Charity is not negative, not a want, but a power; and it is easy,

therefore, to understand that while philanthropy is impotent it is

effective. Charity grasps, as do all the rational affections, her

object, and is effective because she is positive not negative, living

not dead; and living, because she conforms to the real conditions of

life, and participates, through his creative act, in the life of him

who is life himself. She is less pretentious and more modest in her

proceedings and promises than philanthropy, but makes up for it in the

richness and magnificence of the results she obtains. She works slowly

and with patience, for she works for eternity, not time--without pomp

or parade, in obscurity and silence, for she seeks the praise of God,

not the praise of men. To the onlooker she seems not to move, any more

than the sun in the heavens; but after a while we find that she has

moved, and has transformed the world. {444} Broad in her love and

expansive as the universe, and embracing all ages and nations in her

affections, she yet wastes not her strength in vague generalities, nor

in manifold projects of reform or progress of the race in general,

from which no one in particular has anything to expect; but takes men

in the concrete as she finds them, does the work nearest at hand and

most pressing to be done, and proceeding quietly from the individual

to the family, from the family to society and the state, she works out

the regeneration of all in working out the regeneration of each. She

works as God works, without straining or effort, for her power is

great and never fails. Power needs make no effort; it speaks and it is

done, commands and it stands fast. Let there be light, and there is

light. It is weakness that must strain and tug, as we see in the

feeble literature of the day, and philanthropy seems to the observer

to be always more in earnest and far harder at work than charity, and

attracts far more attention; but while she fills the world with her

hollow sounds, charity, unheeded and unheard, fills it with her deeds.

History is at hand to confirm the conclusions of reason, though the

full history of charity has never been written, and the greater part

of her deeds are known only to him whose eye seeth all things, and

will be revealed, only at the last day. But something has been

recorded and is known. We in our day think we are doing much to

relieve the poor and oppressed, to console the suffering, and to bind

up the broken-hearted; but the best of us would be put to shame were

we to study what charity did during the decline and fall of the Roman

empire and the barbarous ages that immediately followed. We have

boasted, and perhaps justly, of the services rendered to humanity

during our late civil war by our Christian Commissions and Sanitary

Commissions; but what was done by them during four years is nothing in

comparison with what was done daily by Christian charity to relieve

suffering and distress far greater than were experienced by those even

who suffered most from the ravages of our civil war, and that not for

four years only, but for four centuries. I have here no room for

details, or even for the barest outline of what charity did during the

long agony of the old world and the birth of the new; but this much

must be said, that it was everywhere present and energetic, and seemed

everywhere to renew the miracle of the five loaves and two fishes; and

when that old world had passed away, it was found that a new world on

a far broader and more durable foundation had taken it's place.

Charity had to deal with poverty and want, with sickness and sorrow,

and she relieved them; with captives and prisoners of war, and she

ransomed them even with the plate from the altar; with barbarians

whose highest vision of heaven was to sit in the halls of Valhalla,

and quaff from human skulls the blood of their enemies--she tamed,

humanized, and civilized them, and made them the foremost nations of

the world; with slaves, for Europe was covered over with them--and

she mitigated their lot, lightened their oppression, secured for them

the moral rights of Christians, and finally broke their chains and

made them, not freedmen only, but freemen, Christian freemen, and

brothers of the noblest and proudest.

What if it took centuries to abolish slavery? It did not take her

centuries to christen the slaves, to bring them spiritual freedom, and

provide for their souls. She did not wait till she had abolished the

slavery of the body before abolishing the far more grievous slavery of

the soul, teaching the slaves the truth that liberates, incorporating

them into the church of God, and making them free and equal citizens

of the commonwealth of Christ. With this spiritual freedom, of which

philanthropy knows nothing, but which is the basis of all real

freedom, and with ample provisions for the wants of the soul, {445}

the slave could wait in patience for the day of deliverance from

bodily servitude. That day might be long in coming, come it surely

would; and it did come, and peaceably, without civil war, social

convulsion, industrial or economical disturbance. But, unhappily, with

us only a feeble portion of the slaves were really Christianized, and

by their moral and spiritual training as free and equal members of the

church, which makes no distinction between the bond and the free, the

white and the black, fitted to take their position and play there are

parts as free and equal members of civil society Moreover, we have not

been able to emancipate them peaceably; we have done it only by a

terrible civil war, in the midst of the clash of arms, as a means of

saving the life of the nation, or of perpetuating the union of the

states; and the most difficult problem remains to be solved, which the

humanitarians flatter themselves will be solved without trouble by

political economy, or the general law of demand and supply; but which

they will find it will need more Christian Charity than the nation has

hitherto possessed to solve, without the gradual extinction in this

country of the negro race. The last thing to be relied on for

adjusting any social question, elevating any class to social or civil

equality, or making freedmen really freemen, is political economy,

which treats man not as a free moral agent, or as a social being, but

simply as a producing, distributing, and and consuming machine, placed

in the same category with the steam-plough, patent reaper,

spinning-jenny, and the power-loom. If the question, What shall be

done with our freedman? be left to politics, political economy, or

philanthropy, without the intervention of Christian charity,

emancipation will only have changed the form of their slavery, or

given them all the cares and burdens of freedom with none of its

blessings.

It is the same in all human affairs. No measured of reform or

progress, individual or social, domestic or political, ever succeed or

succeed without an overbalance of evil, unless inspired and directed

by charity. They may and do succeed without perfect charity, but never

without the principle of charity. Philanthropy is man's method, and

leads to nothing; charity is God's method, and conducts to its end.

But we must not confound charity with weakness or effeminacy of

character, for that would be to confound it with sentimentalism.

Charity is not credulity or mental imbecility; it is always robust and

manly, the rational soul raised above itself by divine grace, and

endowed in the spiritual order with superhuman power.

Charity loves peace, but follows after the things which make for

peace, and shrinks not from following after them, when need is, even

through war. Modern peace-societies are founded by philanthropy, not

by charity, and though they have been in existence for half a century,

and proudly boasted that there would be no more war, yet there have

been more wars and bloodshed during the last twenty years than during

any period of equal duration since modern history began. Charity

founds no anti-hangman societies for the abolition of capital

punishment in all cases whatsoever, or prisoners' friends societies to

convert our prisons into palaces; yet recoils from all cruelty or

undue severity, and seeks to prevent punishment by preventing crime.

She never forgets justice, nor sacrifices in her love for individuals

the protection of society or the safety of the state. Her great care

is to save the soul of the criminal, and to this end she visits the

most loathsome cells, takes her stand on the scaffold by the side of

the condemned, and will not give him up till she has made his peace

with God. She fills the soul with love for enemies and forgiveness of

injuries, but they are _my_ enemies she bids me love, and my personal

injuries she bids me forgive. I cannot forgive injuries, done to my

neighbor, to society, or to my country, for they are not mine; and she

herself bids me, when summoned by the proper authority, to shoulder my

musket and march to the battle-field to defend public right and

repress public wrong. Charity is never weak, sentimental,

lackadaisical, or cowardly. It is the principle of all true greatness

and manliness, and the most charitable are the strongest, bravest, the

most heroic, wherever duty calls them to act as well as to suffer.

------

{446}

From the London Society.

CHRISTMAS WITH THE BARON.

A RATHER REMARKABLE FAIRY TALE.

Once upon a time--fairy tales always begin with once upon a time, you

know--once upon a time there lived in a fine old castle on the Rhine,

a certain Baron von Schrochslofsleschshoffinger. You won't find it an

easy name to pronounce; in fact, the baron never tried it himself but

once, and then he was laid up for two days' afterward; so in future

well merely call him "the baron," for shortness, particularly as he

was rather a dumpy man. After having heard his name, you won't be

surprised when I tell you that he was an exceedingly bad character.

For a German baron, he was considered enormously rich; a hundred and

fifty pounds a year wouldn't be thought much over here; but still it

will buy a good deal of sausage, which, with wine grown on the estate,

formed the chief sustenance of the baron and his family. Now, you'll

hardly believe that, notwithstanding he was the possessor of his

princely revenue, the baron was not satisfied, but oppressed and

ground down his unfortunate tenants to the very last penny he could

possible squeeze out of them. In all his exactions he was seconded and

encouraged by his steward, Klootz, an old rascal who took a malicious

pleasure in his master's cruelty, and who chuckled and rubbed his

hands with the greatest apparent enjoyment when any of the poor

landholders couldn't pay their rent, or afforded him any opportunity

for oppression. Not content with making the poor tenants pay double

value for the land they rented, the baron was in the habit of going

round every now and then to their houses, and ordering anything he

took a fancy to, from a fat pig to a pretty daughter, to be sent up to

the castle. The pretty daughter was made parlor-maid, but as she had

nothing a year, and to find herself, it wasn't what would be

considered by careful mothers an eligible situation The fat pig became

sausage, of course. Things went on from bad to worse, till at the time

of our story, between the alternate squeezings of the baron and his

steward, the poor tenants had very little left to squeeze out of them.

The fat pigs and the pretty daughters had nearly all found their way

up to the castle, and there was little else to take. The only help the

poor fellows had was the baron's only daughter, Lady Bertha, who

always had a kind words, and frequently something more substantial,

for them, when her father was not in the way. Now, I'm not going to

describe Bertha, for the simple reason that if I did, you would

imagine that she was the fairy I'm going to tell you about, and she

isn't. However, I don't mind giving yon a few outlines. In the first

place, she was exceedingly tiny--the nicest girls, the real lovable

little pets, always are tiny--and she had long silken black hair, and

a dear, dimpled little face, full of love and mischief. Now then, fill

out outline {447} with the details of the nicest and prettiest girl

you know, and you'll have a slight idea of her. On second thoughts, I

don't believe you will, for your portrait wouldn't be half good

enough; however, it'll be near enough for you. Well, the baron's

daughter, being all your fancy painted her, and a trifle more, was

naturally much distressed at the goings on of her unamiable parent,

and tried her best to make amends for her father's harshness. She

generally managed that a good many pounds of the sausage should find

their way back to the owners of the original pig; and when the baron

tried to squeeze the and of the pretty parlor-maid, which he

occasionally did after dinner, Bertha had only to say, in a tone of

mild remonstrance, "Pa!" and pa dropped the hand like a hot potato,

and stared very hard the other way, instantly. Bad as the disreputable

old baron was, he had a respect for the goodness and purity of his

child. Like the lion, tamed by the charm of Una's innocence, the rough

old rascal seemed to lose in her presence half his rudeness; and

though he used awful language to her sometimes (I dare say even Una's

lion reward occasionally) he was more tractable with her than with any

other living being. Her presence operated as a moral restraint upon

him, which possibly was the reason that he never stayed down stairs

after dinner, but always retired to a favorite turret, where he could

get comfortably tipsy, which, I regret to say, he had got so in the

way of doing every afternoon, that I believe he would have felt unwell

without.

The hour of the baron's afternoon symposium was the time selected by

Bertha for her errands of charity. Once he was fairly settled down to

his second bottle, off went Bertha, with her maid beside her carrying

a basket to bestow a meal on some of the poor tenants, among whom she

was always received with blessings. At first these excursions had been

undertaken solely from charitable motives, and Bertha thought herself

plentifully repaid in the love and thanks of her grateful pensioners.

Of late, however, another cause had led her to take even stronger

interest in her walks, and occasionally to come in with brighter eyes

and a rosier cheek than the gratitude of the poor tenants had been

wont to produce. The fact is, some months before the time of our

story, Bertha had noticed in her walks a young artist, who seemed to

be fated to be invariably sketching points of interest in the road she

had to take. There was one particular tree, exactly in the path which

led from the castle gate, which he had sketched from at least four

points of view, and Bertha began to wonder what there could be so very

particular about it. At last, just as Carl von Sempach had begun to

consider where on earth he could sketch the tree from next, and to

ponder seriously upon the feasibility of climbing up into it, and

taking it from _that_ point of view, a trifling accident occurred,

which gave him the opportunity of making Bertha's acquaintance, which,

I don't mind stating confidentially, was the very thing he had been

waiting for. It so chanced, that on one particular afternoon the maid,

either through awkwardness, or possibly through looking more at the

handsome painter than the ground she was walking on, stumbled and

fell. Of course the basket fell too, and equally of course, Carl, as a

gentleman, couldn't do less than offer his assistance in picking up

the damsel and the dinner.

The acquaintance thus commenced was not suffered to drop; and handsome

Carl and our good little Bertha were fairly over head and ears in

love, and had begun to have serious thoughts of a cottage in a wood,

et caetera, when their felicity was disturbed by their being

accidentally met, in one of their walks, by the baron. Of course the

baron, being himself so thorough an aristocrat, had higher views for

his daughter than marrying her to a "beggarly artist," and accordingly

he stamped and swore, and threatened Carl {448} with summary

punishment with all sorts of weapons, from heavy boots to

blunderbusses, if ever he ventured near the premises again. This was

unpleasant; but I fear it didn't _quite_ put a stop to the young

people's interviews, though it made them less frequent and more secret

than before.

Now, I'm quite aware this wasn't at all proper, and that no properly

regulated young lady would ever have had meetings with a young man her

papa didn't approve of. But then it's just possible Bertha mightn't

have been a properly regulated young lady; I only know she was a dear

little pet, worth twenty model young ladies, and that she loved Carl

very dearly. And then consider what a dreadful old tyrant of a papa

she had! My dear girl, it's not the slightest use your looking so

provokingly correct; it's my deliberate belief that if you had been in

her shoes (they'd have been at least three sizes too small for you,

but that doesn't matter) you would have done precisely the same.

Such was the state of things on Christmas Eve in the year----stay!

fairy tales never have a year to them; so on second thoughts I

wouldn't tell the date if I knew--but I don't. Such was the state of

things, however, on the particular 24th of December to which our story

refers--only, if anything, rather more so. The baron had got up in the

morning in an exceedingly bad temper; and those about him had felt its

effects all through the day. His two favorite wolf-hounds, Lutzow and

Teufel, had received so many kicks from the baron's heavy boots that

they hardly knew at which end their tails were; and even Klootz

himself scarcely dared to approach his master. In the middle of the

day two of the principal tenants came to say that they were unprepared

with their rent, and to beg for a little delay. The poor fellows

represented that their families were starving, and entreated for

mercy; but the baron was only too glad that he had at last found so

fair an excuse for venting his ill-humor. He loaded the unhappy

defaulters with every abusive epithet he could devise (and being

called names in German is no joke, I can tell you); and, lastly, he

swore by everything he could think of that if their rent was not paid

on the morrow, themselves and their families should be turned out of

doors to sleep on the snow, which was then many inches deep on the

ground. They still continued to beg for mercy, till the baron became

so exasperated that he determined to kick them out of the castle

himself. He pursued them for that purpose as far as the outer door,

when fresh fuel was added to his anger. Carl, who as I have hinted,

still managed, notwithstanding the paternal prohibition, to see fair

Bertha occasionally, and had come to wish her a merry Christmas,

chanced at this identical moment to be saying good-by at the door,

above which, in accordance with immemorial usage, a huge bush of

mistletoe was suspended. What they were doing under it at the moment

of the baron's appearance, I never knew exactly; but his wrath was

tremendous! I regret to say that his language was unparliamentary in

the extreme. He swore till he was mauve in the face; and if he had not

providentially been seized with a fit of coughing, and sat down in the

coal-scuttle--mistaking it for a three-legged stool--it is impossible

to say to what lengths his feelings might have carried him. Carl and

Bertha picked him up, rather black behind, but otherwise not much the

worse for his accident. In fact, the diversion of his thoughts seemed

to have done him good; for, having sworn a little more, and Carl

having left the castle, he appeared rather better. After having

endured so many and various emotions, it is hardly to be wondered at

that the baron required some consolation; so, after having changed his

tr--s-rs, he took himself off to his favorite turret, to allay by

copious potations the irritation of his mind. Bottle after bottle was

emptied, and pipe after pipe was {449} filled and smoked. The fine old

Burgundy was gradually getting into the baron's head; and altogether

he was beginning to feel more comfortable. The shades of the winter

afternoon had deepened into the evening twilight, made dimmer still by

the aromatic clouds that came, with dignified deliberation, from the

baron's lips, and curled in floated up to the carved ceiling of the

turret, where they spread themselves into a dim canopy, which every

successive cloud brought lower and lower. The fire, which had been

filed up mountain-high earlier in the afternoon, and had flamed and

roared to its heart's content ever since, had now got to that

state--the perfection of a fire to a lazy man--when it requires no

poking or attention of any kind, but just burns itself hollow, and

then tumbles in, and blazes jovially for a little time, and then

settles down to a genial glow, and gets hollow and tumbles in again.

The baron's fire was just in this delightful "da capo" condition, most

favorable of all to the enjoyment of the "dolce far niente." For the

little while it would glow and kindle quietly, making strange faces to

itself, and building fantastic castles in the depths of its red

recesses, and then the castles would come down with a crash, and the

faces disappear, with a bright flame spring up and lick lovingly the

sides of the old chimney; and the carved heads of improbable men and

impossible women, hewn so deftly round the panels of the old oak

wardrobe opposite, in which the baron's choicest vintages were

deposited, were lit up by the flickering light, and seemed to nod and

wink at the fire in return, with the familiarity of old acquaintances.

Some such fancy as this was disporting itself in the baron's brain;

and he was gazing at the old oak carving accordingly, and emitting

huge volumes of smoke with reflective slowness, when a clatter among

the bottles on the table caused him to turn his head to ascertain the

cause. The baron was by no means a nervous man; however, the sight

that met his eyes when he turned round did take away his presence of

mind a little; and he was obliged to take four distinct puffs before

he had sufficiently regained his equilibrium to inquire, "Who

the--Pickwick--are you?" (The baron said "Dickens," but as that is a

naughty word we will substitute "Pickwick," which is equally

expressive, and not so wrong.) Let me see; where was I? Oh! yes. "Who

the Pickwick are you?"

Now, before I allow the baron's visitor to answer the question,

perhaps I had better give a slight description of his personal

appearance. If this wasn't a true story, I should have liked to have

made him a model of manly beauty; but a regard for veracity compels me

to confess that he was not what would be generally considered

handsome; that is, not in figure, for his face was by no means

unpleasing. His body was in size and shape not very unlike a huge

plum-pudding, and was clothed in a bright-green tightly fitting

doublet, with red holly berries for buttons. His limbs were long and

slender in proportion to his stature, which was not more than three

feet or so. His head was encircled by a crown of holly and mistletoe.

The round red berries sparkled amid his hair, which was silver-white,

and shone out in cheerful harmony with his rosy jovial face. And that

face! it would have done one good to look at it. In spite of the

silver hair, and an occasional wrinkle beneath the merry laughing

eyes, it seemed brimming over with perpetual youth. The mouth, well

garnished with teeth, white and sound, which seemed as if they could

do ample justice to holiday cheer, was ever open with a beaming genial

smile, expanding now and then into hearty jovial laughter. Fun and

good-fellowship were in every feature. The owner of the face was, at

the moment when the baron first perceived him, comfortably seated upon

the top of the large tobacco-jar on the table, nursing his left leg.

The baron's {450} somewhat abrupt inquiry did not appear to irritate

him; on the contrary, he seemed rather amused than otherwise.

"You don't ask prettily, old gentleman," he replied; "but I don't mind

telling you, for all that. I'm King Christmas."

"Eh?" said the baron.

"Ah!" said the goblin. Of course you've guessed he was a goblin.

"And pray what's your business here?" said the baron.

"Don't be crusty with a fellow," replied the goblin. "I merely looked

in to wish you the compliments of the season. Talking of crust, by the

way, what sort of a tap is it you're drinking?" So saying, he took up

a flask of the baron's very best and poured out about half a glass.

Having held the glass first to one side and then the other, winked at

it twice, sniffed it, and gone through the remainder of the pantomime

in which connoisseurs indulge, he drank it with great deliberation,

and smacked his lips scientifically. "Hum! Johannisberg! and not so

_very_ bad--for you. But I tell you what it is, baron, you'll have to

bring out better stuff than this when _I_ put my legs on your

mahogany."

"Well, you are a cool fish," said the baron. "However, you're rather a

joke, so now you're here we may as well enjoy ourselves. Smoke?"

"Not anything you're likely to offer me!"

"Confound your impudence!" roared the baron, with a horribly

complicated oath. "That tobacco's as good as any in all Rhineland."

"That's a nasty cough you've got, baron. Don't excite yourself, my

dear boy; I dare say you speak according to your lights. I don't mean

Vesuvians, you know, but your opportunities for knowing anything about

it. Try a weed out of my case, and I expect you'll alter your

opinion."

The baron took the proffered case, and selected a cigar. Not a word

was spoken till it was half consumed, when the baron took it for the

first time from his lips, and said gently, with the air of a man

communicating an important discovery in the strictest confidence, "Das

ist gut!"

"Thought you'd say so," said the visitor. "And now, as you like the

cigar, I should like you to try a thimbleful of what _I_ call wine. I

must warn you, though, that it is rather potent, and may produce

effects you are not accustomed to."

"Bother that, if it's as good as the weed," said the baron; "I haven't

taken my usual quantity by four bottles yet."

"Well, don't say I didn't warn you, that's all. I don't think you'll

find it unpleasant, though it is rather strong when you're not

accustomed to it." So saying, the goblin produced from some mysterious

pocket a black, big-bellied bottle, crusted apparently with the dust

of ages. It did strike the baron as peculiar, that the bottle, when

once produced, appeared nearly as big round as the goblin himself; but

he was not the sort of man to stick at trifles, and he pushed foreword

his glass to be filled just as composedly as if the potion had been

shipped by Sandeman, and paid duty in the most commonplace way.

The glass was filled and emptied, but the baron uttered not his

opinion. Not in words, at least, but he pushed forward his glass to be

filled again in a manner that sufficiently bespoke his approval.

"Aha, you smile!" said the goblin. And it was a positive fact; the

baron was smiling; a thing he hadn't been known to do in the memory of

the oldest inhabitant. "That's the stuff to make your hair curl, isn't

it?"

"I believe you, my b-o-o-oy!" The baron brought out this earnest

expression of implicit confidence with true Paul Bedford unction. "It

warms one--_here!_"

Knowing the character of the man, one would have expected him to put

his hand upon his stomach. But he didn't; he laid it upon his _heart_.

{451}

"The spell begins to operate, I see," said the goblin. "Have another

glass."

The baron had another glass, and another after that. The smile on his

face expanded into an expression of such geniality that the whole

character of his countenance was changed, and his own mother wouldn't

have known him. I doubt myself--inasmuch as she died when he was

exactly a year and three months old--whether she would have recognized

him under any circumstances; but I merely wish to express that he was

changed almost beyond recognition.

"Upon my word," said the baron, at length, "I feel so light I almost

think I could dance a hornpipe. I used to once, I know. Shall I try?"

"Well, if you ask my advice," replied the goblin, "I should say,

decidedly, don't. 'Barkis is willing,' I dare say, but trousers are

weak, and you might split 'em."

"Hang it all," said the baron, "so I might; I didn't think of that.

But still I feel as if I must do something juvenile!"

"Ah! that's the effect of your change of nature," said the goblin.

"Never mind, I'll give you plenty to do presently."

"Change of nature! what do you mean, you old conundrum?" said the

baron.

"You're another," said the goblin, "But never mind. What I mean is

just this. What you are now feeling is the natural consequence of my

magic wine, which has changed you into a fairy. That's what's the

matter, sir."

"A fairy! me!" exclaimed the baron. "Get out; I'm too fat."

"Fat! oh! that's nothing. We shall put you in regular training, and

you'll soon be slim enough to creep into a lady's stocking. Not that

you'll be called upon to do anything of the sort; but I'm merely

giving you an idea of your future figure."

"No, no," said the baron; "me thin! that's too ridiculous. Why, that's

worse than being a fairy. You don't mean it, though, do you? I do feel

rather peculiar."

"I do, indeed," said the visitor. "You don't dislike it, do you?"

"Well, no, I can't say I do, entirely. It's queer, though, I feel so

uncommon friendly. I feel as if I should like to shake hands, or pat

somebody on the back."

"Ah!" said the goblin, "I know how it is. Rum feeling, when you're not

accustomed to it. But come; finish that glass, for we must be off.

We've got a precious deal to do before morning, I can tell you. Are

you ready?"

"All right," said the baron. "I'm just in the humor to make a night of

it."

"Come along, then," said the goblin.

They proceeded for a short time in silence along the corridors of the

old castle. They carried no candle, but the baron noticed that

everything seemed perfectly light wherever they stood, but relapsed

into darkness as soon as they had passed by. The goblin spoke first.

"I say, baron, you've been an uncommon old brute in your time, now

haven't you?"

"H'm," said the baron, reflectively, "I don't know. Well, yes, I

rather think I have."

"How jolly miserable you've been making those two young people, you

old sinner! You know who I mean."

"Eh, what? You know that, too?" said the baron.

"Know it; of course I do. Why, bless your heart, I know everything, my

dear boy. But you have made yourself an old pig in that quarter,

considerably. Ar'n't you blushing, you hard-hearted old monster?"

"Don't know, I'm sure," said the baron, scratching his nose, as if

that was where he expected to feel it. "I believe I have treated them

badly, though, now I come to think of it."

At this moment they reached the door of Bertha's chamber. The door

opened of itself at their approach.

{452}

"Come along" said the goblin, "you won't wake her. Now, old

flinty-heart, look there."

The sight that met the baron's view was one that few fathers could

have beheld without affectionate emotion. Under ordinary

circumstances, however, the baron would not have felt at all

sentimental on the subject, but to-night something made him view

things in quite a different light to that he was accustomed to. I

shouldn't like to make affidavit of the fact, but it's my positive

impression that he sighed.

Now, my dear reader--particularly if a gentleman--don't imagine I'm

going to indulge your impertinent curiosity with an elaborate

description of the sacred details of a lady's sleeping apartment.

_You're_ not a fairy, you know, and I don't see that it can possibly

matter to you whether fair Bertha's dainty little bottines were tidily

placed on the chair by her bedside, or thrown carelessly, as they had

been taken off, upon the hearth-rug, where her favorite spaniel

reposed, warming his nose in his sleep before the last smouldering

embers of the decaying fire; or whether her crinoline--but if she did

wear a crinoline, what can that possibly matter, sir, to you? All I

shall tell you is, that everything looked snug and comfortable; but

somehow, any place got that look when Bertha was in it. And now a word

about the jewel in the casket--pet Bertha herself. Really, I'm at a

loss to describe her. How do you look when your'e asleep?--Well, it

wasn't like _that_; not a bit! Fancy a sweet girl's face, the cheek

faintly flushed with a soft warm tint, like the blush in the heart of

the opening rose, and made brighter by the contrast of the snowy

pillow on which it rested; dark silken hair, curling and clustering

lovingly over the tiniest of tiny ears, and the softest, whitest neck

that ever mortal maiden was blessed with; long silken eyelashes,

fringing lids only less beautiful than the dear earnest eyes they

cover. Fancy all this, and fancy, too, if you can, the expression of

perfect goodness and parity that lift up the sweet features of the

slumbering maiden with a beauty almost angelic, and you will see what

the baron saw that night. Not quite all, however, for the baron's

vision paused not at the bedside before him, but had passed on from

the face of the sleeping maiden to another face as lovely, that of the

young wife, Bertha's mother, who had, years before, taken her angel

beauty to the angels.

The goblin spoke to the baron's thought. "Wonderfully like, is she

not, baron?" The baron slowly inclined his head.

"You made her very happy, didn't you?" The tone in which the goblin

spoke was harsh and mocking. "A faithful husband, tender and true! She

must have been a happy wife, eh, baron?"

The baron's head had so upon his bosom. Old recollections were

thronging into his awakened memory. Solemn vows to love and cherish,

somewhat strangely kept. Memories of bitter words, and savage oaths,

showered at a quiet uncomplaining figure, without one word in reply.

And last, the memory of a fit of drunken passion, and a hasty blow

struck with a heavy hand; and then of three months fading away; and

last, of her last prayer--for her baby and him.

"A good husband makes a good father, baron. No wonder you are somewhat

chary of rashly entrusting to a suitor the happiness of a sweet flower

like this. Poor child! it is hard, though, that she must think no more

of him she loves so dearly. See! she is weeping even in her dreams.

But you have good reasons, no doubt. Young Carl is wild, perhaps, or

drinks, or gambles, eh? What! none of these? Perhaps he is wayward and

uncertain, and you fear that the honied words of {453} courtship might

turn to bitter sayings in matrimony. They do, sometimes, eh, baron? By

all means guard her from such a fate as that. Poor tender flower! Or

who knows, worse than that, baron! Hard words break no bones, they

say, but angry men are quick, and a blow is soon struck, eh?"

The goblin had drawn nearer and nearer, and laid his hand upon the

baron's arm, and the last words were literally hissed into his ear.

The baron's frame swayed to and under the violence of his emotions. At

last, with a cry of agony, he dashed his hands upon his forehead. The

veins were swollen up like thick cords, and his voice was almost

inarticulate in its unnatural hoarsness.

"Torturer, release me! Let me go, let me go and do something to forget

the past; or I shall go mad and die!"

He rushed out of the room and paced wildly down the corridor, the

goblin following him. At last, as they came near the outer door of the

castle, which opened of itself as they reached it, the spirit spoke:

"This way, baron, this way; I told you there was work for us to do

before morning, you know."

"Work!" exclaimed the baron, absently, passing his fingers through his

tangled hair; "oh! yes, work! the harder and the rougher the better;

anything to make me forget."

The two stepped out into the courtyard, and the baron shivered,

though, as it seemed, unconsciously, at the breath of the frosty

midnight air, The snow lay deep on the ground, and the baron's heavy

boot sank into it with a crisp, crushing sound at every tread. He was

bareheaded, but seemed unconscious of the fact, and tramped on, as if

utterly indifferent to anything but his own thoughts. At last, as a

blast of the night wind, keener than ordinary, swept over him, he

seemed for the first time to feel the chill. His teeth chattered, and

he muttered, "Cold, very cold."

"Ay, baron," said the goblin, "it is cold, even to us, who are healthy

and strong, and warmed with wine. Colder still, though, to those who

are hungry and half-naked, and have to sleep on the snow."

"Sleep? snow?" said the baron. "Who sleeps on the snow? why, I

wouldn't let my dogs be out on such a night as this."

"Your dogs, no!" said the goblin; "I spoke of meaner animals--your

wretched tenants. Did you not order yesterday, that Wilhelm and

Friedrich, if they did not pay their rent tomorrow, should be turned

out to sleep on the snow? a snug bed for the little ones, and a nice

white coverlet, eh? Ha! ha! twenty florins or so is no great matter,

is it? I'm afraid their chance is small, nevertheless. Come and see."

The baron hung his head. A few minutes brought them to the first of

the poor dwellings, which they entered noiselessly. The fireless

grate, the carpetless floor, the broken window-panes, all gave

sufficient testimony to the want and misery of the occupants. In one

comer lay sleeping a man, a woman, and three children, and nestling to

each other for the warmth which their ragged coverlet could not

afford. In the man, the baron recognized his tenant, Wilhelm, one of

those who had been with him to beg for indulgence on the previous day.

The keen features, and bones almost starting through the pallid skin,

showed how heavily the hand of hunger had been laid upon all. The cold

night wind moaned and whistled through the many flaws in the

ill-glazed, ill-thatched tenement, and rustled over the sleepers, who

shivered even in their sleep.

"Ha, baron," said the goblin, "death is breathing in their faces even

now, you see; it is hardly worth while to lay them to sleep in the

snow, is it? They would sleep a little sounder, that's all."

{454}

The baron shuddered, and then, hastily pulling the warm coat from his

own shoulders, he spread it over the sleepers.

"Oho!" said the goblin, "bravely done, baron! By all means keep them

warm to-night, they'll enjoy the snow more to-morrow, you know."

Strange to say, the baron, instead of feeling chilled when he had

removed his coat, felt a strange glow of warmth spread from the region

of the heart over his entire frame. The goblin's continual allusions

to his former intention, which he had by this time totally

relinquished, hurt him, and he said, rather pathetically, "Don't talk

of that again, good goblin, I'd rather sleep on the snow myself."

"Eh! what?" said the goblin, "you don't mean to say you're sorry? Then

what do you say to making these poor people comfortable?"

"With all my heart," said the baron, "if we had only anything to do it

with."

"You leave that to me," said the goblin, "your brother fairies are not

far off, you may be sure."

As he spoke he clapped his hands thrice, and before the third clap had

died away the poor cottage was swarming with tiny figures, whom the

baron rightly conjectured to be the fairies themselves.

Now, you may not be aware (the baron wasn't until that night) that

there are among the fairies trades and professions, just as with

ordinary mortals. However, there they were, each with the

accompaniments of his or her particular business, and to it they went

manfully. A fairy glazier put in new panes to the shattered windows,

fairy carpenters replaced the doors upon their hinges, and fairy

painters, with inconceivable celerity, made cupboards and closets as

fresh as paint could make them; one fairy housemaid laid and lit a

roaring fire, while another dusted and rubbed chairs and tables to a

miraculous degree of brightness; a fairy butler uncorked bottles of

fairy wine, and a fairy cook laid out a repast of most tempting

appearance. The baron hearing a tapping above him, cast his eyes

upward and beheld a fairy slater rapidly repairing a hole in the roof;

and when he bent them down again, they fell on a fairy doctor mixing a

cordial for the sleepers. Nay, there was even a fairy parson who, not

having any present employment, contented himself with rubbing his

hands and looking pleasant, probably ably waiting till somebody might

want to be christened or married. Every trade, every profession or

occupation, appeared, without exception, to be represented; nay, we

big pardon, with one exception only, for the baron used to say, when

afterward relating his experiences to bachelor friends, "You may

believe me or not sir, there was every mortal business under the sun,

_but devil a bit of a lawyer_."

The baron could not long remain inactive. He was rapidly seized with a

violent desire to do something to help, which manifested itself in

insane attempts to assist everybody at once. At last, after having

taken all the skin off his knuckles in attempting to hammer in nails

in aid of the carpenters, and then nearly tumbling over a fairy

housemaid, whose broom he was offering to carry, he gave it up as a

bad job, and stood aside with his friend the goblin. He was just about

to inquire how it was that the poor occupants of the house were not

awakened by so much din, when a fairy Sam Slick who had been examining

the cottager's old clock, with a view to a thorough repair, touched

some spring within it, and it made the usual purr preparatory to

striking. When lo and behold, at the very first stroke, cottage,

goblin, fairies, and all disappeared into utter darkness, and the

baron found himself in his turret-chamber, rubbing his toe, which he

had just hit with considerable force against the fender. As he was

only in his slippers the concussion was unpleasant, and the baron

rubbed his toe for a good while. {455} After he had finished with his

toe he rubbed his nose, and finally, with a countenance of deep

reflection, scratched the bump of something or other at the top of his

head. The old clock on the stairs was striking three, and the fire had

gone out. The baron reflected for a short time longer, and finally

decided that he had better go to bed which he did accordingly.

The morning dawned upon the very ideal, as far as weather was

concerned, of a Christmas day. A bright winter sun shone out just

vividly enough to make everything look genial and pleasant, and yet

not with sufficient warmth to mar the pure unbroken surface of the

crisp white snow, which lay like a never-ending white lawn upon the

ground, and glittered in myriad silver flakes upon the leaves of the

sturdy evergreens. I'm afraid the baron had not had a very good night;

at any rate, I know that he was wide-awake at an hour long before his

usual time of rising. He lay first on one side, and then on the other,

and then, by way of variety, turned on his back, with his magenta nose

pointing perpendicularly toward the ceiling; but it was all of no use.

Do what he would, he couldn't get to sleep, and at last, not long

after daybreak, he tumbled out of bed, and proceeded to dress. Even

after he was out of bed his fidgetiness continued. It did not strike

him, until after he had got one boot on, that it would be a more

natural proceeding to put his stockings on first; after which he

caught himself in the act of trying trying to put his trousers on over

his head (which, I may mention for the information of lady readers,

who of course, cannot be expected to know anything about such matters,

is not the mode generally adopted). In a word, the baron's mind was

evidently preoccupied; his whole air was that of a man who felt a

strong impulse to do something or other, but could not quite make up

his mind to it. At last, however, the good impulse conquered, and this

wicked old baron, in the stillness of the calm bright Christmas

morning, went down upon his knees and prayed. Stiff were his knees and

slow his tongue, for neither had done such work for many a long day

past; but I have read in the Book of the joy of the angels over a

repenting sinner. There needs not much eloquence to pray the

publican's prayer, and who shall say but there was gladness in heaven

that Christmas morning?

The baron's appearance down-stairs at such an early hour occasioned

quite a commotion. Nor were the domestics re-assured when the baron

ordered a bullock to be killed and jointed instantly, and all the

available provisions in the larder, including sausage, to be packed up

in baskets, with a good store of his own peculiar wine. One ancient

retainer was heard to declare, with much pathos, that he feared master

had gone "off his head." However, "off his head" or not, they knew the

baron must be obeyed, and in an exceedingly short space of time he

sallied forth, accompanied by three servants carrying the baskets, and

wondering what in the name of fortune their master would do next. He

stopped at the cottage of Wilhelm, which he had visited with the

goblin on the previous night. The labors of the fairies did not seem

to have produced much lasting benefit, for the appearance of

everything around was as wretched as could be. The poor family thought

that the baron had come himself to turn them out of house and home;

and the poor children huddled up timidly to their mother for

protection, while the father attempted some words of entreaty for

mercy. The pale, pinched features of the group, and their looks of

dread and wretchedness, were too much for the baron. "Eh! what! what

do you mean, confound you? Turn you out! Of course not: I've brought

you some breakfast. Here! Fritz--Carl; where are the knaves? Now then,

unpack, and don't be a week about it. Can't you see the people are

hungry, ye villains? Here, lend me the corkscrew." This last {456}

being a tool the baron was tolerably accustomed to, he had better

success than with those of the fairy carpenters; and it was not long

before the poor tenants were seated before a roaring fire, and doing

justice, with the appetite of starvation, to a substantial breakfast.

The baron felt a queer sensation in his throat at the sight of the

poor people's enjoyment, and had passed the back of his hand twice

across his eyes when he thought no one was looking; but his emotion

fairly rose to boiling point when the poor father, Wilhelm, with tears

in his eyes, and about a quarter of a pound of beef in his mouth,

sprang up from the table and flung himself at the baron's knees,

invoking blessings on him for his goodness. "Get up, you audacious

scoundrel!" roared the baron. "What the deuce do you mean by such

conduct, eh! confound you?" At this moment the door opened, and in

walked Mynheer Klootz, who had heard nothing of the baron's change of

intentions, and who, seeing Wilhelm at the baron's feet, and hearing

the latter speaking, as he thought, in an angry tone, at once jumped

to the conclusion that Wilhelm was entreating for longer indulgence.

He rushed at the unfortunate man, and collared him. "Not if _we_ know

it," exclaimed he; "you'll have the wolves for bedfellows to-night, I

reckon. Come along, my fine fellow." As he spoke he turned his back

toward the baron, with the intention of dragging his victim to the

door, the baron's little gray eyes twinkled, and his whole frame

quivered with suppressed emotion, which, after the lapse of a moment,

vented itself in a kick, and _such_ a kick! Not one of your Varsoviana

flourishes, but a kick that employed every muscle from hip to toe, and

drove the worthy steward up against the door, like a ball from a

catapult. Misfortunes never come singly, and so Mynheer Klootz found

with regard to the kick, for it was followed, without loss of time, by

several dozen others, as like it as possible, from the baron's heavy

boots. Wounded Lyons proverbially come badly off, and Fritz and Carl,

who had suffered from many an act of petty tyranny on the part of the

steward, thought they could not do better than follow their master's

example, which they did to such a good purpose, that when the

unfortunate Klootz did escape from the cottage at last, I don't

believe he could have had any _os sacrum_ left.

After having executed this little act of poetical justice, the baron

and his servants visited the other cottages, in all of which they were

received with dread, and dismissed with blessings. Having completed

his tour of charity, the baron returned home to breakfast, feeling

more really contented then he had done for many a long year. He found

Bertha, who had not risen when he started, in a considerable state of

anxiety as to what he could possibly have been doing. In answer to her

inquiries he told her, with a roughness he was far from feeling, to

"mind her own business." The gentle eyes filled with tears at the

harshness of the reply; perceiving which, the baron was beyond measure

distressed, and chucked her under the chin in what was meant to be a

very conciliatory manner. "Eh! what, my pretty? tears? No, surely.

Bertha must forgive her old father. I didn't mean it, you know, my

pet; and yet, on second thoughts, yes I did, too." Bertha's face was

overcast again. "My little girl thinks she has no business anywhere,

eh! Is that it? Well, then, my pet, suppose you make it your business

to write a note to young Carl von Sempach, and say I'm afraid I was

rather rude to him yesterday, but if he'll look over it, and come and

take a snug family dinner and a slice of the pudding with us to-day--"

"Why, pa, you don't mean--yes, I do really believe you do--" The

baron's eyes were winking nineteen to the dozen. "Why, you dear, dear,

dear old pa!" And at the imminent risk of upsetting the breakfast

table, Bertha rushed at the baron, and flinging two soft white arms

about {457} his neck, kissed him--oh! how she _did_ kiss him! I

shouldn't have thought, myself, she could possibly have had any left

for Carl; but I dare say Bertha attended to his interests in that

respect somehow.

* * * * *

Well, Carl came to dinner, and the baron was, not very many years

after, promoted to the dignity of a grandpapa, and a very jolly old

grandpapa he made. Is that all you wanted to know?

About Klootz? Well, Klootz got over the kicking, but he was dismissed

from in the baron's service; and on examination of his accounts, it

was discovered that he had been in the habit of robbing the baron of

nearly a third of his yearly income, which he had to refund; and with

the money he was thus compelled to disgorge, the baron built new

cottages for his tenants, and new-stocked their farms. Nor was he the

poorer in the end, for his tenants worked with the energy of

gratitude, and he was soon many times richer than when the goblin

visited him on that Christmas-eve.

And was the goblin ever explained? Certainly not. How dare you have

the impertinence to suppose such a thing? An empty bottle, covered

with cobwebs, was found the next morning in the turret chamber, which

the baron at first imagined must be the bottle from which the goblin

produced his magic wine; but as it was found, on examination, to be

labelled "Old Jamaica Rum," of course that could not have had anything

to do with it. However it was, the baron never thoroughly enjoyed any

other wine after it; and as he did not thenceforth get drunk, on an

average, more than two nights a week, or swear more than eight oaths a

day, I think King Christmas may be considered to have thoroughly

reformed him. And he always maintained, to the day of his death, that

he was changed into a fairy, and became exceedingly angry if

contradicted.

Who doesn't believe in fairies after this? I only hope King Christmas

may make a few more good fairies this year, to brighten the homes of

the poor with the light of Christmas charity. Truly we need not look

far for almsmen. Cold and hunger, disease and death, are around us at

all times; but at no time do they press more heavily on the poor than

at this jovial Christmas season. Shall we shut out, in our mirth and

jollity, the cry of the hungry poor? or shall we not rather remember,

in the midst of our happy family circles, round our well-filled

tables, and before our blazing fires, that our brothers are starving

out in the cold, and that the Christmas song of the angels was,

"Good-will to men?"

--------

Original.

EPIGRAM.

"Thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing."

Dear heart! and is it thus thou didst lament

His absence for a day? How different

Thy grief from mine! Absent from Him for years,

I sorrowed not: and only found my tears

In finding Him. Then, to my bitter cost,

I knew the priceless treasure I had lost!

------

{458}

Original.

THE CHRISTMAS TREE.

Christmas comes but once a year;

'Tis come at last, O glorious day!

Let every cross that mortals bear

Be for the moment flung away.

"Yes," says the cricket from his hole

Beside the flame-lit kitchen hearth,

"It is a time for every soul

To give himself to joy and mirth,"

"Christmas comes but once a year,"

Returns the timid pantry mouse.

"The cat has told me not to fear;

To-night I'll scamper through the house."

So, blow ye winds, and you, Jack Frost,

Come in the dark and do your worst;

How wild soe'er the night may be,

It shall not stir my Christmas Tree.

Then let us dance and laugh and sing,

And form in all one happy ring;

The Yule log never burned so bright.

Hurrah! hurrah! 'tis Christmas night.

It is a time to seek the poor,

And bid them welcome round our door;

The alms we give, to Christ are given.

And hung on Christmas Trees in heaven.

The Christmas Tree is evergreen:

The hand of time may change the scene,

The child a gray-haired man may be,

But memory keeps the Christmas Tree.

W.S., Jr.

------

{459}

ORIGINAL.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF CONVERSION. [Footnote 144]

[Footnote 144: Trials of a Mind in its Progress to Catholicism, etc.

By L. Stillman Ives, LL.D. Boston. 1865.

The Path which led a Protestant Lawyer to the Catholic Church. By

Peter H. Burnett. New York and Cincinnati: Benziger Brothers. 1866

The Convert; or, Leaves from my Experience. By O. A. Brownson. New

York. 1857.

Apologia pro Vita Sua: being a Reply, etc. By John Henry Newman,

D.D. New York. 1865.]

It is a fact, to which the Catholic heart cannot recur without

emotions of the deepest gratitude, that Christ's holy church is ever

gathering some of the select out of the mad waves of heresy and schism

around us into the safety of her maternal bosom. It is a fact, too,

which every conscientious and thoughtful Protestant must view with

feelings of disquietude and insecurity, that men of unimpeachable

piety and learning are thus ever leaving the external wilderness where

they have walked with him, and seek and find true refuge in the

Catholic ark of God.

The number of these converts it seems almost impossible to estimate.

There can be but little doubt, however, that it far exceeds the

reckonings of the denominations out of which they come, and equally

surpasses our own most sanguine calculations. Reliable statistics show

us that within the last fifty years no less than forty-one clergymen

of the American Episcopal Church alone have laid down the honors and

emoluments they there enjoyed, and have espoused poverty and

insignificance with the Catholic faith. [Footnote 145] Many of these

were men of eminence in their former sphere of action, and one, at

least, held the highest and most responsible position which his

co-religionists could bestow upon him. Some of them have risen since

their conversion to posts of ecclesiastical dignity and power. Others

have died and rest with God. All of them, with but few exceptions,

have remained faithful, and have endorsed, in life and in death, the

wisdom and sincerity of that step which brought them, after many

wanderings, into the apostolic fold.

[Footnote 145: See Church Review, July, 1860, p. 254. There have

been several conversions from the Episcopal clergy since that date.]

How far the clerical ranks of other sects of Protestants in the United

States have been invaded by God's converting grace, no data that we

can command are able to determine. Our personal recollections of their

various ministers, who at one time and another have laid down their

own will for the will of Christ, lead us to the belief that the number

from each will fall little short of that contributed by the

denomination to which we first referred. And as for laymen, they have

come to us from every known religious name and creed, and full as

often from no name and creed at all, until the throng has swelled from

hundreds into tens of thousands, and gone beyond the possibility of

our enumeration or discovery. [Footnote 146]

[Footnote 146: Judging from the statistics of the past few years in

the dioceses of New York, the number of converts in the United

States must exceed 30,000.--Ed. C.W.]

Moreover, this work is on the increase. Year by year, almost, the

church is doubling on herself in these triumphs of her toil. Where

individuals once tremblingly isolated themselves from old

associations, and cut the vital cord of earthly friendships and

familiarities by submitting to her guidance, now families and

communities fly together to her arms for safety; while those upon

whose personal decisions her labors and the grace of God seemed to

make no impression, have ceased to persecute and almost ceased to ban

those who have followed {460} her, and recognize conversion from

Protestantism to Catholicity as a change equally legitimate and

rational with conversion from idolatry to God. Nay, more: the very

brain of Protestant America itself is sloughing off the narrow coils

of illogical and degrading error which three hundred years of folly

and of falsehood had woven round it under the name of Christian

doctrine; and, in spite of its self-conceived antagonism between

"_Rome or Reason_," is drinking in long draughts of Catholic theology,

and pouring out broadcast over this great hemisphere the fundamental

tenets of the Roman faith as the indisputable truths of human reason

and divine philosophy.

The tide of popular prejudice thus turning, and the way thus opened to

the American intellect by the instrumentality of those who claim to be

her adversaries, it is no arrogation of prophetic foresight to predict

that the progress of the church in this country must, in the future,

be rapid beyond all precedent, and that the age may not be far distant

when this vast "_Continent of Mary_" shall, with one heart and under

one name, obey the Holy Spouse of Mary's Son.

When such realities are around us and such possibilities before us,

the study of those mental and moral changes in the individual by which

all has been done that is done, and by which also all that shall be

done must be accomplished, cannot be uninteresting or unprofitable. No

religious subject of so much practical importance to non-Catholics is,

probably, so little understood among them; and of none have more false

definitions been given or more inaccurate theories been entertained.

Even Catholics themselves have generally failed in their attempts to

realize the logical processes through which the Protestant mind must,

consciously or unconsciously, find its way before it can receive

Catholic truth with the dear, living faith of a Catholic heart. It is

to correct these errors and to scatter these difficulties, as well as

to justify seeming inconsistencies, and above all, to assist, if

possible, the wavering minds of some who long for a light which they

know not how or where to find, that we devote these pages to a

discussion of those changes in the human soul which make up the actual

conversion from Protestantism to the Catholic Church.

The materials for this discussion are both abundant and satisfactory

The first of the four works upon our list is from the pen of Dr. Ives,

who was for more than twenty years the Protestant Episcopal bishop of

the Diocese of North-Carolina, and one of the acknowledged leaders of

the High church party in the United States. It is a concise and

luminous rehearsal of the reasons which led him to abandon his exalted

ecclesiastical station for that of a mere layman in the Catholic

church, and presents a vivid picture of the "trials" and perplexities

which extreme Tractarians must inevitably undergo, when the

incompatibility of their position with their principles is once fully

apprehended. The second is a voluminous and formal treatise on the

rules of evidence as applicable to revelation, and on those

fundamental axioms which underlie all legislation, human or divine. It

is, obviously, what the title-page professes, the work of a legal mind

which views the whole question of religion as open two, and able to

abide the most thorough tests of reason and philosophy, and brings the

great issues which it raises, in every case, to actual demonstration

for denial. The writer, now a Catholic, was formerly a member of the

so-called "_Disciples;_" a sect which lies on the outskirts of

Christianity, and from which to Catholicity the path must have been

almost as long and devious as that from infidelity itself. The author

of the third is Dr. Brownson, one of the most _positive_ of modern

men; whose range of doctrinal experience has reached from Deism to an

ultramontane Catholicism, and who in every phase of his religious

life, has {461} been a living power, dealing with realities, and

stripping all imaginations and delusions from the realities with which

he dealt. The last is Dr. Newman's, than whom no one knows better,

none can describe so well, that _Via Dolorosa_ which all converts

tread? To these, if we would, the works of Manning, Wilberforce, and

others might be added, each a reflection of the changes which the

inner lives of their writers underwent in the great struggle after

ultimate, unquestionable truth; while, beyond even these, the

inexhaustible volume of experience remains; a volume in which the dark

things of these books find an infallible interpreter, and on whose

hidden leaves the hand of God has written the same history of which

these human pages are the reflection and the shade.

It is not an unreasonable hope, that, out of such materials, we may be

able to construct an accurate definition of that work of grace which,

in the convert's memory, has overshadowed and embraces all other gifts

of God.

Before proceeding, however, with our examination of that change, by

which alone the word "_conversion_" can be properly defined, it will

be necessary to consider and refute those definitions of it which are

false. Conversion is a transformation in itself so simple, yet

involving so many and such vast collateral changes in the inner and

exterior man--it is at once so definite in its own nature, and yet as

widely and, in point of time, so intimately knit together with its

antecedents and its consequences, that a clear view of it apart from

these is almost impossible, until, by a process of negation, it is

separated from its surroundings, and stands out alone, defined as well

by what did is _not_ as by what it _is_. And this is, above all,

important, when we desire to present this subject to the

understandings of non-Catholics. The lines between their religious

bodies are so faintly drawn, and depend so much upon the social and

political circumstances by which the members of those bodies are

controlled, that conversion from one denomination to another is not

regarded as reaching to the very marrow of the spiritual being, or

compassing the salvation or destruction of the soul. Such changes are

often matters of taste or policy or friendship; sometimes of personal

pride and pique, and sometimes, but more rarely, of actual principle;

though even this principle never rests upon higher ground than

individual points of faith or systems of ecclesiastical organization.

It thus seems almost impossible that, left to their own definitions of

that to which we give the technical name "_conversion_," persons

outside the church could ever arrive at an appreciation of its extent

and power. And this is especially true in this country, where the

Catholic Church externally occupies the position of a sect among

sects; the most numerous, perhaps, certainly the most prosperous and

aggressive of them all, but in their view ranking as but one of many

forms of Christianity, and but one of many branches of Christ's

earthly fold. No care that we can take can be superfluous, no

precision we can use can be in vain when we attempt to define the

position of the church on any question which interests our age, or to

delineate the relations which she occupies to that great chaos of

religions in the midst of which she dwells. At the risk, therefore, of

consuming time unnecessarily for some, we feel it none the less our

duty to leave upon the minds of others no doubt upon this subject

which we can remove, and no obscurity around it which it is in our

power to thrust away.

(1.) First, then, the adoption of the articles of the Catholic faith

into the individual's creed is not conversion.

The idea of conversion entertained by nine-tenths of Protestants is

precisely that which we have here denied. It has hardly ever been our

lot to meet one, either in print or conversation, whose arguments and

reasonings with {462} us did not presuppose this definition to be

true. It is very natural, for the reasons before mentioned, that this

should be so. From Unitarian to Methodist, from Methodist to Anglican,

is but a journey from one set of doctrines to another. The same grand

underlying features of Christianity remain. The organic existence is

an accident arising from substantial doctrinal affinity. And, judging

by their own experience and observations, Protestants almost

invariably conclude that we became converts to Catholicity as a

logical result of our faith in individual Catholic doctrines; and that

a so-called Protestant, who holds any or all of these distinctive

dogmas, is not a Protestant in reality, and has no right or title to

the name. Of how much petty persecution this mistake has been the

cause, and how many parishes and pastors it has kept in perpetual

commotion during the past thirty years, hundreds of the unfortunate

victims can remember.

Yet no definition of conversion could be more totally erroneous.

Belief in Catholic doctrines is often chronologically precedent to a

real conversion; but it is not always so. It certainly operates as a

powerful antagonist of prejudice, and determines the interest and

sympathies of the believer toward the church. Candor, humility, and

earnestness being equal, such a believer is far more likely to become

a Catholic than another who does not believe. But, for all that, such

faith does not result in conversion as its necessary, scarcely as its

probable, consequence. We have in our memory, just now, a clergyman

who has for years openly professed his firm belief in

transubstantiation, purgatory, and other equally extreme Catholic

articles of faith. He goes into our churches, and adores the holy

eucharist upon our altars. He venerates the Mother of our Lord, and

supplicates God's mercy on the faithful dead. In all these he is

perfectly sincere, and of the truth of what he believes, and of the

piety of what he does, he is as well convinced as any Protestant can

ever be. Still he is not a Catholic, and we are almost satisfied he

never will become one. Years have found him and left him as we find

him now, and other years will probably work no change upon him in the

nature of conversion. Nearly the same maybe said of Dr. Pusey. His

symbolism in many, if not in most, particulars is Catholic. His tastes

and sympathies are Catholic. Those who have been his nearest and

dearest friends are Catholics. If similarity of doctrine were all that

constitutes conversion, the venerable father of Tractarianism would

long ere this have found the rest we tremble now lest he should never

find. But his life rolls away, and years and honors multiply upon his

head; yet who can say that he is nearer than in the distant and more

hopeful days, when his, now our, "_beloved_" struggled and prayed with

him for the light of God? The reasons for this are perfectly apparent

to us, and will be reached and dealt with by-and-bye. At present it

suffices, by these statements and illustrations, to have made it clear

that belief in Catholic doctrine is not conversion to the Catholic

Church. No, not if a man can tell over on his fingers, one by one, the

definitions of the councils and the traditions of the fathers, and

pronounce a _credo_ over every one of them, is he necessarily a

Catholic, nor must he have passed through that vital transformation

without which there never has been and never can be a true conversion.

(2.) Second: the adoption of our extreme ritualism in worship is not

conversion.

There is but one denomination of Protestants among whom this false

definition is likely to obtain. That one is the Episcopal; and by

large numbers of its members (if we may judge their opinions from

their words), it is actually believed that a fondness for rites and

ceremonies is evidence of Catholicity. Some years ago the church of

the Holy Innocents, and the {463} Madison Street mission chapel of New

York, and the church of St. James the Less, Philadelphia, were, by

this class of persons, uniformly regarded and denounced as Romanizing;

as the church of St. Albans in this city and some others are to-day.

Candles and flowers upon the altar, crosses and paintings on the

walls, the bowed head at the name of Jesus, the cassock-skirted coat,

and other innumerable minutiae, are to these people indubitable

evidence of Popery, and have often served, as they do now, for a

sufficient cause of congregational disunion and parochial decline. It

would seem foolish, in a discussion like the present, to notice an

error so shallow and so reasonless as this, were it not for the

magnitude of its results, and were it not, also, that so many of these

very ritualists themselves imagine that, in mimicking Catholic forms

and ceremonies, they have secured in Anglicanism all that the Catholic

Church can give.

But ritualism is not Catholicism: nor is Catholicism so vitally

connected with ritualism that it may not exist in the entire fulness

of its powers and graces independent of external magnificence and

show. St. Antony in his desert, St. Simeon Stylites on his pillar,

were as true Catholics as St. Ambrose in his basilica, or St. Leo on

his throne. Even the public worship of the church, when stripped to

its essentials, is almost devoid of any outward sign or sound that can

properly be characterized as ceremonial. And the same priest who

stands today before the gorgeous altar of a metropolitan cathedral

amid clouds of incense, will start to-morrow on a year's missionary

journey through the wilderness, with all the "_pomp and circumstance

of Romanism_" contained within the narrow limits of his carpet-bag.

Ritualism is a means used by the church to accomplish certain ends;

and so used, because the example of the divinely instituted Jewish

church, and her own ages of experience, have convinced her that by it

those ends can most surely be attained. But it is no more an essential

element of her being than royal robes are of the being of a king; and

the weak caricature of her stately ceremonial, in which some

Protestant experimentalists indulge, converts them into Catholics as

little as the tinsel crown and sceptre of the stage gives royal birth

and power to the actor in a play.

(3.) Third: union with the visible body of the Catholic Church is not

conversion.

This is the definition which most of those who are born Catholics

would give. Unconscious, as they happily are, of the religious state

of mind in which pure Protestantism rears its children, it is

difficult for them to imagine that a man can be, or can become,

nominally Catholic for any other reason than the simple one that binds

them to their faith; and this habitude of thought leads them

inevitably to confound the outward consequence of an internal change

with that internal change itself.

They also are in error. External union with the church is the best

possible _primâ facie_ evidence of conversion, but it alone is not

conversion. That men have came into the body of the Catholic Church

from motives of business, or of politics, or of family sympathy there

can be no doubt. But in these cases there was no real conversion. The

deep, radical changes which so thoroughly unmake and then remake the

spiritual man, never could have taken place in such souls as these.

Their outward act was perfect, their visible communion with us was all

we could demand; but in their inmost heart they were as much

Protestants as ever; and, when they went, acted on the same principles

as when they came. Such examples are not numerous, it is true; but

still they are sufficient to demonstrate that "_joining the church_"

is not conversion, and to deny the minor premise of those who argue

the church's incapacity to satisfy our nature from the fact that these

have tried her and found her wanting. {464} When one man can be cited

who, in his soul of souls, has undergone the work of grace which we

now pass on to consider, and who, in calmness and in piety, and not in

rashness _or in mortal sin_, has voluntarily apostatized, and who, in

life and in death, has adhered to his apostasy, and has died in the

confident and humble hope of heaven; then, and not till then, can such

an argument be worth our while to meet.

The change we call "_conversion_" thus residing neither in the

transfer of ecclesiastical relations to the church, nor in the growth

of ritualism into the external conduct, nor yet even in the adoption

of Catholic doctrine as the individual's creed, must have its sphere

of action in regions deeper and more fundamental than we have yet

explored. The church of God looks with the eyes of God upon the souls

of men. "_Give me thine heart_," is her, is his demand, confident that

if this be given all else is also gained. The change she seeks in

those whom God would make her children is a change, not of opinion,

not of tastes, not of behavior, but of _heart and will_; a change

which reaches to the citadel of life, and thoroughly and permanently

converts the man. With nothing less than this can she be satisfied. On

nothing less than this can she securely build.

And this change is conversion.

Protestantism, so far forth as it is a religious system, is based upon

two principles, from which have been developed all its influence and

power, and to which may be traced the numerous and immeasurable evils

whereof for many ages it has been a fruitful source. The first of

these is: That the church, founded by our Lord, is an _invisible_

church, to which every man who believes he is saved by Christ is _by

that sole belief_ united, whatever else his creed and religious

observance may be. The second is: That every man, by his own reason

working on the text of Scripture, is able to, and must determine for

himself what his religious faith and moral code shall be. The

inevitable consequence of the first principle is--that the doctrine

and moral law of one man, so long as they embrace the Saviourship of

Christ in any sense whatever, are matters in which his brother

Christian can have no concern. The inevitable consequence of the

second is--that the self-eliminated creed and rule of observance of

each Christian are as correct and reliable as those of any or even of

all others, and will be the only standard of his judgment at the bar

of God.

This first principle and its logical deductions have resulted in

simple religious individualism. "_The communion of saints_," in that

sense in which St. Paul describes it, as a Christian society, whose

members mutually depend upon each other, think the same things,

believe the same things, speak the same things, preserving the unity

of the Spirit as well as the bond of peace, has been rendered

practically impossible; while for it has been substituted an ideal

"_Christian union_" which consists either in the abnegation of all

distinctive doctrines as mere human opinions, or in the toleration of

them all as different methods of expressing the same religious truth.

And even this "_union_" which might be possible if pride and self-will

were eradicated from the heart of man, has become so far from a

reality, that the very theories on which it is based have sected and

bisected the original divisions of Protestant Christianity, until from

five they have become five hundred, with every prospect of a similar

multisection to the end of time.

This principle has done more. It has entered the bodies of the sects

themselves, and repelled member from member, minister from flock. It

has destroyed, in the collective sect, all sense of responsibility for

the faith and conduct of its members; and, in the members, all sense

of responsibility for their personal belief and morals to the sect at

large. It has overturned {465} every tribunal established for the

preservation of Christian discipline, and has abrogated "_church

authority_" as wholly incompatible with purity of conscience and

religious freedom. It has reduced the conditions of admission to the

ecclesiastical fellowship to "_the minimum of Christianity_" and has

abolished "_terms of communion_" and "_professions of faith_" as

utterly subversive of denominational integrity. [Footnote 147] In

this way it has made each man not only _de jure_, but _de facto_ a

spiritual autocrat, and has erected him into an isolated, independent

religious body, depriving the sect of all real organic life, and

degrading it from a church with head and members to a mere aggregation

of discordant particles.

[Footnote 147: _Vide_ New Englander for July, 1866, pages 477 to 487

et seq.]

The individual, being thus debarred of all external aid, is thrown

upon his own resources for religious guidance. There is no living man

upon the earth from whom he can receive an an authoritative

enunciation of eternal truths. There is no set of men upon whose

teachings he can rely as more perfect for more ultimately certain than

his own. The common mouth of Christendom utters no voice that puts to

rest the questions of his soul. All stand, like him, upon one level

plain of human fallibility; a fallibility which no diffusion, however

universal, can ever make infallible. All, whether singly or

collectively interrogated, can answer his appeal for light only by

giving their own human judgments in exchange for his.

And hence arises the necessity for that second principle on which, as

well as on the first, the foundations of Protestant Christianity were

laid; a principle which recognizes the intrinsic individualism that

the first produces, and perfects it by removing from man every hope

but one. That one hope is the Bible; a dead and speechless book; a

body whose spirit hides itself in the interminable labyrinth of

languishes long since unspoken; a star which gathers its reflected

rays through paraphrases and translations as chromatic as the

intellects that framed them or the pens that wrote them down.

"_The Bible, and the Bible only_," has been the banner-cry of

Protestantism from the dawn of its existence. The first work of

Luther, after his apostasy, was the publication of such parts of the

New Testament as he considered best suited to his purposes; and the

great aim of his successors, in all countries and in all ages, has

been to flood the world with copies of the Scriptures, in such guise

and such proportions as should soonest and most surely undermine the

principles of church authority, and establish their version of the

Bible as the sole acknowledged teacher of the truth of God. From the

beginning, also, as a part of the same work, they have denied that God

has furnished to mankind other interpreters of his revelation than the

unaided intellect of man, and have declared the private judgment of

the individual to be his all-sufficient and his only guide to the true

meaning of the written law. It will not, therefore, nay, it cannot be

disputed, that every man to whom the name of Protestant belongs,

depends entirely for his knowledge of the truth which God commands him

to believe, and of the laws which God commands him to obey, upon what

he can learn, unled by note or comment, from that collective

translation of ancient books to which he gives the name "[Greek

text]," or "_The Bible_."

Now, were it certain that the Bible contained the entire canon of holy

scripture, with every book and paragraph complete; were it certain

that that Scripture was in every syllable the utterance of God; were

it certain that no error in translation had modulated the clear voice

which spoke from heaven; were it certain that no pride of

self-opinion, no prejudice of early education, no ignorance of the

true meaning and construction of the language, were able to distort

the {466} spiritual vision; then might this principle, to some extent,

subserve the purposes which Protestants allege it to fulfil. But,

while no evidence, by them admissible, can determine beyond cavil the

completeness of their canon, while divine inspiration remains a fact

beyond the power of human testimony to establish; while that confusion

of tongues which the centuries of barbarian incursion wrought has

rendered more or less questionable all translations from ancient Greek

or Hebrew to a modern dialect; while human pride and prejudice have

lost none of their hold upon the heart of man; it is not in our nature

to believe that God has left us to such a guidance as this principle

asserts, and still holds us responsible for the truth of our opinions

and the purity of our conduct at the peril of our eternal damnation.

And thus each of these principles practically affirms and corroborates

the other, and both unite to overthrow all definite revealed religion,

and to prostrate at the feet of human reason the _dicta_ of the

everlasting God.

The state of heart and will which these principles engender no

lengthened paragraphs are needed to describe. Previous to the age of

discretion, the Protestant child, in spite of these principles, is

compelled to recognize, in religion, an authority external to himself.

His parents, his masters, his catechisms are, in his sight, equally

with the Bible, the teachers of divine truth; and, by their aid and

influence, he arrives at maturity with certain more or less distinctly

formed notions of Christian doctrine, and with certain rules of life

grained into his character by the long course of years. At this period

he is emancipated, in theory, from all external direction, and placed

under the sole guidance of his reason and the Bible. That sacred book

he opens. It has no voice to him of its own. Its pages offer to him

the same words as to all men before him; but those words contain no

meaning independent of the meaning that he gives them. It places

before him the formal statement of all doctrine; but teaches him, as

absolutely and infallibly true, no one specific dogma which, whether

consistent with his present views or not, he must receive. That which

interprets, not that which is interpreted, is ever the real teacher;

and, in his case, his privates judgment, trained and biassed by the

prejudices and conclusions of a lifetime, utters the only voice and

defines the only doctrine which it is possible for him to hear or to

receive. The Scripture does not teach him new and otherwise

undiscoverable truth. It rather confirms and expresses the truth,

which is already accepted and declared. The oracle, whose utterance is

the indisputable law, speaks from the depths of his interior being.

The Bible is a mere "phrase-book," in which it finds the words and

symbols fitted to convey its thought. The divine authority dwells in

the _man_, not in the _volume_. He holds the sacred book before the

mirror of his reason. The image it presents, however imperfect or

deformed, becomes to him the truth of the Eternal Word. He casts the

pure wheat of God between the millstones of his human judgment and his

human loves. The grist they grind is all the bread he has whereon to

feed his soul. It is not difficult to see that, by the process of

investigation, every man must become the worshipper of a God who is as

truly his own handiwork as is the brazen idol of the Hindoo or the

living Buddha of Sha-Ssa.

Some of the better class of Protestant minds have perceived this. A

few of the most fearless have declared it, and received, in

consequence, the name of "_infidels_" from their less logical and less

consistent brethren. "_Belief_," says Mr. Emerson, "consists in the

acceptance of the affirmations of the soul; unbelief in their denial."

The English language might be exhausted and no better definition given

of Protestant belief than this. When once the soul--that is, the

reason, {467} the affections, and the will--when once the _soul_

affirms; when once those affirmations are _expressed in Scripture

phraseology_, no Protestant can venture to pronounce them ultimately

untrue without destroying the hold principle on which his own faith

has been built. That many have done so is only evidence that the grace

of God within them rebels against this degradation of a Gospel which

the Eternal Son died in order to inaugurate, and which his church has

battled earth and hell for fifty generations in order to preserve.

The office which the heart and will perform in this religious work is

simply one of _choice_. The element of submission to divine authority

is only so far exercised as consists in the acceptance of Scripture

phrases as the vehicle of individual conclusions. To no extent is the

_formal, detailed idea_ indebted for existence to other than the

intellect, the affections, the will of the believer. He _chooses_ his

dogma for his precept according to the dictates of his reason;

receiving this, denying that, on the sole ground of their consistency

with preconceived ideas; and, anon, discarding old faiths and adopting

new as time and circumstances operate upon his heart and mind. And it

is nothing singular to see him wandering from Tractarianism down to

Unitarianism--from Calvinism to Universalism--and back again,

stopping perchance at Methodism or Congregationalism on the way;

clinging to his Bible all the while, triumphantly pointing to this

paragraph as proving that he is right at last, and as triumphantly

declaring the reverse when a few steps forward have landed him upon

the other side. All this and more--unless, indeed, his inner life

lays at the door of his professions the charge of conscious falsehood,

and underneath his soul is bent the arm of an authority whose very

existence his theory has totally denied.

No truer definition, no better example of _heresy_ than such a

spectacle affords, has any age of Christianity presented. "[Greek

text]" meant "choice." The grand distinction between the heretic and

the Christian resides in this: that the one chooses doctrine to suit

himself, the other receives doctrine on the authority of God. That

Protestantism is choice--nay, that it logically _compels_ choice to

every individual in it, cannot admit a question. It is, therefore,

heresy; not, perhaps, in the most odious sense of the word, but still

in that strict etymological signification which is the best clue to

the appropriate application of the name. Like all other heretics, of

whatever sect, the Protestant relies upon himself. He is his own

Bible-maker, his own doctrine-monger, his own law-giver. Faith and

theology and moral law are only the result of his own private judgment

and divine command, moulded and digested into one confused and

contradicting mass of good and evil.

It is to his deliverance from this spiritual state that the name

_conversion_ alone properly belongs.

Catholicity, on the other hand, is also based upon two principles,

which are the logical postulates of its existence, and whose necessary

developments will account for the immeasurable contrast which its

severe and holy tranquillity presents to the seething and tumultuous

incoherency around it. The first of these is this: that the truths

with which alone revealed religion deals, are in their nature _above_

human reason, and though never _contradicting_ it, cannot by it be

estimated, comprehended, or discerned, but rest upon the sole veracity

of a revealing God. The second is: that God has chosen and appointed,

as the medium of this unerring revelation, a visible, organized

society, founded by Jesus Christ, presided over by the Holy Ghost,

perpetuated through all ages by his own impregnable decree; and that

this society is the Catholic Church. The inevitable consequence of the

first principle is: that revealed truth, as such, is ultimately and

infallibly true, and whether or not consistent {468} with private

judgment, prejudice, and present conviction, must be received and

heartily believed. The inevitable consequence of the second is: that

whatever the church teaches as revealed truth, is so revealed, is

therefore ultimately true, and must be rested on implicitly as the

infallible utterance of God.

The result of this first principle has been that the wonderful, and

often ludicrous, admixture of divine and human truth, which may be

found in the religion of many Protestants, is utterly impossible to

Catholics. With all the questions of natural religion, as

distinguished from revealed; with all the theorems of science and of

art; with the dark mysteries of nature and the still darker mysteries

of man; nay, even with those inferences from divine truth which make

up systems of theology, reason is competent to deal. It may pierce the

glittering nebulae of the Milky Way; it may fathom the recesses of the

ocean and cleave the crystal bowels of the world; it may climb the

dizzy heights of intellectual philosophy; it may conquer the vast

problems of political and social happiness. But here its journey ends.

When it stands beside that boundless sea which rolls between the

finite and the infinite, it finds no bark to bear it outward. Of all

that lies beyond, its eye, its ear, its touch remains insensible. It

can but sit down on the hither shore and wait for light--the light of

revelation. [Footnote 148]

[Footnote 148: The able writer of this article certainly does not

intend to deny the competence of reason to judge of the evidence of

revelation, or to judge that any proposition evidently contradictory

to reason cannot be a revealed truth.--Ed. Catholic World.]

Reason is limited from above. Revelation is limited from below. In the

mysteries of God, in the supernatural, and in questions of _faith_,

her voice is law: and where it is law, it is absolute, unconditional,

indisputable. Free as the thought of God is man's thought everywhere

but there. There he must put his shoes from off his feet and listen

and obey. The ground he treads is holy. The voice he hears is that

which spoke of old out of the burning bush. He cannot gainsay God.

And thus it is that, practically, Catholics are so free in all matters

except those pertaining to religion. The line is drawn so clearly and

so definitely between what _is_ and what _is not_ of faith, that not

in one mind in ten thousand is there ever the slightest doubt as to

what must be received and what may be disputed. The consolation given

by this simple maxim: "_If God has not revealed it, I need not believe

it; but if God has declared it, whether or not I understand it, it is

surely true_."--when once incorporated into the guiding principles of

the heart, as in the case of every true Catholic it entirely is,

repays the soul for those dark hours of Protestant doubting and

perplexity, by contrast with which it can alone be truly valued.

The result of the second of these principles has been the perfect

unity of Catholics in doctrine and in morals. The voice of the church

is the voice of God. She is a living teacher. She does not hide her

truths in languages whose meaning sages only can unfold. She speaks to

every man _in his own vernacular_, and proposes to him not only the

_formularies_, but _the exact ideas_ which make up the Christian

faith. She is not confined to general statements, under whose vague

phraseology notions the most opposite may be concealed. She enters

into all the infinite details which every proposition of divine truth

embraces, and prints it in the same unvarying form upon the souls of

men. With the millions who are gone before she has thus labored. With

the millions who are yet alive she is thus laboring to-day. And all,

in their submission to her teaching, have found that perfect concord

of doctrine which the gospel promised to the faithful flock of Christ,

and testify to the eternal wisdom of that God who placed his church

upon the earth to set at naught the foolishness of man.

{469}

In a religion such as this there can be no room for _choice_. To the

church heresy is evermore a name of execration and of horror. The

heart and will of her disciples have but one exercise, and that is

submission. Unconditionally, unquestioningly, unprotestingly, they bow

before her voice and echo its decrees. Reason is quiescent. Where it

cannot comprehend, it passes by. Faith grasps the mystery and lays it

on the heart to be its law for ever. The soul has but one inquiry for

every dogma, for every precept: "_Teacher of God, what hast thou

spoken?_" The teacher answers and the soul obeys.

Such is Catholicity. It is the antithesis of Protestantism. Whatever

similarity may exist in certain of their doctrines, in their ultimate,

essential natures they are simple opposites. The void between them is

as vast as that through which the First-born of the morning fell; the

dividing lines as sharp and as precipitate as the high cliffs which

bound the tides of Acheron. That "_via media_," along which the easy

traveller may walk secure, rejoicing in the sunlight of both earth and

heaven, is a fond, foolish dream. The church knows but two modes of

existence in reference to herself, submission and rebellion; and even

reason teaches that her judgment, on this point, is unimpeachable.

Through all that weary journey which lies between these nether worlds

of spiritual being the convert's feet must tread. When God's grace

finds him, he is a Protestant--perhaps so pure and logical as to be

standing on the shores of rationalism and looking at his own soul as

his source of light--perhaps so inconsistent and so self-deceived as

to acknowledge an authority which his fundamental Protestantism

denies. But whether from the external Saharas of Christian scepticism,

or whether from beneath the shadow of the truth itself, the path he

follows leads him to one goal, the goal of unconditional submission.

Conversion may come to him through the successive adoption of Catholic

dogmas, through fondness for external rites and forms, through

personal friendship and familiarity, through any of those myriad ways

by which God leads the steps of his elect toward heaven; but, when it

comes, it is the same change for each, for every one--the abnegation

of all choice and self-affirmation, and the complete subjection of the

heart and will to the obedience of faith. Then, and then only, is the

work ended and conversion made complete. What the church teaches is,

from that hour, the faith of that Christian heart. What the church

commands is the law of that Christian will. Doubt and hesitation and

self-following are of the days gone by, and his devotion to the

church, as God's teacher, is only rivalled by his love for her as the

home of God's elect. The waters of the deluge roar and dash around his

mighty ark of safety, and men and women, as they clamber up the rugged

mountains of their own devices, laugh at him for his ignorance and

folly; but he abides in peace, when the dark waves have overtopped

them and engulfed them, and will live to offer sacrifice on Ararat

when the days of divine searching have passed by.

The utter falsehood of those definitions of conversion which we have

denied, becomes apparent from this description of what conversion is.

There is no inherent impossibility that a pure Protestant, exercising

to the fullest extent the right of private judgment, should arrive at

doctrines identical with those which the church teaches, and should,

as a result of this identity, accept even her formularies as

expressive of his faith. The mystery of the Trinity, than which no

mystery is greater, is thus received by the majority of Protestants;

and there is nothing in the doctrines of Transubstantiation.

Purgatory, and the like, which is unreachable by the same process of

scriptural investigation, unaided by the conscious teachings of the

{470} church. There can be no doubt that men have, by this method,

approximated closely to Catholic doctrine, who yet were wholly

actuated by Protestant principles, and never dreamed of submitting

heart and will and reason to the dictation of any authority whatever.

These men apparently hang over the church, ready to drop like ripe

fruit into her open bosom. Nevertheless, whatever of her symbolism

they may cherish, they cherish, not because it is _hers_, but because

it is _their own_. It is not truth which _she_ has taught them; _they_

have discovered it themselves. It brings them no nearer to her in

heart. It does not subject their _will_ to hers. On the contrary; it

often begets in them an arrogance of her divine security, as if their

similarity to her constituted them her equals in the authority of God.

Such men are not with the church, whatever proximity they seem to

have. Their boast of Catholicity deceives many, and most frequently

themselves, but can delude none who realize to what humility her true

children must descend, and how unquestioningly, when God speaks, man

must hear. The prayers of the faithful are more needed for such souls

than for any others, that God would send them the disposition, as well

as the light of faith.

Of the various corollaries which might be drawn from this

demonstration of the real nature of conversion, there is but one which

time and space allow us to notice. That one is this: That the whole

question between Catholics and Protestants is one of fact and not

primarily of doctrine; and can, like any other fact, be investigated

and proved by human evidence. On one side, it is asserted that faith

and morals are of comparative indifference to salvation, and that no

source of divine light exists on earth higher than that of scripture,

interpreted and judged by reason. On the other side, it is claimed

that whatever God has revealed must be received without question or

contradiction, and that the organized society known as the Catholic

Church is the mouthpiece and medium of that revelation. This covers

the whole point in issue. If, as a matter of fact, the first assertion

is correct, Protestants are secure in their acceptance or denial of

any or of all articles of specific Christian doctrine. If the second

is true, the teachings of the Catholic Church must be received

implicitly, under peril of disobedience to God. The question of the

truth of particular dogmas, or of the obligation of certain codes of

law, is entirely foreign to this issue. If the church is right,

transubstantiation, the immaculate conception, the seven sacraments,

are matters not to be _discussed_ or _proven_, but to be _believed_.

If she is wrong, they are simply of no consequence whatever. Any

investigation which escapes this only real point in controversy will

be in vain. Inquiry must begin here and end here, or else result in

making men either bad Catholics or stronger Protestants than ever.

This "question of questions" is to be answered by logical

demonstration based on certain facts. As a historical work, the Bible

is a sufficient witness of the visible and audible facts which it

records; and the miracles of of Christ therein related establish his

personal divine commission and the entire reliability of the

declarations which he made. As historical works also, the writings of

his immediate disciples are a sufficient witness of their

understanding of his teachings, and of the actions which, in pursuance

of that understanding, they performed. If Christ stated that doctrines

and precepts are _not_ conditions of salvation, and placed in the

hands of man the book known as the Bible, with the assurance that he

could safely follow whatever interpretation thereof his human judgment

might give, and if, as so directed, his disciples did _not_ insist on

specific creeds and laws, and _did_ receive and circulate the Bible as

the only organ of revealed truth, then that fact can be ascertained.

If, on {471} the other hand, Christ revealed a certain system of

doctrine, and established certain laws of conduct; if he founded a

church and conferred on her the authority to teach and the right to be

obeyed; and if his followers recognized such an institution, and

uniformly submitted to its authority as divine, then this, as a fact,

can, in its turn, be proved.

To a fair, candid, and complete investigation of this question, in the

light of history, the Catholic Church invites all Protestants

throughout the world; confident that, by the good help of God's grace,

this simple examination, properly conducted, would lead the many

hundred jarring sects of Christendom into a Catholic unity of spirit

and into the bond of a true gospel peace.

--------

From Once a Week.

CHRISTMAS BELL.

In broken notes of sound,

The voice of distant bells

Falls fitfully around,

Borne o'er the rimy dells.

Anon in wailing tones

It breaks against the breeze,

Or in sad accents moans

Amidst the shivering trees.

In fragments o'er the glades

It falls, or floats aloft;

Then trumulously fades

In echoes low and soft.

But other, nearer chimes,

In laughing octaves run,

In memory of old times.

And what the days have done.

Then changing, clang and wail

Up in their prison high.

And sob and groan and rail

At their captivity.

Ringing:--flinging wild notes everywhere!

Clanging:--hanging discord in the air!

Chiming:--rhyming words from brazen throat!

Pealing:--stealing o'er the meadows and the moat!

Dying:--sighing gently as a child!

Floating:--gloating o'er their tumult wild!

Swinging:--springing suddenly to life!

Surging:--urging nature into strife!

Laughing:--quaffing the sweet and eager air!

Groaning:--moaning in a weird note of despair!

{472}

Yes, how they sigh,

And seemed to die:

But like expiring ember,

At slightest breath

They leap from death,

And wrestle with December!

Oh, 'tis strange

How they change,

In rhythmus and in measure,

Now tolling sad.

Now almost mad,

With throbbing pulse of pleasure.

But not long thus,--the ringers soon

Will catch the proper metre,

Staccato first; then rippling tune

Grows every moment sweeter.

Away, away, the music flies.

O'er mead and wold and river,

Arpeggio movement shakes the skies.

And makes the belfry quiver.

Away, away, the cheerful sound

Flies with its Christmas greeting.

And laughs along the icy ground.

Where snow-drops pale are peeping.

The crocus, hearing chimes of mirth.

Puts on her brightest yellow,

What cares she for the frosty earth.

When peals ring out so mellow?

The blackbird, in a love-lorn mood,

Is pecking at red berries.

But hark! those joy-bells make her food

As sweet as summer cherries.

In truth all nature hears the strains,

With heart of honest gladness;

They ring surcease of human pains,

And ring--a death to sadness.

They ring of friendship, and the grasp

Of hands in manly greeting;

They ring the softer tender clasp

Of Love and Psyche meeting.

They ring oblivion of the years

Whose sunset was in sorrow;

They drown in waves of sound, the fears

That cloud the dawn to-morrow.

{473}

They ring the affluent table spread.

They ring of that sweet maiden

Who comes, with modest silent tread,

With gifts for poor folk laden.

They ring in tones more sweet than all

Of hopes the Cross has given,

And then their glad notes rise and fall.

Like Christmas bells in Heaven.

------

ORIGINAL.

THE GODFREY FAMILY; OR, QUESTIONS OF THE DAY.