"This day is a day of gladness for me," continued old Sebald. "Johann

conducted hither after vespers the prior of the Augustines, who hath

confided to me the decoration of his chapel."

"Pah! a monastery of poor monks!" exclaimed Otho, shrugging his shoulders

slightly, and throwing a disdainful glance on the humble Johann and his

gray doublet.

{490}

"Not a very brilliant or lucrative undertaking, I should say. You will

neither win a load of glory nor mountains of gold there, my dear master.

But each brings what he finds and gives what he has," said the young

knight, withdrawing his gaze from Johann and turning on his heel.

"I could find nothing better," said Johann in a tone of discouragement,

"although I, too, would work for the glory and fortune of my master."

"And thy master accepts thy good intentions with joy, my son," answered old

Sebald, taking his hand, "for he knows that they come from a devoted soul

and a sincere heart. I have not only a noble art and a good daughter; I

have also two brave pupils, two true friends. God be thanked, he hath made

me a happy man!"

Happy, O poor Sebald! Ay, if thou hadst no daughter. Alas! why does Mina

gaze with such simple admiration upon the noble countenance and gilt spurs

of the knight? Why does she hang enchanted upon the sweet accents of his

voice?

As long as he came regularly to the studio, Mina was smiling and happy; but

one day he came not, and on the next she received a letter.

Chapter IV.

From the day Mina received that letter she lost her freshness and gayety.

Then commenced a long and bitter series of nights without repose and days

without hope. She sometimes said sadly to herself that, as the sun shines

not always clearly, as the sky is not for ever blue, so the smiles and joys

of maidens are of short life; and that, while timid women remain around the

hearthstone, young and valiant knights must depart to the wars or on long

journeys, like the great silver herons which pass a season on the borders

of limpid waters, and then depart on outspread wing to return, when the

gloomy winter has passed, to find once more their nests in the long grass,

and their clean bath among the budding reeds. She thought all this, and

then reasoned a little and prayed much more; but she often trembled; she

ever was in pain, and, becoming weak, she became unhappy.

Her cheeks grew pale; her brow clouded; her eyes ceased to sparkle. She no

longer took pleasure in seeing from her balcony the archers of the margrave

pass, nor in confining with golden cords and tassels her shining hair or

waving robe. Her sadness and languor at last attracted the attention of her

father. He thought that his frequent absences, the solitude of the house,

alone caused his daughter's weariness and illness. Ceasing for a while his

labor, he passed a few days with her, or brought her with him from time to

time, hoping to wean her thoughts from their melancholy by the sight of the

great ornamented halls and the beautiful park of the castle of Eberstein.

But often, when he had led her to the great park and allowed her to wander

there, going himself to finish a keystone, to carve a capital, or decorate

a moulding, he found her not on his return crowned with wild flowers, or

culling odorous berries and grapes, or following with eager eye the

bounding deer. No; almost always Mina sat by the margin of some solitary

pond, plucking the leaves from willow branch or pulling a wild rose to

pieces. But her gaze bent not to the branch or to the flower. It wandered

over the surface of the water, slowly and sadly, and ofttimes seemed to

seek some invisible form in its depths, and then turned tearful from the

waves, as if sorrowing at not therein perceiving the object of its

longings.

The old sculptor wondered and grew sad, as a good father would, and then

consoled himself with the reflection that often tender hearts were subject

to passing griefs, and that it takes but little to trouble the gayety of

the happiest maidens.

{491}

But it was the weariness of idleness he feared most for Mina, and he made

every effort to distract her thoughts.

"Listen, my child," said he one beautiful morning in July, when the earth

smiled fresh and glittering in the dew--"listen. It is too fine a day for

me to wish to work in. In my old age I must have from time to time a little

recreation--fresh air and sun-light; if it please thee, we will go to the

city."

"As thou wishest, father," replied Mina, rising with vacant eye and dreamy

air.

"And methinks a little walk and a few cheerful visits would do thee

wondrous good. It is long since I have seen Master Hans Barthing, the

gold-smith, mine ancient neighbor and old friend, and his daughters Jeanne

and Bertha will not be vexed to have thee their companion for a day. Let us

start, then, my daughter. Ah! here is Johann! Well, let him come. Johann is

an excellent youth, and is always welcome with Master Barthing as with me.

Johann, my son," continued the old sculptor, turning to the young man, "it

is useless to take up the chisel to-day. Thou shalt help me to buckle my

mantle. We are going to take a walk, and I invite thee to accompany us."

"I will go willingly," replied Johann, who rarely went out in Mina's

company, and who, poor boy, marked with a white mark those days when the

pretty girl deigned him a friendly look or word.

Soon the three visitors arrived at the house of Master Barthing, the

jeweller, whose talent was well known and valued even beyond the frontiers

of the margravate of Baden, and whose frank cordiality and joyous humor

were justly prized by his friends and neighbors.

"You here at last, Master Koerner!" cried the old goldsmith, rising from

his leathern arm-chair and doffing his furred cap as soon as he perceived

his visitors. "Come you to examine my treasures or to ask a diamond from my

shop? But, pshaw, my old Sebald, you need them not; you have other

treasures and owe no man for them; and here," he continued, looking on

Mina, "is your most brilliant, your most precious diamond. Come. Jeanne!

Bertha! here is a happy visit a charming friend."

The two girls rushed forward and gave their ancient neighbor a thousand

caresses and a thousand kisses.

"How changed thou art, Mina!" exclaimed Jeanne suddenly.

"Thou art wearied, I am sure," added Bertha, "in thy great lonely house. It

cannot be very diverting to have ever around thee but marble and stone, and

plaster and statues. Why dost come so seldom to visit us? Together we can

amuse each other; we can recount legends as we spin; or Jeanne, who hath a

good voice, can trill some love-lay of the minnesingers. And what will

amuse thee perhaps more than aught else will be to see the beautiful and

shining jewels in our father's workshop. I know well, my dear friend, that

many fine things are to be seen in thy father's atelier, but there

everything is white for ever white, and that must be somewhat saddening.

But a young girl is always rejoiced and glad when she contemplates at her

leisure rich diadems and rings, enamelled flasks, and glittering

necklaces."

"Courage, child! courage, Bertha!" cried the goldsmith, laughing. "It is a

dutiful daughter who to love of her father joins love of his trade. Well,

if thou thinkest Mademoiselle Mina will take pleasure in seeing my enamels,

my jewels, and my diamonds, as soon as our collation is finished thou shalt

take her to my atelier. I have there something I think exceeding fine, in

fact a veritable master-piece. But it becomes me not to praise myself. You

will see; you will judge, and you will give me your opinion."

Half an hour after they entered the long and narrow gallery where the

goldsmith showed forth his richest jewels, his most massive and skilfully

chiseled pieces of silver, his best finished and most precious works.

{492}

Brilliant lights seemed to sparkle and shine from all sides in this room of

wonders. Everywhere glittered gold, rubies, sapphires, while pearls lent

their soft white light, and diamonds and opals their thousand colors. Great

show-cases full of enamellings shone like the sun; rings, reliquaires,

clasps, laid out on tables, seemed to form a vast train of sparks whose

fires mingled in shining light, and chains and necklaces formed slender

garlands of stars and variegated flame.

And while the two old men followed, chatting, behind, the three young girls

wandered with light step in advance hither and thither, trying on this

necklace, toying with these rings, admiring that reliquaire, tearing their

entranced eyes from those wildernesses of beautiful forms, of rays and

colors. Between the two groups came Johann, the poor youth feeling no

inclination to join one and not daring to approach the other; lonely

Johann, who admired alone, and from time to time sighed.

Suddenly Master Hans advanced before the girls, and, taking a key from the

huge purse which hung at his belt, he unlocked a casket of cedar wood, and

unrolled a carpet of emeralds on a field of glittering gold, before the

eyes of the spectators.

"How beautiful! how dazzling!" cried the maidens.

"Whence came such splendid jewels, such magnificent stones?" asked Master

Sebald. "One would think the treasures of the Eastern magicians, of whom

crusaders' legends tell, were spread before him."

"This," replied Master Hans, plunging his hand into the casket and drawing

forth a chain set with emeralds, "is the treasure of the house of Horsheim,

to which I have added, by the order of the present lord, some of my rarest

stones. The count is about to celebrate the marriage of his daughter, and,

besides her dowry of beauty and of castles, he wishes to give her a

splendid one of jewels."

"Ah! then beauteous Lady Gertrude is to be married at last," said Mina,

with a sigh of relief, for she had not yet forgotten how on the day of the

tournament Johann had told her that Otho had received the crown from the

hands of the young countess.

"Yes, Demoiselle Mina; and the wedding, they say, takes place in a

fortnight, and will be one of the most brilliant ever celebrated in the

margravate of Baden."

"But whom doth the countess marry?" asked Johann, who, without knowing why,

felt his heart beat painfully.

"If rumor speaks sooth, a knight of but moderate fortune, but of goodly

form, large heart, and name of renown. They say 'tis the Baron of Arneck;

but of this I am not sure, for I have never seen the count and lady

together when they come the city."

"What! Otho, my pupil?" interrupted Master Sebald.

"And why not, old friend? If, as I think, it be he, thou wilt henceforth

see him but rarely, for hereafter he will have much else to do besides

moulding clay or chiselling statues."

"Ah! I fear me much the brave knight is lost to sculpture," replied Sebald,

smiling.

But Johann smiled not. He drew near Mina and followed her movements with

looks of anguish. He saw her cheek blanch and a cloud come over her eyes,

and, fearing lest she should faint, pushed a seat to her.

But Mina refused it with a resolute gesture, and without trembling

approached the casket.

"Are you sure that it is Otho of Arneck she marries?" asked she in a

strange tone, gazing fixedly upon Hans Barthing. "In any event, the bride

will be brave in this glistening chain. Ah! if it were I--if I were rich

and possessed castles, and were a countess--think you that I would not be

beautiful with these green flashings and diamonds in my hair and about my

neck?"

Mina, speaking thus with a bitter laugh and vacant stare, twined the chain

around her neck and through her wavy tresses, and, in doing so, her little

fingers moved so fast that none could see how they trembled.

{493}

But suddenly her words ceased, her eyes closed, her hands fell by her side,

and with a feeble cry she fell upon the chair.

"My daughter! O my daughter! What aileth thee?" cried old Sebald, running

to her.

"'Tis naught; a weakness; nothing more." said the goldsmith. "The heat of

to-day was, indeed, enough to make a young girl faint. Quick, Bertha!

Jeanne! bring hither the Queen of Hungary's water and open the windows."

"It is doubtless the influence of the stones that hath made poor Mina ill."

murmured one of the jeweller's daughters, who seemed to stand

terror-stricken. "Thou knowest, father, that the sapphire brings happy

dreams, the opal misfortune on its possessor, and the beryl can cause

faintings. It is then perhaps, the emeralds which cause Mina's illness. She

is not accustomed to gaze upon them, and they glitter so--the shining

stones!"

"Yes, it is certainly the jewels and their light and the heat," stammered

Johann, who, on his knees, was holding the fainting girl's hands within his

own, and trying to restore their warmth. "But Demoiselle Mina recovers not.

Think you not, Master Sebald, that it would be well to take a litter and

return to your dwelling?"

"Assuredly," replied Master Koerner, surprised and anxious at his

daughter's swoon.

Chapter V.

On the way home Mina opened her eyes, but she remained mute and mournful.

But when, after she had been placed on a lounge in the lower hall of her

dwelling, she saw that her father was about to direct Johann to hasten the

arrival of a leech, she bent over to the old sculptor and retained him with

a hand cold as ice.

"I would speak a word with Johann alone," she murmured. "Wilt thou permit

me, my father?"

"Surely," replied the old man, fixing upon her a look of wonder, but

hastening to leave the chamber.

Then Mina feebly called Johann, and made him a sign to sit at her feet.

"Thou saidst one day, my good brother Johann," said she, "that thou wouldst

spare no effort, recoil from no risk to procure me joy or happiness."

"So said I; so will I do," answered the poor youth, bending on her a look

full of emotion.

"Then, Johann, thou canst preserve my greatest happiness, cause my greatest

joy. I know that I cannot deceive thee; I noted thy gaze when Hans Barthing

spoke of the marriage of Otho and Gertrude. Know then, Johann, that the

knight of Arneck is my true--my only love; and now I would know if he hath

betrayed me. It is peace of heart I need for my cure, Johann, and not the

skill of the leech. Depart then, good Johann, and go to Horsheim. There

thou wilt easily learn who is the countess's betrothed. And thou mayest

even, without being perceived, see them pass by together, speaking low,

walking hand in hand, believing themselves alone. Thou wilt return and tell

me all, Johann, and I will gain strength to live until thy return; for it

would be too bitter to die if Otho remaineth faithful. Thou wilt go--wilt

thou not, my brother--my only friend?"

Johann's only reply was a kiss imprinted on Mina's hand and a silent

pressure of her taper fingers, while two great tears rolled from his eyes.

Then he departed from the House of the Angel, and, after having called the

physician, saddled his horse and left the town that very evening, following

the line of the high hills which stretched away toward the Rauhe Alps, at

the foot of which was the castle of Horsheim.

To be Continued.

------

{494}

Original.

Forebodings.

Pretty Nan to Flora said,

"Prithee, why so gay?"

Dark-eyed Flora bent her head:

"_He_ is gone away."

"Strange!" quoth Nan. "If 'twere my heart,

None could be more sad.

Absence gives the keenest smart.

Tell me, why art glad?"

Dark-eyed Flora, with a sigh,

'Gan to braid her hair,

Whilst to Nan she made reply:

"Hark! my sister dear.

"Chanced it on a summer morn,

Laughingly I chose

These long tresses to adorn

With a beauteous rose.

"Of the flower he made request,

I in wilfulness

Did refuse, and as a jest

Gave _it_ a caress.

"But I did not long deny.

Said I: Plucked for you,

Take; but care it tenderly,

'Tis my rose-love true.

"Nameless was the pain and dread

Filled my aching heart.

Soon I saw my rose-love dead,

Idly torn apart.

"Thus he would my heart's love fling

Coldly, idly by.

Than to wear his wedding-ring,

Rather would I die.

"Ah! the cruel, ugly smart!

Fear my love did slay.

Pined I sadly in my heart

Till he went away.

"'Gainst the power of his voice

All in vain I strove.

Freed by absence, I rejoice,

Now I dare to love!"

------

{495}

Abridged from The Dublin University Magazine.

The Minor Brethren.

[The ensuing portion of an article from which we have stricken out the

remainder on account of its objectionable statements, although not

strictly in conformity with the Catholic view of the lives of the saints,

furnishes a graphic sketch of the life of St. Francis, and an evidence of

the approximation many Protestants are making toward a more candid and

reasonable view of Catholic subjects.--ED. C. W.]

The towns of Italy were in advance of those of other countries; many of

them were beautifully built, and celebrated for their wealthy and powerful

citizens. Such a town was Assisi in Umbria, and such a citizen was Pietro

Bernadone when his son Francisco was born--Francisco Bernadone, afterward

Pater Minorum, Pater Seraphicus, then St. Francis, with a place among the

saints in the hagiology of the church, now high up on stained-glass windows

of thousands of churches, in illuminated missals, imperishable in history,

and honored by men of all subsequent times and creeds as a great reformer

and benefactor to humanity, an ardent, enthusiastic Christian. We shall

contemplate the character and work of St. Francis as the "SALT" infused

into the world at one of those periods of its corruption, and in order to

do this we shall endeavor to delineate the man as clearly as we can from

the acts of his life and the emanations of his mind; then examine his great

work, and its effect upon the church in general, and upon that of our own

country in particular.

We shall endeavor to portray St. Francis, the founder of the Friars Minors,

not according to the phantoms of imagination, or the caricatures of

prejudice, but from the records of his life, and still more efficiently

from his works and sayings. Fortunately the materials are ample. There is a

life of St. Francis, written by Thomas of Celano, the probable author of

the sublime mediaeval hymn, the "Dies Irae," and, as he was a follower and

an intimate friend of the saint, he writes with authority. At the command

of Gregory IX., he committed to writing his knowledge of the life of St.

Francis, which work was called the "Legenda."

A second life was written by John of Ceperano; a third by an Englishman,

being a metrical version of that of Celano; a fourth by three companions of

the saint, (_a Tribus Sociis_,) Leo, Angelus, and Ruffinus, compiled

at the command of the minister-general of the order, Father Crescentius; a

fifth by the same Thomas of Celano, being a fuller sketch, at the request

also of Crescentius; and a sixth, written at the request of nearly the

whole order by St. Bonaventura, who, when a child, had seen the saint.

All of these biographies are extant in the Acta Sanctorum, written in what

Carlyle would term "monk or dog Latin, still readable to mankind."

[Footnote 146] His works are scanty, but such as they are, they bear the

impress of the man's mind. It must be remembered that St. Francis made no

pretensions to being a scholar, a theologian, or an author; in fact, he was

a little inclined to deprecate these things; therefore, his literary

remains are only a few letters, hymns, addresses, colloquies, predictions,

and apothegms.

[Footnote 146: Past and Present.]

His father, though an avaricious man, yet lived in the profuse style

characteristic of the leading Italian merchants, and young Francisco was

brought up accordingly, so that his youth, up to the age of twenty-five,

was spent in vanity.

{496}

During that time, he excelled all his companions in gay frivolity, and the

vices common to a young man with a rich father, proud of his son. He was

the admiration of all, and led many astray by his example. He dressed in

soft and flowing robes, spent his time in jesting, wanton conversation, and

singing songs. Being rich, he was not avaricious, but prodigal; not having

to work for his fortune, he cheerfully set about spending that of his

father.

An incident is recorded in the life by the three companions which is not

mentioned by Thomas of Celano nor Bonaventura.[Footnote 147] It is, that

during a disturbance between the citizens of Assisi and the people of

Perugia, young Francisco was captured, and, with others, placed in prison.

Whilst there his manner was so different from the rest, they being sad and

he more gay than ever, that they asked him the reason. "What do you take me

for?" said he. "I shall yet be adored all over the world." He spent nearly

a year in this durance, and, when peace was declared, returned to Assisi,

and devoted his attention to the sale of his father's wares, until his

conversion, which happened some years later. During the interval he fell

ill, and began to lament for the sin of his past life, and to make

resolutions of amendment. He recovered, and, with the recovery, the

penitence and the resolutions all vanished.

[Footnote 147: It is alluded to, however, in the life of St. Columba

Reatina.]

He pursued his former life until a circumstance happened which very nearly

changed his whole career. A certain nobleman of Assisi was about to

undertake a military expedition against Apulia, and young Francisco was

immediately fired with the longing to become a soldier. He had a mysterious

dream, which he misinterpreted into an encouragement. After making all

preparations, he set out and reached as far as Spoleto, where he had

another dream which convinced him of his mistake, and sent him back to

Assisi. From that time he began to reflect, and in the embarrassment of his

thoughts would retire into solitary places, and pray to God to guide him

and direct him what to do.

He spoke in enigmas, and told his friends that he should not go to Apulia,

but would make his name famous at home. In reply, they demanded what were

his plans? was he going to take a wife? "I am"--said Francisco--"I am going

to take a more beautiful and noble wife than you have ever seen, who will

excel in beauty and wisdom all women."

He now took to fasting, prayer, and almsgiving. The mysterious work had

commenced; his whole nature changed; he isolated himself from all his

companions, began to hear voices from heaven, to see visions, and to listen

to calls from the Invisible.

Whilst in this state, he was one day returning from a neighboring market,

where he had sold some of his father's goods, and passed by the church of

St. Damian, which had fallen into ruins. A light flashed upon his mind. He

had previously, when praying in the fields, heard a voice say to him,

"Francis, go and repair my house," and therefore, without a moment's

hesitation, he entered the church, found the old priest, bowed before him,

kissed his hands, implored him to accept the money which he was taking

home, and permit him to remain there. The cautious priest allowed him to

remain, but refused to take his father's money, when Francisco, in a fit of

indignation, threw it aside contemptuously.

By this time the father began to be uneasy about the fate of his eccentric

son and set out to make inquiries for him. Francisco then retired to a

neighboring cavern. Here he staid some time, but at last, resolving to

brave it out, he returned, wasted and wan, to Assisi. The people thought

him mad, and pelted him through the streets, when his father, hearing a

noise, went out, and, recognizing his son, seized him, dragged him home

chastised him severely, shut him up in a dark place, and firmly bound him,

that he might be safe till he returned from a journey he was about to take.

{497}

In the father's absence, however, the mother, after trying in vain to

reason with him, let him go, and he immediately returned to the church

where he had been hiding. His father, upon his return, upbraided his wife

for releasing his disobedient son, and resolved upon bringing the matter to

a settlement.

To this end he went to the church, saw Francisco, and, finding him more

obstinate than ever, decided upon letting him have his own way, but, with

characteristic prudence, demanded the money from his son which he had

received for his goods. This being restored, he was appeased, and then

suggested that, as Francisco had devoted himself to poverty, he would not

require any patrimony, and might release his father from all claim upon

him. To this Francisco willingly consented. A formal document was prepared,

and the parties appeared before the bishop, when Francisco not only

renounced his inheritance, but, taking off his clothes, threw them to his

father, with these words: "Up to now I have called thee my father on earth,

but now I can securely say, My Father, who art in heaven." The bishop was

so delighted that he embraced him, and gave him his cloak.

Thus was Francisco divorced from the world, from father, mother, and

kindred, and married to poverty, to whom from this time forth he devoted

his life. An incident is recorded of him here which was indicative of one

portion of his great work. He was out alone on a certain day, when a

wretched leper crossed his path. Francisco instinctively shrunk from the

sight, but, suddenly recollecting that his object was to subdue himself, he

ran after the leper, seized his hand, and kissed it.

From that time he resolved to adopt the care of the lepers as a peculiar

portion of his work, and we find him shortly afterward entering the leper

hospital and devoting himself to their service, washing their sores with

his own hands, dressing them, and once even kissing them.[Footnote 148]

Then he returned once more to Assisi, the scene of his youthful revelry,

and in the garb of a mendicant begged in the streets from those who once

knew him in luxury, for money to rebuild the church of St. Damian, as he

felt the injunction to do so was still upon him.

[Footnote 148: Bonaventura says: "Educebat plagarum putredinem et saniem

abstergebat."]

His enthusiasm told upon men's minds, and money flowed in rapidly, so that

he not only rebuilt that church, but another also, St. Mary of Porzioncula,

which he then frequented, and to which he was ever afterward deeply

attached. One day when attending mass in this church, and the gospel was

read, the words, "Take nothing for your journey, neither staves nor scrip,

neither bread nor money, neither have two coats apiece," sank deep into his

soul. He went out of the church, took off his shoes, laid aside his staff,

threw away his wallet, contented himself with a small tunic and a rope for

a girdle, struck out for the strict apostolic rule, and endeavored to

persuade others to follow his example.

The first instance of the mighty contagion of that example occurred in the

conversion of one Bernard de Quintavalle, a man of wealth and repute, who

came to Francisco, and offered himself and his all to him. The saint

proposed that they should go to the church of St. Nicholas and seek for

guidance. They did so, and, when the mass was over, the priest opened the

missal, after making the sign of the cross. The first response was, "If

thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor;"

the second, "Take nothing for your journey;" and the third, "If any man

will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow

me." "Let us obey the divine command," said Francis. Bernard immediately

did so to the letter, and adopted the same dress as his master.

{498}

Thus was the foundation laid of that great order of Minor Brethren. It is

possible that St. Francis, for we must call him now by his canonized name,

had not dreamt of such a thing as founding an order; but converts

increased; Peter of Catania and four others. Egidius Sabbatini, John de

Capella, and Sylvester were then added, and they all retired to a hut in

the plain of Rivo Torto.

When they numbered eight, St. Francis gave them a solemn charge, and

dismissed them by twos in different directions to preach the gospel of

peace and forgiveness. They met after a short time, and, as their numbers

increased so rapidly, St. Francis drew up his first rule, which differed

very little from that of the Benedictines, save that it enjoined at the

outset a solemn injunction, ingeniously evaded afterward, that they should

have no property, but live in obedience and chastity. "Regula et vita

istorum patrum haec est scilicet vivere in obedientia et in castitate et

sine proprio." Their clothing was to be of the poorest kind; for novices

for one year, "duas tunicas sine caputio et cingulum et braccas et

caparonem usque ad cingulum;" for those who were finally admitted, "unicam

tunicam cum caputio et aliam sine caputio, in necesse, fuerit et cingulum

et braccas." No brother should be called "prior," but all should be termed

Minor Brethren, "fratres minores," and the one should wash the other's

feet.

Humility was strictly enjoined. They were to live on charity; to beg their

bread if necessary, and not to be ashamed, but rather to remember that our

Lord Jesus Christ was not ashamed, was poor and a stranger, and lived on

charity, both he and his disciples. They were stringently cautioned against

women, or, as St. Francis ungallantly puts it, "A malo visu et frequentia

mulierum." Wherever they went, they were to remember that, and no one of

them was to counsel women in secret. They were to travel on foot; not to

have any beast, save from extreme infirmity, or the most urgent necessity.

[Footnote 149]

[Footnote 149: Quod nullo modo apud se nec apud alium, nec aliquo modo

bestiam aliquam habeant.]

Having drawn up this rule, St. Francis, with two or three of his followers,

went to Rome to procure the pope's sanction to the order. They met the pope

on a terrace of the Lateran Palace, and threw themselves at his feet. He,

annoyed at the interruption, turned away indignantly from these men with

bare, unwashed feet and coarse attire, and bid them begone. They retired to

pray, whilst Innocent III. in the night had a vision which induced him to

send the next morning for those strange men whom he had repulsed. He

received them graciously, approved of their rule, and they departed in joy

to Assisi. His march back was a triumph. The people came out to meet him

from the villages, and many deserted their homes to join him on the spot.

The next step taken by St. Francis was to make a modification in his rule:

he found many people were converted to his views, but from the ties of

children and business occupations could not possibly follow him.

To meet such wants, he instituted what was called an Order of Penitents, by

which those who joined were compelled to pray, to fast, and to live

according to certain rules, and wore beneath their ordinary garb the

penitential girdle. This Order included both sexes, and people of all

classes. One member of it was, however, destined to greater things, the

young and beautiful Clara, a daughter of the house of Ortolana. She had,

from childhood, been brought up most religiously by her mother, and the

weird eloquence of St. Francis finished the task.

An interview was arranged, and the saint suggested an elopement, which was

successfully effected, and Clara was abducted by St. Francis to the church

of Porzioncula. Many other young ladies soon followed, and it was then

necessary to institute new rules for these fair converts.

{499}

The church of St. Damian, which St. Francis had rebuilt, was turned into a

convent, with Clara (who was afterward canonized as St. Clara) as its

abbess. A letter is extant in the works of the saint, which runs as

follows: "Francis, to his very dear Sister Clara, and the Convent of the

Sisters of St. Damian, health in Christ. Because by the inspiration of our

Lord ye have made yourselves daughters and handmaidens of the Highest, of

the most high King and heavenly Father, and have betrothed yourselves to

the Holy Spirit to live according to the teaching of the gospel; it is my

will, and I promise that I and my brethren will have always for you the

same diligent care and special solicitude as for ourselves. Farewell in the

Lord."

In the year 1216, the first general council of the new order was held in

the Porzioncula, when Tuscany, Lombardy, Provence, Spain, and Germany were

assigned to the principal followers of St. Francis as mission grounds. The

saint himself took France as his own field of operations. At this point a

meeting took place between St. Francis and one who stands in the church

almost on an equality with him, Dominic, the founder of the order of Friars

Preachers.

Three years after the first, the second council was held, and a grand sight

it was--five thousand brethren encamped around the church. To this great

body, infused with the spirit of one man, Ugolino was introduced, and made

such a flattering speech, and gave such glowing predictions of their future

power and glory, that St. Francis became alarmed, and quickly perceived

that, if the protector were allowed to have free play, he would soon ruin

his charge. He therefore interfered, reiterated the severity of their rule

which forbade all dreams of glory or power, told them they must always be

the Minor Brethren, the poor of the world, and after redistributing them

amongst several countries, broke up the assembly never more to venture on

another gathering into one spot of such inflammable materials. When they

were all dispersed, their great founder went upon a holy mission to the

army then under the walls of Damietta. He advised the Christians not to

engage with the Saracens, and predicted their defeat if they did, but the

army were too eager for plunder and bloodshed. They engaged, and six

thousand slaughtered Christians fulfilled the prophecy.

Then St. Francis resolved upon taking a step which made his name still more

famous in history. Confiding his project to only one, who was to accompany

him, Illuminatus [Footnote 150] by name, St. Francis, although a reward was

set upon the head of every Christian, wandered up to the lines of the

enemy, was seized, and taken before the sultan. Strange to say, instead of

ordering him to be executed, the sultan received him courteously, listened

to his preaching patiently, and asked him to remain with him in his tent.

St. Francis replied, "I will remain willingly with you, if you and your

people will only become converted to Christ; but if you doubt, order a fire

to be kindled, and I will enter into it with your priests, and see who is

right." The sultan, who had perceived that one of the chief priests had

vanished at these words, replied: "I do not think any of my priests would

submit to the torture for the sake of their religion." Then said St.

Francis: "If you will promise for yourself and your people to adopt the

Christian religion if I come out uninjured, I will enter it alone." The

sultan, however, declined, and after vainly offering rich presents to St.

Francis, sent him back in safety to the Christian camp.

[Footnote 150: It is sometimes stated that St. Francis went alone, but

the lives by St. Bonaventura, by the Tres Socii, and by St. Thomas of

Celano, all mention this Illuminatus as his companion.]

{500}

After this memorable interview. St. Francis returned, preaching in all the

countries as he passed through. One day after his return, as he was praying

in the church of St. Mary, Porzioncula, a vision of our Saviour appeared,

and promised that, to all who should thereafter confess their sins in that

church, plenary remission should be granted. St. Francis immediately went

to the pope at Perugia, and procured the granting of the indulgence, in

consequence of which a ceremony is held to this day annually, in the church

of St. Mary of the Angels, when the peasantry assemble to confess their

sins and receive the promised indulgence.

Then comes the last great tradition of his life--the receiving the

stigmata. It is recorded, and firmly attested by the great men who wrote

his biography, that, on a certain morning, at the hour of the holy

sacrifice, when St. Francis was praying on the side of Mount Avernia, Jesus

Christ appeared to him under the form of a seraph crucified on the cross,

and when the vision had disappeared, St. Francis was marked with the wounds

of Christ in his hands, his feet, and his side.

Various grave discussions arose amongst the faithful about the truth of

this legend. Only nineteen years after its presumed occurrence a Dominican

preacher had declared openly his disbelief of it, but then he was a

Dominican. The Bishop of Olmutz, however, followed in the wake, when Pope

Gregory IX. (Ugolino of old) wrote, reproaching them with their want of

faith; and Alexander IV., who succeeded, declared he had seen with his own

eyes the stigmata of St. Francis.

Shortly after this incident, St. Francis sickened, and, exhausted by long

fastings and vigils, wasted gradually, until, as Bonaventura says, he was

only skin and bone--"quasi sola cutis ossibus cohaereret." One day, during

his illness, a companion said to him: "Brother, pray to God that he may

have mercy upon thee, and not lay his hand so severely upon thee." St.

Francis reproved him for such a speech, and, though he was very weak, threw

himself on the ground, and, kissing the earth, said: "I thank thee, O Lord

God, for all my pains; and I pray thee, if it be thy will, multiply them a

hundred-fold, because it will be most acceptable to me; for the fulfilment

of thy will in me will be my supreme consolation." And his brethren noticed

that, as his bodily pains increased, his joy was greater. He predicted the

day of his death, and begged to be carried to his beloved Porzioncula, that

he might yield up his spirit at that spot where he had first received

divine grace. It was done, and he insisted upon being laid naked upon the

bare ground, when he turned to his companions and said: "I have done my

part; what yours is, may Christ teach you." When his last hour was come, he

had all the brethren on the spot called to him, addressed them kindly on

preserving their vows of poverty, and upholding the faith of the Catholic

Church; he then laid his hands upon them, and pronounced his blessing upon

all present and absent. "Farewell," said he, "all my sons; be strong in the

fear of God, and remain in that always; and since future temptation and

tribulation are near, blessed are they who continue in the things they have

begun. But I hasten to God, to whose grace I commend you all." Then he

called for a copy of the gospels, and asked them to read him that of St.

John, beginning at the words, "Before the day of the passover," etc., when

he suddenly broke out into the psalm: "Voce mea ad Dominum clamavi, voce

mea ad Dominum deprecatus sum," continued to the words, "Me expect justi

donec retribuas mihi," when, as they died away on his lips, the spirit of

the great founder passed gently out of his poor emaciated body, and

returned to its Maker.

Thus died St. Francis, in the odor of sanctity; and perhaps we cannot more

appropriately conclude this brief outline of his life than by giving a

translation of a sketch of his character and personal appearance, as

written by one who knew him, Thomas of Celano, the author of the Dies Irae.

{501}

It forms a graphic portrait of the man, and may serve as a fair specimen of

hagiography. In his life of the saint, he thus writes:

"Oh! how beautiful, how splendid, how glorious did he appear in the

innocence of his life, in the simplicity of his words, in the purity of

his heart, in his love of God, in brotherly charity, in fragrant

obedience, in angelic aspect! Gentle in manners, placid in nature,

affable in conversation, faithful in undertakings, of admirable foresight

in counsel, able in business, gracious to all, serene in mind, gentle in

temper, sober in spirit, stable in contemplation, persevering in grace,

and in all things the same; swift to indulge, to anger slow, free in

intellect, in memory bright, subtle in dissertation, circumspect in

choice, simple in all things; rigid toward himself, pious toward others,

discreet to everybody; a most eloquent man, of cheerful aspect, and

benevolent countenance, free from idleness, void of insolence. He was of

the middle stature, rather inclined to shortness; his head was of the

medium size, and round, with an oblong and extended face, a small smooth

forehead, black and simple eyes, dark brown hair and straight eyebrows;

his nose was thin, well proportioned, and straight; his ears erect and

small, and his temples were smooth; his tongue was placable, though fiery

and sharp; his voice was vehement, though sweet, clear, and sonorous; his

teeth well set, regular, and white; his lips of moderate size; his beard

was black, and not very thick; his neck thin; his shoulders straight,

with small arms, thin hands, long fingers and nails; he had thin legs,

small feet, a delicate skin, and very little flesh. He wore a rough vest,

took very little sleep, and though he was most humble, he showed every

courtesy to all men, conforming himself to the manners of every one. As

he was holy amongst the holy, so amongst sinners he was as one of them."

[Footnote 151]

[Footnote 151: Thomas de Celano in Vita Sti. Francisci. Acta Sanct.]

Before we advance further, we must say a few words upon a subject well

known to all who have investigated the originals of ecclesiastical

history--the miracles attributed to the saints. Their biographies are

spangled with miracles--that of St. Francis especially. The Acta Sanctorum

is a compilation of some fifty or sixty folio volumes, containing sometimes

five or six different lives of each saint, written by men in different ages

and countries, ranging from the eighth to the fourteenth century. All these

writers unite in one thing, the ascription of miraculous powers to the

saints. The question then arises, can this be wholly and entirely false?

can it be utterly without one grain of truth in it?--a tissue of falsehoods

wilful, wanton falsehoods consistently written by men at vastly different

times, and in remotely distant countries? We must premise at once that we

are not for a moment going to defend the absolute truth of the wonders

attributed to the saints. We do not believe for an instant that their

bodies were sometimes lifted from the earth, and carried up into the sky,

like St. Francis; or that they walked dry-footed over the sea, as did St.

Birim, when he left the corporalia behind him at Boulogne; nor that

commands and directions were given them direct from heaven, through the

medium of crosses, images, or pictures; but we cannot help reflecting as to

whether it is possible for such a systematic body of history to be handed

down to posterity in one continuity of falsehood for some eight or nine

centuries; or whether we may come to the conclusion that it is a

superstructure of exaggeration built up upon some basis of truth. It may

help us, perhaps, at the outset, to notice what were the characters of the

writers of these lives; were they men likely to be deluded by fanaticism,

or likely to lend themselves to the perpetration and perpetuation of wanton

falsehood?

{502}

If we turn over the volumes of the Acta Sanctorum, we shall find, on the

contrary, some of the brightest names in the annals of literature, piety,

and philanthropy; some of the deepest scholars, the most acute reasoners,

the most elaborate thinkers recorded in the annals of fame; of men whose

works have been and still are the guiding lights of theological and

philosophical investigation. There are Bridferth, Eadmer, Lanfranc, Anselm,

William of Malmesbury, Thomas à Kempis, Bonaventura, and many others, all

distinguished for intellect and piety. Some of them, too, were honored by a

personal acquaintance with the subjects of their memoirs, as in the case of

Bridferth, the contemporary of Dunstan, of Eadmer of Anselm, of Thomas of

Celano and St. Francis. Can it be that these scholars, trained to

philosophical investigation--these profound thinkers--these holy

archbishops and bishops should connive together to delude posterity with a

tissue of lies--of wanton lies, which might have been easily contradicted

by contemporary writers, many of whom were bitter enemies both of the

writers and their religion? Yet we find no such contradiction.

We have plenty of contemporary history handed down tolerably perfect as

regards incidents, dates, accurate reports of great councils, descriptions

of battles and sieges, lives of statesmen, warriors, and scholars, with

views of both sides, debated, refuted, or confirmed. And are we to believe

that in this matter of the lives of the saints only have all contemporary

writers, friends and foes, scholars, holy men, great benefactors of their

age, conspired successfully together to hand down an enormous fabric of

falsehood, and at the same time secure the silence of all contemporary

history? This is the great difficulty.

A distinguished English writer, the elder D'Israeli, has endeavored to

account for these strange tales in the lives of the saints by suggesting

they were written as exercises and religious theses, when each student

filled up his outline with all the wonders he could invent to invest his

subject with greater glory. That is a theory accepted by many who are

already prejudiced toward its acceptation; but it is a frivolous theory, to

which we object the improbability of these great men, whose names are

already mentioned, being set down, some of them in the maturity of their

lives, to write religious exercises of that nature. Is it not rather

possible that there may be something in all this history which we can

neither understand nor explain?

Let us examine for a moment into what we may venture to call the natural

history of miracles. We find the Bible itself is an immense repertoire of

miracles from Moses down to the apostles, and it contains no distinct

announcement of a withdrawal of that power from the church. It was

confirmed by Christ, who endowed his apostles with the same power, and who

said one or two things in his addresses to them which, we think, will throw

some light upon this vexed question.

It is quite certain that there have never been any miracles wrought in the

world by any who did not receive the power from God. We are not prepared to

estimate what degree of change was produced in the relations between man

and God by the fall; we are certain of this, that a gap was placed between

the two, so wide that Christ was sent to bridge it over; that an apostasy

ensued, and a disunion so complete that his death alone was able to provide

the means of reunion and reconciliation. Then it follows that faith was the

only possible mode to man of recovery of what was lost by man; faith before

the promise and faith after its fulfilment, and in the proportion of the

strength of that faith, and the consequent change of life in the heart and

nature of him who possessed it, was the reunion with God promised. But how

does this bear on miracles? In this way. Turn to the Bible, and it will be

seen that of every man who is recorded to have performed miracles, it is

also recorded that he had this immovable faith, and that his life was

ordered accordingly.

{503}

Faith, prayer, and fasting have ever been the elements of the life

necessary to miracles, and we are not prepared, nor are we able to estimate

what would be the result of such a course of severe discipline as some of

the saints went through toward a recovery of that lost union with God. It

is a singular fact that, in the life of Christ, we find it was only after

his fasting and prayer in the wilderness that he began to perform miracles,

as though during that severe trial of temptation, fasting, and prayer the

perfect union between himself and his Father had been sealed by the final

gift of miraculous power. And thus was it that, when in after times his

disciples were unable to cast out the devils, and appealed to him for the

reason of their inability, he replied, "This sort goeth not out but by

fasting and prayer;" and we are told elsewhere that the disciples of Jesus

did not fast. So that we find in the Bible there is a close connection

between the active development of the spiritual, and the subjugation of the

corporeal life, and the working of miracles.

All the prophets led that life, they were given to prayer, fasting, and

solitude. It was the peculiar life of Jesus; retired to the mountains, the

deserts, and by-places for prayer, and he attributed the miraculous power

to the results of this life. [Footnote 152] Is it, then, possible for a man

by strong faith, accompanied by fasting and prayer, in these later days to

regain that close, mysterious communion with his Maker which should give

him a supernatural power? We reply that we have not the means of answering

the question, for the simple reason that we never have an opportunity of

seeing it tried. Without wishing to insinuate anything invidious, have we

any record in ecclesiastical or other history, of bishops, priests, or men

of any class during the last 400 years spending whole nights in prayer, or

consecutive days in fasting, such as we read, upon indisputable authority,

was the practice in the olden times of the prophets, and the later times of

men who devoted their lives to the imitation of Christ? [Footnote 153]

[Footnote 152: In the life of St. Francis we are told that "solitaria

loca quaerebat," "una die dum sic sequestratus oraret," "cum die quadam

egressus ad meditandum in agro," "dum per sylvam iter faciens."]

[Footnote 153: Our Protestant fasts are a "lucus a non lucendo,"

consisting of fish of various descriptions, curiously prepared by the

protean art of cookery, with very substantial adjuncts, and accompanied

by good wine. No miracles were ever wrought upon that diet.]

There are plenty of hints scattered throughout the Bible and Testament that

there is a mysterious connection yet to be recovered between man and God,

if men will only fulfil the required condition, and we repeat that it is

not in our power to estimate the results of such a life as we have

mentioned--a life of spiritual discipline, of development of the soul, and

subjugation of the body--because we have no examples around us; but we ask,

if such life were pursued, what is there to prevent our believing that to

some extent the words of our Divine Master, who led that life himself,

would yet be verified, and "this sort" would still "go out through fasting

and prayer"? Nay, further, we may add in illustration that the phenomena

which are recorded as attending the careers of such men as Whitefield,

Wesley, and Irving have never yet been explained away by any scientific

theory or law; so that, in conclusion, as we find in the Bible an emphatic

and reiterated record of miraculous power accorded to persons of a certain

habit of life and thought, as our Lord, when on earth, attributed that

power to the pursuing of that peculiar life--as in every instance where

miracles are attributed to men, they are proved to have led such lives--it

cannot be thought too much to suggest that, making great deductions and

allowances for exaggeration, there may be some basis of truth underlying

that fabric of historical and traditional record of the lives of the

saints.

Many of those incidents described so mysteriously are capable of

explanation. It is often recorded of these men that they saw visions and

heard voices.

{504}

For instance, it is said of St. Francis that, on one occasion, when he was

long praying in a solitary place, the Lord appeared to him as if on the

cross, and so visible was this [Greek text] to him that ever afterward,

when any thought of Christ's sufferings came into his mind, he could not

help bursting into tears; also, that one night the Lord appeared to him,

and said, "Francisce, quis potest melius facere tibi dominus aut servus?"

And again, on another occasion, "Francisce, vade et repara domum meam."

Within the range of our own experience, who is there amongst us who has not

had similar visions in the slumbers of the night, or heard similar voices

in the day? Have we not had sweet converse with dear departed friends, and

heard voices that have long been silent? What bereaved mother has not often

heard the cry of her lost infant, or solitary widow seen the form of a lost

husband in the phantasms of the night? If such things happen to ordinary

men, we submit that we are unable to estimate the result of the mode of

life and the severity of spiritual training which those men underwent,

because it is foreign to our habits, and not within the range of our

experience.

We now proceed to give a brief criticism upon the intellect of St. Francis.

He has left very little behind him. Only a few sermons, hymns, letters, and

sayings, from which we can glean that he must have been an earnest preacher

of the true popular type, driving home his truths by familiar

illustrations, the type of that peculiar preaching which rendered his order

so popular, and paved the way for their marvellous success. We subjoin a

few extracts, which illustrate not only his style, but the design of his

order. In one of his epistles he says: [Footnote 154]

[Footnote 154: Ep. ii. Ad universes Christi fideles.]

"Let us not be wise and prudent according to the flesh, but simple,

humble, and poor; and let us hold our bodies in contempt, because we are

all miserable and putrid; as the Lord says through the prophet, I am a

worm and not a man. We should never desire to be above others, but

subjected and submissive to every human creature, for the sake of God.

And upon all who do so, and persevere unto the end, the holy spirit will

rest, and make in them his tabernacle and his mansion, and they shall be

sons of the heavenly Father, whose works they do, and shall be the

brides, brothers, and mothers of our Lord Jesus Christ. Brides are we,

since faithful souls are joined to the Holy Spirit; brothers are we of

Jesus Christ, when we do the will of his Father who is in heaven; mothers

are we, when we bear him in our hearts and bodies through love, and bring

him forth by the sacred operation of our example, which ought to shine

before others. Oh! how glorious and great to have a Father in heaven! Oh!

how holy to have a betrothal of the Spirit! Oh! how sacred, how

delightful, well pleasing, peaceful, sweet, loving, desirable above all,

is it to have a brother who has laid down his life for the sheep, and has

prayed his Father for us, saying, 'Father, keep through thine own name

those whom thou hast given me. Father, all those whom thou hast given me

in the world are thine, and thou hast given them to me, and the word

which thou hast given me I have given them, and they have received it,

and know well that I came from thee, and have believed that thou hast

sent me. I pray for them: I sanctify myself, that they may be sanctified

as we are. And I will, O Father! that where I am there they may be also,

and see my glory in my kingdom.'" [Footnote 155]

[Footnote 155: We translate from the Latin of St. Francis, which is

somewhat different from our version.]

A graphic picture of a death-bed scene follows soon after the above

beautiful passage in the same epistle.

{505}

"The body droops, death draws near, relatives and friends come, and say,

'Arrange thy house.' And behold, his wife and his sons, his relatives and

friends, pretend to weep; and he, looking up, sees them weeping, and is

moved, and says, my soul and my body, and all my goods, I place in your

hands. Verily, that man is cursed who deposits his soul, his body, and

all his goods in such hands; or, as the Lord says by the prophet, cursed

is that man who places his trust in man. And then they send for the

priest, who says to him, 'Dost thou wish to receive absolution from all

thy sins?' he replies, 'I do.' Wilt thou make restitution from thy

substance for those things which thou hast obtained through fraud and

deception?' He says, 'No.' 'Why not?' asks the priest. 'Because I have

divided all amongst my relations.' And then his speech begins to fail,

and he dies miserably. But let all men know that wherever any man dies in

sin, without making satisfaction, which he can, but will not make, such a

demon seizes his soul, and drags it from the body with such agony that no

one can conceive who has not experienced it. And all his money, power,

and knowledge, which he thought he had, are taken from him; and his

relations and friends, to whom he has given his goods, take them, and

divide them, and then say, Cursed be his soul, who might have given us

more, and did not; who might have hoarded more, and did not. Worms

destroy his body, demons his soul; and thus he loses both soul and body

for the sake of this brief life."

Humility, deep and sincere, was the great characteristic of his life. He

was in his own words, "Franciscus parvulus et vester servus in Domino;"

"Homo vilis et caducus;" "minus servorum;" "indigna creatura Domini." Being

asked, one day, why he wore such scanty clothing in the depth of winter, he

replied, "If we are clothed within with the flame of our heavenly country,

we shall easily bear this external cold." One of the brethren asked him why

he scarcely took anything to sustain nature. "Because," said St. Francis,

"it is difficult to satisfy the necessity of the body without indulging the

longing of the senses."

On an occasion a brother asked him if he might have a psalter. "When you

have got a psalter," replied St. Francis, "then you will want a breviary;

and when you have got a breviary, you will sit in your chair as great as a

lord, and you will say to your brother, 'Friar, fetch me my breviary.'"

There was a competition amongst the brethren as to who should bring in the

greatest number of female devotees, when St. Francis checked their ardor by

the caustic remark, "I am afraid, my brethren, that when God forbade us

wives the devil gave us sisters." Here we must take our farewell of the

saint. Willingly would we devote more space to him; but we have much yet to

say about his work, especially as it influenced the destinies of our own

land. He was a great man, an enthusiast in the highest sense of the word;

his character and career remind us forcibly of John the Baptist; his food

was locusts and wild honey, his raiment was scanty, he was a voice crying

in the wilderness of a wicked world, and his name will last for ever.

But we advance to investigate the doings of the order in England. At the

second general chapter held by St. Francis, at Porzioncula, in the year

1219, when the brethren were divided into parties and sent out on their

missions, England was one of the first mission stations assigned. France

was the first, then came England, chiefly, it is thought, through the

influence of an Englishman, one William, who was a follower of St. Francis.

The honor of leading this mission was assigned to Brother Angnello

[Footnote 156] de Pisa, who was made minister-general of the order in

England.

[Footnote 156: _Angnellus_ sic, in Eccleston MSS., and in

Monumenta Franciscana.]

His authority was as follows: "Ego Frater Franciscus de Assisio minister,

generalis praecipio tibi Fratri Angnello de Pisa per obedientiam, ut vadas

in Angliam et ibi facias officium ministeriatus. Vale. Anno 1219.

Franciscus de Assisio." [Footnote 157]

[Footnote 157: Collectanea Anglo-Minoritica, p. 5.]

{506}

They were also fortified with letters recommendatory from Pope Honorius,

addressed to all "archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, and other prelates

of the church," enjoining them to receive the bearers as Catholics and true

believers, and to "show them favor and courtesy." The actual date of their

landing in England is disputed. Eccleston in his MSS., "De Primo Adventu

Minorum," gives the year 1224, but the more probable date is 1220, which is

given by Wadding, the annalist of the order, and confirmed by Matthew

Paris, who under the year 1243 speaks of the Friars Minors, "who began to

build their first habitations in England scarcely _twenty-four_ years

ago." As they had no money of their own, and lived upon what was given

them, they were transported to England from France by the charity of some

monks of Fécamp. They were nine in number, four clergymen and five laymen.

The former were Angnellus, a native of Pisa, Richard de Ingeworth, Richard

of Devonshire, and William Esseby. The laymen were Henry de Cernise, a

native of Lombardy, Laurence de Belvaco, William de Florentia, Melioratus,

and James Ultramontanus. They landed at Dover and proceeded to Canterbury,

where they were hospitably received and staid two days at the Priory of the

Holy Trinity. Then four of them set out for London to present the

apostolical letters to Henry III., who received them very kindly, which, as

they did not want any money, he would be most likely to do.

The other five were housed at Canterbury at the Priests' Hospital, where

they remained until a place could be procured for them; such accommodation

was found in a small chamber beneath the school-house, where they remained

shut up all day, and at evening, when the scholars had gone home, they

entered the room, kindled a fire, and sat round it. The four monks who went

to London were kindly received by the Dominicans, with whom they staid a

fortnight, until one John Travers hired a house for them in Cornhill, which

they divided into cells by stuffing the interstices with straw.

The citizens, at the instigation of one Irwin, who afterward became a lay

brother, removed them to the butchery or shambles of St. Nicholas, in the

Ward of Farringdon-within, close to a place called Stinking-lane, where

they built a convent for them. The foundations were laid at Christmas,

1220, and it was five years in course of building. The different portions

were built by different citizens. William Joyner built the choir, William

Walleys the nave, Alderman Porter the chapter-house, Bartholomew de

Castello the refectory, Peter de Haliland the infirmary, and Roger Bond the

library; even in those days the citizens, when they did anything in the way

of charity, did it royally. Two brethren, however, were sent on to Oxford,

where they were also kindly received by Dominican friars, according to

Eccleston; but a story is told in the annals of the order of the two

brethren who were making their way toward Oxford, when they came to a sort

of manor-house, about six miles from Oxford, which was a cell of

Benedictine monks, belonging to the abbey of Abingdon.

Being very hungry and tired, they knocked at the gate; and the monks, from

their strange dress and extraordinary appearance, taking them for

masqueraders, admitted them, hoping for some diversion. But, when they

found they were a new order of friars, they turned them out of doors; but

one, more gentle than the rest, went after them, brought them back, and

persuaded the porter to let them sleep in the hay-loft. Both versions may

be right, as the circumstance occurred outside Oxford; and Eccleston's

account commences with their advent in that city when they were received by

the Dominicans, with whom they remained for about eight days, until a rich

citizen, Richard Mercer, let them a house in the parish of St. Ebbs. Then

the two brethren go on to Northampton, where they were received into an

hospital. They procured a house in the parish of St. Giles, over which they

appointed one Peter Hispanus as guardian.

{507}

Then they went to Cambridge, where the townspeople gave them an old

synagogue, adjoining the common prison; but afterward, ten marks being

given them from the king's exchequer, they built a rough sort of oratory on

a plot of ground in the city. After that another settlement was made in

Lincoln, and gradually in many other cities; so that in thirty-two years

from their arrival they numbered 1242 brethren in forty-nine different

settlements. Their first convert was one Solomon, of good birth and

connections.

When only a novice, he was appointed procurator of his house; that is, he

had to go out to beg for it. The first place he went to was the residence

of a sister, who gave him some bread, with the following remark: "Cursed be

the hour when I ever saw thee!" So strict was their poverty, that one of

the brethren being ill, and they having no means to make a fire, got round

him, clung to him, and warmed him with their bodies, "sicut porcis mos

est." [Footnote 158]

[Footnote 158: Eccleston de Adventu Minorum.]

They walked about barefooted through the snow, to the horror of the

spectators. Brother Solomon injured his foot so severely that he was laid

up for two years; and whilst ill the Lord appeared to him, accompanied by

the apostle Peter. And by way of contrast, we are told shortly after that

the devil appeared to one Brother Gilbert de Vyz, when he was alone, and

said to him, "Do you think to avoid me? At least you shall have this," and

threw at him a fistful of vermin, and then vanished: "et projecit super eum

plenum pugillum suum pediculorum et evanuit," so states Master Eccleston.

The second convert was William of London; then followed Jocius of Cornhill,

a clerk, who went to Spain, labored, and died; John, another clerk; Philip,

a priest, who, being a good preacher, was sent to Ireland, and died there.

Then came several magistrates, amongst whom were Walter de Burg, Richard

Norman, Vincent of Coventry, Adam of Oxford; but one of the greatest

accessions was in the person of Adam Marsh, better know as Adae de Marisco,

who was destined to found that distinguished school at Oxford which boasts

such names as Scotus, Occam, Roger Bacon, and others. Adam was called

Doctor Illustris. After him came John of Reading, abbot of Ozeneyae, and

Richard Rufus. Then came some military men, Dominus R. Gobion, Giles de

Merc, Thomas Hispanus, and Henry de Walpole.

As their numbers continued to increase, people built churches and convents

for them in all parts of the country. The master of the Priests' Hospital

at Canterbury built them a chapel; Simon de Longeton, archdeacon of

Canterbury, helped them; so Henry de Sandwyg, and a certain noble lady,

Inclusa de Baginton, who cherished them in all things, as a mother her

sons: "quae sicut mater filios sic fovit eos in omnibus."

Angnellus now set out upon an inspection of the different settlements, and,

after pausing for a time at London, came on to Oxford, where, as things

were promising and converts gradually coming in, he founded a community,

over which he placed William Esseby as guardian of the house, which

Ingeworth and Devonshire had hired. Adam of Oxonia joined the company, and

then Alexander Hales, whom St. Francis, it is thought, admitted in the year

1219, as Hales passed through France on his way to England. Angnellus then

conceived the idea of having a school of friars at Oxford, and built one

near their house. He then addressed himself to Doctor Robert Grostete, one

of the most distinguished lecturers in the university, to beg him to

instruct the brethren. Grostete consented, and the school was soon thronged

with ardent Franciscan converts, who listened with delight to the lectures

of that man who, as bishop of Lincoln, was destined to such a glorious

career.

{508}

And now Angnellus was instant in encouraging the brethren to attend the

lectures, and make progress in the study of the Decretals and canon law;

and as he found them very diligent, he thought he would honor them with his

presence at one of their meetings and see how they progressed; but when he

arrived there, he was horrified, to hear that the subject under discussion

by these young monks was whether there was a God!! _Utrum esset Deus_!

Frightened out of his propriety, the good man exclaimed: "Alas! alas!

simple brethren are penetrating the heavens, and the learned dispute

whether there may be a God!" [Footnote 159] It was with great difficulty

they calmed his agitation. He only submitted upon their promise that, if he

sent to Rome for a copy of the Decretals, they would avoid such mighty

questions, and keep to them.

[Footnote 159: "Hei mihi, hei mihi, fratres simplices coelos penetrant

et literati disputant utrum sit Deus." See Wood, Antiq. Oxon, lib. i.

p. x.]

The first Franciscan who taught in the school was William Eton, under the

direction of Grostete, who was not a Franciscan: he was succeeded by Adam

de Marisco, who is sometimes called the first of the order who taught; he

was, however, the first who taught alone, the others teaching under the

direction of Grostete. Sixty-seven distinguished men filled this chair,

some of whose names have been immortalized.

The influence of the study of Aristotle was telling vitally upon the

theology of the schools. At first his writings were studied through very

imperfect translations made from the Arabic, with Arabic commentaries--then

a mixture of Neo Platonism was infused, and the devotees of scholastic

theology at Paris fell into such errors that the study of his works was

prohibited by the synod of that place in the year 1209. Six years afterward

this prohibition was renewed by the Papal Legate; but as men began to find

that there was a great difference between the philosophy of Aristotle,

filtered through Arabic commentators and Arabic translators, and Aristotle

himself, a revival took place in favor of the Stagyrite, and Gregory IX.,

in 1231, by a bull modified the restriction. New translations were now made

and purged from errors.

A new era in scholasticism commenced; the two rival orders, the Dominicans

and Franciscans, began to apply the Aristotelian method to theological

questions; Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas [Footnote 160] taking the

lead in the former order, in opposition to the teaching of Alexander

Hales.[Footnote 161] the Franciscan, who lectured at Paris. Bonaventura

[Footnote 162] endeavored to amalgamate scholasticism with mysticism; but

at length appeared John Duns Scotus, [Footnote 163] who lectured at Oxford,

Paris, and Cologne, a Franciscan, and worthy opponent of the Dominican,

Thomas Aquinas. We must not omit another distinguished member of the Oxford

school who flourished at the same time, Roger Bacon, [Footnote 164] perhaps

the most distinguished man of the age.

[Footnote 160: Doctor Angelicas.]

[Footnote 161: Doctor Irrefragabilis.]

[Footnote 162: Doctor Seraphicus.]

[Footnote 163: Doctor Subtilis.]

[Footnote 164: Doctor Mirabilis.]

He taught at Oxford. He, however, saw the prominent errors of the

disputation of the times, and has left on record, in the preface to his

Opus Majus, the following criticism, which is worthy of attention: "There

never was such an appearance of wisdom, nor such activity in study in so

many faculties, and so many regions, as during the last forty years; for

even the doctors are divided in every state, in every camp, and in every

burgh, especially through the two studious orders, (Dominicans and

Franciscans,) when neither, perhaps, was there ever so much ignorance and

error. The mob of students languishes and stupefies itself over things

badly translated; it loses time and study; appearances only hold them, and

they do not care what they know so much as what they seem to know before

the insensate multitude."

{509}

Again, in lib. ii., he says: "If I had power over the books of Aristotle, I

would have them all burnt, because it is only a loss of time to study in

them, a cause of error and multiplication of ignorance beyond what I am

able to explain." We must give Roger Bacon the credit of speaking more

particularly of the wretched translations in use, though his view of

Aristotelian philosophy was strangely confirmed centuries afterward by his

still greater namesake, Lord Bacon, who said, after many years of devotion

to Aristotelianism, that it was "a philosophy only strong for disputations

and contentions, but barren of the production of works for the benefit of

the life of man." Thus were ranged under two scholastic standards the two

great orders of mendicant friars, the Dominicans and the Franciscans; the

former being called Thomists, and the latter Scotists. A fierce doctrinal

controversy then raged between them, the animosity of which was heightened

by a jealousy which had always existed on the part of the Dominicans from

the time when St. Francis rejected their founder's overtures to unite the

two orders.

In the year 1400 England maintained and included sixty convents; and at the

time of the dissolution, the Franciscans alone of the mendicant orders had

ninety convents in England, besides vicarships, residences, and nunneries.

To a generation of men who had heard no preaching, or, if any, nothing they

could understand, the enthusiastic discourses of these men were like

refreshing showers on a parched soil; for in the thirteenth century the

sermon had fallen into such disuse that an obscure and insignificant

preacher created a great sensation in Paris, although his preaching was

rude and simple. Both doctors and disciples ran after him, one dragging the

other, and saying, "Come and hear Fulco, the presbyter, he is another

Paul." [Footnote 165] The Franciscans diligently cultivated that talent,

and from the general favor in which they were held by nearly all classes of

the community, especially by the common people, we may conclude that the

style they adopted was essentially a popular and engaging style, in direct

contradistinction to the scholastic discourses delivered at rare intervals

from the pulpits of the churches. Then a Franciscan mingled amongst the

poor; he too was poor, one of the poorest, and the poor saw their condition

elevated to an apostolic sanctity; his raiment was coarse like theirs; his

food also as coarse, for it was their food shared often with him at their

own tables; they sat at his feet and listened to him, not in trembling

servitude, as at the feet of one whom they had been taught to regard with

superstitious awe, but as at the feet of a dear brother, one of themselves,

who had hungered with them and sorrowed with them.

[Footnote 165: Vide Jacobi, a Vitriaco Hist. Occident, c, 6.]

Then the Franciscan preached everywhere--at the street corner, in the

fields, on the hill-side; his portable altar was set up, the sacrament

administered to the people, and the gospel preached as in the old apostolic

times, by the river-side, in the high roads and by-ways, under the bare

heavens. No wonder that they won the hearts of the degraded populations of

the countries in which they settled, that the poor ran to them and flocked

round them, and that the good and great were soon drawn over to their side;

it was the revival of apostolic simplicity, and as the excited crowds were

swayed under their fervent eloquence, and myriads of tearful eyes were

turned up to their gaze, it was like the miracle in the wilderness, the

rock had been smitten, and the waters gushed forth.

------

{510}

The Souls of Animals

A number of years ago, when the census enumerators were going through

Canada, they found an old lady in Quebec, who, to the question what

religion she professed, replied that she believed in the transmigration of

souls. To what particular form of the doctrine she clung; whether she

believed, with the sages of the Ganges, that the soul begins its life in

the mineral or vegetable world, and must pass through no fewer than

eighty-eight progressive stages before it rises to human consciousness; or,

with the priests of the Nile, that the spiritual part of a man has lived

for three thousand years in the forms of lower animals before it gets a

human body; whether she was a Pythagorean, or a Neo-Platonist, or a

Cabalist; whether she refused animal food for fear of eating unwittingly

the flesh of some deceased friend or relative, and could not see a roast

chicken without thinking of a cannibal; these are curious questions which

we fear will never be answered. Plato believed in ten grades of migrations,

each of a thousand years, in which souls were purified and punished before

their return to an incorporeal existence with God; and the more virtuously

they lived, the fewer grades they had to pass through. For a good, honest

philosopher, about three grades were thought sufficient. Porphyry taught

that bodies themselves are punishments imposed upon souls for offences

committed in a previous state of which we retain no consciousness. A gross,

sensual, very material body indicated a very criminal career in the

previous existence. A virtuous life led by degrees through the states of

heroes, angels, and archangels; and an archangel, if he behaved himself,

might hope to be absorbed, in the course of time, into the divine essence

itself; while for the wicked there was a similar but descending scale of

transformations into devils of various degrees of moral blackness. The

Cabalists held that God created originally a certain number of Jewish

souls, some of which are still on earth in human form, while there are

always many others doing penance for their sins in the bodies of animals.

So they were careful, we trust, in their treatment of dumb beasts, not

knowing but any pig or jackass they encountered might be a Jew in disguise.

A conscientious Cabalist would not dare turn a dog out of doors, for fear

he might be kicking his grandfather, and ought to shun fish, flesh, and

fowl as religiously as he would object to dining off a blood relation. The

great Christian philosopher, Origen, himself believed in the transmigration

of the souls of men into the bodies of the lower animals; and adopted this

doctrine as the readiest way of explaining why there are so many

imperfections in animated nature; the divine Creator purposely made animals

imperfect, because he meant that bodies should be the instruments of

punishment and expiation for sinful souls. The Gnostics, and Manichaeans,

and some other heretical sects, had the same idea, and it was also a part

of the doctrine of the ancient British Druids, as it is at the present day

of the Druses and other tribes of Asia, as well as of some of the African

nations. Fourier allowed the soul no fewer than eight hundred and ten

lives, each of them averaging a hundred years in duration, and it was to

pass one third, or twenty-seven thousand of all these years, on our earth.

When all the transmigrations had been accomplished, the soul was to lose

its separate existence, and become confounded with the soul of the planet.

But the French philosopher did not stop here.

{511}

The body of the planet was to be in its turn destroyed, and its soul to

transmigrate into a new earth, rising by successive stages to the highest

degrees in the hierarchy of worlds.

Which of these many systems of metempsychosis was the one embraced by the

eccentric old lady of Quebec we have, as we said before, no means of

deciding, nor perhaps, since she appears to have founded no school of

disciples, is the problem worth investigation. We can imagine what a

singular position the solitary adherent of that old pagan creed must have

occupied in the society of the quaint French city; how pious Catholics must

have stared at her with mingled awe and horror as a relic of the times of

Pythagoras and Plato, or perchance as an Indian Buddhist some centuries

old, whom Time in his flight had forgotten to gather into his garner, where

all her kith and kin had been laid asleep for ages. It was certainly a very

uncomfortable belief, and, if it ever became general, it would play the

mischief with family relations. Just think of the possibility of a man's

being his own grandmother or his own posthumous son! It may have had its

conveniences, but, upon the whole, we are glad it has died out.

We once heard an accomplished theologian maintain that, however

philosophically absurd that doctrine might be, and however inconsistent

with the spirit of Catholic teaching, there was yet no dogmatic decision

which forbade a man's holding it, if he chose to be such a fool. A man

might be a good Catholic and still believe that one of God's ways of

punishing sin was to imprison the offending soul after death in the body of

a beast; this might be a sort of purgatory. Perhaps he was right; but so we

might say there is no article of faith which forbids us to believe that the

moon is made of green cheese, that the earth is flat instead of round, that

the Rocky Mountains are five thousand miles high, or that King Arthur was

the first President of the United States. There is a sort of

transmigration, however, in which reputable Catholic theologians are not

altogether unwilling to believe; and this brings us to the statement of a

fact which, for all that it is admitted by the mass of authorities on such

subjects, will, no doubt, sound paradoxical to a great many of our readers;

that is, that dumb beasts, if they have not borrowed the souls of human

beings, have, at any rate, souls of their own. In our loose way of talking

about things, we are but too apt to speak of the soul as one of the

distinguishing prerogatives of man, and reason as another; whereas the fact

is that man shares both these in common with the brute kingdom. Every

animal has a soul, though not an immortal soul; and all the higher

animals--probably _all_ animals--are gifted to a greater or less

extent with reason. Deny souls to beasts, and you reduce them to a level

with the vegetable creation, in which life and motion are merely the

necessary operations of external laws which the plant has no power either

to further or obstruct. Nor need we fear that, by admitting they have

souls, we raise them too near an equality with ourselves. The divine gift

of immortality, the power of knowing and loving God, the right to

participate in his everlasting glory--these are distinctions which must

separate us by an immeasurable gulf from all inferior creatures. If beasts

have no souls, it will puzzle us to define the exact difference between a

dead dog and a live one.

But we have wandered away, from our speculations about metempsychosis, and

are apparently in danger of forgetting the proposition which we set forth

in the last paragraph, namely, that there is a certain kind of

transmigration of souls in which many good theologians seem very much

inclined to believe. It is an open question whether the souls of animals

pass from body to body; whether, for instance, when a dog dies, its soul is

annihilated, or is transferred to the body of another brute just that

moment born; whether the souls of the lower orders of creatures have only

the brief life which appears to be granted them, or whether their existence

may not be prolonged to the end of this world.

{512}

It certainly accords with what we know of the divine economy, in which

everything has its permanent use and no created object seems ever to be

destroyed, to suppose that, after a soul has performed its functions in the

body of one beast, it may be designed by Almighty God to perform similar

functions in the body of another. The plant which springs up, and blossoms,

and withers, returns to life in other forms; a part of it is consumed as

food and passes into the tissue of animals; a part crumbles away into

vegetable mould and is assimilated by the parent earth; a part, dissolving

into the constituents of the atmosphere, serves to nourish and increase

other plants. The animal body itself, which decays and is changed to dust,

is destined to live again in other shapes. Modern science has discovered

that not even a motion is lost. The blow of the hammer which is struck upon

the anvil is perpetuated in one form or another through all time. The heat

of the fire which blazes for an hour and is then extinct was not created at

the moment the fire was kindled, and will not be lost when the fire goes

out. The sum of all the forces which act in nature is constant,

unchangeable. Heat, electricity, magnetism, chemical action, may be

expended and apparently lost, but it is only to manifest themselves in

other ways. Nothing, in a word, seems to be destroyed, and, so far as our

knowledge enables us to judge, God has never annihilated any material

object which he has once created. And if matter is thus preserved through

various changes, processes of decay and processes of renovation, why should

not spirit be likewise kept in existence? The soul of man, after it leaves

this body, has still eternal functions to perform in another world, either

of punishment or of reward. What objection is there, then, to believing

that the incorporeal part of the brute has permanent use in this world as

long as the world endures?

Perhaps when we have learned to look upon the brute soul as something

rather more honorable than we have been wont to regard it; as something

which it is quite possible (we won't say probable) God may have designed to

last till the very end of time, and not as the creature of one short day,

we may be prepared to recognize in its true dignity the brute's power of

reason, which seems naturally to follow from the possession of a soul. It

is a common fallacy to distinguish the intelligent faculty in man as

reason, and in dumb animals as instinct. The truth is, reason and instinct

are two things quite different in kind; neither takes the place of the

other, and each of them belongs both to man and to beast. Without aiming at

strict philosophical accuracy, we may define reason as the faculty by which

we weigh the relations of things, and freely and deliberately choose what

we deem eligible, and reject what we consider hurtful. Instinct is an

innate force or impulse inciting us under certain circumstances to act in a

certain way. For example, if a man walking on a plank should feel it

unexpectedly shift under his feet, he would catch at the nearest object, or

endeavor to balance his body by stretching out his hands. These acts would

be acts of instinct, done on the impulse of the moment, before reason had

time to consider whether they ought to be done or not. Max Müller has some

excellent remarks on this subject in his Lectures on the Science of

Language. Instinct, he observes, is more prominent in brutes than in man;

but it exists in both, as much as intellect is shared by both. "A child

takes his mother's breast by instinct; the spider weaves its net by

instinct; the bee builds her cell by instinct. No one would ascribe to the

child a knowledge of physiology because it employs the exact muscles which

are required for sucking; nor shall we claim for the spider a knowledge of

mechanics, or for the bee an acquaintance with geometry, because _we_

could not do what they do without a study of these sciences.

{513}

But what if we tear a spider's web, and see the spider examining the

mischief that is done, and either giving up his work in despair, or

endeavoring to mend it as well as may be? Surely here we have the instinct

of weaving controlled by observation, by comparison, by reflection, by

judgment." Brutes indeed have all the faculties which pertain to reasoning

beings. They have sensation, perception, will, memory, and intellect. They

see, hear, taste, smell, and feel, just like ourselves. They experience

sensations of pleasure and pain, a dog that is fondled or chastised

behaving exactly as a child would behave under the same circumstances. They

are able to compare and distinguish; they show signs of shame and pride, of

love and hatred. To admit all this, and deny that they have souls and

reason, is merely to dispute about terms.

An interesting little book has just been published in England on The

Reasoning Power in Animals, by the Rev. John Selby Watson, and we purpose

giving our readers a few illustrative anecdotes from this work, together

with some instances that have fallen under our own observation,

confirmatory of the principles we have stated in the preceding pages.

Seneca denied memory to beasts. When a horse, he says, for instance, has

travelled along a road and is brought the same way again, he recognizes it;

but in the stable he remembers nothing of it. This, however, cannot be

proved. Almost every one has seen a dog dreaming, and acting over in his

dreams what he has done in his waking moments. If he thinks of events and

places in his sleep, why should he not think of them awake? And if a dog

can think of them, why cannot a horse? The stories of the memory of

elephants are numberless. One of these animals was being exhibited some

years ago in the west of England, when a practical joker among the

spectators dealt out to him in small quantities some gingerbread nuts, and,

after he had secured the elephant's confidence, presented him with a large

parcel weighing several pounds. The beast swallowed it at once, but,

finding it too hot, roared with pain, and handed his bucket to the keeper,

as if asking for water, and, as soon as he had quenched his thirst, hurled

the bucket with great force at the joker's head, fortunately missing his

aim. A year afterward the elephant returned to the same place, and among

the spectators was the joker, again provided with sweet cakes and hot

cakes. He gave the elephant two or three from the best packet, and then

offered a hot one. But no sooner had the animal proved the pungency of it

than he seized the coat-tails of his tormentor, and whirled him aloft in

the air, until, the tails giving way, he fell prostrate to the ground, half

dead with fright. The elephant then quietly inserted his trunk into the

pocket containing the best nuts, and, with his foot on the coat-tails,

leisurely despatched every one of them. When he had finished, he trampled

the hot nuts to a mash, tore the coat-tails to tatters, and flung the rags

at the discomfited joker. The old story of the elephant revenging himself

by spirting dirty water over a tailor who had wounded him with a needle is

too well known to be repeated. A similar story is related in Captain

Shipp's Memoirs. The captain had given an elephant cayenne pepper with

bread and butter, and six weeks afterward the animal remembered it and

punished Captain Shipp by drenching him with dirty water.

Dogs have excellent memories, and every child is familiar with narratives

of their recollecting murderers and leading to their detection. The

celebrated story of the dog of Montargis, who killed the assassin of his

master; of the dog who pointed out to Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, two soldiers

who had slain his master, as related by Plutarch; of the dog of Antioch,

commemorated by St. Ambrose; and of a dog who, according to Giraldus

Cambrensis, in the thirteenth century, fought a public combat with a

suspected murderer, a sort of wager-of-battle, in fact, in which the dog

proved his case, are examples of this memory.

{514}

Benvenuto Cellini had a watch-dog that drove away a burglar who tried one

night to break into the house, and some time afterward recognized the thief

in the street and seized him. A lady removing from Poitou to Paris left a

spaniel behind her. Ten years afterward she sent some clothes packed by

herself to the person who had charge of the dog. The little creature no

sooner smelt them than he gambolled round them and showed every mark of

excessive joy.

The horse has an excellent memory both for persons and places. He never

forgets a road he has once travelled. A horse accustomed to be employed

once a week on a journey with the newsman of a provincial paper always

stopped at the houses of the several customers, sixty or seventy in number.

There were two persons on the route who took one paper between them, and

each claimed the privilege of having it first on the alternate Sunday. The

horse soon became accustomed to this regulation; and, though the parties

lived two miles apart, he stopped at the door of each in his regular turn.

Here was certainly a very remarkable exercise of memory. A wonderful

example of the use of the same faculty is seen in the facility with which

animals that have been carried away from home find their way back. The

writer had a Newfoundland slut which was sent away with one of her pups a

considerable distance by railroad, shut up in a box-car. A fortnight

afterward Jet and her offspring were found at their old home, foot-sore and

half starved. How they had made their way back over roads which they could

only have seen in occasional glimpses from the door of the car always

remained a mystery. But far more wonderful instances of canine memory than

this are on record. A terrier that was taken from Arundel to London in a

close cart, and tied up in the evening in a yard near Grosvenor square, was

found at Arundel, sixty miles distant, the following afternoon. A Scotch

dog having been taken to Frankfort, and having there seen its master

drowned in the Oder, after having made ineffectual efforts to save him,

found its way from Frankfort to Hamburg, from Hamburg to Hull, and from

Hull to Edinburgh. Lord Lonsdale sent two hounds from Leicestershire to

Ireland, and at the end of three weeks they reappeared in Leicestershire. A

Mr. Edward Cook, having lived some time with his brother at Togsten in

Northumberland, came to America, bringing with him a pointer dog, which,

while shooting in the woods near Baltimore, he lost. Some time afterward

Mr. Cook's brother, who continued to reside at Togsten, was aroused one

night by the barking of a dog, which, on being let in, proved to be the

lost pointer. He remained there until his master came back from America. By

what vessel he had made his way across the Atlantic was never ascertained.

The persistency with which cats will return to places from which they have

been sent away is well known. Lord Brougham, in his Letters on Instinct,

mentions one that was taken to the West Indies, and on the return of the

ship to London, found her way through the city to Brompton, whence she had

been taken. Mrs. Lee tells the following story in her Anecdotes of Animals:

"When living at Four Paths, Clarendon, Jamaica, I wanted a cat, and had

one given to me which was nearly full-grown. It was brought from Morgan's

Valley estate, where it was bred, and had never been removed from that

place before. The distance was five miles. It was put into a canvas bag,

and carried by a man on horseback. Between the two places there are two

rivers, one of them about eighty feet broad and two and a half deep, and

over these rivers there are no bridges. The cat was shut up at Four Paths

for some days, and when considered to be reconciled to her new dwelling

she was allowed to go about the house.

{515}

The day after obtaining her liberty she was missing, and upon my next

visiting the estate she was brought from, I was quite amazed to learn

that the cat had come back again. Did she swim over the rivers at the

fords where the horse came through with her, or did she ascend the banks

for a considerable distance in search of a more shallow place, and where

the stream was less powerful? At all events, she must have crossed the

rivers in opposition to her natural habits."

A farmer living on the borders of the New Forest in Hampshire, bought a

mare near Newport, in the Isle of Wight, and took it home with him,

crossing to the main-land in a boat. During the night the animal escaped

from the enclosure in which the farmer had fastened it, and made its way

home again, swimming across the strait. The nearest distance from the

Hampshire coast to the Isle of Wight is five miles. A cow which had been

sent to grass at a place twenty-one miles from her owner's residence

remained there contentedly all summer; but, as soon as the grass began to

fail, travelled home to her old pasturage. A cow was separated from her

young calf and driven twelve miles to Smithfield to be sold, but early the

next morning she was found at home, having escaped from the market and made

her way through all the intricacies of London. Dr. John Brown, in one of

his inimitable dog-papers, gives an instance of a dog finding his way home

from a distance, under circumstances which almost seem to justify his

notion that the canine race have an idea of humor. A Scottish shepherd,

having sold his sheep at a market, was asked by the buyer to lend him his

dog to take them home. "'By a' manner o' means take Birkie, and when ye'r

dune wi' him just play so,' (making a movement with his arm,) 'and he'll be

hame in a jiffy.' Birkie was so clever, and useful, and gay, that the

borrower coveted him; and on getting to his farm shut him up, intending to

keep him. Birkie escaped during the night, and took the entire hirsel

(flock) back to his own master! Fancy him trotting across the moor with

them, they as willing as he."

There are some well-authenticated instances of animals finding their way

home by roads they never travelled before which are difficult of

explanation. In March, 1816, an ass, the property of Captain Dundas, R. N.,

was shipped at Gibraltar on board the Ister frigate, bound for Malta. The

vessel having grounded off Point de Gat, the animal was thrown overboard to

give it a chance of swimming ashore--a poor one, for the land was some

distance off and the sea running very high. A few days afterward, however,

when the gates of Gibraltar were opened in the morning, the ass presented

himself for admittance, and proceeded to a stable which he had formerly

occupied. He had not only swum ashore, but, without guide, compass, or

travelling map, and with no previous knowledge of the route, had travelled

from Point de Gat to Gibraltar, a distance of more than two hundred miles,

through a mountainous and intricate country intersected by streams; and he

had done it in so short a time that he could hardly have made single false

turn. What directed him on this wonderful journey it is impossible to

conjecture, unless we suppose that he had the good sense to follow the line

of the coast; and that he should have known that such a course would lead

him home certainly argues a very large share of the reasoning faculty. In

point of fact, however, there is a curious and incomprehensible instinct

for finding the way which belongs not only to the lower animals, but to man

himself in the savage state. The migrations of birds afford familiar

examples of it, swallows especially, returning year after year to build

their nests in the same place. Two or three years ago six swallows were

taken from their nests at Paris, and conveyed to Vienna, where a small roll

of paper with a few words written on it was affixed to the wing of each;

and they were let go one morning at a quarter past seven. Two arrived at

Paris a little before one; one at a quarter past two; and one at four.

{516}

The other two did not return at all, having perhaps met with some mishap. A

falcon was taken from the Canaries to Andalusia and returned in sixteen

hours, a distance of six hundred miles. Salmon are supposed to return in

all cases to the river where they were bred. Crabs may be carried two or

three miles out to sea, and they will find their way back to their old

haunts. Mr. Jesse, in his Gleanings in Natural History, relates an

extraordinary story of a tortoise which was captured at the Island of

Ascension in the South Atlantic, and carried with several others to

England. It had lost one fin, and was consequently named by the sailors the

Lord Nelson. The voyage was very long, and most of the turtles died, and as

the Lord Nelson seemed sickly when they drew near port, the sailors, in

order "to give it a chance," threw it overboard in the English Channel,

after it had been branded in the usual way, with certain letters and

numbers burnt upon its under shell with a hot iron. Wonderful to relate,

the same turtle was taken at the Island of Ascension two years afterward,

having found its way three thousand five hundred miles through the watery

waste to that little speck in the midst of the ocean. The unerring

certainty with which bees fly in a straight line to their hives is

proverbial, and bee-hunters discover the nests by catching two of the

insects, carrying them to some distance apart, and letting them go. Each

will at once take a straight line toward the nest, and by observing these

lines and calculating where they ought to intersect, the honey is found.

This instinct is the more remarkable as bees are very near-sighted, not

being able, it is supposed, to see more than a yard before them. We have

mentioned that savages have something of the same instinct, finding their

way for long distances, not always by their acuteness of observation, but

by an indescribable faculty which is like nothing so much as the instinct

of birds. Mr. Jesse tells a story of a traveller in Australia, who lost his

way in the interior, and was guided by one of the natives more than a

hundred miles in a straight line to the place he wanted to reach. The

savage, he was assured, could have led him almost as well blindfold, for he

travelled as accurately when the sun was obscured as when it was visible,

and was not assisted by marks on the barks of trees, or any of the other

familiar landmarks of the wilderness. Our own frontiersmen have the same

faculty to a greater or lesser degree. We ourselves, on two occasions,

after a long day's hunt in the far West, in which we followed the game

through so many twists and turns as to lose all idea of the points of the

compass, were conducted by a trapper twelve or fifteen miles back to camp,

on a perfectly dark night, across an utterly trackless prairie. There was

neither tree, nor hill, nor footprint to mark the way, but our course was

as straight as the bee flies. The trapper could not explain how he did it:

it was by a species of instinct. The Newfoundland slut Jet, mentioned on a

preceding page, once found her way to the writer's house, under

circumstances which indicated the exercise of reason much more unmistakably

than the instances just cited. The family were about moving from one house

to another some two miles distant; but as the new dwelling was not ready

for occupation when the lease of the old one expired, the furniture was

stored in the neighborhood, and we all went away for a few weeks, leaving

Jet behind. When we came to take possession of the new house, we found Jet

there before us, although nothing belonging to us had yet been carried to

the premises, and, so far as we knew, she had never been there in our

company. Another dog belonging to us had been there, however, once or twice

with one of the servants, and Jet perhaps had learned the secret from him.

But it certainly showed great mental acuteness in the animal that she

should not have followed the furniture, knowing apparently that it was only

stowed away for a time, but, by putting this and that together, should have

found out where her master meant to establish himself.

{517}

The power of putting this and that together is emphatically a reasoning

faculty; in other words, it is the power of tracing the relation between

cause and effect. The literature of natural history abounds in examples of

the possession of this faculty by animals, and so does the experience of

every one who has ever kept dogs or horses. Jet had it to an eminent

degree. When she was about to bring forth a litter, she always tried to dig

a cave for them under the steps of the front door. This, of course, was

forbidden, but she was resolute, and many a time she had her cavern nearly

finished before she was detected. The bell-wire passed under the steps, so

that in the course of her digging she was very apt to ring the bell, and it

was some time before the servants found out whence the mysterious ringing

originated; but, when the secret was discovered, Jet was pulled out and

punished. Punishment did not break her of the habit; indeed, she was an

incorrigibly obstinate dog, and never was broken of any trick she once set

her mind upon; but after that, whenever she heard the bell, she ran out of

the hole and hid at the corner of the house until the coast was clear, when

she would go back to work, taking more pains to avoid the wire. If her

master was at home and suspected who rang the bell, he often answered the

door himself, and looking toward the side of the house he was sure to see

Jet peeping cautiously round the corner with such a mischievous and comical

expression in her eyes that he rarely refrained from a hearty laugh;

whereupon the dog would pluck up heart, and come forward, grinning and

apologizing, as if to say, "I am very sorry I've given you so much trouble;

I didn't know it was wrong, and I won't do so again." She was a dreadful

liar, (for dogs can lie with their eyes and faces, as well as men can lie

with their tongues.) but it was all very funny. Her understanding the use

of a door-bell reminds us of a story told of an Italian greyhound at

Bologna, which was accustomed every morning to visit a dog of its own

species at a neighboring house. At first it used to wait in the street

until the door was opened, but after a time it learned to use the knocker.

Mr. Nassau Senior, in one of his articles in The Quarterly Review, gives an

instance from his own knowledge of the way in which a terrier used to

obtain admission to the common-room at Merton College, Oxford, whose sacred

threshold, be it known, dogs are strictly forbidden to cross. "The animal's

cunning," says Mr. Senior, "would have done honor to an Old Bailey

attorney." We give the narrative in his own language: "It happened one

evening that a couple of terriers had followed their masters to the door,

and while they remained excluded, unhappily followed the habits rather of

biped than of quadruped animals, and began to quarrel like a couple of

Christians. The noise of the fight summoned their masters to separate them,

and as it appeared that the hero of our tale had been much mauled by a

superior adversary, the severe _bienséances_ of the place were for

once relaxed, and he was allowed to enjoy during the rest of the night the

softness of a monastic rug and the blaze of a monastic fire, luxuries which

every initiated dog and man will duly appreciate. The next day, soon after

the common-room party had been assembled, the sounds of the preceding

evening were renewed with tenfold violence. There was such snapping and

tearing, and snarling and howling, as could be accounted for only by a

general engagement:

'The noise alarmed the festive hall,

And started forth the fellows all.'

But, instead of a battle royal, they found at the door their former guest,

in solitude sitting on his rump, and acting a furious dog-fight, in the

hope of again gaining admittance among the _quieti ordines deorum_.

{518}

We have heard that he was rewarded with both the _grandes_ and the

_petites entrées_; but this does not rest on the same authority as the

rest of the narrative."

Mr. Watson's book abounds with other instances of intelligence in animals,

which it is almost impossible to avoid attributing to the operation of

reason. He gives an anecdote, for instance, of an elephant which, seeing an

artillery-man fall from the tumbril of a gun, in such a situation that in a

second or two the wheel of the gun carriage must have gone over him,

instantly, without any warning from its keeper, lifted the wheel with its

trunk and kept it suspended until the carriage had passed clear of the

soldier. Here the elephant manifestly reasoned for himself. A still more

remarkable manifestation of the reasoning faculty is recorded of an animal

of the same species. An elephant in a menagerie was trained to pick up

coins with his trunk. On one occasion a sixpence was thrown down which fell

a little beyond his reach (he was chained) and near the wall. After several

vain attempts to pick it up, he stood motionless a few seconds, evidently

considering how to act; he then stretched his proboscis as far as he could

in a straight line, a little distance above the coin, and blew with great

force against the wall. The blast of air, rebounding from the wall, caught

up the sixpence and drove it toward him, as he evidently intended it

should. Another elephant was once seen to blow a potato which was just

beyond his reach against the wall, and catch it when it rebounded. The

ingenuity displayed in these cases is something akin to the use of tools

which has been declared a characteristic of man alone. This, however, is a

mistake. The club which the gorilla is known to wield with such terrible

power, the palm-branches with which elephants brush away flies, the stones

which monkeys and even birds have been seen to use either in breaking open

shells or keeping them distended while they extracted the shell-fish--what

are these but tools? Foxes have been seen to set cods' heads as baits for

crows, and pounce upon the birds when they came to eat them. The ingenuity

of rats in getting at toothsome morsels is well known; there are many

instances of their using their tails to extract oil from narrow-necked

bottles--all these cases being equivalent to the use of tools. A

Newfoundland dog at Torquay, wanting water, took a pail from the kitchen

and carried it to the pump, where he sat down until one of the men-servants

came out, to whom he made such significant gestures that the man pumped the

pail full for him. The most remarkable part of the story is that, when the

dog had finished, he carried back the pail to the place in the kitchen from

which he had taken it. That was something all the same as a tool which the

eagle of St. Kilda, mentioned by Macgillivray, used when, attacking two

boys who had robbed her nest, she dipped her pinions first in water and

then in sand, to give greater force to the blows which she struck with

them. A rat has been seen conducting a blind companion by means of a stick,

each of the animals holding one end of it in his mouth. Cats have often

been known to learn the use of a latch; and a terrier pup, only two months

old, belonging to the writer of this article, has so good an idea of the

purpose of the same article that he manifests a desire to get out of the

room by ineffectual jumps at the door-handle. A London pastry-cook had a

number of eggs stolen from a store room at the top of the house; a watch

being set for the thief, two rats were detected carrying an egg downstairs.

One of the rats, going down one step, would stand on his hind-legs with his

fore paws resting on the stair above, while the other rolled the egg toward

him; then, putting his fore-legs tightly round it, he lifted it down to the

step on which he was standing, and held it there till the other came down

to take charge of it. Rats have been known to convey eggs up-stairs by a

somewhat similar process.

{519}

A very clear example of reasoning occurs in a story told of a water-hen,

which, having observed a pheasant feed out of a box which opened when the

bird stood on a rail in front of it, went and stood in the same place as

soon as the pheasant quitted it. Finding that its weight was not sufficient

to raise the lid of the box, it kept jumping on the rail to give additional

impetus. This only succeeded partially; so the clever bird went away and

fetched another of its own species, and the weight of the two had the

desired effect. An anecdote is told by Mrs. Lee of a magpie which is almost

enough to persuade one that the creature had the gift of language. The bird

used to watch about a neighboring toll-gate at times when he expected the

toll-keeper's wife to be making pastry; and, if he observed her so

employed, he would perch upon the gate and shout, "Gate ahoy!" when, of

course, if her husband were absent, she would run out to open it; the bird

would then dart into the house and carry away a billful of her pie-crust,

eating and chattering over it with the greatest glee. Surely no one will

deny that in this case the bird exercised the faculty of reason.

Somewhat analogous to this case are the many stories related of animals

apparently understanding what is said in their presence. In reality they

probably have no conception of the meaning of the words uttered, but their

keenness of observation enables them to detect slight changes in the tone

of voice and notice little things which escape our coarser vision; and from

trifling signs they draw reasonable conclusions. The writer had a cat which

always knew when the servant was told to fetch food for her, though the

experiment was often tried of giving the order in various tones of voice

and without any look or sign that would be likely to attract pussy's

attention. During our last war with England there was an old Newfoundland

dog on board the British ship Leander, stationed at Halifax. He had been

attached to the ship several years, and the sailors one and all believed

that he understood what was said. He was lying on the deck one day when the

captain in passing remarked: "I shall be sorry to do it, but I must have

Neptune shot, he is getting so old and infirm." The dog immediately jumped

overboard and swam to another ship, where being taken on board he remained

till he died. Nothing could ever induce him to go near the Leander again,

and if he happened to meet any of her boats or crew on shore, he made off

as fast as he could.

Animals certainly have the power of communicating thoughts to each other,

as the following story proves: "At Horton, in Buckinghamshire, (a village

where Milton passed some of his early days,) about the year 1818, a

gentleman from London took possession of a house, the former tenant of

which had moved to a farm about half a mile off. The new inmate brought

with him a large French poodle, to take the duty of watchman in the place

of a fine Newfoundland dog which went away with his master; but a puppy of

the same breed was left behind; and he was incessantly persecuted by the

poodle. As the puppy grew up, the persecution still continued. At length he

was one day missing for some hours; but he did not come back alone; he

returned with his old friend, the large house-dog, to whom he had made a

communication; and in an instant the two fell upon the unhappy poodle and

killed him before he could be rescued from their fury. In this case the

injuries of the young dog must have been made known to his friend, a plan

of revenge concerted, and the determination formed to carry the plan into

effect with equal promptitude." Count Tilesius, a Russian traveller, who

wrote at the beginning of the present century, tells a wonderful anecdote

of a dog of his which had been sadly worried by a larger and stronger

animal. For some days it was observed that he saved half his food and laid

it up as a private store.

{520}

When he had accumulated a large supply, he went out and gathered around him

several dogs of the neighborhood, whom he brought to his home and feasted

on his hoard. The singular spectacle of a dog giving a supper-party

attracted the count's attention, and he determined to watch their

proceedings. As soon as the feast was over, they went out in a body,

marched deliberately through the streets to the outskirts of the town, and

there, under the leadership of their entertainer, fell upon a large dog and

punished him severely. This incident not only shows that dogs can

communicate their thoughts to one another, and can follow out a fixed plan

of action, but it looks very much as if they had what is generally supposed

to be peculiar to man--namely, some idea of a bargain. They can be

magnanimous in their behavior toward their fellows, and the measures which

large dogs occasionally adopt to get rid of the annoyance of little curs

display a great deal of judgment and good feeling. In Mr. Youatt's book, On

the Dog, we have a story of a Newfoundland dog in the city of Cork which

had been greatly worried by a number of noisy curs. He took no notice of

them until one carried his presumption so far as to bite him in the leg,

whereupon the large animal ran after the offender, caught him by the back

of the neck, and carried him to the quay. There, after holding him

suspended over the edge for a few moments, he dropped him into the river.

But he had no purpose to inflict more than a mild punishment, for after the

cur had been well ducked and frightened and was beginning to struggle for

his life, the Newfoundland dog plunged into the water and brought him safe

to land. That animal certainly showed good sense, a good heart, and a

lively appreciation of what was just and proper. A very comical example of

a dog's feeling of propriety is quoted by Mr. Watson from Jesse's Gleanings

in Natural History. "A gentleman going out shooting obtained the loan of a

pointer from a friend, who told him that the dog would behave very well as

long as he killed his birds: but that, if he frequently missed, it would

leave him and run home. Unhappily the borrower was extremely unskilful.

Bird after bird was put up and fired at, but flew off untouched, till the

pointer grew careless. As if willing, however, to give his client one

chance more, he made a dead stop at a fern bush, with big nose pointed

downward, his forefoot bent, and his tail straight and steady. In this

position he remained firm till the sportsman was close to him, with both

barrels cocked; he then moved steadily forward for a few paces, and at last

stood still near a bunch of heather, his tail expressing his anxiety by

moving slowly backward and forward. At last out sprang a fine old black

cock. Bang, bang, went both barrels, but the bird escaped unhurt. This was

more than the dog could bear; he turned boldly round, placed his tail

between his legs, gave one long, loud howl, and set off homeward as fast as

he could."

Perhaps, after all, one of the most curious exhibitions of reason is

afforded by the crows, which, in the northern parts of Scotland and in the

Faroe Islands, hold extraordinary meetings every now and then, apparently

for the purpose of judging and punishing evil-doers among their community.

The sessions are sometimes prolonged two or three days; and as long as they

last, flocks of crows continue to arrive in great numbers from all quarters

of the heavens. In the mean while, some of the assembly are active and

noisy; others sit with drooping heads as grave as judges. When the

gathering is complete, a very general noise ensues--we are tempted to call

it _talking_--and then the whole body fall upon one or two individuals

and put them to death. Justice thus vindicated, the convention straightway

disperses.

{521}

Now, the crows show every appearance of having been summoned to these

councils; indeed, it is almost inconceivable that they should meet by

chance; but how the summons is given; how they know when all have arrived;

what are the offences they punish; whether the criminals know the fate that

awaits them, and are restrained by force from making their escape; and how

the knowledge of the crime is dispersed amongst the whole assembly--these

are curious questions to which we fear no satisfactory answer will ever be

given. The idea of hundreds of birds sitting in deliberation, like a court

of justice, is indeed marvellous. We can only say that the narrative, as we

have given it, seems to be well authenticated, and we leave our readers to

draw their own conclusions.

We think we have quoted anecdotes enough to prove that brutes have souls

and reason; or, if they have not, that they are much more wonderfully made

than man, since they can perform without assistance from the reasoning

faculty actions which in us require the exercise of the highest

intelligence. And although we do not go to the length of saying, with the

Rabbi Manasseh of old, and Dr. John Brown, the author of Spare Hours, in

our own day, that there is a next world for the brute creation; and do not

believe with another modern writer (the Rev. J. G. Wood) that divine

justice absolutely requires that God should make amends to animals in the

future life for the sufferings they endure in this--perhaps our readers

will agree with us that we have shown it to be no ways impossible that God

may have designed the souls of dumb beasts to outlast in this world their

perishable bodies; that the intelligent part of the sagacious dog may

animate a long succession of Rabs and Pontos; and the spirit of the dead

pet may return into bodily form to delight new generations of masters.

------

From The Month.

The Gladiators' Song.

Round about this grim arena, by the ghosts of thousands haunted,

Beckoned by our slaughtered comrades, move we on with hearts undaunted--

_Ave, Caesar Imperator, morituri te salutant!_

Dark the world and always darker, none to comfort, none to love us,

Grisly hell beneath us yawning, deaf or dead the gods above us--

_Ave, Caesar Imperator, morituri te salutant!_

Life and flesh and soul and sinew, beating heart and thought upsoaring--

Was the goblet of our being crowned but for this wild outpouring?

_Ave, Caesar Imperator, morituri te salutant!_

Voices come through dreary silence, still for righteous vengeance calling--

So we chant our stern defiance false relentless Rome is falling!

_Ave, Caesar Imperator, morituri te salutant!_

Countless years have tortured nations learned the truth of Roman mercies--

Ah! she falls in waste and carnage, 'mid the world's triumphant curses!

_Ave, Caesar Imperator, morituri te salutant!_

Gleams of vengeance, long delaying, scantly sate the spirit's yearning--

Guessing, groping, craving, hoping, must we go without returning?

_Ave, Caesar Imperator, morituri te salutant!_

Onward to our slaughtered comrades, round the arena, shadow-haunted,

On to endless night or morning pass we on with hearts undaunted!

_Ave, Caesar Imperator, morituri te salutant!_

------

{522}

From Once a Week

Lakes of Lorraine.