“A reasonable request,” answered the king; “and you know we always

grant anything you ask.”

He made a sign to Cromwell, who immediately withdrew, his heart fired

with rage at the welcome always extended by the king to More.

“If ever I come into power,” murmured he in his heart, “More, thou

shalt know me!”

“What, then, is it, More?” asked the king, and he regarded him with an

impatient expression.

“Your majesty,” replied More, “this morning sent me an order to

present myself in the House of Commons, and carry thither the

decisions of the universities. Up to this time I have been loath to

speak; but to-day, at the moment of giving such authenticity to these

documents, I consider it my duty to make known to your majesty that

they have been extorted by force and are far from being regular; a

great many of the signatures are wanting, while others are

counterfeit.”

“Counterfeit!” exclaimed the king angrily.” Who has told you that?”

“I am sure of it,” replied Sir Thomas quietly and in the calmest of

tones; “and I have thought it my duty to inform the king of the fact

before asking his permission to retire.”

“You retire!” cried Henry VIII.

“I had already requested the Duke of Norfolk,” continued More, “to

express to your majesty how painful it was to me to quit your service

and to find myself obliged to cease from fulfilling the office with

which you have honored me; but my health is so feeble as not to permit

me to hold it longer.” And he was silent.

The king sat stupefied. But surprise very soon changed into extreme

displeasure; for he saw perfectly well why More retired, and felt that

he had nothing to hope from a man so firm and as inaccessible to fear

as to self-interest. It was for this he dissembled and evinced none of

the vexation he felt.

“I am sorry,” he said coldly, “that you should leave me; because you

were that one of my servants whom I have most esteemed and loved. But,

nevertheless, since you wish it, I will not oppose your going. I shall

always remember the services you have rendered me, and be assured that

any request you may make shall certainly be granted.”

More made no reply, but the tears came into his eyes; he loved the

king sincerely, and would have made any sacrifice to have saved him

from the unhappy passion that had enchained him.

“You weep, More,” said the king. “If it gives you pain, why do you

leave me?”

“Because I cannot do otherwise.”

“As you please,” replied the king curtly. “I force nobody to remain in

my service. You will one day, perhaps, repent this step. You are rich

now, I suppose?”

“Your majesty knows very well to the contrary,” replied More. “In

losing the salary of the office I now resign, I am not sure that I

shall have sufficient means remaining to provide becomingly for the

wants of my many children. During the time I filled a lucrative

employment at the bar, I saved enough to purchase a small tract of

land which I now own; but when your majesty called me into your

service, I was naturally obliged to abandon my profession, and since

then I have saved nothing.”

“What!” said the king, “you have nothing remaining from the income of

your office?”

“Not so much as one hundred gold crowns,” replied Sir Thomas.

“More,” said the king thoughtfully, “you are an honest man.”

“I endeavor to be so, sire.”

“It grieves me that you leave me. Why approve not of my marriage?”

“Because, sire, you may not have two wives at once.”

“Begone!” said Henry VIII.…

And Cromwell found the king in a state of excitement impossible to

describe.

“I regret it! I regret it!” he exclaimed. “This will work me evil! A

man of such integrity, such worth! No one can doubt it. I have done

wrong in sending him to the Parliament; it was plain that he would

refuse me.”

“What says he?” thought Cromwell to himself, surprised and anxious.

“Cromwell,” said the king, “he leaves me!”

“Who?”

“More.”

“More!” cried Cromwell, scarcely able to conceal his delight. “Well,

is it only that that troubles you? It is a happiness rather. The

hypocrite unmasks himself at last; it has been long since the

happiness of his sovereign was that for which he cared the least.”

“You are mistaken, Cromwell; he loved me sincerely.”

“Ah!” cried Cromwell, “this is the way in which your majesty’s

goodness of heart unceasingly opposes itself to your own interests.

Sir Thomas More has never lost an occasion of sustaining the

ridiculous pretensions of Queen Catherine. I heard him myself exclaim

aloud in the presence of the legates assembled to try her: “May the

queen triumph over all her enemies!” Would he have done this had he

not presumed (if I may dare to say it) upon your majesty’s weakness?

This is the opinion expressed to me by the illustrious Machiavelli:

‘It is always safer for a prince to inspire his subjects with fear

than with love’; love holds men by that very feeble link called

gratitude, while the bond of fear it is almost impossible to sunder.”

“And where has the fuller’s son known Machiavelli?” asked Henry VIII.

disdainfully. “Truly,” he continued, with that ironical smile which

was habitual with him, and that haughty and scornful tone with which

he often chose to crush those who believed they stood high in his

favor, “I was not aware that you had studied politics under

Machiavelli.”

“I knew him in Italy,” replied Cromwell, profoundly humiliated. The

recollection of the lowliness of his origin was a continual torment to

the soul of this parvenu; nevertheless, without permitting the

slightest emotion to appear in his countenance, he continued the

conversation. “We often,” he said, “walked together in the gardens of

the Oricellari Palace, which Machiavelli was in the habit of

frequenting, and where multitudes of young men of the most

distinguished families of the city eagerly came to listen to the words

of this celebrated man. He had the kindness to notice me among them

all, and received me with particular affection. He sometimes spoke

successively of all the princes of Europe; but in mentioning the name

of your majesty he could not conceal his admiration. ‘I do not know,’

he said, ‘any prince of our day who can be compared to him, either for

courage or exalted ability.’”

“I feel flattered,” replied the king; “for he was a man of great

discernment and superior judgment.”

And Henry’s gratified vanity brought to his features an expression of

pleasure that did not escape the notice of the adroit liar. There was

no truth in the statement he had made to Henry VIII. of having met the

Florentine secretary, at least in his own society, as he wished to

insinuate to the king, but in a public drinking-house where

Machiavelli (whose tastes were not always the most elevated or

refined) went to enjoy the amusements of the common people, in order

to be relieved of the _ennui_ that devoured him when at his country

seat and not absorbed in business.

“These gardens of the Oricellari Palace have a great reputation,” said

Henry VIII. carelessly, after a considerable silence.

“Very great and very justly,” replied Cromwell with enthusiasm, “since

they have been embellished by the famous Alberti—he who introduced

again into Europe a taste for the pure and beautiful Grecian

architecture. The celebrated Bernard Rucellai, to whom they belong,

has collected there besides a great quantity of the precious fragments

of antiquity—”

Cromwell paused—he thought the king was going to speak; but, finding

he said nothing, he continued:

“Your majesty has seen, in the beginning of Machiavelli’s book on the

art of war, the portrait he has drawn and his eulogies on the young

Count Rucellai, the same to whom he has dedicated his discourse on

Livy.”

“Possibly,” said Henry VIII. He turned his head and slightly yawned.

Cromwell was silent immediately and racked his brain for another

subject of conversation, regretting that the one he had already

introduced had been so speedily exhausted.

* * * * *

After leaving the king Sir Thomas More returned to the bank of the

Thames, wishing, as soon as possible, to reach his home at Chelsea. In

going down to his barge, which awaited him above Westminster bridge,

he saw a crowd collected on the quay inspecting the boat, which,

glittering gorgeously in the rays of the sun, seemed in every respect

worthy of the exalted rank of her illustrious owner. Eight rowers

dressed in uniform managed her with great dexterity; a large pavilion

of purple silk protected the interior against injury from light and

air; the bottom was covered with a heavy tapestry carpet; and the

spacious seats, capable of accommodating a large number of persons,

were supplied with rich crimson velvet cushions. The exterior was not

less rich, and the ivory and little bands of gold with which the stern

was encrusted gave it the appearance of being enveloped in a delicate

network, each mesh of which seemed to sparkle with gems and gold. The

heavens were serene and cloudless, and a multitude of small boats,

painted green, darted rapidly over the river, propelled by their light

sails of gleaming white. It was a festival day, and they were filled

with citizens enjoying the revivifying country air, and resting from

their labors to refresh themselves on the verdant and flowery lawns of

Richmond, Twickenham, or Greenwich. Arrayed in their most elegant

robes of worsted and silk, the women waved their handkerchiefs or sang

to amuse their children, while groups of sailors in varied costumes

representing different nations were engaged in playing boisterous

games, or, gathering around one of their older companions, listened

eagerly to the stories he told of expeditions he had joined or

shipwrecks he had escaped.

“To-day these people are happy!” thought More, saddened by the

contrast presented by their joy and the interior oppression he himself

experienced. “Let me return to a life of peaceful obscurity like

theirs, find again my plain wooden boat, take my seat on the straw

matting which covers the bottom, and row in my turn without a fear of

to-morrow; always sure of seeing my Margaret and my other children

coming along the bank to give me a joyous reception, and hear them

exclaim, ‘Here is our father!’ But why all these apprehensions?” he

continued, passing his hand across his brow, as if to dispel some sad

and painful reflection. “God reigns in heaven; and have I not this day

experienced his divine protection? The king has given me a kinder

reception than I had hoped to receive; he has, at least, not permitted

his wrath to break forth in all its violence. Perhaps in the end it

will only be more terrible; but never mind, the will of the Lord be

done! Nothing can happen on the earth without his permission. I

abandon myself to him; and when man, his creature, casts himself into

his arms, he will not withdraw nor permit him to fall.”

In the meantime the tide began to rise, and the waves of the sea,

flowing into the great bed of the river, very soon extended it to the

surrounding banks. Carried along by the waves, More’s barge no longer

required other care than the slight attention necessary to guide it.

The tired sailors rested on their oars, while their eyes wandered over

the charming borders of the Thames.

“My lord,” said one of the sailors, turning towards Sir Thomas, “here

we are in front of Seat-House Gardens. We are passing the village of

Nine Elms.”

But More heard them not; he seemed entirely absorbed in his own

reflections.

The men were astonished, because ordinarily he conversed with them

when he was alone in the boat, and questioned them about such subjects

as interested them. Sir Thomas More thought it was his duty as a

master and a Christian to take especial care not only of the bodies

but also of the souls of his servants, in enlightening their minds by

good advice and wise exhortations. Consequently, they were astonished

at his silence, and, loving him as a father, they were fearful some

misfortune had befallen him of which they were not apprised.

“There is the little point of Chelsea spire,” said the pilot,

observing him with an anxious eye.

“My lord, here is Chelsea,” they exclaimed all together.

“Well, my children,” he replied, “land me at the foot of the

crossroad.”

Sir Thomas thought, as it was the hour for evening devotion, his

family would surely be at the parish church, and he would take his

children back in the boat with him. He landed, therefore, and,

ordering the sailors to wait, slowly ascended the beach by a rugged

road, beyond which he encountered a worthy old peasant woman driving a

number of cows to the river. On perceiving Sir Thomas an expression of

satisfaction overspread her features, tanned and furrowed by age and

hard labor. She stopped to salute him as usual.

“My good lord,” she exclaimed, “I am very glad to see you. We every

day pray to the Lord to preserve you. Since you have been in this

country everything has prospered with us. We have not lost a single

calf nor had a bad crop since you rebuilt our barn, which was burnt at

the same time as your own; and the other day we were talking among

ourselves, and we said that you must be very rich to be able to make

so many around you happy.”

“The barn is a strong and substantial one, at least,” said More, who

could not avoid smiling at the idea of his reputed wealth.

“Oh! as to that, yes,” replied the simple woman; “it is of good stone,

and very much stronger and better than it was before. It will outlast

us all a long time.”

Having said this, she passed on, as she saw Sir Thomas wished to be

detained no longer, and the cows had wandered from the road to graze

on the surrounding pasture.

“Here comes the good lord chancellor,” said the village children in a

suppressed tone. The crowd kneeling without on the pavement of the

church, too small to accommodate the entire congregation on festival

days, opened respectfully, and Sir Thomas proceeded down the aisle of

the church to his pew, where he found all his family seated.

He remained standing near, as the service was almost over, and he did

not wish to make any disturbance by opening the door of the pew; but

Margaret soon discovered the presence of her father, and heard his

voice mingling with those of the other faithful who sang the praises

of God. Her heart throbbed with joy, and she looked around to try and

get sight of him.

“William,” she said immediately to young Roper, “my father is here;

give him your seat.”

But Sir Thomas motioned him to sit still; and when the devotion was

ended, and the priests had left the altar, he approached, and, opening

the door of the pew where Lady More was seated, presented his hand to

lead her out, and said:

“Madam, my lord is gone.”

This woman, as disagreeable as she was coarse, raised her dull eyes to

her husband’s face.

“What do you mean?” she asked sharply.

She always received in this ungracious manner the pleasantries More

was so fond of indulging in, and it was customary for one of her

husband’s retinue to open the pew door in his absence and say: “Madam,

my lord is gone.”

“Come with me, nevertheless,” replied More, with imperturbable

gentleness; “I will explain to you now my lord is gone.”

Lady More followed him, still, however, murmuring between her teeth

because of this unusual mode of departure; and when they had passed

through the crowd, and More had returned the salutations with which

all greeted him, he called Margaret to his side.

“Listen, my child,” he said. “Your mother here cannot understand how

my lord can be absent. Explain to her that I have conducted him this

morning to London, where I have left him for ever; in a word, that I

am no longer lord chancellor, having resigned my office into the hands

of the king. Do you understand now, my good Alice?” he added, turning

toward his wife.

Margaret, on hearing this explanation, looked at her father in dismay.

She immediately understood there was something behind that she did not

know, and her penetrating mind was filled with alarm; but Lady More

flew into an ungovernable passion.

“What is this you say?” she cried,” and what have you done? More of

your scruples, I warrant me. That tender conscience of yours will land

us all in the ashes yet. Is it not better to rule than to be ruled? We

are ten times worse off now than we have ever been before, and here

are you about to strip us of everything.”

“Dear heart,” said Sir Thomas, without being moved in the least, “it

would be impossible, I think, for me to strip you of your possessions;

because, when I married you, you brought me no other dowry than your

virtues and the qualities of your heart. Of this dowry I hope, indeed,

never to see you deprived by any means in the world, much less by

myself.”

“At least,” cried Lady More between her sobs and tears, “I was

beautiful and young, and certain it is I might have easily found a

husband more interested in his own affairs, and who would have

profited more by his learning and the favor of the king.”

On hearing her express herself in this manner Margaret was unable to

restrain a gesture of indignation; she idolized her father, and could

not tolerate the coarse manners and selfish motives of her

step-mother. This woman, narrow of mind and filled with vanity, had

succeeded, singularly enough, by manœuvring and flattery, in winning

the esteem of More at a time when, having had the misfortune to lose

his wife, he saw with great sorrow his daughters deprived of the good

example and tender care of a mother. It then seemed to him he could

not better replace her than by selecting a widow lady of mature age

whose beauty, if it had ever existed, was more than faded, and could

no longer be (so, at least, he supposed) a subject of pretension or

distraction. But, unfortunately, Lady More, he found, was one of those

indifferent, selfish beings who only feel what touches themselves, who

consider nothing but their own interests, and fear nothing but what

may deprive them of the high social position to which they have been

fortunate enough to attain. She could not endure, therefore, the

thought of being deprived of the honor she was accustomed to receive

as the wife of the lord chancellor. She never for an instant reflected

on the possible difficulties experienced by her husband, or the

reasons that might have determined him to resign his office. She at

once divined, from the knowledge she possessed of his extreme

scrupulousness, that his conscience had been the first cause of this

step, and the thought only served to irritate her more, because she

insisted that such a difficulty ought to have been avoided.

She continued to utter the most piercing cries, refusing to listen to

anything More could say. At length, despairing of bringing her to

reason, he began to ridicule her on her absurd conduct.

“My daughters,” he said, calling Elizabeth and Cecilia, “see to your

mother’s dress; something has probably stung her under her garments,

causing her to cry out in this manner.”

When the silly woman found her husband assume this tone of raillery,

she immediately became silent; but, full of anger and spite, she

seated herself in a corner of the boat and took no notice of anything

around her.

Margaret then took her place beside her father; she drew close to him,

and, seizing his hand, pressed it to her lips, without being able to

utter a word; her heart was full, and her soul alone silently

interrogated that of her father.

Endowed with an extraordinary superabundance of feeling and sentiment,

Margaret was enthusiastic in doing good, and repelled evil, when she

encountered it, with a degree of inflexibility amounting to severity.

Beautiful beyond all expression, her beauty was never for a moment

made the subject of her thoughts. Possessed by nature of a very strong

mind, she felt unceasingly, and endured with restless impatience, and

almost without being able to submit, the disadvantages which weakness

and conventionalities imposed upon her sex. She possessed all the

great qualities of her father, but none of his bright cheerfulness and

admirable resignation—fruits of the long-continued exercise of the

most exemplary virtue. The poor were always sure of finding in her an

earnest and faithful friend; the afflicted, a comforter full of

eloquence and sympathy; the vain and presumptuous man, a frigid scorn

and piquant irony which concealed from him entirely the knowledge of

her true character, replete with integrity, frankness, and simplicity.

Scarcely emerged from childhood, Margaret felt she had arrived at

mature age. The accuracy and loftiness of her judgment, united to that

delicacy and exquisite tact which belong naturally to some women,

rendered her worthy of becoming the most intimate and reliable friend

of her father, whose entire joy and happiness centred in her alone.

Educated by him with extreme care, she was familiar with all the

sciences, and several works written by her in Greek and Latin of great

purity have come down to us from that period.

“My daughter,” said More, “why distress yourself about me, since I am

to remain with you?”

“Father,” answered Margaret, fixing her beautiful dark eyes on his

face, “there is something behind all this that you have not told. Why

conceal it from me?”

“No, dear daughter, nothing. Your father is old; he desires to leave

you no more, to see you always, until the Lord shall call him to

himself.”

Seeing Margaret’s eyes fill with tears, Sir Thomas repented

immediately of what he had said, fearing to excite in her the nervous

sensibility he had always vainly attempted to moderate.

“Father,” she answered, “let it be as you wish; I ask nothing more.”

“On the contrary, you shall know everything, dear child. God has

blessed us; be assured of that. And see how green and fresh our garden

looks from here.”

They were coming in view of their house at Chelsea, and soon found

themselves opposite the small green gate opening, at the end of the

garden, upon a path descending to the river. One of the men, taking a

large silver whistle from his belt, blew several shrill notes as a

signal to those in the house to come and open the gate for their

master. Nobody appeared, however, and the family began to feel

surprised, when at length they perceived some short and deformed

creature advancing with irregular bounds, breaking the bushes and

overturning the pots of flowers that he encountered in his passage.

“Ah!” exclaimed Sir Thomas, “there is my poor jester playing his

pranks and spoiling all my garden.”

“Henry Pattison!” cried the children, laughing.

“Himself,” said Sir Thomas.

At that moment the little fool, dressed in a scarlet coat all covered

with gold lace, opened the gate, and, putting out his great, flat

head, made a thousand grimaces, accompanied by roars of laughter and

savage cries, which he endeavored to render agreeable, in order to

express the gratification he felt at the return of his master.

“Ah! well, what news do you bring us?” said More, looking at him.

“Master,” replied the fool, opening a mouth so wide that it might have

better fitted a giant than a dwarf, “father is sick.”

“What! my father sick?” cried More, greatly alarmed.

“Yes, my lord,” replied the jester.

But Sir Thomas, without awaiting his response, rushed into the house

and disappeared.

* * * * *

On learning the accusation brought against them in the court of king’s

bench, the members of the convocation were seized with consternation,

for they understood by the very mention of _Præmunire_ that the king

had resolved to make them feel the weight of his authority, and to

avenge himself for the opposition he had encountered in the affair of

the divorce. They assembled, therefore, in all haste, and from the

hour of prime[111] remained deliberating in one of the upper chambers

of Westminster Abbey. After a lengthy discussion, they had sent, with

unanimous accord, to offer the king the sum of one hundred thousand

pounds in return for the pardon they solicited, never having doubted,

they said in their petition, that Cardinal Wolsey had received the

necessary letters-patent for exercising the authority of legate in the

kingdom.

Hours passed away, and no response arrived from the king. Many became

alarmed, and the greatest excitement prevailed in that venerable

assembly, composed of all the archbishops, bishops, and abbots of the

monasteries, who formed, by right of their ecclesiastical rank, part

of the House of Lords or, by election, of the Commons.

Conspicuous in the midst of them was the learned and celebrated

Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of England. His head,

entirely bald, was bowed on his breast. He seemed to take no part or

interest in the numerous discussions which were carried on around him,

and no one knew whether a gloomy sadness had overshadowed his soul, or

if his advanced age had weakened the faculties of his mind together

with those of the body. The Bishop of Lincoln, the king’s confessor,

who sat beside him, vainly endeavored to attract his attention.

Further on, arranged around him, were the Bishops of Durham,

Worcester, Norwich, Salisbury, St. David’s, Hereford, Carlisle, Bath,

Bangor, and others; the Archbishop of Armagh, near whom was observed

the mild and noble physiognomy of the Dean of Exeter, young Reginald

Pole, born of the royal blood of the house of York, and descended by

Margaret, his mother, from the illustrious family of Plantagenets. The

king, his relative, had tried in every way to bring him to approve of

the divorce; but neither supplications nor reproaches, nor the fear

inspired by Henry VIII., could induce him to act contrary to the voice

of his conscience. Later on Henry VIII. taught him, by making the two

brothers and the aged mother of Reginald Pole mount the scaffold, how

far the excess of his revenge could carry him.

Already had the young Dean of Exeter fallen into disfavor with the

king, who closed the door of his palace against him, at the same time

that he was forced by the manifest respect of Pole, and the proofs he

gave of his devotion, to acknowledge secretly the integrity of his

heart and the rectitude of his intentions. At this moment he was

talking to a man whose character was precisely the opposite of his

own—the Abbot of Westminster, intriguing, active, and ambitious, well

known to Henry VIII., whose spy he was, and to whose will he was

entirely submissive.

With them also conversed Roland, chaplain to his majesty, and the poor

secretary, Gardiner, whose simplicity and small aptitude for business

had been alone sufficient to make his selfish master regret the

indefatigable perseverance and the strong mind of Cardinal Wolsey. At

this moment he wearied his colleagues with a lengthy recital of all

the apprehensions which the violence of the king’s character caused

him.

And now a sudden commotion made itself felt throughout the hall. They

stood up, they leaned forward; the folding doors were thrown open. “In

the name of the king!” cried the usher who guarded the entrance.

Cromwell stood on the threshold. He paused to salute the assembly.

They scarcely dared breathe!

“My lords,” he said in a loud voice, looking slowly around him, and

endeavoring to give his sardonic features an expression of benignant

persuasion, “the king, our master, always full of clemency and

benevolence toward his unworthy subjects, deigns to accept your gift.

He makes but one, and that a very slight, condition; which is, that

you acknowledge him, in the act of donation, as the supreme and only

head of the church and clergy of England.”

He paused to observe, with a malignant joy, similar to that of the

demon when he dragged the first man into sin, the effect of these

words on the assembly. But a gloomy silence was the only response they

gave him. He again looked slowly around him, and proceeded in a lower

tone:

“My lords, let not this either trouble or alarm you; the church, our

mother, has not a child more faithful or submissive than our most

gracious sovereign. Does he not prove himself such each day by the

care he takes to choke up the seeds of heresy which the malice of the

devil is trying to sow among us? You also know very well, and even

better than I, that he devotes his nights to writing in defence of our

holy faith, and nothing could ever induce him to deviate from it. Why

should you feel any scruples about honoring a prince so virtuous by

placing him at your head as your defender and most firm supporter?

Remember, moreover, honored lords, that he who should refuse this

title to the king will be regarded by him as a traitor and disloyal

subject.”

He then seated himself in their midst, in order to take in the words

of the first who should dare raise his voice in opposition to the will

of the king.

All the bishops sat in silent consternation. Several wished to speak,

but the presence of Cromwell seemed to freeze them with terror; for

they were beginning to understand the base manœuvres of this man, and

each one felt as though he was on the point of being seized by that

wicked wretch, ready to spring upon the first unhappy victim who might

present himself.

They looked from one to another, while a profound silence reigned

among them.

Archbishop Warham seemed to be seized with a lively grief, but his

voice was no more audible, and his pale lips remained silent and

motionless.

Cromwell felt his heart thrill with malicious delight; beneath the

frigid expression of a profound and calculating indifference this

obscure intriguer exulted in seeing these men, the most learned and

honored in all England, trembling and recoiling before him as before

the genius of evil.

But suddenly a man whom nothing could intimidate, a saintly man, whose

heart knew no fear except the fear of God, arose in the midst of them.

An involuntary shudder ran through the assembly. All eyes were

directed alternately toward Cromwell and him, as though to defend the

one from the malice of the other. It was the Bishop of Rochester, the

friend of Thomas More, who was about to speak; and all knew that no

cowardly consideration of prudence could stop him.

“My lords,” he cried, as he stood up in their midst, “what impious

voice is this that is raised in your presence to propose to us a thing

which has never been heard of since the foundation of human society?

What is it they wish to exact from us at this moment, if it be not to

raise ourselves to the level of God himself by conferring the

supremacy of his church on a temporal prince, a man who can have no

possible right thereto? Shall we, then, say to-day, as our Lord Jesus

Christ said to St. Peter: ‘I give you the keys of the kingdom of

heaven; and whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in

heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in

heaven’? And if we should have the pride and audacity to say it, where

would be our power to execute it? Listen,” continued the holy bishop,

inflamed with zeal, and turning toward Cromwell. “Go, and say to the

king, our master, that he has been led into error; that he should

remember the words of the Holy Scriptures: ‘As my Father hath sent me,

so I send you,’ and ask him if he has been ordained one of the pastors

of the church; if he has chosen her for his only spouse; if he is an

apostle, if he is a doctor, or if he can build up with us the body of

Christ; and say to him, moreover, that even though he should possess

all these qualifications, yet, before he could be appointed supreme

head of the Catholic Church, it would be necessary for her to

acknowledge him as such, and that we cannot—we, a feeble fraction of

the Christian world—impose a chief on the universe! Go, and let not

the king’s majesty be compromised; for he has suggested a desire that

cannot be accomplished.”

Cromwell, subdued by the power of this exhortation, arose and

immediately withdrew. The Bishop of Rochester, turning toward the

assembled prelates, continued:

“My lords, let not the fear of men blind us. Let us reflect well on

what they demand of us to-day; for we are not only called on to

renounce Clement VII., but also to cast ourselves out of Peter’s bark,

only to be submerged in the waves of these countless divisions, sects,

schisms, and heresies which it has pleased the mind of man to invent.

Yes, I hesitate not to say to you that, in order to give the king the

title he demands, it would be necessary to abandon all laws, canonical

and ecclesiastical, the authority of the holy councils, the unity of

the world and of Christian princes, the traditions of the church, by

which we would at the same time acknowledge that we have never yet

received the true faith or the veritable Gospel of Christ, since we

openly revolt against the immutable doctrine which it teaches, and

turn aside voluntarily and for ever from the one and only true way of

salvation which it has marked out for us. During the fifteen hundred

and thirty years that the Gospel has been preached throughout the

world, have we seen a single prince make such a pretension? And when,

in the fourth century, Constantine the Great assembled in his own

palace, in the city of Nice, and for the first time since the

apostles, the entire body of the universal Church, did he establish

himself in the midst of them as their head and sovereign—he who

wished, in spite of their deference and their request, to remain,

without guards and without the pomp befitting his rank, in the meanest

place of the hall wherein they were assembled? ‘No,’ said he, ‘I will

not sit in judgment where I have no authority either to absolve or to

condemn.’ … And who, my lords, were the men composing that illustrious

assembly, if not the flower of all the saintly and learned who

flourished among the nations of the earth? The patriarchs of

Constantinople, of Antioch, of Alexandria, of Jerusalem, and of

Carthage; the bishops of Africa, of Spain, of the Gauls, of the land

of the Scythians and Persians—in a word, of the East and West—who

gathered there in crowds, almost all had confessed the faith before

tyrants, and bore on their mutilated bodies the glorious marks of the

cruel tortures they had endured rather than renounce it. Well, you

behold these holy pontiffs place at their head Vincent and Vitus, two

simple priests, because they recognized them as the representatives of

their chief, the Bishop of Rome, whose advanced age prevented him from

being among them. And this regulation has been invariably followed

through all ages even until the present day, and through all the

storms and heresies which would have been sufficient to annihilate the

church had she not been born of God himself. Far from us, then, be

this culpable cowardice! To renounce his laws is to renounce Jesus

Christ. We renounce his laws? No, my lords, we cannot! Nay, we will

not.… Again, what would become of this sublime doctrine, if a temporal

prince had power to make it yield to the whim of his vices and

passions? To-day it is, to-morrow it is not; it changes with him, with

his creeds, his opinions, and his wishes. His caprices would become

our only laws, and vice and virtue be no longer but words which he

would be at liberty to change at will. No, again and again no! If we

love our king, we will never concede what he demands; because it is

for us to enlighten him with regard to his duties, and, on the

contrary, we should only be dragging him down with us in our unhappy

fall.”

A murmur of applause rose from all parts of the hall, drowning the

voice of the speaker. The Abbot of Westminster alone maintained a

silence of disapproval. Many, however, while they acknowledged the

truth of what the Bishop of Rochester had proclaimed, could not but

reflect with dread on the terrible consequences of the king’s

displeasure if they openly resisted him; while others, with less

foresight and sound judgment, thought Fisher’s zeal carried him too

far, and that it would be possible, without at all compromising their

consciences, to grant their prince something which would be sufficient

to satisfy him. Among this number was the Bishop of Bath, who

immediately arose. After rendering public testimony to the esteem and

deference due the Bishop of Rochester, he added that it appeared to

him impossible that the king could think seriously of having himself

acknowledged as the one and only head of the church “And, as for me, I

believe,” he said, at the conclusion of his discourse, “this is only a

snare that has been set in order to afford a pretext for punishing and

despoiling us of all we possess. The king is always in need of money;

his confidants have suggested this means for him to procure it, and

make him distribute the greater part of it among themselves.”

“I agree with my lord of Bath,” cried the Bishop of Bangor, “the more

especially as the king knows how absurd the accusation is of offence

against the _Præmunire_, since he has compromised himself by appearing

before the legate in the eyes of the whole kingdom. It was impossible

to have acknowledged the legate’s authority by an act more authentic,

and which surpassed in importance all the letters-patent that could

have been demanded.”

“That is just and true,” exclaimed several voices: “and yet, although

we may be able to prove it, if the king presses the accusation, we

shall be most unjustly though most certainly condemned.”

“Oh! yes, most certainly,” said Gardiner in a low voice. He was

cruelly frightened, being aware of the measures the king had taken, in

conjunction with Cromwell, to secure for himself the influence of the

judges of the court of king’s bench.

“Well, my lords,” said the Abbot of Westminster, who had used every

effort to induce them to yield to the king, “consider also if our most

gracious sovereign is wrong in making this demand, he will be

responsible before God, and I do not see in what manner we could be

considered guilty. In reality this title will be illusory, since he

cannot ordain the humblest priest. When the Roman emperors had

themselves declared gods, think you it ever entered the minds of the

people that they were such? Just the same in this case: no one will

ever consider the king as head of the church.”

“That is most sure,” exclaimed several other ecclesiastics, struck by

this reasoning, and to whom this pretension began to appear more

ridiculous than criminal.

“I assure you positively,” replied the Abbot of Westminster, “that

this is an absurd humor which will fall through of itself.”

“You deceive yourselves, my lords; you deceive yourselves,” cried the

Bishop of Rochester. “When the king shall have received from us the

title he demands, it will be confirmed by Parliament, and afterwards

he will believe himself invested with the right of deciding everything

and making any innovation. Will there then be time left us to repent

of our pusillanimous submission? Will you then command this supreme

head to be so no longer, and to obey after having been invested with

supreme authority?”

New tokens of assent were breaking out, when they were suddenly

interrupted by the entrance of Cromwell, who returned, accompanied by

Viscount Rochford and Thomas Audley.

With an air of the coolest effrontery he advanced to the centre of the

hall and stood in the midst of the bishops. He then said in a loud and

arrogant tone, pointing to the two men who followed him:

“My lords, here are the king’s commissioners; they come to hear your

reply. But the personal devotion I feel for the interest of our holy

mother church and the safety of your reverend lordships induces me to

warn you that the king has resolved to punish with all the severity of

the statutes of _Præmunire_ those among you who shall not have signed

by to-morrow the act acknowledging him as supreme head of the church.”

On hearing these last words all grew pale and consternation seized on

all hearts.

Meanwhile, the Archbishop of Canterbury seemed to be making a

desperate effort; a convulsive movement contracted the furrowed brow

of the old man. He fixed his eyes on Cromwell, and, rising, stood

before him.

“Knave!” he exclaimed.

The advanced age of Warham, and still more his learning and the high

reputation he enjoyed, surrounded him with respect and strength; but a

secret sorrow was gnawing at his heart, and hastening the destruction

of a life that time had respected. He arose fiercely, although

tottering, to his feet. “My brethren,” he cried, “my brethren!—no, I

am not worthy to be seated in the midst of you, and yet you have

accorded me the first place. I know not if the weight of years may not

have partially unsettled my reason; but I have to reproach myself with

having inclined to favor the king’s divorce. To-day I foresee all the

evils that will fall upon my country because of the discord and

heresies that will spring up and multiply among us. How far, then,

have I been from anticipating the fatal consequences of the opinion I

expressed in good faith! Meanwhile, I trust that God, before whom I

must very soon appear, will pardon me for what I have done. My dear

brethren, number me no more among you; for the anguish I feel

oppresses me to such a degree that I can no longer endure it! Alas!

why is it a man must feel his life extinguished before death has

entirely benumbed his enfeebled members? I vainly seek within my soul

the life and strength that have abandoned it; that energy I would wish

to recover, if but for a single moment, to use it in opposing the ruin

of religion, and repairing in an open and fearless manner the scandal

I have given. But the time for action has passed for me. It is to your

hands, young prelates, that the care of the flock is committed. Be

firm; die rather than let it be decimated! The most violent

persecution is about to burst upon the English Church; yes, but you

will resist it, even unto death! Death is glorious when we suffer it

for God! But, O my brethren! it is not death I fear for you; it is

falsehood and treachery, the silent and hidden influence which

undermines in the dark; far more dangerous than tortures or

imprisonment, it destroys all, even the last germ of good which might

expand in the soul! No, it is not death that kills, but sinful deeds.

My brethren, pardon me all and pray for me!” The aged prelate, as if

exhausted by the last effort he had made, fell back in his chair,

entirely deprived of consciousness. He was immediately carried out,

but the anxiety and excitement redoubled in the assembly.

“We are all lost!”… cried the Abbot of Westminster. “My lords, let us

obey the king, if we would not see all our goods confiscated!”

“What!” cried the Bishop of Rochester, with an indignation he was

unable to restrain, “is that the only argument you pretend to bring

forward? What benefit will it be to keep our houses, our cloisters and

convents—in a word, to preserve our entire possessions—if we must

sacrifice our consciences? What will it profit a man to gain the whole

world, if he lose his own soul? Yes, it is but too true: we are all

under the rod of the king, we have all need of his clemency, but he

refuses it to us! Well, then, let him strike; we shall be able to

endure it!”

Electrified by these words, and still more by the wisdom and

commanding presence of him who uttered them, the assembly arose and

unanimously exclaimed:

“No, we will not sign it. Let the king do as he will. Go, Cromwell,

say to his majesty that we are all devoted to him, but we cannot do

what he asks.”

A wrathful light gleamed in Cromwell’s eyes, the while an ironical

smile played upon his lips. Two ideas prevailed in the mind of this

man; the one encouraged and supported the other.

“My lords,” he replied in a loud voice, “just as you please. The king,

your lord and master, convokes you to-morrow at the same hour, and you

will consider the subject in a new conference.”

He then turned on his heel and hastily withdrew.

TO BE CONTINUED.

[111] Eight o’clock in the morning.

DR. BROWNSON.

Some three or four years ago a little daughter of one of Dr.

Brownson’s intimate friends, who was visiting his family, after gazing

intently at him for some minutes, exclaimed: “Is he not just like a

great lion”! Nothing could be more graphic or accurate than this

sudden and happy stroke of a child’s wit. We never saw Dr. Brownson or

read one of his great articles without thinking of the mien or the

roar of a majestic lion; we have never seen a remarkably fine old lion

without thinking of Dr. Brownson. His physique was entirely

correspondent to his intellectual and moral power, and his great head,

crowning like a dome his massive figure, and surrounded in old age

with a mass of white hair and beard like a snowy Alp, made him a grand

and reverend object to look at, such as we might picture to ourselves

Zoroaster or Plato, St. Jerome or St. Bruno. The marks of infirmity

which time had imprinted upon him, with the expression of loneliness

and childlike longing for sympathy, added a touch of the pathetic to

the picture, fitted to awaken a sentiment of compassion, tempering to

a more gentle mood the awe and admiration excited by his venerable

appearance. Mr. Healey has painted a remarkably good portrait of him

as he was at about the age of sixty, in which his full maturity of

strength is alone represented. The most perfect one, however, is a

mere photograph, taken in haste and by accident by Mr. Wallace, an

artist of great promise, who died at a very early age, leaving

unfinished a marble bust of Dr. Brownson which he had commenced. The

young artist met the doctor by chance in the studio of a photographer,

who happened at the moment to be absent. Asking him to sit down, he

placed him in position for a profile and took the photograph, one of

the most successful specimens of this kind of art we have ever seen,

and much superior to any other photographic likeness of Dr.

Brownson—indeed, as we have said, the best likeness which exists, and

the one above all others from which an engraver should copy.

The lion is dead; his thunderous voice is for ever hushed. The

farewell utterance which closed his career as an editor with so much

dignity and pathos was his valedictory to life and to the world. It is

pleasant to think that, before he died, a response full of veneration

and affection came back to him from the organs of Catholic opinion and

feeling in America and Europe, and that he has gone to his grave in

honor and peace, where his works will be his monument, and his repose

be asked for by countless prayers offered up throughout all parts of

the Catholic Church, in whose battles he had been a tried warrior and

valiant leader for thirty years.

It is not an easy task to give a perfectly just and impartial estimate

of such a man and such a career. The intimate relations between Dr.

Brownson and those who have been the chief conductors of this

magazine, together with the very active and extensive share which he

had in their efforts to establish it and raise it to its present

position, impose an obligation of personal friendship and gratitude

somewhat like that which affects the relatives and family friends of a

great man in the memorials which they prepare for the honor and fame

of one whom they regard with a veneration and affection precluding the

free exercise of critical judgment. On the other hand, the difference

of opinion which afterwards severed the connection between Dr.

Brownson and THE CATHOLIC WORLD, and the controversy we have had with

him on some important theological and philosophical questions, may

give to the expression of anything like a discriminating judgment the

appearance of an adverse plea against an opposing advocate in favor of

our own cause. Nevertheless, as the motive of our friendship was

chiefly sympathy in the great common cause of the Catholic Church,

which was not essentially altered by a disagreement that produced no

bitterness or animosity, we trust that our mood of mind is not

influenced by any partial and personal bias, so as to produce either

exaggeration or diminution of the just claims the great deceased

publicist possesses on the admiration of his fellow-men. We may fail

from want of capability, but we cannot avoid making the attempt to

satisfy in part the desire which all Catholics everywhere must feel to

know what those who have been near to Dr. Brownson during his public

life have seen, and what they think, of his character and his career,

more especially since his conversion.

Dr. Brownson has told the world a great deal about his own history in

the book which he published in 1857, entitled _The Convert_. The

salient facts of his life are generally known to the public, and have

been summarily stated in the obituary notices of the leading

newspapers, so that we have no need to take up much of our limited

space in recounting them. The principal interest they possess is in

their relation to the formation of his mind, his character, his faith,

and his opinions. He was not baptized in his infancy, but was

nevertheless brought up strictly and religiously according to the

old-fashioned Puritan method, in their simple, humble cottage at

Royalton, Vermont, by an elderly couple, distant relatives of his

family, who adopted the fatherless boy when he was six years old.[112]

A wonderful child he must have been, and we can see in his brief

narrative of his early years, as in the instances of St. Thomas of

Aquin and Chateaubriand, though under circumstances as different as

possible from theirs, a most interesting example of Wordsworth’s

aphorism, “The child is father of the man.” From the dawn of reason he

was a philosopher, never a child, thinking, dreaming in an ideal

world, reading the few books he could find—especially King James’

English Bible, which he almost learned by heart—never playing with

other children, and enjoying very scanty advantages of schooling.

After his fourteenth year he lived near Saratoga, in New York State,

and worked hard for his own maintenance. At nineteen we find him at an

academy in the town of Ballston—a privilege which we believe he

purchased with the hard earnings of his industry. At this time, from

an impulse of religious sentiment, he sought for baptism and admission

into the Presbyterian church, which he very soon found an uncongenial

home and exchanged for another sect at the opposite pole of

Protestantism, that of the Universalists, among whom he became a

preacher at the age of twenty-one. The subsequent period of his life

until he had passed somewhat beyond his fortieth year—that is, until

1844—was marked by various phases of rationalism, and filled with

active labors in preaching, lecturing, writing, and editing various

periodicals, all carried on with restless energy and untiring

industry. He was married early in life to an amiable and intelligent

lady who was a perfect wife and mother, and after her conversion a

perfect Christian; and the six children who lived to grow up, five of

whom were sons, all received an excellent education. The eldest son,

his namesake, has passed his life as a teacher and farmer in a remote

State, living the life of a good Catholic with the spirit of a

recluse, altogether uninterested in the great affairs of the world.

Two others were lawyers and died young. The fourth, after passing some

years with the Jesuits, entered the army of the United States at the

breaking out of the war as a captain of artillery, was severely

wounded, and after the close of the war was admitted to the bar,

married, and began the practice of law at Detroit. He is known to the

literary world as the translator of Balmes’ _Fundamental Philosophy_.

The youngest son also served gallantly as an officer of the army of

the republic during the civil war, and died on the field of battle in

the flower of his youth. The only daughter, who is the wife of a most

worthy and respectable gentleman, before her marriage published

several works, and particularly the _Life of Prince Gallitzin_, a

biography of very considerable merit. All the fruits of the

intellectual labors of Dr. Brownson were absorbed in the support and

education of his family and some dependent female relatives, and

beyond these simple means of keeping up his plain and unostentatious

household, the great and patriarchal philosopher received no pecuniary

recompense from his long and severe labors in the field of literature.

His true profession was that of an editor and reviewer. The exercise

of the functions of the Protestant ministry was not to his taste, and

five years before his conversion to the Catholic Church, which took

place in 1844, he founded a _Review_ at Boston, which was, with a

change of title, continued during his residence in that city, then

transferred to New York and sustained until 1864, revived once more by

a kind of dying effort in 1873, and finally closed a few months before

the end of Dr. Brownson’s mortal career. An active part in politics

was taken by Dr. Brownson during several years of his earlier public

career, but his restless, impetuous, independent spirit made it

impossible for him to remain long within the ranks of any political

party. Until his conversion he was an agitator, a reformer,

associating by turns with Fanny Wright, Robert Dale Owen, the leaders

of the working-men’s party, Channing, Parker, and the Boston clique of

world-reformers, captivated by the theories of Leroux and St. Simon,

and even fancying himself the providential precursor of a new Messias

who was to do away with all old things and renovate the world. At last

he became convinced that Jesus Christ founded the Catholic Church as

the perpetual teacher, guide, and ruler of men and nations, and

settled himself in his only true vocation as an exponent and advocate

of her doctrines and order by the means of his written works. It was

only as a Catholic publicist that he became a truly great man, and

achieved a great work for which he deserves to be held in lasting

remembrance. To this work the last thirty years of his life were

devoted with a gigantic energy, which diminished toward the end under

the influence of advancing age and enfeebled health, but never wholly

flagged until the approach of death gradually quenched and at last

extinguished the vital flame of his physical existence. During the

last seventeen years of his life his residence was at Elizabeth, New

Jersey, with the exception of a few months which he passed with his

son, Henry F. Brownson, Esq., of Detroit, in whose house he died, and

from which he was carried to his last resting-place in the Catholic

cemetery of that town. His last years were filled with sufferings from

severe physical infirmities, the sudden deaths of several of his

children, above all from the death of his tenderly-loved and devoted

wife, and from the desolation and loneliness which is usually the

cloud in which the setting sun of genius goes down, especially when

one survives the period of his great activity, and finds himself, as

it were, walking among the graves of friends and past works, drawing

always nearer to his own sepulchral resting-place. His death occurred

on the morning of Easter Monday, April 17, 1876, when he was in the

middle of his seventy-third year, and his obsequies were celebrated on

the following Wednesday. From the time of his conversion he was not

only a loyal but a pious and practical Catholic, constantly receiving

the sacraments, and making his own salvation the chief object to be

attained in life. There can be no doubt that he lived and died a just

and good man, full of merit, and sure of a high place in heaven, as

well as on the scroll of honor where the names of the great men of the

age are inscribed by the verdict of their fellows.

If we were allowed to stop here, our task would not have any of that

difficulty or delicacy which we said at the outset must necessarily

belong to an effort at estimating Dr. Brownson’s character and career

as a Catholic publicist. That he built on the true foundation as a

wise master-builder, with gold, silver, and precious stones, much

solid and fine work able to stand the fire and deserving a reward both

on earth and in heaven, we can affirm with conscientious fidelity to

our own conviction, and without fear of contradiction. That there was

no wood, hay, or stubble in the great mass of materials which he used

in his many and extensive works we dare not assert. The difficulty

lies in discrimination, and in the relative estimate of a man

certainly great and good, in comparison with other great champions of

the Catholic faith, and with the standard of perfection. It must be

remembered that Dr. Brownson was a self-made man, and, until he was

past thirty, was in circumstances most unfavorable to his intellectual

culture. He received in his youth only the rudiments of an education,

was associated during his early manhood with vulgar sectaries and

demagogues, engaged in a rude, turbulent struggle for a living and a

position as a religious and political leader, as well as in a

perpetual search after truth, without adequate means of satisfying the

cravings of his restless intellect and passionate heart. He came into

contact with intellectual and cultivated men for the first time in

Boston after he joined the Unitarians. His efforts to educate himself

were certainly strenuous. He acquired the Latin, French, German, and

Italian languages sufficiently well to read books written in all those

languages, and his knowledge of English authors was, of course, very

wide and extensive. Nevertheless, the want of a systematic education

in his early youth, and of regular, symmetrical intellectual training,

was always a great disadvantage, as it necessarily must be to every

self-made man. Moreover, the necessity of perpetually speaking and

writing on the most important subjects as a teacher and guide of

others, before he had thoroughly learned what he had to teach, made

him liable to hasty and crude statements, to inaccuracies and errors,

to changes and modifications in his views and opinions, and to a

certain tentative, erratic course of thought. He was like a great ship

making its way by waring and tacking, often changing its course, and

frequently stopping for soundings, but on the whole making steady

headway towards one definite point, escaping many dangers, and at last

arriving on open sailing ground by the genius of its pilot,

notwithstanding insufficient charts and an unknown coast. In certain

favorite branches of study—as, for instance, in history, the history

of philosophy, political ethics, and English philology—his knowledge

was not only extensive, but extremely accurate. Of scholastic

metaphysics and theology he had a considerable but by no means a

minutely precise and complete knowledge; and with the physical

sciences he was still less acquainted. In the _belles-lettres_ he was

extremely well versed, and of works of fiction he was an omnivorous

reader. For a number of years before his death he was prevented by the

weakness of his eyes from reading very much, and was therefore, in the

last series of his _Review_, thrown back on his old resources. On the

whole, the mass of knowledge acquired by study which is displayed in

his written works is more like a grand, complex structure, imposing in

magnitude of outline, sublimity of design, variety of details, yet

irregular in plan and incomplete in many of its parts, than like a

finished, scientifically-constructed, and elaborately-completed

edifice.

In his calibre of mind we think Dr. Brownson may be classed with those

men whose capacity is only exceeded by a very small number of minds of

the highest order of genius. Intellect, reason, imagination, and

memory were alike powerful faculties of his mind, and his great weight

of brain, with a corresponding nervous and muscular strength, made him

capable of the most concentrated, vigorous, and sustained intellectual

labor. Within the scope of his genius there was no work, however

colossal, which he was not naturally capable of accomplishing. His

gift of language, and ability of giving expression to his thoughts and

sentiments, whether original or borrowed, was even greater than his

power of abstraction and conception; and his style has a magnificent,

Doric beauty seldom surpassed, rarely even equalled. Although Dr.

Brownson was not an orator, and Mr. Webster was not a philosopher,

there is, nevertheless, a striking similarity in the style of the two

men, who mutually admired each other’s productions with the sympathy

of cognate minds. In argument, but especially in controversial

argument and philippics, Dr. Brownson wielded the hammer of Thor. His

defect was in subtlety of thought, fineness of discrimination,

completeness of induction, and minute, accurate analysis. In the

capacity of grasping a first principle and following it out on the

synthetic method lay his great power. Whenever he had these great

first principles and fundamental ideas, either from reason or faith,

he was unrivalled in the grand and mighty exposition of the truth,

irresistible in the demolition of sophistical, inconsequent, and false

theories and their advocates, many of whom he laid low with the ease

and force of the blow of Richard Cœur de Lion on the cheek of the

unlucky clerk of Companhurst. Humor, wit, and sarcasm were also at his

command, as well as serious argument; nor were they always sparingly

used, although generally with the good-humor of a giant conscious of

his strength.

When we consider the absolute and permanent value of Dr. Brownson’s

writings as a contribution to Catholic literature, not merely in

respect to their quality as the productions of a great mind, but as to

their substance; and estimate the effective worth of his efforts as a

publicist in the promotion of Catholic truth and law, we cannot avoid

taking into view the moral characteristics of the man and of his

career. He was a man of great passions as well as of great intellect.

He lacked a wholesome, sound moral and religious discipline during

more than half his life, and was under the influence of ideas,

associates, circumstances, most dangerous and injurious, but

especially hostile to the fundamental virtues of humility, reverence

for authority, intellectual and moral self-control, submission to a

fixed, unvarying rule of conscientious obligation. After a stormy and

turbulent life, he submitted himself to the authority of the Catholic

Church over his mind and conscience, when he was more than forty years

of age. He was always true in his allegiance, and in many respects

morally heroic in the practice of the Christian virtues. His previous

life was not wanting in nobility, and in his subsequent life as a

Catholic there is a magnanimity, a generosity, a superiority to petty,

selfish motives and considerations, such as wealth and popularity; a

patient endurance of toil, privation, and suffering; a steady loyalty

to the Holy See; a royal scorn of baseness and wrong, and sympathy

with the things which are good, just, true, and honorable, worthy of a

Catholic of the best mediæval type. He remained, however, as many of

the old, heroic Christians who were converted from heathenism did,

more or less, the lion of the forest, with many of the idiosyncrasies

and other characteristics, the product of his past history, but

partially subdued and modified. He was _sui generis_, and his works

are like himself. To describe him we ought to borrow, if we may hint

at such an impossible supposition, the pen with which Carlyle has

described his heroes. The pen being unattainable, we decline the

attempt. A few things we must say, in order to prepare the way for the

estimate we are striving to make of his career and works.

Dr. Brownson was liable to be fascinated by some great writer, and for

a time to surrender his mind almost completely to his influence with

an impetuous enthusiasm which hindered calm deliberation. When this

first fervor had passed, he would reconsider the matter, and sometimes

end by a severe castigation of his late master. Like St. Christopher,

he went in search of the strongest man to serve, whereas those whom he

successively tried and abandoned were really weaker than himself.

Cousin, Leroux, and last of all Gioberti were those to whom he was

most specially devoted, and the influence of the last-named author was

so strong over him that he never wholly freed himself from its

detrimental effects. In many other ways the judgment of Dr. Brownson

was liable to bias from prejudice, passion, and moods of feeling. In

his judgment of men, and also of books, he was hasty, partial,

capricious, swayed by accidental influences, and variable. It was the

same in regard to theories, opinions, and doctrines which he regarded

as open questions. Where his faith, his conscience, or his matured,

deliberate reason were firmly settled he was steady and immovable. If

he was thoroughly convinced that he had made a mistake or fallen into

error, he would retract. But his old habit of roving all over the

world of thought, and the lack of the regular, consistent intellectual

and moral discipline of a systematic Catholic culture and education,

made him restless of keeping steadily in one course of thought, fond

of novelty, and ready to adopt or abandon ideas without due

deliberation. This variability and want of steady balance in his

intellectual operations detracted very much from his influence as a

writer, and counteracted to a great extent the effect which his solid

and weighty arguments might have otherwise produced. He has himself

made a frank though not a contrite acknowledgment of his one great

moral fault in _The Convert_: “I am no saint, never was, and never

shall be a saint. I am not and never shall be a great man; but I

always had, and I trust I always shall have, the honor of being

regarded by my friends and associates as impolitic, as rash,

imprudent, and impracticable. I was and am in my natural disposition

frank, truthful, straightforward, and earnest, and therefore have had,

and I doubt not shall carry to the grave with me, the reputation of

being reckless, ultra, a well-meaning man, perhaps an able man, but so

fond of paradoxes and extremes that he cannot be relied on, and is

more likely to injure than serve the cause he espouses.”[113] To the

last statement we must, to a great extent, demur. It is so far true,

however, that it was extremely difficult to act in concert with Dr.

Brownson, and impossible to count with security upon his movements.

Like the lions described so vividly by Jules Gérard, who would be

heard by him roaring in the night at distant points within a circuit

of twenty miles, you could not foresee from what quarter the thunder

of his voice would be next heard, or calculate his range. Many

Catholics were alarmed at one time, lest he should stray beyond the

boundaries of the faith. He had even so far lost the confidence of the

hierarchy and the Catholic public, in the year 1864, that he was

unable to keep up his _Review_. Complaints were lodged against him

before one of the Roman tribunals, and the celebrated theologian

Cardinal Franzelin, then professor in the Roman College, was deputed

to examine his writings. The result was that they were not found

worthy of censure, and the case was dismissed with a kind admonition

to be guarded in his language on one or two points, conveyed through a

well-known priest and Roman doctor of New York, who was at the same

time directed to console him in his afflictions and encourage him to

persevere in his labors. Like Montalembert, Lacordaire, De Broglie,

and many other illustrious Catholic priests as well as laymen, and

even a few bishops, Dr. Brownson was for a time dazzled by the

specious phantom of liberalism; but he soon freed himself from this

illusion, and no one has more thoroughly and heartily defended the

decisions of the Council of the Vatican, and of the Encyclical and

Syllabus of 1864, than he has done, especially in the last series of

his _Review_. He wavered for a time respecting the necessity of an

uncompromising defence and maintenance of the temporal princedom of

the Sovereign Pontiff, and an unfortunate expression to that effect

even slipped into THE CATHOLIC WORLD from his pen through an oversight

of the editor. But in this and every other respect in which he had

been led astray for a time, he never failed in a right intention; and

for all errors into which he was misled he made full and ample amends,

even far beyond what could justly have been expected.

In regard to some points of Catholic doctrine he was rigoristic and

exaggerated, sometimes censuring the most orthodox theologians as lax

in their interpretation of dogmas. A satisfactory and systematic

exposition of the complete theology of the Catholic Church cannot,

therefore, be said to have been accomplished by Dr. Brownson. Nor,

indeed, can we award to him the meed of success in constructing a

system of metaphysics. That he made valuable contributions both to

theology and metaphysics we are very glad to admit; and, moreover, we

ascribe his imperfect achievement, not to the want of intellectual

ability, but to other causes which we have sufficiently explained

already. In point of fact, the great scheme always before his mind of

the synthetic exposition of faith and science, reason and revelation,

dogma and philosophy, was too vast even for his capacious mind and

gigantic powers, without a preparation and a possession of materials

which he did not and could not have at command. In our opinion, some

parts of this great work have been much better done in our own time by

other men than by Dr. Brownson. Whether any man will arise who will

accomplish the complete work and produce another _Summa Theologiæ_, we

cannot say; but such a man, if he appears, will be a second Angelic

Doctor. On this head Dr. Ward, in the _Dublin Review_, has already

written so well that we need not add anything more. He has also, in

the number for January, 1876, while paying a most cordial and generous

tribute to the genius and virtue of Dr. Brownson, pointed out in very

clear, explicit terms the great defect in his method of metaphysical

reasoning. This defect is traceable to the influence of Kant, and

found expression in his perpetual criticism of the analytic method of

the schoolmen, and insistance for the substitution of a synthetic

process beginning from an _à priori_ synthetic judgment. Dr.

Brownson’s great mistake lay in his attempting to reconstruct

philosophy and theology from the foundation, instead of applying

himself to learn both from the traditional scholastic system, which

needs to be reconstructed and completed only where certain portions

have been proved by real scientific discoveries to be weak or have

been left unfinished. But we will not weary our readers with any

further remarks on such abstruse topics. We have said enough to

indicate to those who are familiar with them the grounds of our

judgment on certain portions of Dr. Brownson’s writings, and for

others the requisite explanation would occupy far more space than we

are at liberty to appropriate.

While a considerable part of these writings belonging to domestic

controversy will, in our opinion, be forgotten except as literary

curiosities, there are others which deserve to remain as a portion of

our standard Catholic literature, and to be studied while the English

language itself endures. We are disposed to consider the various

essays on subjects belonging to the department of political ethics as

the most consummate productions of the great publicist. His work

entitled _The Great Republic_ is the most extensive and complete of

these essays, but there are numerous other single pieces, making

together a great collection, to be found in various parts of his own

_Review_ and of this magazine. The articles on the controversy with

Protestants and various kinds of free-thinkers, those on

transcendentalism, the autobiography entitled _The Convert_, and the

whole series of articles contributed to THE CATHOLIC WORLD, with the

exception of a few of minor importance, may be placed in the same

category of excellence and permanent value. The quantity of literary

labor accomplished by Dr. Brownson was literally astounding,

especially for our day. A great part of that which he published during

his fifty years of active life was necessarily ephemeral. But there

might be selected from his extant publications as a Catholic reviewer

a mass considerable enough to fill several volumes of the best quality

of matter in the most excellent, admirable, and enduring form. Such

competent judges as Lord Brougham, Cardinal Wiseman, Mr. Webster, Mr.

Ripley, and the editors of the principal reviews in England, France,

and Germany, have pronounced the highest eulogiums upon the

masterpieces of Dr. Brownson’s pen, either in respect to the power of

thought and beauty of style which are their characteristics, or the

intrinsic value of their argument as an exposition or defence of great

truths and principles. The terse logic of Tertullian, the polemic

crash of St. Jerome, the sublime eloquence of Bossuet, are all to be

found there in combination or alternation, with many sweet strains of

tenderness and playful flashes of humor. There are numerous passages

in his writings not to be surpassed by the finest portions of the

works of the great masters of thought and style, whether in the

English or any other language, in the present or in any past age. They

render certain and immortal the just and hard-earned fame of their

author, who labored not, however, at least not principally, for fame

and honor, but for the love of truth, the welfare of mankind, and the

approbation of heaven.

Dr. Brownson is the most remarkable of all the converts to the

Catholic Church in the United States, and among the most remarkable in

the group of illustrious men who have paid homage to her authority in

the present age. His conversion was a great event and made an epoch.

What the amount of good which has been and will be effected by his

works may be, it is utterly impossible to estimate; for such things

have no statistics, no criterion of measurement, no data for

calculation. The weight of his testimony and the conclusiveness of his

arguments have been slightingly treated, and represented as not worthy

to be considered, on the plea that he was capricious, changeable, and

possessed of a kind of marvellous art, a sort of intellectual magic,

by which he could persuade himself, and make a plausible show of

proving to others, that any theory, doctrine, or scheme which took his

fancy was solid truth; somewhat as Kant attributes an illusory power

to nature, by which all sorts of paralogisms are made to seem equally

true and real to reason, whereas they are only phenomenal forms. To a

great number of persons Dr. Brownson was an intellectual phenomenon, a

sort of philosophical comet of the most eccentric orbit, a

prestidigitator with magical formulas, a Prospero having a magic wand,

a being such as the popular superstition of old represented Albertus

Magnus. That a mind which is searching for the truth which it does not

possess, and after a supreme good which it knows not except as an

object of vague longing, should wander, is not strange. It is the

principle of Protestantism, and of the rationalistic, sceptical

philosophy which it has produced, to be always doubting, questioning;

“ever seeking and never coming to the knowledge of the truth,” unless

by the substitution of another, higher principle. That there was a law

in his mental aberrations, a progressive movement in his eccentric

orbit, a “method in his madness,” even in its utmost extravagance, a

careful perusal of his autobiography will show. It requires

intelligence and patience, however, to read that book. His intellect

was one always _quærens causas altissimas_. When he became once

convinced of the truth of the Catholic religion, and surrendered his

mind to the supernatural light of faith, although his faith was _fides

quærens intellectum_, he never changed or wavered in his belief of the

grand dogmas of Catholic Christianity. That such a mind and

disposition as his could be firmly held under the dominion of

authority with the full assent of the understanding and the joyful

submission of the will, is no weak proof that the authority is divine

which subdued so restive a spirit. Pegasus in the yoke with his wings

tied was an unruly, troublesome steed; but when Apollo mounted on his

back and cut his cords, he was docile to his rein, while with all the

joy of liberty he flew through the air, proud to obey such a master.

Dr. Brownson’s demonstration of the divine institution and authority

of the church is unanswered and unanswerable. It is childish trifling,

unworthy of rational men, to ignore his arguments and escape from his

logic by petty criticisms on his person. Reason is objective and real;

the subjective qualities of the reasoner have nothing to do with its

authority. Several years before Dr. Brownson’s conversion, the writer

heard several of the professors of Princeton express their opinion

that he was the ablest and most dangerous antagonist of Christianity

in this country. Like Saul of Tarsus, he was changed from an enemy to

a champion of the cause of Christ and his church. Though somewhat

sudden, his conversion was from rational conviction and the purest

motives. It is impossible to deprive it of its significance or deny

its importance. It is one of many instances proving that now, as ever,

the Catholic Church has power to win and master the strongest and most

fearless minds, the most generous and disinterested hearts. Dr.

Brownson was generous and disinterested. He obeyed his conscience,

devoted himself to truth and justice, served God and his fellow-men,

without price, in poverty, and with a total neglect of popularity and

worldly honor, comfort, enjoyment, and every sort of earthly pomp and

ostentation. In a merely natural point of view he was like the simple

old men of the Greek and Roman heroic age, and the early fathers of

our degenerate commonwealth. His austere figure is an example and a

reproach to a frivolous, luxurious, sceptical, perfidious generation.

What a contrast between his incorruptible integrity and unpurchasable

allegiance to truth and right, to virtue and honesty, to order and

liberty, and the venal trafficking of our so-called statesmen, who

swindle soldiers and artisans, rob the country and the poor, barter

and trade in votes and offices, renounce their faith for political

preferment, bid for honors by appeals to sectarian animosity, sell the

most sacred rights and interests for their own selfish advantage,

flaunt in a vulgar magnificence which is maintained by theft, and

abscond to escape the punishment due to their felonies! Amid this mean

crowd he stands out like Aristides among the demagogues of Athens; and

compared with that other brood which has settled down on the domain of

the press and the lecture-hall, the professors of atheistic

materialism, he is like Socrates among the sophists. Detected

swindlers, defaulters and robbers are despised and denounced,

disgraced and punished, if it is money and material goods which they

administer fraudulently or appropriate unjustly. They are the small

cattle-thieves of _Waverley_, but the great _lifters_ escape

unpunished and are honored. Tyrants who rob their subjects of their

rights or neighboring states of their possessions; defaulters to

faith, conscience, and God, who abuse their gifts and power to debauch

and degrade the minds of their fellow-men; swindlers in the priceless

goods of the soul and eternity; the prophets of falsehood and

licentiousness; are enriched and applauded. Neglect, aversion,

martyrdom, are the portion of the genuine heroes, sages, patriots,

lovers and benefactors of the race; and whatever homage they receive

is extorted, reluctant, scanty in proportion to their worth and merit.

Even when they are admired and praised, their teaching is not heeded

or their example followed by the fickle, frivolous crowd. Morally,

when not literally, exile and the cup of hemlock are their portion.

Those who literally encounter death and receive the palm of martrydom

are the happiest and most favored among them. But these are the men

who redeem the race, and are the only lasting glory of the age in

which their task of labor and suffering is fulfilled. Among these

crusaders Dr. Brownson enlisted when he abandoned the camp of

infidelity and revolution to receive the cross. The _corps d’élite_ of

Catholic laymen distinguished by their eminent superiority and

illustrious services to the church, in this century, is a

confraternity even more chivalrous and honorable than the Order of the

Temple in its purest, brightest days. Görres, O’Connell, De Gerlache,

Rossi, Lamoricière, Montalembert, Veuillot, Dechamps, Marshall, Ward,

Garcia Moreno, Mallinkrodt—these are names which represent a great

battalion of more or less renowned warriors in the sacred cause of

Christ, of his Vicar, of true religion, science, civilization, and

man’s eternal welfare. The unshaken, loyal fidelity of Abdiel among

the innumerable hosts of revolted angels shines forth, not with

solitary lustre, but like the splendor of the cohort seen in the

vision recorded in the Machabees: _Peraera equites discurrentes,

auratas stolas habentes, et aureorum splendorem armorum_. The Catholic

laity of the United States have furnished one illustrious champion to

this band. He loved the church first of all, and next his country. He

deserved well of both, for Christian and civic virtues, sacrifices on

the altar of God and the battle-field of the republic, wise and

eloquent pleadings for Catholic law in the Christian commonwealth, and

constitutional right, freedom, and order in the American state. We

trust that his instructions and example will always be a light and an

encouragement, a glory and a model, to the Catholic laymen of the

United States, and especially to the young men of education who aspire

to intellectual culture and feel the impulse to act valiantly and

usefully their part as citizens of this republic and Christian

gentlemen.

[112] It is but a few years since the death of Dr.

Brownson’s mother, and his twin-sister still survives.

[113] The Convert, p. 96

THE ASCENSION.

“Thou art gone up on high.”—Ps. lxvii. 18.

Gone up! But whither? To a star?

Some orb that seems a point of light?

Or one too infinitely far

For our fond gaze beneath the night?

Some fairer world, to which our own,

With all its vastness, is a grain?

Is’t there the God-Man sets His throne—

Fit centre of a boundless reign?

Let science coldly sweep away

A fancied Eden here and there

From out the starry space, and say

‘Tis _all_ brute matter—crude and bare

Or stern philosophy demand.

May not yon myriad orbs we ken

Be but a pinch of golden sand,

To stretch the narrow minds of men?

Yet Faith makes answer, meekly bold

Narrow to me your widest lore—

Without the blessed truth I hold

That God is man for evermore.

He came to wed our life to His:

As man was born, and died, and rose:

And in His victor Flesh it is

Our hopes of Paradise repose.

He wore it through the sweet delay

That kept him with His dear ones yet;

Nor put it from Him on the day

He passed from topmost Olivet.

Then still He wears it in the skies—

Matter in place. And when the cloud

Received Him from the gazers’ eyes—

Before their brimming hearts allowed

That they had lost Him—swift as thought,

He reached the bright Elysian home

His own primeval word had wrought—

New Eden for the race to come.

THE WILD ROSE OF ST. REGIS.

An earnest consideration of the “Indian question” must impress every

lover of our country with the most serious conviction of its

importance and the fearful accounting which awaits us before the

solemn tribunal of the future, if we follow the policy which has

unhappily been hitherto adopted in relation to it.

Leaving out all thought of the principles of eternal justice, and

consulting only the promotion of our temporal interests, the course we

have pursued could not have been more fatal if projected for the sole

purpose of defeat and ruin.

How much more wisely did France deal with the aborigines from the

start than England! With what untiring patience did her colonial

governments meet each successive savage outbreak, subduing the

ferocious foe with weapons of Christian forbearance and clemency! They

waged no war of retaliation and extermination against these “children

of larger growth,” whom they found roaming through the forests of New

France. They made no treaties with them, as we have done from the

first, with the sole purpose, as it would seem, of breaking them. In

their traffic with the Indians they forced no worthless rubbish upon

them at prices far exceeding the value of the very best, and in

exchange for their wares at a rate much below the half of their real

worth. The dealings of traders with them were not only jealously

watched and guarded by every possible check to the greed for gain, but

a breach of justice and equity in those dealings was sure to meet its

provided penalty.

France bequeathed to England with the cession of her Canadian

provinces, in 1763, the wisest system—wisest because based upon an

immutable foundation of Christian equity—which could have been adopted

in regard to her Indian tribes; and England, though not always so

scrupulously watchful of the transactions of her traders, was

sagacious enough to perceive its wisdom and to uphold and continue it,

in all its leading features, throughout her American dependencies.

Herein, as we apprehend, lies the secret of her success in this

matter, which contrasts so strikingly with our miserable

failure—herein, and not, as has been asserted, in any essential

difference between these aboriginal races; for the savage is, after

all, much the same through all his nations and tribes, and has a vast

amount of human nature in his unsubdued bosom, which is as easily

melted by kindness as exasperated by cruelty and oppression.

Circumstances recently brought to our notice have served to confirm

and illustrate convictions we had long entertained on this subject,

and we have thought the relation of them might not prove inappropriate

or without interest at this time.

In the autumn of 1874 we went with a party of friends to the railroad

depot at St. Albans, Vermont, to take leave of a portion of our number

who were about to depart for Florida to pass the winter. While we were

awaiting the arrival of the train from the north our notice was

attracted by a group of Indian children who passed among the crowd

assembled there, in quest of purchasers for their toilet articles and

Indian knick-knacks.

An old lady of our party—whose father left Vermont with his family

early in this century, when she was very young, to settle in

northwestern New York, and who was now visiting the home and friends

of her childhood for the first time—seemed to take a particular

interest in these children. Calling a little girl to her, she asked

what place they were from. “From St. Regis,” was the reply. “And did

you ever hear of Margaret La Lune?” she asked. “She is our

grandmother,” they answered, “and is in this village now.”

At that moment a very old squaw, dressed in a remarkably neat Indian

costume, with a blanket of snowy whiteness thrown loosely around her

aged form, entered the room. To our astonishment, our friend no sooner

saw her than she ran to her with open arms, embraced her, and kissed

each of her wrinkled and swarthy cheeks!

This sudden demonstration was evidently no surprise to the Indian

woman; for when, after a moment of silence, our friend asked, “Why,

Margaret! how does it happen that you remember me after so many

years?” she simply replied: “My daughter should know that our people

never forget!” finishing the sentence with some expressions in her own

language which fell upon our ears more like vibrations produced by the

wind passing over the chords of some musical instrument, than like any

articulate utterance. Our amazement was not diminished when we heard

our friend reply in the same tone and language.

Before we could express our surprise the train arrived. The bustle of

departure and last words were hardly over when we found that the

Indian party had also gone on to Burlington in the same train.

Upon our return home we beset our visitor with questions as to this

singular interview and the warm affection which seemed to exist

between her and the old squaw.

“I became acquainted with her, for a brief space, long ago, when I was

a little child,” she replied, “and, though I have never seen her

since, incidents occurred some years later which revived my

recollections of her and fixed them in my memory.”

When we insisted upon hearing all about it, she related the following

story of

THE WILD ROSE OF ST. REGIS.

When my father removed in 1815 to the new settlement at Rossie, on the

western confines of St. Lawrence County, N. Y., the forests covering

the territory lying on Black Lake, and the borders of the Indian

River—which empties into that lake a few miles below Rossie—had

scarcely yet been disturbed by the axe of the settler. Hordes of wild

beasts held almost undisputed sway over regions now occupied by

cultivated farms and smiling villages.

A place of more weird and savage aspect than Rossie presented,

situated on both sides of that dark stream, can hardly be conceived.

Rich beds of iron ore of a superior quality abounding among its rugged

hills, and extensive lead-mines, furnished material for the operation

of numerous furnaces, which, with the necessary habitations for their

operatives, formed the little village. The largest Indian encampment

in the county was also pitched upon its border, a short distance down

the river.

The young squaws of the encampment mingled with the little girls of

the settlement, and often became strongly attached to them. I was

fascinated from the first with the manner of life in a wigwam, and

soon became a special favorite with the Indian women. They frequently

persuaded my mother to let me pass day after day in their wigwams,

where I was carefully guarded and taught many of the simple arts in

which they excel, and, as an unusual mark of their high regard,

instructed in some of the secrets of those arts—such as the process

for dyeing the quills of the porcupine with brilliant, unfading colors

of every hue, in which they are so skilful; the mode of embroidering

with them; the use of the moose-hair in such embroidery, and the

manner of preparing it. I entered upon these pursuits with

enthusiastic ardor and diligence, acquiring also—as a necessary

consequence of this intercourse and training—with the facility of a

youthful tongue, a sufficient knowledge of their language to

communicate readily with them on all ordinary matters.

My mother was so fully engrossed with cares attendant upon the

management of a large household, required in my father’s extensive

business, that she had little time to devote to me beyond assuring

herself of my safety. I recall with vivid distinctness, after the

lapse of so many years, the startled surprise, not to say horror, with

which she met my triumphant exhibition of a superb pair of moccasins

for herself, lined with the soft, snow-white fur of the weasel, the

work of my own hands. I had dressed and dyed the skins of which they

were made, colored the brilliant quills and moose-hair profusely

wrought into them, and finally cut, stitched, and embroidered them,

under the direction of a pious old squaw who always watched over me

during my visits to the wigwams.

My mother examined them in great surprise, her countenance expressing

mingled pride and pity as she exclaimed: “Poor child! we _must_ send

you away somewhere to school; for I am afraid you will become a

thorough little squaw if we keep you in this wild place among such

savage companions.”

I felt deeply wounded by the want of respect for my dear friends which

her remarks implied, and insisted warmly that the squaws were better,

more gentle, and a great deal more pious than the civilized women of

the place; that they were never guilty of backbiting or quarrelling

among themselves; never raised their voices above the soft tones of

their ordinary conversation, but lived in peace and harmony, saying

their prayers devoutly morning and night, and requiring their children

to do the same. I enumerated eagerly all the good qualities for which

I admired them, to which she cordially assented, but insisted,

nevertheless, that, as I was destined to live among civilized people,

it was not desirable for me to acquire the habits and tastes of these

children of the wilderness.

One morning not long after this occurrence, as I was playing with the

Indian children near an untenanted house on the bank of the river,

they told me in their own language that we must not make much noise;

“for there was a fading flower in that house, and the medicine-women

feared it had been chilled by the breath of the destroyer.” I

understood their meaning and asked one of them to go in with me to see

the young invalid.

When we entered, an elderly squaw, the fine texture and snowy

whiteness of whose blanket marked her as one of the best of her race,

was bending over the slight form of a beautiful young girl who was

lying on a bed of hemlock boughs which had been prepared in one corner

of the room, and wrapping a blanket around her, while she lavished

upon her those tender epithets and pet names with which the Indian

dialects abound. As she turned and saw me, she said: “See, here is the

little pale-face of whom Loiska told us, come to see my Rose of the

woods! Will not the sweet flower lift its head to the sunshine of the

pale-face?”

The maiden smiled and extended her wasted hand to take mine. I

shuddered at its clammy coldness.

“See, dear mother,” she said plaintively, “the White Lily shrinks from

the touch of the dews that lie upon your Rose! You must not be false

to yourself or to me; for it is an angel who whispers to the little

one that these are the dews of death. Your best skill cannot stay

them, and they will cease only at the call of the great messenger, who

will remove your flower to the garden of that ‘Mystical Rose’ whose

fragrance we love so well.”

“Oh! let not my blossom say so. The journey was long and the bed was

hard. The rays of the sun upon the water were too strong for our

tender bud, and it wilted, but will soon revive in these pleasant

shades. The pale-face will procure from her mother, who is passing

kind to our people, strengthening food and refreshment for the Wild

Rose!”

“Yes! yes!” I cried, “she will and we will not let it droop. I will go

directly to my mother, and I know she will help you!”

I was thrilled by their look of grateful surprise when they found I

could understand their language, and their softly-ejaculated

benedictions followed me as I bounded away in quest of my mother. I

found her busily engaged in household matters, and, seizing her with

irresistible energy, literally dragged her into the presence of my new

friends, telling her what I knew of them by the way.

When we arrived she inquired tenderly as to the symptoms of the lovely

invalid. Finding they had come from St. Regis by water, and had

brought her on a bed of boughs in their canoe to Ogdensburg, thence up

the Oswegatchie to Black Lake, and thus far up the Indian River, she

also was of the opinion that the frail child was exhausted by fatigue,

and that rest would revive her.

They had undertaken the journey in the hope that a change would be a

benefit to her health. Her father came with them and was at the camp,

but the mother preferred a place where her charge could be better

sheltered than in a wigwam.

My mother went home, and, gathering comfortable furniture for their

room, despatched a man with it; then, preparing some hot wine negus

with toasted crackers, she sent them by me to refresh the sufferer

while some nourishing broth could be made ready.

From that time I forsook the wigwams and devoted myself to my Wild

Rose; who became so fond of me that she could scarcely consent to my

leaving her for the nights. Each morning found me at her bedside

before sunrise, with my own breakfast as well as hers, that we might

partake of it together, and with a profusion of fresh flowers from the

abundance of my mother’s flower-garden wherewith to adorn her room.

The Indian children had helped me to festoon it with wreaths of ground

pine and boughs, until it was an evergreen bower in which we took

great satisfaction.

My mother gathered from her her little history. She had been betrothed

to a young son of their chief, and they were to have been married the

previous fall. The time for the nuptials had been appointed and her

bridal dress prepared. The young man was sent by his father on some

business to Montreal a few days before the time thus appointed. On the

way his canoe was drawn suddenly into a whirlpool in the rapids,

dashed to fragments upon the rocks, and he perished. The shock of this

terrible calamity was fatal to her health, which had never been

robust. From that moment she drooped, and, though quite calm, even

cheerful, had been gradually wasting and sinking. They improved the

first mild days of spring to try the effect of a change of air and

scene, after she had received the last sacraments from their priest in

preparation for the worst.

For a few weeks she seemed to revive, and even walked with me once as

far as my own home. Her appetite improved, and she relished all that

my mother’s care provided for her food.

As I remember her at this distant day, I know she must have been a

being of superior beauty and loveliness; but there was nothing about

her which so fascinated and impressed my young heart as the spirit of

piety that governed all her words and actions, and seemed to flow from

the depths of her pure soul like transparent waters from a fountain,

refreshing every one who came within their influence.

One warm evening in the early summer we sat together for a long time

in silence and alone, watching a beautiful sunset over the wild

“Rossie Hills,” when her soft voice breathed in her own musical

language expressions which subsequent events fixed indelibly in my

memory.

“My sweet Lily,” she said, “will often uplift her pale face to the

smiles of the glorious sunset when the Rose, who loved to bask with

her in their golden gleam, will be blooming in gardens which need them

not; for the ‘Sun of Righteousness’ will be their light, and will fill

them with glories unknown to earthly bowers, and his Blessed Virgin

Mother will smile upon them. But the incense of prayer, like the

breath of its own perfume, will ever float from the Rose to the throne

of the Eternal that her Lily may be transplanted at last to a place by

her side in that happy home where sighing, and parting, and sorrow

shall cease for ever! Oh! will she not strive for admittance to the

garden of our Lord here, that she may rejoice in the light of his

countenance hereafter?”

In a voice broken by my sobs I promised all she asked, and I doubt not

her prayers helped me long afterwards in obtaining the grace to fulfil

the promise.

The next morning I found her much exhausted, and that she had passed a

restless night. Her mother raised her in her arms while she took the

broth I brought for her breakfast, of which she was very fond. She

seemed weary, and, as her mother lowered her gently to the pillow, she

suddenly lifted her eyes to heaven, while a smile of celestial rapture

stole over her beautiful face, and exclaimed, “Pray for me, my own

mother; for, behold! the bright angel is spreading his wings to bear

your Rose to the presence of her Redeemer!”—and was gone. The Indian

mother and myself were alone with the lifeless form of our beloved

one.

The change, the shock, was so sudden and unlooked for that I stood

horror-struck and paralyzed, for the first time, before the dread

messenger who had stolen the breath of my sweet Rose. The whole scene

was so incomprehensible to me that I could not believe the tones of

her dear voice were hushed for ever, but persuaded myself that she had

only fallen asleep.

Amazed, I watched the poor mother as she calmly recited the prayers

for the departing spirit over her child for some time, the only

outward sign of her anguish being the tears which flowed in torrents

down her cheeks, while every line of her wan features expressed

unquestioning resignation to the will of Him who had given and taken

her treasure.

The prayers concluded, she tenderly closed the dear eyes, adjusted the

slender form, folded the delicate hands over a crucifix on her breast,

and entwined the beads, which had so seldom been laid aside by them in

life, closely around them in death. When she sat down at length, and,

opening her blanket, extended her arms towards me, the first glimpse

of the dread reality burst upon me in a flood of crushing agony, and,

springing to the open arms which drew me in a close embrace to her

bosom, I wept aloud in a paroxysm of frantic, uncontrollable grief.

She fondly soothed and caressed me, bestowing upon me those

expressions of tender affection which she had been wont to pour into

the ears now closed for ever, and uttering fervent prayers to heaven

that its choicest dews might descend upon the Lily which had cheered

the last hours of her sweet Rose.

I was inconsolable, and told her vehemently that, since Heaven had

taken the Rose, the Lily would go too, and that it would never lift up

its head again; and, indeed, my grief was so violent as to injure my

health, and I was soon sent away to new scenes.

My mother assisted in preparing the frail form of the Indian maiden

for the grave. Her mother had brought with her the bridal dress of her

child, and in that they arrayed the beautiful departed for the bridal

of death. Then, enfolding her in a linen sheet, they wrapped her

blanket about her and gently laid her down upon the bed of boughs her

father had prepared in the canoe for her removal to the graves of

their kindred at St. Regis. Then followed the sad leave-taking and the

departure.

The dismal forests which clothed each margin of the Indian River

seemed to bend over that sombre stream in reverential sympathy as the

Indian father and mother, with their faded Rose, floated silently down

its dark waters and out of our sight for ever!

* * * * *

Some years had elapsed since this event, and during the interval

misfortunes had overwhelmed our family. At the very time of severe

reverses in his business my father was taken with a malignant fever

and died. My mother, my young brother, and myself were thus left in

desolate affliction to battle with adversity as best we might. Our

pleasant home was surrendered to creditors, and we sought the forests

of Upper Canada, whither a family who had long been tenants on our

farm had gone several years before. They had taken up a tract of land

under a government grant to settlers, and, when they heard of our

great calamity, wrote, urging us to do the same, as they could render

great assistance to us if we were near them.

The land we took was covered with very valuable timber, and the first

object was to get a portion of it to the Quebec market, that its

avails might pay for clearing the land and preparing our new home.

My brother—hitherto the pet of the family, and in danger of being the

spoiled child of fortune—set about the task with an energy that

surprised every one. He was greatly beloved by the Indian hunters, who

knew my father and had received many favors from him in the days of

our prosperity. They assisted us in our removal, and remained to help

and encourage my brother in the lumbering business, so new to him,

under the direction of “Captain Tom,” an old Indian who was very

skilful in such operations. We removed late in the fall, taking with

us a supply of provisions more than sufficient for the winter, and but

little else of worldly gear.

When the spring opened, thanks to our kind neighbors with their oxen,

and the good Indians, a quantity of lumber of various kinds had been

drawn to the river bank, and as soon as the ice went out they put it

into rafts for transportation. These were constructed in separate

sections, each with its rude little _caboose_ to shelter the two men

who went with it. The sections were then firmly united in one long

raft by means of strong withes, in such a manner that they could be

readily detached by cutting the withes, if necessary, in making the

dangerous descent of the rapids above Montreal.

A few days before they set out a vicious, drunken Indian called

“Malfait,” who had been loitering around all winter, quarrelling with

the men and giving no assistance, applied to Captain Tom for whiskey

and for permission to go down on the rafts, both which requests were

refused. He went away muttering threats, and the old Indian feared he

was meditating mischief.

My brother wished to go with Captain Tom on the forward section, as

was the custom for the one who conducted the navigation. We gave a

very reluctant consent, and our parting with him was saddened by many

misgivings.

They proceeded prosperously on their voyage as far as the “Long

Sault,” so called, the first dangerous rapid, the chief difficulty in

passing which, for experienced navigators, was to avoid being drawn,

by an almost irresistible current at one point, into a furious

maelstrom called the “Lost Channel,” from which few had ever escaped

who once entered it.

They reached the head of the Long Sault late in the afternoon, and

anchored there for the night, with the roar of the tumbling waters in

their ears. The moon was shining brightly, and they betook themselves

to rest early, that they might start betimes in the morning. Very late

in the night my brother was awakened from a sound sleep by the old

Indian, who laid his hand heavily upon him and told him to keep very

calm and not to struggle or make the least effort to shield himself.

“For,” said he, “we are entering the Lost Channel; our part of the

raft has been cut loose. I have bound you firmly to the same stick of

timber to which I am now binding myself. We can only leave ourselves

in the hands of the Great Spirit; for no other arm can help us.”

My brother was paralyzed with terror as the maddened waters seized the

raft as if it had been a child’s plaything, tore the heavy timbers

apart, and bent and shivered many of them like saplings. The one to

which he and the Indian were attached was often uplifted, by the force

of the raging torrent, its full length, to be thrown violently down

and swallowed in the depths of the foaming flood. The shock of these

concussions soon benumbed his faculties, and his last conscious act

was to recommend his soul to the mercy of God, before whose awful

tribunal he supposed he was about to appear.

When he began to recover his senses, it was like waking from some

frightful dream. He was too much bewildered to realize for some time

that he was in a comfortable Indian lodge, with a kind old squaw in

attendance upon him. She would not allow him to ask any questions or

agitate himself, assuring him that all was well, and he should know

the whole at a proper time. As soon as he was able to hear it she gave

him the history.

On the day before their arrival at the Long Sault her son, with a

party of Indian hunters who had been up the St. Lawrence and were

returning to St. Regis, had fallen in with Malfait, and, from

inquiries made by him, suspected that he was watching, with no good

purpose, for rafts that he expected would come down the river. He

suddenly disappeared, and they did not know in what direction. When

her son told her the circumstance and their suspicions—for the bad

character of Malfait was well known, and they had heard that Captain

Tom was coming down with rafts-she set out at once with men and canoes

up Lake St. Louis to the foot of the rapids, to give aid if it should

be needed.

They discovered the timber to which my brother and his faithful friend

were lashed, and, releasing them, brought their insensible forms as

speedily as possible to her lodge on the shore of that lake, with very

little hope that they would ever revive. The old Indian, however, soon

began to show signs of life, and, when he was able, recounted what had

happened. He had no doubt that Malfait came in the night, detached the

raft, and steered it into the rapids to satisfy his malice against

him.

As soon as he was strong enough to go, her son went with him down the

river to look after the remainder of the raft, leaving his young

friend in good hands, though still unconscious of the tender care he

was receiving.

They found the rafts in Lake St. Peter below Montreal, and her son

returned. She then sent him with some others to gather the timber of

the wrecked raft. They collected all that could be found on the shore

of the lake, to be taken when the rafts should come down next year.

“And now, my son,” she continued, when she had brought the narrative

to this point, “I am known here as Margaret La Lune, but to your

mother and sister as the mother of the Wild Rose of St. Regis. You may

have heard them speak of her, though you were too young at the time of

their acquaintance to know about it yourself. It was to her care the

Great Spirit committed you in your extremity, that she might be

allowed to make some return for their kindness to her and her sweet

child, which she has never forgotten, and has ever since endeavored to

repay by giving all the help in her power to navigators on these

perilous waters. It was in one of these attempts that my husband lost

his life some years ago. Great was my joy when I learned from your

Indian friend that I had rescued one so dear to them from a grave in

the rushing flood.”

My brother remained with her until the return of Captain Tom. He

delivered the lumber to the merchant in Quebec to whom it was

consigned—who had long known the sterling qualities of the faithful

old Indian—and informed him of the situation in which he left his

young employer. The merchant advanced money to him to pay off the men

and to bear his own and my brother’s expenses home, sending by him a

statement of the balance left and subject to my brother’s order. The

money for their expenses was all that Captain Tom or his Indians could

ever be persuaded to accept for their valuable services at that time

and in after-years. Their only reply to my brother’s persuasions was,

“We remember your father. He good to his Indian brothers.”

You may well imagine our surprise and gratitude when we heard from my

brother’s own lips the story of all that had befallen him, and of the

devotion of our excellent Margaret. She was absent when he went down

the next year for the last time, and he did not see her.

Our affairs prospered beyond our expectation. We brought willing hands

and courageous hearts to the strife with adverse fortunes, and, by the

blessing of God upon our efforts, did not fail in time to retrieve

them. My mother died a few years after my marriage with a son of our

former tenant, whose sister my brother afterwards married. She divided

her time between the two homes, tenderly beloved and cared for by her

children and grandchildren, and honored by all who knew her.

You now understand the reason for my great surprise and affectionate

meeting with Margaret at the depot, which must have seemed strange

indeed to the witnesses. In our short chat I promised to go to pass

some time with her upon my return home, and am not without hope that I

shall persuade her to go with me to see the children and grandchildren

who have often heard of her and of the fidelity with which her people

treasure up the memory of kind acts.

HAMMOND ON THE NERVOUS SYSTEM.[114]

The wonderful relativity of psychology to the purely somatic phenomena

comprised under the term physiology, while not having altogether

escaped the observation of earlier thinkers, did not assume the

significance it now possesses till modern science compelled mere

psychicists to recognize the invaluable services this new handmaiden

bestowed on their favorite pursuit. It had been too much the vogue to

frown down attempts at chemical explanations of vital processes as

verging towards materialism, and thus materialism was in reality

strengthened, since the opponents of modern physiology had shut their

eyes to facts as stubborn and undeniable as the soul itself whose

cause they were championing. This antagonism was unfortunate; for,

though of short duration, it gave rise to the impression in the

popular mind that the old science dreaded the new light, and that

recent discoveries tended rapidly to overthrow the time-honored belief

in the distinct substantiality of the soul. To this same arrogant

rejection by pedantic orthodoxists of facts that seemingly conflicted

with accepted views, may be ascribed the sneering and triumphant

manner of many scientists who fail to take account of the slowness

with which men reconcile themselves to truths not hitherto suspected.

Had, however, the data of modern science been at first fully

considered, it would have become evident that theories and assumptions

alone ran counter to the doctrine of a spiritual soul, and that

scientific facts, startling and numerous as they were, did not, when

viewed by the light of a just interpretation, conflict with any prior

truth. The hasty and groundless character of the assumptions which

tend to materialism may be inferred from the claim not long since put

forward in the _Ecole de Médecine_ at Paris, to the effect that the

science of physiology demands in advance the rejection of any

principle of activity in man not amenable to its methods and

instruments of research, on the ground that man in his totality is the

true objective point of this science, and the admission of aught in

him which it cannot determine is equivalent to stating that man is

more than he is. According to this authority, therefore, the notion of

a soul, viewed as a spiritual substance, distinct and different from

the body, hampers science and circumscribes the field of its inquiry.

But if the vast strides made by physiology within the last decade have

been the occasion of some pernicious speculation, and have seemed to

give countenance to materialism, this has been the case only when the

science transcended its own data and soared into the region of

conjecture. Its legitimate fruits are manifest in the flood of light

it has thrown on the most intricate questions of psychology, and the

elucidation of points which, but for it, would have remained for ever

in obscurity. Indeed, it may be said to have created a new branch of

psychical science, and to have brushed away many cobwebs that clouded

the psychology of the schools. The volume before us represents the

latest expression of the physiology and pathology of the nervous

system, and is characterized by unusual closeness of observation and

accuracy of expression, while evincing a proneness to theorize on

points concerning which the author is least at home. Dr. Hammond has

been a close student at the bedside and an indefatigable worker with

those instruments of research which have almost built up his science,

but for all an indifferent thinker, as we shall shortly endeavor to

prove. It is true that no authority is more frequently invoked, and

with good reason, to determine questions relative to mental aberration

and unusual conditions of the nervous system; but when he abandons the

ophthalmoscope, the cephalohœmometer, the œsthesiometer, and assumes

the _abolla_ of the philosopher, he evidently misses his _rôle_. He is

undoubtedly a physiologist of the first rank and a respectable

authority on minute nervous histology, but as a theorist he is a

failure. Accustomed to dogmatize on facts coming within the scope of

the senses, he applies the same procrustean rule of reasoning to

purely intellectual processes, and speedily flounders in a quagmire.

His mind has tipped the balance in the direction of material things,

and has not been able to regain its equilibrium.