Few minds in either camp discerned this relation of Christianity with

the institutions of a liberally governed people. The example of

England, where the church had always supported the commons, said but

little to the publicists who were the most charmed with her

Parliament. Madame de Swetchine herself had had in the author of

Considerations sur la France, a master who saw plainly the vices of

the French revolution, but who without betraying civil and political

liberty, did not well comprehend, perhaps, either all its necessity or

all its future. Happily she had lived under absolute power; she had

had under her eyes for nearly forty years a Christian Church in a

servile land, and this lesson could not be lost on a mind as true as

hers. The evils of liberty are great among a people who do not know

how to measure it, who at every moment refuse it by jealousy, or go

beyond it through inexperience. But these evils, great as they may be,

belong to the apprenticeship of liberty and not to its essence; they

still leave it daylight, space, and life, a resource for the feeble, a

hope for the vanquished, and above all the sacred emulation of good

against evil. Under despotism good and evil sleep on the same pillow;

souls are invaded by a dull degeneracy because they have no longer a

struggle to sustain, and Christianity itself, a protected victim,

expiates in unspeakable humiliations the benefits of its peace. Madame

de Swetchine saw this. Her great heart was full of this when she

entered Paris, and amid the roar of tempests she knelt, for the first

time in her life, at altars combated, but esteemed. It is necessary to

have suffered for liberty of faith to know its price. It is necessary

to have passed under the gibbets of schism, to be able fully to know

what it is to breathe the atmosphere of truth. How often have I seen

Madame de Swetchine's eyes fill with tears at the thought that she was

in a Catholic country! How often has she been inwardly moved at seeing

a good priest, a good religious, a good brother of the Christian

Schools, in a word, our Lord's image on a sincere brow or in a

virtuous life! Ah! this it is which here we never lose. We {743} can

dishonor I know not how many human and even divine things; but in the

shipwreck Christ remains visible to us in many who worthily love and

serve him.

The life of Madame de Swetchine during the forty years she passed in

our midst was one continual thanksgiving. More than once under a reign

of persecution, like that of the Emperor Nicholas, she had fears for

the security of her sojourn in France. Once, notwithstanding her great

age, she believed it necessary not to leave it to the zeal even of her

most tried friends, and rushed to St. Petersburg to implore the

forgetfulness of the Czar. God still saved her. She had acquired such

a prestige, that it might be said that she represented at Paris the

honor and intelligence of Russia, and this, it is probable, was what,

in the most difficult times, saved her from being recalled.

This dependence which she still had on her country, because her

estates there might be held to answer for her personal conduct,

imposed on her an extreme prudence in a saloon which was frequented by

her compatriots and by men of all ranks and all opinions. But this

reserve, which she had acquired as a habit in her own country,

detracted nothing from the grace and sincerity of her discourse;

whether she was silent or whether she expressed her thoughts,

according to the degree of confidence inspired by those present, she

never betrayed it; and in her silence even, she seized things on the

side which remained accessible, and gave them clearness enough, to

instruct without displeasing. An exquisite naturalness covered her

speech, though tact and unexpectedness were its most usual

characteristics. When she met Madame de Staël for the first time, each

knew the other without being told; and happening to be placed at

opposite corners of a large hall, they observed each other with

curiosity. Madame de Staël, accustomed to homage, waited for Madame de

Swetchine to come to her. Seeing she did not, she all at once crossed

the long space which separated them, stopped before her, and said in a

lively and caressing tone: "Do you know, Madame, that I am much hurt

by your coldness toward me?" "Madame," was the reply, "it is for the

king to salute first." This remark can give some idea of the ingenuous

and submissive style of Madame de Swetchine's conversation. Different

from Madame de Staël, who disserted rather than conversed, Madame de

Swetchine raised her voice but slightly, and had no accent of

domination; she waited her time without impatience, without caring for

success, always more happy to please than ambitious to dazzle. An

inexhaustible interest in those whom she had once loved, gave to her

intimacy a sweet and maternal character. Her genius was approached as

a focus of light, no doubt, but with a filial disposition which

endeared its brilliancy, which was the fruit of a goodness as manifest

as was her intellectual superiority. Introduced into the highest

French society by the Duchesse de Duras and the Marquise de Montcalm,

sisters of the Duc de Richelieu, she was not long in making felt

around her that attraction which is produced in society by

acknowledged eminence of character. What she had been when young at

St. Petersburg in her husband's salons, she was in the heart of

France; but what at St. Petersburg was only a conquest of suffrages

and of admiration, became at Paris an apostolate.

When a soul passes to God's side, that is to say, to the side of

Christianity, the only expression here below of the divine life, she

can find nowhere else the principles and motives of her actions. All

in her proceeds from the sacred height and returns to it, Madame de

Swetchine lived in the world, but was not of it; she was held to it

only by its good--only to make her protest for God, and to serve him;

an admirable office in which the world assumes all its grandeur; in

which fallen under the strokes of a mind that {744} knows what it is

worth, it arises and occupies with him every instant of thought and

every vibration of the heart. He who is disabused by the simple

experience of life, despises the world, while he who is disabused by

light from on High esteems it. Being then no longer in the world for

the world, Madame de Swetchine was more than ever there for God; she

followed his course with all-powerful interest, attentive to seize

whatever might remove or approach her to the principle of all life. M.

de Maistre was no more. A different school from his was forming;

Madame de Swetchine saw unfold its first germs, and she surrounded

with her counsels and her affection the young representatives of an

idea which her recollections, perhaps, would have repulsed, but which

the freedom of her mind rendered her capable of judging, for this was

the character as the temper of her genius. In a time of intellectual

dependence, in which parties bore away everything in their train,

Madame de Swetchine made no engagement, and submitted to no

attraction; she isolated every question from the noise around her, and

placed it in the silence of eternity. Thus was one sure after having

heard all that was said, to encounter on crossing her threshold

something which had not been heard, an original view of the truth; and

even when she was mistaken, a proof that her thought did not belong to

herself alone, because she sought it in God.

It was after the failure of L' Avenir that I first saw her. I

approached the borders of her soul as a seaweed broken by the waves,

and I remember yet, after twenty-five years, how she placed her light

and strength at the service of a young man unknown to her. Her

counsels sustained me both against despondeney and exaltation. One day

when she thought she noticed in my words a doubt or lassitude, she

said to me with a singular accent, the simple words: "Take care." She

was wonderful in discovering the point to which one inclined, and

where it was necessary to bear assistance. The measure of her thought

was so perfect, the freedom of her judgment so remarkable, that I was

long in comprehending to whom and to what she was devoted. Where in

others I should have known in advance what was to be said, here I was

almost always ignorant, and nowhere did I feel myself more out of the

world. This charm from above was not diffused over me alone. Other

minds, my predecessors or my contemporaries, felt its action, and it

is impossible to say for how many souls this single soul was a lamp.

Not only the day, at fixed hours, not only the evening until midnight,

but at almost every moment, confidence sought her with an importunity

which was never complained of. Thus was formed around a foreigner I

know not what country, which was of all times and of all lands, for it

was the truth which was its ground, its atmosphere, its light, and its

motion.

Nature, it is evident, could not suffice of itself to feed this

inexhaustible conversation. It was nourished by an assiduous reading

of all that was remarkable which appeared in Europe. No book, as no

man, escaped her ardent curiosity. After the example of the Count de

Maistre, who inspired the taste, Madame de Swetchine pencil-marked

every page which struck her, and in her first leisure hour between two

conversations she engraved on a light leaf of brass the thought which

had illumined hers. She added her own reflections with the rapidity of

a first glance, and this triple commerce with books, men, and herself,

which was never interrupted, gave to her intelligence a spring which

was never exhausted. What, however, in the midst of the contradictions

of her century were the principles which guided her, and of which she

shed around her the unfailing clearness? In recalling my recollections

of her, I should say they were Our Lord the life of heaven and earth;

the Catholic Church, the only society of the mind, because it alone

possesses the foundation of faith and the {745} inspiration of

charity; Rome, the centre of the world, because she is the centre of

the church; the human family progressive on a basis that does not

change; civil and political liberty, the daughter of Christianity;

commerce, industry, science, all grand things, but under things

grander still, honor and justice; all man's toil powerless to diminish

poverty without virtue; France, a people loved by God--its revolution

a vengeance and a mercy, a germ under ruins; philosophy, as old as

man, the vestibule of Christianity when not as yet enlightened by

faith, and its crown when faith has transformed it; reason, the inborn

light whence philosophy proceeds, and which Christianity perfects; the

future, an uncertain abyss, but in which God is ever found; error, a

crime sometimes, a weakness oftener; tolerance, an homage to the

truth, a proof of faith; force, which is next to impotency; authority,

an ascendency which has its source in antiquity and in right;

property, the union of man with the earth by labor, the first liberty

of the world, without which no other subsists; liberty the guaranty of

right against whatever is not right. These, if my memory is faithful,

are the sound which at every hour and under every touch was given

forth by that harmonious lyre which we now hear no more. A constant

simplicity in an equal elevation, a goodness which came from Christ,

gave to her doctrines, apart from their merit as truth, a personal

influence. In hearing her this double charm might be resisted, but she

could not be hated or despised; she could not but be loved, and

inspire the desire to become better. Happy mouth, which for forty

years made not an enemy to God, but which poured into a multitude of

wounded or languishing hearts the germ of the resurrection and the

rapture of life.

Yet, perhaps I deceive those who read me. They may persuade themselves

that the friend of the Count de Maistre and of so many eminent

Christians won their friendship only by the merit of a superior

intelligence. That would be much, but in Madame de Swetchine it was

not all. Intellect, when it comes from God, is inseparable from

charity. Madame de Swetchine loved the poor. Like Frederic Ozanam,

another blessing of Providence that we have lost, she knew how to

forget science in presence of misfortune, and her lips, accustomed to

things profound, had only divine things in the face of suffering and

death. In entering her dwelling this might not be believed. Pictures

by the great masters, dazzling candelabras, precious vases, books

enclosed under crystals richly encased, flowers and drapery, all

suggested the idea of costly magnificence hardly compatible with the

secret love of the unfortunate. But, as I have said, Madame de

Swetchine had in all things, even in duty, a point of view which was

her own. Persuaded that she owed it to her family and to her country,

to represent them worthily in the capital of a great people, she had

the art of being simple in the midst of a splendor which she

considered necessary, and to find economy in unseen privations. Long

before her death, for example, she had no carriage. She walked with

scrupulous exactness to the offices of St. Thomas of Aquina, her

parish church, although she had a private chapel, and though her age

as well as her infirmities would permit her to remain at home or go

out only in a carriage.

One day her secret escaped her, Troubled, I imagine by something she

had read, or some discourse which I had made her, she asked me with a

kind of anxiety if I believed that in giving a sixth part of her

income to the poor, she accomplished the precept of almsgiving.

Another time, when some early vegetables were served at her table, at

which I appeared surprised: "What would you?" she said to me; "there

are people who raise these for us; would it not be ungrateful for

those who can, not to recompense them for their labor?" This remark

opened to me a new order of ideas. I understood that riches should not

be {746} used simply to support those who cannot gain their own living

whether from want of strength or want of work, but that they should

also, according to their amount, be used to protect all the honest

developments of human toil. It is thus that in the beautiful days of

Venice, Genoa, Florence, and of Pisa, so many Christian merchants

raised immortal monuments to their country, and that at Rome so many

cardinals have built palaces. Magnificence is a virtue, says St.

Thomas Aquinas, when it is regulated by reason, and very different

from luxury, which is vanity and ruin.

At Madame de Swetchine's house was seen a mute, whom she had adopted

as if in return for the gift of speech, which she had received in so

eminent a degree. It was her custom to associate the care of the poor

with the happy events of her life. Each of them recalled a happiness

which he represented. She visited them on fixed days; she herself

carried them assistance, and above fill the light of her presence.

This intercourse kept alive in her the memory of the man, so quick to

be effaced from those who have not the memory of God. She continued it

even to the last days of her life; and when already the breath was

uncertain and trembling on her lips, she asked for accounts of her

poor. I saw, when we were seated around the sad couch of this

beautiful light, her dear mute watching from an adjoining chamber, a

vigilant sentinel of a life which had given her so much of itself, and

which was fading away between friendship remaining faithful, and

poverty remaining grateful.

Shall I speak, after the poor, of that beloved chapel, where the

former unbeliever of St. Petersburg opened her heart before the God of

her maturity? It was there, above all, that she lived, and there that

she had gathered into a narrow space all that taste and riches could

do to express and satisfy her love. Charming and pious sanctuary! you

could not contain many souls, but there was one which sufficed to fill

you, and which you filled also. Now you are no more. Death has

despoiled the seats where so many friends came to pray; where prayer

was so sweet, and peace so profound. We shall see you no more, nor

your images, nor your precious stones, nor the tabernacle where at the

side of the Lord reposed the virtue all entire of our friend. You had

her last thought; it was of you she murmured at the moment eternity

seized and carried her before God. Can I, then, better end than with

you? For whom should I still ask a remembrance, a tear, an admiration?

For several years Madame de Swetchine had had preludes of her end. The

consequences of a fall had left on her face a serious hurt which at

intervals and without warning, rendered speaking very painful. This

pain did not arrest the rapture of her communications. She remained

what she had ever been, the mistress of herself, and occupied with

all, winning hearts as in the days of her youth, when the Count de

Maistre sent her his portrait with these words, written by his own

hand:

"Docile à l'appel plein de grâce

De l'amitié qui vous attend,

Volez, image, et prenez place

Où l'original se plait tant."

Happier than this great man who saw only the first dawning of Sophie

de Soymonoff, we have enjoyed her perfect day; he formed her for us,

and happier herself than her master, she could, by the clearness of a

tempered reason, bring to her age a judgment in which hope surpassed

fear, and which best indicated the true route to minds desirous of

knowing and serving it. But at last we had to lose her. Every star

below fades, every treasure vanishes, every soul is recalled. God did

not spare his servant the agonies of death, but he left her to

surmount them the influence which she had acquired over all things by

seventy-five years of combat. Seated in her parlor to the last hour,

she continued to receive those whom she loved, to speak {747} to them

of themselves, and of the future, to foresee all, and to animate all.

Her reclining figure raised itself to smile, she kept the accent and

the thread of her thought, and her eyes with their serenity still

brightened the touching scene in which we disputed for her with God. A

last shock took her from us on the 10th September, 1857, at six

o'clock in the morning, having a few days before received the viaticum

and the unction of eternal life.

Alas! dear and illustrious lady. I cannot attach to your name the

glory of those Roman women whom St. Jerome has immortalized, and yet

you were of their race: you were of the race of those women who

followed Christ through all the stations of his pilgrimage, who

watched him as he died, who embalmed him in his tomb, and who were the

first to salute him on the morning of his resurrection. You believed

all and saw all. Born in schism, brought up in unbelief, God sent you

to open your eyes, one of the rarest minds of this century; his hand

touched your eyelids, and the sight which your country refused you,

came to you from foreign skies. A Christian, you aspired to the

liberty of Christ; conquered for, God through the language of France,

you wished to live under the French speech, and quitting a country you

always loved, you came among us with the modesty of a disciple and of

an exile. But you brought us more than we gave you. The light of your

soul illumined the land which received you, and for forty years you

were for us the sweetest echo of the gospel, and the surest road to

honor. No failure annoyed you, no success ensnared you; you were ever

the same, because truth and justice do not change. Ah! doubtless your

mission was to do us good in our pale West, but you had another

mission, I believe; you were near us as an advance guard of the

conversion of the East. Daughter of Greece! God wished to show us in

your person, as he already had in several of your compatriots, what

will, one day, be that old church of our first fathers in the faith,

when, brought back from a fatal separation, she shall receive from the

might of St. Peter that emission of unity which she formerly sent us

from Jerusalem and Antioch, and of which we guard for her with

fidelity the precious deposit. Yes, we trust the love which you

preserved for your country; trust the presentiments of your

Evangelist, the great Count de Maistre; trust in the long hopes of the

Latin Church, and its constant respect for Christian Greece. Yes,

sooner or later, the East will bend before the West, as a brother

before a brother. St. Sophia will hear resound again in the two

languages the symbol which has not ceased to unite us. Liberty of

conscience, acquired by the human race, will no longer permit error to

guard itself by persecution. Veils will fall; the obscure victims of

political fear shake off their chains; all minds from one end of

Europe to the other will follow the inclination of nature and grace;

and if there remain, as there must, unbelievers and Protestants, at

least there will remain no longer a nation crucified for error. In

those days, dear and noble friend whom we have lost, and live here to

weep--in those days, you will raise a little your cold stone at

Montmartre, you will breathe an instant the air in which you lived,

and recognizing at once the balm of your first and of your second

country, you will bless God who called you before others, and to whom

you responded with that faith without stain which enlightened us

ourselves, and by that unconquerable hope which sustained us against

all the failures of a century so fruitful in lapses and abortions.

--------

{748}

ORIGINAL.

THE CRY.

I sail on an ocean at midnight.

With darkness above and below;

And never a star in the heaven

To pilot me where I would go.

Fierce tempests that roar in the midnight,

The tempests both cruel and strong,

Are driving me hither and thither;

What wonder if I should go wrong?

Many thousands of others are sailing,

Like me, o'er this tempest-vexed sea,

All bound for the very same haven,

All bound to the same land with me.

But some to the leftward are sailing.

Whilst others they steer to the right;

I oft hear the voice of the captains

Who hail me aloud through the night.

Each one, though so diversely sailing,

Calls out to me, "You are astray!

For this is the course you should steer by

To enter the kingdom of day.

"See, yonder the light shineth clearly,

Right full on the way that we go."

But which is the right and the true way,

Oh! tell me, for how can I know.

I look where they're pointing before them,

But never a star do I see;

Where they tell me the beacon is shining

Is nothing but darkness to me.

My soul is athirst with its longing

To rest on the beautiful shore.

Where is felt not the surge of the billows.

Where the tempest is heard nevermore:

{749}

Where the gardens of amaranth blossom,

And meadows of green asphodel

Fill the air with a fragrance immortal;

Where the satisfied voyagers dwell

Who have passed o'er this ocean before me,

And rest with the holy of old,

In the city whose walls are of jasper.

And roofs of the finest of gold.

O Lord of the wonderful city!

O King of the kingdom of day!

Let the light of thy truth shine out clearly

To pilot me safe on my way!

THE ANSWER.

I hear thee, my child, in the darkness;

I know where thou wishest to be:

But why in a pilotless vessel

Didst venture alone on this sea?

Thy way is in doubt and in darkness.

Because thou dost voyage alone,

Rejecting the old Ship of safety.

To choose a frail bark of thine own.

That vessel is sailing beside thee.

Its course the great Pilot controls.

The tempest will ne'er overcome it--

It never will wreck on the shoals.

Who sail in this old Ship of safety,

Know nothing of doubt or of strife.

How can they with him who commands it--

The Way, and the Truth, and the Life?

And all through the mist and the darkness

Faith shows a mysterious way,

O'er which sails the good ship of Peter

Straight on to the kingdom of day!

A.Y.

--------

{750}

ORIGINAL.

THE GODFREY FAMILY; OR, QUESTIONS OF THE DAY.

CHAPTER XXIV.

DEATH OF MRS. GODFREY.

A missive soon brought M. Bertolot to the trio. He came as secretly as

possible, and departed in the same way; not so secretly, however, as

to prevent his visit being shortly made known to Alfred Brookbank,

who, with the view of making a final breach between Sir Philip and his

wife, had set spies to watch the movements of the party. He discovered

from the jealousy of the neighbors the intimacy at the Irish cottage,

and surmised the attraction which produced these visits, but could

make no use of this surmise until his agent recognized in M. Bertolot

the French priest who had accompanied the countess to England. The

secrecy of the visit told its purport. Alfred now informed Sir Philip,

as if he had just made the discovery, that Annie had been in Eugene's

company all the time she had been away; that Catholics were their only

society, and that a priest visited them in secret, adding that there

could be no rational doubt that Lady Conway and her mother were both

Catholics.

Sir Philip's indignation was excessive. Without taking time to

consider the matter at all, he ordered his carriage and drove

post-haste to Estcourt Hall, to which place the family were now

summoned in consequence of the increasing weakness of Mrs. Godfrey.

Mrs. Godfrey had been brought there by short stages, and had arrived

the night before. Mr. Godfrey and Hester were there to meet her, and

to Hester's great joy she was once more pressed lovingly to her

mother's heart, who was more than happy to see her children united

again in affection. Adelaide was hourly expected; and when Sir Philip

made his appearance he was supposed to come in obedience to a similar

summons. Mr. Godfrey received him; but Sir Philip's agitation was such

that he made no answer to the customary greeting. He looked round the

room, and seeing they were alone, he said in a choking voice:

"Is Lady Conway here?"

"She is; she arrived last night."

"And her brother Eugene?"

"Is here also."

"And have they been together all this time? O Mr. Godfrey, how you

have deceived me!"

Mr. Godfrey was puzzled. He was constitutionally timid, and certainly

was just now in no mood for quarrelling; so he said quietly: "Why, has

any harm come of it?"

"Harm! What can be greater harm than that Annie and her mother should

both of them be papists?"

"Is it that which frightens you? Be composed, my dear friend; put such

thoughts from your mind; Annie has too much sense for that. And my

poor wife, she has been a little weak in the head lately, it is true,

but she is not given that way in the least degree; besides, I greatly

fear she cannot live long; her strength is less than I could have

imagined. Come, and see her."

But Sir Philip was absorbed in one idea. "I tell you," said he, "that

the mischief is already done; that your wife and mine have both been

on their knees to a priest, and that the secrets of both families are

already on the way to Rome."

"Impossible!" said Mr. Godfrey.

{751}

"Try," said Sir Philip; "ask the question; if they dare deny it, I

will produce the proofs."

Mr. Godfrey laid his hand on the bell-rope. A servant appeared.

"Request Mr. Eugene to come to me immediately." The man bowed and

disappeared. Eugene soon entered. The door was carefully closed. Sir

Philip could scarcely keep himself from springing on him; but Mr.

Godfrey stood between them, and said in a hollow voice: "Eugene,

answer without circumlocution or disguise, say yes or no, are your

mother and sister Annie Catholics?"

"They are."

Mr. Godfrey pointed to the door; he could not speak. Eugene left the

room. The two strong men trembled with impotent rage.

"A curse has fallen upon the house," muttered Mr. Godfrey at length,

as he paced the room. "Who could have dreamed of this?"

"Mr. Godfrey," said Sir Philip, in tones of thunder, "you will tell

your daughter that she never again will enter my doors. Prepare what

settlements you please, send them to my lawyer; anything in reason I

will consent to, but see her again I will not."

He quitted the house, nor did he ever see his injured wife again.

Scarcely had Sir Philip's carriage driven away when another drove up,

containing Adelaide, the young Dowager Duchess of Durimont. She

entered the house in a scarcely less agitated state than Sir Philip

had left it in; but her excitement proceeded altogether from a

different cause. Among Adelaide's numerous faults, want of affection

for her mother certainly did not form one. On the contrary, she was

accustomed not only to love but to reverence her mother as a very

superior woman. Through the sunshine of youth, while enjoying the

warmth of a mother's fondness and protection, Adelaide's affections

had strengthened without that sentimentality of expression which Mrs.

Godfrey would have taught her to repress had she seen it manifested,

but they were none the less deep or tender for having hitherto found

no occasion, of great display. On the first intimation she had

received of her mother's illness, Adelaide had hastened at once to

Estcourt Hall, and was with difficulty persuaded by Mr. Godfrey to

retire. He feared that Adelaide's presence would but increase the

excitement under which Mrs. Godfrey labored, and as the doctor's

opinion was to that effect also, Adelaide was compelled, however

reluctantly, to yield. They gave her no clew whatever as to the cause

of her mother's malady, and though she had a general idea of some

unworthy transaction in which Eugene was wronged and Hester enriched,

she did not enter into particulars, nor mentally connect the facts

with her mother's illness. The only effect it had upon her was to

estrange her from Hester, and in a slighter degree from her father

also.

When she heard that Eugene and Annie were summoned to her mother's

side, again she endeavored to share their cares; but Mr. Godfrey was

fearful of suffering too great intercourse between Adelaide and

Eugene, and used his utmost endeavors to dissuade her. He insisted

that the physicians absolutely ordered that none should approach her

save those she asked for. The father dreaded the judgment of the

daughter when she should know the cause of her mother's trouble. He

was accustomed to be looked up to by his children, and shrank from

incurring the disapproval of this one in particular; for Adelaide had

ever been considered the most talented and the most intellectual of

the family. He had a sort of consciousness that to the mother's

influence in veiling his foibles from his children's eyes, he owed

much of that reverence with which they habitually approached him; and

he could but feel that he had made but a poor return for a life of

devotedness, when he refused to yield to the first {752} important

demand she had ever made him, and that in favor of his own son.

But now Eugene had written to Adelaide to say her mother was calm, and

would welcome her. Adelaide entered her father's house pale and

trembling, an attendant supporting her.

"Is she still alive?" she whispered, as she saw her father; then, as

if fearful he would still oppose her seeing Mrs. Godfrey's, she

refused by a gesture to enter the sitting-room, but made her way at

once up the broad staircase to the room her mother had ever been wont

to occupy. She opened the door, and flinging herself on her knees by

the side of the bed, took the pale hand, and, as she kissed it, said,

with streaming eyes: "Ah! dear mother, why was I not permitted to come

to you before?"

"And who forbade you, my love?"

"My father said the doctors--"

Mrs. Godfrey looked at her husband, who had followed Adelaide into the

room; there was surprise and sorrow, but no anger on her countenance.

She pressed Adelaide's hand and whispered, "Perhaps he was right, I

was unconscious and delirious a long while, my poor child; but now you

will stay with me the little time that I remain on earth."

"You feel better to-day, my dear mother," said Annie, hopefully.

"I do, but it cannot last; we must not deceive ourselves. I am glad to

see my dear Adelaide, but I cannot talk to her yet."

The effort of saying even so much exhausted her; she lay back, and

they watched long hours in silence by her pillow.

Day after day passed away, the loving children surrounding her, and

Mr. Godfrey sharing their watch. All traces of excitement had gone, in

the solemnity of that watch. Mrs. Godfrey seemed so thoroughly in

peace, that that peace seemed to pass into the circle of hearts

surrounding her. She became, however, perceptibly weaker everyday. Ten

days after Adelaide's arrival she whispered to her one morning: "Tell

your father I wish to speak to him."

Adelaide summoned her father. Whatever were the words spoken, they

appeared to distress him very much. He gazed at his wife as though in

a stupor. She held his hand and faintly whispered, "My last wishes,

can you refuse them?" "No," said he, half choked, "he shall be sent

for;" and he left her to seek Eugene. That evening a stranger was

ushered by Eugene, as it were by stealth, into his mother's room.

Annie alone was present. The last sacraments of the church were

administered, and the stranger priest passed down the back staircase

so secretly that none knew of or suspected his visit save those

present and Mr. Godfrey, who had insisted on such secrecy being

observed.

Adelaide had at length gathered all the facts concerning her brother

being disinherited, and the effect the transaction had produced on

Mrs. Godfrey's mind. A great feeling of repulsion for Hester was the

consequence, and her manner soon betrayed symptoms of the feelings

that swayed her.

"I can never again call her sister," she whispered, half-aloud, one

day, in her meditation, by her mother's side; Mrs. Godfrey's eyes

opened. "My children, love one another," she said. "Love, for he loved

even sinners; forgive, for he forgave those who crucified him." She

sank to sleep after pronouncing these words, and when the watchers

bent over her to see what prolonged that sleep to so unusual a time,

they found that the sweet purified spirit had already winged its way

to the mansions of the blessed.

Of all the mourners there, perhaps the grief of Adelaide was the most

violent. The feelings of Annie and Eugene were tempered by the hope

that their mother was now happier than she had ever been before.

Hester's were modified by the deep meditation in which she was plunged

by the fact that her mother had received full insight into that faith

of which she had caught but a glimpse, and of which {753} she so

earnestly desired to know more. But she dared not question Eugene or

Annie, for fear of angering her father and her mother! "O mother, pray

for me!" was in her heart, and checked the outward demonstration of'

her grief.

They were standing round the coffin, those four children, whom she had

brought so faithfully through the cares and dangers of childhood! No

pride of station had withdrawn her from fulfilling her nursery duties;

no sloth, no command of riches had caused her to delegate to hireling

hands the cultivation of their infant minds; riches to them had been

as an accessory, not, as too often happens, causing a withdrawal of

maternal offices. How had they requited her? Oh! happy they who can

stand by the bier of those to whom they are bound by duty or by love,

and feel no remorse for duty oft neglected.

Adelaide was standing on one side at the head of the coffin, rapt in

grief, Eugene and Annie were on the other side. Hester at the foot

absorbed in intense thought, but tearless and as it seemed to Adelaide

not paying homage in her thoughts to that dear mother. "Was she even

then dwelling on her own wild schemes?" The thought maddened Adelaide,

and forgetting the self-control for which she was usually so

remarkable, she in the overmastering impulse of the moment seized

Hester's arm, led her to the head of the coffin, and, pointing to the

sweet pale face before them, said in a frenzied tone, regardless of

the presence of Mr. Godfrey, who just then entered the room: "And did

you dare to wring the heart of that most noble woman? Was it for you,

whom she loved so dearly, to crush her loving spirit, and then stand

by so calmly contemplating her remains? How my heart loathes you!"

"Hush! hush! dear sister," said Eugene tenderly, as he disengaged her

clasp from Hester, who fell nearly fainting into her father's arms.

"Hush! Adelaide, hush! she bade us love each other; you have

misconceived this matter. Come with me, I will explain it"--and he

took her to another apartment, and tried to make her understand

Hester's intentions of ultimately settling all according to equity,

while Mr. Godfrey and Annie did their best, to restore Hester to her

usual equanimity.

Mr. Godfrey was so much moved by this affront put upon his darling

that he forgot his intention of keeping Mrs. Godfrey's change of

religion secret, and in the evening he called Adelaide to his private

study, and there explained that the delusions under which her dear

mother had labored had no particular reference to Hester, but were

caused by religion. "In fact,'" said; Mr. Godfrey, "what she wanted

the day you came to summon me to her, was a Catholic priest. Of course

I refused her nothing; the priest came that night, but secretly, out

of respect to the reputation of the family."

"Was my mother a Catholic?"

"She became one latterly."

"And was it for her religion that you persecuted her?"

"Persecuted her! Why, Adelaide, how dare you apply such words to your

father? Your mother was never persecuted; even when out of her mind

she had everything she asked for, and as I tell you, a Catholic priest

attended her the other evening. Persecuted, indeed!"

Adelaide cared not to pursue a theme which brought her out as her

father's accuser, though the impression still remained on her mind

that injustice had occasioned the illness and subsequent death of her

mother, and this prevented her from recalling the offending words.

The father and daughter parted somewhat coldly that evening, nor were

matters much mended by the family consultation held shortly afterward

as to what was to become of Annie. Sir Philip's message was now first

delivered to her, as Alfred Brookbank had arrived as his agent, with

offers of settlement for Mr. Godfrey's approbation.

{754}

"And is Annie not to see her own children again?" asked the duchess,

as she gazed on the speechless, the agonized face of her sister.

"So says Sir Philip."

"But have you reasoned with him on the subject? Have you protested

against such a monstrous piece of tyranny?"

"It were useless, may it please your grace," interposed the soft low

tones of Alfred Brookbank, who was secretly gloating in the agony of

his victim. "It were perfectly useless. Sir Philip's hatred of

papistry--"

"Please to speak with more respect of the Holy Catholic Church, Mr.

Brookbank," interrupted the duchess.

"I beg pardon; I knew not that your grace--"

"It matters not what you knew," haughtily rejoined the duchess. "It

behoves every man of common sense, or of common education, to speak

respectfully of a faith which for so many centuries has formed the

religion not only of the commonalty but of the heroes of the race. The

names of Alfred the Great and Charlemagne, of Copernicus and Michael

Angelo, with countless others, may weigh a little perhaps against the

opinion of so enlightened an individual as Sir Philip Conway."

The withering sarcasm of tone with which this was uttered made Mr.

Godfrey bite his lips. He felt at once that he had not lowered her

mother in Adelaide's estimation by informing her of that mother's

becoming a Catholic; and he began to wonder which would be the next

seceder from rationalistic principle. "A curse is fallen upon our

house," he again muttered between his teeth.

The conference was necessarily a painful one; but it was with

indescribable surprise and emotion that the assembled family heard Mr.

Godfrey propose that Annie should take refuge in the convent in which

dwelt her friend Euphrasie.

"Why, papa;" whispered Hester, "have you changed your opinion of

convents? You used to call them sinks of iniquity. Why do you wish to

imprison Annie in one?"

"Hush, my dear," answered her father, in the lowest possible whisper,

"all convents are not alike. I happen to know the antecedents of the

superioress and of several of the nuns in this one; they are all

ladies of high birth, and are altogether above suspicion. They are

austere fanatics, that is all. Annie will take no vows, and there she

will see the extent of the folly to which religious enthusiasm lays us

open. If a twelvemonth's residence among the poor Clares does not set

her brain in order, then she is irrecoverably lost to us--we may set

her down as incurably insane."

While this little dialogue was going on, Eugene and Adelaide, jointly

and severally, were urging Annie to make a home with one or other of

themselves, each promising to do the utmost to regain for her the

custody of her children; but Annie, while she mournfully thanked them

for their kindness, decided that, at least till she had taken time for

reflection, she would abide by her father's advice, that is, provided

the sisterhood would consent to receive her.

After vainly endeavoring to shake her resolution, the duchess resolved

on accompanying her to the north to see whether suitable arrangements

could be made for her comfort.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE JOURNEY--THE CONVENT.

It was well for Annie that the care of a sister watched over her

during that sad journey, for sometimes her mind seemed almost to have

lost its balance, and she would weep frantically over the loss of her

little ones, as one who would not be comforted; then with a sudden

revolution of feeling she would stop, and say, "Thy will be done, O

Lord," and would begin to say her beads, as Eugene had taught her,

with most edifying resignation. After awhile the thought of her little

ones would make her weep anew, and again the thought of God would

check her tears.

{755}

These alternations were for Annie alone, however. Adelaide felt

unmitigated disgust at the barbarity which could sever a loving mother

from her infants.

"As if those babes were safer with that bigoted, soft-pated Mrs.

Bedford than with my intellectual, high-minded sister!" she thought.

Certainly the duchess's horror of Catholicity had wonderfully abated

of late. There was little said at first between the sisters on that

three days' journey. But once or twice the exclamation on Adelaide's

lips, "My mother a Catholic!" showed which direction her thoughts were

taking. Once, when Annie was a little calmer than usual, she suddenly

asked her: "What made my mother desire to be a Catholic, Annie?"

"The grace of God, as I humbly hope," answered her sister.

"The grace of God! What do you mean by that, Annie?"

"I mean the special provision with which God deigns to bless every

human soul that desires it with knowledge and love of himself. Adam

had this grace conferred on him at his creation. He lost it, not only

for himself, but for us also. But Christ has repurchased it for all

who come to him. My mother heard this voice pleading within her for a

higher life. She listened and obeyed. This is what theologians call

co-operation with grace. The grace of God needs man's co-operation to

be efficacious, because God will not compel the human will. He desires

free service."

"Ah, yes," said the duchess, "all other were a mockery. Nature is

bound by stern, inevitable law; that is easily seen: but intelligent

love must have freedom for its sphere of action, or it ceases to be

the love of intelligence; that, too, I comprehend. I thought your

words intended to convey some mysterious action of God on the soul not

given to all men."

"All do not correspond with it, by a large majority, I fear," said

Annie.

"And think you God speaks to all alike?" asked Adelaide.

"Theologians say that a grace corresponded to merits another,"

answered Annie, "and that one rejected or unused often loses that

grace, so slighted. This, at least, we know: God loves us all, and

places at our option higher degrees of spiritual attainment than we

oftentimes profit by."

"God! What is God?" murmured Adelaide. "Truly a _Deus absconditus_ for

man."

"'He who followeth me walketh not in darkness,' said the Man-God,"

replied Annie. "God was a hidden God for the nations of olden time,

perhaps; but for us, Adelaide, he is God manifested in the flesh! and

to as many as receive him gives he power to become 'sons of God.'"

Where was Adelaide's sharpness at repartee as of old? She meditated

now instead of replying; and Annie solaced her own sorrows by praying

for her sister's conversion. It was in something like tranquillity of

spirit that, she reached the district in which the convent was

situated.

The next day the duchess accompanied her sister to the dwelling of the

sisterhood. They found it even poorer than they had anticipated. When

it had been first contemplated, Eugene had handed over a well-filled

purse to M. Bertolot with strict injunction to, procure everything

needful; but Eugene's idea of what was needed differed from that of

the superioress. "We did not take vows of poverty," she said, "to live

with every elegance like ladies. The spirit of our holy father, St.

Francis, as also that of our beloved mother and foundress, St. Clare,

requires the utmost plainness and poverty compatible with existence."

Eugene's large offering was refused, and when he on his part refused

to replace it in his pocket, it was distributed among the sick poor.

{756}

Euphrasie received her friends with open arms, and conducted them to

the superioress with love and respect. Many of the sisterhood had now

gathered together, and even postulants were not wanting. The

superioress greeted the ladies with calm dignity, and entered with

much feeling into the account given to Euphrasie in her presence of

Mrs. Godfrey's conversion and happy death.

"And am I to understand, dear ladies," said the superioress, "that you

also share these blessed dispositions?"

"Annie is a Catholic," answered the duchess, "and a persecuted one.

Sir Philip has shut the doors on the mother of his children because

she has embraced Catholicity."

Euphrasie, by a sudden impulse, rose and knelt by Annie's side;

kissing her hands and bathing them with her tears. "Now, God be

praised for all his mercies!" she said: "How shall we welcome you,

dear martyr, for his sake?"

Annie could only reply by returning Euphrasie's caresses and

affection. She placed her arm round her friend, and compelled her to

sit by her side.

"Will you ask the reverend mother to let me stay with you awhile, dear

Euphrasie?" she said.

"What! Here? here in the convent? in this poor place?" replied

Euphrasie. "You who have been, cradled in luxury and reared in

abundance? You know not what you ask, dear friend; it is impossible."

Annie looked at the superioress; she read more promise there. "Dear

reverend mother," she said, "Almighty God has seen how unfit I am as

yet to train my beloved children in the narrow path of mortification

and of humiliation, trodden by our Divine Master. He has sent me to

learn it of you. Will you accept me as your disciple in Jesus Christ?

At least, I can promise you reverence and submission."

"You are welcome, most welcome, my daughter," said the superioress,

"and may Almighty God, in his own good time, restore your children to

you, to be brought up in the faith and love of Christ."

"Thank you, dear mother; and if you and the dear sisters will assist

me by your prayers, doubtless he will. He has but sent me here to

school awhile, that I may be able to teach them rightly. I stand as

yet but on the threshold of the church; I have looked in and seen her

glories, but selfish and worldly as I have been from childhood, I

scarce know how to share in her unworldly triumphs."

"Dear cousin," said Euphrasie, "you must not defame yourself. You were

ever kind and generous, and now your humility will surely bring you a

blessing. We will try to make you happy here."

"Indeed, yes," said the superioress, "it is a great consolation to us

to receive you. Your heart, so long accustomed to the incredulity of

the age, needs rest--such rest as is produced by dwelling on the love

of Christ for us. After a while it will become for you a necessity to

reciprocate that love, by pouring yourself out as it were in deeds of

charity and kindness for the pure love of him who died for you. Once

accustomed to converse familiarly with him, you will no longer regard

him as divided from yourself, but as one same self with you, so that

with St. Paul you may be able to exclaim, '_I_ live now, not _I_, but

Christ liveth in me.' Yes, my dear daughter, from him you may hope all

things for your children as well as for yourself. Detach yourself from

this world, seek Christ crucified, that you may repose surely in his

love."

Adelaide listened and wondered. She looked around at the bare walls,

the uncarpeted floor, the plain deal tables, and the common

rush-chairs. "Is the rest of the house like this?" she asked of

herself: "and am I to leave Annie here?"

Begging the superioress to excuse her for an instant, she drew Annie

apart, and urged upon her that it was useless for her to subject

herself to such privations as these.

{757}

"Come home with me, dear Annie, I beg of you."

"Nay, sister, think not so meanly of me, as to deem that I cannot

endure for a few weeks or months, privations which these dear ladies

suffer always."

"Oh! they are nuns, you know."

"But that does not alter, their nature, and once, they were in the

world, rich, titled, honored. I would learn of them what has given

them power thus to trample the world beneath their feet. Leave me for

a while, my sister; if I find the life too hard for me, I will come to

you."

"You promise?"

"I do, believe me, Adelaide."

And with this promise Adelaide was obliged to be content. She prepared

to wend her way homewards. As she rose for that purpose, the

superioress said: "Your grace will have a solitary journey. May I

venture to offer you a book to beguile the tedium of the way?"

Adelaide smilingly assented, and on getting in her carriage, Euphrasie

placed into her hands Avrillon's meditations for every day in Lent.

Absorbed at first in her own thoughts, Adelaide, heeded the book but

little: but after a while, to relieve ennui, she began its perusal,

and was soon astonished at the interest it excited within her breast.

CHAPTER XXVI.

On the morning of Annie and Adelaide's departure for the convent, Mr.

Godfrey had ordered breakfast for himself in his library, and had

summoned Hester to attend him, on the pretext of not feeling well, but

in reality to avoid a parting scene with his children. Hester, on the

other hand, dreaded nothing more than they should depart without

farewell; she had keenly felt Adelaide's words beside her mother's

coffin, but in despite of her efforts could not effect an interview

which should dispel the ill-feeling that oppressed her. Her father's

jealousy of her holding any private intercourse with the rest of the

family on the one hand, and the coldness of Adelaide on the other,

seemed to present insurmountable obstacles. At length she heard the

carriage draw up, and the voices departing; hastily she quitted the

breakfast table, and rushed into the hall. The travellers were already

there; she approached Annie with tears in her eyes. Annie was too sad

herself to be angry just then, she imprinted on her sister's forehead

the silent kiss her gesture pleaded for; but Adelaide went forward and

seated herself in the carriage, waving her hand for a general adieu,

and Hester fell back weeping on her brother's shoulder as the vehicle

drove away from the door.

"O Eugene! I had no hand in this; tell me at least that you believe

me," sobbed the poor girl.

"I do believe you, and so will Adelaide after a time; take comfort,

Hester."

"I cannot, with them all against me. Oh! who could ever dream our love

for each other could melt away to this?"

"It is not, melted a way, dear sister, only obscured; it will one day

return warmer and brighter than ever."

"Then you, you will write to me, you will not cast me off?"

"Never, never will I cast you off! never cease to love you!"

"Then, Eugene, you will help me also; I want to read, to know the

cause of these unhappy divisions."

"And my father?"

"O Eugene! that is the misery my father must not know. Eugene, I love

my father; there can be nothing wrong in that, he has only me now. We

cannot help that; but I must be true to him, I cannot break his heart.

He must not know we correspond or that I read your books, or that I am

thinking on the subjects he hates so much. He need not know it; I am a

woman now, I have a right to my {758} freedom. If I conceal my

thought, it is out of love to him; you know well how it would pain him

were he to suspect I read a work that treats on religion."

"Our correspondence must be secret; then?"

"I fear it must; at least till my father gets over this miserable

prejudice. You can write and send to me under cover to Norah, my

little maid. I will send her to you presently for some books, and now

good-by, my father will be wanting me. Pray for us both, Eugene."

Mr. Godfrey was considerably unhinged by the change that had taken

place in his family, and he watched Hester closely. She had truly said

she was now his last hope. That she was dejected at her mother's death

could not surprise him or any one, but that her sprightliness had

altogether departed, that her energy was depressed, her color faded,

and her appetite gone, were sources of great anxiety. Again he took

her to Yorkshire, to endeavor to reinspire her with interest in the

promotion of the "March of Intellect."

Hester did not feel justified in withdrawing her interest or exertions

from the institutions which she had raised and fostered; but it must

be confessed that these institutions were gradually assuming the

character of mere money-making factories. Mr. Godfrey, dissatisfied

with certain losses, had engaged a man of business to overlook the

whole concern, and in addition to a stipulated sum, this person was to

receive a certain percentage of the profits. This rendered him

particularly sharp-sighted as to doing matters economically; that is,

with the fewest number of hands, at the lowest rate of wages, and

oftentimes employing children in lieu of adults.

"This is altogether, foreign to our first idea," said Hester, "and I

do not approve of it at all."

"It cannot be helped, my dear; no enterprise that will not pay can be

proceeded with in the long run."

"But these children shut up in the close rooms at eight or ten years

of age, for such long hours! it will numb every faculty they possess."

"If their parents are willing to permit it, I do not see what we have

to do with it."

"O father! ignorant people often sell their children, without knowing

the harm they do; but this cannot be the way in which the world is to

improve."

"You were not satisfied with the results of your new plan, which did

not make money. I have put the matter into Mr. Fisher's hands for a

while, because, I know that in his hands, if money is to be made, it

will be made: his talent for business is unrivalled."

"Money is not the principle of progression."

"Nothing can be done without it, at any rate."

These discussions annoyed Mr. Godfrey the more because he felt the

inconsistency between the past idea and the present practice. On the

other hand, Hester was not in possession of the principle she was

seeking; that was acknowledged with regret on her part, though she by

no means gave up the search, and still less rested contented with the

inferior motive of placing all development, all future improvement on

the mere basis of money-making.

Among Mr. Godfrey's friends, one of the most intimate, because the

most scientific after the fashion of this world's science, was a Mr.

Spencer--a gentleman whose works had already acquired for him a great

share of reputation, and who was gradually acquiring great influence

over Mr. Godfrey. He was a man of about five-and-thirty years of age,

being some twelve years older than our Hester, whom he greatly

admired, notwithstanding that he found her mind a little difficult to

understand. Perhaps he liked her the better that she puzzled him, that

she took different views from him. Certain it is that he haunted her

society whenever he could find an excuse, and Mr. Godfrey seemed

particularly well pleased to find them together, as he {759} hoped

that interviews with such a learned man would dissipate any tendency

to religion, especially the Catholic religion, that Hester might be

fostering in consequence of the proclivities of her mother and of the

rest of the family in that direction.

. . . . .

'Twas autumn, a walk through the woods had brought the trio together,

and together they returned to the house; the gusty and fitful wind

scattering in their path the tinted leaves that fell like showers from

the trees beneath which they were passing. Wild clouds were hurrying

through space, as if summoned suddenly to assist at some tempestuous

commotion, and though many miles distant was the sea, the roar of

waves was heard beating on the far-off shore; every sign betokened

that a storm was at hand. The pedestrians hurried to the house, and

scarcely had they reached it, than impulsively they went to the window

to gaze in mute amazement at the scene. A sudden wind was uprooting

trees, unroofing houses, and carrying off all things before it. An old

barn long doomed to be pulled down, which was but awaiting hands to

perform the work, suddenly reeled like a drunken man, and in a few

moments more fell to the ground with a great crash. The servant girls

screamed in the hall, "the men went in for shelter, they must be

crushed to death!" The door was opened that the serving-men might rush

to the rescue, but the wind swept like a tornado through the hall,

tiles were rattling from the house-top, bricks tumbling from the

chimneys. To leave the house was impossible, none could stand against

such a blast. A large boarded roof that was being prepared by the

carpenters was carried off the scaffold, and after being for some time

balanced in the air as if it were a paper kite, fell at length with a

loud splash into the lake some quarter of a mile distant from the spot

whence it was first uplifted. The scene was at once terrific and

sublime, and but for the screams and sobs of the girls, who feared to

have some father, brother, or friend buried beneath the fallen

building, Hester could have enjoyed the spectacle; but she was

occupied in endeavoring to soothe the panic-stricken tremblers, and

for consolation what could she say? She could but stand by and

sympathize, and utter words of hope, meaningless because unfelt. It

was a relief when the storm abated to find that all the men had been

able to quit the building at the first creaking of the rafters, and by

crawling on all fours had reached a place where they lay safely till

the storm had passed--all save one, and he was protected by the manner

in which the beams fell over him, they being prevented from falling

perpendicularly by some obstacles, and formed a sloping defensive

shelter for the young man who happened to find himself in that

particular corner, from which, when the storm abated, he was

extricated by his companions, with no other injury suffered than the

alarm endured for several hours; and in this alarm he had many

sharers, for few of the neighbours could rest in peace until he was

drawn forth unhurt.

A feeling of relief pervaded the party as with closed shutters, drawn

curtains, and every appurtenance of comfort, they drew round the

bright coal fire, which shed a glowing, cheering warmth throughout the

apartment--while the rain which had succeeded to this storm of wind

was pattering against the windows, enhancing the comfort within by a

sense of dreariness without.

"How remorseless is nature!" said Mr. Spence, as at length the silence

which had pervaded the three friends became almost painful; "decay,

change, transition, pain, with transient gleams of beauty, as if to

render the surrounding gloom more painful still, and no escape: how

remorseless is nature!"

"All things have their bright side, I believe," she said, "even so

terrible a storm as to-day's. It is good to feel a grand sensation

sometimes, it stirs up the very depths of one's being."

{760}

"How would it have been if those men had been crushed to death, or

worse, hopelessly maimed for life?"

"That did not happen. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof."

"But similar events often do happen. The battle-field, the pestilence,

man's evil passions, or the remorseless sea tossing man's feeble bark

in sport against the rocks, cause many a grand sensation that is not

good. See in that newly settled swamp the settler's wife surprised

amid her household drudgeries with a startling shriek, and, hurrying

to the water's edge, to find a rattlesnake coiled round her prattler's

leg, inflicting the painful sting that causes the innocent child to

expire in torture: do you call that good?"

"It does not follow that there is no good because we see it not! The

design of the creation may involve a hidden good to be evolved out of

what seems evil."

"And meantime the longer we pursue our researches, the more we become

convinced that an all-pervading inexorable law governs events by

necessary connection; that there is no resisting the force of this

law, no disarming it. All that we can do is to study it, and take what

comfort we can individually by an intelligent application of it to

ourselves."

"And our neighbor's happiness is to tell for nothing?"

"You will do no good by forcing any system on men for which they are

not prepared," said Mr. Spence. "Ideas remain inoperative when the

civilization or intelligence to which it is addressed is unequal to

its realization; practice does not depend on theories, but on

development, on individual assimilation of the principles, if I may be

permitted to use this word. For instance, moral theories are ever the

same. The Hindoo, the Chinaman, the follower of Zoroaster and the

transcribers of the precepts of Menu, declare with the Jew and the

Christian, that the law is to be honest, virtuous, heedful of others'

pleasure or good, to seek justice, love mercy, reverence age, and

submit to all lawful authority, etc.--each precept requiring a willing

obedience; yet where are the fruits to be found?"

"But do men believe these precepts to be the rule of right?"

"Theoretically they are not disputed, but practically man is made by

the external objects that surround him. Give society a system below

its advancement, it rises superior to it; give it one above it, it

does not come up to it. This is observable in nations. Among the lower

order of French Catholics there is less of bigotry and civilization,

with more of the real charity enjoined by religion, than among the

lower order of Scotch Protestants, despite the theory of their

theology. [Footnote 206] Again, the Swedes and the inhabitants of

some of the Swiss Cantons are less civilized than the French, and

therefore it avails them little that they three centuries ago adopted

a creed to which the force of habit and the influence of tradition now

oblige them to cling. Whoever has travelled in these countries will

see how little the inhabitants have benefited by their religion, while

in France you will see an illiberal religion accompanied by liberal

views, and a creed full of superstitions professed by a people among

whom superstition is comparatively rare." [Footnote 206]

[Footnote 206: See Buckle's Civilization in England. Vol i. pages

191-193, from which above is extracted. (There are two references

and only one footnote on this page.--Transcriber)]

"That would rather go to prove Catholicity to be better than

Protestanism," said Hester; "at least, if liberal views and tolerant

actions be a proof of the advancement of society."

Mr. Godfrey bit his lips, and Mr. Spence, suddenly mindful of certain

proceedings in his friend's family not exactly of the tolerative

description, hastily essayed to cover his mistake:

"Practically," he said, "men's religious demonstrations are a thing

apart from their theory, and are governed by the character of

individual mental development, rather than (what they are assumed to

be) a power governing development."

{761}

"I think that proposition illogical. If religion acts at all, it must

act according to its character as a power. Granting that with many it

is a dead letter, without any action, yet with those it does

influence, its action must be the legitimate result of its doctrine;

and if the civilization resulting from Catholicity is superior, is not

that the superior agency?"

"You forget how the guardians of the Catholic faith have ever

persecuted science; that proves them intolerant."

"Not necessarily. The guardians of a faith, amid a crude, undeveloped

people, may well be jealous of novel notions, dispersed out of their

connexion amid an unthinking, unreflecting populace. If the object is

to raise people from the phase of their present existence to a higher

phase, our late experiments have shown that it needs caution in

disturbing present moral influences. The mass are not philosophers;

they will not travel the whole round of a series to trace the whole

chain of what you call the necessary connection. Were I to begin my

experiment again I should take the highest motive then active on the

mind, and try to build higher on that. The first results of science

are usually destructive, and therefore not fit for the masses;

something must be built up again ere we present it to them. As it is,

these masses seem only to amuse themselves by hurling the stones of

the ruined theory at the world and at each other, destroying much, but

advancing nothing good."

"But philosophy must not be controlled. Science must not be impeded in

its onward march; the hopes of ultimate civilization lie in free

investigation. The evil is transient--the good permanent."

"Yet you admit that a system may be in advance of a people?"

"Yes, and forerunners are martyrs, sacrificed to the ignorance, to the

inaptitude of the age in which they live; yet there is a sort of

necessity for their existence, the law for which is not as yet

discovered. Future ages will probably be more enlightened on this

head. All that we know is, that there is a law for all evolutions, a

practical principle--if we could only trace it--to which every

action, every development may be referred. Statistical tables show us

that even crime follows method. In a given number of people in a given

state of civilization there will be a certain percentage of murders, a

certain percentage of thefts, robberies, and the like; nay, a certain

average number of suicides. You may verify these facts by comparing

the statistical tables of large cities such as London and Paris,

[Footnote 207] for a definite series of years.

[Footnote 207: See Buckle's Civilization in England. Vol. i. page 17

_et seq._ ]

"And through what agency is this effected?" asked Hester, in

amazement.

"Nay, that I can scarcely answer save in general terms. The cause of

law, the cause of evolution, the cause of everything is utterly

unknown. The most we can do is to observe phenomena, to class them,

and then note the sequences which form necessary connection together;

in this way we discover the law, but beyond that science can affirm

nothing. The cause we can know nothing, and affirm nothing of, save

its bare existence as the incomprehensible cause of all phenomena. The

sole possible predication is merely that he, or more properly it, is."

"Why, surely the cause is God," said Hester, who, new as she was to a

personal recognition of God's rights to her own devotion, had never

dreamed of doubting, that "absolute intelligence" ruled "as cause."

"God," said Mr. Spence, "is too indefined a term for science, or

rather there are ideas connected with the term which we cannot

scientifically apply to the unknowable. We cannot affirm of this

unknowable that he is either matter or mind; because this would be to

degrade him, by representing him in terms of our finite and human

conceptions. Matter and mind are in fact but phenomena of which the

unknowable is the unknown cause. {762} He is of a far higher nature

than matter or mind, for he is the common cause of both. Of this

nature we can form no idea whatever. We cannot attribute to the

unknowable _reason_; since that would represent him as finite, for all

reasoning is limitation. We cannot affirm of him either justice or

mercy; because these are words borrowed from the human, and to express

the unknown in such terms is anthropomorphism and blasphemy. Such a

religion is but one grade higher than the ancient theologies that

represent God with hands and feet and other human members."

"Stay," said Hester, "I cannot admit all your assumptions. That the

cause is the great I Am, of whose essential being we know nothing, is

doubtless true, as also that finitude cannot comprehend infinitude:

but that it is wrong or blasphemous to speak of him in the language of

earth, I cannot see. We know the expression is inadequate, that it is

metaphorical, an application of the less to signify the greater, but

it is the only voice we have, and the degree of worship depends on the

spirit of reverence which prompts the utterance, as the freedom from

idolatry must depend on the spirit of appreciative love and submission

with which that worship is offered.

"But," said Mr. Spence, "all theologies set out with the great truth,

that the deity is incomprehensible. But they immediately contradict

and stultify themselves by proceeding to assign him attributes. In

this way all religions become suicidal as well as irreligious. The

only true religion is to worship God as the unknown and forever

unknowable. True religion and science agree in this, that the cause of

all phenomena is the unknown. Science, in affirming the cause to be

material or mental, becomes unscientific, just as religion, by

pretending to reveal his nature or attributes, becomes irreligious."

"Pardon me," said Hester, "I think you are begging the question.

Because we know nothing of the interior being of God, it does not

follow that we may not discover the relationships which he wishes to

establish between himself and ourselves, and to the manifestations of

these relationships we may in all reverence and with consistency

assign attributes. Within himself God is the great I Am, unknown and

unknowable to us. Reason, justice, mercy, probably find there, no

exercise. Their exercise is outside in creation; for all creation is

outside God, an expression of his power, as of every other attribute

justly assigned him. Creation itself is limited: man's expression more

so yet: but we do not therefore believe in the limitation of the

deity. We cannot conceive infinity, still less express it; still the

idea exists, and our minds invest the deity with it in reverential

awe, not in blasphemy."

"You have given the modern theology assuming God to be a spirit and a

creative spirit; and assuming also that the creation is a work of his

design. You do not perceive that you make God the author of evil as

well as good, and that you assume matter was created. Now, the

eternity of matter would be no greater enigma than the eternity of

mind; and we do not know whether the cause be 'matter or mind.' It is

unknown, as it is also unknowable."

"Why this is sheer Atheism," said the startled Hester.

"Not so! This doctrine is neither Atheism nor Theism. It is merely the

highest and last formula, at once, of science and religion, ceasing to

represent the unknowable in any conceptions of human thought, and thus

leaving free scope for worship, which (worship) is not assertion, but

humility and transcendent wonder."

"Nay," said Hester; "religion, as far as I can make it out, consists

in acknowledging the relationships which God has established: first,

between himself and man, and secondly, between man and man. Religion,

if true, is a manifestation or revelation if not of God's essential

nature, yet of his will {763} in man's regard. The discrepancies

between our conceptions of what is evil and evil itself may explain

your difficulty about God being the author of evil. It may be that

mere change, mere transition, is not evil, even when accompanied by

some pain. I read yesterday that the only real evil was, a voluntary

act on the part of a rational creature, performed contrary to the

known will of God."

"That is so evidently a theological subtlety," said Mr. Spence,

"science deigns it no reply."

"And yet," said Hester, "your last and highest formula, which refuses

to represent the unknowable in any conception of human thought, bows

down in worship and transcendent wonder to the 'cause' which makes

murder, suicide, and every species of human wickedness result from 'A

Law'!

"Because we believe that ultimately that law will evolve good. It

appears a fact now thoroughly established, that all the organisms we

are acquainted with, have been evolved by a gradual process rather

than produced by a series of special creations, as has been so long

the theory. And the evolution tends upward; that is, to produce new

and more complicated organisms as time speeds on. This must in the end

evolve higher good."

"Do you mean that the lesser is ever producing the greater; and that

in the aggregation of insentient matter life is evolved?"

"Does not the infant grow into the man by the aggregation of

insentient matter assimilated into his being in the shape of food?"

"Yes, but life was there already; character and power, expansion and

development it receives, but no new function."

"That is not so certain; or rather it is certain that evolution

constantly manifests changes, which can only be accounted for on the

ground of a great universal law, a law ever producing diversity of

phenomena in unity of operation."

"But I do not see that it explains anything of the ultimate cause."

"Have I not already said that the cause is unknown and unknowable?"

CHAPTER XXVI.

MODERN PHILOSOPHY,--

THE SOUL WITHOUT GOD.

Eternity and space! Remorseless law!

Without a voice or tone of love to man,

Without a sign to soften into awe

The terrors of necessity's dark plan.

Oh! what a wail of dark despair

Rent the unblest, unhallowed air,

As through the spheres the last dark utterance ran--

There is no God! no deity for man!

The glowing thoughts that thrill man's frame,

And bid him glorious kindred claim.

With all of brilliancy divine

That through the dazzling circles shine;

The thoughts unspeakable that swell

The heaving breast to ecstasy,

And cast their sweet and mystic spell

Until, attuned to harmony,

The winged soul is borne throughout all space

To read the symbols of celestial grace;

Tracing the wondrous lore from sky to sky,

Inflamed by consciousness of Deity

Though veiled, yet present still, and still

"Educing good from seeming ill"--

That thought is quenched in deepest night!

Vanished each ray of holy light!

The winged soul, all tempest-tost,

Rushes in vain throughout all space;

Amid dark waves of horror lost

No sign appears, her course to trace

In speechless agony, alone,

Finding rest--never!

The wearied spirit hurries on

Wandering forever!

All, all is lost! a dark despair

Fills up the void, the tainted air.

A Upas tree with poisoning shade

Monopolizes every glade;

And shadows flit and utter: "Woe!

Remorseless nature rules below."

. . . . . .

Throughout all space-no rest--

No ray

By which the human heart is blest;

No day

Breaks th' interminable gloom

Around--

A foul, dark, loathsome tomb!

A burial ground!

Without a star

To light th' abyss!

Stern, elemental war!

No bliss!

The evolution of a vast decay:

Its beauty transient, as the fleeting ray

That gilds the clouds on fitful April's day.

Eternity! Immensity!

All unillumined lie,

No trace of high design

Doth through their glimpses shine:

Destruction and decay

Repeated day by day--

Music forgets to joy the earth,

Beauty to give the flowerets birth,

Banished all providence, banished for ever--

What from the fainting heart sorrow shall sever?

{764}

One charnel-house is the all-teeming earth;

That Fetid Vapor rising sickly bright

To which foul rottenness is giving birth,

Is now man's _only_ source of mental light!

And shadows flit around and utter, "Woe!

Remorseless nature rules _Alone_ below!"

. . . . . .

Such were our heroine's reflections.

Poor Hester! With no settled principle, with no defined religion, it

was little wonder that the gloomy speculations of a conceited science

should overpower her imagination, and that she should become

melancholy and dispirited. Indeed, it became evident that the false

philosophies, the exposition of which she was constantly called upon

to hear, and from which her heart recoiled, even when she could find

no reply to its specious reasonings, were preying on her health, and

the gentleman who had acted as medical attendant to Mrs. Godfrey, now

warned her father that Hester must be looked to, unless he would see

her also fall into despondency.

Not that Hester believed in a theory which contradicted her instincts,

annihilated for her the use of a faculty. No; but the very enunciation

of such dogmas oppressed her, seemed to spread a snare for her, raised

doubts of disturbance, at the very moment she was seeking to gain from

works her brother had lent her the peace of mind she so much needed.

In spite of herself her mind recurred to the theory which tormented

her, and which she saw was favored by her father. "And yet," mused she

in sadness, "can high ideas spring from the evolutions of matter? Is

matter creative? This panting after justice that I feel, the love of

order, beauty, moral harmony, for which so willingly I'd give my ease,

my leisure, my exertions, nay, to forward the permanency of which I

should esteem my life well bestowed, does that proceed from blind

necessity, from evolution of organic life, itself unconscious of the

boon conferred? Impossible! Idea is as real as is the brain: and there

were mighty minds in days of old, who left examples men have not yet

equalled. He who died upon the cross, and left twelve laboring

unlettered men to propagate his most unselfish lore, was he evolved

from matter's slow progression? And the men who roused the souls and

waked the intellects of poverty, who preached the gospel to those

lowly ones who live a life of toil and weariness, who kindled thoughts

that raised them high above the tyrant's might to claim their heirship

as the sons of God, inheritors of freedom, justice, truth, which

naught save their own act can rob them of, were they evolved from

rottenness? And if they were, why since that time, two thousand years

ago, have there no nobler souls than these appeared, who could show

finer instincts, higher views? Why, amid the luxury of Roman proud

patrician life, did there spring up so suddenly a class who conquered

by defeat, and laid foundations among the lowly of the earth cemented

by their blood, that to this day proclaim their origin to be something

different from the world's natural influences--a class whose leaders

sought renunciation rather than gratification of the senses; who wore

the chains themselves to free the slave, faced death to solace the

plague-stricken, and abjured riches to feed the hungry with their

stores? Why, among this class alone of all the earth's various

classes, is woman honored, and protected alike in her virginity, her

maternity, and her widowhood? Why, here alone, are we taught passion

is to subject itself to the great idea of good, and why here alone is

found that power is given to act on the idea?--that hundreds and

thousands borne above this earth by that idea, have lived a life such

as the poets deem belongs to angels only, justice and truth their path

illumining, and love divine inspired by heaven (so deemed by them at

least) infusing love of all humanity, to bear them nobly through the

world's rebuffs and contradictions, toil and want? That so empowered,

by no exterior means, they walk superior to earthly types, to earthly

influence, erect {765} as sons of God, though meanly clad; their

sorrow only, that amidst this earth good does not reign supreme, that

passion's sway so oft usurps that power to quell high thoughts and

sink their brethren's souls to misery. No! no! it cannot be that all

those glorious acts of heroism, which bore witness to a higher

existence than that lived by the majority of men, an existence which

realized that truth and love could bring down heaven to dwell upon the

earth, amid all untoward exterior appliances, that a power exists

independently of exterior surroundings, a happiness independently of

materialisms--it cannot be that those acts were evolved from the

polluted state of society in which they were performed, but which they

tended to amend, and to guide into a new channel. I do believe in

justice, truth, and love, as motive powers, irrespectively of selfish

gratification to myself. I do believe in a state of being in which

they reign; and as I am not a creator, I must believe in a higher

ideal of this justice, truth, and love, than the one in my own mind,

as also that from that higher ideal my own is derived, for the greater

cannot derive from the less: nor can a newly formed organism, whether

evolved or created, originate."

Thus mused Hester as she pondered over the lives of the saints which

Eugene had sent her, and as she read that book of books--the gospel.

Yet she dared not confess even to herself the impression she received.

Her father! that source of dread was ever in her thought.

Meantime that father was uneasy at the evident disturbance in Hester's

mind. Once or twice he had observed a light in her room at late hours

of the night, and yielding to his uneasiness he had softly turned the

handle and opened the door; books were on the table, but the light was

very low, and Hester! could he believe his eyes? Hester was on her

knees, so absorbed as neither to perceive his entrance nor exit. He

closed the door as silently as he had opened it, and turned to think.

What did this mean? Verily, wonders were heaped upon him! What should

he do? That very day Mr. Spence had proposed for Hester's hand,

because of her supposed freedom from superstition, What was to be

done?

CHAPTER XXVII.

A CHANGE OF SCENE.

THE SISTERS.

Adelaide was wondrously desolate on her return home. Her noble

mansion, rcplete with elegance, what was it worth to her now? The

famed Pantheon, for which a splendid gallery had been built, she never

entered. The thought of it seemed to sicken her. Company wearied her,

solitude distracted her. Miss Fairfield, the daughter of a decayed

noble family, who acted as humble companion to her grace, was quite at

a loss. What could be the matter with the lady? The poor humble lady

companion did her best, her efforts were altogether unheeded. The

duchess remained for the most part plunged in a profound reverie.

Adelaide was reviewing the past; comparing characters; examining

principles. She had not loved the duke, but none the less his death

had proved a loss to her. Rich as she was, powerful as she was, she

was neither so rich nor so powerful as she had been while he lived.

But there was a bitterer feeling far than this. It was, that she had

never been an object of love to him, or to any one. She had coveted

honor, power, wealth. She had these; but there were times when she

would have given them all for the consciousness of having been loved

as Ellen had been. She was jealous of the affections now laid in the

grave, and would ask herself whether, had she been the one whom the

duke had seen first, had they met ere his affections were engrossed,

would he have loved her as he had loved the injured one? "I had youth,

beauty, and intellect," thought she; "why should he not have loved me

as he did that orphan girl?" {766} Strange that these thoughts should

come upon her now; but only now had she compelled herself to

acknowledge the great depth of feeling as well as the power of

intellect which the duke had possessed.

Until she had read the mystery of the "Passion" in Avrillon, she had

not understood the profound heavings of a contrite heart, which she

had "mocked at" when he lay dying. Her eyes were beginning to open

now; the world to wear a new aspect, although as yet a cloudy mist

hovered over her higher visions; for she understood not the yearning

of her own heart.

She was in this softened mood when she received a letter from her

father. Six months had elapsed since her mother's death, and Mr.

Godfrey complained that he could not yet rouse Hester to become

anything like her usual self. He had taken her to Yorkshire, but she

no longer cared to interest herself in "progression;" she had been

disgusted at some scenes of immorality, and had voted that

intellectual improvement without the observance of the moral law was a

failure. "In fact," said Mr. Godfrey, "she is absorbed in discovering

a 'new principle,' and more than once I have found her on her knees,

bathed in tears. What can this mean? Has she also been tampered with?

I am uneasy: I am coming next week to pay you a visit, and shall bring

her with me. Help me to rouse her from her melancholy, and above all

to banish fanaticism, if it is that disease which has taken hold of

her."

Adelaide was not altogether reconciled to Hester, in spite of Eugene's

explanation; but the moment that she realized from this letter that a

restraint was likely to be put upon her sister's freedom of thought,

the images of her mother and Annie rose before her, and she determined

to use such influence as she could to prevent "persecution." "It is

but a mistaken method after all," pondered she, "persecution can only

tend to engender obstinacy, and rouse the pride of our natures. If

Hester has any tendency to Catholicity, it can only be combated by

reason, by showing its absurdity. My father will have to bring out his

learned friends, and we will have the arguments of both sides plainly

propounded. It will be an excitement, if nothing else. What was it

that disgusted Hester with her 'march of intellect' scheme? She is not

fickle-minded naturally; there is something fermenting in her mind

which must be worked out. I am curious to see the termination; and if

Hester makes a friend of me, she shall have freedom to think, and

freedom too to act according to her conscience. There shall be no more

persecution in the family."

Ah! Adelaide, you have learnt a lesson then from sorrow; it was not

thus the proud young duchess reasoned when at the zenith of her power.

Adelaide received her visitor most kindly, and soon made Hester feel

at home, though there was a sedateness, almost a melancholy, about

her, quite foreign to her previous deportment. Mr. Godfrey fidgeted

concerning her in a manner quite unusual with him, and seemed to make

it his principal occupation to provide her with interest and

amusement.

One morning, to the surprise of the sisters, as they were sitting

together Mr. Godfrey entered, accompanied by the rector and his lady.

Adelaide had certainly done the indispensable before, in receiving and

returning a formal call with these parties, but nothing like intimacy

had existed. Adelaide was so rarely at church, that the reverend

doctor and lady did not feel encouraged to push themselves into her

society. However, Mr. Godfrey now insinuated that his youngest

daughter had taken a religious turn, and that he hoped from the

doctor's reputation for learning that he would be able to give that

turn a right direction, since unfortunately some developments in his

family in religions matters had not been satisfactory.

{767}

Dr. Lowell had looked somewhat askance on hearing this, as Mr.

Godfrey's latitudinarian opinions and Eugene's Catholicity were both

pretty well known, and had immediately enquired if Hester were a

Catholic also. On receiving a decided negative he complied, though

with some hesitation of manner. Controversy was not to the reverend

gentleman's taste, and but that his wife offered to accompany him, and

do her share of the talking, he would probably have backed out; but

the lady possessing at once more earnestness of character and more

confidence in her power of suasion than her husband, was anxious not

to lose this opportunity of setting forth the value of Protestantism,

and thus preserving Miss Hester Godfrey from following the pernicious

examples set by Eugene and Lady Conway.

With these dispositions Dr. and Mrs. Lowell were ushered into the

presence of the duchess and her sister, not altogether at ease at

finding themselves in such aristocratic society. Adelaide received

them with her usual quiet dignity, and turned the conversation to

flowers, paintings, sculpture, literature, everything, in fact, save

the topic which they came to discuss. At length, turning to Mr.

Godfrey, she asked if he had introduced Dr. Lowell to the Pantheon.

"No, indeed," said Mr. Godfrey, laughing, "the doctor is more anxious

about another subject just now; he is desirous of restoring his

church, which has fallen out of repair."

"Indeed," said Adelaide, "then I must have the pleasure of assisting

him," and she placed a well-filled purse before the doctor.

"Your grace is very good;" said the reverend gentleman. But Adelaide

had risen to seek a volume of engravings on church architecture, which

she placed in the lady's hand, telling her, as she presented it, that

she presumed it would interest her, and might give her a hint or two

to the style of embellishment suitable.

The doctor now took courage. "I am glad to see your grace so much

interested in our church," he said. "I feared--" but here he stopped.

Adelaide waited, perhaps a little maliciously, for the conclusion of

the sentence. but it came not.

"May I ask what you fear, Dr. Lowell?" she said.

But as the answer did not seem quite ready, the lady of the reverend

gentleman took up the word. "Your grace will pardon us," she said,

"but as we have so seldom the pleasure of seeing you at church, the

doctor feared that its reparation would not interest you so much as

your kind acts now prove that it does."

Adelaide bowed, but replied simply by turning to an engraving. "I

think it was in this style our church was originally built," she said;

"do you propose to restore it in any way similar to the primitive

idea?"

"I think not," said the doctor, "we only intend thoroughly to repair

and cleanse it, unless, indeed, your grace desires your own pew

altered."

"Oh! I will leave that matter to Miss Fairfield, she goes to church

every Sunday, I believe, and I wish she should be made as comfortable

as possible. If you will be kind enough to consult with her in this

matter, I will agree to any arrangement she may make." And the duchess

rang the bell; to request the attendance of the lady named.

"But," said the doctor, unwilling to lose the opportunity that seemed

now to open, "I cannot believe that one so kind, so considerate, can

be indifferent to matters of religion."

By this time Adelaide was amused, so she answered with a quiet smile:

"It does not follow that one is indifferent to religion, because one

does not consult the statute-book to find it. Great as is my reverence

for English kings, queens, parliaments and prime-ministers, it is not

to them I should go to learn religion."

{768}

The rector stared; his wife was equally confounded. The latter spoke

first. "It is to church we were inviting you grace, to hear the word

of God."

"The word of the preacher you mean, expounding what is termed the word

of God, according to act of Parliament, and varying according as Henry

VIII., Edward VI., Elizabeth, James, William, Anne, or the Georges

have dictated. You must excuse me, Dr. Lowell, I am a loyal subject,

and as such duly uphold church and state, and you will ever find me

willing to assist your wishes; but to take my religion by act of

parliament home to my heart, to regulate my private motives, and unite

my being to God, is quite another affair. Ah! in good time, here comes

Miss Fairfield. My dear Lucy," continued the duchess, "Dr. Lowell

wishes the advantage of your good taste in rearranging his church; I

give you _carte blanche_ to act in my name on the subject. I must also

beg your kind offices in entertaining him and his lady this morning.

They will like to visit the hot-houses, the conservatories, the

gardens, perhaps, also the picture gallery and the hall of sculpture.

Dr. Lowell, Mrs. Lowell, I hope at my return from my drive I shall

still find you here; you will favor me with your company to dinner."

Adelaide swept from the room like a queen who had issued commands none

dared to gainsay, carrying off Hester with her.

Mr. Godfrey accompanied the rector and his lady on their tour through

the house, but neither he nor anyone of the parties made the slightest

allusion to Adelaide's remarks respecting the state religion; nor was

the subject ever broached by them in her presence again. The dinner

passed off pleasantly enough, and in the evening the carriage of the

duchess conveyed the married pair to their homes, they feeling

themselves honored by the gracious reception which on the whole they

had experienced.

Mr. Godfrey could not but perceive from this attempt that it would be

useless for him to attempt giving any direction to a religious

movement, should such be the subject that occupied his daughter's

mind; though in truth she was habitually so silent now, it was

difficult for him to discover what did interest her. Suddenly he took

it into his head he would like to go to London, and he asked Adelaide

if she would not open her town house, and, go too.

"Certainly, if you wish it, father. It might amuse Hester also, for as

yet Hester has never gone through the campaign of a London season."

But on their arrival in town Hester did not seem in any way eager to

launch forth into the great world of fashion; its frivolities

disgusted her, some of the fashions shocked her, particularly the ball

dresses of some of her young compeers. She could not reconcile her

native modesty to do the like, and was soon voted a prude by the

exclusives of _bon ton_. However, as she made no effort to shine, and

had "no success" in attracting the attentions of the gentlemen, she

was soon forgiven and most times overlooked.

But this latter fact she did not even perceive; she was living within

herself for the most part just now, and looking for a principle when

she took a glance outside. It was not perhaps at Mayfair, among the

sons and daughters of dissipation, that she might expect to find it.

The only thing that was remarkable about her was her propensity to

take a walk before breakfast; this in London was unusual, and but that

the duchess imperiously forbade her household to comment on the

subject, and jealously contrived to conceal the matter from Mr.

Godfrey, threatening dismissal to anyone who spoke to him about it, it

would have been a never-ending topic of discussion. Hester was

accompanied in these walks by her little maid, Norah, but Norah could

never be brought to tell where they had been. "Sure 'twas sometimes

this way and sometimes that, and how should she know the names of all

those fine London streets?"

{769}

Mr. Godfrey was not often up on her return, so did not perceive that

she had been absent. One day, however, when Hester came in later than

usual, Adelaide met her in the hall, took her bonnet and clock from

her, and whispered that Mr. Godfrey was already in the breakfast-room.

Hester entered; but she found Mr. Godfrey so busy unfolding the

newspaper that he did not perceive her entrance. She passed behind him

ere he was aware, and impressed a kiss on his forehead; it was her

usual morning's greeting.

"Ha! Hester, so you're up at last. I have a letter on your account."

"A letter for me?"

"No! yet one that you must answer; the great philosopher of the day is

smitten with the charms of the fair vestal; he asked me ere we left

Yorkshire if her heart was free."

"And what did you answer him?"

"That I did not know, but would enquire; this letter is a sort of

reproachful remonstrance for not having fulfilled my promise."

Hester smiled, and Adelaide enquired who the gentleman was.

"A man," said Hester, "who thinks we have evolved into human beings

from worms or bats or lower creatures still. By-the-by, father, he

never told us why so many lower creatures remain unevolved."

"You piece of mischief, be serious; what answer shall I give him?"

"That I don't like his pedigree: I am looking higher than worms for my

forefathers."

"But seriously, Hester--"

"But seriously, father, he says the character of the ancestry often

reappears in the posterity, even after the lapse of many generations;

and as he may have had, a tiger, a hyena, or even a boa-constrictor in

his genealogical tree, I do not feel well inclined to trust myself to

his keeping."

"Is that the new philosophy?" said Adelaide; "the vicious propensities

of so many of the race are then accounted for, they are but beasts of

prey in tailor's clothes."

"And yourselves, ladies?" said Mr. Godfrey.

"Oh!" said Adelaide, hastily, "please do not put us into the same

category, Hester and I are well content with the old story. We are

daughters of men and women, created in the good old style; reigning

over the brutes by special privilege, and claiming no sort of kindred

with them whatever."

"And Mr. Spence, Hester--"

"Mr. Spence, father, must seek a mate among his kindred, I am of

another order of beings."

"Is that your final answer?"

"It is."

"You will revoke it, Hester; I will tell him to come and plead for

himself."

"It will be useless; I shall tell him as I tell you, that I do not

like his pedigree."

"Is that your only objection?"

"It is sufficient for a lady to give one objection, I think,

especially when that one is insuperable."

Mr. Godfrey seemed disappointed, but he made no reply: the entrance of

Miss Fairfield to pour out the coffee summoned the party to the

breakfast table.

Mr. Godfrey took up the newspaper, and sipped his coffee in silence;

it was his habit to read in company when annoyed. Suddenly, however,

he laid the paper down. "De Villeneuve dead," he said, "my first, my

earliest friend!" He rose and went to the window, but shortly

afterward he left the room, evidently overpowered with the sudden

news. Adelaide took up the paper. "It is the father, the old marquis,

and his eldest son, drowned on Lake--in a sudden squall of wind. Why,

Hester, our old acquaintance now succeeds to the property and title."

"Was not the elder brother married?"

"The paper says not; or at least it says he was a widower and

childless, and that the estates now devolve on the second, the

youngest son, the one who was in England last year."

{770}

"Yes, and it says that he was about to start for England again when

this event detained him, and that he is expected shortly; why, it is

three months ago since the old marquis died."

"It's strange the news did not reach us before, but what business can

our M. de Villeneuve have in England now?"

"There is some talk of his coming over to take the 'Poor Clares' back

with him. He was Euphrasie's guardian, and I know he wished to get her

and the community established in America. It was that wish that took

him back, to see what arrangements could be effected."

"But will they go?"

"Nay, that I know nothing about; I suppose he talked with them on the

matter ere he made his plans."

By this time the breakfast table was cleared, and the sisters were

alone together, and Adelaide suddenly turned the conversation into

another channel. "Hester," she said, "you must make me your friend;

you know that you are pursuing a path of difficulty. You are my

father's idol, have you thought what it will be to break his heart?"

"O Adelaide! forbear; I have thought of that, and the thought is

nearly killing me, but I must on in spite of myself."

"It is true, then?"

"What is true?"

"That you go to mass every morning, and weep yourself to sleep every

night, my poor, dear sister!"

"How did you discover this?"

"Your attendant showed your pillow to Lucy Fairfield, it was no longer

fit to use; and Lucy followed you more than once, and saw you enter

the Bavarian Ambassador's chapel in Warwick street."

"But she did not tell my father?"

"No, I have threatened with dismissal anyone who makes a remark on the

subject; meantime tell me, are you a Catholic?"

"No! but I must see the end of this. Adelaide, out of Christianity

there is no 'power;' and 'power' it is that we want to effect good.

Science is taking the form of Atheism more and more. It represses

rather than elevates. The masses are awakening to consciousness of

possessing a right to intellectual culture under influences that will

finally subject them even more to tyranny; for when man seeks only

sensuous gratification by his science, he must eventually fall under

the empire of the appetites, and then barbarism results. Is not this

the history of all anterior civilization? Our modern rise has been the

gradual growth of intellect evolved under the restraining influence of

religion; and though men have very imperfectly submitted to these

restraints, they have produced immense fruit among the masses. Even

indirectly, the consciousness of the possession of soul, of immortal

power, has elevated the ideal, and the laborer assumes a legitimate

place in humanity. And woman, Adelaide, what is woman out of

Christianity? What was she in Pagan Greece and Rome; what will she be,

again if Christianity is abolished? I see but three phases for her.

The Turkish harem, the Mormon polygamy, or that worse than either

state, which consigns an immense number of our sex to debasement utter

and desperate."

"There is too much truth in this. But, Hester, be cautious; I will not

hinder you, rather will I help you, and study with you, but you are

not yet a Catholic. I must then say again, be cautions: I dare not

think on the result of my father's knowing your present study!"

"Indeed it has troubled me more than a little. O Adelaide! why should

there be such a prejudice against any one form of religion?"

"I cannot answer that, still less can I tell why men of science should

hate it so supremely; but it is so, and you know, dear Hester, that

the shock of your conversion might occasion a terrible convulsion in

my father. Let us proceed quietly, until the result is decided. Have

you ever considered {771} what is the first step to take in the

investigation of truth?"

"I am inclined to think the process must be a moral one, as well as an

intellectual one. I heard a preacher say lately: 'Souls who would come

to Christ, must first be gathered to the Baptist!'"

Adelaide hid her face in her hands, "There is a deep meaning in that,"

she said. "Hester, I too have my secret. Do you remember the Catholic

priest whom I ordered to quit the house as soon as the duke was dead?

His visage haunts me, he looked up from his prayers at my words, and

his face seemed so full of pity, pity for me, that I half relented;

but matters had gone too far. Well, I wrote to Eugene lately to

inquire about him, and Eugene says he is at H---- on a mission, among

the poor Irish laborers, and that young Henry, the duke's son, is with

him. The mother too, the Ellen of the duke's romance, lives in the

neighborhood. I have an intense desire to pay the place a visit; had

you not come, I should have gone alone; now will you go with me?"

"Willingly; you are, then, in communication with Eugene?"

"Slightly; I dare not tell him all that is in my thoughts, lest I

should raise false hopes. I have not faith, but I feel it would be a

great gift."

"So great that it would be worth any sacrifice; but Catholics say it

is a supernatural gift, and that it must come from God."

"And Eugene insists that the presence of sin blinds the soul; by

obscuring the spiritual faculty, thus hindering the reception of

faith."

"If so," said Hester, "we must do what we can to get clear of sin,

even at the price of confession."

"It is therefor I intend to see the abbé, to make reparation. I will

not voluntarily put an obstacle to the reception of God's gifts. If

grace comes, it shall find me ready to receive it."

Hester looked at Adelaide in surprise. The haughty duchess had

disappeared; another spirit so gentle looked from those eyes, that

Hester could only throw herself into her sister's arms and weep.

TO BE CONTINUED

------

ORIGINAL.

ON THE CURE OF BARTIMEUS.

"Bartimeus, the blind man,

sat by the wayside begging.

And they say to him:

Be of better comfort:

arise, He calleth thee."

Out of the windows of my mind----

From my heart's idly open door,

My gaze the wide world wanders o'er,

And yet, alas! how blind, how blind!

My sight of things divine how dim!

Though there be not a single day

But Jesus passeth by the way;

All else I see, but blind to him.

Though rich, I seek the beggar's mite----

His beauty only do I prize;

And all is darkness to my eyes

Whilst he is hidden from my sight.

I hear a voice within my soul----

"Arise, of better comfort be,

And come: the Master calleth thee----

Thy faith shall also make thee whole."

--------

{772}