoting, benches, altars, stalls, pulpit in brilliant black
oak, carved in such fine and delicate designs, with inexhaustible
variety; not a baluster alike, enough models to furnish the
entire sculpture of our time; and further on, Saint Pol de Leon
and its spire of granite; daring and easy, a prodigy of
equilibrium, immovable, girded with open galleries like graceful
crowns, flinging to heaven its tiny sharpened bells; so
beautifully carved, so aerial, the joy of Brittany, as well it
may be, its legitimate pride; then Folgoat, a little unknown
village north of Brest, lost at the extremity of the isle, and
necessary to leave one's route to see it; but even here, two
Breton princes, the Duke Jean III. and the Duchess Anne, have
constructed a royal church accumulating all that Gothic art in
its richest ornamentation, united to the most ingenious caprices
of the _Renaissance_, could have imagined of delicacy and
brightness; portraits sculptured, statues of the finest style
reflecting their antiquity, a richly Gothic and carved choir, and
a gallery--one of those graceful and original monuments of
Catholicism so seldom met with--of lace-work, where trefoils,
roses, and foliage are carved in indestructible blue granite. The
hammer of the Revolution has only knocked off small pieces of
these beautifully carved stones. They resisted the passions of
men, as they have defied the action of time.
With the bells, of such varied forms, and the vessels for holy
water, we will conclude.
These bells are of every style--of the _Renaissance_, the
Roche-Maurice-les-Landerneau, of Landivisiau, of Ploaré, of
Pontcroix, and of Roscoff. Many are hung with smaller and lighter
bells and ornamented with two-story balustrades, like the
minarets of the East; then the coverings, spires as they are
called, are like that of Tréguier, open, that the winds of the
sea may pass through them, and adorned with crosses, roses,
little windows, cross-bars, and stars like the cap of a magician.
{572}
The vessels for holy water also express the character of the age.
At Dinan, in a church of the twelfth century, an enormous massive
tub is supported by the large iron gauntlets of four chevaliers;
the old crusader dress, armed _cap-a-pie_ in the service of
Christ. In a church of the fifteenth century, at Quimper, is one
of an entirely opposite character--a small column, around which a
vine is entwined, and above an angel, who, with wings extended,
appears as if it had descended from heaven to alight upon the
consecrated cup. Again, and as if inspired by a still more
Christian sentiment, we find the exterior vessels for holy water,
so common everywhere in Brittany, of which the most remarkable
are at Landivisiau, at Morlaix, and Quimperlé. The interior ones
seem only accessories; the exterior, isolated before the door,
have a more precise signification: they solicit the first impulse
of the soul; the Christian, in stretching out his hand toward the
blessed vase, pauses, and prepares his heart for the coming
devotion.
How well these Breton architects have understood religion! These
exterior vases are living monuments, little pulpits, with their
emblems, symbols, and heads of angels enveloped in their wings.
Their canopies, prominent, sculptured, and under them, standing
and always smiling, our blessed Mother, who seems to invite the
faithful to enter the house of prayer. And prayer, as some one
has said, is the fortress of life. The Breton people believe and
pray: a hidden power is theirs--religion; its effectiveness
attesting not only its existence, but its life.
---------
Sayings Of The Fathers Of The Desert.
Abbot Pastor said: He who teacheth something and doth it not
himself, is like unto a well which filleth and cleanseth all who
come to it, but is unable to cleanse itself of filth and
impurities.
A brother asked Abbot Pastor the meaning of the words: He who is
angry with his brother without cause. He answered: If in all
cases where thy brother wisheth to put thee down thou art angry
with him, even though thou pluck out thy right eye and cast it
from thee, thy anger is without cause. If however, any one
desireth to separate thee from God, then mayest thou be angry.
Abbot Pastor said: Malice never driveth away malice; but, if
anyone shall have done thee an injury, heap benefits upon him, so
that by thy good works thou destroy his malice.
A brother came to Abbot Pastor, and said: Many thoughts enter my
mind, and I am in great danger from them. Then the old man sent
him out into the open air, and said: Spread out thy garment and
catch the wind. But he answered that he could not. If thou canst
not do this, replied the old man, neither canst thou put a stop
to these thoughts; but it is thy duty to resist them.
Abbot Pastor said: Experiments are useful, for by them men become
more perfect.
-----------
{573}
New Publications
Discussions in Theology.
By Thomas H. Skinner,
Professor in the Union Theological Seminary.
New York: Anson D. F. Randolph, 770 Broadway.
Hints on the Formation of Religious Opinions.
Addressed especially to young men and women of
Christian education.
By Rev. Ray Palmer, D.D.,
Pastor of the First Congregational church,
Albany. Same publisher.
These two volumes are very much alike in their general scope and
character. Both are written in a calm, philosophical style, and
with the praiseworthy view of presenting the claims of the
Christian religion on the reason and conscience of men, combating
scepticism, and removing difficulties and objections derived from
the infidel literature of the day. Professor Skinner begins with
a very good essay on miracles as the basis of a reasonable,
historical belief in the teaching which they authenticate, and
then proceeds to develop his own views respecting certain special
topics which he can assume will be admitted by his particular
audience to be contained in that teaching. These relate chiefly
to the mode by which fallen man may obtain restoration to the
divine favor through the Redeemer of our race. The author's
object is to show that this mode, as explained by himself,
exhibits the attributes of God in a manner consonant to the
dictates of reason and the truths of natural theology, and is one
by which any sincere, well-intentioned person can make sure of
obtaining grace from God, pardon and eternal life. The author's
view is that of the new school of Calvinists, which is a great
improvement on that of the old school in a moral, though not in a
logical, sense. Such preaching and writing as that of Professor
Skinner must have a good influence on those who still believe in
Christianity and know no other form of it than the Presbyterian.
It puts forward the goodness and mercy of God, and encourages the
sinner to hope for grace and pardon, if he will be diligent in
prayer, meditation, and other pious exercises, and this appears
to have been the practical end proposed to himself by the author
in this volume. Dr. Palmer's essays are more elaborate and
consecutive in their character, and aim more immediately at
satisfying the intelligence. He first portrays in a clear and
impressive manner the evils of scepticism, and then proceeds to
exhibit the evidence of the truths of natural theology and of the
fact of a divine revelation, which is also accomplished with a
considerable degree of ability and force. The result at which he
aims is to convince his readers that they are morally bound to
recognize Christianity as true, and to form some definite
opinions as to its real meaning, which may serve them as a
practical rule and guide for attaining their eternal destiny. The
capital defect in his argument is, that he reduces the evidence
of the being of God to mere probability, thus leaving the mind
where Kant left it, in a state of scientific scepticism with no
better basis of certainty than the practical reason. Of course,
then, he has nothing more to propose under the name of Christian
doctrines than probable opinions. No doubt, it is obligatory on
all to act upon opinions which are solidly probable in regard to
the momentous interests of the soul, where there are no other
equal probabilities to balance them, and no greater certainty is
attainable. We deny, however, emphatically that man is left in
this state by the Christian revelation. The being of God is a
metaphysical certainty. The fact of revelation is a moral
certainty, reducible in the last analysis to a certainty which is
metaphysical and sufficient to produce an absolute assent of the
mind without any fear of the contrary.
{574}
The articles of faith proposed by the revelation of God ought to
have the same certainty, since it is necessary to believe them
without doubting. Our respected authors cannot propose a
reasonable motive for believing all the doctrines of their sect
or school without any doubt, but can only propose opinions more
or less probable, or even directly contrary to reason. We do not
think, therefore, that they will be able to satisfy the reason of
any person who thinks logically that their theories of
Christianity are true and complete. The most they can do is to
breed an anxious desire to find out with certainty what
Christianity is and to attain to a rational faith.
----
Celebrated Sanctuaries of the Madonna.
By Rev. J. Spencer Northcote, D.D.,
President of St. Mary's College, Oscott.
For sale by the Catholic Publication Society, New York.
This is a valuable contribution to Catholic literature, and
presents a subject of interest not only to Catholics, but to the
public at large; for great public facts are always of interest,
whatever may be our opinion in regard to their significance. A
clear and full account is given in this book of the principal
facts connected with the origin of some of the sanctuaries of the
Madonna in Europe, particularly of the Holy House of Loreto and
the recently established pilgrimage of La Salette in France. We
do not see how any one can read it and resist the conviction that
God has, by his own finger, established and maintained the
devotion of the faithful at these holy places. It is easy enough
to cry superstition, and to call everything supernatural
superstitious. But the evidence of facts speaks for itself, and
we commend this book to the candid reader, confident of his
favorable judgment in spite of all preconceived opinions, as able
to speak for itself. We have, moreover, found it most attractive,
and have read it from beginning to end with unflagging interest.
It is calculated to quicken the faith of the dumb Christian, open
his eyes to the unseen world, and fill his heart with desire for
virtue and the love of God, and, as well, to produce in the mind
of the careless a deeper conviction of the truth of spiritual
things, which may make him set less value on the present, and
prize more highly the world to come. We hope this book may
attract attention and be widely circulated.
-----
Notes on the Rubrics of the Roman Ritual:
Regarding the Sacraments in general.
Baptism, the Eucharist, and Extreme Unction.
By Rev. James O'Kane, Senior Dean,
St. Patrick's College, Maynooth.
New York: The Catholic Publication House.
1 vol. crown 8vo, pp. 527. 1868.
This is one of the most excellent commentaries upon the Ritual
that has come under our notice. The reverend author has for
several years delivered lectures upon the Rubrics to the senior
class of theological students in Maynooth, and the substance of
these lectures is to be found in the present volume. That he is
eminently qualified for such a difficult task, is apparent from
the thoroughly practical as well as theoretical knowledge he
displays in treating of the administration of the sacraments.
Priests on the mission will find the book one of the most useful
works for reference on the subjects treated of which can be found
in the English language.
It has been examined by the Sacred Congregation of Rites, and
received its approbation, and can, therefore, be consulted and
followed with confidence as good authority.
------
Appleton's Annual Cyclopedia for 1867.
This valuable work appears to receive more care and attention
each year. The present volume is of unusual importance on account
of the political events in our own country and elsewhere, bearing
on the ultimate destiny of the Christian world, which are
recorded in its pages.
{575}
It contains, also, a very fair statement of the history and
present condition of the Pope's temporal dominion, and of the
principal events in the history of the Catholic Church during the
year. In the article on the "Roman Catholic Church," it is
incorrectly stated that the Council of Florence is by some
regarded as oecumenical. It is universally regarded as
oecumenical, and was one of the most important councils ever held
in the church. The Patriarch of Constantinople, the Greek
Emperor, the representatives of the other Eastern patriarchs and
of the Russian Church, and a number of other Eastern prelates
were present, and discussed all their causes of difference with
the Roman Church during thirteen months, after which they signed
the Act of Union, and united in a solemn definition of the
supremacy of the Pope.
The Council of Basle is enumerated among the certain oecumenical
councils, although all its acts from the twenty-fifth session
have been condemned, and none of those of the prior sessions
approved, by the Holy See. Although a few Galilean writers have
maintained that this council was oecumenical during its earlier
sessions, their opinion is generally rejected and is of no
weight.
------
Red Cross; or, Young America in England and Wales.
By Oliver Optic.
Boston: Lee & Shepard.
This volume, the third of the series published under the title of
_Young America Abroad_, continues and concludes the travels
and adventures of the naval cadets on British soil and in British
waters. London, Liverpool, Manchester, the Isle of Wight, the
Lake District, Snowdon, the Menai Straits, etc., are visited,
affording an opportunity for the introduction of a great deal of
miscellaneous information regarding the physical geography and
history of many interesting localities. So far the book is
unexceptionable. The adventures of the students, however, are, in
Oliver Optic's usual style, exaggerated to the very verge of
credibility; and though they will doubtless be relished by the
class for which they are written, we no less decidedly think
that, as mental food for youth, the selection is not the most
judicious, and that the author could very easily, with equal
credit to himself and greater benefit to his juvenile readers,
serve up something else more nutritious, if less palatable, or
not so highly seasoned. As regards the students themselves, it
seems to us, also, that the author has not yet hit upon the
golden mean: the good boys are almost too good, the bad equally
untrue to nature. Our experience with boys--and it is by no means
slight or superficial--tends to prove that with those who, from
an indisposition to submit to an "iron rule," are commonly known
as "wild," such impatience of restraint generally springs from
exuberant animal spirits, and is seldom, if ever, met with in
connection with meanness, much less vice. _Per contra_, the
greatest sycophants are, as a rule, the meanest and most
depraved.
------
Chaudron's New Fourth Reader.
On an Original Plan.
By A. De V. Chaudron.
Mobile: W. G. Clark & Co. Pp. 328. 1867.
Exteriorly, this book presents a by no means pleasing appearance;
hence, the greater our surprise, and, we may add, our pleasure,
at the variety and excellence of its contents, in which respect
it is nowise inferior to any of those in use in our public
schools. While we cannot expect for Mrs. Chaudron's Series of
_Readers_ an extended circulation in this city, in view of
so many and generally deserving rivals already firmly established
amongst us, we do with confidence recommend them, if in their
general features they resemble this, the only one of the series
submitted to us.
--------
{576}
Imitation of Christ
Spiritual Combat
Treatise on Prayer.
Boston: P. Donahoe. Pp. 816. 1868.
Decidedly opposed to small type in books of a religious or
educational character, we can cheerfully overlook its use in this
instance, giving us, as it does, complete in one volume and in
bulk not exceeding the average size of prayer-books, three such
admirable devotional works.
------
Irish Homes and Irish Hearts.
By Fanny Taylor, author of
_Eastern Hospitals, Tyborne,
Religious Orders,_ etc., etc.
Boston: Patrick Donahoe. Pp. xi. 215.
The original work, of which this volume is a very neat reprint,
was favorably mentioned in _The Catholic World_ for
September, 1867. Hence we need not enter into details. It is
enough to say that the author, leaving the beaten track of
ordinary tourists, devoted herself to the visitation and
inspection of the various charitable and religious institutions
of Ireland, the number and excellence of which amply vindicate
"the warmth of Irish hearts and the depth of Irish faith." This
volume gives the result of her examination. It unfolds not a new,
but to many an unexpected, phase of Irish character, and will
well repay a perusal, from which few can rise without being
benefited thereby.
------
Choice of a State of Life.
By Father C. G. Rossignoli, S. J.
Translated from the French,
1 vol. 16mo, pp. 252.
Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. 1868.
This is a well-reasoned little treatise on vocations, or the
choice of a state of life, an important matter too little thought
of in our day, when material things have the upper hand, and
spiritual things are made of so little account. Many, no doubt,
fitted by their talents and called by an interior voice to the
priesthood or the religious state, neglect the call; and others
again, quite unfit, thrust themselves forward, allured by some
prospect of worldly advancement. This little book clearly exposes
the motives which should govern us in the choice of a state of
life. If read in a calm and undisturbed state of mind, we do not
doubt it will do a great deal of good, and induce many to embrace
the better part which shall not be taken away from them.
------
Margaret: A Story of Life in a Prairie Home.
By Lyndon.
New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1868.
A pleasantly told story of everyday life. The interest in the
narrative is well sustained throughout; the incidents natural,
yet effectively introduced; and the characters strongly marked
and sufficiently diversified. "Life in a prairie home," however,
if here faithfully described, differs materially from what it is
generally supposed to be. The incidents are such as to be equally
possible in any village in any one of the original thirteen
states.
------
Elinor Johnston: Founded on Facts; and
Maurice and Genevieve, or
The Orphan Twins of Beauce.
Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham. Pp. 136.
Two charming stories for children, tastefully got up, if we
except an occasional inequality in the pages and carelessness in
typography, which we hope to see avoided in future volumes. There
is no reason why books intended for children should not be as
creditable in appearance as those for adults. That this can be
done is proved by the beautifully uniform series just issued by
the Catholic Publication Society.
------
Books Received.
From John Murphy & Co., Baltimore:
The First-Class Book of History, designed for
pupils commencing the study of history, with
questions; adapted to the use of academies
and schools.
By M. J. Kerney, A.M., author of Compendium
of Ancient and Modern History, Columbian
Arithmetic, etc., etc., etc.
Twenty-second revised edition.
Enlarged by the addition of Lessons in
Ancient History,
1 vol. 16mo, pp. 335.
----
From P. O'Shea, New York:
O'Shea's Popular Juvenile Library.
First series. 12 vols., illustrated.
-------------
{577}
The Catholic World.
Vol. VII., No. 41.--August, 1868.
----
A New Face On An Old Question.
A few months ago I described a visit which I had recently paid to
a friend of mine in the country, and repeated a little of the
conversation we then had together upon subjects especially
interesting to Catholics. [Footnote 177]
[Footnote 177: See _The Catholic World_, March, 1868;
article, "Canada Thistles."]
I was so well pleased with what I saw and heard on that occasion
that I resolved to spend a few more days with him; and last
month, as soon as the warm weather set in, I presented myself one
evening at his hospitable door, valise in hand, and was soon
comfortably installed as a guest. If I found his house an
embodiment of domestic comfort during the winter, it was still
more delightful, now that the lawn and meadows wore the brilliant
green of early summer, and the prairie-roses, climbing over the
great, roomy piazza, shook down perfume into the open windows,
and drew around the place the ceaseless song of bees and the whir
of the restless little humming-bird. The library which had
charmed me so much when the blazing wood-fire shed a ruddy glow
of comfort over the bookshelves and the big writing-table, and
the tempting arm-chairs, was a thousand times more attractive,
now that green branches and bunches of roses filled the
old-fashioned fire-place, and windows, open to the floor, let in
the breath of new-mown hay, while creepers and honeysuckles kept
off the glare of the sun, and waved gently in and out with the
south-west breeze. Here we used to sit and chat on warm
afternoons, and our conversation generally turned upon the
religious topics in which we were both so much interested. One
day we were talking about the great improvement of late in the
style of discussion on the Catholic question. "We don't hear so
much of the old slanders," said my friend, "but there is rather
an inquiry into the reasons of our success and the best methods
to meet us. Whenever that inquiry is conducted honestly and
thoroughly, it is found that the only way to meet us is, to come
over boldly to our side and fight under our banner. As an
illustration of what I have said," continued he, picking up a
pamphlet from the table, "take this sermon on 'Christ and the
Common People,' by the Rev. Mr. Hinsdale, a Protestant clergyman,
of Detroit. He states the subject of his discourse boldly enough:
'We start,' he says, 'with the _confessed failure of
Protestantism_ to control spiritually the lives, and to mould
religiously the characters, of the millions.
{578}
What are the reasons?' He declares that Protestantism has
scarcely won a foot of ground from Romanism in more than two
hundred years. 'Geographically, it is where it was at the close
of the century in which Luther died. Neither is Protestantism
stronger religiously or politically than it was in the
seventeenth century; some deny that it is as strong' Nor can it
be claimed that it is now making any material gains in any of
these directions.' Again: 'In the Protestant countries, no ground
has been wrested from false religion or irreligion within a
hundred years;' and in the principal American cities the
Protestant denominations are unquestionably losing ground. There
is good authority for stating that in Cincinnati, for instance,
the communicants in the Protestant churches are fewer by two
thousand than they were twenty years ago; yet the population of
the city has increased during the interval by something like a
hundred thousand. Well, Mr. Hinsdale being, as I should judge, a
gentleman of common sense and honesty, does not try to relieve
his mind from the pressure of these disagreeable facts by cursing
the Catholics, but sets himself to work to find out the reasons
for the greater prosperity of our church. I need not read them to
you; for of course the great reason of all--the assistance of
Heaven--he does not perceive; but he makes some significant
admissions. He tells his people that Catholicism is the especial
religion of the poor, and that Protestantism is restricting
itself daily more and more closely to the rich; and he quotes a
saying of Theodore Parker's: '_If the poor forsake a church, it
is because the church forsook God long before._' I am a
Protestant of the Protestants,' Mr. Hinsdale adds, 'but have no
hesitation in affirming that in some particulars we should stand
rebuked before Romanists this hour; none in declaring that in
some respects the Romish priest understands the methods of Christ
better than the evangelical preacher.' Now, when the alarm of
Protestants at the increase of our churches takes such a form as
this, I believe that good results must flow from it."
"No doubt you are right," said I; "but I am afraid few of the
anti-popery preachers are like this gentleman of Detroit. Here,
for example, is an address, delivered at the last anniversary of
the American and Foreign Christian Union, by the Rev. Dr.
Talmadge, of Philadelphia. He begins with the admission that the
cause of popery is still flourishing, 'although in the attempt to
destroy it there has been expended enough ink, enough voice,
enough genius, enough money, enough ecclesiastical thunder, to
have torn off all the cassocks, and to have extinguished all the
wax candles, and to have poured out all the holy water, and to
have rent open all the convents, and to have turned the Vatican
into a Reformed Dutch church, and the convocation of cardinals
into an old-fashioned prayer-meeting, and to have immersed the
pope, and sent him forth as a colporteur of the American and
Foreign Christian Union. But somehow there has been a great waste
of effort. The plain fact is,' he continues, 'that Romanism has
to-day, in the United States, tenfold more power than when we
first began to bombard it.'
{579}
And the moral he draws from this survey of the situation is, that
the Protestants had better 'change their style of warfare,' and
introduce into the fight the principle of holy love, and the
example of charity and devotion. Nothing could be more sensible
than this remark of his: 'Bitter denunciation on the part of good
but mistaken men never pulled down one Roman Catholic church, but
has built five hundred. There is only one way to make a man give
up his religion, and that is by showing him a better.' Brave
words, you say, and so they are. Yet this very sermon is full of
just the sort of bitter denunciation which the preacher
denounces. The whole address is a condemnation of the speaker
himself--one of the finest pieces of unconscious satire I ever
read. I don't believe _The Observer_ itself could do the
raw-head and bloody-bones business better than Dr. Talmadge does
it."
"Never mind. Get these people to admit the principle of honest
and gentlemanly dealing in religious controversy, and you may
leave their practice to reform itself. For one man who was
impressed by Dr. Talmadge's swelling invectives, I make little
doubt that there were five who carried away in their hearts his
advice to be charitable, courteous, and just. The English
Nonconformist preacher, Newman Hall, who travelled through the
United States recently, told his congregation on his return home
that one of the greatest dangers of Protestantism nowadays was
injustice toward Roman Catholics. I am afraid that his advice was
not much relished in England, for you know injustice to Catholics
is one of the pet foibles of Englishmen; but it is not so bad
here. The American people are naturally fond of fair play. You
have only to convince them that a certain course of conduct is
unjust, and they will change it of their own accord."
"Do you mean to say, then, that you believe reason and logic are
henceforth to supersede violence and slander in the discussion of
the Catholic problem?"
"Not entirely, of course. But I believe that falsehoods are
rapidly losing their efficacy in polemics, and that Protestants
recognize this fact and are preparing to adapt themselves to the
altered conditions of the conflict. And I do not mean to
insinuate that as a class they do this merely from policy. Most
of them probably used to believe the old standard lies; at least,
they did not _dis_believe them. They repeated them by rote,
because they had been brought up to do so, and they never thought
of stopping to inquire into their authority. Now that the
slanders have ceased to serve a purpose, it is naturally easier
to convince those who used to profit by them that they _are_
slanders. What I mean to say is, that the tendency of our time is
toward fairness and good sense in religious disputes. You and I,
for example, are quite young enough to remember when 'Romanism'
was popularly regarded as an unknown horror, no more to be
tolerated than the plague or the yellow fever. It was not thought
to be a question open for debate. A Protestant would no more have
dreamed of examining the merits of popery than the merits of
hydrophobia. But now it is a very common thing for our
adversaries to admit that we have done wonderful service to
humanity in our day; that in some particulars we have done and
are still doing more than any other denomination; only we belong
to a past age and ought now to give way to fresher organizations.
{580}
I remember a rather striking sermon which I read in a Detroit
newspaper, the other day, on the 'irrepressible conflict' between
Catholicism and Liberalism, by the Rev. Mr. Mumford, a Unitarian
clergyman. The greater part of the discourse was as illiberal as
anything could be. Mr. Mumford saw in the Catholic Church a
tremendous engine of oppression, and thought it was scheming to
get control of the negroes in the Southern States, and through
them to direct the politics of the whole country--"
"He saw no danger in the great influence which Methodism has
acquired over the colored people, did he?"
"No; and he forgot to mention that the Catholic Church is almost
the only one in America which has never been tainted by the
intrusion of politics. Well, I was going on to say that, with all
Mr. Mumford's prejudices and absurdities, he had the honesty to
acknowledge that the Catholic Church is really entitled to the
gratitude of mankind, and declared that he was glad it had
secured some foothold in America, 'to act as a restraint upon the
intolerance of the Protestant churches.'"
"I am afraid that you rather exaggerate the importance of
admissions like these. They are so often made merely for
rhetorical effect! They are little patches of light artfully
thrown into the picture to heighten the effect of the shadows."
"I know that I don't refer to them as proofs of a willingness to
examine the nature and grounds of Catholic doctrine, though I
believe that there is much more of such willingness than there
used to be, but as an evidence that a spirit of fairness and
good-breeding is beginning to prevail in religious controversy;
and from that spirit I cannot but expect good results."
"So far I have no doubt you are right; and one of the good
results, it seems to me, must be the gradual extinction (or
possibly the reform) of denominational newspapers of the old
bludgeon-school. _The Observer_ must go out of fashion
whenever reason comes in. There will be no room for the religious
brawlers when those who differ in creed learn to talk over their
differences in a common-sense way. Don't you think there is a
change in the tone of the press already?"
"The secular press certainly has improved wonderfully in its
treatment of Catholics. About the religious periodicals I am not
so sure: some of them are tamer than they were formerly, but the
old stand-bys lash their tails as furiously as ever, and the less
they are heeded the louder they roar. But that is only natural.
You see the same thing at the theatres. When a play ceases to
draw very well, the single combats become doubly fierce and the
red-fire is frequent. The violence of the denominational organs
must not be taken as an evidence of the sentiment of society. If
they really led the opinions of their readers, we should have an
anti-Catholic crusade every year. I wonder if you have noticed,
however, that some of the Protestant religious papers which have
usually been mild in their tone have been roused of late to an
unaccustomed bitterness against us?"
"Yes, and I hardly know how to account for it."