dragons to be in the habit of spouting fire out of their mouths,
get the muzzles of short muskets adorned with the effigies of
these monsters, and therewith armed some troops of horse. The
early dragoons discharged the duties of infantry and cavalry. The
Scots Grays formed in 1683 were the earliest British dragoons.]
"Hereabouts were the first English planted in Ireland. They were a
colony of west-countrymen, and retain their old English tone and
customs to this day. I am credibly informed that every day about one
or two o'clock in summer, they go to bed, the whole country round;
nay, the very hens fly up and the sheep go to fold as orderly as it
were night." [Footnote 203]
[Footnote 203: The people of "the barony" are the descendants of a
Flemish colony who had settled in Wales at the invitation of Henry
I. Beans were the favorite crop, and dry bean-stalks furnished
their chief fuel. If the gossip of the inhabitants of the northern
part of the county could be credited, the barony of Forth formerly
furnished priests for all Ireland.]
{711}
Good Mr. Story was as fond of a bit of picturesque or romantic hearsay
as Herodotus himself. The well-to-do farmers really indulged in a
siesta, but as to the degeneracy of manners among the hens and sheep
we are altogether incredulous. Some time before the _Ninety-Eight_,
household and village councils were held for a month in a townland of
the barony to decide whether a farmer, to whom a legacy had been left
in Dublin, should relinquish his right to it, or encounter the risks
of the journey to the city. At last it was decided that prayers were
to be solemnly offered up for his safety in all the neighboring
churches and chapels, and then let him in God's name brave the perils
of the way.
A good deal of irresolution prevailed at this time in William's
proceedings. Ill news came rife across the water, and at one time he
retraced his route even as far as Chapelizod with the intention of
crossing to England. There, however, he received tidings which
reassured him, and he returned to the camp at Golden Bridge, which he
reached on the 2d of August. On the 8th General Douglas arrived, and
on the 9th the united forces approached the Irish stronghold.
INTERIOR OF THE IRISH COUNCILS.
The Irish and French chiefs who had collected to Limerick after the
day at the Boyne were far from being of the same opinions or
aspirations. According to Colonel O'Kelly, Tyrconnell desired nothing
more than to give up Limerick and all the other garrisons to King
William, and Count de Lauzun was more anxious to get back to that
centre of delights, the city of Paris, than co-operate in the defence
of their present hold, which, he said, required only a smart discharge
of roasted apples to be made listen to terms.
THE PARLEY BEFORE THE FIGHT.
Limerick, now apparently devoted to destruction, consisted of an
island within two arms of the Shannon, and a smaller area outside
called the Irish-town, both portions being connected by Ball's-bridge.
King's Island was and is connected with the Clare side of the river by
'I'homond-bridge, and contains a legacy left by King John in the shape
of a castle. William's people set to work forming batteries and
trenches as well as the balls coming from the ramparts of' Irish-town
would allow them, and the moment they were ready they proceeded to
exchange iron and leaden compliments with the folk behind the
parapets.
Hostilities, however, did not really begin till some civil
communications had taken place on both sides. A herald-trumpeter,
blowing his instrument and displaying his white flag, entered the city
with a polite request to the authorities to surrender the place.
Monsieur Boiselieu, chief in command, calling the Duke of Berwick and
Major-General Sarsfield to council, indited a politely expressed
letter to Sir Robert Southwell, secretary of state, in which was
implied some wonder at the request, and a determination on his part,
and that of his officers and soldiers, to gain the good opinion of the
Prince of Orange by defending the city against his forces while
defence was feasible. On the return of the trumpeter firing began, the
king inspecting the hot business from Cromwell's fort.
Story says that a Frenchman, escaping into the city the day the enemy
sat down before it, gave accurate information to Sarsfield of the
complete economy of the English camp, and of a battering-train, tin
boats, wagons of biscuits; etc., approaching William's camp from
Dublin. {712} Part of the sequel is given in his own words:
"Monday the 11th in the morning, came one _Manus O'Brien_ a
substantial country gentleman to the camp, and gave notice that
_Sarsfield_ in the night had passed the river with a body of horse,
and designed something extraordinary. . . . . The messenger that
brought the news was not much taken notice of at first, most people
looking on it as a dream. A great officer however called him aside,
and after some indifferent questions, askt him about a prey of
cattel in such a place, which the gentleman complained of
afterwards, saying he was sorry to see general officers mind cattel
more than the king's honour. But after he met with some acquaintance
he was brought to the king, who, to prevent the worst, gave orders
that a party of five hundred horse should be made ready, and march
to meet the guns. . . . Where the fault lay, I am no competent
judge, but it certainly was one or two of the clock in the morning
before the party marched, which they then did very softly till about
an hour after they saw------"
What shall be told farther on.
SARSFIELD'S GREAT FEAT.
"From Limerick that day bould Sarsfield dashed away,
Until he came to Cullen where their artillery lay;
The Lord cleared up the firmament, the moon and stars shone bright,
And for the Battle of the Boyne be had revenge that night."
Poor John Banim inserted these stirring lines in his romance of the
Boyne Water as belonging to an old ballad; we suspect them to have
been his own composition. Whoever might have given Sarsfield
information--a rapparee was as likely as the Frenchman mentioned by
the chaplain--he crossed Thomond-bridge at the head of five hundred
horse on Sunday night as soon as it was sufficiently dark, and the
party moved up as noiselessly as they could along the western bank of
the Shannon to Killaloe, or _Killalow_, as Rev. Mr. Story spells it.
There they crossed the river and penetrated among the Tipperary
mountains, over which the Keeper and the "Mother of Mountains" towered
in pride. Among the hills they spent the rest of the night and the
whole of the next day, being kept aware of the movements of the convoy
which meantime was working its slow way along the Cashel road. Toward
evening Sarsfield and a few who were most in his confidence, lying
among the dry grass and fern of the hill-pass since called
Lacken-na-Gapple (_Lagan-na-Capal_, "Hollow of the Horses"), were
inspecting the last stage of the convoy. At that hour the train had
passed the village of Cullen, and were about taking their rest on and
about the road leading up to the grassy platform on which stood the
old fortalice of Ballyneedy. This was about five miles from the
mountain pass where the Jacobite general was on the watch. He waited
as patiently as he could till the sun had sunk some time behind the
Galteigh mountains, and the watch-fires began to glimmer from the
encampment.
The watch-word that night among the wearied men and their sentinels
was SARSFIELD, an ill-omened coincidence. How the party conspiring
their destruction found it out is not so very apparent; but when the
officers were asleep in the waste castle, and the soldiers by their
wagons, Sarsfield's men sang out the password to the sentinel placed
in advance of the village, to the sentinels in the village, and to the
sentinels immediately in advance of the unconscious groups. There the
commander thundered out "Sarsfield is the word, and Sarsfield is the
man." Deafening shouts came from the rushing horsemen, and of the
awakened slumberers some were slain gallantly resisting, a few
escaped, and a few others got quarter. The spoils consisted or eight
pieces of heavy battering-cannon, five mortars with their carriages, a
hundred and fifty-three wagons of ammunition, twelve carts loaded with
biscuit, eighteen tin boats for the passage of rivers, and all the
cart and cavalry horses.
The commander, wisely judging that troops were at the moment marching
from Limerick to interrupt his plans, had the cannons charged to the
mouth and set in the earth, muzzle downward. {713} These he surrounded
with the wagons and their contents, and skifully laid trains of powder
were not neglected. The successful party then withdrawing to a safe
distance--they needed a wide berth, taking the quantity of powder into
account--set fire at once to the lines of powder, and at one and the
same moment all the contents of the great guns and the
ammunition-carts were ignited. There was an intolerable blaze, a roar
and its reverberations; accompanied by a blowing up in the air of
pieces of metal and blazing wood, and the combined effect was sublime
and terrible beyond conception. The darkest recesses of the mountain
glens were lighted up as in the summer noon, and the shock was felt
for many miles in every direction. Sir John Lanier, who was hastening
when too late to protect the convoy, saw the blaze and heard the
terrible explosion at several miles distance, and comprehended the
terrible disaster in a moment. The concussion was perceptible even in
William's camp at a distance of about thirteen miles, and it is
probable that the general who had "_askt_" Manus O'Brien about the
prey of cartel, felt (to use a provincialism) very lewd of himself.
Sir John Lanier directed his squadron of five hundred horse to the
left to intercept the Irish party, but it was not his fortune to meet
with them, and Sarsfield recrossed the Shannon without the loss of a
man.
The Rev. Mr. Story relates that no one was made prisoner at Ballyneedy
"only a lieutenant of Colonel Earle's, who being sick in a house hard
by, was stripped and brought to Sarsfield, who used him very civilly."
While the Irish chief is snatching a short relaxation after his
successful sortie, and all within the walls are filled with a
momentary joy for the signal benefit, let us introduce a slight sketch
of the career of the brave Earl of Lucan, whose memory is still held
in love and veneration by the great mass of the Irish people, and of
whom no disrespectful word is ever pronounced by the descendants of
the brave men against whom he often waged battle.
SARSFIELD'S CAREER.
The first of the name known in Ireland was Thomas Sarsfield,
standard-bearer to King Henry II. In the reign of Charles I., Patrick,
the then representative of the family, married Anne, daughter of
Ruaighré (Roger) O'Moore, and their children were William and the
subject of our sketch Patrick, who succeeded to the estate on the
death of his brother. "He had received his education in one of the
French military colleges, and saw some early campaigns in the armies
of Louis XIV. His first commission was that of ensign in the regiment
of Monmouth in France, after which he obtained a lieutenancy in the
Royal Guards of England." He commanded for James in one of those
skirmishes which took place with William's Dutch troops on their march
from Torquay. At the commencement of the Irish campaigns his estates
produced £2,000 annual revenue, so that it did not inconvenience him
much to raise a. company of horse. We shall not here touch on his
achievements during the war in Ireland, as these have found, or will
naturally find their places in the course of our narrative. On
arriving in Paris after the treaty of Limerick, "he was received with
kindness and distinction by the ex-king of England and Louis XIV."
"The former appointed him colonel of his body guards, and his most
Christian majesty bestowed on him the rank of lieutenant-general in
the French armies. He might have obtained a marshal's staff had his
life been spared. He fought under Luxembourg at Steenkirk in 1692, .
. . . and on the 29th of July, 1693, a little more than one year and
a half after his voluntary banishment from his own country, he was
killed in the command of a division at the great battle of Landen.
It was a soldier's death on a glorious and memorable field.
{714}
"There are few names more worthy to be inscribed in the roll of
honour than that of Patrick Sarsfield, who may be quoted as a type
of loyalty and patriotic devotion. In the annals of Irish history he
stands as a parallel to Pierre du Terrail, Chevalier de Bayard in
those of France, and may be equally accounted 'Sans peur et sans
reproche,' the fearless and irreproachable knight; in his public
actions firm and consistent; in his private character amiable and
unblemished. . . . (At the end of the war) William III. would gladly
have won his services, and offered to confirm him in his rank and
property; but he listened to no overtures, and left his native
country attended by thousands of that gallant body, who, under the
title of the Irish Brigade, filled the continent of Europe with
their renown." [Footnote 204]
[Footnote 204: "Patrick Sarsfield, Earl of Lucan, a Biography;"
Dublin University Magazine for November, 1853; the writer, John
William Cole, Esq., formerly captain in the Royal Fusiliers. Mary,
sister of the earl, was married to Colonel Rossiter, County
Wexford, and to a lineal descendant of theirs, the gentleman just
mentioned, we are indebted for the only life of Sarsfield yet
given to the world. He could find but scant materials, though it
is supposed they might be made available if the living
representative of an old family of the Pale would take the trouble
of a search among the archives of his house. Mary Sarsfield's
great granddaughter was the wife of Lieutenant (afterward colonel)
James Cockburn, who was on the personal staff of General Wolfe on
the memorable day at Quebec. His portrait (to the right of General
Moncton's) was introduced by West into his picture of the "Death
of Wolfe." He afterward commanded the Thirty-fifth in the American
war of Independence. Colonel Cockburn's daughter, Margaret,
married Thomas Cole, Esq., of Callan, in the county of Kilkenny,
major in the King's Fencibles. Our authority the issue of this
marriage could not resist the martial impulses of his race; so he
smelled powder along with Rev. R. Gleig at Washington and New
Orleans and elsewhere. Since he laid aside the "spurtle blade and
dog-skin wallet," he has usefully employed his leisure hours in
literary composition of a healthful character. We suspect the
papers in the University Magazine on ancient military tactics
illustrated by plans of battles to be his. Among his other
productions are biographies of General Vallancey, Tyrone Power,
and other Irish theatrical celebrities.]
In his Military Memoirs of the Irish Nation, Mathew O'Connor speaks
thus of his military qualifications:
"As a partisan and for a desultory warfare, he possessed admirable
qualifications; brave, patient, vigilant, rapid, indefatigable,
ardent, adventurous, and enterprising; the foremost in encounter,
the last in retreat. He harassed his enemy by sudden, unexpected,
and generally irresistible attacks, inspiring his troops with the
same ardour and contempt of danger with which his own soul was
animated. . . . No general was ever more beloved by his troops."
A SIEGE INCIDENT OR TWO.
Whatever William might have felt on being made acquainted with the
loss of his cannon and ammunition, he said very little on the subject.
He was one of those whose fixed purpose is not to be set aside for
defeat or check. With his battering-train augmented by two great guns
and a mortar from Waterford, he continued to pound the walls day after
day. The trenches were relieved at midnight till the following unlucky
mistake occurred, all the particulars of which are not very
intelligible to civilians:
"Monday 18th August at night the trenches were relieved by
Lieut.-General Douglas, My Lord _Sydney_, and Count _Nassau_, as
major-generals, and Brigadeer _Stuart_. We made our approaches
towards the fort outside the wall, and Lieut.-General _Douglas's_
and Brigadeer _Stuart's_ regiments were posted towards the right. It
was dark when they went on, and they did not perceive the enemy to
be so near them as they really were. [What brought the enemy outside
their walls?] for there was at that time scarce twenty yards
distance between them. They were ordered to lye down upon their arms
which they did, and a great part, both of the officers and soldiers,
fell asleep. The enemy perceived this, and attacked them, which
presently put them into a confusion, and several of them gave
ground, but presently recovered themselves and fired, but did not
know at what. The _Danes_ to the left took our own men for the enemy
sallying, and so fired upon them; they believed the Danes to be the
Irish; and so returned the compliment. The Irish fired upon both,
and they at one another. This confusion lasted nigh two hours, in
which several men were killed; nor did the king or any body else
know what to make of it. At last our men found their mistake, and
the Irish were beat in, crying 'quarter' and 'murder' as they used
to do. After this his majesty ordered the trenches to be relieved in
the day, and our men marched always in and out in the very face of
their cannon."
If truth lies in a well, it is a pity she should make choice of a
muddy one, where her contours and lineaments are so admirably
confused. Hear another version by John Banim, the novelist, from what,
if any, authority we know not:
"While day after day the battering, at this one point continued, the
garrison made a midnight sortie upon the besiegers. Taken by
surprise, and thrown into such confusion as to be unable to discern
friend from foe, they attacked each other, and the Irish {715}
having retreated unperceived, so continued until the morning light
showed them their mistake and the shocking havoc that resulted from
it."
Our chaplain did not much relish that classic and severe style of
composition which critics assigned to a great historical work.
Moreover he was ever as ready as Homer to introduce a gossiping or
traditional episode, and repose his pen from the dry or terrible
details of the main course of events.
On the 19th of the month King William had another providential escape.
He was riding slowly up toward Cromwell's fort, when, as he was
entering a gap, an officer stayed him about some business. Within a
second or two after the pause of the horse's feet, a cannon-ball swept
through the spot where he and his horse would have been but for the
interruption.
All this time the people within the walls were in ill-condition, their
diet consisting of beans, or very coarse bread, and the enemy's
mortars throwing bombs and carcasses among them with little
interruption. These things disturbed them much, as Mr. Story says, for
they had not seen the like before. The round or oval iron carcasses
which flashed forth through it's holes a fierce and inextinguishable
fire for some eight or ten minutes was nearly as terrible as the bomb.
Still they doggedly held on, and made no complaint; Sarsfield's energy
and hopeful spirits kept up their courage. The chaplain relates with a
sort of remorseful feeling how his party and himself enjoyed the
burning of a part of the town one night by the bombs and red-hot
balls, "which made me reflect upon our profession of soldiery not to
be overcharged with good nature."
HOW LIMERICK AS ASSAILED AND DEFENDED.
By the 27th of the month, a twelve yards breach being made in the wall
of Irishtown, and William looking on from Cromwell's fort, the
grenadiers, supported on either side by Dutch, Danes, and
Brandenburghers, on hearing a signal of three cannon-shots, sprang out
of their trenches, and cheering loudly, dashed forward to the glacis.
[Footnote 205] They were hotly received from the covered way, whose
occupants mounting the banquette, and resting their muskets on the
edge of the glacis, poured a shower of balls among them; and the guns
on the ramparts, great and small, volleying fast and fiercely, made
wide lanes among the brave fellows. However, the guns from Cromwell's
fort, enfilading the ramparts, soon silenced the engines of death
stationed there, and the grenadiers, undaunted by the thinning of
their ranks, gained the glacis, sprang into the covered way, and after
a terrible struggle forced the defenders from that post, from their
trenches in the ditch, and over the breach into the city.
[Footnote 205: For the behoof of young renders not conversant with
the outworks of besieged towns, a few explanatory words are given.
Outside the strong walls is a wide and deep, dry ditch. The sloping
side from which the wall rises is the scarp, the opposite slope is
the counterscarp, its upper line meeting with the platform called
the covered way. This covered way is about thirty feet wide, its
outward boundary being the face of the glacis or sloping plane, this
last so situated that men marching along it to attack the fortress
are in the direct range of the guns. The level of the glacis is
higher than that of the covered way by seven or eight feet. The
defenders standing on a small terrace called the banquette at the
base of the glacis, and resting their muskets on its edge, can fire
on the advancing foe.]
The guns on the ramparts to the right of the breach being silenced,
the firing from the Danes and Dutch on the flanks of the storming
party did considerable damage to those on the ramparts and in the
ditch, but the guns of a fort constructed in King's Island opened on
the foreigners, killed many, and afforded some relief to the
defenders. While these were mowing each other down at a distance, the
grenadiers, driving their opponents across the breach, cheered
lustily, and flung in their hand-grenades, whose bursting and
destructive iron shower were ill calculated to recall the
self-possession of the fugitives. But the pikes and bayonets of their
follows in shelter, now levelled full at their breasts, were {716} as
much to be dreaded as what they expected from behind. Over the breach
and inward dashed Lord Drogheda's grenadiers, but a battery snugly
placed in front of the yawning breach on stones, timber, earth, and
other stuff, all at once belched out a storm of grape upon them, and
after struggling for some time, a second discharge sent them back over
the ruins and into the ditch.
But no dastard feeling was to be found among the survivors.
Re-enforced by new comrades who had yet done nothing, they returned
once more to the assault, flung their grenades, and cleared the
tumbled masses of lime and stone. Undaunted by the havoc made among
them by a fresh discharge, they rushed on the battery, effectually
silenced it, and now looked on the capture of the town as certain. But
here they were met by fresh and untired foes, who being kept to that
moment in inaction by Sarsfield, now rushed on from either side, and a
dreadful struggle commenced, the badly armed defenders showering
volleys of stones where more effective weapons were not at command,
the mere townsmen and their wives and daughters mingling fiercely in
the desperate fray. Those who had pushed on the furthest were slain to
a man, neither asking nor receiving quarter, and the others, after
effecting everything in the power of energy and dauntless courage,
were for the second time driven forth from the rescued city.
"From the walls and every place (we quote our chaplain) they so
pestered us on the counterscarp (properly the covered way), that
after nigh three hours resisting bullets, stones (broken bottles
from the very women who boldly stood in the breach, and were nearer
our men than their own), and whatever ways could be thought on to
destroy us, our ammunition being spent, it was judged safest to
return to our trenches. When the work was at the hottest, the
_Brandenburgh_ regiment, who behaved themselves very well, were got
upon the black battery, where the enemie's powder hapned to take
fire, and blew up a great many of them, the men, faggots, stones,
and whatnot, flying into the air with a most terrible noise."
In some Jacobite memoirs mention is made of a sortie made by Sarsfield
and his driving the wearied assaulters to their camp, and their
rescuing many of the enemy from an hospital which had taken fire. The
exploit is overlooked by the chaplain, who thus concludes his short
account of the day:
"The king stood nigh _Cromwell's_ fort all the time, and the
business being over, he went to his camp very much concerned, as
indeed was the whole army, for you might have seen a mixture of
anger and sorrow in every bodie's countenance."
William thus disappointed of bringing the Irish issue to a conclusion,
and his presence being much needed in England, drew off his forces,
and he himself made little delay till he set sail from Waterford to
make matters in London comfortable, and keep a sharp lookout on the
unfriendly proceedings of his bitter foeman, Louis XIV.
In September Count Solmes, who was left in command after William's
departure, went to England, and Ginckell succeeded to his office. A
better choice could not have been made; he established his
head-quarters at Kilkenny.
TYRCONNELL'S POLICY.
Tyrconnell, who all along was no better than a drag on his party, who
desired peace in order to secure his own estates, and who was accused
of holding secret correspondence with William, sailed to France soon
after the siege of Limerick. Previous to his departure he appointed
the young Duke of Berwick commander-in-chief; giving him twelve
councillors to aid him with their advice. Some of these were men after
Tyrconnell's own heart, such as in our own days are called
_Cawtholics_ by their own party. Sarsfield happened to be among them,
because, if he were not, Tyrconnell's arrangements would have been
little regarded by the men of heart and head among the loyalists.
Count O'Kelly declares that Tyrconnell's reasons for repairing to the
presence of Kings Louis and James were to nullify tile {717} effect
that the gallant defence of Limerick might have made upon their minds.
He would so twist and remould circumstances as to show that there was
not a shadow of hope for ultimate success. James appears to have long
entertained the notion of recovering England by losing Ireland, hence
his enduring patronage of Tyrconnell. Berwick was influenced, of
course, by what he knew were the cherished wishes of his father and
his father's favorite, and by his inaction, and want of cordial
co-operation with Sarsfield and the others, who, like him, were in
earnest, did all that in him lay to make General Ginckell's task easy.
On more than one occasion the Irish party were about deposing the
young duke, but he managed by a show of compliance to still retain his
power.
In September of this year the brave soldier but faithless adherent,
Lord Churchill, afterward Duke of Marborough, took Cork, which the
Duke of Berwick had previously advised the brave M. Elligot to burn,
and then retire to Kerry, as its defence seemed hopeless. He rather
chose to hold it out for five days. The Duke of Grafton, a natural son
of Charles II., and who bequeathed his name to the Bond street of
Dublin, commanding the navy, perished at the siege, fighting against
his uncle's supporters. Marlborough next marched against Kinsale,
which he entered without opposition, but the new fort commanded by Sir
Edmund Scott held out for twenty days.
THE RAPPAREES: UNCOMFORTABLE WINTER QUARTERS, 1690.
Those patriotic and troublesome light-armed irregulars, the rapparees,
continued during the decline and fall of the year 1690 to do the
English in Leinster and Munster much mischief by unexpectedly visiting
places supplied with provisions, either cattle or corn, and carrying
off all they could seize. So General Ginckell finding himself
straitened, conceived the idea of effecting a settlement in Kerry,
from which Limerick obtained much provender. With this object he
directed Lieutenant-General Douglas to march on Sligo, and take it if
possible, at all events to move down the west bank of the Shannon, and
co-operate with Colonel Richard Brewer, then at Mullingar, in attempts
to pass the river at Jamestown and Lanesboro' above, and Banagher
below Athlone. While the attention of King James's generals would be
drawn to these proceedings in the north and east, Major-General Tettau
would quietly proceed from Cork into Kerry, and take possession of
that ancient "kingdom," seconded in his expedition if necessary by
forces from Clonmel under the brave Ginckell himself. The advance was
really made, and skirmishes and attacks of forts ensued, and after
all, the English forces were withdrawn, leaving matters pretty much as
before, except the damage mutually inflicted. Some desultory
encounters took place on the east bank of the Shannon between portions
of the hostile forces, and the rapparees improved every opportunity of
despoiling the English foe, and collecting munitions into their boggy
or hilly retreats. There are sufficient materials for a dozen romances
in the adventures of Maccabe, Grace, O'Higgins, O'Callaghan,
O'Kavanagh, the White Sergeant, Galloping Hogan. The last-named worthy
indeed figures in the two standard romances of the Jacobite wars which
we are happy to possess. It may be supposed that the deeds of these
heroes smelt unsavorily in the nostrils of our chaplain, who thus
descanted both in sorrow and anger on their proceedings. He prefaced
his remarks with an expression of Lord Baltimore to King James I.,
namely, that "the Irish were a wicked people, and had been as wickedly
dealt withal," and conscientiously adds, "I make no application of the
expression to ourselves, the most people that have been in that
country know how to do it."
{718}
One expedition of some moment was made by Colonel Foulkes into an
island in the Bog of Allen. This was connected by two toghers or
causeways to two points on the dry land, one of them being furnished
with twelve trenches. These the brave colonel, who brought three
field-pieces along with him, was obliged to fill up one after the
other. When he arrived he found Colonel Piper, who had approached by
the other causeway. The rapparee garrison had all carefully retreated
into the woods when they became aware of their danger, leaving, as Mr.
Story says, "only some little things for the invaders."
Of course no quarter was ever extended to the poor rapparees. However,
the usual forbearance was exhibited by the regular forces on both
sides toward each other. Opposite Lanesboro, on the other side of the
Shannon, were posted three regiments of Irish, with the duty of
watching the English on the east bank, during some days in December;
and (in Mr. Story's words) "then little hapned of moment only some
small firings, and sometimes they made truces, Colonel _Clifford_ and
the other Irish officers drinking healths over to our men, and those
on the other side returning the compliment."
It never entered the mind of the warlike chaplain to throw a halo of
interest round one of his rapparee chiefs, though some were perhaps
more worthy of the name of hero than Redmond O'Hanlon or Rob Roy. They
were contemporaries of his, and were directing their chief energies to
bring his master's rule in Ireland to an end. So it was against nature
that he could see in them anything but "thieves, robbers, tories, and
bogg-trotters."
The most distinguished of the heads of these free companies was
Anthony O'Carroll, named _Fadh_ from his great height. After the first
siege of Limerick he fixed his head-quarters at Nenagh, and
_discomforted_ the English and their allies from that period to the
beginning of the second siege. Though he or any of his followers if
taken prisoners would be hung according to the laws of war, without
mercy, he observed a different demeanor to his captives. Those who had
money ransomed themselves; others were kept as prisoners. When he
found himself crowded by his foes after the day at Aughrim, he set
fire to the town, and brought his garrison of 500 men safe to Limerick
Mr. Story says that he was able to collect 2,000 men to his banner at
any moment while he ruled at Nenagh.
--------
ORIGINAL.
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
SERMONS PREACHED AT THE CHURCH OF
ST. PAUL, THE APOSTLE, NEW YORK,
during the years 1865 and 1866. 12mo,
pp. 440. New York: Lawrence Kehoe.
The new volume of Sermons by the Paulist Fathers, which Mr. Kehoe has
just issued in a very neat and tasteful shape, derives a special
interest from the fact that it contains several of the hitherto
unpublished discourses of the Rev. Francis A. Baker. In the earnest,
vigorous, affectionate sermons on Penance, on the miracle of Pardon,
on the power of the Holy Ghost as exemplified in good Christians, and
on the duty of Thankfulness, it is easy to recognize the impulses of
that beautiful soul which has now gone to its reward. We have spoken
before of the characteristics of Father Baker's preaching. Here is an
extract, taken at random from the first of the four discourses which
we have mentioned:
"Do you know, my brethren, what it is that consoles the priest in
his labors in the confessional? Why does he shut himself in that
dark closet for hours? Ah! I will tell you, Like Elias in the cave
of Horeb, he is watching for the manifestation of God; and as the
prophet found the power of God, not in {719} the tempest or the
earthquake, but in the still small voice, so the priest finds the
greatest work of God, the most beautiful, that which consoles him
for every sacrifice; not in the works of nature, not in sensible
things, however great; but in the still small voice of the
trembling, self-accusing soul, that has really come to shake off the
slavery of sin, and to claim once more, through the blood of Christ,
the glorious liberty of the children of God. Beautiful is the earth
and sky, and glorious is the jewelled city of God; but if I may say
what I think, I do not believe in all God's universe there is a work
so stupendous, so grand, so beautiful, as the conversion of a
sinner.
"Well, then, does St. Augustine say, that to convert a sinner is a
greater work than to create heaven and earth. Well do the saints cry
out, Glory and empire for ever to Jesus Christ, who has loved us and
washed us from our sins in his own blood! Well do the angels in
heaven rejoice over one sinner that does penance. It is a thing for
heaven and earth to wonder at. But, my brethren, it does not speak
well for us that we think so little of it. It shows that we have
very imperfect ideas of the evil of sin, a very inadequate
remembrance of what Christ has done and suffered for us, a very
insufficient conception of the conversion that is required of us. It
seems to me that some men imagine that God pardons sin in much the
same way that a good-natured parent overlooks the slight offences of
a child who owns his fault. Whereas, in fact, God is a holy God, who
tries the reins and hearts, who demands of us, as the condition of
preserving his favor, that we love him with all our mind and
strength and heart. When I see a man who has recently been to
confession, and who has had grievous sins to confess; when I see him
no more thoughtful than before, no more watchful over himself, no
more grateful to God; when I see him forget all about it, and take
it as a matter of course, I fear that he has come away as he went;
that no angel has smiled on his penance, no saint rejoiced over it;
that no droop of the precious Blood has fallen on his heart. Surely
if he had been pardoned he would think more of it. Let it not be so
with us, my brethren. Have we been forgiven a deadly sin, then from
reprobates and castaways we have become children of God. How sweet
it is to receive any grace from God! To look on the sky and earth,
and think that he has made it, to look on ourselves and think that
we have come from his hands, fills us with delight.
"But to have sinned and to be pardoned, to have sinned and to be
washed in the precious Blood, and then to belong to the family of
God. To have tasted of the heavenly gift, and the powers of the
world to come. To have the love of God, and the peace of God, once
more to renew these dark and stubborn hearts. Where is our gratitude
for favors such as those? Magdalene hath loved much because she was
much forgiven. When is our love and our zeal proportionate to the
pardon which we have received from God? Go, pardoned sinner--sin no
more. Go, and ponder deeply the graces yon have received. Go, and by
your life show what great things he has done for you. Once in
darkness, but now light in the Lord, walk as children of light,
living with St. Paul in the faith of the Son of God, who hath loved
you and given himself for you."
The same fervent spirit and the same vein of practical exhortation
which we see so admirably combined in the passages which we have
cited, are conspicuous in many other pages from the anonymous hands
which have contributed to the authorship of this volume. The Paulist
Fathers have little to do in their book with controversy; and not a
great deal with dogma, except in so far as it has a direct practical
relation to the duties of every-day life. They seem, in this
collection of sermons, to care more for exhorting than expounding;
more for arousing sinners to the comprehension and performance of what
the church requires of them, than for setting forth the church's
sacred attributes. As discourses addressed to ordinary congregations,
made up of people of the common run who are burdened with the common
imperfections of average humanity, we know of few specimens of pulpit
literature which we rate higher. And they have also the great and
unfortunately rather rare merit of being very impressive and effective
when read in the retirement of the closet.
J. R. G. H.
LYDIA, A TALE OF THE SECOND CENTURY.
Translated from the German of Hermann Geiger, of Munich. 12mo, pp.
275. Philadelphia: Eugene Cummiskey. 1867.
We are inclined to believe that the now world-renowned tales of
Fabiola and Callista have prompted the composition of this beautiful
story. The heroine is a young Christian of Smyrna, named Seraphica,
who is cast into prison and condemned to death for her faith. A
terrible earthquake, most powerfully depicted by the author, sunders
the walls of her prison, and she is liberated; but learning that her
{720} mother was carried off to Athens as a slave, she follows her
thither. The captain of the vessel in which she embarks seizes her and
makes a present of her as a slave to a wealthy Athenian lady named
Metella, who names her Lydia from the place of her birth. In the
service of this lady, who is a pious heathen, the Christian slave
passes several years, exhibiting in her life many traits of that
heroic patience, humility, love of suffering, and divine charity which
were inspired by her holy faith; and which is beautifully contrasted
with the pure, natural virtue of her heathen mistress.
Her Christian patience is rewarded at last by the conversion of
Metella and her son. Freed from slavery, she goes to Rome to seek her
mother, who she finds has in the mean time suffered martyrdom, and
returns to Metella to become her bosom friend and companion.
We could scarcely wish anything added to the plot of this charming
tale, but the impression made upon us during its perusal was that the
different descriptions, scenes, and tableaux were wanting in a proper
connecting link, being presented to us rather, as it would appear, for
their own sake, than as necessarily united with, or dependent upon,
the life and fortunes of the characters of the story. The translator
has fallen into a common fault from a desire to be too literal; the
intermingling of the historical present with the past. We have not
observed it in any instance without feeling that it detracted very
much from the force and beauty of the description. The volume does the
enterprising publisher the highest credit, its typography and binding
lacking in nothing that we could desire for elegance and taste. We
predict and wish for it a wide circulation.
HISTORY OF A MOUTHFUL OF BREAD.
By Jean Macé. Translated from the French by Mr. Alfred Gatty.
New-York: American News Company, 121 Nassau-street.
This is a very popular work on the branch of physiology which relates
to the organs and processes of nutrition. It is written in a pleasing,
lively style, and with the express purpose of being readable by
intelligent children. Excepting the absurd notion that the globules of
the blood are animalculae, and the grovelling definition of the body
as a digestive tube served by organs, we see nothing worthy of censure
in the book, which, otherwise, imparts valuable information respecting
the merely physical facts of animal life.
Goodrich's PICTORIAL HISTORIES OF
GREECE AND THE UNITED STATES,
and
CHILD'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.
New editions. Philadelphia: Butler & Co. 1867.
These new and improved editions of very popular and well-written
histories are very suitable for elementary instruction. We have
examined the history of Greece with some attention, and find it an
excellent epitome. The illustrations are remarkably good.
LAWRENCE KEHOE, New-York, has in press, and will soon publish, Lady
Herbert's new work, which has just appeared in London, entitled Three
Phases of Christian Love--namely, Life of St. Monica, Life of
Victorine de Galard, Life of Venerable Mere Devos.
BOOKS RECEIVED.
From AMERICAN NEWS COMPANY, New York. The New Gospel of Peace,
according to St. Benjamin. 1 vol, 12mo, pp. 343; price $2. Alderman
Rooney at the Cable Banquet. Pamphlet illustrated; price 50 cts. Olive
Logan's Christmas Story. Pamphlet; price 50 cts.
From LEE & Shepard, Boston, Mass. Oliver Optic's Magazine for Boys and
Girls. No. 1, pp. 12; price 5 cts.
From the OFFICE OF THE AVE MARIA, Notre Dame, Indiana. The Ave Maria
Almanac for 1867. Illustrated, pp. 32; price 20 cts.
From HURD & HOUGHTON New York. The Riverside Magazine for Young
People. No. 1, pp. 48; price 25 cts. Lalla Rookh, by Thomas Moore. 1
vol. 12mo, pp. 332. Illustrated; price $1.50.
From P. O'SHEA, New York. The Rosa Mystica; or, Mary of Nazareth, the
Lily of the House of David. By Marie Josephine. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 290;
price $2. Spirit of St. Francis de Sales. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 372; price
$2. The Manual of the Immaculate Conception, a collection of prayers
for general use. Compiled from authentic sources. Published with
approbation of the Most Rev. J. McCloskey, D.D., pp. 1122.
From John Murphy & Co., Baltimore. The Southern Poems of the War.
Collected and arranged by Miss Emily V. Mason. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 456;
price $1.50. Good Thoughts for Priest and People; or, Short
Meditations for every Day in the Year, etc., etc. By Rev. Theodore
Noethen, pastor of Holy Cross, Albany, N. Y. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 383;
price $2.
From KELLY & PIET, Baltimore, Md. Sermons Delivered during the Second
Plenary Council of Baltimore, October, 1866. And Pastoral Letter of
the Hierarchy of the United States, together with the Papal Rescript
and Letters of Convocation. A complete list of dignitaries and
officers of the Council; and an introductory notice, with plates. 1
vol. 12mo, pp. 244; price $3.
From BENZIGER BROTHERS, New York and Cincinnati. School Recreations;
or, The Catholic Teacher's Companion. Compiled for the use of Catholic
Schools, with approbation of Archbishop Purcell. l vol 12mo, pp. 94.
----------
{721}
THE CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. IV., NO. 24.--MARCH, 1867.
ORIGINAL.
THE CATHOLIC CEREMONIAL.
BY REV. M. O'CONNOR, S. J.
Outside the Catholic Church there is a general opinion that we
Catholics make all devotion to consist in the performance of a certain
routine of ceremonies, and are entire strangers to what is called
vital religion. These ceremonies to which we are supposed to attach
such excessive, or rather such superstitious value, are looked on by
those outside the church as an unnecessary and worse than useless
display, or as an empty pageant. Our love of them is set down as one
of the damning ingredients in that bug-bear which they have conjured
up, and designated by the name of "Popery." We, on the contrary, look
upon our ceremonial as one of the most beautiful things in the church,
one of those that most clearly mark the finger of God, and operate
most efficaciously in the work of true vital religion.
The point, therefore, is a most important one, and well deserving our
most serious consideration. To understand it rightly, let us consider
the principles on which ceremonial is based, and its
practical-working.
It has been admitted by all nations, that worship is due to the deity;
that worship needs an external and a public expression. Not only the
people of God under the old and new dispensations have admitted this,
but the Turk and the Pagan of every shade have admitted and acted on
it. Many have erred egregiously, and have had recourse to disgusting
and execrable· means to put it in practice; but the feeling itself is
universal, and, therefore, may be enumerated among the first
promptings of reason.
Its necessity is based on our relation to God; and on our own nature.
God, as in himself infinitely perfect, as our creator, our ruler, and
provider is entitled to our acknowledgment of his perfections and of
his dominion over us, to thanks for benefits conferred, to
supplication for their continuance. We owe him this duty not merely as
beings having souls, but as that which we are--beings, having a body
and soul--as men. The feelings of the soul, especially if earnest,
cannot be pent up in it. They need expression. When strong and earnest
they flow over into the body, they express themselves in bodily
action. Man, as such, acts with the body and the soul. Moreover, we
owe God worship not merely as individuals, {722} but as society. God
made society and all that gives it charms. He is the author of the
bonds that hold it together; he gave us those faculties that force us
into it; the wants that in it alone are satisfied; and the powers that
contribute to their satisfaction. Society, as well as the individual
man, is one of those beautiful and bountiful works that call forth our
admiration and demand our gratitude. Society can recognize and thank
its author only by external and common public worship. The internal
feeling needs something to lean on, as it were, to give itself
strength and almost to give itself an existence. The internal act, is,
of course, the soul of true worship, but, like the soul itself of man,
it needs a body in which it may become incarnate to fill the end of
its being. Without this it has neither life nor power. It needs this
to give itself intensity.
The external act becomes as it were a depository in which the soul
lays what is produced at one moment, while it is adding more and more.
As the iron receives in deposit the powers of each of the circles of
the magnetic wire that turn and turn again around it, and is ready to
discharge their combined force at any moment, so the external act
catches as it were the fire of the internal emotion, holds it until
that of another is added, and enables the soul to seize again the
power of those that have vanished and resume its work with redoubled
vigor. Thus going on from faith to faith, from worship to worship,
from virtue to virtue, all these rise higher and higher, strike their
roots deeper and deeper, until the internal feeling becomes
intensified and strong and as worthy of the great object to which it
is directed as it can be in a mere creature.
The ceremonial is nothing else but this external expression of inward
worship. It is an expression that gives it consistency and strength.
It intensifies and preserves it. It transmits it from one to another,
and to succeeding generations. In it society expresses itself. The
individual man has his own organs of expression. The organ of the
Christian body is the minister of the church. Through him she acts as
a body; she expresses herself as a unit. On this account she very
properly regulates minutely, how he shall discharge this duty. This
gives his actions a meaning and a value over and above, and to some
degree independent of, the value they possess, as expressions of his
own individual devotion.
Worship does not consist, properly speaking, in receiving instruction.
This is, of course, a good thing, but it is only a means to an end. It
is like the ladder to ascend, or the scaffolding used in the erection
of a building. To receive it with respect and other dispositions due
to the word of God, may imply faith in him, and submission to him;
but, properly speaking, in as far as it is mere instruction or
information, it is not worship. Worship is our submission to God, a
performance of the duty we owe him. As far as instruction shows us
how, and leads us to do this in a proper manner, it is good, but in
itself--as a mere expansion of the mind, or the storing of it with
knowledge, it is not worship. In paying worship, we must act, not
merely be acted upon; we must do, not merely hear. For this, the
ceremonial affords most useful aid; not, of course, as far as it is a
mechanical movement, which if it stop there would be useless, but
inasmuch as it is the instrument of the inmost soul. Light and
instruction must precede to give it significance, but when life has
thus been breathed into it, it becomes itself an action, a practice of
virtue, a discharge of the highest virtues, which are those that have
God himself for their immediate object.
This ceremonial consists of the words that are used, and the acts that
are performed. Words, said or sung, are a part of it, but only a part.
Many acts often express the feelings more effectually. These are
sometimes {723} more or less natural; at other times they may be said
to be conventional. But though arbitrary as words themselves, when
they receive a determined meaning, they become capable of effectually
and powerfully expressing the internal feelings of the individual and
of society. Kneeling or standing erect, raising up or clasping the
hands or striking the breast, an uplifted glance to heaven or a
reverent bowing of the head, will express adoration, reverence,
sorrow, or supplication as well and often better than words. When you
walk in a procession with torch in hand, accompanying the blessed
sacrament, or to honor some other mystery of religion, you are
professing your faith in it as effectually, and impressing that faith
in your soul, perhaps, more deeply than when you recite the creed,
just as the citizen expresses forcibly his political principles by
analogous acts. These, of course in particular cases, may be acts of
hypocrisy or hollow pageant, just as words may be a lie or an empty
sound, but this takes nothing from their intrinsic appropriateness.
Nay, acts of this kind would seem to draw the soul into what is
intended to accompany them and be expressed by them more powerfully
than words.
Some of the acts of this worship have, in themselves, a power and
efficacy apart from any impression they may produce on the beholder.
Such is the case in all the sacraments. The sacred rite, duly
performed may be compared to the spark, which, however powerless of
itself, when falling on the proper material, awakens a great power of
nature, that will rend mountains, and hurl into shapeless masses, the
proudest works of man. The sacred rite has been chosen by omnipotence,
as his agent and instrument, and its power has only the limits which
omnipotence has been pleased to assign. It is the same thing in the
celebration of mass. The words of Christ, pronounced by his minister,
effect a great change. For he who first took bread and said, "This is
my body," and by his infinite power made true what he said, addressing
his apostles, added. "Do this"--yes, even this, great as it is--"in
commemoration of me." And they "do" it, and by doing it, "show forth
his death until he come." The effect follows by the power of God, no
matter who is present, no matter who is instructed or edified, even
though no heart beat more in unison than did the hearts of the Jews,
who stood by while the great offering was made on Calvary. But other
parts of the ceremonial, which, though not of equal importance, occupy
more time, realize their end only when they express our feelings of
reverence, or give them strength and light. Many are directed to aid
the priest alone, in the proper performance of his high duties. Many,
while they have this object also, are likewise directed to instruct,
and become expressions of the devotion of the people. The ceremonial,
therefore, first of all makes provision for the priest. It is
important for himself and for the people that he be a worthy minister
of Christ; that he discharge the duty of offering up the holy
sacrifice with all the reverence, the humility, the fervor which so
great an act demands. The ceremonies become a means of his doing this.
In performing them properly he exercises all these virtues. The church
makes him descend to the foot of the altar, and there acknowledging
himself a sinner before God and the heavenly court, express by words
and acts his sorrow, demand pardon before venturing to ascend the
altar on which is to be laid the holy of holies. He then ascends with
trembling step, and having again silently prayed for forgiveness, he
intones the noble hymn,"_Gloria in Excelsis Deo_." Whether the voices
of the choir take up its thrilling notes and make the vault resound
with a call to give glory to God on high or he continue it in a
subdued tone, every word he utters, every motion he is called on to
make, enables him to express more and more {724} earnestly his desire
for God's honor, his homage to Christ, "alone holy, alone Lord, alone
most high."
Prepared by this introduction and having admonished the people to turn
to God, he pours out in simple but touching words his supplications
for our various wants. He then reads choice extracts from the sacred
volume conveying the most important teachings of our holy religion. I
will not stop to describe to you the ceremonies at the offertory, nor
speak of the sublime "Preface" preparatory to the most sacred part of
the sacrifice. Having prayed for all conditions of the church, having
appealed to the blessed in heaven with whom the church on earth is in
communion, he approaches the solemn act of consecration. Every word he
utters, every glance, every motion, is directed to fill him with awe,
with reverence, to express a demand, an act of homage, of gratitude or
of invocation; and when the sacred words are pronounced, and he stands
before the incarnate God truly present, though not visible to corporal
eyes, with profound inclination he expresses his adoration, while the
victim is raised up, that all present may, like him, kneel down and
adore. And so all through the holy sacrifice.
While these lessons are taught and put in practice by the priest, the
people, before whom they are performed, learn from them to cherish
similar dispositions, and to unite their spirit in the expression of
his devotion. It is the same thing with all the ceremonies, which,
like those alluded to, are expressive of the feelings we should
entertain for God. They frequently express them more forcibly than
words could. Even ordinary feelings often become too strong for
language and seek expression in some action. The fond mother would
find words too tame to express the love she bears her child. She hugs
it to her bosom, and impresses warm kisses on its face. We meet a
long-lost friend. Words would not express all we feel. We clasp him in
our arms, and press him to our heart. The model of repentance, the
prodigal, when he meets his father, forgets a part of the discourse he
had resolved to pronounce, and folded in his father's arms, expresses
his sorrow more forcibly in silent tears and heart breaking sobs, and
is forgiven. Even anger, which cannot find an adequate expression in
the most impassioned language, seeks to manifest itself in the
uplifted clenched fist, if it cannot gain its object by striking a
blow. Do not tell me, then, that all this action in the church
ceremonial is mummery. It is often a higher expression of devotion
than words would afford.
If yon wish to test this, look at a devout congregation of Catholics
kneeling before the altar. The organ that had lifted up their hearts
when singing the "Glory to God in the highest" is silent, or a few low
notes are heard that make the silence of the congregation more
sensible. No voice, scarcely a breath, is heard, when the priest,
having raised his eyes to heaven, is now inclined over the sacred
elements. Thousands are kneeling around in awe. A slight stroke of the
bell announces that the act is done. The priest prostrates himself in
silent adoration, and then elevates the consecrated host. Every head
is bowed in the presence of a God. Will anyone who has witnessed that
scene, who has tried to enter into the feelings of that congregation,
please tell me the words, or write out the speech, that would have
expressed so powerfully their reverence, their adoration, their
gratitude, and their love? Yes, ceremonies are a noble expression of
our highest feelings. They are even more; for they intensify them,
embalm them, and preserve them from evaporating. They communicate them
and spread them abroad, and transmit them from generation to
generation.
All this is a consequence of human nature, and this is so true that it
is made an objection to our system. It is said that we build too much
on human nature. But if worship be made for man it must accord with
his nature {725}--not, indeed, with that which is corrupt in it, but
with his nature as it came from God. Now, this need, this power, this
efficacy of the expression of feeling by outward ceremony, is no
effect of the fall: it is in the very nature of man. Hence we have
recourse to it in everything else. What is the shake of the hand when
we meet a friend, or the salute, or the banquet to which we invite
him, but a ceremony to express friendship or esteem? Look at our
processions and various political demonstrations. What are they but
ceremonies in which political or other feelings seek expression--an
expression which we know will strengthen them, deepen them,
communicate them to others by creating and giving force to what may be
called a contagions influence? What are our national and party airs;
our national and party festivals, but expressions of a similar
character looking forward to similar results?
In these things, as I said in the beginning, the feelings of the soul
seek an embodiment, that will give them consistency and duration.
No matter what the external manifestation be, even though it be merely
conventional, when it expresses a feeling, it becomes an instrument
for all these purposes. It becomes, as it were, a permanent part of a
structure, to which another stone is added as often as the act is
repeated, until the building grows up in solid beauty that defies the
ravages of time. This is the case with our political or social
sentiments, because it grows out of our very nature. Why then should
it not be the case, or rather is it not evidently the case, with those
also which are connected with religion? These external rites not only
express and intensify the interior feelings, but let philosophers
explain it as they may, they become as it were a depository in which
they may be laid by to be recalled almost at pleasure, nay, even to be
drawn out by others who wish to acquire them.
Look at that piece of bunting hanging from a flag-staff and flying
before the breeze. What is it? A first glance will tell you that it is
a piece of stuff purchased for a trifle a few days ago from the
merchant, on whose shelves it lay unnoticed and uncared for, except as
far as it was capable of producing some day a few dollars for its
owner. But now it has received a new destiny. It bears the national
symbols, and it is the flag of the country. And, oh! what a change has
taken place! It recalls the glories of the past, the hopes of the
future; it is the symbol of the majesty of the nation. The patriot
heart warms in beholding it; the warrior-breast is bared to do it
honor. Through a hail of fire he stands by it or bears it on, and will
see unmoved a thousand of his companions strewed o'er the battle-field
while this yet floats before the breeze. And, when victory has crowned
his efforts, he salutes it as the genius that nerved his right arm
during the contest. Though torn almost to tatters, he bedews it with
his tears of joy. It is his pride in life. He looks forward to descend
in honor into the grave wrapped in its folds.
Wherever that flag is raised, one glance leads us to behold the genius
of our country standing up before us with all her claims to our
devotion and our love. Let it receive but the slightest insult, and a
thrill vibrates throughout the land, every heart is wounded, every
hand is ready to be raised in its defence. Yet it is, after all, but a
piece of bunting, worth so many cents per yard. But by becoming a
symbol, by being the object of a rite, it has become the depositary of
the enthusiasm of the nation. It is made capable of evoking this, of
quickening and communicating it, whenever it is unfurled.
Look at our national airs: what are they? The scientific musician will
find little in them that is soul-stirring; but the feelings of our
fathers are deposited in them. They were the tunes in which we
expressed our gladness in days of triumph, by which we were aroused on
the national holiday, in which we sung our joy on all {726} important
occasions. Our love of home, of kindred, of fatherland, has been
embalmed in them; and when they fall on our ears, all these dear and
stirring feelings, as if buried in their notes, are sent forth, now
unlocked, and again take possession of our souls. They thus arouse the
warrior and the patriot, calling out all the feelings that cluster
around what is most dear.
The Swiss soldier in foreign lands was so vividly recalled to the
memories of home, by the airs to which he listened in childhood, and
the recollection of his native mountains, and the associations revived
by them, had such power, that a special disease, called
"home-sickness" was frequently the result. As this proved fatal to
many, the playing or singing of such tunes was forbidden in Swiss
regiments in foreign service. And who does not know the stirring
effect produced on certain occasions, when Yankee Doodle or Patrick's
Day has been struck up, no matter what musical professors may say of
their artistic merits.
In a similar manner our feelings of devotion are consigned to some
homely religious tune. They are first expressed in it. They cling
around it. They become identified with it. They are recalled vividly
when we hear it again. They all come back in their original freshness,
with accumulated force. They are transmitted to others, and thus we
inherit the treasure of the devotional feeling of preceding
generations.
Though _our_ being supplied with music by great artists, who are
constantly changing, if not improving their compositions, deprives us
in a great measure of the advantages that might arise from this
source, we can feel it at times, in what is allowed to retain this
traditional force. Who is there that does not feel the devotion so
often experienced in assisting at the benediction of the blessed
sacrament, or on other occasions renewed by the tones of the Tantum
Ergo or other familiar tunes, when the performers do not destroy, or
at least smother the old airs by their exquisiteness? Where the songs
of the church are in more general use, the intonation of the Miserere
or the Stabat Mater or the Pange Lingua and many other tunes is like
the opening up of a flood-gate, through which feelings of devotion
rush as it were in a torrent and take possession of a whole
congregation.
What is said of songs may be applied to other rites. The feelings of
the past are deposited in them; they express them, they arouse them,
they communicate them. This occurs, though they may be chosen
arbitrarily. What more arbitrary, generally speaking, than the meaning
attached to words? The word "home," for example, for all that is in
the sound, might as well have been adapted to signify anything else of
the most different character. Yet now having received a definite
meaning, it recalls uniformly a whole definite series of ideas and
feelings. So it is with a rite--say that of anointing with oil, that
of sprinkling with water, burning incense, the use of candles, or the
making of the sign of the cross. Many rites were established primarily
for this purpose, others had their origin in necessity or convenience
or usage; but the church, anxious to make even these things a source
of edification and an instrument of devotion, gave them a meaning,
attached to them a lesson which they reproduce forever after. Even
those which have a certain intrinsic fitness to signify what they are
established for, derive their chief efficacy in this respect from
their having been chosen for the purpose, or having gradually received
a social meaning, well understood in the Christian family. These have
the additional advantage of speaking out, as it were, a whole
instruction at a glance. The moment you look at one of these acts, a
lesson is presented which could scarcely be communicated in many
words, and in performing them the heart says more, and that more
simply and more effectually, than it could in a long discourse.
{727}
I have referred to the flag of the country; of its being raised, and
how a look at it, or a salute, powerfully expresses at once the most
important emotions and lively enthusiasm. Well, we do the same through
the Christian's glorious standard, which is the sacred symbol of the
cross. Be it of wood or of the most precious metal--be it the
production of the most unskilful or the most cunning workman--it is
for us the symbol of man's redemption, and around it cluster our most
tender feelings of veneration and love. It is placed over our altars,
over our churches; it hangs in our rooms; where Catholic feelings can
save it from insult, it is raised up in the highways, and is made to
meet our eyes wherever we turn. We impress its form on our persons
whenever we call on God in prayer, whenever we find ourselves exposed
to temptation or danger. In that one act the faith, the hope, the love
of the church for Christ and Christ crucified, are all expressed. All
these feelings are imbedded in it. All are called out again whenever
that sign is made. What we have heard of him from the pulpit, what we
have read in our private study, what has occurred, to our own minds in
meditation, is all brought before us with the accompanying sentiments
and feelings as soon as that sacred symbol presents itself to our
eyes. All are a wakened, are revived, and seized again at its glance.
No wonder, then, that the Catholic loves the cross; that he loves to
prostrate himself in adoration before it; that he looks to it when he
seeks consolation in suffering, support in affliction, light in his
difficulties, purity of spirit in his joys. Do not tell me that it is
of lifeless wood or of metal, that it is but the work of the
craftsman, Oh! this is like stopping the soldier in battle, to direct
his attention to the price per yard of his flag, or to the name and
address of the store where it was bought, while he is advancing
enthusiastically under its inspiration against his country's foes.
Yes; who does not know that it is of wood or metal? but to me it is
the symbol of my Saviour's love. As such, I love it; as such all my
most sacred feelings cling around it: I impress kisses on it; I bathe
it with my tears. And when, on Good Friday, the priest after bringing
before us the whole scene of Calvary, having led us, in the service,
to look on the death of Christ' as the great turning-point in the
world's history, having shown us the woes of the past that were there
to find a remedy, and the blessings for the future that were thence to
spring forth, holds up the crucifix before the prostrate multitude,
and sings out, in a solemn tone, "Ecce lignum Crucis," "Behold the
wood of the cross on which did hang the salvation of the world," will
we not all send up our whole souls in the deacon's answer, crying out,
with him, "Venite adoremus," "Come, let us adore"? And when the priest
looses his shoes, and on bare feet approaches the sacred symbol of
redemption, that he may kneel down and kiss it with fondness, on the
anniversary of the day on which the tragic scene was enacted; who is
there that will not vie with him in kneeling and pressing the sacred
symbol to his lips?
The same thing can be applied in different degrees to the various
rites throughout the year, when succeeding festivals bring before us
the other great mysteries of religion, or when we are called on to
express the ordinary feelings of Christian devotion. He who has
studied the simple devotions of the rosary, or the way of the cross,
will be astonished at the mine of devotion, of enlightened piety
contained in them, and at the treasures that are drawn from them by
faithful souls, simple and unpretending as they are, and puerile as
they appear to the self-sufficient.
But these acts and exercises intended to express and nourish our
Christian feelings, can only be appreciated where there is faith. It
is only into {728} hearts animated by faith that they can enter. It is
only in such they can be aroused. A certain amount of instruction is
even necessary to understand the conventional meaning of many. This
instruction and training is received by the Catholic almost with his
mother's milk. As he learns the meaning of words, which is still more
arbitrary, and acquires a practical skill in the use of language,
notwithstanding its complicated laws, so he learns the meaning of the
ceremonial, and is initiated into its use. With clasped hands the
child kneels before the crucifix, and imprints kisses on it. Little by
little he learns the history of him whose figure is nailed to that
cross, and knowledge grows in him with reverence and love. He goes to
the church, and is struck with what he beholds. He catches reverence
from those around, and infuses it into his own imitation of their mode
of acting. As he learns more and more of what is there done, this
reverence becomes more and more enlightened, and he grows up a devout
and enlightened Christian, performing the acts expressive of worship
with the same ease and intelligence with which he uses the ordinary
expressions of social life. The looker-on who is without faith or
instruction, who has no sympathy, and wishes to have no sympathy, with
him, thinks his acts a mummery, if he do not give them a harsher name.
Such a person may be compared to one who has no ear for music, to whom
the enthusiasm of those who are aroused by a beautiful composition is
incomprehensible; or to one who listens to an eloquent discourse in a
tongue which he does not, and cares not to understand; or he is like
Michol, who laughs at David dancing before the ark, because she has no
sympathy with his jubilant gratitude. The Catholic ceremonial is made
for Catholics. If it enable them to express and strengthen their
reverence, it answers its purpose. Those who have no such feelings to
be awakened cannot be surprised if it strike them without producing
emotion. The ceremonial is useful, not only as an expression of
feeling, it is eminently instructive and educational, if I may use the
expression, by instilling and developing both the knowledge and the
devotion it is intended to express. While it teaches, it leads to act
in accordance with the teaching; properly performed it is itself such
action. It thus instils truth into the mind, and shapes the heart in
accordance with it, which is the highest aim of the best education.
Some are pleased to look upon the mass of our people as very ignorant
in matters of religion. If by this it be meant to say, that all are
not experts in quoting texts of scripture; that they know nothing of
many controversies that appear of great importance to our separated
brethren; that they do not understand the meaning of many phrases that
have become households words amongst them, though, sometimes, I fear,
passing round without any very, definite meaning, I am willing to
acknowledge the charge. But if it be meant to say that they are
ignorant of those great facts and truths of religion which it is
necessary or important for men to know, I repudiate it most solemnly.
Nay, I contend that there is a better knowledge of these amongst many
or most Catholics who can neither read nor write, if they have only
followed in the paths where the church led them, than amongst many of
our opponents who are considered learned theologians; and this they
owe chiefly to this very ceremonial of which I am treating. They may
know nothing of Greek particles, or of many other things good enough
and useful in their place, but which God has not required anyone to
learn; but they know that the incarnate God died for the salvation of
man. They know the mystery of the Trinity, which is implied in that of
the incarnation. They know the sinful character of man, their need of
such a Redeemer. They are led to thank him, to love him, to {729} obey
him. They know his sufferings, one by one; they are familiar with his
thorns and his nails; they have pondered over his wounds and mangled
flesh; they penetrate into the side pierced for their love. He who
knows even this much is not ignorant. Yet all this, and, much more, is
familiar to every one accustomed to look with faith on the crucifix.
He sees in the face of the crucified One patience, resignation,
compassion for sinners, love even for his enemies. He sees the
consequences of sin, and he beholds their remedy. Looking on this, the
Catholic finds support in his trials or afflictions and moderation in
his joy. Show me the volume he could ponder over and learn as much.
All that he heard at his mother's knee and from the preacher's lips is
brought before him in a single glance at his crucifix. All is brought
up again when he makes the sign of the cross. Yet the cross, so
fraught with instruction and moving appeals, is that which is
presented to him a thousand times in the rites of the church, inasmuch
as it is the great pervading principle that must animate all his
devotion and all his actions. It is brought before him, not in a cold
way, merely teaching him a lesson. He is taught to know and to
believe; he is led to adore and to confide; he is brought to invoke
through it all the graces of which he stands in need. All this is done
every time that he makes the sign of the cross, pronouncing the
blessed words, "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Ghost."
While many of your learned expounders of scripture are comparing text
with text on these subjects, trying to remove, but scarcely removing
the doubts which they know to exist among their hearers, which they
feel, perhaps, rising up in their own breasts, or what is worse while
they are proposing theories in a Christian pulpit which make nought
the cross of Christ and the mystery of redemption as ever taught in
the Christian family, the poor Catholic, on whom they look with
contempt, is making his starting point what others are but trying to
prove, and while signing himself with the cross, believing, adoring,
penetrating into the depths of the love of the incarnate God, and
endeavoring to shape his own soul into conformity with its teachings.
And you call him ignorant. Indeed, a pure though simple faith, among
these people enables them to see the great truths of religion with a
clearness that supplies frequently an apt reply to difficulties that
seem very embarrassing to their opponents.
Yet, this is the first lesson that the Catholic child learns at his
mother's knee, As he goes on, he learns more and more of God's works
of mercy toward man, of his institutions for our salvation and our
sanctification, and all he learns he sees reproduced in a glance in
the ceremonial of the church, which speaks to him in accents more and
more eloquent, as his knowledge expands and his heart is brought more
fully into conformity with God's holy teachings. In the liturgy and
the various other rites of the church, she has enshrined all the great
dogmas of religion. There she teaches them, there she keeps them
beyond the reach of the innovator. The priest himself, the bishop, and
the pope, there see them inculcated, and from thence, as from a rich
treasury, draw them out to present them to the faithful. This teaching
by rites in use from the beginning of the church, addresses itself to
all with power, for in it they find the teaching of the saints and the
sages of by-gone ages, and feel themselves breathing the same
atmosphere with them. The martyrs, who bore testimony to their faith
with their blood, the apostolic men, who by their preaching, their
labors, and their prayers, brought nations to the knowledge of Christ,
the holy confessors and virgins, who, in frail vessels, showed forth
his power in every age, practised these same rites, and were therefore
animated by the same faith. The church, throughout the whole world,
uses them, and therefore believes as we do. What {730} more powerful
for bringing home to each one the faith of the universal, everlasting
church!
There is great security for the faith of a Catholic in his receiving
it through the teaching of a pastor in communion with the church of
the whole world, and sanctioned by its highest authority; but I would
venture to say that there is something even more solemn in this voice
of the ceremonial, which is a voice of the living and the dead--of
the church of the Catacombs, and of the church of this day--throughout
the world. With all the force which this gives, leaning as the church
does upon Christ, who died to sanctify her in truth, we are taught the
great dogmas of the Trinity and the Incarnation; of the death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ; the plan and means of the redemption,
the need in which we stand of divine grace, and the means of obtaining
it. We are taught the character of the great Christian oblation, the
nature and effects of the sacraments, as well as the dispositions they
require, and the duties they impose.
Far be it from me to undervalue the oral teaching of the ministry.
That found in the ceremonial presupposes it, and is based on it. Both
are, as they should be, combined in the ministrations of the church;
but the ceremonial fixes the oral teaching. It gives the Christian
system a body, as it were, in which it enables it to prolong its life
beyond the moments of the passing voice. When once embodied in a rite,
the impressions of oral instruction, which otherwise so easily pass
away, live for ever. They are seized in their whole entirety at a
glance; they are brought down to the comprehension of the lowest; they
are put forth with a majesty that the highest may admire. Men are
taught there, and, what is most important they are led to act on the
teaching, and thus conform their hearts as well as their minds, to the
holy dogmas of faith, which is the best and most useful way of
imparting Christian instruction. But I will be told that this
teaching, however useful for those who understand it, is lost for the
great mass of the people, as the language used is a dead one, which
few understand. But, in the first place, it is not lost, even though
the clergy alone should understand it. Is it not an important thing
that the clergy themselves should have something to keep alive
powerfully, amongst them the one, universal and everlasting faith?
Will not all the faithful find strength in their strength, and light
in their light? If they are kept right, the truth spread abroad by
them will easily he preserved pure among the masses of the people.
Almost all heresies--be it said to our shame--either had their source
in the sanctuary, or could not have succeeded if they had not found
support there. And is it not a great thing that he who would become a
prevaricator, must first brand himself as unfaithful, must cease to
minister today, all he did yesterday, and thus give public notice, as
it were, that he seeks to devour the flock which he had undertaken to
feed; that instead of keeping the deposit which was the first duty of
his office, as dispenser of the mysteries of God, he is substituting
some new-fangled theory of his own, palming it off as an institution
of heaven? Luther can establish a new system only by ceasing to say
mass. The church of Cranmer is not at ease until it has formed for
itself a new liturgy. The Greeks and other orientals by preserving
their ancient rites and ceremonies, have preserved almost all their
ancient dogmas, and to re-enter the church have little else to do but
to submit to the authority of its supreme pastor. But apart from this,
the ceremonial itself speaks to all the people in a language which all
understand. The rites are themselves a language easily learned, and
speaking with silent eloquence to men of every tongue. They are to
some extent what the learned have been so long looking for, a
universal language. In fact, when the priest raises up the host, the
Irishman and the German, the Greek and the Armenian, see the presence
of Christ {731} preached to them, and they kneel down and adore. When
the water is poured on the head of the child that is baptized, men of
every clime know that the regenerating rite is being performed. The
rite once properly explained ever after expresses to them better than
any combination of words, the internal change that is effected in the
soul. Then, it must be remembered that the main thing in the public
service is what is _done_, not what is _said_. Every moderately
instructed Catholic is fully aware of what there takes place, and with
this knowledge he can assist, not only devoutly but intelligently,
though he may not understand or even hear one word.
The great source of mistake, in this connection, with our separated
brethren, arises from the fact that they go to church merely to hear
instruction, or to have words put into their mouths, in which to
address Almighty God. The Catholic also often goes for instruction,
and this he receives in the language which he understands. But he goes
for what is even more important--he goes to take a part in the great
act that is performed in God's holy temple. He knows the nature and
ends of this, and the dispositions required of him, and as I said
before, he can perform his part though he may not even hear, much less
understand one word that is pronounced. I will suppose a case of the
surrender of a large army. The vanquished soldiers march to the place
appointed. They lay down their arms, they lower their flag. The
victorious general, with his warriors, stands, by and receives them. A
speech perhaps is made. But all who are present take an intelligent
part in the Proceedings, though many may not hear one word that is
uttered. So it is with the great action at mass. I will not have
recourse to the common reply, that all that the priest says at the
altar is translated and published; that any one who desires may read
and know for himself; for though the fact be true, it is not the true
solution of the difficulty. I have no hesitation in saying that in
assisting at the most solemn part of the celebration of the divine
mysteries, it is best not to attend to the particular prayers recited
by the priest, whether one hear them or not whether he be or be not
capable of understanding them. It is better to assist with an
enlightened faith in the action that is performed, and then give full
play to such sentiments as this faith will awaken in each individual
soul. This is evidently the view of the church. For this reason, after
the offertory, that is, when the most important portion begins, the
priest is made to recite almost all his part of the liturgy in a low
tone, so that those present cannot hear him even if they be capable of
understanding what he says. Among the Greeks a curtain is drawn across
the sanctuary, so that they cannot even see him, but merely know by
some signals, if I may so call them, given from time to time, in what
part of the sacred act he is engaged.
The church, by, this evidently tells us, that by an assistance in
faith, each one yielding to the promptings of his own devotion will
derive more profit than by following the priest's words. Indeed, the
parts of the priest and people in this sacred act are so essentially
different, that it is scarcely to be expected that the same prayers
should be best for both. While the church has minutely arranged the
rites and prayers used by him who offers the sacrifice, she is
satisfied with awakening the faith and enlightening the devotion of
others who assist: and then leaving it to their enlightened faith what
each shall say to God on such occasions. She acts like the master of
the house, who prepares the banquet, where each guest finds abundance
of everything agreeable to the palate, and nourishing to the body.
With great care he has prescribed the parts of those who are occupied
in preparing or serving it up, so that all present may receive
substantial proofs of his interest; but when, this is done, he {732}
leaves the invited to partake of what is prepared, as their own tastes
will prompt. It is thus that the Catholic system, which is accused of
tying men down to a performance of mere routine, is that which really
gives more scope to individual liberty in public worship, while public
decorum and dignity are effectually secured by an established ritual.
With your extempore prayers, he who utters them has indeed full scope
for his feeling and his fancy, but he is liable also to their
vagaries, and his hearers are at his mercy. As he weeps or rejoices,
all must weep or rejoice, or he becomes to them a hindrance. Their
hearts move or try to move, not as the spirit, but as the leader
willeth, and not unfrequently may he lend them into paths from which
their instincts will recoil. They, whose whole time is engaged in
following a prescribed liturgy, must ever go on in the same groove.
Whatever be the feelings or the wants or the temper of mind of each
individual habitually or at the moment, the same unchanging road is
chalked out for all. What they hear may be beautiful, but it may be
far from being the best suited for many at that moment. Hence disgust
or cold indifference is sure to follow, of which beautiful forms may
be only a pompous covering. Amongst Catholics on the other hand, while
the church to secure order and truth and public decorum, has carefully
regulated every word and act of the priest, and presents in the
celebration of the divine mysteries the most powerful incentive to
faith and devotion in all its bearings, she leaves each one else who
is present to assist as his own wants and dispositions may prompt.
The ingenious zeal of pious men has provided helps for all in manuals
of various kinds, and each one will select what he finds best suited
for himself. He will use it or interrupt its use, or drop it
altogether as experience will show him to be most useful in his own
case. When it is not done through apathy or listlessness, he may find
it better to dispense with them all, being satisfied with a look, with
vivid faith, and such other interior acts as a faithful soul will soon
learn to perform with alacrity. Knowing what he himself is, and who is
before him, he will not be at a loss what to say. At one time he will
weep over his sins; at another he will give thanks to God; at another
he will lay open his wants, or ask pardon for his transgressions.
Where can he do any of these things more effectually than in the
presence of him who died for our sins, and to procure for us every
blessing.
And many, in fact, thus assist in silent prayer, but with more
intelligent and true devotion, though they neither use a book nor hear
a word, than others who are pondering over most beautiful manuals.
The danger of cold formality from the steady use of prescribed forms,
and nothing else, is so thoroughly realized by the church, and this
fear is so fully justified by her experience that the priest himself
is warned over and over against it. The remedy that is given him, is
the practice of what might be called private individual prayer. All
spiritual writers tell him that if he be not fond of this, if
especially he be not careful to renew his spirit by it, in immediate
preparation for the exercise of his sacred functions, they will
degenerate into mere formalism. With this private preparation he will
prepare and carry into them a proper spirit and will then find them a
heavenly manna, having every sweet taste; without this, he will be but
as the conduit pipe, carrying to others the refreshing waters, but
retaining himself' none of the effects of their invigorating powers.
These remarks apply to the most sacred and most important part of' the
mass. If the church do not wish us even to hear them, much less
require us to understand them, if she be right in believing that we
may thus assist most advantageously, it is a matter of no consequence
what language the priest uses in addressing the Almighty {733} God,
for he understands him, and that is enough. The rites he performs give
all the instruction of admonition that is useful at that moment, and
this instruction does not disturb our individual devotion. On the
contrary, whatever turn it may take, it enlivens, supports, and
directs it.
As to the first parts of the mass, to which these remarks are not so
applicable, the "Gospels," which vary at every festival, are required
to be read at least on festivals in their own language, and explained
by each pastor to his people. The "Collects," are known to be all
substantially supplications for grace, to which, therefore, we may
heartily answer, _Amen_, though we do not understand each word. Little
else remains but the "Kyrie," the "Gloria," and the "Credo," and these
like the "Pater Noster," and a few other things sung by the priest,
might be easily learned, so as to be understood by any diligent
person. Indeed, I may say it is the wish of the church that all should
learn them. She would be glad that all would take a part in singing
them, as the people do in many countries. The study of Latin required
for this is not much; for all that I have referred to might be
contained in two or three pages, and is not beyond the reach of
anyone, not even of those who cannot read. Many such learn it by
heart, and understand what they have learned. Doing so would be but a
light task in view of the many advantages gained. All might then join
in the public chants of the church and be gainers in spiritual life,
even if they did not discourse equally elegant music; or, if our
apathy compels the church to let our parts be discharged, as it were,
by deputies in the choir, we would assist and join in the beautiful
sentiments which are expressed, and not merely sit inactive to receive
the sweet impressions of their melodies.
But though this would better accord with the spirit of the church, if
these parts also through our own apathy are unintelligible, the
intrinsic character of the act for which we are preparing will suggest
pious sentiments that will enable us to pass the time with substantial
profit to our souls.
But, be it that there is some little disadvantage in having the mass
in a dead language, what I have said, I think, abundantly proves at
least that it is not very great. Look, on the other hand, at the
immense advantages gained by keeping it uniform and without change,
which implies keeping it in the language in which it was first
established. By this, uniformity and steadiness is secured in the
faith. The faith of every nation embalmed, as I said before, in the
liturgy, is before the eyes of the universal church; it is transmitted
untarnished from generation to generation. This uniform and steady
liturgy becomes as an anchor to which every church is moored. As long
as it clings to this, it is safe. And can anyone who knows the value
of faith, of that faith for which legions of martyrs shed their blood,
deem the little loss that is sustained, if any, by our Latin liturgy,
not well compensated by the stability of faith which it secures. For
this reason, though the world in the apostolic days was even more
divided in language than it is now, yet in those times, as we know
from all antiquity, the liturgy was celebrated only in three
languages--the three languages of the cross. These are, the Hebrew,
in its cognate dialects, which are but branches of the one Semitic
tongue, as a homage to the ancient dispensation; the Greek, which was
the language of the civilization of that age, and that adopted in the
New Testament; and the Latin, which was the language of the people
whose capital was to be the seat of the government of the Church of
the New Dispensation. In these three languages was written the
inscription over the bloody sacrifice on Calvary; in these, and in no
others from the beginning, was the unbloody one offered to God by the
church. No others having been adopted was a clear proof that in the
apostolic {734} view it was not deemed necessary that all should
understand the language used in the sacred mysteries; and, when even
these ceased to be popular languages anywhere, what had always been
the condition of the great number became the condition of all.
In after ages a few exceptions, and only a few, were permitted or
rather tolerated. The liturgy was allowed to be celebrated in one
other language in Asia, the Armenian; in two in Africa, the Coptic and
the Ethiopic; and in one in Europe, the Slavonic. No others were used.
But these were exceptional cases--they occurred at a later period, and
under peculiar circumstances, showing rather the sufferance than the
genuine spirit of the church, while she cordially adopted from the
beginning, and ever clung to the three languages of the cross.
It is both beautiful and useful to the Catholic to assist at the
divine offices in the same language, and in the main, with the same
rites, in which they have been performed for eighteen hundred years.
They seem like the voice of the martyrs, the confessors, the saints
who have lived through these eighteen centuries. They echo their faith
and their devotion. We feel that in them we are breathing the life of
a church now and ever spread throughout the whole world, everywhere
offering to God one sacrifice of praise.
A dignitary of the Protestant Episcopal Church in this country has
lately written an angry letter against those of his brethren who are
called "Ritualists," because they are anxious to introduce into their
church many Catholic, or, as he calls them, "Romish" ceremonies. His
ground of complaint is that behind these ceremonies stand the
doctrines of the Catholic Church. "Their course," he says, "means
return to what the reformation cast out with indignation." "It means
Romanism in all its strength and substance," and he enumerates the
various doctrines which it implies, which he considers abominations. I
do not wish to pronounce an opinion on the extent to which his remarks
are justifiable in their application to the parties against whom he
writes; but he is certainly right in believing that behind the
Catholic ritual stands Catholic doctrine, which is nothing else but
Christian doctrine; and as the reformation "cast out" many of the
rites in use in the Christian family from the beginning, with them it
"cast out" a great portion of the Christian dogma. The good man's
charge will only make those who preserve the dogma see more clearly
the value of the rites in which it is enshrined, and cling more
tenaciously to dogmas thus shown to be coeval with Christianity.
Every rite has thus a lesson, and becomes an act of devotion. The
cross above our churches and our altars, continually reappearing in
all our ceremonies, impresses on us the incarnation, death, and
atonement of Christ crucified, as the great central point of all
religion. To this we are constantly brought back in every prayer which
concludes by asking what we demand, through Jesus Christ, the familiar
closing of which, the "_per omnia saecula saeculorum_," known to every
child, calls forth from all, the heartfelt _Amen_! To this, and to
what should accompany it, the Catholic is constantly directed by the
ceremonial. The church bell, signed with the cross, and anointed with
oil, which is a symbol of Christ, swings in the tower, and as his
messenger, calls us in his name to his house--now, ringing out with
joy, when some great mystery is to be commemorated--now, in deep
solemn notes, to pray for one of his departed members. Three times
every day it summons us to the recital of the Angelus, in which we
commemorate the great mystery of the incarnation, and invoke the
merits of the Saviour's death, and ask the benefit of his
resurrection. If we enter the {735} church, the font at the door, from
which we take a drop of blessed water to sprinkle our foreheads, is
itself a sermon on the purity with which we should approach, and bids
us cleanse our souls before we come near to him in prayer. The burning
lamp speaks to us of him who is the light of the world, now dwelling
on the altar, as well as of the constant fire of devotion, and pure
adoration, due to the present God. The priest whom you see at the
altar, clad in those quaint old vestments, tells you at a glance that
you are in the presence of a worship that has come down from the
remotest ages. The burning lights on the altar, which have now become
an emblem of gladness, speak to you of the catacombs, in which our
fathers took refuge, and preserved for us the sacred deposit, at the
cost of property, of liberty, and of life.
Like old heirlooms, with their quaint old forms and their several
indentations, these vestments and rites tell at the same time of their
real antiquity and of the many vicissitudes through which they have
passed. They are not like those imitations of the antique in use
amongst some of our friends got up by studying ancient drawings and
descriptions, having all the inconvenience without anything of the
venerable character of what is truly ancient. With us they are
inherited through uninterrupted use from the beginning. Whatever
changes have occurred in minor details, only render them more
venerable, for if on the one hand we are brought back to ancient days,
these are marks of the many ages through which they have passed.
Everything in the rites of the church is fraught with instruction,
with devotion. It enables you to know, and what is better, to
practice--for while it teaches, it leads you to love and adore. Do you
wish to know the efficacy of that ceremonial? Look at those who have
been nursed under its training. See the all-pervading influence of
religion, that exists among them. Long and powerful discourses may
make men skilful talkers and ardent partisans. Those who have been
reared under a divinely inspired ritual have religion deeply engraven
on their hearts. It takes possession and enters into the whole nature
of the man; and even when he gives way to the allurements of iniquity,
it retains its hold on him. This may indeed make him appear, and be,
an inconsistent object of pity or of scorn. But, happy inconsistency!
For if he will not be consistent in good, far better that he be
inconsistent or not consistent in evil. He would otherwise become a
monster. The links by which he is yet bound to what is good, may one
day draw him within the pale of that mercy to which no sinner appealed
in vain, before which no sinner is too great to be pardoned.
To the Catholic, in every position, the ceremonial is light and
nourishment--a plentiful source of vigor and life.
----------
{736}
From Le Correspondant.
MADAME DE SWETCHINE.
BY REV. FATHER LACORDAIRE.
Many times already have I rendered to illustrious Catholics who have
died in our day, a funeral and a pious homage. In turn, General
Drouot, Daniel O'Connell, and Frederic Ozanam have heard my voice
above their tomb, a voice far below that which their glory merited,
but which, nevertheless, holds from a sincere admiration the right to
praise them. To-day, after these familiar names for which praise can
do nothing, I pronounce another name, a name which may appear almost
unknown, perhaps even that of a foreigner, which, however, belongs to
the nation of the great minds of our age. A superior writer, Madame de
Swetchine published nothing; a conversationalist of the first order,
the fame of her salon never penetrated beyond that circle which,
though not public, is more than privacy; a woman of antique faith and
of active piety, she neither founded nor presided over any orders; and
yet, for more than forty years she swayed an empire, to which the
Count de Maistre submitted, before which Madame de Staël inclined, and
which retained around her, even to her last days, admirers accustomed
to act on public opinion, but still more accustomed to enlighten their
own by hers. To the Count de Maistre succeeded M. de Bonald. The Abbé
Frayssinous, M. Cuvier, to these M. de Montalembert, the Count de
Falloux, Prince Albert de Broglie, and many others, a younger
generation, but not less submissive to the ascendency of a soul where
virtue served genius.
Why should we be silent? Why not tell the living what they have lost
in the dead? While a man lives, modesty should guard all his actions,
and friendship itself should be restrained by it; but death has this
of admirable; that it restores to memory as to judgment all its
liberty. In taking away those from whom it strikes the double rock of
weakness and envy, it permits those who have seen to lift the veil,
those who have received to acknowledge the benefit, those who have
loved to pour forth their affection. Even the obscurity of merit adds
to the desire of making it known; and if this merit was illustrious,
being all hidden, it is almost a religious duty to draw it forth from
the tomb, and to render it before men the honor it has before God. So
I hope I shall be pardoned these few pages; but did I not, yet I
should still write them. I owe them to a friendship which began in the
shadows and perils of my youth, and which since, through all the
vicissitudes of a quarter of a century, never ceased to open to me
perspectives of honor so difficult to recognize in the confused and
agitated times when faith itself is troubled by earthly events, and
seeks a route worthy of its mission.
Madame Sophie Jeanne de Swetchine was born in Russia, on the 4th
December, 1782. Her family name was Soymonoff. She had a sister who
married the Prince de Gagarin, a former Russian ambassador at Rome;
she herself was united at the age of seventeen to General de
Swetchine, Military Governor of St. Petersburg. She belonged by birth
to the Greek religion, but her education had abandoned her to the
scepticism of the eighteenth century, and {737} according to the
natural course of things, she would have died an unbeliever or a
schismatic in the depth of some half-oriental estate. God willed it
otherwise, and hence arises from the first the lively interest
attached to her life. For a Christian, a soul's predestination, and
the mysterious ways by which God conducts it to its end without
infringing its liberty, are a spectacle that has above all others an
inexhaustible charm. The secrets of grace and free will, so intimate
in our own hearts, are less enlightened in a history which is not our
own; and the communion of saints which makes us all, believing and
loving, one in a single light and a single goodness, gives us, in the
account of a difficult conversion, the feeling of a conquest in which
we ourselves have shared.
The young Sophie de Soymonoff was then a Greek and an unbeliever. She
had been beguiled from her birth by the illusions of rationalism, and
the snares of the most singular fortune which error ever had; for the
Greek religion has this trait solely its own, that it presents a much
restricted and very firm negation to the true faith, under an
authority cut loose from its base; yet which, however, preserves all
the rest with a profound respect for antiquity. In seeing this exact
episcopal succession, this unaltered symbol, this inviolable
discipline, these sacraments which Rome herself recognizes, we ask if
an error, respecting so long and so well the limits which it traced
when it first arose, does not seem like those rocks which an irruption
has thrown from their foundations and which remain immovable under the
eye and the action of ages? Whilst in the West, Protestantism is
unable to create either dogmas or discipline or hierarchy, and floats
as a wandering cloud from mind to mind, the East, on the contrary,
sees produced the fixity of error. Here dissolution, there
petrifaction; and between the two the truth which is immutable without
being inert, progressive without being subject to change. However
surprising may be this contrast, it is not difficult to account for
it, if we consider, on the one hand, the difference of nature between
the eastern man and the western; and on the other, the diversity of
the political destiny assigned them. The eastern man contemplates and
adores, while his rival, less happy in contemplation, is more so in
acting. Thus the one has created generous institutions, under which he
has from age to age extended his empire, while the other has passed
from servitude to servitude, incapable of seating himself in the shade
of a regular authority, and of developing in a free atmosphere either
the evil or the good which, he has conceived. Hence in Europe error
takes a character of life which conducts it to its most extreme
logical consequences, at the same time that it wears at Constantinople
a character of death, which leaves it what it was, by impotence, not
by virtue.
Nevertheless, it is easy for a vulgar intelligence to be deceived,
especially where family and national traditions give to error the
reflex of patriotism, and when an absolute government, the jealous
guardian of a religion of which it is the head, suffers no emanations
of the truth to reach the soul. Sophie de Soymonoff was born a
prisoner in an empire of seventy millions of souls. She was six
hundred leagues from St. Peter's, and a thousand years from the true
faith. But, however vigilant despotism may be, however thick its
dungeon walls, God remains ever near, and he draws therefrom, when he
wills, the instruments which his Providence uses to preserve for man
the share which he assigns him in all his works. At an age when Madame
de Swetchine could not yet sound either the poverty of the Greek
schism or the abyss of unbelief, a man of God came to her. He was not
a priest, but an ambassador of a king despoiled of the greater part of
his possessions, shut up in an island of the Mediterranean, and who,
in sending to St. Petersburg a {738} representative of his
misfortunes, thought not that he sent there a _chargé d'affaires_ of
divine grace, marked with the seal of the elect. Count Joseph de
Maistre, tor he it was, detested with all his soul the two Colossuses
of his day, the French revolution and the French empire, because in
the one he saw the oppression of European nationalities; and the
other, because he thought he saw it imprinted forever with an
anti-Christian spirit. But he loved France, because, though it was the
seat of the revolution and of the empire, he discerned there an
indestructible faith, the faith of Clovis, of Charlemagne, and of St.
Louis, and I know not what predestination that ravished his judgment,
and rendered him the prophet of that very country which he esteemed so
culpable and yet so great. Born in Savoy, in the country of St.
Francis de Sales, and of Jean Jacques Rousseau, he was French like
them in his genius, but even more so by his faith and his heart, which
had but two pulsations, one for the church, the other for France;
generous mortal who silenced his antipathies by his convictions, in
whom blindness did not extinguish the light, and who, like
Philoctetes, wounded by the arrows of Hercules, could be separated
from Greece, neither in his accusations nor in his affections. Madame
de Swetchine soon met this extraordinary man in the saloons of St.
Petersburg, and it was the first great event of her life. A positive
spirit, but amiable, as his posthumous correspondence proves, M. de
Maistre loved conversation. He did not love it as a throne from which
his genius could display its brilliancy, but as a free and delicate
interchange of thoughts, in which grace unites with intelligence,
taste with boldness, freedom with reserve, bringing together in an
hour all times and all gifts; and forming a bond of union between men
who are pleased with sentiments of kindness and esteem. Generous focus
of cultivated minds of all countries, conversation is the last asylum
of human liberty. It speaks when the tribune is silent; it supplies
the place of books when books are not to be had; it gives currency to
thoughts which despotism persecutes; finally, it warms, and agitates;
it moves, and is, where it can live, the principle and the
all-powerful echo of public opinion. It is not astonishing then that
great men find in it a pleasure which is for them like the
accomplishment of a duty. So long as society converses it is safe.
It did not look much as if the Count de Maistre could find at St.
Petersburg an aliment for this noble want of his heart. The Russian is
endowed with facility of expression, a quickness of apprehension, and
it is no flattery disrobed of justice which has named him the
Frenchman of the North. But he is closed up as soon as he comes into
the world; deprived of all political liberty, he has not even in his
religion room for his breast to expand, and the Christ he adores
appears to him only under the sceptre of his masters and behind their
implacable majesty. A fortress encloses at St. Petersburg the temple
where sleep the Czars, and, once dead, their people cannot even freely
visit their ashes. Fear, suspicion, doubt, all the shades of
inquietude dwell in the Russian, and are translated on his brow by a
calm which nothing destroys, on his lips by a reserve which nothing
dissipates. To converse it is necessary to be open; and to open one's
self, one must possess his life, his goods, his honor, his liberty.
When therefore the Count de Maistre entered St. Petersburg, he might
say that he entered the capital of silence, and that his genius would
be there only a monologue.
He was deceived. I knew Madame de Swetchine only during the last
twenty-five years of her life; and she was fifty when I first rested
my eyes on her benevolent countenance. Doubtless age had ripened her
art of thinking and speaking, but it is impossible that she should not
have had something of it in that young outburst which early announced
to others, and to herself, the treasure which was carried in her
bosom. Certain it is that M. de Maistre had soon discovered it. In
{739} the midst of that society of great lords and diplomatists, he
discovered a young woman who bore in her language the marks of
superiority, and whose conversation, springing from a source still
purer than the mind, touched with remarkable tact the frontiers of
liberty, without ever passing beyond them. Confidence is an
irrepressible want of our poor heart; it cannot live alone; it opens
itself unconsciously, and when life's experience has revealed the
peril of abandoning it to itself, it becomes wiser but no fonder of
reserve, and counts it a supreme happiness to meet with security in
the intercourse of society. Less happy, however, than the greater part
of men, the man of genius has need also of a certain elevation in the
minds that come in contact with his own; and, though the crowd has its
charm and its power, were it only in hearing him who rules, yet it is
in the shock of two intelligences, each worthy of the other, that
conversation has its highest flight, and reaches the last fibres of
our being, and reveals to it the eternal pleasure of minds speaking
with minds. Demosthenes discoursing before the Athenians, Cicero
pleading in the Forum or the Senate of Rome, did not make, as perhaps
some may think, a monologue: the multitude responded, and their
eloquence was the fruit of a great soul heard by a great people. There
is no solitary eloquence, and every orator has a double genius, his
own and that of the age that hears him.
Madame de Staël, who was the first conversationalist of her time, said
she was unhappy because of the universal mediocrity, and yet she
conversed at Paris among the people the most prompt in the world to
speak, and the most confiding: what would she have said at St.
Petersburg? M. de Maistre was there, but he was there with a
Frenchwoman, born in Russia, who would one day, recognizing the
mistake of her birth, live and die in her true country, the country of
an incorruptible faith, and of a liberty which had only an eclipse,
because conversation has always sustained it. Louis XIV. conversed at
Marseilles without suspecting that conversation would kill his
despotism. In the East, the destined seat of absolute power, the
prince does not converse; he gives his order, and is silent.
It is impossible for two souls to meet each other in a conversation
which mutually pleases them, without having religion, sooner or later,
enter into their discourse. Religion is the interior vestment of the
soul. There are some who tear this vestment to tatters; there are
others who soil it; but there are a few who despoil themselves of it
all save some shred, and this shred, such as it is, is sufficient to
prevent them from appearing absolutely destitute of divinity. Madame
de Swetchine was an unbeliever, and, she had behind her, and beyond
her unbelief, the Greek schism. The Count de Maistre was a Catholic,
not only by faith, but by direct mental intuition. He was at that
point where a man can say, so obvious was the truth to him: I believe
not, I see. What were the talks of these two souls on a subject in
regard to which they had nothing in common, except their genius? What
did they say from 1803 to 1810, from the day when they met for the
first time, to that on which one of them bent before the other, owned
herself vanquished, and, on the bosom of friendship, sighed the last
sigh of error? Doubtless God alone knows. God alone knows the
stratagems which suspended for seven years the efficacy of an
eloquence sustained by divine grace, and disputed with it, step by
step, the victim and the victory. However, two immortal books of the
Count de Maistre: Soirées de Saint Petersbourg, and the book Du Pape,
may give us the secret of that controversy lost to the memory of man,
but which we shall one day find in that of God.
It is manifest that the wife of the Governor of St. Petersburg opposed
from the first to the ambassador of Sardinia all the negations of the
eighteenth century, those shadows which Voltaire had invested with all
{740} the transparency of his mocking spirit, and around which Jean
Jacques Rousseau had thrown the poetry of his melancholy imagination.
Doubt, which in all men is a profound abyss, is still more so in the
heart of woman. Nature cannot be denied with impunity, and the nature
of woman is to believe, for it is her vocation to love. Happily Madame
de Swetchine was strong and sincere; she could follow with her mind's
eye her friend's thought, and penetrate, little by little, as she
became accustomed to it, into those regions of truth where mockery had
not left even a trace, and where imagination raised not a single
cloud. Laughter ceases as we ascend nearer to God, and so also do
tears without cause; the intellect becomes serious, and the heart
contented.
When the Count de Maistre had dispelled the phantoms, did Madame de
Swetchine see at a glance the whole reality of Christianity, or did
the Greek Church interpose itself, as a half-light between a doubt
which was no more, and a faith which was not yet? In considering the
slowness of her progress it is natural to believe, and the Count de
Maistre's correspondence confirms it, that the neophyte took the
longest route, and that she did not give herself up to any sudden
illumination. It was then the book Du Pape which succeeded to the
Soirées de Saint Petersbourg. M. de Maistre had dictated it with one
eye on Russia and the other on France. Not that there was any relation
between the two countries in the point of view of religion. France,
since God had made her the eldest daughter of the church, had not been
for a single day a traitor to the sacred unity of her mother; and from
the battle-fields of Tolbiac to the scaffolds of the Reign of Terror,
she held herself faithful on the only and immovable rock where God had
sealed in this world the mystery of truth. But if is true that she was
withdrawn from the public law of Europe, which during several
centuries had accorded a political supremacy to the Roman pontiff and
that she had derived from this sort of resistance, I know not what of
personal independence, which without detracting from her theological
submission, had given her in certain matters a more apparent reserve.
Yet if Louis XIV. had not taken it into his head to establish as a
maxim what was only a national instinct, regulated by a profound
faith, the sentiments of France would never have assumed in the eyes
of Christendom the doubtful coloring which after the ruins of the
revolution struck the genius of the Count de Maistre and inspired him
with the book, Du Pape. He saw in Russia the immense fall of the Greek
Church, caused by this single point of infidelity to St. Peter, and
without fearing for France what no one feared for her, he erected to
the papacy that beautiful and proud, statue, which posterity will ever
regard with honor, even though they should accuse the artist of having
known the past less well than the future.
_Thou art Peter, and on this rock I build my church, and the gates of
hell shall not prevail against it_. These simple words, regarded in
the gospel and in history, taught Madame de Swetchine that the Greek
Church, although preserving the traditions of episcopal authority, was
detached from the centre of unity, and consequently from the throne
itself of life. After this it was easy to recognize its effects in the
spiritual miseries she had under her eyes. The clergy are not the
whole church; they are only a portion of it. The church is the
assemblage of all souls who know God, and do not consciously reject
either the words he has given the world, or the authority which he has
founded to preserve and propagate his words and his grace. Though a
visible body in the faithful exteriorly marked with his seal, she yet
embraces under the eyes of God, who penetrates and judges all
consciences, a multitude unknown to herself, in whom invincible
ignorance {741} creates good faith, and who live unknowingly the truth
of which she is the depositary. This is the church. As to the clergy,
all is said in these words of our Lord ascending to heaven: _Go and
teach all nations, baptizing them and teaching them to keep my
commandments._ The clergy are the apostolate of the church; they are
the venerated summit of faith, the army of souls called by God to
spread the only law which is infallible, the only force which conquers
the flesh, the only unction which gives humility. "_Who hears you
hears me_," our Lord has said: "_who despises you despises me_." All
may and must befall the clergy, hate, exile, torture, death; there is
but one thing which they cannot and should not merit, contempt. When
Christ suffered in the judgment hall under the blows of the vilest
executioners, when he bore his cross from Jerusalem to Calvary, when
he was raised on it in the face of the whole world, there was against
him from heaven to earth, from Satan to man, a hate deeper and broader
than the ocean. But respect survived; and Pilate in washing his hands,
the centurion in beholding the cross, the virgins in weeping, the sun
in hiding its light, were the revelations of a conscience greater than
the punishment, and which held the astonished universe in expectation
and awe. Now, by a judgment of God, which is the chastisement of a
fault of centuries, the Greek clergy are despised. They are despised
not only by the unbeliever but by the believer; they are despised by
the penitent whose confessions they hear, by the purified Christians
to whom they give the body and blood of their God. This contempt is
striking and universal; the pope or Greek priest bears it on his
forehead as an avenging sign, and even the kiss of the Czar confirms
and enlarges it.
Placed between this spectacle and the vision of the Count de Maistre,
the whole light came to Madame de Swetchine, and then commenced for
her the second struggle, the struggle of the truth against the holiest
affections of the heart. Truth is, no doubt, the great country of the
mind; it is father, mother, brother, sister, and native land; but man
has on earth another family and another country, the better he is the
more he loves them, and virtue; in so far as it is human, makes them
the cherished centre of all that is good, amiable, and generous. To
these ties already so strong, religion adds its divine influence, and
from the same table to the same altar man leads his happiness, and
there attaches by a single chain time and eternity. What a blow is
that when some day, by an evidence which leaves no possible retreat,
the daughter shall see God standing between her and her mother,
between her and her husband, between her and her native country, and
there shall be said to her in the same voice which Abraham heard: "_Go
out from, thy land and thy kindred, and from the house of thy father,
and come to the land which I shall show thee_." There are some, it is
true, who think this voice should never be heard, but for three
thousand years, since Abraham, it has commanded and been obeyed. God
is stronger than man, and man is great enough to sacrifice to truth
more than himself.
Madame de Swetchine had not only to fear the rending of her heart, she
had before her an intolerance which the opposition of our century had
only irritated. The Emperor Nicholas did not yet reign, but the
conversion of a Russian soul to the Catholic Church was none the less
an act of high treason, which exposed her to the severities of the
morrow, if she escaped the inattention of the evening. After having
endured this stormy situation for six or seven years, Madame de
Swetchine turned her eyes toward France, and obtained from the Emperor
Alexander, a generous prince, himself agitated by an unknown
inspiration, the permission to live there. France received her in 1818
at the age of thirty-four, in the plenitude of her faculties ripened
by a long intercourse with men and events.
{742}
It is not without a purpose that God draws to himself' a creature
condemned to error by all the ties of family and country, and
transports her far away to a foreign capital in the midst of a new
people. Much less so is it when this grace falls on a choice
intelligence, placed in the first ranks of society, and who unites in
herself all the gifts of nature, and all those of the world. Paris
since 1750 had been the centre of the European mind. It had by half a
century's crusade against Christ, drawn the nations from those old
certainties to which they owed their existence. An unheard of
revolution had been the chastisement of this fault, a chastisement so
much the more remarkable, as France had invoked just principles,
conformed to its ancient traditions, and as it was the defect of a
superior light to restrain herself, that she had traversed everything
with a devastating impetuosity. She had remained faithful only to her
sword, and still after twenty-five years of victory, worthy of her
happiest days, she had just succumbed by excess in the battlefield,
and twice the foreigner had soiled with his presence that superb city,
the mistress, by the ascendency of her intelligence, of the modern
world. It was there on the day after its reverses, that Providence
conducted Madame de Swetchine. The question was to know if France,
aware of the need she had of God to reconstruct her, would hear the
voice of her misfortunes; if recalled to her ancient kings, and
reconciled in her old temples, she would, consent to be again
Christian in order to give her liberty the sanction of the faith which
had always guided and always served her.