"We will never see him more. He loves me no more, my father. If old Hans

were mistaken--if the lady of Horsheim were not to wed Otho, Johann would

long ere this have returned. Thinkest thou the good youth would delay to

bring me glad tidings? No--he is generous, devoted, and tender. Why could I

not love him? I have been very weak, alas! but father, rememberest thou not

how tall and gracious was the count! How handsome he seemed with his red

plume overhanging his black hair, and his fine form encased in his steel

cuirass! And his voice that went so straight to the heart! his simple

grace! his gentle nobleness! Who would not have loved such a gentleman? And

thou, my father, didst thou not first love him?'

"Yes, I loved him, Mina; and I would yet esteem him."

"Contemn him not, father; and, above all, seek not to be avenged on him!"

cried the girl, in a fit of sudden terror. "Should a proud cavalier like

him espouse a poor maiden like me--one who is not even a lady? Thou hast

genius and glory, my father; but thou hast no escutcheon. I should have

loved Johann; he had such respect for thee--such devotion for me; he would

have given thee a happy old age, and me a peaceful life; he loved me and

would have sacrificed himself for me--he, who could find heart to see me

happy in another's arms. Oh! when Johann returns, tell him that I was not

ungrateful, and that, if heaven is opened to me, I will there pray for

him."

Again her words were interrupted by a stifled sob; she turned, and her eyes

fell upon the great arm chair. She cried out, with fixed gaze and trembling

lips:

"Johann is here--and weeping! Why speaks he not?"

Then old Sebald turned and saw the young man.

"Come hither!" he cried. "Thou hast been at Horsheim; what hast thou seen?

See how pale--how burning--how pitifully sick she is. Speak, my son; say

that old Hans erred when he named the husband of the Countess Gertrude!"

Johann, erect and pale, for a moment did not reply; he made a few timid

steps toward the old sculptor, and whispered as softly as he could:

"O master! why ask me now? Why force me to tell my tidings in her

presence?"

And seeing a gesture of Mina's, he ceased. As low as he had spoken, she had

heard. She lifted her eyes, clasped her hands, and made an effort to speak.

"Thou seest, father, that I was right," she murmured. "Thanks, Johann; thou

hast proved thy courage and thy goodness, of heart, and I rejoice that I am

yet able to bid thee farewell. But one last question--answer, if thou

lovest me. When will Otho's marriage take place?"

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"In ten days," sobbed Johann.

"'Tis very soon," replied Mina, shuddering. "My heart will be scarcely

cold, and a single green bud will not have appeared over my grave. But may

the earth be green, and the sky blue, and life sweet to him."

Saying these words, she crossed her hands upon her breast, and, speaking no

more, remained thus for long hours, without even casting a look upon the

weeping Johann or upon her heart-broken father.

The physician soon came, and after him the priest. The first had marvellous

secrets to cure the body; the latter had pious consolation and words of

peace for the soul. But they sought in vain to cure the body or strengthen

the soul of Mina. Each day, each hour, each moment stole a spark of the

waning fire of life; her grief was too great for so frail a form to bear,

and one evening at the end of July, ten days after Johann's return, she

closed her eyes forever, holding her father's hand in hers and the crucifix

to her lips. Johann was at her feet and received her last look. She had

near her in dying the Supreme Consoler of heaven and her only two friends

on earth, and there was in her last moments a tenderness which the heart of

the youth never forgot.

Chapter VII.

Two days after, when the body of Mina had been deposited at sunset in the

cemetery at Baden, Sebald and Johann, the master and pupil, found

themselves alone in the atelier. Strange! It was Johann, the younger, that

seemed the most afflicted, most crushed. His eyes were swollen, his cheeks

pale, his step tottering, and his face covered with tears. Old Sebald

seemed much less changed; a few furrows the more on his brow, a few more

white hairs on his head, were the only visible tokens of his grief. His

step was as firm, his bearing as proud as before; but a strange, steady

glare, glowing and piercing, showing little trace of weariness or tears,

shone from his eyes, and it was this look that the master fixed upon his

pupil as they entered the atelier that made Johann shudder before its clear

and threatening light.

"Johann," said the master, "it is now my turn to ask thee a question.

Sawest thou Otho of Arneck when thou wert at the castle of the Countess

Gertrude?"

"Ay, master," replied the young man, with flushed face.

"Spokest thou with him?"

"Ay, truly."

"Didst say to him that I prayed his presence, or, at least, that he should

explain himself? That I was in deepest sorrow, and Mina sick unto death?"

"Yea, truly, my master."

"And what response made he?"

"That he, too, was grieved; but that his word was pledged, and that until

his marriage he might not leave the castle of the countess. The soft

remembrances of youth, he added, mar not, among wise men, the projects of a

riper age."

"'Tis well, Johann, and I thank thee," replied the sculptor. "I now know

what I wished to know, and resolution is taken."

Then he rose from his arm-chair threw a gloomy glance around the wall of

the studio.

"I return hither no more," murmured. "Here have I toiled thirty years with

upright heart and pure hands. Nothing that I have here completed has been

sullied or profaned. I feared and served God; I honored and I loved man. I

then had a right to give purity to my virgins, the light of faith to my

martyrs, the halo of love to my cherubims. But now all is lost--faith,

renown, and child. Holy images! I cannot touch ye with bruised heart and

violent hands; hating and cursing men, I may not mould the august form of

the God of love. Therefore, no more will I appear in this retreat; its

windows shall remain darkened, its door closed. I will carry with me only

my grief, my memories, and this," he cried, seizing a sculptor's chisel

with a short, polished, and keen blade, upon which he gazed with his

strange look, as he gripped it with feverish strength in his hand.

{675}

"Speak not so. O my master! clasp not that steel so tightly," cried Johann.

"That will bring thee little of consolation or hope. Look for solace for

thy sorrows to this," he said, holding an ivory crucifix before his

master's eyes. "It was pressed to Mina's dying lips; she hath bequeathed it

to us. Recallest thou not, my master, her smile as she gazed upon it? 'Twas

because beneath the shadow of the cross even death seems sweet. There is

the only refuge, and there will I find shelter. The world hath had but

little of joy for me, and I but little of love for the world. The prior of

the Augustines hath promised me a cell, and I will be happy, there to pass

my life, praying or working beneath the poor robe of a monk, and preserving

the memory and crucifix of Mina."

"It is well, my son," replied Koerner. "To each one his own succor and

light, his own strength and safety. If, thanks to the priest's purer cross,

thou findest calm and resignation, may I not seek the encouragement and

strength of my sculptor's chisel? Who may say, that, without these walls, I

am not destined to achieve some work that will immortalize my name and

console my heart? Then, why not leave to a father's grief the hope of

glory, of triumph, and--this little sculptor's tool?" demanded the old man,

with flushed face and sparkling eyes.

"I wish thee triumph and glory, my master. But yet, if thou canst do so,

remember, when thou art active, diligent, and famous, that thy old pupil

Johann, who would not be an artist and became a monk, will never cease to

bless thee and to think of thee in his prayers."

So saying, the youth, weeping, kissed old Sebald's hand and left the

dwelling, carrying with him the crucifix, his last and only treasure. When

he had departed, Sebald Koerner, too, left the studio, after casting a last

look on the bas-reliefs, the balcony, the mouldings, and the statues. He

double-locked the door and took away the key, and, issuing from his house,

he walked for a long time through the fields. Arriving at length at the

side of a deep pool near the foot of the hills, he bent over the tranquil

waters and dropped the key therein.

The water plashed and the waves hastened in increasing rings from the spot,

and then became even more clear and peaceful than before--stilling

themselves ere the key had touched the bottom. Sebald then again stood

erect, with his icy glance and strange smile, yet grasping the chisel in

his hand, and then concealing it in his bosom as if it were a dagger.

Chapter VIII.

One morning the Baron Otho of Arneck and the young Countess Gertrude, now

his dear lady and noble wife, were partaking in their house in Baden of

their morning collation of fruits, hydromel, and spiced cakes. How charming

seemed their repast, since they enjoyed it together. The cakes were

exquisite, the hydromel of the sweetest; the cups were of gold, the cloth

of fine brocade; Gertrude beautiful and loving. What was needed to complete

Otho's happiness?

When the young baroness had clapped her hands to order away the breakfast

service, the servant who entered approached the knight, bearing on a silver

plate a piece of parchment folded in the form of a letter.

"What have we here?" asked the noble lady. "Another invitation? Indeed,

Otho, they become wearisome. We are allowed no rest, although happiest

together."

"It is indeed an invitation, but not one for thee, my cherished one,"

replied Otho, when he had cast his eyes over the missive.

"In good sooth! And who is it who dares so soon to attempt to separate thee

from thy wife?"

{676}

"An unfortunate man, and as such thou must forgive him," replied Otho,

smiling.

"And what demands he?"

"Thou shalt hear, sweet one."

And the knight, unfolding the sheet of parchment, read these words aloud to

the baroness:

"An old friend--a once dear friend prays the Baron of Arneck to grant him a

moment's converse for the sake of their common affection and of his unhappy

lot. The Baron Otho is happy; that is a reason why he should seek to pay

his debt of gratitude to heaven by aiding the unfortunate. Let him, then,

not refuse this prayer which a friend's voice addresses to him.

"For many reasons, which the writer will explain by word of mouth, the

meeting should be in the burial-ground of Baden; for the old friend of the

Baron of Arneck can no longer have the honor of receiving him in his house,

hereafter forever closed and accursed. The Baron of Arneck is expected

tomorrow morning at six of the clock."

"How strange a letter! How strange a meeting-place!" cried Gertrude,

turning pale. "Canst imagine, Otho, who hath addressed it thee?"

"Some banished friend. Thou knowest, Gertrude, that at the accession of the

present margrave many nobles of Baden were exiled, and among them were some

old friends of my father, and without doubt it is one of them who hath

written this."

"But--but, Otho--why should he choose such a place of tryst? A place so

solemn, so fearful! where there are only the dead and their tombs?"

"'Tis the time and place that should reassure thee, my cherished one. One

harboring designs of evil would have appointed a forest, mayhap, or a

hostel; but never a burial-place, where no Christian man would do aught of

wrong, and, my sweet wife, nor my father nor I had ever friend among

infidels."

"Thou wilt go, then?" said Gertrude.

"Of a surety."

"Alone?"

"Even so, for, if it be a proscribed exile who seeks me, our varlets must

not know of his presence."

"But fearest thou no danger, Otho? When thou wert alone, thou mightest

laugh at prudence; but now, canst thou forget that I am here? that I love

and tremble for thee?"

"Fear not, my love. Even if this request should hide a snare--which I

credit not--remember that the guards of the cemetery would not give

entrance to a party of armed men, and that against one I have my skill to

defend me and this," said he, drawing from his belt a pointed and

keen-edged dagger. "But imagine not vain terrors, my Gertrude. He who hath

written me hath mayhap for long years tasted naught of tenderness or joy,

and our happiness should render us the more kind to the unfortunate."

The young wife felt proudly moved at these noble words of her husband, and

the happy pair began their preparations for the margrave's reception, and

spoke no more of the strange meeting of the morrow.

Otho, however, did not forget it; and scarcely had he perceived the first

rosy tints of day when he arose and donned his pourpoint and cloak.

Gertrude yet slept, and, after kissing his wife's forehead and tenderly

stroking her flaxen hair, he sallied gayly forth.

Half an hour later saw him in the burial ground; but, although he had

arrived before the hour appointed, saw that the unknown was already there.

A beautiful August morning spread its freshness and virginal splendor over

the earth; turtle-doves cooed in the tall yew trees; and sparrows, pursuing

each other among the lindens and lilac bushes, showered the dew drops which

glittered upon the leaves in a rain of diamonds over the green turf;

daisies lifted their little white heads and rosy crowns above the

grass-grown graves; and the grim tombstones, and even the black crosses,

seemed to cast aside their sombre look and to dress themselves almost gayly

in the growing sunlight.

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"If Gertrude were here, she would cease to tremble," murmured Otho,

advancing. "Who could fear in the midst of the melody yon tiny songsters

pour forth, or surrounded by this light, this perfumed air, and walking in

so verdant a sod?"

There was, however, a dark stain amid all this splendor. In an angle at the

foot of a lofty ash stood a man whose tall form and black attire were

sharply outlined in the surrounding brightness.

"Yonder is my unknown," thought Otho, and with a few rapid strides he

approached him.

The man stood motionless, his head bowed upon his breast, his eyes fixed

upon an oblong space upon which the grass had not yet begun to grow.

"Thou art doubtless he who hath called me hither," said Otho. "I am the

Baron of Arneck."

The stranger quickly raised his head and threw back the hood of his mantle,

exhibiting to the young knight's gaze thin locks of snow-white hair, and a

face on which sorrow had traced more furrows than age.

"Master Koerner!" cried Otho, joyfully stretching forth his hand. "But why

so much mystery and solemnity? You needed but to call me to your side,

dearest master, if grief or calamity threatened, and, whatever might have

conspired to keep me back, I had obeyed the summons; and, indeed, I have

heard that you were afflicted, but I hope that the Demoiselle Mina hath

fully recovered from her illness."

"She is healed, indeed," replied old Sebald again, lowering his eyes to the

bare spot of earth.

"If I have not before presented myself at your house," continued Otho, who

felt it necessary to offer some explanation, but who could not without

blushing attempt it, "it was because I felt it well to silence by my

absence the slanders of envious tongues, and, believe me, my master, that

such a resolution cost me dear. For you, excellent master, I hold deep

respect and warm friendship, and I honor and admire your daughter, who to

me is a model of beauty, of wisdom, and of modesty. Her praises are ever

upon my lips, and sweet memories of her in my heart."

"'Tis well--very well," murmured the old sculptor; "but be careful, Sir

Knight, you are treading upon her grave!"

And with trembling hand and flashing eyes, he pushed Otho, who unwittingly

had trod upon the turfless space, back, back, far from the grave.

"Can this be true?" cried the knight, turning pale. "Mina dead! sleeping

here! She so young, so beautiful, so tenderly loved! And you called me not,

master, to accompany her to the tomb to weep with you!"

"You are very generous, Sir Knight; but what I would demand of you is not

your tears."

"Need you, then, friends or aid? You know, Master Koerner, that since I

have known you I have been but too glad to place my influence, my relations

at your service, and I would now gladly offer you the benefit of my

fortune. Speak quickly, I pray you. Command of me what you need or desire."

"I will first relate to you a tale of truth, and then demand vengeance of

you," replied the old man, in calm tones but with glittering eyes. "Sir

Knight, you presented yourself at my dwelling with the fervor of an artist

and the submission of a pupil. You sought, you said, a nobler and holier

goal than success at court or the triumphs of war; you wished with ardent

heart and zealous hand to produce the sacred images of our Saviour, his

virgin Mother, and the saints. And I believed you, Sir Knight; for to me

art was more glorious, more fruitful, more divine than aught else on earth,

because in art I found my mission, my recompense, my safety, and my life.

But you deceived me; you, who pride yourself on your name of gentleman;

and, while feigning to study my art, you were killing my daughter.

{678}

Reply not; deny not my words," continued Sebald, fixing a lurid gaze upon

Otho, whose words died on his lips. "She loved you, and for your sake died.

But before condemning you, justice commands me to hear you. You yourself

have just said Mina was wise, beautiful, and pure; that you lauded her

virtues to the world: why, then, did you not wed her?"

"Because--because--" stammered Otho, blushing--"because, Master Sebald,

your daughter was not noble. You well know, my dear master, that the

customs of the nobility are sacred. Many a one of us is forced to silence

the voice of his heart, lest, as they say, a stain should be cast on his

escutcheon. Why was Mina a burgess's daughter and not a countess? But you

yourself understand, my old master, that I, whose ancestors were counted

among the companions of Charlemagne--that I could not take for my wife the

daughter of a sculptor, without title, without crest or quarterings."

Otho pronounced these words in a low voice, with drooping head and downcast

eyes. He dared not meet the glance of the sculptor, who remained a moment

silent, and then spoke:

"Otho of Arneck, you have crushed the father and slain the child. As you

say, the sculptor has neither title nor quarterings, but he has an arm for

vengeance!"

And springing furiously forward, more rapid than thought in his movement,

the old man, his eyes gleaming, but his hand grasping firmly the glittering

chisel, flung himself upon the baron, and before the latter could draw the

dagger from his girdle, the steel disappeared in the folds of his velvet

doublet and buried itself in his breast. The hand that aimed it was firm,

the blow was sure; the chisel as of old failed not to perform its master's

will; and Otho of Arneck fell upon the bare space of ground--fell, never

more to rise, upon the very spot where Mina lay cold and dead.

"Thou dost well--thou art avenged," gasped the fallen man, fixing his

glazing eyes upon Sebald. "In thy place I had done likewise--but--in

honorable combat--for I--I am a knight and noble. But I truly loved Mina."

His head dropped back, his limbs relaxed, and he was silent. The clear red

blood of youth and health flowed from the wound and stained the bare earth.

Sebald, with his arms folded upon his breast, gazed upon his work.

"Let his blood flow on," he murmured at length; "let it moisten her coffin,

as it should. And now I shall deliver myself to justice. My vengeance as a

father and my mission as a sculptor are fulfilled."

He turned away and walked with rapid steps from the cemetery, leaving his

weapon still fixed in the baron's body.

Chapter IX.

A few weeks after the occurrences detailed in the last chapter, on a dull,

gray day of the autumn of 1435, a crowd of the burgesses of Baden assembled

in the great hall of justice to listen to the judgment to be pronounced

against Master Koerner, the sculptor. "Who," said they, "would have

imagined a few months since that a man so peaceful and just to all, an

artist so skilful, so fervent a Christian, would be dragged to that seat of

infamy?" They would as soon have expected to hear the judges condemn them

themselves to death and to see themselves led by the grand-provost to the

gibbet. Master Sebald a criminal! Master Sebald an assassin! Alas for poor

humanity, if that were all sixty years of virtue could bring forth!

Nevertheless, there he was, the artist criminal--the white-haired murderer

standing erect before the magistrates in their robes of ermine and

carnation, before the ivory image of Christ crucified, with its black

velvet background, which hung above their seats.

{679}

There he stood while near him on a table lay the mute witnesses against

him: the velvet pourpoint, stiff with blood; the fine linen tunic, now

reddish brown in its hue; the murderous chisel, with its once gleaming

blade dark and rusty and covered with a crust of clotted blood.

Several witnesses were called: the servant who received from Master Sebald

the treacherous letter, which he delivered to Count Otho; the keeper of the

burial-ground, who testified to having seen the accused enter the field the

dead on the morning of the twenty-second of August. But tears flowed

fastest when the Countess Gertrude, the youthful widow of the baron, gave

her deposition. While relating her mournful story, the noble lady swooned

several times, and her beauty, her placid face, and long, closed lashes,

and raving flaxen hair, unfastened and rolling in masses over her black

robe, moved the auditory that more than once the life of the assassin

seemed in instant danger.

But the depositions of witnesses were almost useless. The most striking

evidence of his crime was the chisel lying there, still covered with the

victim's blood. And when the president, after declaring to Master Sebald

the crime of which he stood accused, asked, pointing to the blood-stained

weapon, "Dost thou recognize thy chisel?" the old sculptor replied:

"Yes: it is mine."

"And thou seest that with it was the life of the Baron of Arneck taken.

Canst thou say by whose hand he came to his death?"

"Yes--by mine," replied Master Sebald unhesitatingly.

"So thou hast already declared in delivering thyself up to the hands of

justice," said the president. "But that declaration, made in a moment of

trouble and grief, was insufficient. It needed a public avowal to confirm

it. But one question more: Thou hadst doubtless motives for the commission

of so barbarous an act?"

"Assuredly," replied the sculptor. "No man kills wantonly one who was for

three years his pupil and his friend."

"What cause, then, impelled thee?"

The prisoner remained silent for a moment, bowed his head still lower,

clasped his hands tight together, and bit his lips till the blood trickled

from them; then he replied:

"No; my motives were too holy. I will not tell them."

"Reflect, accused," said the president. "It is because thy motives were

grave that they should be revealed. Reflect; and say why such a crime

sullies thy once pure hands."

"No," repeated Sebald, "I am ready to die, but the history of my crime dies

with me."

Then a young man dressed in the habit of an Augustine novice, who had

obtained the favor of remaining by the side of the accused, rose, and in a

timid voice addressed the judges:

"Although, my lords, I know not fully Master Sebald's motives, I may,

perhaps, suspect them. There are moments in the lives of the wisest and of

the most just when the heart may harden and the judgment err under the goad

of some great grief. Remember, my lords, that Master Koerner has lost his

only child, and you, who knew the daughter, can conceive the grief of the

father."

"Johann! be silent!" cried old Sebald, rising, trembling and furious. "Let

the dead sleep in their graves. Their agony is past, and mine needs no

increase. I make no avowals--I desire no defence. The crime was mine--the

vengeance was mine, and I seek but to die with my secret!"

The old man fell back exhausted by this burst of indignation, and the young

friar, covering his face with his hands, sank upon his knees before his

master upon the stone floor, while the president glanced around upon his

colleagues, as if to read their judgment in their faces.

"Before such a resolution," said he, "further questions were useless."

Then he called upon the prisoner to stand erect and listen to his sentence,

which the clerk proceeded to read.

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"Master Sebald Koerner, sculptor and burgess of the good city of Baden,

having been convicted of having, on the morning of August twenty-second

last past, treacherously wounded and killed the noble Otho Rayner, Baron of

Arneck, and esquire to his highness the margrave, is condemned to die by

the halter."

"Accused, hast aught to say?" asked the president when the reading of the

doom was ended.

"Nothing," replied Master Sebald, bowing with folded arms before the

judges.

The president covered his head with his black furred robe, and continued:

"Master! the justice of man hath pronounced thy doom, and will soon be

satisfied. With a common criminal our office would here end, and but a few

words of exhortation to repentance would accompany him to the executioner.

But, criminal as thou art, we cannot forget that for sixty years thou wast

our neighbor and our friend, and that those hands now red with murder have

carved many a pure and holy image to strengthen and lift our souls toward

God.

"How canst thou, whose works have so long glorified our Lord, now refuse to

repent? Hast thou not read a thousand times the command, 'Thou shalt not

kill'? Hast never reflected upon our Saviour's agony--his wounded hands,

his lance-pierced side, his crown of thorns, the blows his face received,

his shames, his griefs, avenged only by the words, 'Father, forgive them,

for they know not what they do'? Thou hast thought upon all this; thou hast

even modelled with thy hands the bloody scenes of thy Redeemer's life; and

yet thou couldst not learn to forgive--thou, who wast but a man!"

Here the president was for a moment silent, overcome by his emotion, and

the old sculptor, as if shaken in his fierce resolve and gloomy pride by

the words of his judge, slowly lifted his head and cast a troubled look

around. "In the bitterness of thy heart," continued the president, "in the

madness of thy wrath, all this thou didst forget; and yet to recall it all

to mind, thou neededst but to lift thine eyes. Gaze not on us, Master

Sebald; bear thy glances higher, and see above us the pallid face, the

wounded form, the holy eyes of him who loved more than thou, who suffered

more than thou, and who only avenged himself upon his torturers by saving

them from death, albeit at the price of his own blameless life. Harken to

me, betrayed friend! that Man-God had, too, a friend, and was betrayed by

the kiss of that friend; listen, unhappy father! that Father was sold,

scourged, crucified by his children. And if this God, reviled, dishonored,

avenged not himself, was it not to set man an example of forgiveness? Thou

hast not yet expiated thy crime, Master Koerner, and the hand of the

executioner will soon deliver thee to a higher Judge. Christ will await

thee at the gibbet, just and inflexible. Gaze on him ere thy death, poor

sinner, with faith and love, for thy Judge is also thy Saviour."

So speaking, the president uncovered his head and pointed solemnly to the

ivory crucifix. The eyes of Master Koerner followed the uplifted hand and

rested on the agonized face of Christ. Then their fixed and stony glare

grew soft; their dry and burning lustre grew moist; his lips quivered; he

clasped his hands, and, after some moments of fierce struggling with

himself, the old artist murmured in a trembling voice:

"Christ! God of the wretched--God of fathers alas! since Mina's death never

have I turned mine eye to thee!"

His head fell once more upon his breast and his voice was choked in a sob,

while Johann at his side lifted his hands toward heaven in an ecstasy of

joy and gratitude.

There was a murmur and a motion in the crowd; then all was silence again as

the voice of the president arose once more:

{681}

"A ray of grace from on high hath illumined thee; let us pray that it may

conduct thee through the gates of death to eternal light, I have a few

words more to address thee. The court, while punishing as it should the

crime of the murderer, forgets not the merits of the artist. It therefore

accords thee, to lessen the bitterness of thy last moments, the favor thou

mayst most desire. Reflect, Master Sebald, ere thou fixest thy choice. Any

grace thou mayst demand shall be accorded, any save life."

A murmur of astonishment and joy ran through the crowd, which was hushed

only to hear the old sculptor's reply. Master Sebald remained long silent,

but at length rose and spoke:

"I would not ask life were I free to do so," he answered. "My life hath

already been too long, and she whom I love awaits me beyond the grave. But

you have spoken of expiation, my lord, and it seems to me that even here

below my death would not afford a complete one. My life, ended at the

gibbet, may satisfy the justice of man; but what shall I do to appease the

anger of my God? Dare I appear before him with no penitential act to plead

for my pardon; no work of reparation wherein sweat and tears I might have

washed my blood-stained hands? Repentance came while I gazed upon yon

crucifix; in carving another, pardon might perhaps descend upon me from

heaven. If the court will for a few weeks prolong my life, as I now see

Christ's image before me, so will I produce it in the stone!" cried he with

enthusiasm. "I ask not to quit my prison to live in the midst of men. No!

let me be immured in a dungeon, let my door be sealed until I leave it to

go to my death. Let but a ray of sunlight enter, that I may see to model

the august countenance of my God, while I remain there with the thoughts of

eternity and the remembrance of my crime for my only companions."

"Master Koerner," replied the judge, "thy request is that of a good

Christian and a noble artist, and the court accords it with joy, in the

hope that the work of thy last days may bring thee pardon and salvation.

Thou wilt be led back to thy dungeon, and, before its door closes upon

thee, all thou mayst require for thy work will be brought thee."

The judges arose and retired. Johann, radiant with joy, and his grief

almost consoled, accompanied his old master to the prison, and then sought

the stone, the clay--all that the sculptor could need. Even the fatal

chisel, cleansed of its stains, was brought to him bright and shining, like

the soul of the criminal which, stained by sin, would soon be cleansed by

grief and labor.

Then the old sculptor passed his hand over his seamed brow and hollow

cheeks and called for a mirror. The door was then built up with stone and

mortar, and only an opening large enough for his food to be passed through

was left, and Master Sebald stood alone in the cell which he was only to

leave to pass to the gibbet.

Chapter X.

Solitude was the cradle of creation; solitude is the never-ceasing fountain

wherein exhausted souls are refreshed. Not without an object did the

prophets begin their mission in the desert. Who would leave after him an

immortal name must retire from the haunts of men, and in solitude examine

his soul ere he speaks to mankind from the rostrum, or with the pen, the

chisel, or the pencil. When the busy hum of the world has faded away into

silence, when he hears no voice but that of his heart within, and nature

without, and God above, he will then feel the flame which brings

immortality. The voice he hears will be that of truth; the hand which

stretches toward him that of justice; and all the strength of the one and

the charms of the other will glow in his work.

Master Sebald's dungeon was the most real, the most complete of solitudes.

Thick walls of gray granite, upon which shone green and slimy traces of the

dampness that filled the air, formed a circle around him without an angle,

a recess, an irregularity on which the weary eye might rest.

{682}

A plank and a truss of straw were his bed; a block of stone was his only

seat; there was no door, for such was old Sebald's wish. Light alone--sweet

light--was not denied the captive, but flowed abundant and golden through a

large opening in the vaulted roof. But by day only was the boon granted,

and then it bore with it no sight of that world where men dwelt, no view of

the sunlit waters, the green fields, or the feathered children of the air.

Nothing of these could he enjoy; nothing but that flood of day flowing from

the open heaven upon the criminal's brow, like the gaze of Eternal Love,

ever open to hearts that yearn for it; and nevertheless, when Master Sebald

thus found himself immured in a living tomb, when nothing of earth remained

to him save stone walls, his modelling clay, and his chisel, then

inspiration of a greater power than it had ever before felt filled his

soul, and in that inspiration and in his work he would have found joyful

companions; he would have been happy, were it not that two dark and

vengeful guests found lodgment in his breast, sorrow and remorse.

His remorse was for his crime, his sorrow for his child. They wore deeper

the furrows in his brow; they made his hair whiter, his step more feeble

and uncertain; they sunk his eyes deeper in their sockets. They tortured

him in his weary watchings; they gave form to his dreams and broke and

almost banished slumber; they stood before him when he worked or

prayed--his former hate and his former love; his victim and his child. The

golden hair of his Mina glittered in wild waves before his eyes; he saw the

manly face of Otho pale and contracted with agony, while the gushing blood

poured from his wound; he closed his eyes, but still their forms stood

before him, both beckoning to the threshold of that world where eternity

begins.

The old master commenced his work, ever surrounded by these sad companions.

Ever hearing the last murmurs of Otho, the last sighs of Mina, he carved

the holy cross and the summit of Calvary; then the shameful scroll; then

the sacred form. Ever haunted by his visions of the dead, he knew better to

give to the divine Crucified the writhing of living agony joined to the

beginning rigidity of death; he remembered the last quivering of human

strength and the mysterious folds of the winding-sheet. It was only when he

came to carve the face of Christ that imagination and memory ceased to

furnish him a model. Mina's passionate grief and pious resignation; the

mingled humiliation, repentance, grief, and rage of the murdered Otho could

give naught to be reproduced in the countenance of a God. He must seek his

model elsewhere; and Master Sebald had not asked for his mirror in vain.

Standing erect before his work, he began to chisel the face of Christ; and

for the first time since his prison walls closed upon him he gazed upon his

own reflection. The long gaze upon his white head and his grief-worn

features satisfied him.

His own face was a book, a book of sorrows speaking most eloquently,

wherein all bitterness, all failings, all regrets, and all terrors, the

dreams of the artist, the humiliation of the master, the friend betrayed,

the sufferings, of the father, the anguish of the condemned, had inscribed

their memories and left their foot-prints. The agony of Master Sebald was

already long, and had been cruel and stormy. Ah! the remembrances of Otho's

treachery were as the wounds in the hands and feet; the brand of dishonor

upon his brow was as the crown of thorns; and the last wound, the stab of

the lance, was the loss of Mina. So, that after long contemplating his own

features, the old sculptor knelt humbly before the work he had begun.

"Pardon, O Christ!" he said, "if I, a weak mortal, an unworthy and sinful

man, dare, in carving thy sacred lineaments, trace mine. But I design not,

O Lord! to show thee happy and full of peace, or radiant and glorious.

{683}

I promised to present thee suffering, suffering even the death of the

cross; I suffer that of the gibbet. A friend betrayed thee; a friend

betrayed me. Thou wast loaded with insult and ignominy; I too had good

cause to blush before my judges. Thou weepest over the sins of men, thy

children; I over my child's grave. And as, O Lord! thou wert man as well as

God, I may not offend thee in copying the anguish, the griefs, the

sufferings that have left their print upon my brow. All these thou knowest,

O Lord! but remorse thou couldst not know. That will I keep to myself, and

in its stead I will place radiance, hope, and splendor of divinity. Ay,

hope! for even on the cross didst thou hope and call upon thy Father!"

Here the old sculptor ceased, and bent before his work, while the shadows

of despair darkened his brow. Then he cast a troubled look upon the statue,

a look in which anguish mingled with prayer, confidence with terror.

"And can I hope?" he murmured. "Mina is in heaven. Shall I again see her?"

But no voice replied, and, sighing, he stood again erect. Then after a few

moments of silent meditation he seized his chisel, and, making the sign of

the cross, recommenced his work, and the stone seemed to breathe, to

quiver, to palpitate as, one by one, the suffering lines came forth. Truly

in Master Sebald's mirror were grief and unpitying and unending pain.

And he worked in spite of the gnawings of hunger, the want of sleep, the

cold of the winter. He had ever within him strength and fire--the strength

of expiation, the fire of penitence. But as he worked, his form became more

stooped, and his eye less sure; his blood flowed feebler through his veins,

and his breath grew more quick and gasping. But he needed but mind and

hand, and his mind was clear, and his hand carved bravely still. And what

cared he for the failing of an exhausted body? If, day by day, his face

grew thinner, his eyes cavernous, his lips tighter, was not his model for

all that the more real? Was it not a dying Christ he was carving?

At last his work was done. When the last blow of the chisel had been given,

when the stone had received the final touch, when Christ hung there

wounded, quivering, breathing, sublime, Master Sebald knelt before his work

and bowed his forehead to the earth. The sculptor demanded his pay; the

criminal his pardon. He prayed fervently and long; and when he rose, he

knew that his child called, and that the hour of his deliverance was nigh,

and, walking to the narrow opening which formed his only means of

communication with men, he called aloud to his jailer:

"My Christ is finished! My task is done! Unseal the door and lead me to the

executioner."

But it was not the executioner that came, but the judge; and he, the first

to enter the dungeon, when he lifted his eyes, fell upon his knees with

clasped hands; for what he saw seemed no image of stone, but a living

Christ, suffering and dying before him. Struck with astonishment and

admiration, he called his colleagues and sent for monseigneur the bishop,

and his highness the margrave, that all might see the Christ of the

condemned. The dungeon of Master Sebald was too narrow for the multitude of

visitors who crowded before the holy image; they talked of carrying it to

one of the courts of the city, or to the Grand Place, that all the faithful

might mourn and be edified by so sacred a spectacle. But Master Sebald

opposed this project and asked a further boon:

"Ah!" cried he, "if you think this work of my hands merits aught but favor,

consecrate it to a holy remembrance; place it in the cemetery where my

daughter reposes. Christ should be upon her tomb, to speak to her of hope,

and on the tomb of him--of--_him_ too, to speak to him of

forgiveness."

{684}

We may add that the sculptor's request was quickly granted, for in those

happy days there were sheriffs who believed, and judges of tender hearts.

They were very backward, and very far behind our enlightened age in those

days, although gunpowder had just been invented. Besides, the councillors

of the margrave held sacred things in respect, and did not regard

cemeteries as mere charnel-houses.

They carried, then, with great pomp, Master Sebald's statue to the

cemetery; and, for the first time since his imprisonment began, the old man

saw the crowd of men, the green leaves, the tomb of his daughter, and the

white clouds of heaven.

He saw the blessing of the cross; he saw Mina's tomb consecrated; and then,

taking his chisel, he graved upon the pedestal, as a last farewell, the

inscription which, as we have seen, yet remains, and asked the time

appointed for his execution. But murmurs arose in the crowd which soon

swelled to violent clamors. Could so repentant a man, so old and true an

artist, be given over to the gibbet! The people surrounded the magistrates;

the magistrates turned to the councillors; the councillors turned to the

margrave; and after a short deliberation the president of the tribunal

declared to Master Koerner that, in consideration of his genius, of his

piety, and of his repentance, he should still live; pardon was granted him.

"Is life a boon?" murmured the old artist, sadly bowing his head. "But I

await the mercy of God. He is more generous than man."

He had not long to wait, for two days after, in the gray, early morning,

they found him cold and dead upon his daughter's grave, his head resting

upon the base of the crucifix. His hopes were realized; God opened his

prison-doors.

......

Such is the legend of the sculptor and his work--a legend which offers a

simple and characteristic picture of the ages of confiding faith, when the

Christian placed his hopes, the injured his vengeance, the criminal his

repentance, and the artist his genius, at the foot of the cross.

------

Original.

The Indissolubility Of Christian Marriage.

Number Two.

It is evident that Jesus Christ intended to legislate and did legislate in

regard to marriage. The commandment which he gave, requiring the marriage

contract to be respected as inviolable and indissoluble, is a law, has the

force of a law, and is obligatory, not only upon ecclesiastical, but also

upon civil legislators and judges. There is no power upon earth, either in

the church or in the state, which has power to abrogate or change it. We do

not pretend that this law was promulgated to the Jewish people, or to pagan

nations, directly and immediately. Our Lord legislated immediately only for

those who should become the subjects of his kingdom by baptism. For all

others, he legislated only mediately, by promulgating to all mankind the

precept to embrace his faith and be baptized into his church, and thus to

bring themselves under the entire code of Christian law. The unbaptized are

subject to the natural law only in regard to marriage, as in everything

else; and their marriage is not a sacrament, but a merely natural contract.

{685}

What we maintain is, that the law regarding _Christian_ marriage has

been established by the sovereign authority of Jesus Christ for all the

baptized, and that this law respects the very essence of marriage as a

contract, invalidating all pretended marriages which are not in accordance

with it. All ecclesiastical legislators are, therefore, bound to legislate

in conformity with this law. They must treat all marriages sanctioned and

ratified by the law of Christ as valid and binding, and all others as null

and void. All Christians must act in the same manner. And in Christian

states, as all law-givers and judges are bound to act according to their

conscience, and in conformity with the divine law, and as the revealed law

of Jesus Christ respecting marriages is the supreme rule of the Christian

conscience, having the force of a divine law, they are bound to make it the

rule of all their enactments and judgments.

Some Protestant writers deny that our Lord intended to legislate respecting

matrimony, and affirm that he merely laid down a rule of morality. This is,

however, an unmeaning statement. He could not give a moral precept

respecting matrimony without legislating. The essential morality of the

question is determined by the law determining the conditions, motives, and

obligations of the contract. Morality consists in conformity to this law,

immorality in violating it. Our Lord could not, therefore, command anything

as required by morality, or forbid anything as immoral, in relation to the

essentials of marriage, without reenacting an already existing law, or

promulgating a new law, defining the conditions by which a marriage is

rendered a valid or an invalid contract.

The very circumstances and terms of his utterance on the subject show that

he did legislate. Moses legislated on the subject, and permitted to men

divorce in certain cases, with the privilege of remarriage to both parties.

Our Lord expressly revokes this permission, so far as his own disciples are

concerned, and declares that, according to the Christian law, whoever

divorces his wife and marries another, or whoever marries a divorced party,

must be held guilty of adultery. This is an act of legislation, for it is a

law declaring null and void for the future certain marriages which, under

the Mosaic law, were valid. Now, there is no civil law which can make a

contract declared invalid by the divine law valid, binding, or lawful, or

which can invalidate a contract made valid by the divine law. It is true

that our Lord did not enact any civil law, properly so called, with civil

penalties annexed to it, for the Jewish people, or for any Gentile nation.

But he prescribed the standard according to which all legislators in

Christian states are bound to make their civil laws.

The question now comes up, How are we to ascertain what the law of Jesus

Christ is, and what is the law itself? We have discussed the last question

in part, in our former number, in which we endeavored to show that the

texts of Scripture in which we are informed concerning the precept given by

Christ concerning marriage, properly understood, sustain the Catholic

doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage. We have now to show how the

Catholic doctrine and the law of the Catholic Church are established with

an infallible certainty, and with a force absolutely obligatory on the

conscience.

It is evident enough that the notion of legislators and judges attempting

to discuss and decide upon the true meaning of texts of Scripture is

absurd. Such a proceeding would never lead to any uniformity of legislation

if attempted, and it would never be attempted in any community where

principles of sound jurisprudence prevailed. Who, then, are to decide upon

the meaning of these texts, if the ultimate appeal is to them? The

Protestant clergy? They cannot agree among themselves.

{686}

Even in the earliest and best days of Puritanism in New England, when a

comparatively strict doctrine and legislation respecting marriage

prevailed, there was a serious difference among the clergy respecting the

lawful grounds of divorce. Moreover, the Protestant clergy do not claim the

right of interpreting the Scripture. The laity have an equal right, and

each individual has it for himself. Rationalists claim also the right of

making reason the criterion of the truth of the doctrine of Scripture and

the teachings of Jesus Christ. It is therefore plain that it is a futile

proceeding to attempt to make the text of Scripture a standard of

legislation or public sentiment in regard to marriage. The result which has

actually been produced is an inevitable result, namely, that the prevalent

opinion and sentiment in the community, based on their common sense, will

regulate legislation in regard to marriage and divorce. This common sense

is not an enlightened and elevated common sense, proceeding from sound,

rational, and moral principles. It is a low, irrational sense, derived from

passion, self-interest, expediency, and a perverted reason, which tends

continually to degenerate more and more, and whose logical consequences may

be seen developing themselves every day under our own eyes.

The law established by Jesus Christ is not and cannot be based upon the

texts of the sacred historians who inform us of the fact that he did

promulgate such a law. These texts are not the law, and the enacting force

does not proceed from them. They may be cited in proof of the fact that the

law was made, and in proof of what the law was. The law itself was verbally

proclaimed by our Lord, and its force dates from and depends upon that

verbal enactment. The historical account given by the evangelists added

nothing to it, and the comments of the apostles upon it are mere allusions

to it, or exhortations to keep it, which presuppose its existence. It was a

part of the unwritten law of the church handed down by tradition, whose

legitimate expositors were the apostles and their successors. Our Lord must

have instructed the apostles fully on the subject, and they must have

transmitted full and explicit instructions on the same subject to the

bishops and clergy to whom the government of the church was committed. As

occasion required, the unwritten Christian common law was embodied in

canons by episcopal councils, and thus became statute law. The true method

of fixing decisively the real scope and contents of the divine legislation

of our Lord is, therefore, to investigate the legislation of the church

from the earliest times.

The doctrine defined by the Council of Trent upon which the modern

canonical law of the Catholic Church is based, is too well known to need

any statement. It is evident that this definition was no innovation, but

merely a solemn declaration of the doctrine universally received in the

Catholic Church, levelled against the innovations of Protestants. The mere

fact that the indissolubility of marriage has been recognised in the

Catholic Church and enforced under the severest penalties, and that it has

been also recognised and protected by the civil law of Europe, until

Protestantism brought in a disastrous change, is sufficient to prove that

the church received her law from Jesus Christ or the apostles. So severe a

law, one so inconvenient to individuals, one so contrary to the established

legislation of both Jews and Gentiles, could never have been established

and enforced by any other than a divine authority, and in the origin of the

Christian community. If a milder law had ever prevailed in the church, an

attempt to establish a stricter one would have met a violent opposition.

History would record the struggle, the pages of the fathers would bear

witness to the difference of opinion and the mutual discussion of the

question by the opposing parties. Councils would have been called to decide

it, and, if any change had been generally enforced in favor of a stricter

law, either it would have been based on reasons supposed to justify or

require the abrogation of an indulgence formerly granted, or, if not, the

previous existence of this indulgence would have been denounced as a

corruption, and these who maintained it would have been condemned.

{687}

The quiet, undisturbed continuity of the tradition and practice of the

church from the earliest ages proves that no serious and widespread

difference of doctrine ever arose, but that the modern Catholic doctrine of

the indissolubility of marriage held undisputed sway from the beginning.

The opponents of this doctrine cannot pretend to establish any clear

tradition in their own favor. They can only endeavor to obscure the

evidence of the tradition sanctioning the Catholic doctrine.

Notwithstanding their efforts, the chain of evidence from St. Augustine

back to Origen, Justin Martyr, and Hermas, including all the canons which

still remain, and which were enacted by ecclesiastical councils, is

unbroken and conclusive, as may be seen by consulting those Catholic

authors who have written scientific treatises on the subject. The whole

discussion is, however, of little practical value, except as showing the

necessity of the infallibility of the church in defining doctrine and her

supreme authority in judging moral questions, and as corroborating the

proof that she possesses this infallible and supreme authority. The real

question at issue is, whether marriage is a sacrament confided to the

guardianship of the church, and regulated by a law of which the church is

the supreme judge, or whether it is a natural contract under the control of

the civil law. The Protestant world has taken the latter side of the

alternative. Consequently, the case of marriage comes to this issue; what

civil laws respecting marriage and divorce are best calculated to promote

happiness, morality, social and civil prosperity and well-being?

Legislatures and courts must decide the question, while churches,

clergymen, moralists, writers, etc., can exercise no other influence than

that of argument and persuasion. These arguments must be drawn from reason

and the natural law. They must bear upon the point that the strength and

perpetuity of the marriage bond is useful and necessary for the

preservation of society. The doctrine of Scripture and the authority of

religion can only be brought in to increase the motives and sanctions of

the natural law.

It is useless to hope that the doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage

will ever be adopted either in theory or practice as the result of

reasoning on the principles of either the natural law or the moral code of

Christianity, by those who reject the infallibility of the Catholic Church.

It is also useless to hope that the Protestant clergy and jurists will ever

agree together as to the proper ground of divorce, and the proper

safeguards of marriage, much less that they will agree in adopting the

opinions of the most rigorous school among them, as sustained by their able

and learned advocate, President Woolsey, in The New-Englander. The only

thing in the power of the Protestant clergy and their lay coadjutors is, to

diminish and retard the destructive tendency of the false principle they

have admitted into theology and legislation by their denial of the Catholic

doctrine regarding marriage. In this direction they may do something, and

it is to be desired that they should exert themselves to the utmost to do

all they can. The clergy may exert a certain moral and religious influence

by acting according to some fixed principles and laws in regard to

performing the marriage ceremony and admitting or excluding persons from

communion. Also by preaching and writing on the obligations of marriage,

the blessings which flow from unions which are hallowed by perfect and

lifelong fidelity to conjugal and parental duties, and the evils which are

the consequence of infidelity and frequent separations. Jurists and

statesmen may reform the administration of law in the courts so as to

decrease the facility of obtaining divorce, and secure to all parties a

thorough protection of all the rights guaranteed to them by the civil law.

{688}

Physicians and others may do good by pointing out the physical and social

evils which flow from the violation of those laws on which the

multiplication and healthy development of the race depend. So far as

individuals are induced to marry in accordance with the dictates of pure

affection and enlightened prudence, to observe the moral laws of the

married state, and to remain faithful to each other until death, and so far

as divorces and re-marriages are rendered less numerous, so far good will

be done, and the well-being of society promoted. We desire most heartily

that the utmost possible success may attend these well-meant efforts.

Nevertheless, we cannot flatter our Protestant friends with any expression

of our own conviction that this success will be anything more than placing

a breakwater in the way of the current that is sweeping away the Christian

institution of marriage. The principles and institutions which make society

Christian, the traditions which connect it with the past and give it

Christian and moral vitality, have been received and retained from the

Catholic Church. As these are gradually abandoned and lost, society

possesses no power to recover and restore them. Christian societies outside

the church, and states composed of persons who are nominally Christian but

out of Catholic communion, bear within them the principle of dissolution,

without possessing any sufficient principle of recuperation. The Catholic

Church alone possesses a divine law given by revelation which she is

competent to explain and authorised to enforce, and which is a principle of

perpetual life, capable of resisting every tendency to disease and death,

and of renewing every decayed national constitution, restoring every

degenerate people, and continually repeating the work wrought in the first

formation of Christendom. Protestantism is a tubercular deposit in the

centre of the bosom of society. Its necessary result is spiritual, moral,

intellectual, and finally, physical death. As in the case of a person

smitten with tuberculosis, there may be for a long time many portions of

the lungs unaffected, much health and strength in the organs and limbs of

the body, and an increase of cerebral excitement and activity, although the

principle of death which will finally stop all vital activity is slowly and

surely gaining upon the principle of life; so with those portions of

Christendom which are smitten with heresy. There is much health and vigor

remaining as the effect of the original state of sound, integral, Catholic

life. Many individuals remain essentially sound in their belief and upright

in their practice. There is even a flush on the surface of society, a

hectic brilliancy in the eye of intellect, a fevered activity of thought

and action, which is mistaken for genuine, healthful vigor and vitality.

The boastful, shallow organs of public sentiment, whose real doctrines are

infidel, but who are forced to wear a little smear of popular religion on

their face, pretend, with an assurance equally sickening and ridiculous, to

read lectures and give advice to the Vicar of Christ and the bishops of the

Catholic Church on great moral and social questions. Their changes are rung

with monotonous and unmeaning repetition upon railroads, telegraphs, steam,

newspapers, heavy guns, and progress. The Catholic Church is denounced as

the great obstacle in the way of modern society, because she adheres to the

steadfast, unchanging affirmation of eternal principles of truth, law, and

justice. Her complete spoliation is urged as the great means of hastening

the march of society toward its goal. It is vain to expect an argument

which has any solidity, or even the pretence of an answer which is grave

and serious, to the reasonings and expostulations of those who point out

the deadly symptoms which are concealed beneath this hectic activity and

betrayed by this boastful demeanor. An ill-bred sneer, an unmeaning

platitude, or a frivolous display of rhetoric is all that can be expected.

{689}

Nevertheless, those who are able to think, and who have some real

solicitude for progress in truth, in sound morality, in Christian virtue,

in solid well-being and happiness, on the part of society and their

fellow-men, will not be able to shut their eyes to the evident symptoms

which prove that a deadly disease, already far advanced, is feeding on the

vitals of the social organism. These symptoms have been pointed out by

Protestant clergymen and medical writers, and we refer to their startling

statements as evidence of the virulence and extent of the moral ulcer which

is eating up the vitals of society and destroying the original, American

population of the country. It is not the matter of a few divorces granted

to married persons whose rights are judicially proved to have been violated

in a flagrant manner, which is of such great importance. While the ancient

laws of the states were rigidly enforced, and the number of divorces

granted was small, the community received no grievous injury. The great

evil which is so alarming, and is working such deplorable effects, consists

in the great number of divorces granted, the facility with which they are

obtained, and the flippant, shameless disregard of all judicial decorum by

the courts of law. Behind all this is another evil, the violation of the

morality of the conjugal state. The authors of Protestantism have opened

the door to all these disorders by their denial of the indissolubility and

sacramental character of matrimony, and their concession of the right to

judge and decide upon the whole subject of the marriage contract to the

civil power. The door which they have opened they cannot close. There is no

protection for the sacredness of marriage at all adequate to the

necessities of the case, except in a doctrine, a law, and a system of

practical morality, promulgated and enforced by a church which has power

over the conscience, and is acknowledged as possessing an authority

delegated by Jesus Christ. The utter weakness and helplessness of

Protestantism, and the absolute necessity of a return to the Catholic

Church in order to save society and civilization, has been manifested in

England and the United States in a more startling and sudden manner than

could have been anticipated twenty years ago by the most sagacious prophet

of the future. We wait with interest and anxiety to see what will be done

by those who believe that the secession of the sixteenth century was really

a reformation, and that the salvation of the human race is to be looked for

from the principles of Luther and Calvin. At present, these principles

appear to be tending to the abrogation of the institution of marriage in

the Christian sense of the word, and the introduction of a species of

polygamy worse than that of Mormonism.

------

{690}

Original.

Mea Culpa.

By Richard Storrs Willis.

I.

All through my fault, my own most grievous fault!

This the chagrin and inward smart of sin.

Nor others' blame can my poor cause exalt--

Naught but myself t' accuse, without, within!

And thus to my God heavy-hearted I cry,

_Mea culpa, meet maxima culpa!_

And thus to the mother of Jesus I sigh,

_Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!_

II.

O God! the past, the wicked past forgive!

The spectre-sins that haunt my soul dispel.

Deeper than mirth, alas! they frowning live;

Beneath my smiles, in memory's caves they dwell!

And thus to Saint Michael, archangel, I plead,

_Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa:_

And thus to Saint John with regret I concede,

_Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!_

III.

_Ponder my love_--a Saviour's voice would fall,

When tempted sore, in youth's delirious hour.

_Ponder my love_--O kind and gracious call!

And yet from life I plucked each poison-flower!

And thus to Saint Peter and Paul I exclaim,

_Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa:_

And thus to all saints and you, brothers, proclaim,

_Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!_

IV.

Ah! well, dear Lord, here in my guilt I bow.

What else to do, where else to go, than home?

Joyless, distrest, a contrite suppliant now,

Heartsick of sin, homesick for thee, I come!

Ye saints and you, brothers, to Christ for me pray

_Peccavi, mea maxima culpa!_

Alas! my dear Jesus, 'tis all I can say,

_Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!_

------

{691}

From The Dublin University Magazine.

Solutions of Some Parisian Problems.

Cabs And Their Patron.

The admirers of French novels have made acquaintance with some of the

French representatives of our own carboys and carmen in the French

metropolis. They are aware that their cabs or cabriolets are called

_Fiacres_, and they are naturally desirous to know why they should be

called by a name which by a little aspiration sounds unmistakably Irish.

This trifling question has set some archaeological antiquaries by the ears.

The following appears to be the genuine solution: Sanval, author of

"Recherches sur les Antiquités de Paris," (end of seventeenth century.)

said that, about forty years previous, a certain Nicholas Sauvage, agent to

the proprietor of the Amiens coaches, and owner of a large house in the Rue

Saint Martin, the front of which was adorned with the _enseigne_ of

Saint Fiacre, kept from forty to fifty horses in his stables, and also cabs

for the convenience of the public at rather a dear figure. His

establishment became so noted that all coaches for hire came to be called

Fiacres.

Menage, in his "Origines de la Langue Françoise," 1684, gave a like

account, but described the effigies of St. Fiacre as adorning the front of

a house in Rue Saint Antoine.

Both writers appear to have been in error. A satiric Mazarinade dating

1652, and bearing for title the "Royal Supper of Pontoise," etc., has the

following lines descriptive of the embarrassment of the worshipful

supper-eaters when they wished to return home at a late hour to Paris:

"C'était pour avoir des Carrosses,

Ou l'on attelle Chevaux rosses,

Dont les cuirs tout rappetassés,

Vilains, crasseux, et mal passés,

Représentoient le simulacre,

De l'ancienne Voiture à Fiacre

Qui fut le premier du métier,

Qui louoit carosse au Quartier

De Monsieur de Saint Thomas à Louvre."

[Footnote 241]

[Footnote 241:

It (the embarrassment) was to provide cabs

To which they yoke poor hack horses,

Whose leathers all shrunken,

Ugly, greasy, and badly dressed,

Represent the ghost

Of the old cab belonging to Fiacre,

Who was the first of the trade,

That hired out carriages at the Quarter

Of Monsieur St. Thomas of the Louvre.]

Fiacre may have prospered in his business, and unprincipled rivals have

carried out his idea, and adopted the effigies of the saint after whom the

poor cabman was called. Thus Sanval may have seen the pictured saint

presiding over the useful articles (originally let out at three sous the

drive) in Rue Saint Martin, and Menage may have seen a rival, Rue Saint

Antoine. It is more likely that the plagiarists appropriated for their

vehicles the name of the saint than that of the humble individual, the

inventor of the system.

Saint Fiachra was of that noble band of Irish missionaries who spread

themselves over the Continent soon after the island was converted. St.

Virgil became patron of Saltzburg, St. Killian of Franconia, St. Gall of

Switzerland, St. Columbanus of the Vosges and of Bobbio in Italy. St.

Fiachra was gladly welcomed by the bishop of Meaux in the seventh century,

and devoted his services to the care of an hospital. The cabriolet drivers

and (if we remember aright) the market gardeners of Paris honor him as

their patron.

Mysteries Of The Rue D'Arbre ?ec. [Illegible]

No visitor will fail to visit the church of St. Germain d'Auxerrois, the

parish church, as it may be called, of the inmates of the Tuileries, and

within a few stones' throw of that luxurious but not very comfortable

residence.

{692}

The possession of the most finely furnished apartments will not give much

pleasure to the dweller who is uncertain whether he may not be ejected from

them to-morrow. The triple portal of the church dates from the middle of

the thirteenth century, and the low steeple from a much earlier period.

Owing to the late demolitions, the exterior of the church can now be

examined with more convenience and pleasure than of yore, and many a

saunterer will be surprised to see, arranged along the frieze of a lateral

chapel projecting into the Rue d'Arbre Sec, various portions of a carp,

separated from one another by roses, (architectural, to wit,) here a head,

there a body, and then (a rose intervening) a tail. As far as the

information got from passers-by extends, he must remain in ignorance of the

cause of the strange ornamentation, but he may learn it here at

second-hand, our authority being the archaeologist M. Didron. An individual

inhabitant of the adjoining street (perhaps a fish-monger) had got

permission to add this chapel to the old edifice; and to connect his name

(_Tronçon_, a piece cut away) with the building, he devised this

ingenious plan.

Another pious and equally ingenious dweller in the same street, who dealt

in poultry, did so well in business that she built a new house at the

corner, and in front erected a pious monument. Her name being Anne, she got

a sculptor to execute a group for her, namely, St. Anne, mother of the

Blessed Virgin, teaching her daughter to read. Having thus secured her name

from oblivion, she got her occupation transmitted to after-times by having

various fowl sculptured in bas-relief on the plinth. Alas! how are casual

visitors to know, when admiring the group, that it was executed at the

expense of Anne the poulterer of the street of the withered tree; and who

is aware of the circumstance from which the street itself got its name in

old times?

In days when pilgrimages were in fashion, a certain house of entertainment

in that street was much in favor with the really devout, as well as the

wanderers who had returned in life from the Holy Land. These had brought

home intelligence of a wonderful tree which had annually produced leaves

and fruit in the vicinity of Hebron, from the days of Adam to that on which

our Lord was crucified. [Footnote 242] On that day it withered, and,

according to the assertion of the pilgrims, would remain sapless till the

Holy City would be in the possession of a Christian power. Such a legend

was calculated to make a deep impression on the customers of the auberge,

for which an open-air artist was soon called on to execute the effigies of

the famous dry tree for a sign. Afterward the inn communicated its name to

the street.

[Footnote 242: Near Hebron is an oak of great dimensions and of great

age; but the acorn from which it sprung was not planted for ages after

Abraham's time.]

Slang Banished From The Stage.

Some objectionable things, which, when they assume troublesome proportions,

are extinguished by public opinion amongst ourselves, are stifled by the

strong hand of power in France. In 1859, a warning was given to those

theatres in Paris which were suspected of a leaning to _Argot_,

(slang,) that they should for the future accept no piece in which it

prevailed. So the poor gamins, who enjoy a play from the _Paradis_ of

the theatre, could no more relish the phraseology of their peculiar world

and their peculiar philosophy. The higher powers argued thus: "Argot is the

ordinary communication between formats of all descriptions, whether they

plot against the peace and well-being of society, or bewail their

misfortunes at the bagne; _ergo_, it is not a fit and proper dialect

to be spoken before gentlemen and ladies, honest citizens and their wives

and children; _ergo_, it must not be spoken." So the poor gamin of

vicious propensities must be content in his hours of relaxation to learn

the language of that half of the world to which he does not belong.

{693}

Yet many of his pet words are not of a low or disreputable origin. Such is

the word _Binette_, nowhere heard now except among the folk who live

by their wits, and yet presenting a noble and sublime image in the days of

the Grand Monarque, in fact, no less an object than his flowing and

majestic peruke. Binette of the Rue des Petits Champs (street of the little

fields) was his majesty's hair-dresser, and a great man would feel his

dignity outraged if a hint was given that his wig was not

_confectioned_ by the great Binette. Now from Caesar to the wisp that

stops a bung-hole, the descent is not greater than between the Binette (the

wig, not the man) of the seventeenth and that of the nineteenth century.

In thieves' Latin _ardent_ represents a candle. The thief has

accurately preserved the vocabulary of the Hotel Rambouillet, the Holland

House of the seventeenth century. One of the _Precieuses_ of that

temple of literary elegance, when directing the lackey to snuff the candle,

would thus express herself: "_Inutile, ostez le superflu de cet

ardent!_" [Footnote 243]

[Footnote 243: This anecdote reminds us of a tradition not forgotten

among the gyps of T.C.D. A very learned fellow, dismounting from his

steed some time during the dark ages, said to a little boy, "Juvenile,

circumambulate the quadruped round the quadrangle, and I shall

recompense thee with a pecuniary remuneration."]

The gamin is not great on the subject of verbal roots: he uses the words,

but does not trouble himself about the quarter from whence they come. He is

not aware that his own name is the _galopin_ (tavern-boy) of the

middle ages. When he says that such or such article of dress, or food, or

what you will, is _chouette_, (nice,) he is merely retaining the

_souef_ (doux) of the old French poetry. His friend is his

_copin_, the _compaign_ (comrade) of old times; the boy he

despises is a _capon_, the name applied to the Jews in the days of

Philip the Fair. His _rigolo_ comes to him from the verb

_rigoler_, (to amuse one's self,) so often used in _Maistre

Pathelin_, our Village Lawyer, a farce of the fifteenth century. An

umbrella is a _rifflard_ with him, though he is little aware that it

gets that name from _Mons. Rifflard_, the "Paul Pry" of the _Petite

Ville_ of Picard.

Edouard Fournier, in his Enigmes des Rues de Paris, relates this

characteristic anecdote on the subject of slang. It is the antithesis of

O'Connell's victory over the fish-woman.

"A lady of the Halles (Fish Market) had one day a war of words with a

_meraicher_, (market gardener,) and, ye gods! such words as they

were! She told off one by one her relentless rosary of abuse. A

grave-looking man stood still, and attentively listened to the explosion

of the wonderful vocabulary.

"'Not bad, not bad,' said he from time to time. At last came the famous

phrase, 'You're no better than a melon,' and it served for finale to the

torrent of invectives--for the bouquet to the fire-work of coarse words.

"'Very well, indeed!' cried the grave man. 'And why very well?' said I.

'Because,' said he, 'this woman has just rendered homage to the

literature which I profess.' 'How?' 'She has nearly spoken Greek. Yes,

indeed, monsieur, the language of Homer. She has just honored this

bumpkin with the epithet [Footnote 244] which Thersites, in the second

book of the Iliad, line 235, applied to the Grecian kings in council.'"

[Footnote 244: The word used by Thersites is [Greek text], plural of

[Greek text], soft or ripe, as applied to fruit, and figuratively to

inactive or effeminate persons.]

An Unhealthy Suburb.

With any one's experience of the worst parts of the existing cities of

Europe, it would be hard for him to realize the condition of the Quartier

Montmartre in former days. The terrible description in Victor Hugo's

romance gives only one small phase of it. All the results of extreme

poverty, vice, negligence, and thorough laziness united to make a scene of

squalor and wretchedness without parallel. There was no thought of removing

nuisances, and at this day a section of some heaps of the old strata

presents as curious a variety of substances as were ever discovered by the

great Abbeville explorer himself. Some future professor, descended from Mr.

Chaillu's gorilla, finding various evidences of human workmanship so far

below the ordinary platform of the human family in A.D. 2500. will set them

down as a deposit of the year 10,000 A.C.

{694}

Many a police-raid was effected on the inhabitants of the Cour des

Miracles, of the Rue Temps-Perdu, of that of the _Vide Gousset_,

(pickpocket,) of the Bout-du-Monde, of the Ville-Neuve; many hundreds

seized and sent to the Salpetrière (house of correction) or to La Nouvelle

France, (Canada,) and yet the wretched little dens in the filthy,

ill-smelling lanes would not fail to get new tenants. "Unfeeling nobles,

bad government!" say we. At last in the days of Louis XIII. it was

announced that any artisan choosing to settle in the quarter might exercise

his trade without let or hindrance, or paying duty or incurring expenses

incidental to the carrying on of trades in other portions of the city.

Makers of articles of household furniture chiefly availed themselves of the

privilege; a better class of inhabitants took possession, and the

atmosphere improved.

This (northern) quarter of the city has been, from the earliest times,

incommoded by the number of streams arising among the northern and eastern

hills adjoining the city, (Paris lying in a natural bowl-like cavity,) and

endeavoring to find their way under houses and streets to the Seine. Many

efforts have been made from time to time, to provide courses for these

troublesome rivulets in channels arched over or open to the day; yet so

late as 1855 some houses in the Faubourg Montmartre were filled to the

ground floor by subterranean inundations; the inhabitants wondering what

could bring water into their kitchens and cellars, and they so much above

the level of the Seine. At the present time, under the strong volition of

the emperor, an effective attempt is being made at the formation of a large

subterranean river and its feeders.

Begging A Thriving Business.

Many visitors to the existing exhibition, while exploring and admiring the

Place de Carrousel and its surroundings, will scarcely dream of the space

between the Tuileries, the Louvre, and the Palais Royal having been once

occupied by an hospital for three hundred poor blind men. This at present

magnificent quarter was a poor place in the days of St. Louis, and there

were the straggling habitations built. Dust-heaps and filth of many kinds

distinguished the locality, and in this uninviting spot the three hundred

blind endured life from the days of good Saint Louis.

At its first institution, the hospital was a mere night refuge--a retreat

where the blind men were sure of a house over their heads and a sort of bed

to sleep on after their _criailleries_ all day through the streets.

The old charities were seldom complete in themselves. The pious founders

did a certain portion of the good work, leaving to the public an

opportunity of completing it. Philip the Fair added a dress stamped with

the fleur de lys, and the poor blind man thus equipped was on a level with

_Edie Ochiltree_, and so privileged, he "_tote jor ne finit de

braire,_" (the whole day he ceased not his braying,) as an old writer

coarsely expressed himself.

There was a parallel to this institution in higher quarters, even in

literary regions. In the College of Navarre, placed under the highest

patronage, the pupils went in the morning through the streets, stretching

out the hand, and crying, "Bread, bread for the poor scholars of Madame de

Navarre!"

The three hundred were well looked after, all things considered. They had a

poor-box in every church of France. They were privileged not only to beg at

the doors, but even to exercise their quest in the church itself. A

difficulty arose from the circumstance of some churches affording to the

"King's Bedesmen" a better harvest than others. All or most would naturally

crowd to fleece the richest and most charitable congregations, and dire

confusion would ensue.

{695}

But there were heads equal to the emergency. Once a year an auction

was held; a good church was set up, bedesmen bid for its possession; it was

knocked down to the best small batch of bidders, and the money they gave

then, or as they made it, put into a common fund. The least well off or

least speculative got the worst stands, but they received their share of

the money arising from the auction.

This exceptional state of things continued till within the second half of

last century, when the office of grand almoner became invested in the

Cardinal de Rohan. The wretched habitations of the three hundred, their

poor church left to ruin, the dust-heaps and pools of evil odor with which

they were surrounded, so badly harmonized with the neighborhood of the

Palais Royal, the Tuileries, and the Louvre, between which they lay, that

it entered the speculative mind of the cardinal that it would be a

profitable business to remove the poor inmates to a more cleanly and

comfortable domicile, and sell the large plot of land on which the

straggling settlement reposed. A solvent company was found, the land

disposed of for six millions of livres, and the Hotel of the Black

Musketeers, Rue de Charenton, was purchased for the blind men at somewhat

less than half a million. This took place in 1779, and since then the

churches and the streets have been relieved from the annoyance of the

_state_ beggars. They still occupy the Hotel Rue de Charenton, and the

curious traveller now passing down the magnificent Rue Rivoli, with palaces

on either hand, can scarcely persuade himself that the space round him was,

less than a century since, a dedalus of dirty lanes and ill-kept, squalid

dwellings.

The Morgue And Its Derivation.

"Whoe'er was at Paris must needs know the Grève" was said and sung three

half-centuries ago. Whoever was or was not at Paris must have heard of the

Morgue, where the bodies of unknown persons who have met with sudden deaths

were exposed for some days, to be recognised by their friends. Perhaps he

is not aware of the cause of applying to the temporary abode of the quiet

dead a name implying such a different idea. The dismal little building is

now not to be found in its old locality, Quai du Marché Neuf, south side of

the Cité.

In the great as well as the little Chatelet (prison) of past days there was

a room called the little prison, where new-comers were brought "to sit for

their portraits," that is, undergo a rigorous inspection as to their

features by the lower officials of the place. Readers of Pickwick's

incarceration will not require an elaborate description of the process.

Now, such a sharp and supercilious scrutiny of the countenance is expressed

by the word _Morgue_. The humorist, D'Assoucy, has left a description

of the inspection he underwent on such an occasion, and the terror into

which he was thrown by a long sharp knife, wielded by a short, broad, and

fat officer, but which was only designed to cut away the ribbons that

secured his breeches, and the band of his hat, and thus remove all

available instruments of self destruction in the Grand Chatelet.

When this apartment changed its destination, and became a place of exposure

for the dead, it continued to retain its name; and, on the destruction of

the building, the title went to the sinister-looking edifice built for the

same purpose. While the Chatelet remained, the sisters of the hospital

convent of St. Catherine, corner of the streets of St. Denis and of the

Lombards, bestowed the rites of sepulture on the poor remains not

recognized. The other specialty of the good sisters was the relief of poor

women in destitute circumstances.

{696}

The easily led populace of Paris were long under the impression that a

visit to the Morgue, and the consequent withdrawal of a corpse, would cost

the friends a hundred and one crowns. So the bereaved families were seldom

in a hurry with their visit. In vain did the lieutenant of police in 1736

endeavor to undeceive them.

In 1767, a gentleman, taking the packet boat from Fontainebleau to Paris,

quitted the conveyance rather hurriedly, leaving a case behind him. After

some little delay it was opened, and much terrified were the assistants at

finding what appeared the body of a young man who had been strangled. A

commissary of police was called on, accompanied by a surgeon. A

procès-verbal was drawn up by them, and the body sent to the Morgue to be

identified. Soon after, the negligent or guilty passenger arrived in a

hurry at the office of the boat, and asked for the forgotten parcel. His

request was followed by his seizure and presentation before the worthy

magistrate, who had so laudably done his duty. On being charged with the

murder, he burst into a fit of laughter, and covered the poor official with

confusion by announcing that the corpse of the strangled man was a mummy

which he was just after bringing from Egypt, and had forgotten to carry

away with the rest of his luggage. In order to get his property out of the

dead-house, he was obliged to make application to the lieutenant of police,

and this circumstance soon scattered the news far and near. A few nights

after, all Paris was breaking its sides in the theatre laughing at an

uproarious farce by Saconnet, displaying in the richest colors the wisdom

and skill of the police commissary and the surgeon. Repeated instances were

made by these gentlemen to the minister, M. de Sartines, to restrain the

representation. On the last time he observed: "Toleration is a virtue which

I love to practise to the utmost limits allowable." The piece had a run of

forty nights.

A King And Minister Well Matched.

Among the many puzzles met in history and biography is the retaining of his

place by Louvois, prime minister to Louis XIV. Every student of history is

aware of the great self-esteem which dwelt within the monarch; and it would

be natural to suppose that, in order to retain his favor, officer or

minister should diligently cultivate obsequiousness, and have no will or

opinion but that of his master. It was not so, however, with this minister;

and it is a historic fact that the king resolved on a great public

undertaking on account of a difference he had with his minister in their

guesses at the breadth of the window at which they were standing. Louis

said it was such a breadth, Louvois guessed it was an inch or two more or

less, and insisted on the exactness of his eye-calculation so persistently

that the king called for a ruler to decide the matter, and resolved on a

transaction which he knew would be distasteful to his opinionative

contradictor.

In Louis' reign, and under the superintendence of Louvois, was raised the

noble pile of the Invalides--a building which will be, or ought to be, at

least, visited by every one who takes interest in the well being of men who

have suffered in the defence or for the glory of their country. Mansard,

the architect, who has given his name to French attics (_Mansardes?_)

was much incommoded by the impatience of the minister, whose self

appreciation would be content with nothing less than the carving of his

bourgeois coat of arms in the neighborhood of the royal achievement

wherever it was set up. He gained only mortification by the movement, as

Louis had them all effaced. The great man was enraged at this instance of

disrespect, and was obliged to content himself with a posthumous revenge.

He would be buried at the Invalides, and, through the complaisance of the

curé, M. de Mauray, it was done. His body was laid in one of the vaults,

but, after all, was not allowed to remain there. The king's parasites gave

him information, and the corpse was removed.

{697}

Louvois, fearing that something of this kind would happen, was resolved to

attach his memory to the Invalides by surer means. In one mansarde he got

sculptured a barrel of powder in the act of explosion, signalizing the war

he had originated; in another, a plume of ostrich feathers; and, in two

others, an owl and a bat, all emblematic of his high dignity, his wisdom,

and wakefulness. The masterpiece, however, was a wolf, the upper part only

seen, surmounted by a tuft of palm-leaves, holding the _OEil de Boeuf_

between his forepaws and looking intently into the court. Thus was a pun in

marble executed: _(le) Loup voit_ (the wolf is looking)--Louvois, both

having the same sound, and the great man's name inseparably connected with

the Invalides.

------

Original

Playing With Fire.

There was a fine specimen in Birmingham, the other day, of a style of

theological disputation which we hoped had gone out of vogue. A poor wretch

named Murphy, a paid agent of the London Protestant Electoral Union, had

been travelling for some months about the counties of Stafford and Warwick,

circulating obscene tracts upon the confessional, ranting about priests and

nuns, retailing all the absurd and wicked stories against the Catholic

religion which have formed the stock in trade of a certain class of zealots

and religious demagogues for the last three hundred years; and very

naturally his disgusting tirades had stirred up a dangerous sort of public

feeling. The lower classes of the Protestants were taught to look upon the

Catholics as savage, wild beasts, given up to all manner of immoral

practices, enemies to all human happiness, thirsting for blood, rapine, and

revolution, and wedded to the stake, the faggot, and the thumb-screw. The

lower classes of the Catholics were compelled to bear the taunts and

insults which were certain to be provoked by this rage of popular

prejudice, and moreover to listen to the grossest attacks upon what they

held in most affectionate reverence. Of course, sensible Protestants, as

well as educated Catholics, felt nothing but pity and contempt for the

ravings of such a man as Murphy; but unfortunately it is not educated and

sensible people who make all the trouble in the world, nor were they

educated and sensible people who formed the bulk of Mr. Murphy's audiences.

Wherever he went, he made a popular disturbance. Blows and brickbats

followed in his train like dust behind rolling wheels. The magistrates in

one town confiscated his books on account of their indecency. At last he

came to Birmingham. The mayor and council refused him the use of a public

hall, but his disciples built him an immense wooden tabernacle; and there,

while an angry crowd raged and threatened about the doors, he began a five

weeks' course of lectures on the atrocities of popery. What an instructive

contrast was then presented! In the streets Catholic priests were going

about among the mob, begging and commanding them to drop their menacing

hands and withdraw peaceably to their homes. In the tabernacle this fiery

ranter was declaring that every Catholic priest was "a murderer, a

cannibal, a liar, and a pickpocket;" that the papists were thirsting for

his blood, but durst not take it; that they might pelt him with stones, but

God would put forth his arm and prevent his being hurt; they might raise

their bludgeons against him, but God would ward off the blows.

{698}

Need anybody ask what was the result of all this? A riot broke out and

raged for two days; and, as always happens in riots, the greater part of

the disorder and destruction was caused not by those who began the fray,

but by professional thieves and rowdies who seized the opportunity to

plunder.

Now, of course, we have no desire to apologize for the unwarrantable mode

taken by the Birmingham Catholics to silence this itinerant preacher.

Rioting is both a great blunder and a great crime. But who was the more to

blame? Was it the pulpit mountebank who pelted his audience with well-nigh

intolerable insults, or the uneducated laborers who resented them? Our Lord

tells us, when we are smitten upon one cheek, to turn the other; but we all

know that the custom of human nature is to smite back. If you first stir up

the angry passions of a crowd of excitable Irishmen, and then dance into

the midst of them, and dare them to come on, it will not be surprising if

you dance out again with a bloody nose and a torn coat. If you shake your

fist at a man, and assure him that he cannot hit you if he tries ever so

hard, it is very probable that he will try; and if you are hurt, you will

have yourself to blame. It is not safe to go near gunpowder with a lighted

candle. All England seems to have thought as we do about the Birmingham

affair, and Murphy has been unanimously awarded the responsibility for the

outrage by the ministers in parliament, and by all the respectable

newspapers, even by such prejudiced journals as The Times.

There have been many religious riots in Great Britain and America, but the

story is nearly always the same. They have had them in Birmingham before;

they have had them in Belfast and Dublin. Lord George Gordon got up a

famous one in London, and Gavazzi was the cause of one in Montreal. The

Native American movement in 1844 gave us two dreadful riots in

Philadelphia, and, but for the firmness and sagacity of Bishop Hughes,

would have provoked another in New-York. In the train of the Know-Nothing

excitement ten years later followed a long array of incendiary preachers,

some of whom were proved to have been expressly hired to provoke

disturbance; and what was the result? Churches were sacked, torn down,

burned, or blown up with gunpowder in Manchester and Dorchester,

New-Hampshire, in Bath, Maine, and in Newark, New-Jersey. A church in

Williamsburg was barely saved from the flames by the opportune arrival of

the military. A street-preacher in New-York named Parsons was very nearly

the cause of a riot in December, 1853; but in this instance also Archbishop

Hughes succeeded in keeping the Catholics quiet. All over the country, in

fact, rapine and incendiarism seemed rampant; but The New-York Tribune

justly observed: "It is worthy of remark that, while five or six Catholic

churches in this country have been destroyed or ruined by an excited

populace, not a single Protestant church can be pointed out which Catholics

have even thought of attacking."

No reasonable man will deny that the frantic sort of propagandism which

stirred up all these acts of violence does more harm to its own cause than

to that of its adversaries. No honest and rational Protestant wants to

trust his defence to a Murphy or a Parsons. The street ranters are

dangerous allies and despicable enemies. But the trouble is that after the

fools have made the disturbance there are always knaves ready to keep it

alive. No sooner had the excited Catholics begun to throw stories at the

Birmingham tabernacle than the scourings of the jails, the pestiferous

brood of the slums and alleys, began to sack the pawnbrokers' and jewellers

shops. And then down came from London a member of Parliament--the

notorious Mr. Whalley, whose incessant attacks upon popery in the House of

Commons are a standing matter of laughter; and he and Murphy made speeches

side by side, one not much more sensible than the other.

{699}

We shall, no doubt, see the Protestant Electoral Union, of which both these

gentlemen are pillars and ornaments, trying to make political capital out

of the affair. So, too, in the United States: there has always been a

political organization at the back of the zealots who have stirred up

religious riots, and there have always been politicians to scramble for the

fruits of bigotry, if not to plant the seed.

Is there any reason why we may not have in New-York a repetition of the

outrages of Birmingham or Philadelphia? Heaven be praised! we have not, so

far as we know, a Protestant Electoral Union; but we have Whalleys enough,

and as for Murphies, the world is full of them. There is no need to build a

tabernacle; with us they speak through the press. A lie shouted from a

platform is not more dangerous than a lie sent flying over the country in

the pages of a newspaper. If you want to produce a quick sensation with a

good bouncing calumny, the best way perhaps is to speak it out by word of

mouth; but for permanent effect commend us to print. There is an American

journal which has been acting the part of a Murphy for a long time past,

and has lately been flying at popery with more rage than ever. In a recent

number of Harper's Weekly there was a horrible story of the confessional in

Rome, which might rival the wildest romances of Mrs. Radcliffe. It showed

us a sinner getting absolution before he could summon courage to confess

his sins, and a young girl murdered by monks and buried under the church

pavement; "for in that wonderful but priest-ridden city," says the writer,

"the papal clergy act almost with impunity." And the other day, in the same

paper, there was a picture of a Roman confessional, a row of penitents

kneeling before it, while a priest leaned over the door and absolved them

by tapping each one on the head with a rod. This wonderful device, as our

Catholic readers will at once perceive, was borrowed from the symbolical

wand of office borne by the penitentiaries at the Roman court; but Harper's

Weekly puts the whole sacrament into the tap of the wand. "This," says the

editor, "is a faithful representation of the manner in which sins are

forgiven in the confessionals of St. Peter's at Rome." And then follows a

long article, in the true Murphy vein, about confession, and indulgences,

and purgatory, and many other points of Catholic doctrine. The pope, we are

told, claims the power of damning souls to _hell_, and admitting whom

he pleases into heaven. The holiness which he rewards is not Christian

holiness; the sins which he punishes with eternal fire are not the sins

which Christ denounced. "Sincere penitence as a ground of forgiveness has

been practically laid aside, and simple confession has taken its place."

Indulgences are mere merchandise, and money will at any time buy a soul out

of purgatory, just as "the performance of certain arbitrary ceremonies

which have no more connection with vital Christianity than had the rites of

pagandom" will open the gates of heaven. Then the writer, after assuring us

that the pope is afraid of America, passes on to the ridicule of relics,

and of many pious practices, and winds up his article with a prediction

that the Christian world will sooner or later be freed from all these

mummeries and superstitions, and all mankind be sensible and enlightened

Protestants.

Now, to what does all this tend? We dare say the writer of this tirade

supposed he was telling the truth, but what was his purpose in telling it?

Did he expect to make converts by it? When we seek to be reconciled with an

enemy, do we begin by insulting him? Will it dispose an adversary to listen

to your arguments with a favoring ear if you open the discussion by

spitting in his face, and calling him a fool, and reviling all that he

holds in highest respect? Billingsgate is not gospel. When the Holy Ghost

came down upon the apostles on the day of Pentecost, those chosen preachers

of divine truth did not straightway begin to blackguard the Jews.

{700}

When St. Paul preached at Antioch, he did not call the pagan pontiffs

"ragamuffins," as Mr. Murphy called the Catholic clergy, nor did he try to

convert the Jews by saying of their high priest what the Birmingham

Boanerges said of the pope, that he was "the greatest old rag and bone

grubber in the universe." And does the Journal of Civilization expect to

convert Catholics by caricaturing the pope, and telling scandalous stories

about the church, and burlesquing her doctrines? As we said before, we feel

bound to presume that the writer believed all he said; but it was so easy

for him to know better. The doctrine which he ascribes to Catholics we so

earnestly repudiate in all our books, in all our pulpits, and in all our

practical life, that we have a good right to complain indignantly, and to

charge him with a carelessness hardly more pardonable than dishonesty.

We say this carelessness is a very grave offence, because such calumnies

against religious bodies never have but one effect--exasperation, and

possibly riot. There is just the same material for a riot in New-York that

there was in Birmingham. There are ignorant and hot-headed men, both

Protestants and Catholics, who are ready enough to come to blows if you

once charge them full of religious ire, and then bring them in contact; and

there are thieves and street brigands enough in any large city to push on

the work of destruction when once it has been started. We know very well

that a hundred such stories and pictures would never make a riot by

themselves. We know very well that there are not a half dozen Catholics in

New-York who would be wicked and silly enough to resent such insults with

violence. What we complain of is, that vituperation and calumny can hardly

fail to create a dangerous antagonism of feeling which, at any unforeseen

provocation may ripen into bloodshed. Once teach opposing classes of the

people to loathe each other, and how long will the public peace be safe?

Let papers like Harper's Journal of Civilization (bless the mark!) keep on

stirring up the bad old blood, reviving the dead old lies, reawakening

dormant prejudices, and filling the two denominations with mutual hatred,

and the least little spark may suddenly kindle the whole hateful mass into

a sweeping conflagration. Argue with us, if you will, and we will meet you

in the calm, gentle, Christian spirit without which all controversy must be

worse than useless. Tell us that we are wrong, if you think so, and we will

show you wherein we are right. Surely a Christian minister can discuss

mooted questions of theology without flinging his Bible at his adversary's

head. Civilized gentlemen can talk over their differences without loading

each other with vile epithets. There is only one way in which religious

disputation can be profitable or even tolerable; let us come to that way at

once; but, above all, no more lies; no more playing with fire.

------

{701}

Original.

Christianity And Its Conflicts. [Footnote 245]

[Footnote 245:

Christianity and its Conflicts, Ancient and Modern.

By E. E. Marcy, A.M. New-York:

D. Appleton & Co., Broadway. 1867. Pp. 480.]

The title of this work indicates that its scope is very comprehensive, and

that its execution involves a great deal of practical labor and research.

The author says in his preface that he has aimed "to display Christianity

as it was established by Jesus, as it has been developed and perpetuated by

the apostles and their successors, and to correct the erroneous impressions

which so generally exist respecting it, and also endeavored to exhibit a

general outline of the various conflicting elements which have been arrayed

against the Christian system up to the present time."

He has been as good as his word, for he has given us an instructive and

able sketch of the heathen philosophers and religions, and of the corrupt

social conditions which opposed themselves to the introduction of

Christianity; of the struggle for so many ages with the barbarism of

Europe; and, finally, in what we consider by far the most vivid and

interesting portions of his work, he has laid bare the character, effects,

and tendencies of what is called the Reformation, and the present condition

of Christendom, religious, social, and political.

To judge his work correctly, we must bear in mind that the author is a

layman, the business of whose life has not been the study of theology. A

man of liberal education, a physician, and of eminence in his profession,

his attention has been drawn to the consideration of the grand problems of

man's destiny; he has studied and reflected upon them, realized their

importance, and given us the result, as he says, "for the sole purpose of

vindicating truth and the religion of Christ."

The testimony of an intelligent and cultivated layman on the subject of

religious truths has a peculiar value; for, although it may not be so

accurate and full in a theological sense, it often presents the arguments

in a more popular form, and with a personal conviction which impresses the

minds of many with a peculiar force. The author evidently feels deeply on

the subjects on which he writes. A citizen of the world, he feels a deep

interest in both the temporal and spiritual well-being of his fellows. As

he contemplates either false principles or the evil conduct of individuals,

the sentiment of indignation rises within him, and he expresses himself

frequently in animated and glowing language, and with a sort of passionate

energy which will be considered, no doubt, by those who do not sympathize

with him, as a blemish. We wish he had toned down some of his expressions

to avoid giving needless offence, and that appearance of exaggeration which

to the minds of some might cast suspicion upon the solid merit of his

conclusions. We regret particularly his political allusions. Without

entering at all into the merits of party politics, we wish they had been

kept out of this book altogether; or, if the author must pay off one

political party, we wish he had executed an equal and impartial justice

upon the other. There is enough of political selfishness, corruption, and

bribery in either political party to excite the indignation of every honest

man.

{702}

But we must not exact too much of a layman who has his strong political

views, and who considers it timely and for the public good to give them a

decided expression. What would be unbecoming in one in holy orders may be

permitted to a layman in the busy walks of life. We are not disposed to

forgive so easily the way in which he has spoken of New England. This

section of the country contains all sorts of people and all sorts of

opinions, good, bad, and indifferent. There may be more radicalism, more

scepticism, and more fanaticism here than elsewhere. It is a question we

think it idle to enter upon. The same principles prevail and have prevailed

in other sections of the country. It is wrong to single out New England or

its inhabitants to be held up to the scorn, ridicule, or hatred of the rest

of the country. It is quite too much the fashion nowadays to do so, and we

cannot too strongly reprobate a practice which sets one section of the

country at variance with another, perpetuates ill feeling and hatred, and

aggravates the very mischief it aims to remove. But we all know that those

who take warm interest in political questions are apt to have very decided

opinions and to express them in a corresponding manner, and we can well

afford to pass them by without allowing our equanimity to be too much

ruffled by them; and whatever may be the political opinion of any man, or

however much he may differ from our author, he must, we think, give him

credit for his courage and pluck in the fearless manner he comes out with

them.

But let us come to the solid merits of the volume. The author shows us, in

the first chapter, the terrible corruption of morals and the false

philosophy prevailing at the time of the introduction of Christianity, and

the fearful struggle which it had with paganism. He deduces therefrom the

necessity of miracles and a proof of their truth. This is timely and

judicious, when a silly criticism is striving to overturn all the ideas of

common sense on this subject, and to destroy the historical testimony of

the truth of revelation. We hope this will be read and reflected upon by

those who have confused ideas on this subject.

He proceeds to give us an account of the doctrines taught by our Lord Jesus

Christ, and holds up in relief the demand which he made on our unqualified

submission and assent to all the truths which he taught and all his

precepts. This is faith, and the foundation of religion and salvation. To

believe in Christ is to believe all that he taught and to do all he

commanded. As we are more fully aware what is the real meaning of the word

"faith," we can understand better the true character of the Christian

religion. We notice some inaccuracies of expression, and sometimes desire a

more profound insight into the matter, but find embodied a great deal of

useful information which may thus be brought within the reach of many who,

if we may judge from the ignorance displayed in the religious publications

of the day, have the most erroneous ideas on the subject.

He shows the identity of the church instituted by Christ and the Catholic

Church, tracing the history of the church from its foundation up to the

time of the Reformation, and discussing those doctrines which are held in

the Catholic Church, though rejected by those who have separated from her.

The picture he portrays of the condition of the world at the commencement

of the Reformation is most opportune. Protestant writers have endeavored to

force the conviction on the minds of their readers that all or the greater

part of the progress of civilization has taken place since that event.

Nothing can be more untrue. The author proves to us that a continual

progress had been in course for centuries in a healthy and steady

advancement; and when we connect this with the account which follows of the

effects of this great historical event, in removing the restraints which

held man's pride and selfish passions within bounds; of the discord,

violence, and civil war which were the uniform result everywhere; we are

filled with regret that the harmonious development of the physical and

spiritual life of the nations, under the auspices of the church, was ever

interfered with.

{703}

It would have been a beautiful sight to have seen Europe, a commonwealth of

nations, bound together by the tie of one religious faith and the same

principles of morality, submitting their differences, without the necessity

of immense standing armies and ruinous wars, to the mild arbitration of him

whom they all acknowledged to be the Vicar of Christ, and the guardian of

Christian justice and morality. We must ask ourselves, not where we are

now, but what we would have attained had our efforts been combined, rather

than wasted in opposing one another.

The church fulfilled her duty up to this time, against the obstacles thrown

in her way by the flood of barbarism which overflowed all Europe. She

christianized and civilized the people. She was constantly occupied in

reforming abuses; and, if such existed at the time of the Reformation, we

must acknowledge that there was every disposition to reform them within the

body of the church herself, without the least need of throwing off her

legitimate authority. This book ought to clear up many misapprehensions

only too common in the public mind.

We then have an account of the doctrines of the reformers, drawn from their

own writings, followed by interesting and graphic sketches of the personal

characteristics of Luther, Calvin, and others. That of Luther is peculiarly

piquant, and is authenticated completely by copious extracts from his own

writings and those of his friends and associates.

We hope the advocates of the Reformation, for the honor of their cause,

will keep the first reformers as much out of sight as possible, and cease

to compare them to St. Paul and the apostles. Their doctrines are pretty

well exploded, and, when brought forward as distinct propositions, are

reprobated by the universal sense of mankind. Unfortunately they still live

in a covert and hidden way to work out their evil and bitter fruits, as the

author fully shows in the subsequent parts of his work.

Those who represent the reformers as saints, have a strange idea of

sanctity or even common decency. Dr. Marcy, in view of their immoral

eccentricities, adopts the most charitable construction possible in the

case of Luther and some others. We will let him speak for himself:

"From an amiable, chaste, temperate, and devout man, he (that is, Luther)

became violent, ferocious, intemperate, licentious, blasphemous, and

sanguinary. From a firm, unwavering, and happy believer in the truths of

the church, he became the victim of innumerable doubts, changes,

perplexities, and fierce torments. From a condition of mental

tranquillity and intellectual equilibrium, he leaped into a state of

maniacal excitement with a very great perversion of all his intellectual

powers and faculties. As an innovator he habitually saw spectres, men

with tails, horns, claws, features of animals, and was pursued and

tormented by these morbid fantasies. A volume of these abnormal

manifestations might be cited in support of our position, but we have

presented a sufficient number to enable the impartial reader to form a

just conclusion of Luther's sanity or insanity."

After this account of the reformers and their opinions, we have a striking

account of the fruits of their doctrines in Europe and America up to this

present time. It deserves to be read and reread. He calls attention to a

fact of which we are all too well cognizant, the miserable religious

discussions introduced and ever on the increase since the Reformation.

"Until the innovating revolution of the sixteenth century, the faith of

Christendom had been a unit; there were no divisions, no dissensions, no

false teachers or false doctrines in the Christian household. Men, women,

and children knew only one church, one faith, and one form of worship, and

were contented and happy in their religious convictions.

{704}

So universal was this unity, so thoroughly grounded was this faith, and so

general was the practical observance of the duties of religion, that

scepticism, the novelties of individuals, irreligion, and immorality were

comparatively rare. The Christian church had been made up of converts from

numerous nations and races, and there had been a continual struggle for

more than fifteen centuries between the church on the one hand and these

elements of ignorance and evil on the other; the church had finally

triumphed, true Christian civilization had fairly gained the ascendency

over barbarism, and a universal reign of Christian unity and concord was

rapidly dawning over the whole world, when suddenly the innovations of

Germany broke in upon this unity and harmony, arrested the onward progress

of Christianity, and deluged the world with distracting novelties, creeds,

and sects." Incessant wars and rapid deterioration of morals complete the

picture, the main outlines of which we can verify from our own observation.

In this connection the author has, we are glad to see, taken up the

favorite argument and grand trump card of the opponents of the Catholic

church, which is thus expressed: "Contrast the condition of Protestant and

Catholic countries, and see how much superior in wealth, intelligence, and

progress the former are to the latter." He shows that, when the facts are

not carefully manipulated and prepared for the purpose, there is no very

great contrast after all. He says: "Macaulay has contrasted the United

States and Mexico; Italy and Scotland; Spain and Holland; Prussia and

Ireland; candor should have induced this eminent writer to have made more

equal and just comparisons, as France and England, Belgium and Holland,

Austria and Prussia, Mexico, Peru, and Brazil with the Sandwich Islands and

other recently converted nations."'

Making the comparison, not merely in regard to wealth and outward show, but

taking into account the statistics of crime, he shows that Catholic

countries are far in advance of their Protestant rivals in virtue and

morality.

It is perfectly astonishing how the current idea in Protestant society

tends to deify materialism.

Worldly prosperity and accumulation of wealth we unblushingly put forward

as the conclusive test of the truth or falsity of religious faith. Our Lord

said, "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust

doth corrupt, but lay up treasures in heaven;" but a host of clerical and

lay gentlemen and philosophers shout themselves hoarse with the cry; "Your

Catholics have not the religion of Christ, for you do not seek after money

half hard enough. You are a deal too simple in your way of living; you

ought to multiply your cravings and desires more, and live a deal more

artificially than you do." Listen to Lecky, one of the great modern lights;

quoted by Dr. Marcy: "An accumulation of capital is therefore the first

step of civilization, and this accumulation depends on the multiplication

of wants. ... Hence the dreary, sterile torpor that characterized those

ages in which the ascetic principle has been supreme, while the

civilizations which have attained the highest perfection have been those of

ancient Greece and modern Europe, which were most opposed to it." Liebig,

quoted in a work of Youmans recently published, gives us this queer

definition: "Man's superiority to the beast depends essentially in his

faculty of discovering inventions for the gratification of his wants, and

it is the sum of them among a people which embraces the conception of their

'civilization.'" We feel much ashamed of our old-fashioned ignorance, but

really we used to think man's superiority over the beast consisted

essentially in his possessing an immortal soul. Dr. J. W. Draper launches

out in the following grandiloquent condemnation of the "Roman Church:"

{705}

"How different the result had it abandoned the obsolete absurdities of

patristicism"--we suppose he means the teaching of the fathers of the

church handed down to them from the apostles--"and become imbued with the

spirit of true philosophy--had it lifted itself to a comprehension of the

awful magnificence of the heavens above and the glories of the earth

beneath, had it appreciated the immeasurable vastness of the universe, its

infinite multitude of worlds, its inconceivable past duration." Poor old

church, why did you not abandon the consideration of the unseen world and

the inconceivable duration of eternity, and confine your attention to

astronomy and geology? Why teach men that God takes an interest in them

personally and holds them accountable, when he has created so many worlds

and rocks to take up their attention? This is philosophy with a vengeance,

the philosophy which is summed up by St. Paul in the short phrase. "Let us

eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die."

Greece and Rome reached the acme of this material civilization before they

fell. England at present seems to occupy their place. Kay, in his social

history of the English people, exposes the misery and vice of the great

mass the population, which, like the smothered fire of a volcano, may burst

out and involve the land in a universal ruin and desolation.