Now, however, the Pantagruelistic element tends to predominate, and More

will expend some humor in satirizing friars, those _bétes noires_ of

educated men in the sixteenth century. A jester who is standing by gives it

as his opinion that mendicants should become monks and nuns. A friar says

that even that transformation would not save the kingdom from beggars; the

jester calls the friars vagabonds; the friar falls into a passion and

overwhelms the fool with epithets. Notwithstanding a scriptural reminder

from the jester, "in patience possess ye your souls," the friar wrests the

words of Scripture to the purposes of his anger. The cardinal courteously

exhorts him to govern his passions; "but," answers the friar, "holy men

have had a good zeal--as it is said; the zeal of thine house hath eaten me

up." "You do this perhaps with a good intention," replies the cardinal;

"but in my opinion, it were wiser in you, and perhaps better for you, not

to engage in so ridiculous a contest with a fool." The friar retorts that

"Solomon, the wisest of men, said to answer a fool according to his folly,"

and asserts that "if the many mockers of Elisha, who was but one bald man,

felt the effect of his zeal, what will become of one mocker of so many

friars, among whom there are so many bald men? We have likewise a bull, by

which all that jeer at us are excommunicated." Seeing the matter is not

likely soon to end, the archbishop sends the jester away and changes the

subject.

After criticising the policy by which Henry VII. extorted money from his

subjects, Raphael Hythlodoeus, the radical, freely avows his opinion, that

"as long as there is any property, and while money is the standard of all

other things, I cannot think that a nation can be governed either justly or

happily; not justly, because the best things will fall to the share of the

worst men; nor happily, because all things will be divided among a few,

(and even those are not in all respects happy,) the rest being left to be

absolutely miserable." An Owenite of the nineteenth century could not

express himself more plainly. Again, he asserts that "till property is

taken away, there can be no equitable or just distribution of things, nor

can the world be happily governed; for, as long as that is maintained, the

greatest and the far best part of mankind will be still oppressed with a

load of cares and anxieties. I confess that, without taking it quite away,

those pressures that lie on a great part of mankind may be made lighter;

but they can never be quite removed."

In the second book Raphael gives up criticising the established order of

things, and describes the condition of Utopia. That island, once called

Abraxa, lies on the other side of the Atlantic. In days of yore it was

conquered and redeemed from a barbarous condition by the great legistor

Utopus. There are fifty-four cities in the island, and Amaurot is the

metropolis. All these towns are as like one another, in outward

conformation, laws, and customs, as possibility will admit. Farm-houses

fill up the rural part of the island. Agricultural business is carried on

by means of a kind of transportation from the cities; parties of

inhabitants, in families of forty, are sent to rusticate for two years,

after which lapse of time they return to town and others are sent out.

There is in this manner a continual and well regulated supply and demand in

agricultural labor; and the pursuits of tillage are conducted so

intelligently as to avoid that scarcity of corn which would occasion

unpleasant complications in so well-regulated a country. Among these

husbandmen's devices is a plan for the artificial hatching of eggs.

{642}

So wonderful a system of Fetichism prevails in Utopia that "he that knows

one of their towns knows them all, they are so like one another, except

where the situation makes some difference." Raphael describes Amaurot,

where he has resided for not less than four years. "Their buildings are

good, and are so uniform that a whole side of a street looks like one

house. The streets are twenty feet broad; there lie gardens behind all

their houses, which are large but inclosed with buildings, that on all

hands face the street, so that every house has both a door to the street

and a back door to the garden." The magistrate was, of old, called the

syphogrant, but is now designated as the philarch; and over every ten

syphogrants is a higher functionary anciently called the tranibore, and now

the archphilarch. The syphogrants elect the prince by ballot--"they give

their voices secretly so that it is not known for whom every one gives his

suffrage." The prince is elected for life, with, however, this

reservation--"unless he is removed upon suspicion of some design to enslave

the people." The syphogrants in their council have it for their peculiar

mission to prevent any conspiration being formed by the prince and the

tranibores for the enslavement of the nation. Mechanics in Utopia have

their day's work limited to six hours; the rest of the twenty-four hours

being by them devoted to hearing lectures if they are of a studious turn,

or to reading, eating, sleeping, etc. After supper, they go in winter to

music halls; in summer, to gardens; or they divert themselves with games,

"not unlike our chess," between "virtues and vices," in which are

represented, in a manner combining instruction with amusement, "the methods

by which vice either openly assaults or secretly undermines virtue; and

virtue on the other hand resists it." There are no taverns or ale-houses.

The Utopians prefer iron to gold or silver; they make their commonest

utensils of what to other nations are the precious metals; of silver and

gold they also make chains for slaves, adding to the infamy of convicts by

making them wear golden earrings or coronets. Pearls they find on the

coast, and diamonds on the rocks. The ambassadors of Anemolia were

therefore disappointed when, thinking to astonish the Utopians by a profuse

display of gold ornaments, they were only derided by this utilitarian race

as wearers of useless metal.

As to knowledge, the Utopians are fortunate in having all the wisdom of the

ancients without the trouble of being acquainted with dead languages; for

it seems that they themselves have made "the same discoveries as the

Greeks, both in musick, logick, arithmetick, and geometry." Their habit of

mind, unlike that of the Scotch, is rather outer than inner, objective than

subjective, inclined to practical science rather than to metaphysics; they

would be unable to understand a definition of man in the "aibstract." They

are acquainted with astronomy, but eschew divination by the stars. Touching

the causes of things, and the problems of moral philosophy, there is by no

means a perfect agreement among them: they have a tendency toward the

'happiness' principle. Such is their aversion to war that, when compelled

to enter the field, they immediately set a price on the head of the enemy's

king, or of any of his ministers who may have been instrumental in bringing

about the outbreak of hostilities. The admirers of More have been somewhat

shocked at this practice, more utilitarian than honorable; but there is no

reason to suppose he would have consented to such a course in a similar

conjuncture; it is as an artist, and to complete the necessary development

of the Utopian character, that he has imputed to them this utilitarian,

positivistic device; a nation which could be brought to regard war as an

evil, damaging the happiness of the greatest number, would not stick at

sacrificing a few princes in a quiet way in order to secure the advantage

of the many through the ruin of the few.

{643}

Here's account of the high esteem in which the Utopians hold their priests,

is, perhaps, more lyrical than consistent with the character of that

imaginary nation; he makes them go so far in their reverence as to bring no

sacerdotal criminals to account, the punishment of these offenders being

"left to God and to their own consciences." It must be recollected,

however, that they have but few priests, and those chosen with great

caution. The Utopians have ritualistic tendencies. "They burn incense, and

other sweet odors, and have a great number of wax lights during their

worship; not out of any imagination that such oblations can add anything to

the divine nature, which even prayers cannot do; but as it is a harmless

and pure way of worshipping God, so they think those sweet savors and

lights, together with some other ceremonies, by a secret and unaccountable

virtue elevate men's souls and inflame them with greater energy and

cheerfulness during the divine worship." The priests' vestments "are

parti-colored; and both the work and colors are wonderful. ... They say

that, in the ordering and placing those plumes, some dark mysteries are

represented, which pass down among their priests in a secret tradition

concerning them; and that they are as hieroglyphics, putting them in mind

of the blessings that they have received from God, and of their duties both

to him and to their neighbors." Raphael concludes the book by saying that

"there are many things in Utopia which I rather wish than hope to see

followed in our governments;" and this hint shows the dreamy nature of the

scheme. The Utopia is, indeed, a mere philosophical romance, in which More

sacrificed to the humanitarian tendencies of the age, but which left his

deep and inner convictions unshaken. His after life showed that he was free

from any tendency to realize the Utopian idea; and the more so, perhaps,

because he had written the Utopia; for there is in the utterance of thought

a peculiar virtue which clears the mind from the effects of a lingering and

stagnating condition of ideas. Like Plato's Atlantis, the Utopia is an

ingenious play of fancy rather than a production intended to convey serious

truths under a veil; it is alike removed from the earnest intensity of

thought pervading Cicero's Republic, and the semi-prophetic rapture of

Bacon's New Atlantis. And in relation to our age, the Utopia serves to show

that what enthusiasts have imagined, under the influence of the modern

sceptical spirit, had been foreshadowed and included at the very dawn of

that spirit, by the comprehensiveness of genius; and that the class of

schemes which are designated by the name of Sir T. More's production, are

as far from their practical fulfilment now as they were three hundred or

three thousand years ago.

Like every successful author, More had his literary quarrels. The favor

with which the Utopia had been received, excited the gall of a French man

of letters, who had already broken a few lances with More. This Brixius,

Brice, or Brie according to Rabelais, published a book called Anti-Morus,

in which he carefully raked up every mistake in grammar and quantity to be

found in More's early Latin poem. He punned on More's name, likening it to

Môros, the Greek word for madman. Erasmus wrote to this critic, charging

him with being a very child compared with More. Sir Thomas speedily

prepared an answer, but Erasmus advised him to meet the attack with silent

contempt. There is nothing so galling to fools. More perceived that to be

attacked by dunces is an advantage rather than otherwise.

It was about that period that Oxford was convulsed by the introduction of

Grecian studies. The "Trojans," as they called themselves, evinced an

implacable hostility toward the "new learning." Priam, Hector, Paris, waged

war against Hellenic writings.

{644}

But the tide of grammars, aorists, accents, was no more to be staid than

the hosts of real invaders at the siege of Troy. More played the part of

Sinon. He wrote to the Oxonians that Greek was being learned at Cambridge,

that the king and Wolsey were in favor of Greek; that in the end the

Trojans would have to be wise; and at last the reactionists gave in.

In 1523, Sir T. More was appointed speaker of the house of commons. This

advancement he accepted with some reluctance. In his opening speech, he

besought the clemency of the king in behalf of any man who, in the house,

should chance to speak unadvisedly and roughly: "Such is the weight of the

matter, such is the reverent dread that the timorous hearts of your

naturall subjects conceive towards your highnesse, (our most undoubted

soveraign,) that they cannot in this point rest satisfied, except your

gracious bounty therein declared, put away the scruple of their timorous

mindes, and animate and encourage them from all doubt; may it therefore

please your majesty, (our most gracious king ) of your great goodnesse, to

pardon freely, without doubt of your dreadful displeasure, whatsoever shall

happen any man to speak in the discharging of his conscience, interpreting

every man's words, how unseemly soever couched, yet to proceed of good zeal

to the prosperity of the kingdome, and the honour of your royall person."

Not long after, a grant of money being before parliament, the cardinal,

fearing it would not pass the lower house, bethought himself of attending

the debate. Previously there had been a slight disagreement or "garboyle"

between the cardinal and the honorable members, with whom Wolsey was

displeased, because they were addicted to revealing in ale-houses what had

been said within the walls of parliament. On this occasion, therefore, the

new speaker urged the necessity of the cardinal's entering the house in

full pomp: "Masters," said Sir Thomas, "for as much as my lord cardinall,

not long since, as ye all know, laid to our charge the lightnesse of our

tongues, for things spoken out of this house; it shall not, in my judgment,

be amisse to receive him with all his pomp; his maces, his pillars, his

pole axes, his crosses, his hat, and great seal, too; that so if he blame

us hereafter, we may be the bolder to excuse ourselves, and lay it upon

those that his grace bringeth hither with him." The house agreed to this,

and the cardinal, in a "solemn oration," gave many reasons for granting the

money; but the house remained silent. He made another appeal: "Masters, you

have many wise and learned men among you, and since I am, by the king's own

person, sent hither unto you for the preservation of yourselves and all the

kingdome, I think it fit you give me some reasonable answer." Still every

man held his peace, so that he called them by name. Mr. Murray (afterward

Lord Murray) and several others of "the wisest of the house," when

challenged in this way, returned no answer, "being before agreed." The

cardinal expressed his surprise at "this marvellous obstinate silence," and

called on the speaker to answer. Sir Thomas, first meekly kneeling upon his

knees, pleaded that the house was abashed by so illustrious a presence as

the cardinal's; showed that, besides, the ancient liberty of the house

allowed the members to be silent; averred that he was quite unable to speak

in their name, "except every one of them could put their several wits into

his head." The poor cardinal retired in despair, and afterward gave vent to

his grief by saying to More, in the gallery at Whitehall: "Would to God,

Mr. More, you had been to Rome when I made you speaker!" "Your grace not

offended, so would I too, my lord." rejoined Sir Thomas. Then, with his

usual kindly tact, he changed the subject.

{645}

And now More was to enter on the fiercer struggles of the theological

arena. He was to write in a weighty, but also nervous and popular manner,

often condescending to the humorous anecdote, or "merrie tale," those ample

controversial treatises in which was laid the broad foundation stone of

English prose. Even for so dreamy and gentle a thinker, there could be no

avoiding the contests of the age. The times were too stirring for mere

literary dilettanteism. As Le Bas has remarked, "Things which, for many a

century, had been deemed by multitudes immutable as the laws of nature,

were now found to contain within themselves the elements of a change. The

supremacy of the Roman pontiff, more especially, had till then been very

generally regarded as a fundamental principle of revealed religion. Yet

this was precisely the principle against which the first violence of the

spirit now abroad was vehemently directed; and, what was still more

astounding, the assault against it was either directed or assisted by men

who had pledged themselves to its maintenance by the most solemn sanctions

which religion can impose. All this cannot have happened without a perilous

convulsion of the public mind. It may be said, without the smallest

exaggeration, that no disturbance in the order of the physical world could

have produced, in many a heart, much more confusion and dismay than that

which was occasioned by this rupture of immemorial prejudices and

associations. The fountains of the great deep were breaking up before their

eyes, and the summits of ancient institutions seemed in danger of

disappearing beneath the deluge." (Le Bas's Life of Cranmer.) More answered

an attack which Luther had made on the king. In 1525, he wrote a very acrid

letter against the Reformers, urging Erasmus to more decided action. But

the humanitarian had small anxiety for engaging in these disputes. More

soon found abundant work for himself. In 1524 or 1525, there was published

an anonymous tract, entitled the Supplycacion of Beggers, which was a

virulent attack on the clergy.

Erasmus had said that, under a religious veil, the Reformation movement was

the quarrel of those who had not against those who had. This, the opinion

of most educated men in the sixteenth century, appeared to be confirmed by

this tract, which urges a severe blow against the church, not on religious

grounds, but in behalf of the poor. In the Supplycacion the king is advised

to take the wealth of the monasteries and give it to the poor. In this

singular production the long-winded sentences of the opening are the very

whine of mendicants:

"Most lamentably complayneth theyre wofull misery unto your highness,

your poore, the wretched hidous monsters, (on whom scarcely for horror

any dare loke,) the foule unhappy sort of lepers, and other sore people,

nedy, impotent, blinde, lame, and sike, that live only by almesse, name

that theyre nombre is daily so sore increased that all the almesse of all

the well-disposed people of this youre realme is not halfe ynough for to

susteine theim, but that for very constreint they die for hunger. And

this most pestilent mischief comen uppon youre saide poore by the reason

that there is yn the tyrnes of youre noble predecessours passed craftily

creypt ynto this your realme another sort (not of impotent but) of strong

puissant and counterfeit holy and idell beggers and vacabundes, which

syns the tyme of theyre first entre by all the craft and wilinesse of

satan are nowe encreased under your sight not onely into a great nobre

but also ynto a kingdome. These are (not the herdes, but the ravinous

wolves going in herdes clothing devouring the flocke) the bisshoppes,

abbottes, priours, deacons, archedeacones, suffraganes, prestes, monkes,

chanons, freres, pardoners, and somners. ... The goodliest lordshippes,

maners, landes, and teritories, are theyrs. Besides this they have the

tenth part of all the corne, medowe, pasture, grasse, colts, calves,

lambes, pigges, gese, and chickens."

He calculates the salaries paid to the clergy as amounting to one hundred

and thirty thousand angels. "Whereof not foure hundreth yeres passed they

had not one peny." He gives historical illustrations to show the

desirableness of being freed from such tributes: "The nobill king Arthur

had never ben abill to have caried his armie to the fote of the mountains

to resist the coming downe of Lucius the emperoure if such yerely exactions

had ben taken of his people.

{646}

The Grekes had never ben abill to have so long continued at the siege of

Troie if they had had at home such an idell sort of cormorantes to finde.

The auncient Romains had never ben abil to have put all the hole world

under theyre obeisance if theyre people had byn thus yerely oppressed. The

Turke nowe yn your tyme shulde never be abill to get so moche groande of

Cristendome if he had yn his empire such a sort of locustes to devoure his

substance." As it proceeds, the tract becomes more and more nervous and

truculent. Irritated by the utterance of this "beggars' proctour," More in

1529 replied in his Supplycacion of Soules.

This purports to be an appeal from the "holy souls in purgatory" to all

good Christians. The Supplicacion of Beggars is called "an unhappy boke."

It is urged that "lacke of belief in purgatory bringeth a man to hell." He

refutes the "beggars' proctour" by showing that Peter's pence was paid

before the conquest, and exclaims: "Oh! the grevouse shipwrak of the comen

weale; he sayeth that in auncient time before the coming of the clergye

there were but few pore people, and yet thei did not begge, but there was

gyven them ynough unasked, because at that time he saith there was no

clargy. ... In thys place we let pas his threfold foly." He says that this

"beggars' proctour" should have concluded his "supplycacion" in such terms

as these: "After ye the clergy is thus destroied and cast out, then shall

Luther's ghospel come in; then shal Tyndal's testament be taken up; then

shal false heresies bee preached; then shal the sacramentes be set at

naught; than shal fasting and prayour be neglected; then shal holy saints

be blasphemed;... then shal the servantes set naught by theyr maysters, and

vnruly people rebell against their rulers; then wyll ryse vp ryflyng and

robbery, murther and mischief, and playn insurreccion. ... all which

mischief may yet be withstanden easilye, and with Godde's grace so shal it,

yf ye suffer no such bold beggars to seduce you with sedycyouse billes."

More girds on the most substantial armor in the Dialogue concerning

Heresies, and other polemical treatises. He maintains that the church

cannot err in the interpretations of Scripture; that according to the

teaching of early doctors it is lawful to venerate images and render homage

to relics. He argues for the real presence, comparing it with St.

Chrysostom to one man's face reflected in several mirrors; all the hosts,

although in different places, are but one body and divine oblation. He

adduces as one of the reasons for which Tyndal's New Testament was burned,

that in that version the words priests, church and charity, are

respectively rendered "seniours," "congregation," and "love." The word

senior, he maintains, would apply "Englishly" rather to aldermen of towns

than to priests of the church. The word congregation can be applied equally

to a company of Christians and a company of Turks though the church is

indeed a congregation, yet every congregation is not the church. "Lyke

wysedom was there in the change of this word (charitie) into love. For

though charitie be alway love, yet is not, ye wote well, love alway

charitie." He blames that "greate arche heretike Wickliffe" for having

taken it upon himself to make a new translation of the Scriptures. "Whereas

ye hole byble was long before his dayes by vertuous and wel learned men

translated into ye English tong, and by good and godly people with devocion

and sobrenes wel and reverently red." He sees no reason why Scripture

should not be read in the vulgar tongue. Luther's books, however, should be

proscribed, "because his heresies be so many and so abominable;" a "ich and

tikling of vanite and vain glory has set hym besyde hys minde." He shows

that "it is a great token that the world is nere at an ende while we se

people so farre fallen fro God, that they can abide it to be content with

this pestilent frantike secte;" that "fayth may be without charitie, and so

fervent that it may suffer a payneful death, and yet for fault of charitie

not sufficient to salvacion."

{647}

He establishes that "princes be bounden to punish heretykes." He charges

heretics with being wont to perpetrate "outrages, and temporall harmes"

with "destroying Christe's holy sacramentes, pulling down Christ's crosse,

blaspheming his blessed saints, destroying all devocion." He contrasts

"Saynt Cypryane, Saynt Chrisostome, Saynt Gregory, and al the vertuous and

cunning doctours by rowe," with the doctors "of this newe secte, frere

Luther and his wyfe, frere Lambert and his wife, and frantike Tyndall." It

must be remembered that the excesses and seditions brought forth by the

Reformation in Germany were calculated to establish an association between

the ideas of religious reformer and of rebel; nor does the experience of

succeeding centuries go very far toward destroying this link. As a

statesman, therefore, if on no other ground, More was inclined toward the

display of an uncompromising severity. Nor was he alone in this tendency.

Both in England and on the continent, heresy was a crime punishable by law.

At the same time, there is no reason for thinking that More carried his

doctrines on that point into practice, as Fox, Burnet, and others have

asserted. This theory is based on a passage of Erasmus, which declares that

while More was chancellor no one was put to death in England for adherence

to the new doctrines. (Nisard.) In his apology, written after his fall,

More candidly exposes both his opinions and the facts of his

administration. He vindicates himself from the "lies neither fewe nor

small" which certain "blessed brethren" had industriously spread concerning

him. "Dyvers of them have said that of suche as were in my house while I

was chauncellour, I used to examine theym with tormentes, causynge them to

bee bounden to a tree in my gardeine, and there pituously beaten." "Of very

truth, albeit that for a greate robbery, or an heighnous murder, or

sacriledge in a church, I caused sometyme suche thynges to be done by some

officers of the marshalsie, with which orderynge of them by their well

deserved paine, and without any great hurt that afterward should sticke by

them, I founde out and repressed many such desperate wretches as elles had

not failed to have gone farther abrode, and to have done to many good folke

a greate deale much more harme."

Only twice did he punish any heretic in this manner--a boy and a lunatic,

whose case he thus relates:

"Another was one whiche, after that he had fallen into that frantik

heresies, fell soone after into plaine, open fransy beside; and albeit

that he had therefore bene put up in Bedelem, and afterward by beating

and corecion, gathered his remembrance to him, and begaune to come again

to himself, being thereupon set at liberty, and walkinge aboute abrode,

his olde fransies begaune to fall againe in his heade, and I was fro

dyvers good holy places advertised, that he used in his wandering about

to come into the churche, and there make many mad toies and trifles, to

the trouble of the good people in the divine service, and specially would

he be most busye at the time of most silence, while the priest was at the

secretes of the masse, about the levacion. ... whereupon I, being

advertised of these pageauntes, and being sent unto and required by very

devout, religious folke, to take some other order with him, caused him as

he came wanderinge by my doore, to be taken by the counstables and

bounden to a tree in the streete before the whole towne and ther they

stripped him with roddes therefore till he wared weary, and somewhat

longer; and it appeared wel that his remembrance was goode enoughe, save

that it went about in grasing till it was beaten home; for he could than

verie well reherse his fautes himselfe, and speake and treate very well,

and promise to doe afterward as well, and verylye, God be thanked, I

heare none harme of him now; and of al that ever came into my hand for

heresye, as helpe me God, saving, as I said, the sure keping of them, and

yet no so sure neither, but that George Constantine could stele away; els

had never any of them any stripe or stroke given them, so much as a

fylyppe on the forehead."

{648}

He also gives an amusing instance of the manner in which slanderous

accusations were fabricated against him. Simon Fryth, author of the

"Supplication of Beggars," charged More with having said that "his heresye

shoulde coste him the best blude in his body." More answers that:

"Some truthe they might happe to heare, whereupon they myghte buylde

theyr lye. For so was it that on a tyme one came and showed me that

Frithe laboured so sore that he sweat agayne, in studieng and writing

against the blessed sacrament; and I was of trouth verie heavy to heare

that the younge fooly the felowe shoulde bestowe suche labour about suche

a develyshe woorke. For if that Fryth (quoth I) swete in laboring to

quench that faith that al true Christen people have in Christe's blessed

body and bloude, which all Christen folke veryly, and all good folke

frutfuly receive in the fourme of bread, he shal laboure more than in

vayne; for I am sure that Frith and al his felowes, with al the friendes

that are of theyr affiniti, shal neither be able to quench and put out

that faith, and over that if Frythe labour about the quenching thereof

till he sweate, I would some good friend of his shoulde showe hym that I

feare me sore that Christe wyll kyndle a fyre of fagottes for hym, and

make hym therin sweate the bloud out of his bodye here, and straight from

hence send hys soule for ever into the fyre of hell. Nowe in these wordes

I neyther ment nor meane that I would it wer so. For so help me God and

none otherwyse, but as I would be glad to take more labour, losse, and

bodelye payne also, then peradventure many a man would wene to winne that

yonge man to Christe and hys true faythe agayne, and thereby to preserve

and keepe hym from the losse and peryll of soule and body both."

And in another part of the same treatise he declares that

"as touching heretikes, I hate that vice of theirs, and not their

persons, and very faine would I that the one were destroied, and the

tother saved ... and if all the favour and pity that I have vsed among

them to theire amendement were knowen, it woulde I warrant you well and

plaine appere, whereof if it were requysite I could bring forth witnesses

more than men would wene."

In these earnest words is reflected his innocence of persecution. These

apologies for his career as chancellor were written after his fall.

In 1529, More had been made lord high chancellor of England. The new

dignitary had been sounded by the king concerning the matrimonial cause.

Although Sir Thomas excused himself from giving an opinion, on the plea

that he was no divine, he was evidently expected ultimately to concur in

forwarding the accomplishment of the king's wishes. But More was too candid

and unworldly to adopt a policy of self-interest. He had foreseen the

danger of his elevation, and in his opening speech had alluded to the sword

of Damocles. One evening he had confided to Roper that he would gladly be

tied up in a sack, and thrown into the Thames, if only there could be peace

on earth, unity in the church, and a good termination of the divorce

question. At last the decisive moment came, and Henry requested More to

take the proposed divorce into consideration. The chancellor, falling on

his knees, lamented his inability to serve the king in this matter with a

safe conscience; he had, he said, borne in mind the words uttered by his

majesty on More's first entering office, namely, first to look unto God,

and after God unto the king. Henry, concealing his vexation, expressed a

hope that More could serve him in other instances.

Then Cranmer broached his plan, and the universities began to dust folios

and hold grave deliberations on the matrimonial cause. Not only Oxford and

Cambridge, but Paris, Anjou, Bruges, Orleans, Padua, Toulouse, summoned

their doctors, regents, and canons, to weigh and consider the important

question. There was "much turning and searching of bookes;" divine law,

civil law, were carefully discussed and examined. "There was in the realme

much preching, one lerned man holding against another," (Holinshed.)

Foreseeing the impending harvest of determinations and arbitraments, More

perceived that the king would marry Anne Boleyn at any cost. In May, 1532,

he tendered his resignation. Henry accepted it in an affable manner, and a

weight fell from More's heart--for the nonce he gave himself up to his

harmless gaiety.

{649}

Lady More lectured him severely for not having taken care of his pecuniary

interests when in office, and for relinquishing place through a selfish

love of ease, without thinking of the children. "Tilly vally, what will you

do, Mr. More?" cried Lady Alice; "will you sit and make goslings in the

ashes? it is better to rule than to be ruled." More, quietly turning to his

daughters, asked whether they did not see "that her nose standeth somewhat

awry."

With calm dignity he proceeded to reduce his establishment; sent his jester

to the lord mayor; and consulted with his children on the best means of

avoiding the breaking up of the family. His income was little more than

£100 a year; Lady More must have been hard up for pin money wherewith to

buy gowns, coifs, and stomachers. He wrote to Erasmus that he had at last

obtained freedom from public business; and he had his epitaph inscribed in

the parish church of Chelsea. He was beginning to have a foreboding of

approaching danger; whether from the declining state of his health--he had

been liable, through much writing, to an "ache" in his breast--or his

acquaintance with the king's character, At the height of his friendship

with the monarch, when congratulated by Roper on the marks of favor he was

receiving, More had mournfully answered that if Henry, by beheading him,

could get one castle more in France, he would not scruple to do so. During

several nights, it is said, he had been sleepless under the influence of a

strange, haunting anticipation; he prayed for strength, his delicate frame

being averse to bodily pain--or, as he said, "his flesh could not endure a

fillip."

In the mean while the king married Anne Boleyn; Cheapside ran with claret.

Sir Thomas received an order to attend the procession, with twenty pounds

to buy a gown; but he declined to be present. The king's displeasure began

to arise. More was much esteemed, had considerable influence, and his

prolonged opposition was anything but agreeable to Henry. More's enemies

began to cast about for a ground of accusation against him. The adventure

of the Maid of Kent furnished them with an opportunity. Elizabeth Barton

was a girl of cataleptic temperament, who had visions and uttered

prophecies. Unfortunately for herself and others, she meddled with politics

and inveighed against the king. More complained to Cromwell that he had

been accused of communicating with that "nun of Canterbury;" whereas he had

written to her, "Good madam, I will hear nothing of other men's matters;

and least of all of any matter of princes or of the realm." The poor "good

madam" was executed at "Tiburne." More's name had been included in the act

of attainder, and a royal commission was appointed to examine him. It soon

became apparent that the Maid of Kent's case had little to do with this

prosecution of Sir T. More, and that the real question at issue was, that

he should remember the king's former favors and give his consent to that

divorce which the hierarchy, parliament, and the universities had approved.

More answered, meekly but firmly, that he had hoped to hear no more of that

matter. In the Maid of Kent affair, his innocence was so evident that Henry

was obliged to yield to the pressure of the commissioners, who besought him

on their knees to dismiss More from the accusation. But More knew this was

only a reprieve. The commissioners had assured the king that they would in

time find another opportunity that would serve the royal turn better. "Quod

differtur non aufertur," answered More, when his "Megg" congratulated him

on the bill being withdrawn. There had been no chance of getting a verdict

against him. But a "meet matter" for his enemies to act upon was not long

in supervening. The succession to the crown for the issue of the new

marriage, and the king's ecclesiastical supremacy, became law. An oath of

allegiance was required. Sir T. More and Bishop Fisher were recusants. More

could not be brought to imply that the marriage with Catherine had been

illegal.

{650}

His innate nobleness made him very little anxious as to the consequences of

his opposition. The Duke of Norfolk gave him advice one day. "By the mass,

Mr. More, it is perilous striving with princes; therefore I would wish you

somewhat to incline to the king's pleasure, for, Mr. More, 'indignatio

principis mors est." We can imagine the sweet smile with which More

answered, "Is that all, my lord? then in good faith the difference between

your grace and me is but this, that I shall die to-day and you to-morrow."

He was too brave and merry not to despise death; but, the day he was

summoned to Lambeth, he was afraid to face his family on his departure.

Whenever he went down the river, they used to accompany him to the boat and

be dismissed with kisses; but that morning he did not allow them to follow

him. With Roper he took boat to Lambeth. There the vicar of Croydon, and

many London clergy were sworn; after which proceeding, the reverend the

vicar, "Either for gladness or dryness, or else that it might be seen 'quod

ille notus erat pontifici,' went to my lord's buttery-bar and called for

drink, and drank 'valde familiariter.'" (Sir T. More's Letters.) Sancho is

ever near Quixote. Without blaming those who took the oath, More maintained

that his conscience would not be satisfied if he allowed himself to be

sworn. In vain did "my lord of Westminster" charge him to "change" his

conscience, because the great council of the realm had determined on

acknowledging the points at issue. More said his opinion was backed by the

general council of Christendom. He and Roper were committed to the Tower,

probably through the influence of Queen Anne, who was herself "behedded" a

few years afterward.

And now his greatness showed itself in adversity, as it had before

brightened his prosperity. He had something worse than a _vultus

instantis tyranni_ to endure, namely, the expostulations of his wife.

Having obtained leave to visit him, she gave him a lecture in her

positivistic philosophy: "I marvel that you, who hitherto have been taken

for a wise man, will now so play the fool to lie here in this close, filthy

prison, and be content thus to be shut up among mice and rats, when you

might be abroad at your liberty, and with the favour and good-will both of

the king and his council, if you would but do as all the bishops and best

learned of this realme have done; and seeing you have at Chelsea a right

fair house, your library, your gallery, garden, orchard, and all other

necessaries so handsome about you, where you might, in the company of me,

your wife, your children, and household, be merry, I muse what a God's name

you mean here still thus fondly to tarry." His daughter Margaret, however,

proved a better comfort to him. She, too, attempted to persuade him to take

the oath; he playfully compared her to Eve, thinking more of his body than

his soul. She quoted all the instances of great doctors who had taken the

oath. At last she said that, like Cressida in Chaucer, she was at her wit's

end; what could she say more but that his jester had said, "Why does not he

take the oath? I have done so," and that she herself had taken it? More

than a year did he stay in that prison, to the detriment of his health. He

was then tried and found guilty. On his return from the trial, when he

landed at the Tower-wharf, his poor daughter rushed from the crowd and

kissed him frantically several times. One more letter did he write to her

with a coal. As he had once written, pecks of "cole" would not have

sufficed to express all his love for her. He expressed himself much

indebted to the king, who was sending him out of this wretched world. He

wanted to go on the scaffold in his best clothes, and sent the executioner

a piece of gold. On the platform he evinced that mixture of gayety and

piety which was characteristic of him. The structure being somewhat cranky,

"I pray see me up safe," he said, "and for my coming down, let me shift for

myself."

{651}

He then knelt down and said a psalm. He then addressed the executioner:

"Thou will do me this day a greater benefit than ever any mortal man can be

able to give me. Pluck up thy spirit, man, and be not afraid to do thy

office. My neck is very short; take heed, therefore, that thou strike not

awry, for saving thy honesty." When about to lay his head on the block, he

craved time to remove his beard, "as that had never committed treason."

"So, with great alacrity and spiritual joy, he received the fatal blow of

the axe, which, no sooner had severed the head from the body, but his soul

was carried by angels into everlasting glory."

Margaret bought his head, enclosed it in a leaden box, and it was afterward

buried with her at Canterbury. In the nineteenth century, the head was

found, with the metal covering corroded away in front. (See Gentleman's

Magazine, 1837.)

Dr. Lark, rector of Chelsea, and More's friend, was so influenced by More's

death that he soon after denied the supremacy, and was executed. More's

death made a deep impression on men's minds throughout Europe. When the

report of the execution reached the king, he looked steadfastly on Anne,

and said, "Thou art the cause of this man's death," and soon after retired

in sadness to his chamber. Scarcely, however, can readers of history

deplore a death which brought out the beauty of such a character.

------

The Two Lovers of Flavia Domitilla.

By Clonfert.

Chapter III.

The Christian's Feast.

The large clepsydra in the atrium of the villa indicated the fourth watch

of the night, an hour corresponding at the winter solstice to one o'clock

in the morning, of the 8th of the Kalends, that is, the 25th of December.

The slaves had ended their merry-making and retired to rest, when Aurelian

and Sisinnius, led by Zoilus, took their way by a by-path over the fields

toward the Latin road. The path crossed the stream and wooded hill near the

villa.

Standing on the further slope of the hill, they paused to view the city and

the surrounding country. The darkness of the early night had been relieved

by the rays of the moon. Her white disc was painted on the sky between the

luminous edges of the thin clouds, which were driven by the wind, as if in

review, before her face. On the earth beneath, moonlight and shadow pursued

each other over the woods and uplands. The palaces and monuments bordering

the Latin and Appian Ways showed at times as if they were roofed with

silver. Now and again her beams, stretching down like white bars between

the clouds, rested on the roofs, cupolas, and steeples of the distant city,

which stretched in illimitable magnificence before them, flashed out, and

the next moment faded like a mirage into indistinctness and shadow. The

lights in the streets and country villas flickered feebly "few and far

between."

{652}

The hum of life and business was not, as in the daytime, borne on the wind

to their ears from the metropolis, whose great heart, that in a few hours

would throb with the pulses of renewed activity through all its arteries,

was at rest, save only where the voice of the watchman or of the midnight

reveller disturbed its slumber. Turning toward the Appian Way, which for

fourteen miles was lined by a double row of monuments--homes for the

living and homes for the dead--the trees bowed and tossed their branches in

the fitful gusts like hearse-plumes above the tombs. In the lulls it was

heard wandering and moaning within the vaults and the _columbaria_;

[Footnote 233] so called because the ashes of the departed reposed in

bronze and earthenware urns, ranged in hundreds, tier over tier, as in the

cells of a dove-cote. The branches, dry and leafless, pointing their

skeleton fingers skyward and creaking dolefully, might well remind a Greek

or Roman imagination of imprisoned genii. And the melancholy wail of the

breeze might be mistaken for that of unearthly visitants weeping over the

remains of the dead.

[Footnote 233: From _columba_, a dove.]

Having delayed to survey this sombre scene, they continued their journey,

and soon reached the Latin road, along which they proceeded to the

Crossway, formed by it and the Appian Way about a quarter of a mile outside

the Capena Gate. The old walls built by Servius Tullius around the city

still remained; through these the gate opened between the Aventine and

Coelian hills, nearly a mile from the present entrance of the "Queen of

Highways" into the forum through the walls built subsequently by the

Emperor Aurelian. The Appian aqueduct, of which scarce a stone remains

to-day, rose before them from the ground some sixty paces from the gate,

and, travelling on high arches, emptied itself into the reservoir within

the walls. The lofty parapets of this gigantic structure, which carried the

water underground for eight miles, were marked in the moonlight against the

sky as if they had been cut from pasteboard. Turning their backs to the

gate and facing southward, they saw that great military highway, built by

and named after the Censor Appius four hundred years previously, as it

topped the undulations of the country until it was lost in darkness and

distance. Its pavement, made of solid blocks of basaltic lava, as the

fitful moonlight rested on its receding line, might by a stranger be

mistaken for the surface of a glancing stream. The death-like stillness of

the sepulchral monuments and of the mysterious _columbaria_, and the

motion of the cypress and other funereal trees interspersed among them,

contrasted with the living magnificence and luxury of the villas, temples,

and villages by which it passed. It was death beside life. The etymology of

the word _monuments_ [Footnote 234] proves that they were built

designedly beside the public roads to warn travellers of the goal at which

all their earthly journeyings would surely end. Thoughts like these passed

through the minds of the three companions; nor were they put to flight by

what followed.

[Footnote 234: Monumentum, _moners mentem_, to warn the mind.]

A funeral procession was issuing from the gate as they arrived at the

Crossway. They concealed themselves among the trees of the gardens known

for ages afterward as those of the poet Terence. Without being seen, they

observed the procession as it wended near them. In front of and at

intervals through it were slaves carrying torches, whose glare colored the

sky and the monuments on either side with a red glow. Musicians, playing

mournful strains on the flute, the pipes, and the horn, startled the

silence of the time and place. They were aided by mourning females hired to

chant the funeral song. After these came the mimics, directed by a

principal, who represented the life and character of the deceased by

imitations of his words and actions; slaves wearing the cap of freedom, as

a sign that they had been emancipated before his death, followed.

{653}

Some of these bore the images of himself and of his ancestors; others, the

civil and military crowns he had won, which proved him to have been

distinguished as a citizen and a soldier. The remains rested on an ivory

couch covered with drapery of purple and gold. Behind them were the

children of the deceased, the sons in black mourning, with heads veiled;

the daughters in white, with heads bare, and hair dishevelled. The quick

march of the procession, the restless flames of the torches, and the acting

of the mimics seemed strangely out of place with the sad occasion, and

music, with the dirge of the female mourners and the silence or suppressed

sobs of the children of the departed. It was another picture of life and

death beside each other--a union so frequent with the ancients.

"There goes the funeral of Senecio," said Zoilus.

"Herenius Senecio, the senator! What, did he too incur the imperial anger?"

asked Aurelian.

"He wrote a life of the proconsul Priscus, at the request of the widow

Faunia."

"Is it Priscus who was put to death for the poem in which he was suspected

to have caricatured under fictitious names the emperor's divorce from his

wife?"

"The very same."

"Senecio," said Sisinnius, "ought to have been taught by the fate of

Rusticus, who was executed for having written the life of Thrasea at the

request of Arria, Faunia's mother. But he was always outspoken and

headstrong in defence of friendship and truth. Hermogenes of Tarsus, who

met a like fate for a like offence, was another example to warn him."

"Well, well," said Aurelian, "I do not wonder that Tacitus prefers to

drudge as a civil officer in a distant province to remaining at Rome,

although his great father-in-law Agricola, the conqueror of Britain, needs

him to cheer his sinking spirits; nor that Pliny keeps himself so quiet and

hidden."

"It was reported that Pliny was to have delivered Senecio's funeral

oration," said Zoilus.

"Pliny in the affair of Bebius Masia showed himself a man of courage. But

he has too much sense, I think, to do such an unnecessary thing in the

present state of the imperial temper," said Aurelian.

"Yes, indeed, when we see the poetess Sulpicia in danger of her head for

her ode on the expulsion of the philosophers; when booksellers are

crucified; and when only those escape who, like Josephus, Juvenal, Martial,

and Quinctilian, lay the unction of flattery unblushingly on, it were

madness to attempt it. Alas!" continued Sisinnius, "are we not returning to

a worse barbarism than that of the iron age? Philosophy, history, and poesy

divine in exile, in prison, or in the tombs! Never was there an age that

had more, purer, or nobler names to inscribe on the roll of fame! And all

at the whim of one man who calls himself a god, and who thinks he proves

his divinity by having the road to the capitol crowded with the flocks to

be immolated to his statue!"

"It is the story of arbitrary authority invested in individuals from the

monarch to the slave-owner, when its influence is not directed by humanity

or religion," said Aurelian.

"Ay," interposed Zoilus, "and to the slave himself, who is by law allowed a

vicarious ownership (_dominium vacarium_) over others. The little

tyrant who has not the fulness of power is the worst; he always strives to

swell himself to the bull size, like the frog in the fable, and tramples on

the feelings where he cannot tread out the lives of his victims, just as

recklessly as the elephant in the arena tramples on the corns of the

gladiators. One of these, whom I know well to my cost, compassed the death

of Senecio, and is likely to bring red ruin to many others before he dies

himself."

"Who is he?" asked Aurelian.

{654}

"Arthus, who has crept up from low life to high favor with the powers that

be."

"Arthus!" exclaimed Sisinnius, "the poor wretch! whose suspiciousness and

unbridled impulsiveness of tongue and passion have left him without a

sincere friend in the profession, into which he has worked his upward way

without any education to fit him for it. He is only a craze of one idea;

every one secretly laughs at his assumption of rank, knowing his origin; at

his assumption of professional knowledge, knowing his Boeotic ignorance;

and at his assumption of power, knowing how he acquired it."

"I can tell you, it is no laughing matter for the poor slaves, most of whom

are his own countrymen, whose very blood he is coining into stone for that

labyrinthine temple of which Domitian has permitted him to be the architect

and builder. A joke perpetrated by Senecio in the life of Crispus with

regard to this building is said to have angered him. Senecio compared the

temple to the Cretan labyrinth, and said the congregation would require a

thread to find their way out."

"There was another cause of Arthus's hatred of Senecio. In early life he

proposed for the hand of Senecio's cousin. The first moment she saw him,

she afterward declared she would as soon marry one of the brick walls he

has since been building; because his heart, filled only with facts,

figures, and money, seemed as cold, hard, and bloodless as the bricks and

stones themselves. It is reported that she has since become a Christian.

Unfortunately this creature Arthus has somehow found access to Domitian's

ear, and manages with unsuspicious adroitness to have the first story about

those who displease him. Less cruel natures than Domitian's find it hard to

rise above prejudices that have once preoccupied their judgments."

"Well, well, it is a sad state of things. The Christians have, I often

imagine, been sent in punishment for our having fallen away from the stern

virtues of our ancestors, as the locust-clouds are sent in the East. But,"

continued Aurelian, "the less we say in this style the better, if we do not

wish to join Senecio in his voyage over the Stygian lake. Even here the

proverb may apply: 'Silvae habent aures.'"

"Yes," said Sisinnius, "here we are at the beginning of the ancient tombs,

amid the mighty dead whose names are the morning-stars of our history!"

They walked silently and passed the monument of Horatia. Of cut stone, it

was, after more than seven centuries, in good preservation: nay more, in

the nineteenth century, after twenty-seven hundred years, it is

comparatively untouched by the hands of time and weather. She had been

killed by her victorious brother, the last of the three Horatii, because

she wept for her betrothed, one of the Curiatii, slain by him in the

contest of Rome and Alba for superiority. The sepulchres of the Metelli, of

the Scipios, and of other noble families stood near the Cross road not far

from the gate.

Pointing to these, Sisinnius spoke as if giving utterance to a train of

thought that had occupied his mind:

"Where are they now the great, the noble, the heroic men, by whose martial

deeds and unselfish patriotism the foundations of Roman greatness were

placed? Is this all that remains of them--a hollow tomb raised as in

mockery over a little ashes, if even so much of them after five or six

hundred years be left? Alas! Aurelian, does not death make you sad to think

on it?"

"Yes; and therefore I put it away, on the epicurean principle that it

increases the misery of the destiny that inflicts it on us."

"Yet our ancestors did not take that view, and they have had repute for

wisdom. They built their tombs in public places to remind living

generations of the fleeting character of all things human. They placed a

horse's head over the inscriptions as a symbol that death is only the

commencement of another and a longer journey.

{655}

If the epicurean philosophy be true, they were deceived; but, if they were

right, we are wrong in turning our gaze away from death, which, alas! is a

terrible reality! Would it not be wiser to try and pierce the mystery of

that horse's head, to draw aside the veil that shrouds that journey from

our sight?"

"Men like Plato, and Socrates, and Cicero, have endeavored to do so in

every age, and have failed. The great doubt, whether there be a hereafter

or not, still puzzles the world. How can we hope to remove it when these

giants fail? It is much better for our peace and happiness to follow the

common belief in elysium and in the gods, and to drown the thought of death

in forgetfulness, and to enjoy the pleasures of the present."

"It is a hard alternative, especially when the insecurity of the present is

brought so strikingly before us by the passing away of men like Senecio and

Priscus, and those of whom we were speaking. To believe in elysium and the

gods is to rest our faith and hope on the creations of the poets. Enjoyment

of the present does not bring happiness; and, even if it did, when these

pleasures are over, (and we don't know how soon,) what is to follow? But

yesterday Senecio, whose funeral we have witnessed, swayed the senate by

his reason and eloquence. Does nothing of him remain now but the ashes

gathered from the pyre? Why have the generations gone before erected those

vast monuments, if all that is left be the dust in the urn? Fitter let it

be borne by the wind over the face of the earth, if no spirit remain to

take an interest in its preservation! Are the souls of the mighty dead, who

slumber in those tombs around, 'nothing but a name'? Like the blast which

bends the forest, and then, dispersed in air, is felt and heard no more?

Oh! my blood runs cold to think it!

"And yet there is no certainty it is not so--no hope, after so many

attempts, of now obtaining it. Better, then, enjoy the present and leave

the future to fate," said Aurelian.

"No hope, no certainty!" repeated Sisinnius twice over, "no hope, no

certainty! And death approaching with his inevitable lance set! It may be

to-day, it may be to-morrow. Oh! is it not a wretched destiny that keeps us

thus in the dark? We come we know not whence, we go we know not whither.

Like persons lowered into a deep pit, we see a little sky above, but our

gaze cannot penetrate on either side of us. Is there no delivery from this

state of prison and anguish? What wretchedness is equal to that of the last

sad moment? Who but the fool or madman, with such daily reminders of

earthly life's vanity and shortness, can be deaf to the approaching

footfalls of death?"

They had now arrived at the valley extending to the left, and watered by

the fountain of Egeria. Here it was that the nymph dictated the laws to

Numa. The valley contained also a temple of the Camoenae, and a sacred

grove. At a little distance was a large village. The poet Juvenal complains

that in the reign of Domitian pompous marble had displaced the grass of the

vale and concealed the rock from which the water gurgled; and that the

fountain, the temple, and the wood were owned and occupied by Jewish

beggars:

"Hoc sacri fontis nemus, et delubra locantur

_Judaeis_, quorum cophinus foenumque supellex.

Omnis enim populo mercedem penrtere jussa est

Arbor, et ejectis meudicat sylva Camoenis."

_Juv_. Sat. iii.

Juvenal and the pagans of his time frequently confounded the Christians

with the Jews. But the acts of early martyrs, like those of St. Cecilia,

clearly show that the Jews alluded to in these verses were Christians,

perhaps converted from Judaism. The surmise of the Abbé Gueranger is most

likely true, that, when the Emperor Claudius banished "the Jews' from Rome

on account of their dissensions, the Christians also were forced to leave

the capital for a short time; but after their return many of them settled

in this place outside the walls, and occupied the village called _Vicus

Camaenarum_, where they seem to have rented the fountain as well as the

temple and grove.

{656}

Here they could dig vaults, open subterranean galleries wherein to bury

their dead, and to hide themselves in times of persecution. What confirms

this supposition is, that here within the bowels of the earth commence the

sombre galleries of the Christian catacombs. The statesmen and soldiers of

pagan Rome sleep the long sleep of ages above, in monuments rising to the

face of heaven, with all the surroundings of material greatness; while the

champions and martyrs of the church repose in their lowly niches beneath,

where a ray of sunlight never penetrates. What a contrast is here

symbolized, and how true! The pride of the world raising itself like

Lucifer to heaven, and the lowliness of the church bowing its head with

Christian humility, and submitting to be trampled in the earth! As it was

in the beginning, so it is, so it will be to the end.

At this point of the road Zoilus paused to impress upon his companions the

rules by which they were to be guided. They were to pretend to be converts

to the faith. He had succeeded in convincing those who had guard of the

avenues to the Christian meeting-place that Aurelian and Sisinnius would

make open profession of the new religion but for the dangers with which

such a step would surround them and those dear to them; that they were

eager to be instructed privately as neophytes; and that they asked to be

admitted to the Christmas celebration in order to witness the ceremony by

which one so dear to them as Flavia Domitilla was about consecrating

herself to God. They did not wish, however, that Flavia or Theodora should

be aware of their presence or of their conversion. Zoilus, who had been

baptized by St. Polycarp at Smyrna, and who had made the Roman Christians

believe that he was a zealous member of the church, succeeded in convincing

them of the truth of his representations, and in obtaining admission for

Aurelian and Sisinnius to the feast. The visits of Clement to the house of

the latter, together with the conversion of Theodora and Flavia, rendered

these representations plausible.

Not far from the Egerian valley is a semicircular underground chamber of

large dimensions. It was the only one, to which at this early time the name

of _cata-tomb_, (meaning a place _near the tombs_,) or

_catacomb_, (meaning a _deep_ and _low_ place, or place of

_temporary rest_,) was given. In after times the name has been applied

to all the cemeteries radiating from the Vatican and underlying the city

and the country for many miles. Some authors ascribe this chamber to a

pagan origin. However this may be, it presents interiorly the appearance of

a chapel much more spacious than most of those which have been dug out of

the Roman campagna. Opening into it is a room which is said to have been

occupied by many popes during the persecutions. In a corner of it there is

a pontifical throne in marble. A circular bench, also of marble, still

clings to its ruined walls; this is supposed to have been used by the

priests and other ministers. In its centre is an ancient altar, at the base

of which the orifice of a pit, or well, over which it was erected, is

visible. Twelve arched tombs built into the walls form a cincture round it.

In this well, according to an old tradition preserved and believed by St.

Gregory, the bodies of Saints Peter and Paul were hidden by the oriental

Christians, who attempted to steal these precious relics from the Roman

city, but were prevented by a thunder-storm. After having been transferred

thence to the Vatican grotto, they were a second time, in the reign of

Heliogabalus, brought back for preservation, and for a time to the same

place of concealment.

Here, on the occasion of which we write, we find the chiefs of the

Christian church assembled. The rumors and near approach of persecution

induced Pope Clement to select it for the celebration of the feast.

{657}

Here they could better avoid suspicion: their coming and going would be

easily mistaken by outsiders for the visits of those whom curiosity or

affection drew to the pagan monuments.

Many missionary churches in Asia, Africa, Gaul, and other countries had

sent delegates, who were now conversing with Pope Clement in the room next

the chapel. These delegates carried letters from the bishops and churches

by whom they were delegated; and, having set out long before the festival

and visited other churches on their way, they were able to give a faithful

report of the progress and condition of the faith in the countries through

which they journeyed. There was Andronicus, a priest of Corinth, who

brought the sad tidings of the apostle St. John's arrest at Ephesus.

"Have you heard," said the pope, "when he is likely to be in Rome?"

"No; but the galley in which he sailed left the port of Corinth two days

before my departure. Owing to the crowds coming to the _Saturnalia_ at

Rome, it was thought she was delayed at Ostium until after the festivities,

when he is to be brought before the emperor himself."

"O my children! let us pray that God may soften the tyrant's heart, and

that this last golden link between our time and that of our divine Master

may not be yet taken away by martyrdom."

"I have been told by one of the brethren who was in Ephesus on the day of

his arrest that the blessed John himself assured the faithful that he had

much yet to do and suffer before his hour would come."

"Thanks and glory be to God for this glad tidings," fervently ejaculated

Clement. "We shall try, and, if possible, have an interview with him."

The churches of Antioch and of Alexandria had also representatives in the

meeting. The latter see, founded by St. Mark, who had been commissioned by

St. Peter for that purpose, was described as being in a most flourishing

state. From Gaul had come the missionary priest Galbinus, who had travelled

through the Black Forest, and found many Christian communities among its

fastnesses and along the Rhine and Rhone. He had delayed for a week at

Marseilles, where he was entertained by Lazarus and Martha. Mary Magdalen

he had not met; but the fame of her penitential life in a solitude outside

of that city had spread far and wide, and filled the whole district with a

holy odor. From Marseilles he had journeyed by the coast until he reached

the Flaminian road. At the foot of the maritime Alps he had met many

Christians practising the evangelical counsels in seclusion and peace. Thus

the holy pope, through the delegates from the various churches, had full

and detailed information as to the condition, prospects, and number of the

faithful in the different regions of Christendom.

There was one visitor who more than others riveted the attention of all.

This was Nicodemus, [Footnote 235] who had taken our Lord's body down from

the cross. He arrived later than the others. When he entered, he knelt to

receive Pope Clement's blessing; but the latter, embracing, kissed him on

the cheek, and said:

[Footnote 235: It is very probable, says Tillemont, that Nicodemus

visited Rome toward the end of the first century.]

"My father and friend! It is I who ought to receive yours. I have heard you

were in the city for some days. Why not have come sooner to visit us?"

"Yes, holy father; [Footnote 236] I arrived in the city two days ago, and

received from the kindness of some of my own nation, who after the fall of

Sion came to reside in Rome, that hospitality and treatment which the

wearied traveller requires. The last persecution--for I was then

here--taught us all a lesson not to create suspicion by visiting

prematurely the locality in which the brethren meet or the presbyter

resides. Hence, though I had learned the secret of where you intended

celebrating the feast, I deemed it well to delay my visit to the eve of

it."

[Footnote 236: "_Papa sancte_," a usual mode of addressing bishops

in the early ages.]

{658}

"Always cautious, Nicodemus," said Clement, alluding to the furtive night

visit paid by Nicodemus to our divine Lord; but he checked the smile that

played on his face, as he saw the tears rolling down the old man's cheeks.

"Pardon, pardon, my friend and brother! I did not mean to say aught

painful."

"Nor have you. But I am overcome, in spite of myself, whenever I remember

the eyes which beamed out upon me through the darkness of that night, and

the face so transcendently beautiful, so tenderly compassionate, so

profoundly sorrowful! That face and look are impressed here"--he laid his

hand upon his heart--"I always bear them about with me like precious

relics, which supply ample matter for my meditations. In the brightness of

the day those sorrowful eyes shine out, in the darkness of night that

beauteous face is luminous; in the desert and in the forum they alike are

my companions, as they shall be to the grave."

He was silent. His eyes and thoughts seemed turned inward; the former as if

riveted with dazzled, loving gaze on some unseen object which wholly filled

the latter. After some moments, during which those present looked on in

wonder, he became conscious of their presence and slightly embarrassed.

Clement, not seeming to notice the embarrassment, said:

"What changes have taken place since you and I became acquainted first!

Having delayed beyond the midnight hour on Mount Calvary, I was brought by

blessed Paul, with whom I was then travelling, to your house. I regret that

altered circumstances and thickening clouds compel me to make a return of

hospitality in these poor quarters. All are welcome; none more so than

Nicodemus. I know all are satisfied while we have Him for whose love we

resign all near us under the clouds," He pointed and bowed reverently

toward the chapel, and then retired to prepare for the celebration of the

sacred mysteries.

Meanwhile the eyes of all were fixed with curiosity on Nicodemus. His

countenance was of the most decided Jewish caste. His face bore the

wrinkles of over a hundred years; but his frame, like the sturdy oak whose

surface may be serried by ages, did not present the appearance of decayed

strength or health.

The visitors and guests of Clement entertained themselves with anecdotes of

their respective missions; of the divers ways in which Providence had

enlightened them with the true faith; of the countries through which they

had preached, the people they had converted, the adventures they had met,

and the miracles by which God had aided and rescued them. A history such as

has never been, and cannot now be written, might be gathered from these

conversations. A great many, especially the younger portion, felt a wish to

question Nicodemus. They desired to hear from his own lips more of that

beautiful face and those shining eyes that affected his imagination so

much. They knew he referred to his nocturnal interview with the Redeemer;

but they longed to hear more.

"Pardon me, venerable father," said Andronicus, with more courage than the

others. "We would like to hear from yourself the history of your first

interview with _him_. We do not ask through idle curiosity, but

because we love to hear every little thing about him."

"That evening and night, my children--you will excuse the liberty one so

much older than yourselves takes in thus addressing you--that evening and

night will never leave my memory. It was summer time. I was strolling to

'drink the evening air' beyond the Taffa gate. The ringing laughter and

white garments of the young people, as they visited the springs outside the

walls, aided with the freshness and beauty of the atmosphere and scenery in

dispelling feelings of void and loneliness, which--I could not account for

it--had been for some months creeping over me.

{659}

I felt as if there were nothing in life to satisfy my heart. It was the

hour for the evening sacrifice; I heard the trumpets of the Levites ringing

out through the evening calm; and I saw the column of sacrificial smoke

rising up from the temple, like a pillar of sand in the desert, through the

clear air, until it was flattened by the far vault of heaven into fleecy

clouds, which hung about its summit like the frescoes of a Corinthian

capital. I stood to admire the beauty of its height and rounded

straightness, when I was struck by an unusual glow in the heavens. I saw

distinctly formed in the sky a golden crown, which seemed upheld over the

inner court of the temple by a chain of sparks, as if suspended from the

column of smoke. I was drawn toward the place; and after a quarter hour's

hurried walk found myself at the avenue leading up to the temple. I was

soon at the entrance, and, passing through the outer court, entered the

open one of Sacrifice, over which the crown appeared to rest. The incense

from the Levites' censers was ascending in curls about the column of

sacrificial smoke like a binding of white ribbon about a black column. The

court and side galleries were crowded. I lost sight of the golden crown;

and began to fancy it was some play of imagination working on the sunset

colors. I sought a remote corner of the hall, and, feeling a peculiar

influence over me, bowed profoundly in the depths of my own soul before the

majesty of Jehovah. Raising my eyes toward the smoking altar, I was seized

with awe and terror in beholding the self-same crown resting over the head

of a worshipper, who prayed in the shadow of a pillar. When the ceremony

was over, I managed to get a glimpse of the face, which I recognized as

that of Jesus of Nazareth. His eyes overflowed with tears. I yearned in my

heart toward him by an almost invincible impulse; but I was afraid of being

seen speaking to one so humble and so suspected. I waited and watched him

on his way home. I followed him in the dusk as he hurried along a street,

which I afterward saw him mark with footprints in his own blood. Turning

suddenly at the cross formed by the road from the palace of Herod the

Ascalonite and that now known as the 'Dolorous Way,' he addressed me:

"'What do you seek, Nicodemus?'

"I was startled by the sound of my own name, not dreaming that he knew it;

and I glanced hurriedly up and down the arms of the Crossway to see if any

one were within ear-shot.

"'Be not alarmed,' he said, in a voice which fell with velvet softness on

mine ear. 'If you wish aught of me, enter here.' And he led the way to an

humble house on the street to Calvary. There were two men, one young, with

a cheek of downy softness, and the other middle-aged, with beard of

bristling gray and fiery eye, awaiting him.

"'Rabbi!' they both exclaimed with glad surprise; but they hesitated when

they saw me. For, as I afterward learned, they both recognized me as a

member of the Jewish council, and therefore set me down as an enemy of

their Master.

"'Peter,' he said, 'John and you will retire to another room. This man

wishes to speak to me alone.'

"'But, Rabbi,' said Peter impulsively, 'do you know that he is one of--'

"'Peter! _I_ knew him before I saw him. Do as I direct.' And Peter

with reluctance left the room.

We were alone. Regarding me with a look which seemed to penetrate my whole

being to the most hidden secrets and littleness of my soul, he again asked:

"'What do you seek, Nicodemus?'

"'Rabbi!' I ventured to say, subdued as I was by the mild radiance of those

piercing eyes, 'we all know you are from God, for no one can work the

wonders you perform if God be not with him. I seek knowledge of the kingdom

that is promised.'

{660}

"'Amen, amen!' he answered solemnly, 'I say to you, no one can see that

kingdom who is not born anew of water and the Holy Spirit.'" Here Nicodemus

related the conversation the substance of which is recorded in the third

chapter of St. John's gospel.

"At parting," continued Nicodemus, "I told him that, if at any time I could

be of service. I would be glad to render it. I shall never forget the

answer: 'My hour is not yet come. When it is, your charity shall not be

forgotten. It will be your office to clothe for the last time the nakedness

of this temple!' He pointed to himself. I did not then know his meaning:

but, when I saw his bloodless body on his blessed mother's lap, and had the

happy privilege of preparing it for burial, I remembered and understood his

words."

"I have heard a varied account of our Lord's personal appearance," said

Damian, one of the missionaries, an Irishman, [Footnote 237] or, as the old

annalists have it, a _Scotus_ by birth. "My venerated master, Joseph

of Arimathea, who had many opportunities of seeing him, said that he at one

time wore on his sacred humanity all the charms of godlike beauty, and at

another presented in appearance almost the opposite extreme?"

[Footnote 237: _Scotia_, the ancient name of Ireland. In the reign

of Domitian an Irish prince was a guest at the court. Joseph of

Arimathea is said to have preached the gospel in the British Isles. At

this time Britain was first discovered to be an island.]

"I remember distinctly the night I saw him in the court of the temple. I

knelt beside him; and in the glare of the many lights saw every line and

undulation of the golden ringlets that floated down his neck and shoulders.

They were not of one color. At the summit they glowed with more than

star-like brilliancy, which faded into other dazzling hues reflected from

each undulation to their extremities. They talk of the colors of the

rainbow; these were all exhausted in the surpassing loveliness of that

noble head, above which the air-formed crown rested like a glory. When I

saw his face as he rose from his knees, though sad in its expression as

fancy in its furthest flight could paint it, it beamed with a beauty such

as lover's eye never invested the beloved with, such as I shall never see

until I gaze on it again, as I hope, in that kingdom, where, after God's

increated beauty, it increases the happiness of the glorified to behold it.

Once again I saw him. But, oh! how changed the human beauty of that face

divine and those golden ringlets. They were matted in uncombed confusion

with dried and drying clots of blood! The face was disfigured and ugly. I

could scarcely imagine him the same person I had met in the court of the

temple. These different appearances under different circumstances will no

doubt account for the varying descriptions of him given by those who saw

him." [Footnote 238]

[Footnote 238: Tradition is divided as to our Lord's personal

appearance; some of the holy fathers describe him as a specimen of

manly beauty; others say the contrary. We have borrowed from the letter

of a Roman officer then in Judea.]

During the recital the old man's cheeks were wet with tears and his voice

often trembled.

It was now after two o'clock, the hour appointed for the commencement of

the celebration.

St. Justin, in his first apology to the Antonines, describes the manner in

which the Christians celebrated their Sundays and other feasts. They met

before sunrise and sang a hymn in praise of the Redeemer; then lessons from

the Old and New Testaments were read, with the addition of prayers for the

wants of the faithful and the conversion of the unbelievers; the presiding

presbyter, who is a bishop or a priest, addressed the congregation; and

finally, taking bread, blessed and brake it, saying, '_This is my

body;_' and in like manner he blessed and consecrated the chalice,

saying, '_This is the cup of my blood._' The saint who was living at

the period of which we write states the doctrine of the real presence and

of the sacrifice as clearly as words can express them.

Clement, with his assistant deacon and subdeacons, sat in front of the

altar. On the seats on each side were Nicodemus, Andronicus, Damianus, and

the other clergy and missionaries.

{661}

Aurelian and Sisinnius were astonished to observe that their acquaintance

and friend Clement was the chief in the Christian assemblage; and that his

principal minister, in fact, his attendant deacon, was Vitus, the young

officer of the imperial household, who had made himself so remarkable the

night of the emperor's feast. But their amazement was doubly increased

when, after the clergy had taken their seats, a procession of females

veiled in black emerged from a side-door and knelt before Clement, opposite

the centre of the altar. In front were two matrons, and between them the

slender figure of a younger female, whose head and shoulders were concealed

by a white veil. Aurelian's breath came thick and fast; Sisinnius, too, was

excited. But Zoilus by a significant pressure restrained any open

manifestation of their feelings.

The hymn chanted was composed specially by one of the brethren for the time

and feast. It was as follows:

Christmas Hymn.

The flocks lay on the midnight plains,

Where Jacob tended his of old, [Footnote 239]

Where David woke his earliest strains

And sang the Lion of Judah's fold,

_Gloria, gloria, gloria in excelsis Deo!_

[Footnote 239: The plains of Bethlehem, where Jacob

had tended the flocks of his father-in-law,

and David those of his father.]

When suddenly the skies grew bright,

And angel choirs in countless throng,

With flashing wings, lit up the night,

And chanted, as they passed along,

_Gloria, gloria, gloria in excelsis!_

"Now glory be to God on high,

And peace on earth to fallen man;"

With star-like clearness through the sky,

'Twas thus the angel anthem ran,

_Gloria, gloria, gloria in excelsis!_

We saw them by the new star's light

Above the stable where He lay;

We watched them through the livelong night,

And through the heavens we heard them say,

_Gloria, gloria, gloria in excelsis!_

After the hymn had been sung and the lessons from the sacred Scriptures had

been read, the pope addressed the assembly in earnest words. He spoke of

the mystery of the incarnation and the birth of the Redeemer, by which the

promises made to the patriarchs and prophets were fulfilled. He said that

there were amongst them that night those who, during his earthly life, had

conversed with the "Word made flesh." He pointed out Nicodemus, who had

taken the lifeless body of the Master down from the cross, and who had the

singular privilege of seeing Christ arisen in his glorified humanity. "We,

therefore," he concluded, "have no reason to repine, for we know in whom we

trust. We may be poor in subjection, exposed to persecution. The

amphitheatre and the beasts, the prison, the rack, and other tortures may

await us. But we are not like those who have no hope, no security of the

unseen hereafter. We depend on that love which induced him to allow himself

to be nailed in agony on the cross, and, what is more, to be yoked, as it

were, not only for time, but for eternity, to a body of flesh and blood

like ours. That love is the guarantee that he will use his power to raise

us up as he has promised, if it be our happy lot to 'confess him before

men' by the shedding of our blood. And of his power how can we doubt? He

who, when dead himself, yet was able to raise himself from the tomb up to a

glorious and impassible existence, has power, now that he is seated in

glory at the Father's right hand, to do the same for us. Let us not be sad,

then, like those who have no hope. Let us gird ourselves for the contest

before us." And he proceeded to strengthen his audience by showing how

little the short sufferings of time were when balanced by the weight of

glory to follow for ever. He then continued the ceremonies. As he

approached the consecration, Aurelian and Sisinnius, despite the thoughts

that engaged their minds, were struck by the rapt devotion and fervent

prayers of the crowd of worshippers in the body of the chamber. They

themselves had taken their place behind so as not to be observed; Zoilus

had arranged this. Between them and the altar there was a large and motley

gathering: slaves, plebeians, and some whose dress belonged to the rank of

Roman knights; Jews, Greeks, and barbarians; men of different colors,

races, and countries bowed before the altar and were animated by one

spirit.

{662}

There was no distinction, save only that shown in the separation of the men

from the women on the two sides of the chapel. The words of consecration,

pronounced in a half-audible voice, fell ominously on the ears of Aurelian.

"_Hoc est CORPUS meum._" Whose body? he asked himself. "_Hic est

calix SANGUINIS mei._" Whose blood was contained in that cup? Were not

those vague rumors true about the murder of infants in those Christian

meetings? Alas! it was horrible to think that his own beloved Flavia had

been entrapped and was now a sharer in those bloody orgies. But he would

rescue her, or lose his fortune or his life in the effort. Different

somewhat were the reflections of Sisinnius. The words of Clement had

touched in his heart a chord which still vibrated with a longing to hear

more. After all, had these men solved the mystery of death and of the life

beyond the grave?

After the full completion of the sacrifice by the communion of the

celebrant, Clement resumed his seat in front of the altar, with his face to

the people. The golden plate which bound his temples flashed in the

lamplight, and reminded many of Moses after his descent from the mount,

with the rays beaming from his forehead. The three females, who had knelt

during the ceremonies, now stood before the pope. The two matrons were

turned sideways toward the congregation as they lifted the veil from the

head of the central figure. In one of these Sisinnius recognized his own

wife; and in the other a member of the imperial household, Priscilla, who

had so gently restrained Vitus on the night of the emperor's feast from

drawing the sword from his scabbard as the words fell from the stage:

"Domitian! Domitian! Beware! Beware!"

Aurelian's worst fears were confirmed as he saw, when the white veil was

lifted, the beautiful features of Flavia Domitilla! But Zoilus kept beside

him.

"My daughter!" said Clement, addressing Flavia, "have you duly and fully

considered the step you propose taking?"

"Yes, father!" she answered, in a low, tremulous voice.

"But is there no other love to divide your heart from Him whom you propose

espousing? Have you not pledged your troth and allegiance to another?"

"I did, when my eyes were shut to the eternal beauty of Him who has since

revealed himself to me. If other love I have had, I now uproot it from my

soul. I only ask to be permitted to devote myself to the service of Him

whom my heart has too lately known, too lately loved. All other allegiance

I hereby renounce."

"In the name, then, of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, I

receive you as the spouse of him who has loved you from the beginning." He

replaced the white veil upon her head; and, receiving a ring from Vitus,

who stood beside him opposite Flavia, placed it on her finger. Then he

administered to her the most holy sacrament. A smile played like a ray of

sunshine over her countenance, which manifested the deep and overflowing

happiness that welled upward from her soul.

Aurelian trembled like a reed as he heard her recall her promises to

himself. But she was not mistress of her actions, he reasoned. Had he not

seen her drugged with that unholy flesh and blood which were given her?

Vitus, he thought, had so far succeeded; for was not he the only one

present to whom she could be thus wedded? Zoilus watched his companions

closely; and, when the assembly was dismissed, hurried them away by the

private entrance.

------

{663}

Under The Violets

Under the violets blue and sweet,

Where low the willow droops and weeps

Where children tread with timid feet

When twilight o'er the forest creeps

She sleeps--my little darling sleeps.

Breathe low and soft, O wind! breathe low

Where so much loveliness is laid;

Pour out thy heart in strains of woe,

O bird! that in the willow's shade

Sing'st till the stars do pale and fade.

It may be that to other eyes,

As in the happy days of old,

The sun doth every morning rise

O'er mountain summits tipped with gold,

And set where sapphire seas are rolled;

But I am so hedged round with woe,

The glory I no more can see.

O weary heart that throbbest so!

Thou hast but this one wish--to be

A little dust beneath the tree.

I would thou hadst thy wish to-day,

And we were lying side by side

With her who took our life away

That heavy day whereon she died--

O grave! I would thy gates were wide!

------

{664}

From The Lamp.

An Irish Saint. [Footnote 240]

[Footnote 240: Montalembert's Monks of the West.]

It is consoling in these gloomy days to think of the time when Ireland was

the Island of Saints, and gloried in the patronage of St. Patrick, St.

Bridget, and St. Columbkill.

It is to a foreigner that we owe the biography of St. Columbkill--named

"Columba" from the Dove of Peace, and "kill," from the many cells or

monasteries that he founded. He was descended, says Montalembert, from one

of those noble races in Ireland whose origin is lost in the night of

ages--the Nialls or O'Donnells of Tirconnel, who were monarchs of Ireland

from the sixth to the twelfth century. The child was instructed in religion

by the priest who had baptized him, and the legends tell of angels who

watched over him from his birth; and they say that he asked familiarly of

his guardian angel if all the angels were as bright and young as himself.

From the house of the priest he was sent to the monastery of St. Frinan at

Clonard, where he studied and labored like the rest, and, though a prince,

he ground the corn they ate. One of his companions, afterward a saint, was

angry at the influence which Columba naturally possessed over the rest; but

an angel appeared to him, and showed him the hatchet of his father, the

carpenter, bidding him remember that he had only left his tools, but that

Columba left a throne to enter the monastery. Clonard, says Montalembert,

was vast as the monastic cities of the Thebais, and 3000 Irish students

learnt there from the "Master of Saints." Among the crowds who came to

learn was an aged bard, who was a Christian. He asked St. Frinan to teach

him, in return for his verse, the art of cultivating the soil. Columba was

a poet, and studied with the bard. One day a young girl, pursued by a

robber, was murdered at their feet, and Columba foretold his death, and was

renowned through the island as a saint. He was ordained a priest in 546,

and became, when scarcely twenty-five, the founder of monasteries, of which

thirty-seven are reckoned in Ireland alone. The most ancient of these was

in the forest of Durrow, or the Field of Oaks, where a cross and well yet

bear the name of Columba. It stood in Clenmalire, now in King's county; and

the noble monastery, as Bede calls it, became the mother of many others; so

that Dermach as well as Hy became nurseries for the hundred monasteries

founded by Columba. It has been said that St. Patrick had kindled such a

flame of devotion that the saints were not satisfied with monastic life

without retiring to the solitude of the surrounding forests, and there,

under the canopy of the vast oaks, which had for ages possessed the

wilderness, they found a more silent and solemn cloister. Such had been the

monastery of St. Bridget at Kildare, and such was Durrow; and in the forest

of Calgachus, in his native country, Columba built Derry, in a deep bay on

the sea which separates Ireland from Scotland. There he dwelt, and he would

not permit one of the oaks to be felled unless it was injured by age or

storms, and then it was used as fuel for the stranger or the poor. Here he

wrote poems, of which, says Montalembert, only the echo has reached us. The

following verses might be written by his disciples, but they are in the

most ancient Irish dialect, and perhaps convey the thoughts, it not the

words, of Columba:

"Had I all countries where the Scottish tribes

Have made their dwelling, I would choose a cell

In my own beauteous Derry, which I love

For its unbroken peace and sanctity.

There, seated on each leaf of those old oaks,

I see a white-winged angel of the sky.

O forests dear! home and cell beloved!

O thou Eternal in the highest heaven!

From hands profane my monasteries shield,

My Derry and my Durrow, Rapho sweet,

Drumhorne in forests prolific. Swords, and Kells,

Where sea-birds scream and flutter o'er the sea,

Sweet Derry, when my boat rows near the shore,

All is repose and most delicious rest."

{665}

There are traces of the saint in these beloved foundations: among the ruins

of Swords are still seen the chapel of St. Columba, and a round tower and

holy well, but not the missal written by himself and given to the church.

We have the rule he wrote for the monasteries, but it is said to have been

borrowed from the oriental monasteries. He founded Kells in 550, and

dedicated it to the Blessed Virgin. St. Columba's devotion was not confined

to his own monasteries; he loved that founded not long before by St.

Eudacus in Arran, the Isle of Saints:

"Arran, thou art like sunshine, and my heart

Yearns on thee in thine Ocean of the West;

To hear thy bells would be a life of bliss;

And, if thy soil might be my last abode,

I should not envy those who sleep secure

Beside St. Peter and St. Paul. My light,

My sunny Arran! all my heart's desire

Lies in the Western Ocean and in thee!"

There are eleven Irish and three Latin poems said to be written by St.

Columba, and one of these is in praise of St. Bridget, who was living when

he was born. Columba was not only a poet himself, but the friend of the

bardic order, who held from Druidic times so high a rank in society, and

who frequented monasteries as well as palaces. Columba received even the

wandering bards of the highways into his monasteries, and especially in one

which he founded in Loch Key, which was afterward the Cistercian House of

Boyle. He employed them to write the annals of the monastery, and to sing

to the harp before the community. He loved books as well as poetry; and his

passion was transcribing manuscripts which he collected in his travels, and

he is said to have made with his own hand three hundred copies of the

gospels or psalter. One of these remains. It is a copy of St. Jerome's

translation of the four evangelists, and an inscription testifies that he

wrote it in twelve days. He was once refused by an aged hermit the sight of

his books, and the legend says that, in consequence of his anger, the books

became illegible at the hermit's death. The anger of Columba about another

manuscript led to more important consequences--his own conversion from a

literary monk to an ascetic missionary. While he visited his old master,

St. Frinan, he shut himself up by night in the church to make a secret copy

of the psalter. His light was seen, and the abbot claimed possession of the

copy. Columba appealed to his kinsman, the supreme monarch Dermot, who was

the friend of monks; for, when an exile, he had found a refuge in the

monastery of St. Kieran, the schoolfellow of Columba, which they both had

built in an islet of the Shannon, and which became Clonmacnoise. Dermot

decided that the copy belonged to the abbot. Columba was indignant. The

murder of a prince of Connaught, whom he had protected, increased his anger

against Dermot, and he foretold his ruin. His own life was in danger, he

fled toward Tirconnel, and the monks of Monasterboys told him that his path

was beset. He escaped alone, and passed through the mountains, singing as

he went his song of confidence; and, as tradition says, these verses will

protect all who repeat them on their journeys:

"I am alone upon the mountain, O my God!

King of the sun! direct my steps, and guard

My fearless head among a thousand spears;

Safer than on an islet in a lake

I walk with thee; my life is thine to give

Or to withhold, and none but thou canst add

Or take an hour from its appointed time.

What are the guards? they cannot guard from death.

I will forget my poor and peaceful cell,

And cast myself on the world's charity;

For he who gives will be repaid, and he

Who hoards will lose his treasure. God of life.

Woe be to him who sins! The unseen world

Will come when all he sees has passed away.

The Druids trust to oaks and songs of birds:

My trust is in the God who made me man,

And will not let me perish in the night.

Him only do I serve, the Son of God,

The Son of Mary--Holy Trinity,

The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, with him

Is my inheritance; my cell

Is with the monks of Kells and Holy Moen."

{666}

Columba reached his country, and stirred up his clan, the Hy Nialls of the

north, against Dermot, and the Hy Nialls of the south; and with the aid of

the king of Connaught, whose son had been slain, Dermot was defeated, and

fled to Tara. The victory was attributed to the prayers and fasts of

Columba, and the manuscript which had caused this civil war became a

national relic with the O'Donnells. It was a Latin psalter, and was

enclosed in a portable altar, and carried by a priest into all these

battles, and has been miraculously preserved to the present times.

But in the midst of his triumphs, Columba himself was conquered. He felt

the pangs of remorse, and suffered the reproaches of the religious. He was

summoned to a synod at Tailtan, and condemned, when absent, for having shed

Christian blood. But Columba had always shared the contests of his clan,

and, though a monk, was still a prince of the O'Donnells. He went to the

synod which had condemned him unheard, to dispute their decision. When

Columba entered, the abbot Brendan, founder of Berr, rose up and gave him

the kiss of peace. All wondered, but the abbot said: "If you had seen, as I

did, the fiery column and the angels who preceded him, you would have done

the same. Columba is destined by God to be the guide of a nation to

heaven." The excommunication was reversed, and the sentence of Columba was,

that he should convert as many heathens as he had caused Christians to die

in battle. Columba was safe, but not at rest; he went from desert to

desert, and from monastery to monastery, to seek some holy teacher of

penance. One hermit reproached him as the cause of war.

"It was Diarmid," he replied.

"You are a monk," said the hermit, "and should be patient."

"But," said Columba, "it is hard for an injured man to repress his just

anger."

He went to Abban, founder of many monasteries, one of which was called the

Cell of Tears. This meek soldier of Christ had often parted warriors in

battle and gone unarmed to meet a pagan brigand, whom he converted to be a

Christian and a monk. Columba asked him to pray for those whose death he

had caused, and Abban told him their souls were saved. He then sought St.

Molaisse, who was renowned for his study of the Holy Scriptures, and whose

monastery is yet traced in the isle of Inishmurray, on the coast of Sligo.

The stern solitary renewed the sentence of the synod, and added that of

exile for life from his too beloved country. Columba obeyed. He told his

warlike kinsmen, the Nialls of Tirconnell, that an angel had bidden him go

into exile, on account of those whom they had slain on his account. None of

them opposed the sentence, and twelve disciples determined to follow him.

One was Mochouna, prince of Ulster. Columba refused at first the voluntary

sacrifice, but yielded at last; and the devoted band left Ireland for ever.

It was in 563 that Columba left Ireland. Some say that he had offended King

Diarmid by the severity with which he reproved vice. This is not the reason

given by Adamnan, who succeeded him in his monastery of Hy, and left a

collection of records, written at the end of the seventh century, which

reveals the intention of the heroic apostle; and, as it contains facts

related by competent witnesses, this precious relic of antiquity is more

valuable than a well-arranged biography. It must have been from the

traditions of his monastery that he describes the saint, who was by nature

so warlike and impatient, as retaining a tender and passionate love for his

country, and a sympathy with all his national habits, while he quitted

Erin, in expiation of the crime to which that love had led him. Columba did

more than this; he sacrificed his poetic tastes and learned pursuits to

convert not only the half-Christian Dalirads, who had early left Erin for

Scotland, but more especially the heathen Picts of the North, the

descendants of the brave opponents of Agricola under Galgacus, who were not

of his own Milesian race.

{667}

St. Columbkill was forty-two when he left his country in a wicker coracle

covered with leather, in which he trusted himself with his twelve

disciples, confiding solely in God, to brave the tempests and the enormous

waves of the sea which parts the two countries, with only the light of

faith and the strength of prayers to guide them through the rocks and

whirlpools which beset the misty archipelago of isles lying below the

mountains and deep bays, or fiords, of Lochaber. Adamnan describes his

Irish tonsure, which showed an Eastern rather than a Roman teaching; the

top of his head shaven, and his hair hanging down his back; his majestic

countenance, whose pride was softened only by religion; his princely

features, whose severity was mingled with a cast of irony; and his voice,

whose tone commanded while it penetrated the heart, so that it is

considered to have been one of the most miraculous of his gifts. Thus he

braved the future, trusting in the simplicity of charity for safety in a

savage land and savage tribes, to whom he brought the knowledge of truth

and morals and the hope of heaven. His fiery temper, and the courage that

fitted him for a soldier, and the genius which marked him for a poet or an

orator, were devoted to the conversion of hostile chiefs; and the violence

of his own feelings enabled him better to influence the people, while it

was softened by the great sorrow of his life, the exile from his country.

With a heart yearning for Erin and its noble clans, he reached the desolate

island of Oronsay; and, ascending the highest part of the rock, he saw in

the south the distant mountains of Dalreida. He rejected the consolation,

and left the island for Iona. Then, finding that he could not from its

highest point see the country he had abandoned, he fixed there his place of

exile, and a heap of stones yet marks the spot where he discovered that the

sacrifice was complete, and it is still called the Farewell to Ireland.

The island of Hy is low though rocky, and not a tree nor bush can live

there; for not only do the winds sweep over it, but the very spray of the

Atlantic moistens it with salt showers. It lies amid the islets on the

coast of Morven, already celebrated by Ossian; Staffa and its basaltic

columns are on the north, and Mull with its lofty mountains on the south.

Barren islands lie on every side, separated by deep channels; and so narrow

are the bays which run up between the mountains of the mainland that the

water becomes a lake and the land a peninsula. Forests then clothed their

sides; and the clouds, which almost always hang on their summits, fall and

rise above the precipices and waterfalls of that lofty coast, peopled by

unrecorded emigrants from Erin, whence Ossian had gone to Tara, and Fingal

had made war and peace with the kindred tribes of Inisfail.

It was within sight of this repulsive field of labor, where his penance was

to convert souls, that Columba and his missionaries founded a monastery

destined to be the centre of religion and civilization to Europe. The first

building was of twisted boughs inlaced with ivy, and it was many years

before they cut down oaks in the forest of Morven to make the wooden

edifices in use till the twelfth century. Thus Columba prepared for the

future, but he had not forgotten the past. He felt the bitterness of exile,

and wrote verses, in which he prefers "death in Erin to exile in Albania;"

and then, in a plaintive but resigned tone, he sings:

"Alas! no more I float upon thy lakes

Or dance upon the billows of thy gulfs,

Sweet Erin; nor with Comgall at my side

Hear the strange music of the wild swan's cry!

Alas that crime has exiled me, and blood--

Blood shed in battle--stains my guilty hand!

My guilty foot may not with Cormac tread

The cloisters of my Durrow, which I love;

My guilty ears may never hear the wind

Sound in its oaks, nor hear the blackbird's song,

Nor cuckoo, and my eyes may never see

The land so loved but for its hated kings.

'Tis sweet to dance along the white-topped waves,

And watch them break in foam on Erin's strand;

And fast my bark would fly if once its prow

To Erin turned and to my native oaks;

But the great ocean may not bear my bark

Save to Albania, land of ravens dire.

My foot is on the deck, my bleeding heart

Aches as I think of Erin, and my eyes

Turn ever thither; but while life endures--

So runs my vow--these eyes will never see

The noble race of Erin; and the tear

Fills my dim eyes when looking o'er the sea

Where Erin lies--loved Erin, where the birds

Sing such sweet music, and the chant of clerks

Makes melody like theirs. O happy land!

Thy youths are gentle, thine old men are wise,

Thy princes noble, and thy daughters fair.

Young voyager, my sorrows with thee bear

To Comgall of 'eternal life,' and take

My blessing and my prayer, a sevenfold part,

To Erin; to Albania all the rest.

My heart is broken in my breast; if death

Should come, it is for too much love of Gaels."

{668}

Time never effaced this passionate regret, and, as the legend says, when he

was aged, he foretold that a wearied bird would be cast on Iona, and he

bade his monks feed it till it could return to Ireland. But these regrets

strengthened instead of dissipating his missionary ardor; and, while his

natural disposition was unchanged, he became the model of penitents and

ascetics and the most energetic of abbots. He received strangers and

converted sinners. He established a rule for his monks, and dwelt himself

like a hermit, lying on the bare ground upon a bed of planks. There he

prayed and fasted, and there he continued to transcribe the sacred text,

and to study the Holy Scriptures, so that three hundred copies of the

gospel were written by his hand. Crowds of pilgrims visited him there, and

many did penance; but one in particular received from him the same penance

he was performing himself, an exile to the isle of Tiree and a banishment

from the sight of Columba.

St. Columba was among his kindred in Lochaber. The Scots were a Dalradian

colony, allies of the O'Neills; and he was the kinsman of their king,

Connall, and from him he obtained a grant of the island of Iona, and he

labored among these halt-formed Christians. Then, as if he would break even

this last tie to Erin, he became the apostle of the Picts, by descent

Scythians, by habits savages and heathens. Unconquered by Romans or

Christians, they dwelt in glens, inaccessible except by water, and

deserved, like their ancestors, the description of Tacitus, as dwelling at

the extremity of the earth and of liberty; and to them he devoted the

remaining thirty-four years of his life. He crossed the mountains which

divide the Scots from the Picts, and reached the chain of lakes which

extends from sea to sea. He was the first to launch his fragile boat upon

Loch Ness, and he penetrated to the fortress of their king, Brude, which

occupied a rock north of Inverness. The king closed the doors of his

fortress; but Columba made the sign of the cross, the doors rolled back on

the bolts, and Columba entered as a victor. The king trembled in the midst

of his council, and rose to meet the missionary; he spoke to him with

respect, and became his friend, though it is not said that he became a

Christian. But the Druids were his enemies. They were not idolaters, but

worshipped the hidden powers of nature, the sun and stars, and believed the

waters and springs had the powers which were attributed by the Druids of

Gaul and Britain to oaks and forests. Columba drank their sacred water in

defiance, and they tried to hinder him when he went out of the castle to

sing vespers. He chanted the psalm "Eructavit cor meum;" and they were

silenced.

St. Columba preached and worked miracles among the Picts, and, though he

spoke by an interpreter, he made converts. One day on the banks of Loch

Ness he cried: "Let us make haste to meet the angels, who are come down

from heaven and await us beside the death-bed of a Pict, who has kept the

natural law, that we may baptize him before he dies." He was then aged

himself, but he outstripped his companions, and reached Glen Urquhart,

where the old man expected him, heard him, was baptized, and died in peace.

And once, preaching in Skye, he cried out, "You will see arrive an aged

chief, a Pict, who has kept faithfully the natural law; he will come here

to be baptized and to die;" and so it was.

{669}

He once healed a Druid by miracle; but he attempted to arouse the powers of

nature against the saint, and, as he foretold, a contrary wind opposed the

departure of Columba. But he bade the sailors spread the sail against the

wind, and sailed down the Loch Ness in safety. Nor did he end his labors

till he had planted churches and monasteries throughout these wild valleys

and islands.

In 574, Connall was succeeded by Aidan on the throne of the Scots, and he

desired to be consecrated by the abbot of Iona. Columba refused till he was

commanded by an angel to perform the sacred ceremony at Iona--the first

time it had been done in the West.

Montalembert observes that among the Celts the monastic was superior to the

episcopal office, and therefore the abbot consecrated the first of the

Scottish kings on a stone called the Stone of Destiny, which was ultimately

carried to Westminster Abbey by Edward I., and is now the pedestal of the

English throne. The Dalriads in Scotland were subject to the Irish kings,

and it was to free them from their tribute that Columba was sent to Erin,

which he thought never to see again. The new king went also, and they met

the monarch and chiefs at Drumheath. Aed or Hugue II. was now reigning, and

he it was who had given to his cousin Columba the site of Derry. Columba

and St. Colman obtained the independence of Scotland; and afterward St.

Columba attended another assembly, which was to decide the existence of the

Bardic order. There were three kinds of bards: the Fileas, who sung of

religion and war; the Brehons, who versified the laws; and the Sennachies,

who preserved the history and genealogy of the ancient races, and decided

on boundaries. These last frequented courts and even battle-fields, and

their influence was now so much feared that the monarch proposed to abolish

or to massacre the bards. They were, in truth, a Druidic order, but they

became Christians, though they were independent of all but their own laws.

Columba was a poet even to his old age, and he saved the bards from the

anger of the king by proposing to regulate and diminish, instead of

destroying, the order. His eloquence prevailed, and thenceforth the bards

and monks were united in spirit. Fergall, their blind chief, sung to

Columba his hymn of gratitude; and Baithan, one of his monks, admonished

his abbot for his self-complacence. This Baithan was declared by Fririan,

his brother monk, to be superior to any one on this side of the Alps for

the knowledge of the Scriptures and the sciences. "I do not compare him to

Columba," said he; "for he is like the patriarchs and prophets and

apostles; he is a sage of sages, a king among kings, a hermit, a monk, and

also a poor man among the poor."

Columba made afterward, several visits to his monasteries in Ireland,

working miracles as he went; as when he went from Durrow to Clonmacnoise,

and healed a dumb boy, who became St. Ernan. He was received there by the

religious, who walked in procession to meet him, chanting hymns. He had not

only a jurisdiction over all his monasteries, but a preternatural knowledge

of all that went on there; and he once interrupted his labors at Iona to

pray with his monks for the safety of some workmen at Durrow, and for

softening the heart of its abbot, who was too severe on his monks. Columba

was by nature impetuous and vindictive, and was still an O'Neill in party

spirit. Often in the monastery of Iona he would pray for victory to his

clan in battle, or he would pray for the men of his race or the kinsmen of

his mother; and once, when aged, he bade them sound the bell of the

monastery, (a little square bell, such as now hung round the necks of

cattle,) and sound it quickly. The religious hastened around him, and he

bade them pray for Aidan, his Dalraid kinsman, then in battle; and they

prayed till he said, "Aidan has conquered."

{670}

Adamnan tells us of his own sanctity. One day he retired alone to a distant

part of the island, and he was seen with his hands and eyes lifted up to

heaven, and surrounded by angels, and the place was named "The Mount of

Angels." As he grew older, he increased his austerity. He plunged himself

into frozen water; and, seeing a poor woman gathering bitter herbs to eat,

he forbade that any other food should be brought to him. He used to pray

alone in the little isle of Himba, and his hut was lighted up by night from

heaven, while he sang hymns in a tongue unknown to his hearers. Having been

there three days and three nights without food, he came out rejoicing that

he had discovered the mysterious sense of several passages of Scripture. He

returned to die at Iona, and was already surrounded by a halo of glory; so

that, when he prayed in the church at night, the brightness blinded the

beholders.

One day in his cell his attendants saw him in heavenly joy, and then in

deep sadness, and they asked the cause.

"It is thirty years," he said, "since I began my pilgrimage in Caledonia;

and I have long prayed that I might be released this year. I saw the angels

come for me, and I rejoiced; but they stood still down yonder on that rock,

as if they could not come near me; for the prayers of many churches have

prevailed, and I grieve that I must live four more years."

At the time appointed he was drawn on a car by oxen to take leave of the

monks who were working in the fields. Another day he blessed the granary of

the monastery, and foretold his death. This was on Saturday, and he said it

would be the Sabbath of his repose. As he returned he met the old horse

which carried the milk to the monastery, and the horse laid his head upon

the shoulder of his master, as if to take leave of him, and the saint

caressed and blessed him. Then, looking down from a hill on the monastery

and isle, he stretched out his hands to bless it, and prophesied its future

sanctity. Then he entered his cell, and was transcribing the thirty-third

psalm, where he came to the words, "Those who seek the Lord shall want no

good thing;" and he said, "Here I must end; Baithan will write the rest."

He went into the church for the vigil of Sunday, and, returning, he sat

down on his bed of stone, and sent a message to his monks, and exhorted

them to charity. After that he spoke no more.

Hardly had the midnight bell rung for matins when he ran first to the

church, and knelt before the altar. It was dark, and one monk followed him,

and placed his venerable head upon his knees. When the community came with

lights, they found their abbot dying. He received the last sacraments, and

opened his eyes, and raised his right hand in silence, to bless his monks.

His hand fell, and he expired. He lay calm, and with the gentle sweetness

of a man asleep in a heavenly vision. That very night two holy persons in

Ireland beheld Iona enveloped in light; and then miracles began to be done

while his body lay in the little church of Iona.

In the ninth century, when pirates ravaged the coasts, the body of the

saint was removed to Down, and laid between those of St. Patrick and St.

Bridget. The pirates were punished by sudden death. The Norman, Strongbow,

died of a wound after destroying the churches of Columba and the saints,

and De Lacy perished at Burrow while he built a castle against the

monastery.

------

{671}

From Chambers's Journal.

Charles V. at the Convent of Yuste.

Shade and sunshine play alternate on the convent's massy walls;

In the cloister's dim seclusion soft the stealthy footstep falls;

In the quiet garden-alleys underneath the citron's shade,

Pace the monks with open missals, downcast eyes, and silent tread.

Birds are singing, bees are humming, trees are whispering, while through all

Steals the silver tinkling, tinkling of the distant fountain fall.

Far away, the wild Sierras stretch their ridges dim and high,

Carving weird and warlike phantoms in the blue and dazzling sky;

Rising still in savage grandeur, till they reach the bounding main;

Mute protectors of their country, bulwarks of chivalrous Spain.

Who comes hither, slowly sauntering, pausing oft awhile to rest;

Arms across so calmly folded, head declining on his breast?

More than common spirit lurketh in the bright and clear blue eye;

More than common toil and travail in the brows' deep furrows lie.

Weight of years and weight of trouble somewhat bow the haughty form,

But the haughty heart within it still is beating quick and warm;

Iron heart that knew no bending, when the storm was fierce and loud,

Soared above the thunder's roaring, dared the lightning, braved the cloud.

Stalwart heart that still was foremost in the serried ranks of war;

Triumphed o'er the Gallic legions, foiled the Moslem's scimitar.

Hardy Germans; proud Burgundians; trusty Flemings, true as steel;

Mountaineers of wild Galicia, cavaliers of Old Castile;

Half the empire of the Old World; half the treasures of the New--

Mexico's gold-flowing rivers, silver mines of rich Peru;

Wheresoe'er the sun ariseth, throwing o'er the hills his beams;

Wheresoe'er his dying radiance lingers on the lakes and streams;

Far as human foot can wander, far as human eye can scan,

Bowed the nations, poured the treasures, marched the legions for one man.

Yet he standeth there serenely underneath the chestnut bough,

And the gentle air of summer playeth lightly on his brow.

Gone the sceptre of the monarch, gone the priceless pearl and gem;

Gone the purple robe of splendor, gone the regal diadem.

March of armies, fall of kingdoms fate of war he little heeds,

Kneeling on the chapel pavement with his missal and his beads,

Listening to the simple brethren, chanting loud their matin hymn,

Or the holy Ave Mary, wafted through the twilight dim.

He hath conned life's sternest lessons he hath learned them long and well,

And the deep experience knoweth which their silent teachings tell.

Not the wildest hold of empire can the mind's expansion fill;

Vain the grasp of worldly power, worldly riches vainer still.

High o'er all that earth can offer, heaven's allurements beckon on,

And the crown that never fadeth by the victor shall be won.

------

{672}

Translated from the French.

The Crucifix of Baden.

A Legend of the Middle Ages.

CHAPTER VI.

Eight days passed since Johann's departure before the young man again stood

at the sculptor's door. Alas! in that silent and gloomy house, the click of

the hammer striking the stone, the cutting of the chisel on the marble, the

cheerful voices of the pupils, and the pure voice of Mina, singing her love

lay in the morning or canticle at eve, were no longer heard. The great

window of the atelier was opaque and black, and no spark of light appeared

in the house save where the weak and pale light of a little lamp shone

through the window of the young girl's room, at the top of the house, and

seemingly shadowed by the angel's wings.

Johann sprang from his horse, tapped lightly at the door, and, throwing

aside his travelling cloak, hastened to question the old servant.

"Where is your young lady?"

"Above in her room. Her malady hath much increased since last we saw you."

"And Master Sebald?"

"Is at her side. She speaks and weeps in her delirium, and the master

desires that we should not approach her."

"But I may enter," said Johann. "Fear nothing, Martha, I will not disturb

her--you well know that, when I departed, it was to bear a message for

Demoiselle Mina."

Martha allowed the young traveller to pass, and he ascended the stairs

rapidly yet softly, and glided noiselessly into Mina's room, of which the

door stood half open.

Beneath the thick curtains of the bed, under a canopy of dark blue damask,

the white form of the sculptor's daughter was dimly outlined, indistinct

and floating like a shadow, and scarcely perceptible, save where the yellow

ray of the silver lamp lit up two sparkling, ardent, agitated flames from

beneath her dark lashes. How dry and desolate, and even fearful, were those

late sweet glances, now glittering with the fires of fever! Tears would

bring more gladness to her father's heart than that wild splendor. So

thought Johann as he softly entered and hid behind a large arm-chair in his

eagerness to escape those burning glances.

By the side of the bed Master Sebald sat gloomy and silent in a high-backed

ebony chair. His grief-worn countenance and gray head rested upon a hand

which seemed to Johann to have grown, even in the few days of his absence,

more yellow and thin. The other hand was stretched toward the bed, and held

clasped that of Mina. The old man watched every movement, every look, every

sigh of his daughter. A moan from time to time broke from her lips; then

she pushed back with her thin fingers the waves of golden hair which fell

over her pale forehead, and began to speak in short, gasping tones:

"Wilt thou pardon me, my father?" said she. "Once thou hadst confidence in

me and wert happy. Nothing was wanting to thee; neither the grace of God

nor the respect of man; neither success nor genius. Ah! my father, when I

reflect that thou mightest always have been so, hadst thou no daughter! Why

came I ever into this world, or why died I not in my cradle? Then thou

wouldst have mourned me, but with different tears with sweet and tender

tears--tears of hope and benediction; thou wouldst have placed me in my

little coffin, and, when afterward thou wouldst think of me, thou wouldst

cease to weep, saying: I am a happy father, whose family is in

heaven--there have my pious wife and angel babe flown.'"

{673}

Here sobs interrupted her voice. A heart-broken sigh from the father

replied.

The sick girl for a moment was silent, breathing painfully, and wiping away

with her hand the drops of sweat which stood upon her brow. Then with a

still more mournful voice, she continued:

"Instead of that I grew, I lived, and I loved in vain. Father! my tombstone

must bear the thorns of grief the black cross of penitence. It will be a

sad sight--my last dwelling. Mockery will sound around it; the passer-by

will point it out scornfully, but, if thy malediction floats not over it,

my father--if thou wilt there shed a tear on the green turf--"

"O my Mina! my only child, talk not of maledictions or tombs--I love thee.

I tremble for thee, I pardon thee--and thou wilt live and yet be happy. Who

can say that Otho has proved false? Who knows that old Hans is not

mistaken? Who knows that we may not see him once more, generous, true, and

loving thee, my Mina?"