As a repertory of interesting facts, gleaned in the course of a long

and varied experience, his book is invaluable. It bristles with

information and is replete with comments which prove Dr. Hammond to be

an accurate, close, and painstaking observer, as well as an

accomplished anatomist. His chapter on Aphasia is intensely

interesting, and constitutes a valuable contribution to the theory of

localized function. Aphasia is that inability to use language which

proceeds, not from paralysis of the labial muscles, nor from hysteria,

nor from injury of the vocal chords (_aphonia_), but from a lesion of

that portion of the brain which presides over the memory of words and

the co-ordination of speech. Many instances are adduced in proof that

this inability results from the impairment of a given portion of the

cerebral substance; and from the constant recurrence of the same

effects from the same lesion the inference is drawn that a very

restricted portion of the brain is concerned in connecting thoughts

with words, co-ordinating these, and arranging them in articulate

sounds. Authorities, indeed, are not agreed as to what special brain

lobe this faculty is to be ascribed, but the fact is borne out by

unquestionable evidence that some portion of the anterior convolutions

controls and regulates the power of speech. The point of interest is

that the function is localized and depends on the minute physical

texture of the nerve substance through which it is carried on. Dr.

Hammond justly claims the credit of having first observed that the

form of aphasia called amnesic (forgetfulness of words) depends on

some lesion of the vesicular or gray matter of the brain, since it is

unaccompanied by paralysis, while the form called ataxic (inability to

co-ordinate articulate sounds) is connected with the _corpus striatum_

which presides over motion, and so we find this latter form always

associated with paralysis.

No summary of this chapter can do it justice, so pregnant is it with

facts and abounding with varied suggestion. We would remark, however,

that Dr. Hammond has failed to call attention to the remarkable

confirmation which the condition of amnesic aphasia offers in support

of the inseparable connection between thought and some symbol of

expression—a circumstance which Trousseau, in his learned work on

_Clinical Medicine_, has noted at length. Trousseau says: “A great

thinker as well as a great mathematician cannot devote himself to

transcendental speculations unless he uses formulæ and a thousand

material accessories which aid his mind, relieve his memory, and

impart greater strength to thought by giving it greater precision.

Now, an aphasic individual suffers from verbal amnesia so that he has

lost the formulæ of thought.” This fact of aphasia curiously coincides

with Vicomte de Bonald’s theory of the divine origin of language,

which is based on the supposed impossibility of having a purely

intellectual conception without an accompanying formula or word to

circumscribe and differentiate it, and that accordingly language, in

such relation, must have been communicated.

It is likewise corroborative of the view taken by Max Müller, who says

(_Science of Language_, 79): “Without speech, no reason; without

reason, no speech.” And again: “I therefore declare my conviction,

whether right or wrong, as explicitly as possible, that thought, in

one sense of the word—_i.e._, in the sense of reasoning—is impossible

without language.”

The latest disclosure of science, therefore, so far from conflicting

on this important point with the philosophy of the Scholastics,

endorses and sustains it, and is opposed rather to the rationalist

view of the question.

It is in the chapter on Insanity that Dr. Hammond first betrays the

crudeness and shallowness of his philosophy. On page 310 he says: “By

mind we understand a force developed by nervous action, and especially

the action of the brain.” And again: “The brain is the chief organ

from which the force called mind is evolved.”

In this definition the author is guilty of having used a term more

obscure and ambiguous than the _definiendium_ itself; for no two

scientific men agree in their view of force. Dr. Mayer, of Heilbronn,

says: “The term force conveys the idea of something unknown and

hypothetical.” “Forces are indestructible, convertible, and

imponderable objects.” Dr. Bray, in his _Anthropology_, says: “Force

is everything; it is a noumenal integer phenomenally differentiated

into the glittering universe of things.” Faraday says: “What I mean by

the term force is the cause of a physical action,” and elsewhere,

“Matter is force.” Dr. Bastian, on _Force and Matter_, declares force

to be “a mode of motion.” Herbert Spencer says of it: “Force, as we

know it, can be regarded only as a conditioned effect of the

unconditioned cause, as the relative reality, indicating to us an

absolute reality by which it is immediately produced.” Another writer

(Grove) calls forces the “affections of matter.” Now, the word mind

conveys, even to the most illiterate, a precise and definite notion.

Every one knows that it is the principle within him which thinks and

underlies all intellectual processes; but when Dr. Hammond informs him

that it is a “force,” and he finds that a bewildering confusion of

opinions, expressed in the obscurest terms, prevails concerning the

nature and essence of “force,” he finds that he has derived “_Fumum ex

fulgore_.” Even the term “evolves” is unfortunate; for the word occurs

in a great variety of connections. If force is an entity, it cannot be

evolved; it is produced. Of thought, indeed, it might be said that it

is evolved from the mind, since it represents the latter in a state of

active operation, and has no separate entity of its own; but mind,

being known to us as something in all respects distinct and diverse

from matter, cannot, except by a lapse into the grossest materialism,

be said to be evolved from the brain. Had Dr. Hammond present to his

mind a definite idea when he penned the word, he might have easily

found a clearer substitute. Carl Vogt knew well what meaning he

intended to convey when he said: “Just as the liver secretes bile, so

the brain secretes thought.” There is candor, at least, in this

statement, and none of that shuffling timorousness which shame-facedly

glozes materialism in the formula: “Mind is a force evolved from the

brain.”

Having satisfied himself that there can be no question as to the

accuracy of this definition, our author places mind in contrast with

“forces in general” by designating it a compound force. What he means

by “forces in general” it is hard to say; for if mind is a force, it

possesses the generic properties which ally it with other forces, and

must therefore be one of the “forces in general,” since that is a

veritable condition of its being a force at all. But this is a minor

error. The expression “compound force,” used as Dr. Hammond uses it,

implies a far graver mistake, and all but stultifies its author.

Either mind is a force (and be it remembered the author has not

enlightened us as to the sense in which we ought to understand the

term), having a special function to perform, from which, and from its

mode of performance, its character is inferred, in which case it is a

simple force, no matter how great may be the number and variety of the

objects on which it is expended; or, it is a combination of forces,

each proceeding from its proper source or _principium_, and each

directed to its proper object-term or class of object-terms, in which

case it is not one force merely, however much Dr. Hammond may insist

upon calling it compound, but a series of forces, each possessed of a

distinct entity and an individual identity. The doctor evidently did

not study the scope and import of the word when he thus loosely

employed it, else he would have perceived that whatever is compound is

some one and the same thing made up of parts, and not a collection of

individuals.

We will now see in what manner he distributes and assigns to duty the

_sub-forces_ comprised under the general term “compound force.” For

aught we know, Dr. Hammond may have once been familiar with the

researches of Stewart, Reid, Brown, and Hamilton, not to mention

Locke, Descartes, Leibnitz, and Malebranche; but he certainly labored

under some form of amnesia when he devised the following scheme of

psychology: He declares that the sub-forces into which the compound

force called mind is divisible are fourfold, viz.: perception,

intellect, emotion, and will. He defines perception to be “that _part_

of the mind whose office it is to place the individual in relation

with external objects.” This definition supposes that the whole mind

is not concerned in the act of perception, but that, while one part of

it is quiescent, another may be engaged in perceiving. This view of

perception has the questionable merit of originality, differing as it

does from the definition given by every author from Aristotle to Mill,

who all regard perception as an act of the mind, and the faculty of

perceiving nothing else than the mind itself viewed with reference to

its perceptive ability. Further on he says: “For the evolution of this

force [viz., part of the mind] the brain is in intimate relation with

certain special organs, which serve the purpose of receiving

impressions of objects. Thus an image is formed upon the retina, and

the optic nerve transmits the excitation to its ganglion or part of

the brain. This at once functionates [_Anglice_, acts.—C. W.], the

force called perception is evolved, and the image is perceived.”

We have quoted this passage at some length, not only for the purpose

of exhibiting Dr. Hammond’s theory of perception, but to show how

admirably the _argot_ of science serves to hide all meaning and to

leave the reader dazed and disappointed. No one yet, till Dr.

Hammond’s appearance on the psychological stage, ventured to call a

mere impression on an organ of sense perception; indeed, the whole

difficulty consists in explaining how the mind is placed in relation

with this image. It was with a view to elucidate this much-vexed

matter that the peripatetics invented their system concerning the

origin of ideas. It is all plain sailing till the image or phantasm in

the sensitive faculty is reached; so that at the point where the

Scholastics commenced their subtle and elaborate system Dr. Hammond

complacently dismisses the question by saying: “And the image is

perceived.” What need we trouble ourselves about general concepts,

reflex universal ideas, intelligible species, the acting and the

possible intellect, when there is so easy a mode of emergence from the

difficulty as Dr. Hammond suggests? No doubt he would, like hundreds

of others who do not understand Suarez or St. Thomas, regard the

writings of these doctors on this subject as a tissue of jargon,

overloading and obscuring a question which is so plain that it needs

but to be enunciated in order to be understood. Then the long and warm

conflicts which have torn the camp of philosophy, and separated her

votaries into opposite schools, would all be happily ended; it would

suffice to say: “Gentlemen, your toilsome webwork of thought is no

better than the product of Penelope’s distaff; the whole affair may be

summed up in these words: A ganglion functionates, the force called

perception is evolved, and the image is perceived.” _Mirabile dictu!_

It is not, therefore, necessary to discuss the question of ideal

intuition to find out whether the idea is a representative and

subjective form or objective and absolute; whether we are to agree

with Reid and the school of experimental psychologists, or do battle

under the colors of Gioberti and Rosmini, or the learned and lamented

Brownson? All these things are no doubt beneath the consideration of

the materialist’s psychology.

But we have still more to learn concerning perception at the feet of

this new Gamaliel. He says (page 312): “Perception may be exercised

without any superior intellectual act, without any ideation whatever.

Thus if the cerebrum of a pigeon be removed, the animal is still

capable of seeing and of hearing, but it obtains no idea from those

senses. The mind, with the exception of perception, is lost!”

Perception is not, therefore, connected with consciousness; for,

according to Dr. Hammond, we may hear and see without knowing it. We

do not deny that impressions may be made on the organs of sense

without eliciting an act of consciousness, for which reason, indeed,

ordinary language has reserved the use of words designating the

function of organs for those cases where consciousness is elicited;

for no one would dream of saying that he feels the prick of a pin or

hears another speak without knowing it. A cadaver can perceive as well

as a living subject, if we are to accept Dr. Hammond’s view; for we

know that an image may be formed and retained by the retina after

death, and this is all that is needed for perception. To explain all

intercurrent difficulties, we have but to fall back on ganglia and

evolution. At each step of the intellectual process a convenient

ganglion exists which evolves just the sort of force requisite to

produce the desired result, and thus we have a perfect system of

psychology. Of the intellect he says: “In the normal condition of the

brain the excitation of a sense, and the consequent perception, do not

stop at the special ganglion of that sense, but are transmitted to a

more complex part of the brain, where the perception is resolved into

an idea.” Thus is the brain made the sole organ of thought. We have

but to say, “A perception is resolved into an idea,” and in so many

words we bound over difficulties which made Plato, after much deep

pondering, invent a theory of thought, yet regarded as a matchless

monument of subtlety and sublimity, which taxed the subtle intellects

of St. Augustine, St. Thomas, Leibnitz, and Kant, and which will, in

all probability, continue to be an object of curious research to the

end of time. If a child, beholding the changeful images of a

kaleidoscope, should, prompted by the curiosity of youthful age,

inquire the reason of this beautiful play of colors, surely no one

would cynically answer him that one figure is resolved into another.

Dr. Hammond slurs over the difficulty; for the vexing question is, How

does the mind form an idea?—not, whether a ganglion is excited and

evolves force, but how, on the occasion of such excitation, an idea,

which is something altogether different from the excitation, is

produced in the mind.

This question he not only fails to answer, but exhibits a woeful

depreciation of its scope and gravity. He continues: “Thus the image

impressed upon the retina, the perception of which has been formed by

a sensory ganglion, ultimately causes the evolution of another force

by which all its attributes capable of being represented upon the

retina are more or less perfectly appreciated according to the

structural qualities of the ideational centre.” This sentence

furnishes the keynote to the whole theory of material psychics, and

leads us to inquire into its growth and history. When Bichat in France

and Sir Charles Bell in England simultaneously discovered that a

separate function was assignable to the anterior and posterior

nerve-fibres projected from each intervertebral foramen; that the

anterior possess the power of causing muscular contraction, the

posterior that of giving rise to sensation, they laid the foundation

of the wonderful and beautiful though much-perverted doctrine of the

localization of function. The experiments of Flourens, Claude Bernard,

Beaumont, Virchow, and Kolliker multiplied similar discoveries and

enlarged the significance of Bell’s and Bichat’s conclusions. To every

ganglion its separate function is now sought to be assigned, and we

have already alluded to the interesting facts which ataxic and amnesic

aphasia have lately developed. The intimate relation thus manifested

between particular portions of the brain-substance and the

corresponding mental function, aroused and quickened curiosity to find

out the nature and reason of this dependence. The materialist

perceived in this doctrine of the localization of function a new

weapon for attacking the spirituality of the soul, and was not slow to

bring it into requisition. It was assumed that a reason for the

difference of function in the different portions of the nervous

structure would be found in the intimate texture of the nerve-tissues

themselves; and the assumption, in so far as it is logical to suppose,

that a difference in organization can alone account for a difference

in the manifestation of power, was fair and plausible. All efforts

were now directed towards such discoveries in the minute histology of

the nervous system as would point to a connection between special

ganglia and the functions performed by them. The microscope, indeed,

brought to light many wonderful differences, but none sufficient to

justify what is, therefore, but a mere assumption—the conclusion that

the peculiar organization of certain portions of the nervous system is

as much the efficient cause of the functions with which they are

connected as the sun is the cause of heat and light, and the summer

breeze of the ripple on the harvest field. It was deemed unnecessary

to look for an explanation of intellection and volition beyond the

known or knowable properties of those portions of the nervous

substance with which the processes in question are connected. If, it

was argued, certain varying states of the inner coat of minute

blood-vessels fitted them to select, some arterial blood, and others

venous blood, and no one thought to invoke any other agency in

determining the cause of the difference or of the function, why should

we admit the existence of a distinct substance in accounting for

mental phenomena, when structural differences just as palpable and

obvious are at hand to explain them? In a word, not only difference of

function was attributed to difference of structure, but this latter

difference was held to be the sole cause and chief origin of the

function itself. Dazzled by the brilliancy of their discoveries, and

misled by a false analogy, many physiologists confounded condition

with cause, and, having perceived that the manifestations of the mind

are profoundly modified by the character of the medium through which

they are transmitted, inferred that the medium generated the function.

This confusion of condition with cause was further aided by the

current false notion of cause. Following Hume and Brown, most modern

men of science behold nothing else in the relation of cause to effect

than a mere invariable antecedence and subsequence of events, which,

of course, nullifies the distinction proper between indispensable

condition and cause. With them that is cause on the occurrence of

which something else invariably follows; nor need we look for any

other relation between the two. This doctrine, applied to the

phenomena of the mind, could not but lead the discoverers of localized

functions to downright materialism. They perceived that certain

phenomena invariably proceeded in the same manner from certain

portions of the nervous organism, and that any disturbance of the

latter was attended by a marked change in the character of the

phenomena with which it was connected. This invariability of

antecedence and fluctuating difference of effect pointed unerringly,

they thought, to structural differences in the nervous system as the

efficient cause of all its functions. Applying this doctrine of

causation to the process of intellection, we find how logically it

sustains Dr. Hammond’s assertion that mind is an evolution of force

from a special ganglion, since an excitation of the same ganglion is

always followed by the same result—viz., a mental apprehension.

The invariability of sequence is all that is needed to establish

ganglion in the category of causes, and ideation in that of effects.

We will now apply the same method of reasoning to a case in which the

obvious distinction between cause and condition cannot fail to strike

the most inattentive, and make manifest the sophistry of materialistic

physiology. Should we stray into a minster filled with a grand

religious light, and find chancel, nave, and pillar all radiant with

purple and violet, soft amber and regal red, we would naturally look

to the stained-glass window to discover the source of those warm tints

and brilliant hues, and would seek to determine what in those

party-colored panes gives rise to the effects we admire. We first

discover in each colored glass a peculiarity of structure which

especially adapts it to the emission of its proper ray, and then note

that the difference in the color of the rays depends on this same

peculiarity of structure. The problem is solved. Since a structural

peculiarity in the violet pane, for instance, fits it for the emission

of its own ray, and so on with respect to red, yellow, and purple, why

need we look for any other source of those colors? As we discover in

each party-colored pane the cause of the difference in the color of

the ray, we mistake the cause of the difference for the cause of the

ray, and assume not only the difference of the ray to depend on the

color of the transmitting medium, but deem that medium to be itself

the sole source of the light. In like manner the speculative and

transcendental physiologist finds in the adaptation of certain

portions of the nerve-tissue to the production of specific functions a

reason for referring the highest order of mental phenomena to the

nervous system as their cause, forgetting that the adaptation in

question may be but a mere condition modifying the manifesting power

of the substance which is the true source of the phenomena. The

observer who regards colored glass as the source of light, because he

has been able to trace a connection and establish a relation between

the color of the ray and the minute structure of the glass, differs in

naught from theorists of Dr. Hammond’s stripe, who make nervous

ganglia centres or sources of ideation because of the invariable

production of the latter on the occasion of some excitation in the

former. In both instances is committed the error of confounding

condition with cause, of mistaking the cause of a difference between

two occurrences for the cause of the occurrences themselves.

We have dwelt at this length on Dr. Hammond’s theory of the Intellect,

as it embodies an error so pernicious that the callow mind of the

medical student, awed by the authority of a name, is likely, on

reading this chapter, to imbibe principles which, slowly elaborated,

will lead him in process of time to the chilling tenets of

materialism.

The third sub-force enumerated by Dr. Hammond is Emotion, which, like

perception and intellect, is a force evolved on the occasion of an

excitation in some other portion of the brain. Thus the emotions of

joy, sorrow, hope, and love can be excited by making an impression on

this portion of the nervous substance, just as we elicit different

sounds from a piano by striking different keys in succession.

“‘Sblood! do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe?” Yet

Dr. Hammond would of man make a _Hamlet’s_ pipe, with its ventages and

stops, to be sounded from the lowest note to the top of the compass at

the pleasure of a skilled performer. The physiological signs of

emotion he has truthfully described, such as blushing, palpitation,

increase of the salivary secretion, and other bodily changes, the

connection of which with the emotions themselves will, we fear, so far

as there is any hope of a satisfactory explanation from physiology,

remain a dead secret for ever. The fourth and last of the sub-forces

evolved by the brain is Will, with respect to which the doctor has not

much to say, though it is easy to understand that it owes its origin,

according to him, to the same ganglionic changes as the three

preceding. He has not even defined this force, but merely says that by

volition acts are performed. The ordinary idea of will exhibits it as

a power which the soul exercises at discretion, even at times in the

absence of any motive, except caprice, and often against a strong

excitement of passion, so that it can be connected with no organic

changes which are necessary and subject to law. This idea Dr.

Hammond’s doctrine entirely overthrows; for if will be the result of

ganglionic excitation, it must surely follow the latter, and can

consequently be in no manner connected with its causation. Whatever

cause, then, may have produced the excitation, it must have been

necessary—_i.e._, have necessarily produced volition. Volition,

therefore, being the result of changes necessarily produced, must

itself be necessary, and we then have the anomaly of necessary will,

which is a sheer contradiction. There is no such thing, therefore, as

volition, in the true and accepted sense of the word, and what we deem

to be the free acts of the soul are brought about as necessarily as

pain or pleasure when the exciting agents of those emotions are in

operation. It is not difficult to estimate the practical consequences

of this doctrine. Man, thus made to act by organic changes and the

necessary determination of his nature, not being answerable for these,

cannot be made answerable for their consequences; so that the good and

evil he performs resemble, the former the changes which the bodily

system undergoes in a state of health, the latter the morbid changes

of disease. The good he does is as much the necessary outcome of his

nature as the golden fruit is of the tree, while his bad actions are

as the tempest that wrecks or the breath of a pestilence.

This is the self-same doctrine of Broussais dressed in the garb which

the latest researches in neurological science have prepared for it,

and much more covertly and insidiously presented.

Broussais says: “L’ivrogne et le gourmand sont ceux dont le cerveau

obéit aux irradiations des appareils digestifs; les hommes sobres

doivent leur vertu à un encéphale dont les stimulations propres sont

supérieures à celles de ces appareils” (_Irritation et Folie_, p.

823).—“The drunkard and the glutton are those whose brain obeys the

summons issued by the digestive organs; sober men owe their virtue to

the possession of a brain which rises superior to such orders.” Surely

in this, as in countless other instances, history continues to repeat

itself.

The definition of Insanity given by Dr. Hammond surpasses in clearness

and comprehensiveness all those which he has collected from other

sources, and is such, we consider, as will with difficulty be improved

upon in the respects mentioned. He calls it “a manifestation of

disease of the brain, characterized by a general or partial

derangement of one or more faculties of the mind, and in which, while

consciousness is not abolished, mental freedom is perverted, weakened,

or destroyed.” This definition more closely applies to all occurring

cases of insanity than any hitherto given, though it is a pity the

doctor has robbed its latter portion of all meaning by having

virtually denied mental freedom in his foregoing theory of volition.

The remainder of the chapter on insanity is exceedingly instructive

and interesting. The author has clearly exhibited the difference

between illusion, hallucination, and delusion, nor has he permitted

himself once, in his application of the terms to individual cases, to

interchange or confound them. Indeed, it is a matter of regret that so

acute an observer and so diligent a collector of facts was ever

tempted to betake himself beyond their legitimate domain, and to

launch himself on the troubled sea of speculation. But it has been

ever thus:

“Laudet diversa sequentes.”

The great bulk of the work—and it is a volume of nearly nine hundred

pages—is taken up with the discussion of those nervous diseases which,

for the most part obscure in their origin and of infrequent

occurrence, have been brought to light for the first time in this

monograph, so that the medical profession owes a deep debt of

gratitude to the laborious researches of Dr. Hammond in a very

partially explored field. To the general reader the chapter on

Hydrophobia cannot fail to prove interesting, presenting as it does a

graphic description of the symptoms which usher in this terrible

disease, and suggesting remedies which are within the reach of every

one, and are calculated to avert the awful consequences of a bite by a

rabid dog, provided they be employed without delay. The interval

between the reception of the wound and the outbreak of the symptoms is

very variable, but the majority of cases occur within seven months.

This interval is called the period of incubation, and is usually not

characterized by any other signs than a certain amount of mental

depression, often the result of a nervous apprehension of

consequences. The sleep especially is apt to be disturbed by such

forebodings, so that the animal which inflicted the wound is

frequently dreamt of. The prognosis of the disease is most

discouraging, since our author says: “There is no authentic instance

on record of a cure of hydrophobia.” The _post-mortem_ signs of

disease are shrouded in obscurity; for, though Dr. Hammond details at

great length certain altered conditions of the brain and spinal cord,

as well as of the arteries supplying them, those changes are by no

means pathognomonic—_i.e._, peculiar to the disease in question. The

point of greatest practical interest to those who have so far escaped

the death-dealing fang of Blanche, Tray, or Sweetheart is that, should

so sad an occurrence befall them, they must hasten at once to a

surgeon, and see that, after having tightly bound the limb above the

injury, he use the knife with an un-sparing hand, till every part with

which the teeth of the animal may have come in contact has been

entirely removed. Cauterization, either by fire, or nitrate of silver,

or some of the mineral acids, is preferred by some physicians, and has

proved quite as successful as excision. A Mr. Youatt employed

cauterization four hundred times on persons who had been bitten by

rabid animals, and every time with success. Dr. Hammond employed

cauterization seven times—four with nitrate of silver and three with

the actual cautery—and always with success. This proceeding should be

adopted, even though several weeks, or even months, may have elapsed

since the infliction of the wound; in which case, however, excision is

deemed preferable to cauterization. The importance of this knowledge

to persons residing in a city overrun with mongrels is very great; and

while we hope our readers may never have occasion to put it into

practice, we would recommend them to treasure it up for an emergency

which, however sad, is always possible.

Following the chapter on hydrophobia are some very interesting

statements concerning Epilepsy—a disease which, in a light form,

prevails more extensively than most people imagine. The most

remarkable precursory symptom to an attack of epilepsy is what is

called an _aura_, or breeze. This usually begins in some lower part of

the body and shoots towards the head. It resembles at times an

electric shock, and again a sharp stab or blow. The strangest _auræ_

are hallucinations of vision which lead the patient to believe he sees

a rapid succession of colors. The experiments of Dr. Hughlings Jackson

with regard to those colored _auræ_ are full of interest.

He finds that a vision of red ushers in the phenomenon, and that the

whole prism is exhibited to the sight till the violet end of the

spectrum is reached. The approach of the _aura_ is often felt, and

gives admonition to the patient of the speedy approach of a seizure,

so that he is thereby enabled to seek a place of security and

retirement before the actual advent of an attack. Many interesting

cases, exhibiting the freaks and peculiarities of this strange

disease, are recorded by Dr. Hammond. Convulsion, tremor, chorea or

St. Vitus’ dance, and hysteria are next treated of in succession, and

much valuable information might be derived from a perusal of these

chapters.

Catalepsy, one of the strangest of nervous disorders, receives a due

share of attention, though much that is authoritative cannot be

affirmed concerning it, since the data of the disease are neither

numerous nor reliable. When the cataleptic seizure is at its height,

there is complete suspension of consciousness, and a muscular rigidity

supervenes, which causes the limbs to retain for a long time any

position, no matter how awkward or irksome, in which they may be

placed.

This condition so closely simulates death that in former times

mistakes were frequently made which were not discovered till life had

really become extinct in the grave. Another strange feature of this

disease is the magnetic influence a female subject exercises over her

unattainted sisters during a paroxysm. It has been observed that, if

one female in a ward fall into a cataleptic fit, those immediately

around her are seized in the same manner, the attack lasting for a

period of variable duration. The description of these nervous maladies

gradually leads to Dr. Hammond’s views on Ecstasy, which are all the

more interesting as the chapter is chiefly taken up with the

discussion of the wonderful and perplexing case of Louise Lateau. The

chapter should have followed the one on hydrophobia, and been entitled

Thaumatophobia rather than Ecstasy, since the doctor exhibits a most

contemptuous estimate of the intelligence of those who hold that there

can be anything not explicable by the known laws of physiology in the

most wonderful cases of ecstasia. He ranks among ecstatics of a former

period St. Francis of Assisi, St. Catherine of Sienna, St. Teresa,

Joan of Arc, and Madame Guyon, all of whom, he says, “exhibited

manifestations of this disorder.” With respect to those celebrated

personages there is no sort of medical testimony giving evidence of

the existence of disease, or in any way furnishing an adequate

scientific explanation of the facts revealed by their historians. It

is as illogical and presumptuous for Dr. Hammond to qualify their

cases in the manner he does as it would be for a believer in the

supernatural to assert the miraculous character of a mere feat of

legerdemain. The only difference is that Dr. Hammond’s disregard for

the rules of evidence is applauded by the world as indicating a

vigorous and healthy intelligence, whilst the equally illogical

assertor of the supernatural character of what is not proven to be

such would be at once, and with justice indeed, put down as an

imbecile and a slave to superstition. The burden of proof is ever

thrust on other shoulders by our author, and never borne by his own.

Let but Dr. Warlomont devise a pathophysiological explanation of

Louise Lateau’s stigmata, not only gratuitous from beginning to end,

but even at variance with the facts of science, and Dr. Hammond gives

in a blind adhesion to his conclusions without a single inquiry into

the weight of proof on the other side. Even Dr. Warlomont acknowledged

the difficulties with which Dr. Lefebvre’s work bristles in the way of

a physiological explanation, and it is evident, from the

intensely-labored character of his report, that he entered into the

controversy as an _ex parte_ disputant. We do not intend to reopen the

discussion of this famous case, since enough concerning it has already

appeared in these pages.[115] It is sufficient that we note the

recusant spirit of some modern scientists whenever there is question

of the supernatural. They will not believe, no matter how overwhelming

the evidence, lest they be suspected of weakness, or of bartering

their intellectual freedom for the formulæ of an effete authority.

These gentlemen consult their prejudices rather than truth, and,

provided they tickle the ears of radicals and non-believers, they

consider themselves lifted into the proud position of supreme arbiters

between reason and authority. Dr. Hammond says ecstasy was “formerly

quite common among the inmates of convents.” We would inform him that

its frequency was never greater than now, and the widespread attention

which one or two cases have attracted is proof how rare is that

frequency. Indeed, it has been the invariable policy of the church to

discourage tendencies in this direction, and spiritual advisers often

remind their penitents that an unbidden and unwelcome guest not rarely

presents himself in the garb of an angel of light. It is related of

St. Francis of Sales that a nun having declared to him that the

Blessed Virgin had appeared to her, he inquired how much _vin

ordinaire_ she had taken that day; and, upon her answering, “One

glass,” he told her to drink two the following day, and she might have

two apparitions. In view of this disinclination of ecclesiastics to

encourage ecstasia, especially among women, whose nervous system is so

impressionable, it ill becomes Dr. Hammond, having the mass of

testimony at his command in support of the genuineness of the two

cases to which reference is made, to use the following language: “But

the effort was in vain, just as is the attempt now to convince the

credulous and ignorant of the real nature of the seizures of Louise

Lateau, Bernadette Soubirous—who evoked Our Lady of Lourdes—and of the

hundreds of mediums, ecstatics, and hysterics who pervade the world.”

The frankness with which the church authorities demanded the closest

and most searching scientific investigation of the case of Louise

Lateau, and their expressed determination to accept its legitimate

results, should be to all reasonable men a guarantee of their good

faith and of their abhorrence of impostures. It is consoling to think

that the intelligence of some scientific men is still unfettered, and

that, though in the absence of a prominent member—Dr. Lefebvre—the

friends and abettors of Dr. Warlomont endeavored to spring on the

Belgian Royal Academy of Medicine a resolution declaring the case of

Louise Lateau fully explored and closed, the Academy refused to adopt

it, thereby admitting that so far science has failed to account for

the marvellous phenomena of which this girl is the subject. The

inherent defect of Dr. Hammond’s reasoning is that it identifies cases

which are merely analogous. It is true that the majority of

pseudo-ecstasies resembling the inspired ecstasy of holy personages

are dependent on a disordered condition of the nervous system, but

this resemblance does not necessarily tend to classify the latter

under the same head. Yet this is what Dr. Hammond and his school do.

They seize general traits of resemblance, shut their eyes to essential

differences, and, finding that the greater number of cases obey

throughout certain known definite laws, they conclude that all cases

do likewise. History abounds with instances of disordered imagination

depending on a morbid condition of the nervous system, but in all the

impartial observer can discern well-marked differences, separating

them essentially from authentic cases of true ecstasy. Baron von

Feuchtersleben[116] relates many extraordinary cases of this sort.

Herodotus (ix. 33) speaks of the Argive women who, under a morbid

inspiration, rushed into the woods and murdered their own children.

Plutarch relates the story of a monomania among the Milesian girls to

hang themselves. We have all read of the _convulsionnaires_ at the

tomb of Mathieu of Paris. Dr. Maffei describes a similar epidemic,

which received the name of “Pöschlianism” from a religious, fixed

delusion which originated with one Pöschl. These cases were usually

accompanied by convulsions and terminated in suicide. Besides the

disorders alluded to, we read of sycanthropy among the natives of

Arcadia, a somewhat similar aberration among the aborigines of Brazil,

and the delusion of the Scythians that they were women. Dr. Hammond

relates a case as wonderful as any of these—viz., that of the noted

Ler, an inmate of the Salpêtrière, whose contortions and antics

resemble the hysteria of the “Jerkers” in Methodist camp-meetings. The

attempt to identify all occurring cases with these is a flagrant

violation of the inductive method by which scientific men, above all

others, claim that they are guided. If observation and experience are

to be our guides in determining the truth, then let us admit nothing

but what these criteria verify. This is precisely what these gentlemen

do not do; and because they perceive a general resemblance between a

group of facts, they identify all possessing this resemblance, and

predicate thereon a general law. We cannot hope for a discontinuance

of this baneful and short-sighted procedure until men who profess to

be votaries of science shall become truly rational, instead of making

an empty and futile boast of being rationalists.

[114] _A Treatise on the Diseases of the Nervous System._

By William A. Hammond, M.D., Professor of Diseases of

the Mind and Nervous System in the Medical Department

of the University of the City of New York, etc. New

York: D. Appleton & Co. 1876.

[115] _Vide_ THE CATHOLIC WORLD, November, 1875 - March,

1876.

[116] _The Principles of Medical Psychology._ By Baron

Ernst von Feuchtersleben, M.D., Sydenham Society, p.

252.

THE ETERNAL YEARS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE DIVINE SEQUENCE.”

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF GOD’S GOVERNMENT—PROGRESSION.

If the preceding considerations have at all succeeded in imparting to

our minds a right view of the importance of matter, not solely in its

own nature, but in the spiritual world, and in the developments which

the spiritual world only arrives at through the medium of matter, we

shall find we hold the key to many mysteries, and are walking at

liberty in a world of marvels.

So far as we are able to judge, and aided by all that science can

discover, we have every reason to believe that the act of creation is

complete, and that no more material is needed to work out the ultimate

intentions of the divine Being. Certain races of animals have become

extinct, and all races are modified more or less by external

influences of climate and food. Probably many have all but changed

their nature since they first sprang into being; as they will do once

more when the lion and the lamb shall lie down together. But whether

or no this be so, it would be rash to imagine that new creations of

hitherto unexisting fauna or flora are ever to be given to the great

cosmos. There is nothing to prove that such is the case; and there is

a vast amount of facts pointing to the opposite conclusion. Moreover,

the completeness of creation is the grander idea of the two, and the

most like the ways of God, especially when we consider that the

existence of matter is only as a means to an end; and that end

accomplished, why should there be any further increase of what makes

up the material world? We will therefore put aside all idea of its

being subject to either increase or decrease, while we dwell upon the

fact that it is subject to mutations of the most diverse and subtle

nature. It is true we are told there shall be new heavens and a new

earth. But everything, even the preliminary fact that the “elements

will melt with heat” and all things be dissolved, points to renewal,

but not to extinction; for we know practically that dissolution,

whether by heat or any other force, is not extinction in any case, but

only change of form. The new earth is to be one in which “justice

dwelleth.”[117] But even on this earth we have evidences of the

sanctification of matter by its contact with spiritual things.

We have it first in the relics of the saints, to which not only a

sacred memory is attached, but actual supernatural gifts emanate from

them, because they have become holy to the Lord; because they had,

while still in life, so frequently, or rather so effectively, come in

direct contact with the Eucharistic Sacrifice, with the Body and Blood

of Him who, in taking flesh and feeding us thereon, brought God to us

and dwelt within us. But the saints are rare; and the example,

therefore, derived from their relics is an exceptional one. There are

other examples of the way in which the living influence of the faith

has changed mankind, through the ages of history, by hereditary

transmission.

It has been remarked that while Rome still remained pagan there

nevertheless existed other sentiments, and as it were another

atmosphere, caught from the presence of Christianity, even while

Christianity was ignored or persecuted. The pagan spirit was

essentially worldly. How could it be otherwise? Poverty made a man

ridiculous; and ridicule is the beginning of contempt. Christian

charity and compassion had no pagan counterpart until Christian

example gave rise to the notion that it was a wise and good thing to

feed the hungry and care for the orphan. Long before the reign of the

first Christian emperor the pagan Roman heart, catching some warmth

from the celestial fire which burnt unseen in the largely-extended

Christian population, began to form institutions which faintly

reproduced Christian charity; but this was the influence of mind over

mind.

What is a far more remarkable fact is the gradually-developed

influence of generations of Christian ancestors over the mere natural

instincts of humanity. How much do we not owe to the fact that we

descend from a mainly Christian stock! What sweet domestic ties, what

calm, heaven-reflecting pools of life, do we not enjoy—not owing to

our own personal graces, but because grace, in a greater or less

degree, has, though may be with grave exceptions, presided over the

rise and growth for centuries of those who have preceded us.

When St. Jerome wrote to the youthful daughter of his beloved penitent

Paola, as the former was about to dedicate herself to God in a virgin

and secluded life, a very large and most emphatic portion of his

instructions is taken up with exposing to her the difficulties she

will meet with in preserving an essential virtue, and the extreme

measures she, a maiden of seventeen, must resort to as a guarantee

against temptation. To what, save to the blessed effects of centuries

of a more or less Christian ancestry, do we owe the blessed fact that,

whereas to any young girl now entering religion her Christian parents

and her priestly adviser would fill hours with counsels about holy

poverty, obedience, and the conquest of her own will, hardly one word

would be breathed about any imminent peril to a virtue which she only

thinks of in its highest religious sense, because she has never even

dreamt that it could practically be in danger? The very flesh has been

purified and chastened by centuries of grace. The human instincts have

been almost unconsciously raised to a higher level; and, evil as the

world may yet be, we habitually entertain angels unawares. Thus does

the longanimity of God wait with ever-slackening step through the long

ages of time, while grace permeates slowly the few but ever-increasing

willing hearts, sanctifying soul and body equally and together; for

“the Lord dealeth patiently for your sake, not willing that any should

perish.” He deals patiently with the world for the sake of the church,

patiently with the wicked for the sake of the good, and because the

good are not good for themselves alone; they yield a perfume of which

they are not conscious, but which attracts others to them; and if but

the ten righteous men can be found, the city will be spared!

* * * * *

We often hear allusions made to the destructive work of time, to the

ruin of nations, and the obliteration of vast and crowded cities; and

writers of the day indulge in sensational reflections upon the future

fate of the peoples and homes of modern days. We are all acquainted

with the New Zealander who is to sit amid the ruins of London. But

those who speak and write in this sense have in their minds the fate

of heathen nations and pagan cities in the first hour or epoch of the

world’s existence, before the accomplishment of the mystery of the

Incarnation—that is, before God dwelt upon earth to reconquer by his

precious blood and sweat of agony his kingdom among men. But as

Christians we cannot believe that Christian nations, however imperfect

in their Christian practice, will ever be cast out, root and branch,

and the ploughshare pass over their hearths and His altars as over

Ninive and Troy, as over the Etruscan cities and the pleasure-loving

Roman towns of southern Italy. The ten righteous are never wanting in

any city where the altars of Jesus are erected, and where the Mother

of fair love is named with tender and reverent confidence. The surging

tide of evil may threaten us, as in guilty Paris and brutalized

London; but though heavy chastisements may pour down on these examples

of modern vice, yet never, never will the dear Conqueror who has

deigned to plant his foot on the teeming city streets as his priests

carry the Blessed Sacrament to the dying, and who has his tabernacles

of love here and there through our crowded thoroughfares, relinquish

his recovered inheritance. Never, never will the lands where he has

dwelt be desolate like the godless lands of old.

Believe it, O ye loving hearts! who are burning in silent anguish over

the erring and the ignorant, who are pouring sad tears on the cruel

wickedness of high places, and on the degradation and depravity of the

neglected and the forgotten.

Heavy and sharp and terrible may be the punishment of our iniquities;

but even hell itself is less hell than it would be but for the

shedding of the precious Blood; and no nation where his name is

invoked, no people among whom he has his part—albeit not, alas! the

larger part—can ever perish out of sight, out of mind, as the huge

heathen nations have gone down in utter darkness in the lapse of ages,

and hardly left a stone to proclaim, “I am Babylon.”

Sweet patience of Jesus! sweet pity of Mary! we wrong you both when we

forget that where you have once entered, there you will abide; because

the few are the salvation of the many; because, though not every

door-post and lintel bears the red cross, yet those that do bear it

plead for the rest, and the angel of destruction stays his steps at

the first and drops his avenging sword; for his Lord and Master has

passed that way!

* * * * *

We have spoken of the creation as being complete. We have concluded

that, while we are incapable of measuring its extent, and can only

vainly guess at unknown worlds beyond our own system, it will never

receive one atom, one molecule, in addition to those of which it now

consists. Our reason for this belief lies deep down in the very roots

of theology, which we find a better reason than any with which mere

human science can furnish us, because the end of the latter is

contained within the end of the former, as the greater contains the

less. We have already stated our reason—namely, that the ultimate

object of the creation was the Incarnation, and, that object

accomplished, there can apparently be no need of further creation. In

saying this we are not presuming to limit the power of God or to

interpret his unrevealed will. We are, with all diffidence,

formulating a supposition which approves itself to our reason. The

creation was the expression of the goodness of God, uttered outside

himself by the Logos, God the Son. But the creation, merely as such,

merely as existence, and man, the lord of creation, merely in his

natural state, were incapable of union with God. Therefore, from the

first, man was constituted in a state of grace. Thus the second

mission, which is that of the Holy Ghost, and which is the second in

the eternal decrees, the _nunc stans_ of eternity, is the first in the

_nunc fluens_ of time. For the grace of God, which is the Holy Ghost,

was given to man in measure and degree from the first moment of his

being, four thousand years before the first mission, that of God the

Son, took place in time. Both are continuous, and both are

progressive. The mission of God the Son did not cease when he ascended

into heaven; for it is continued at the Consecration in every Mass,

and in every tabernacle where the Blessed Sacrament dwells. At each

Mass he comes and comes again! In the Blessed Sacrament he remains.

Therefore his actual presence is progressive, in proportion to the

increase of his altars where the bloodless sacrifice is offered, and

where the Bread of Life is reserved. We are ourselves entirely

persuaded (and this opinion is in harmony with that of many modern

theologians) that the Incarnation would equally have taken place had

man never fallen. It was the object of the creation. Man’s fall called

for his redemption by the death and Passion of our Lord, and, as a

loving consequence, also for the sacrifice of the Mass. But it does

not follow that, had the Redemption not come after the Incarnation,

because man had not fallen, there would have been no Blessed

Sacramental Presence. The church having nowhere defined to the

contrary, it is permitted to those whose devotion to the Blessed

Sacrament makes the whole creation a blind mystery, and even the

Incarnation appear incomplete without it, to believe that the Blessed

Sacrament would always have been, and a sinless Adam, with his sinless

offspring, have held communion with the incarnate God through and by

this divine nourishment, even as his redeemed children do now, only in

that case without the sacrifice of the Mass; for where there is no sin

there is no sacrifice.[118]

This may be but a pious thought, and we have no wish to press it upon

our readers. We leave it to their devotion to follow it out or not as

they will. All we want to prove is that, though our Blessed Lord came

once only, conceived of the Holy Ghost, born of the Blessed Virgin;

and once only was crucified, dead, and buried, and rose the third day,

and ascended into heaven, nevertheless his sacramental presence is a

perpetual carrying on and carrying out of this his first mission to

us, and that thus his mission bears a progressive character. He is the

conqueror “_proceeding_ to conquer.” He is still sending his

messengers before his face to prepare his way. His priests are still

going forth to all nations to preach the remission of sins, by

planting his altar, which is his earthly throne, in divers parts, till

the earth be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the covering

waters of the sea.[119] We are looking forward to the fulfilment of

that prophecy in all its plenitude; for surely no one can allege

either that this time has already come, or that because some, it may

be several, missionary priests have had a certain success among the

heathen, anything faintly resembling such a grand, lavish promise as

that, has received even an approximate fulfilment. Still less will any

one assert that such promises are vain; and if not so, then let us

look forward, and ever more and more forward, to the progression of

our dear Lord’s kingdom upon earth; himself present amongst us in the

Blessed Sacrament, coming in that meek guise to take possession of his

territories, and all but silently planting his standard first here,

then there, as new altars are raised to him, and as other souls are

brought beneath the sacraments—the oaths of allegiance to their new

Master.

We cannot disguise from ourselves that we have fallen upon evil times,

and that faith has grown dim. Nevertheless, we maintain it would be

difficult for any thoughtful and unprejudiced mind to deny the

ever-increasing evidence that the leaven is leavening the whole mass;

still less can it be affirmed that anything has ever done this in

highly-civilized countries except Christianity.

The wealth and learning of the Romans, their vast literature, their

high art, had no effect in producing either morality or mercy. There

were noble examples among them of men and women who, we may believe,

responded to the light vouchsafed them, whose names have come down to

us; and doubtless there were many, utterly unknown to history, who

obeyed the dictates of their conscience, enlightened by the divine

Spirit of whom they had never so much as heard. We do not believe that

anywhere, in any age, in any city, however given up to iniquity, there

was nothing but eternal death reigning over poor, fallen, suffering

humanity, and leaving the beneficent Creator, the dear Redeemer,

without a soul to love and serve him, albeit in a blind way. We

believe such a condition of things to be simply impossible; but

however that may be, whether more or less than we have dared to hope,

Christianity was not there, and in its absence nothing availed to

produce generally even the appreciation of purity or real charity.

As we have said, the Romans were a grand law-giving nation. Civil

rights were understood, upheld, and protected better than by the

modern Napoleonic code, and far more in harmony with Christianity,

which ultimately profited by, and copied so largely, the Roman law.

But the law did not touch the heart or enlighten the conscience; and

while the public life of Rome had much moral grandeur, the private

existence of man and woman alike was infamous; and it was so in

proportion to their advance in wealth and luxury.

We have said that only Christianity can moralize civilized nations,

and we did so advisedly; for a certain inoffensiveness, and the

practice of many natural virtues, exist among nations that have not

come within the range of so-called civilization. Where the

intellectual and reasoning powers of men are undeveloped, they retain

something like the innocence of children. But when man without

Christianity is raised to intellectual height, cultivated in mind,

refined in manner, surrounded by art, and with advanced knowledge of

physical science—when he has thus developed all his powers, without

having a corresponding force given him against the inclinations of

natural concupiscence, he is then no longer in the infancy of

humanity. It is mature, and the ripe fruit tends to rottenness.

Civilization and knowledge must go forward _pari passu_ with divine

grace to be a real benefit to mankind; for there is no good apart from

a high moral standard, whether we consider the individual or the

nation, and no moral standard will long support itself without the

concomitance of grace. We are told that the great question of the day

is the _modus vivendi_ between the church and modern progress. If this

be so, the church alone can discover and develop it; because the

church is the organ of the Holy Ghost, and when our Lord was about to

leave this earth he promised the Paraclete, who would “teach us _all

things_.” Therefore the church is the ultimate dispenser of all

science, no matter of what nature; and as the reign of the Holy Ghost

shall be more and more established in the now perfectly-defined status

of her infallibility, so will she increasingly take up unto herself,

within her own arena, all the gifts of knowledge and science which are

her essential prerogatives. Once more she will become the queen of

nations, the guide and pioneer of the world.

Hers has been a long history of struggle, and frequently of apparent

defeat; but out of it she has ever risen victorious, though her

victories are different in character from the triumphs of the world,

because they are so silent and so peaceful that they are only known by

their results. The first of these results is more liberty, a widening

of the cords of her tent; for as the church defines her own nature

with increased accuracy, so by this accuracy she leaves more freedom

to her children. Definition is also limitation; and both exclude

doubt. Doubt is slavery, while certainty is liberty. When our Lord

began to teach of the coming kingdom of God, he did so by parables,

and to his own immediate disciples alone was an explanation

vouchsafed: “To you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of

God; but to the rest in parables.” He spoke of himself as “straitened”

until his work should be accomplished.

The whole history of the church has been on the same principle. Until

certain things have been accomplished her path is hemmed in, and the

accomplishment is ever effected by the means of her enemies, even as

our salvation was by the hands of those who crucified Jesus. The rise

of each heresy has produced the definition of doctrine, and each

definition has widened the horizon of our faith and flooded our life

with light. The war with evil has had no other result than to impart

spiritual strength to the spouse of Christ. And now everything points

to a great crisis, a culminating term, a springtide of the waters of

grace; for the long war with Protestantism has led up to the dogma of

the Papal Infallibility. The coping-stone is laid, and a new era is

beginning, which will be the fuller development of the individual life

of the soul in the beauty of holiness and in the indwelling of the

Holy Ghost. The external edifice is complete; the interior decoration

will hasten towards completion. Already we see the signs of those

better times approaching. We see them alike in the preternatural as in

the supernatural world. The spirits of evil are guessing at the

future, and, as is their wont, are anticipating the coming events by

parodying the divine future action. The sleepless intelligence and

never-wearying enmity of Satan pursues with relentless accuracy every

development of God’s truth in the history of the church. With the

fragments, in his fallen state, of his former untold science, combined

with his thousands of years of cumulative experience, his one desire

is to be beforehand with God. In advance of the great divine act of

the Incarnation, he instituted the horrors of possession, and

practised them in the pagan world on a scale he is but seldom allowed

to repeat where the name of Jesus is uttered. With each phase of God’s

divine action on the world, and of concomitant human necessities, he

changes his tactics. There are but few among us who remember or

realize the fact that every incident of our lives is lived in

connection with three worlds—the tangible, visible, material world,

the world of grace, and the world of the prince of the powers of the

air. The masses live (consciously) in the first alone; the good and

pious remember the second; but few even of these attempt to realize

the last in anything like a just proportion with its immensity, its

subtlety, and its ubiquity. Nor is it our object to press the subject

on their attention. It is not every mind that can bear to meet the

thought, beyond the limits of the universal prayer, “Lead us not into

temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

But those who can bear it and can follow it out should be doubly on

watch and guard in the interests of the multitudes who, it is true,

believe in their guardian angel, but forget their left-hand diabolic

attendant. It was not so in earlier times when faith was young, among

the primitive writers and the great ascetics. One of the holiest of

the past generation said that the cleverest work the devil had ever

accomplished was the getting men to disbelieve in his existence.

Having, as a rule (except among Catholics), established his

non-existence in their minds, the sphere of his occult action is

necessarily vastly extended. We do not look out for what we firmly

believe is not there. He is among us, and we see him not. He has

studied the Scriptures, and he knows there will be a time when our

maidens shall dream dreams and our young men see visions. He guesses

at the outpouring of the Holy Ghost, in a more determinate and wider

reign of grace, in the future of the church; and above all he has not

forgotten, though many of us have, that there is the promise of yet

another mission that will alter the whole face of the world, that will

follow on the ever-growing and extending reign of the Holy Ghost, and

that will culminate the glories of their Queen—the mission of the

angels. They will come, the bright, swift-winged messengers, and “they

shall gather out of his kingdom all scandals, and those that work

iniquity, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire. Then shall the

just shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father,”[120] and “the

angels shall go out, and shall separate the wicked from among the

just.” We read these sacred words constantly, but how far do we

realize their meaning? How far have we amplified the thought in our

mind, and given it form and consistency? We read of the day of

judgment; but do we suppose that it will be an affair of

four-and-twenty hours—the angels in the morning, the judgment about

noon, and all the past, present, and future of humanity in heaven or

hell by twilight?

It is true we are told that the awful time will come as a thief in the

night, and we are apt to explain that into being sudden; whereas it

may more properly describe the fact that the time will steal upon us,

silently and hiddenly. We shall find our bright brethren, the angels,

around us, among us, before we have altogether realized their

approach; just as, gradually and by degrees, we shall find the Spirit

illuminating the minds and hearts of the innocent and the zealous, the

“youths and the maidens,” with divine inspirations, first as the

dawning of new light, then as the blaze of noontide. All God’s

dealings with his poor creatures have been gradual. They are hidden,

but they are never sudden. He always sends his angels before his face

to prepare the way. Noe was more than a hundred years engaged in

building the ark, and there it lay, a sign to all men, the black

timber ribs against the gray dawn and the flaming evening sky,

scanning the heavens like a musical score on which were written the

notes of the awful anthem of God’s wrath, while the hammers of the

artisans beat time through a century of vain appeal to a

God-forgetting world. The suddenness must be laid to their own door,

and in no way resulted from God’s dealings with them. The Deluge

itself took forty days to exhaust the downpouring floods of rushing

waters from the opened gates of heaven. The dawn is ever gradual; the

light steals upon us, though at last the sun’s broad disc springs

sudden and refulgent above the gray horizon. Many of us, though less

guilty in our indifference, are like Gallio, who “cared for none of

those things.” The round of our daily life suffices us, and we neither

give the time nor the trouble to come to conclusions or to arrive at

definite notions even respecting the signs of the times, which our

Lord rebuked his disciples for not discerning. Catholics will often

talk among themselves and with those outside the church in a casual

way about the spiritist manifestations which are so rife in our day,

as if it were quite an open question, and that it were unnecessary to

have any fixed opinion on the subject. Not only have they never

realized that the church has spoken again and again, but also they

have never used their common reasoning powers to arrive at the

conclusion that either spiritist manifestations, as they are now

presented to us, form part of God’s mode of governing his creatures,

and therefore are most precious to each of us, and not to be treated

as a trifle; or, as they are in fact, the devil’s guess at some of

God’s secrets, and his anticipation of something belonging to the

future destiny of man. We have no intention of polluting our pages by

allusion to the jejune trifling of spiritist appearances. We would

only ask every one solemnly and reverently to think of God’s ways in

our world, and then, as before him, to declare whether or no the

half-ludicrous, partially ghastly, and altogether jerky,

will-o’-the-wisp performances of spiritists have anything in

consonance with the dignity, the uniformity, the plain good sense (if

this term sound not irreverent) of God’s dealings with his children.

They talk of undiscovered natural laws! When did any grand,

God-implanted natural law begin to reveal itself by tricks and antics?

What are natural laws but revelations of God’s action and divine

being? Every one of them shows us God, and leads us to God by simple

and lucid gradation. It is the travesty of his laws in which the devil

delights; and as within ourselves there are undeveloped laws which

have been overlaid by original sin, and lie within us as the butterfly

lies in the chrysalis, therefore the enemy of mankind, who, with

far-seeing cunning, predicates the glorious future of mankind before

the final consummation of all things, is using his knowledge to

practise upon these laws to the detriment of those who lend themselves

ignorantly as his instruments.

The fallen angels know far more accurately the secrets of our nature

than we know them ourselves, and through this knowledge they deceive

the unwary. Still more easily they have their way with those whose

reprehensible curiosity induces them to resort to dangerous

experiments. It is distressing to hear good, practical Catholics

talking loosely on these matters, as though they had little or no data

on which to form a solid, reasonable opinion, and were unable to

distinguish between natural though occult laws, as they are brought

out by divine, supernatural influence on the saints, and the miserable

and contemptible practices of the spiritists, the “lo here, lo there”

of those who prophesy false Christs.

It is an old proverb that the devil can quote Scripture, and so, also,

can he base his evil designs on his knowledge of Catholic truth. We

believe in the possibility, by a special permission from God, of the

reappearance of the departed amongst us, and of the holy souls coming

to ask for prayers, as we read constantly in the lives of the saints;

and probably many of us have ourselves known of such incidents on

creditable evidence. The devil acts upon this faith as he acts upon

his own knowledge of occult laws; and blending a theoretic truth with

practical error, he weaves a mesh to catch souls, all the while

foreboding the time when the more developed mission of the Holy Ghost,

and the elaborating in countless hearts of that hidden holiness by

which the church is “all glorious within,” shall bring about that

greater familiarity with the supernatural which is foretold as a

characteristic of the latter times.

The early teaching of the church laid more stress on the mission of

the angels than it became her habit to do in later days. Not that the

church, as the organ of the Holy Ghost, ever gives an uncertain sound

or calls back any of her divine utterances; but, like a watchful

mother, she holds in her own keeping such of the treasures, new or

old, which are not adapted to the present wants of her children. There

came a time, as Christianity grew more diffused, when the early

Christians, not entirely weaned from the heathen practices of their

forefathers, were in danger of attempting to define the occupation and

attributes of the angels beyond the limits of the church’s authority.

They affected to have learnt the names of many, and to decide on their

position and purpose in the angelic hosts. Out of that arose a kind of

worship and invocation of the angels which bordered on superstition

and savored of the worship offered to the demons among the heathens.

This fell under the reprobation of the church, and by a natural

reaction left devotion to the angels at a lower ebb than what is

warranted by sound doctrine.

Then came the German heretics and the dawn of modern Protestantism;

and one of the first of their efforts was to banish all belief in the

interposition and ministry of the angelic host. They took advantage of

the errors and follies of individuals to write against the whole

doctrine of angelic action; and though among Catholics the faith in

their guardianship and aid is constant, yet it is not now practically

(of course virtually it is the same) what it was in earlier times. But

here also we have another instance of how the church brings forth from

her divine armory the weapon most needed to defeat the machinations of

the arch-enemy; for it has been reserved for our day to see devotion

to the angels taking a fuller extension and a more definite form than

it ever before held in the history of the church’s inner life. In all

her definitions and in all her practices there resides the spirit of

prophecy. They have not only reference to the present time; they are

far-seeing and far-stretching. And as the definition of the Immaculate

Conception of Mary in our own time has led to the extension of her

reign in the hearts of men, and is preparing the way every hour for

her sweet sovereignty to “take root in an honorable people,” so does

the increasing devotion to the angels who form her court harmonize

therewith, and prepare for that mission of the angels which, however

remote, is as certain as the day of judgment. Oh! what enlarged hearts

do we need to take in, however inadequately, all that lies before us

in the history of God’s creation. Far distant though it be, still is

it ours, just as the past is ours, and the present; for all are united

in Jesus. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

Nothing shall be lost to us. No treasure of the past but has tended to

brighten our own brief day, no promise of the future but what we shall

reap; for we have all things in Him who contains all in himself, and

who gives his whole self to us.

Let us in thought go back to Paradise, to our great progenitor before

his fall. For Adam knew Jesus. Not, indeed, as we know him—the

rainless skies of the garden God had planted had formed no background

to the beloved sign of our redemption; for as the Redeemer Adam knew

him not. We have already given our reasons for believing that besides

knowing Him, by the graces of infused science, as the second Person of

the Trinity, the Logos, he knew of the intended Incarnation through

and by which Jesus was to unite Himself to us. We have also dared to

imagine that he foresaw the Real Presence as the carrying out and

completion of the Incarnation. But in those days Adam knew of no

shedding of blood, of no sacrifice of suffering. The whole of that

pathetic and terrible chapter, written in red characters, was a sealed

one to our once sinless forefather. But in addition to the first

beautiful and tender history of the future Incarnation there was a

glorious page redolent with light and full of joy; for Adam looked out

beyond Jesus as the Creator, and Jesus as the elder Brother of man in

the Incarnation, to Jesus as the Glorificator. Adam knew that the

green glades and fruit-laden forests of Paradise were not to

constitute his ultimate home. He aspired after the time when the

God-Man would reward his fidelity at the close of a longer or shorter

probation, and admit him from the infancy of innocence into the

resplendent manhood of accomplished and final grace. Then would he be

like Jesus; for he would see him as he is!

Thus did Adam dwell in the contemplation of two futures—the one tender

and familiar, the other glorious and triumphant—until his own act had

made the rift between the two, and the blood-stained cross crowned the

heights of Calvary. _O felix culpa!_ We dare to say it, because our

mother the church has said it. And as Adam sees that past now,

pardoned, ransomed, and glorified[121] with his glorified Lord, he

beholds his children, with each stroke of eternity’s golden moments,

thronging through the gates of heaven by the Sacrifice of the cross.

What must not _his_ love in heaven be! Next to that of Our Lady surely

his must be the greatest of all the multitude who have washed their

robes in the blood of the Lamb.

But the glory of the saints now in heaven cannot be compared with that

which will follow after the second mission of our Lord at the

consummation of all things; for that mission is a mission of glory,

even as his first was a mission of humiliation. He came to us in the

womb of Mary, in the manger at Bethlehem, hidden and unknown, poor and

despised; but when the time shall be ripe for that second mission, he

will come in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.[122] He

will come as the glorificator of His own creation, of which Mary is

the first in rank, a hierarchy in herself, a sealed fountain, a garden

enclosed, a second paradise, but where no sin has entered; and in that

second mission his saints, as also his angels, will take part.

Thus we look back upon the first mission accomplished—that of the

Incarnation and Redemption; the second mission being accomplished—that

of the Holy Ghost gradually developing into the reign of the Holy

Ghost; and we look forward to two other missions—that of his angels,

and, finally, that of His own second coming. “Behold, he cometh with

clouds, and every eye shall see him.”[123] “For the Lord himself shall

come down from heaven with commandment, and with the voice of an

archangel, and with the trumpet of God: and the dead, who are in

Christ, shall rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, shall

be taken up together with them in the clouds, to meet Christ, and so

shall we be always with the Lord. Wherefore comfort ye one another

with these words.[124]

[117] 2 Peter ii. 10-13.

[118] The redemption was an ordinance of God consequent

upon man’s fall. Had Adam never sinned, Jesus had never

been crucified. But it would seem more consonant with the

boundless love of God for his creation to believe that the

Blessed Sacrament formed part of his antecedent will; and

that a sinless race would have received spiritual and

divine food, and would have been thereby sanctified, and

ultimately glorified through participation in the Body and

Blood of the God-Man. It would have been, as it is now, the

Bread of Life; bloodless as it is now, but also unbroken as

it is not now—that is, divested of its propitiatory

character in so far as propitiation involves the idea of

offence.

[119] Isaias xi. 9.

[120] Matt. xiii. 41, 42, 43, 49.

[121] It is generally believed that Adam was amongst

the souls released from Limbo when our Lord descended

thither, and who entered heaven with him.

[122] Mark viii. 38.

[123] Apocalypse i. 7.

[124] 1 Thess. iv. 15-17.

HOBBIES AND THEIR RIDERS.

Under the general head of hobbies we class a thousand peculiarities

distinguishing men which, if strictly viewed according to that

accurate balance of mind known as sanity, would almost justify us in

calling nine out of every ten men insane on some point, however

infinitesimal. Every enthusiasm, from the most exalted moral

self-forgetfulness to the most ludicrous extravagance, has been in

turn called folly and ridiculed as a hobby. There is in the world a

tradition, or rather a prescription, against anything which is not

decent and well-behaved moderation. Even Christianity is not to be too

obtrusive; even moral reform is to wear a velvet glove. No one sin, be

it ever so monstrous and preponderant over other offences in your

particular time or neighborhood, is to be singled out and fought

against more than any other; decorous generalities and pious

conventionalities are by no means to be departed from; and if your

heart burns within you, you must put a seal upon your lips and

carefully prevent the zeal from infecting your weaker brethren who

might thuswise be led astray.

A man’s character is better revealed in his hobby than in anything

else belonging to him. Oftentimes the possession of one shows him in a

more lovable, human light. He must have both heart and imagination to

have one. The man who is wholly incapable of fostering one would be a

very unpleasant, not to say dangerous, neighbor. It is said that to

have no enemies argues also that you have no friends, and that to have

no prejudices implies that you are too cold-blooded to feel

enthusiasm. Without taking either of these sayings literally, it is

yet evident that they are built upon truth. The only person who has no

individual likings, no bias, no tastes to which he is passionately

attached, is either the heartless, calculating, selfish man who moves

through life rather as an automaton than as a being of flesh and

blood, and generally ends by ruling his fellow-beings by fear and by

wealth, as many statesmen we read of in history, and pettier rulers we

hear of now and then in the world of business; or the poor, nerveless

being whose mind remains all his life a blank, and who sinks unnoticed

into an obscure grave.

Some of our friends, especially elderly people, are often the dearer

to us for their little eccentricities, which give a touch of piquancy

to their character, and most often reveal some amiable trait. Hobbies

do not sit so well on the young; for one always has an involuntary

suspicion of their genuineness, and, even if they are genuine, youth

ought to repress any attempt at thrusting itself forward and claiming

undue attention. Besides, young people have yet to earn the right to

occupy the attention of others otherwise than in the usual way of

guidance and education, and a peculiar turn of mind may be cherished

without manifesting itself by any outward sign. Sterne has a

delightful consciousness of the value of a hobby as an indication of

character when he shows us Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim in the

back-garden at Planchy, following step by step the course of the army

of the Allies by the help of a spade and some turf, placed so as to

represent bastions and fortifications. This process the old soldiers

went through over and over again, always with renewed zest. It was a

hobby something like this—but too much mixed with vain-glory and the

bad taste which nature has at last succeeded in hiding—that prompted

the planting of Blenheim Park, near Oxford, in such a way as to

represent the positions of the regiments at the battle of Blenheim.

The trees have had time to grow out of this likeness, yet they stand

in ranks and platoons which one can imagine to have looked hideous

when the oaks and beeches were young saplings.

Hobbies and collections are somehow related; at least the mind is used

to coupling them together. One can hardly be a collector of anything

without becoming absorbed in the collection and in the knowledge

required for adding to and classifying it. Even if the collection have

been begun with some object of instruction or benevolence, or as a

distraction from grief, it soon grows to be a great interest of life,

and toil in its behalf becomes pleasure and relaxation. But oftener

still the hobby precedes the collection, and many people who are taken

for sober, humdrum individuals, the mere _padding_ of society, would

in reality be fast and furious riders of hobby-horses if their means

allowed them to give outward expression to their tastes.

A very familiar type is the collector of pictures; and the fewer he

has, the more set he is on his hobby. He gets some fine specimen of an

old master “for an old song” (for such miraculous bargains are half

the charm, just as for many women the delight of contriving and

piecing and otherwise skilfully eking out old material to look “as

good as new” is much greater than to possess a new dress made of a

roll of cloth just from the store); and if he is cheated, he probably

never finds it out. He often is, and woe to him who, thinking to do

him a good turn, undeceives him. But whether the picture be genuine or

not, it is the source of unending delight to its owner. He will

discuss its points by the hour—the lights and shades, the material of

the colors, the style of the painter; he will “get up” the artist’s

life and history, buy books on the subject, pin you to your chair

while he recounts how he found it, who “restored” it, how it once got

injured by a fire; and, lastly, he will put you into corners, or

behind cupboards and curtains, that you may be sure to see it in the

best light.

The hobby of the rich collector who can dignify his gathering of

pictures with the name of gallery has a different way of showing

itself; it crops out in a sort of innocent ostentation, or again an

assumed indifference. There are men whose hobby it is to conceal their

hobby, to ape humility and pretend to a nonchalance very far from

their real feelings. Among collectors, none are more voracious, more

steady-going, and generally more happy than bibliopolists. They are of

all ranks and degrees, but perhaps clergymen and college professors

predominate. In England the country squire is often an eager

book-hunter. Books of genealogy and heraldry are favorite tidbits with

him, while clergymen often have a special mania for county histories.

The collectors of minor curiosities, miscellaneous objects from all

parts of the world, are generally old maiden ladies, who have, as a

class, the most amiable and touching weaknesses, such as that of the

benevolent little fairy, Miss Farebrother, in George Eliot’s

_Middlemarch_, who drops her lumps of sugar in a little basket on her

lap, that she may have them to bestow upon her friends, the

street-boys. Then there are collectors innumerable of stuffed beasts,

of shells, of minerals, of old china, laces, and jewelry, of heathen

idols, of all kinds of coins, of autographs, of postage-stamps, etc.

The autograph-hunter is a very restless and persistent individual. The

American who sent a cheese to Queen Victoria must have been of this

species, and the queen did not fail to reward him with a letter

written with her own hand.

A hobby that used to be rather prevalent, but has somewhat gone out of

fashion now, was that of collecting walking-sticks, canes,

snuff-boxes, and pipes. Apropos to this, a story is told of an old man

whose special mania was snuff as well as snuff-boxes. He was a man of

some standing in English society towards the latter end of the last

century. His sitting-room was fitted up with shelves like a shop, and

on these stood canisters of various kinds of snuff, their names on

labels, and the locks and keys of fantastic and rather ingenious

shape. This sanctum was his delight, and the shelves, which ran all

round the room, were being constantly replenished with new specimens

of the weed. He used snuff to an enormous extent, and willingly gave

it away to his friends; but storing it was his chief pleasure, and he

looked forward to the last variety in snuff—which his tobacconist had

a standing order to send him as soon as it touched English soil—with

the same glee with which a naturalist expects the newest kind of

living ape just imported from Africa.

We have never heard but of one person who made a _spécialité_ of

collecting pieces of wedding-cake; she was an old nurse who had been

in the service of a lady employed about the court of William IV. She

had pieces of the wedding-cakes of all the princesses of the royal

family, including Queen Victoria and some of her daughters, besides

remains of the cakes of her mistress’s family, a large and ramified

one, and of those of any person of title or distinction of whom,

through her connections, she could possibly beg these mementoes.

The horticultural mania, emphatically a hobby for the rich, is one of

the most charming and desirable of hobbies; a healthy one, too, as it

keeps one out in the open air to a great extent, and supplies the

place of such feverish excitements as arise from an interest in

politics or in the state of the funds. It even takes away the

possibility of interest in petty gossip; for how is it possible to

think of the success of Mrs. So-and-so’s coming tea-party when your

mind is anxiously engaged on the chance of a late frost ruining your

camellias, or the probable time when your _Victoria Regia_ will bloom?

A hobby rather prevalent among women is a constant attendance at

auctions. They cannot resist buying little things they do not want,

because they are cheap; and, besides, there is a fascination about the

atmosphere of a salesroom which is not reducible to mere words. It is

milk-and-water gambling, as are many other innocent-looking devices

used by very worthy people to increase their stock of pretty

possessions without paying full value for them. Very opposite to this

is the hobby of petty economies, such as untying a knot instead of

cutting it, secreting tiny bits of pencil, keeping a strict watch over

matches and candle-ends, etc. It may be a mere habit of mind, but it

often degenerates into a foolish hobby, such as is that of keeping

every scrap of cloth, silk, or flannel, and carrying about this

rubbish from place to place, for the chance of its “coming in

usefully” at some future time. Of course we know how many a gorgeous

quilt has been evolved from these savings of years, and how mats have

been made of the coarser refuse, and the rest sometimes thriftily sold

to the paper-mill; but these are often exceptions, for time and

deftness are wanting to many who have the instinct of saving, and such

small economies are apt to have in themselves a tendency to narrow the

mind. Besides, what is thrift in one case is parsimony in another; and

while one family may be praise-worthy in its attempts to “take care of

the pence,” such care would be despicable in another of easier means.

Shall we call it a hobby to “have one’s finger in every pie”? Some

people are not happy unless they are giving their neighbors gratuitous

advice, and telling them at every turn how they would act “if I were

you.” But of this kind of interference none is so dangerous and none

so fascinating as the well-meant contrivances of the born match-maker.

This individual is invariably a woman, and generally a most amiable

and kind creature. Sometimes a young matron is bitten with the mania,

and clumsily enough she sets to work extolling the delights of the

honeymoon to her girl friends; sometimes a middle-aged woman who has

had experience, and is more wary in her method, quietly sets her

snares and unluckily succeeds once in five times—unluckily, we say;

for her one success blinds her to her four failures, and she continues

in the slippery path which, in the end, is almost sure to bring ruin

on some special pet of hers. Even unmarried women are match-makers;

they will plan, and speculate, and contrive; and it is lucky indeed if

they are nothing more than indiscreet, for they are handling edged

tools. You never find a man to be a match-maker; and yet women will

have it that men are so much more benefited by matrimony than

themselves!

Among special hobbies, one is said to have been the property of a rich

old Englishman of the olden time, who altered a house on purpose to

suit it. He could not bear the sight of a female servant, and so angry

was he at meeting one on the stairs that he sent for a mason to

contrive hiding-places here and there in which an unlucky maid, if she

chanced to meet the master, might take refuge out of his sight. The

whole house was full of such cunningly-placed holes, and in this odd,

honey-combed state it passed to his next heir.

One or two members of a family often take upon themselves the

guardianship of the family honor, and bore every relation they have,

to the sixth and seventh degree, about the genealogy, intermarriages,

quarterings, etc., of their collective fetich. They are learned in

family “trees,” know every date, from the first mention of the name in

the annals of the country to the number of goods and chattels they

brought over with them in the _Mayflower_; how many shares they bought

in the cow of the first settlement; when this and that portrait was

painted, and so on. ‘Tis not the knowledge that is irksome, but the

inappropriateness and universality of its mention in the conversation

of these good people, and the unconsciousness of the narrators that

they have ever spoken to you of the subject before.

Have you ever known any one whose “best parlor” was their hobby—a

scrupulous, Dutch-like reverence for immaculate cleanliness and order?

Scarcely any hobby is more terrible to the stranger or casual visitor.

Akin to it is the excess of punctuality by which some people make

their guests wretched. Both grow to be a punishment to the person

himself; for he, or oftener she, suffers torture every time a guest

comes in with snow on his boots, or any one puts a cup of coffee on a

marble table, or leans his head on the back of an easychair. Half the

day is employed in dusting and cleaning the sacred precincts, and the

other half in resting from the exertions thereby incurred.

The hobbies of writers furnish some amusing stories. The historian of

the queens of England—Miss Agnes Strickland, as worthy and

affectionate a woman as ever breathed—had, it is well known,

constituted herself the champion of Mary, Queen of Scots. So

thoroughly had she succeeded in realizing the doings of the times of

Elizabeth that she spoke on this subject as you would of an injustice

that had been done your dearest friend, and that quite recently. It

was as fresh in her mind as some wrong committed last week on a

defenceless woman, and she grew excited and eloquent over it,

forgetting who, with whom, and where she was. This was very

unpractical and somewhat ludicrous, some may be inclined to say, but

it was a peculiarity that certainly made her happy, and it was no

annoyance to her listeners. How much more dignified, too, than the too

common fuming over the impertinence of the servant that was discharged

last week, or the chafing over the troublesome man who claims a “right

of way” and threatens to bring a suit about it next month!

Political hobbies also abound. These are generally the property of old

people, the traditions of whose youth have remained proof against the

enlightenment of the present. There are people who boast they have

never been on a railroad, and never will be—they are common in Europe,

at least—and people who would scorn to be photographed; people who

laugh at you if you tell them that the sun really does _not_ go round

the earth, and rise and set morning and evening, and who obstinately

believe that dogs only go mad during the dog-days. But there are those

who, with a better education and more opportunities, are just as

unprogressive. Such will buttonhole you and argue seriously that the

Pope is going to involve Europe in another Thirty-Years’ War. They

seriously believe it and live in dread of it. They would not hurt a

fly; but they firmly believe that, if they got hold of a Jesuit, they

would remorselessly run him through, and think they had rid the

country of a tiger or an alligator. Dr. Newman’s _Apologia_ gives an

amusing account of the awe and terror inspired by the dark house in a

by-street where “it was said a Roman Catholic lady lived all alone

with her servant.” In England the Jesuits and “Bony” long divided the

honors of bugbear-in-chief to the British public. To this day some

amiable old Welsh lady will assure you in a whisper that the whole

country has underground (and it is to be supposed submarine)

connection with Rome, and that _she_ never goes to bed without looking

underneath to see that there is no Jesuit in disguise concealed there!

Then there is the man who, under the Napoleonic _régime_, whether of

the first or third emperor, would tell you in an awestruck manner of

the impossibility of putting off the evil hour any longer, and the

inevitable certainty of a French invasion and annexation of England to

France; the landing always to take place exactly within a few miles of

his own house, if he lived by the seaside. If his house were further

inland, he would tell you he knew _his_ village would be the first and

most convenient place to halt at and plunder.

At one time there was in London a great mania for Turkish baths. A

person of some note as a writer and, we believe, an M.P. took up the

subject vigorously, and had a Turkish bath built adjoining his own

house. Here he passed the greater part of his time, combining his

reading and writing with the delights of his new hobby. But he had an

old hobby as well, which was the evil agency of Russia in the politics

of Europe. Like the philosopher who asked but one question on the

occasion of any disturbance—“Who is _she_?”—this man acknowledged but

one possible element of discord at the bottom of any diplomatic

_imbroglio_—_i.e._, Russia. A friend of his called on him one day

about midday, and, being ushered into the hall, heard his voice

shouting from behind the door leading to the bath: “Come in, S——, and

we’ll sit here a while. Stay to luncheon, won’t you? It is only two

hours to wait.” The friend was so amused that he took off his clothes

and submitted to the novel invitation of spending the time of a

morning call in a Turkish bath. Of course the conversation soon fell

on Russia and its demoniacal secret agency in all the troubles of the

world. The man was exceptionally clever, and these oddities of mind

and behavior only made his society more charming to his friends and

more _piquant_ to his acquaintances.

Among fixed ideas which may almost be called hobbies are certain

preferences which blind us to the good done without the special

adjuncts which we individually consider nearly indispensable. For

instance, it is recorded—with how much truth we cannot tell—of the

great architect, Pugin the elder, that one day, being in Rome, he went

to Benediction in a church where it is customary to say prayers in the

vernacular for the conversion of _England_. This was done after the

service proper was over, and Pugin, not recognizing the extra prayers

at the end of the familiar Benediction service, asked a neighbor what

they meant. On being told he turned to a friend who was with him and

said: “The idea of praying for the conversion of England in such a

cope as that!” A clever and well-known writer for one of our leading

Catholic magazines, who is confessedly somewhat eccentric, is said to

have been discovered one morning by a friend in a state of violent

agitation, walking up and down the breakfast-room with quick and

nervous strides, and looking like a man in passionate, personal grief.

On being gently asked the cause of this emotion, he answered

vehemently: “I was thinking of how many souls are being eternally

damned at this very moment. Is it not frightful to think of? Every

minute souls are going there, to be tormented for all eternity!” Here

was a fixed idea with which it was difficult to deal. It was true, and

a thought which would do many good if they would realize it as he

did—the innocent, large-hearted man, who did not need the idea for his

own discipline—but it was decidedly an inconvenient disturbance of the

domestic balance of things, and not a pleasant appetizer for the good

breakfast that was before him.

Bores, pure and simple, are of a remote kindred with the riders of

hobbies, and they are of as many kinds. There is the croaker, who

cherishes some pet grievance and favors every one with it; the singer

who is offended if he is not asked to perform, and is not applauded at

the end like the leading tenor of the hour; the critic who thinks he

would lose his reputation if he condescended to praise anything, or to

admire and be pleased like a common mortal; the man (or woman) who

sets himself up on a pedestal and assumes, subtly but unmistakably,

that he is entirely above his neighbors or whatever people he may be

with; the man who has quarrelled with somebody, and insists on reading

you the whole correspondence; the man who is sure always to come to

see you at inopportune times, and, worse still, never knows when to go

away; the amateur—a terrible species—who imagines he can paint, or

play the pianoforte or the flute, etc., or write poetry, or draw

plans, or, in short, do anything which it requires a life-time to

_learn_—for the greatest always think themselves still at the bottom

of the ladder of knowledge; the man who tells stories to satiety, and

expects them to be laughed at; the man who interrupts a _tête-à-tête_,

or who is so full of some interest of his own that he insists on you

sharing it when you show no inclination to listen to him; the man who

cannot take a hint, though he is as good-natured as he is obtuse—these

there are, and many more, who are the human mosquitoes of the world.

Akin to hobbies, as we said at the beginning, are tastes, harmless for

the most part, often æsthetic, and almost always beneficial. Indeed,

many a taste, well regulated, has become an antidote or a preservative

against vice; and, to put it from a very low point of view, a taste is

generally far more economical than dangerous company and degrading

sin. The _Saturday Review_, in an article on this subject last year,

said with truth: “Tastes are not, as a rule, exorbitantly expensive;

they are certainly very much cheaper than vices. A very moderate

percentage of an income, judiciously laid out, will soon secure an

excellent library. It is surprising how small a sum will suffice for

the purchase of every standard work worth having. The most famous

private libraries cost their owners nothing in comparison with the

price of a few race-horses.” Although we have somewhat disparaged

amateurs as a kind of “bores,” this was not meant to dissuade young

men and women from cultivating some taste which will serve as a

resource for evening hours or any otherwise unoccupied time, and be a

relaxation from necessary work, as well as a gradual safeguard against

coarse pleasures. As long as such pursuits are undertaken with due

modesty as to one’s proficiency in them, and not as a mere social

“accomplishment” to be obtruded on others on all possible occasions,

they are infinitely to be commended. They grow on one, too, and soon

become the chief point of attraction in our intellectual life,

especially if our business happens to be, as that of most persons is,

of a prosaic nature. As we grow old they may develop into hobbies;

never mind, they will still make us happy and never cause us shame. On

the other hand, what will tendencies to convivial “pleasures,” or to

frivolous and objectless conversation, or to gadding about to

theatres, balls, and races, come to in the end? Dead-Sea fruit.

Among the minor arts which tend to occupy one’s leisure pleasantly and

usefully are wood-carving, turning, ivory-carving, and leather-work.

Even commoner things may be taken up. We have known young men who,

during a long convalescence, took to mending cane chairs as a mode of

making their fingers useful when their brains were still too weak to

be taxed. Basket-making, decalcomania of the higher order—_i.e._, a

sort of easy glass-painting akin to decalcomania, are all useful and

possible methods of employing one’s self and cultivating a pleasant

domestic taste. Mechanics, too, and household carpentry we have often

seen fostered in young people and become their pride, while

illumination—a really high style of art, though a rare gift—is not so

uncommon as some may think. Of such tastes as gardening, reading,

embroidering, and music we say nothing; they are too well known. Such

a taste generally ends in a collection, and then the pleasure is

enhanced a hundred-fold; and, as the _Saturday Review_ says, it really

needs but a comparatively small outlay to secure a very fair

collection of any kind. This in its turn helps to study by giving us

the means of reference or comparison. And if in any family the members

were seriously to look up the money really wasted—that is, the money

spent in transitory, unhealthy pleasures, the value of which dies in

the mere excitement of the moment, leaving no pleasant memory or

useful impression behind, and often, on the contrary, leading to a

remorseful, or at least an uncomfortable, remembrance—they would find

that every year there goes forth imperceptibly from the collective

treasury of the home enough to beautify their lives and increase their

happiness if only they would lead it into the right channels. The

money would not be missed, while their pleasures would be tenfold and

lasting. Even the very poorest of the poor spends uselessly—and alas!

often wickedly—what would make him a happy, self-respecting man; and,

strictly speaking, no one can say that he cannot afford good and

healthy pleasures, for, as a matter of fact, he _does_ afford bad and

unhealthy, or, to say the least, unsatisfactory, ones. Let every one

ask this question of his own experience: Which costs most in the long

run, a healthy pleasure, say even an innocent hobby, or a vicious and

lowering pursuit?

A PLEA FOR OUR GRANDMOTHERS.

That there are many flaws and deficiencies in the social structure of

our bustling republic, from its foundation in the single family to the

collection of families forming general society, cannot be denied.

Among these none are more palpable than the failure to provide

comfortable space, suitable appointments, and a well-defined position

therein for our grandmothers.

Their claims to consideration as a class, existing—albeit by mere

sufferance—in every city, village, and rural corner throughout the

length and breadth of our wide domain, seem to have been crowded out

and lost in the confusion and dust upwhirled by our great social

vehicle in its onward sweep toward an imaginary and unattainable El

Dorado. No one seems to comprehend the binding obligation of those

claims. The force of a playful remark made by the great and good

Father Burke to his mother—when she complained that she failed to hear

his lecture because the hall was so crowded that she could not get

in—“Ah! mother dear, wasn’t that too bad? Just think of it! _Why, if

it hadn’t been for you, dear, I wouldn’t have been there myself!_” has

not come home to Americans in connection with this subject. They do

not pause to reflect that, but for our grandmothers, this great

multitude now rushing so furiously toward every promising avenue to

wealth and influence, elbowing and jostling each other in their mad

career, would not have been in existence.

Nor are the annoyances to which this class is exposed in consequence

of such neglect—itself the result rather of heedlessness than

design—any the less burdensome that they are mainly of so negative a

character as scarcely to form the basis of a positive complaint; nay,

so far from this that when they find voice in such utterance as the

disquieting consciousness of their reality, in spite of their unreal

guise, may force from the victims, the moan is more apt to excite

ill-concealed merriment in a listener, by its quaint whimsicality,

than pity or sympathy.

Yet these evils are real and constantly increasing. The most serious

of them are the outgrowth of modern civilization and the progressive

doctrines of the last quarter of a century. In this enlightened age it

is not to be supposed that people _must_ grow old, and it is highly

improper for our grandmother to insist upon submitting to conditions

proper enough to humanity before it flourished in the light of

“advanced ideas,” but wholly out of place now. As recently as

twenty-five years ago she was, perforce of that very submission, an

important element in the domestic and social circle. She occupied a

position quite independent of such prescribed rules and customs as

govern other classes in society. She was not expected to conform to

every caprice of fashion. She was permitted to dress in a manner

consistent with her age, and no one respected her the less, or thought

of indulging in sharp criticism of her style, if it was of an obsolete

date. She could employ her time in suitable occupations, and render

the useful and acceptable services to the family and neighborhood for

which the skill acquired by her long acquaintance with the world and

its exigencies eminently fitted her; or repose in the calm twilight of

life’s evening hour, in such habiliments as best comported with her

own comfort and the requirements of her gradual descent into the

valley of years.

Not so now. The milliners provide her with no bonnets or caps

befitting her age; nay, they utterly refuse to attempt, at any price,

the construction for her of suitable head-gear. Such manufacture has

taken its place among the “lost arts,” and they do not wish to revive

it. The mantua-makers insist upon “the _demi-train_, at least,” and

she _must_ submit in the matter of the overskirt, with its puffed

abominations and puckered deformities. She is allowed no ease or

comfort in her costume, but is required to assume all the grotesque

discomforts invented by modern _modistes_ for the summer-day

butterflies of fashion, at the risk, if she refuses, of being

followed, every time she ventures to appear among them, with such

remarks as, “A nice old lady? Oh! yes; but it _is_ a pity that she

will persist in making such a guy of herself, with those old-fashioned

sleeves and skirts, and her plain white muslin caps.”

It is curious to remark how different is the relative position of the

grandfather, at home and abroad, from that of his female contemporary.

How independent he is of conventional forms in his dress and

intercourse with society; how free to go and come when he pleases,

without giving occasion for wry faces or unkind criticisms if the

fashion of his coat has not been changed for half a century! Is he not

rather regarded with increased respect on that account?

But the prevailing modern rule in relation to the dress of women of

all ages is that it shall change in style with every change of the

moon, and, above all, that as much expense in material and labor shall

be lavished upon its elaboration as the inventive genius of skilled

artists can possibly devise. And American women—even grandmothers—are

so foolish as to bow in slavish submission to this intolerable

tyranny, which is working such widespread ruin and desolation in our

country! “Let _Fashion_ rule, though the heavens fall,” say they.

So completely have all correct ideas pertaining to true taste in the

discriminating consistency of different costumes adapted to the

different periods of life been swallowed up in the all-prevailing

fashion-worship, that there is now scarcely any distinction, save in

length of skirt, between the dress of the little girl of five and that

of her grandmother, mother, or the young lady, her elder sister.

Pitiable indeed is this loss of all sense of the fitness of things for

the two extremes of human life, which should be exempted from

subjection to discomforts for fashion’s sake!

What spectacle can be more mournfully absurd than that of a pale,

wrinkled old face set in a ghastly silvered frame of the hairdresser’s

curls and crimps, and surmounted, to complete its repulsiveness, with

a bedizened hat, the form of which can only be made barely tolerable

by a beautiful young face beneath it; or that of a form bending under

the weight of years, carrying with trembling steps a load of jewelry

and such remarkable excrescences, frills, flounces, and fur-belows, as

the dressmaker insists upon cumbering it withal? These pitiful sights

are constantly displayed in our palace-cars, at our hotels,

boarding-houses and watering-places, even by the aged invalids who

frequent the latter for their healing influences.

This is all wrong! There is no good sense or propriety in it. The

free-born American woman should claim immunity from such bondage, and

the right to accept with cheerful grace that rest from the petty

strifes and ambitions which agitate life’s noon-day to which she is

entitled at its twilight-hour. If she has—either by inheritance or the

successful, if not altogether honest, speculations of her male

kin—come into possession of more money than she well knows how to use,

she should set that inherent Yankee wit, which is her inalienable

national dower, to devise some less ridiculous, at least, if not more

useful, mode of disbursing it.

When we consider the multitudes of starving poor that throng our

cities; the necessities of widows and orphans; the notable rarity of

well-selected and amply-filled libraries among our wealthy classes,

and their very meagre patronage of the fine arts, we discover that

there is no lack of proper and elevating objects for expenditure.

Above all, when we reflect that the possessors of wealth must

inevitably be called to a rigid account of their stewardship at last,

the thought is appalling, and the subject, in all its phases, for this

world and the next, is a sad one to contemplate.

In pleasing contrast with the picture presented by the domestic and

social attitude of the average American grandmothers of to-day is that

which we have frequently been so favored as to witness among the most

wealthy, as well as the poorest, classes of our faithful foreign

populations; where the grandmother, in her comfortable though

antiquated cap and costume, was the most honored and tenderly beloved

member of the household, its arbiter in all disputes, its wise and

chosen counsellor in all doubts, its nurse in sickness, comforter in

affliction, and its guide to that blessed land on the confines of

which her aged feet were tottering.

She indulged no worldly ambitions; gave no thought to dress, save to

restrict it to the severest simplicity and neatness. She filled no

brilliant _rôle_ at home or in society, nor cared for anything but to

do good to all as she had opportunity. She was not learned in the

philosophy of books and literature; her deficiency in such knowledge

may have been so great as to excite a sneer in her American neighbor,

who had enjoyed the great “advantages” of the public-school system;

but even the youngest of her numerous grandchildren—who gathered

around her chair in the most cosey corner, of an evening, to listen

reverently to her explanations of “Christian Doctrine,” to join with

her in recitations of the beads, and to give rapt attention to her

tales and legends of the “dear old land”—knew that her venerable head

was stored with treasures of learning more precious than all earthly

lore in the sight of Him before whom the “wisdom of this world is

foolishness,” and who has chosen the “weak things thereof to confound

the wise.”

How will they miss her when she is gone! For how many long years will

“grandmother’s” virtues and her pious instructions form the theme, and

her advice and prayers the sustaining resource, of her children’s

children, while they carefully transmit to theirs her unwritten

memoirs as an invaluable legacy of precept and example!

FROM LAMARTINE.

Almond-bough with blossom rife,

Pride of beauty picturing;

Blooms like thee the flow’r of life,

Blooms and withers in the spring.

Missed or gathered, prized or slighted,

Still from wreath and fingered spray

One by one its petals, blighted,

Pass, like pleasures day by day.

Taste we then its brief delight,

Ere the stealthy winds go by;

Drain the laughing chalice quite,

Drink the perfume that must die.

Oft is beauty like the flow’r

Gathered for a guest at morn,

And before the festal hour

From his chilly temples torn.

One day ends: another breaks;

Spring and all her sweets decay;

Every leaf the light wind takes

Whispers, “Gather while ye may.”

Since the rose is doomed to perish—

Perish, pass, nor bloom again,

Lovers’ lips her blossom cherish,

Love her dying sweets detain.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

CATHOLIC CHURCH AND CHRISTIAN STATE. A Series of Essays on

the Relation of the Church to the Civil Power. Translated,

with the permission of the author, from the German of Dr.

Joseph Hergenröther, Professor of Canon Law and Church

History at the University of Würzburg. In two volumes.

London: Burns & Oates. 1876.

It is to be regretted that the price of this excellent work has been

placed so high, although its paper covers and generally cheap style of

execution give it the appearance of a German rather than an English

publication. The price in England is one pound sterling, which makes

it necessary to sell it for eight dollars in this country, and with a

decent binding it must cost ten dollars. This great cost must impede

the general circulation which such a work merits and ought to obtain.

In respect to the value of its contents, it is well worth the price it

costs, and ought to have a place in every public library and on the

bookshelves of every Catholic of intelligence and culture—indeed, of

every educated man who wishes to understand the questions mooted and

discussed so generally at the present time in respect to the nature

and mutual relations of the church and the state. It is a masterly

scientific treatise, constructed with that solid learning and

thoroughness of exposition which characterize the works of genuine

German scholarship. The author is one of the most eminent of the

Catholic professors of Germany, at home in canon law, history and

jurisprudence, well versed in theology, and enjoying an established

reputation for sound orthodoxy in doctrine. The division of his topics

into separate essays, each with its distinct sections, makes it easier

to follow his course of exposition and reasoning than it would be if

they were arranged under a more strictly methodical form, and his

abundant references, frequently accompanied by citations, give

evidence of the sources he has referred to, as well as the means of

referring, in case of need, to these authorities. He is succinct and

brief in his treatment, yet clear and precise. The subjects about

which Mr. Gladstone’s _Expostulation_ have awakened controversy are

treated comprehensively and in their principles, furnishing a general

defence of the Catholic Church, and a refutation of the accusations of

her enemies in respect to her polity, administration, and relations to

the natural and temporal order. In short, it is a text-book or manual

for instruction, fitted to be used as a guide to those who have to

teach, as an arsenal from which those who have to write or lecture may

draw their weapons of argument, and as a standard of reference for the

correct decision of the matters within its scope. The private student

will find it all that is requisite for his complete and accurate

information on the important topics of which it treats. We understand

that the translation has been made by Miss Allies, assisted by two

other ladies, and, we doubt not, under her father’s supervision. We

have not seen the original, but the translation seems to have been

thoroughly well executed. The work will undoubtedly take its place at

once as a classic.

HISTOIRE DE MADAME BARAT, FONDATRICE DE LA SOCIETE DU

SACRE-CŒUR DE JESUS. Par M. l’Abbé Baunard. Paris:

Poussielque Frères, Rue Cassette 27. 1876.

We have had the honor of receiving one of the first copies of this

long-expected biography of one of the great women of this century, and

take the earliest opportunity of making the due acknowledgment. This

is not a book to be dismissed by a brief notice, and we hope to make

it the subject of an article in one of our future numbers, after

having given it the careful perusal which it merits. It is published

in two goodly volumes of fair, large type, averaging each six hundred

octavo pages. The Abbé Baunard is already celebrated as the author of

the _Life of St. John_. Those who read French easily and with pleasure

will prefer, we suppose, to obtain the original work, which no doubt

will soon be for sale in our foreign bookstores. Nevertheless, as a

translation from the graceful pen of Lady Georgiana Fullerton is

advertised as nearly or quite ready, we are confident that the charm

of the Abbé Baunard’s style will be preserved, in so far as that is

possible, in the _Life of Madame Barat_ which is soon to appear in

English. It is already evident that this biography, which is at the

same time a history of the institute founded by the venerable lady who

is its subject, will have a worldwide circulation. In our own country

there are great numbers who are eagerly desiring the opportunity of

perusing it. We have as yet only commenced the pleasing task, but we

have gone far enough to warrant the assurance that those who are

looking forward to the reading of it as a source of great benefit and

pure enjoyment will not be disappointed.

ARE YOU MY WIFE? By the author of _A Salon in Paris before

the War_, _Number Thirteen_, _Pius VI._, etc. New York: The

Catholic Publication Society. 1876. 1 vol. 8vo. pp. 292.

The startling question that gives a title to this story has been

before the readers of THE CATHOLIC WORLD for many months. Those who

have followed out the puzzle presented to them through its monthly

instalments will have found for themselves the solution of the

problem, and formed their own opinion regarding its merits or

demerits. The story is now published in book-form, and adds one more

to the number of admirable original works of fiction given to the

Catholic public through the pages of THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

_Are You My Wife?_ is remarkable, and welcome, at least in this: that

it shakes itself loose from the mouldy traditions which seem to form

the stock-in-trade of most of our Catholic writers of English fiction.

It is a bold effort and well sustained. The story is full of interest

from beginning to end; the characters clean-cut and distinct; the

incidents varying and rapid; and the secret carefully concealed to the

very last. It is not, perhaps, of the first, but certainly of a very

good, order of art, and possesses this exceptional merit over its

fellows, that while the facts on which it hangs are as interesting as

those in the best works of non-Catholic novelists, the purity and

moral elevation of the whole are far beyond what even the best of such

writers can furnish.

It is needless here to sketch the plot, which, though woven out of

natural materials, is ingeniously intricate. Many of the characters

are such as may be met with any day in England. The nominal heroine is

a wild, weird creation; the real heroine is Franceline, as charming a

girl as ever met us in the pages of a novel or stole our hearts away

in real life. No wonder all the young men go wild over her; no wonder

that the old men do the same. She grows up and develops under our

sight the dreamy, happy child, until she, and we with her, suddenly

start to find she is a woman.

The graceful yet powerful pen that gave us such sketches as _A Salon

in Paris before the War_, _Number Thirteen_, and others equally good,

has not mistaken its powers—indeed, has not, we are convinced, yet

tried them to the full of their bent—in the present more finished and

more ambitious work. There is little or nothing in _Are You My Wife?_

to betray the hand of an unpractised novelist. Only here and there

occurs a fulsomeness of detail on minor matters that were better

condensed. In one or two places, though very rarely, the conversation

flags. Conversation is, as a rule, slow enough in society itself; in a

book, when slow at all, it becomes intolerable. These are the only

blemishes we find in an unusually interesting book. Sir Simon Harness,

Ponce Anwyll, Miss Merrywig, Miss Bulpit, Angélique, and Raymond are

characters with whom we regret to part, as also Franceline and Clide,

were they not so well provided for. Humor, wit, and imagination are

plentiful throughout the book, while the pictures of natural scenery

are often unsurpassed. Here, for instance, is a picture of still life

that the best of pencils or pens might be proud to own:

“On emerging from the damp darkness after an hour with Miss Merrywig,

Franceline found that the sun had climbed up to the zenith, and was

pouring down a sultry glow that made the earth smoke again. There was

a stile at the end of the wood, and she sat down to rest herself under

the thick shade of a sycamore. The stillness of the noon was on

everything. A few lively linnets tried to sing; but, the effort being

prompted solely by duty, after a while they gave it up, and withdrew

to the coolest nooks, and enjoyed their siesta like the lazy ones.

Nobody stirred, except the insects that were chirping in the grass,

and some bees that sailed from flower to flower, buzzing and doing

field-labor when everybody else was asleep or idle. To the right the

fields were brimful of ripening grain of every shade of gold; the

deep-orange corn was overflowing into the pale amber of the rye, and

the bearded barley was washing the hedge that walled it off from the

lemon-colored wheat. To the left the rich grass lands were dotted with

flocks and herds. In the nearest meadow some cattle were herding. It

was too hot to eat, so they stood surveying the fulness of the earth

with mild, bovine gaze. They might have been sphinxes, they were so

still; not a muscle in their sleek bodies moved, except that a tail

lashed out against the flies now and then. Some were in the open

field, holding up their white horns to the sunlight; others were

grouped in twos and threes under a shady tree; but the noontide hush

was on them all. Presently a number of horses came trooping leisurely

up to the pond near the stile; the mild-eyed kine moved their slow

heads after the procession, and then, one by one, trooped on with it.

The noise of the hoofs plashing into the water, and the loud lapping

of the thirsty tongues, were like a drink to the hot silence.

Franceline watched them lifting their wet mouths, all dripping, from

the pool, and felt as if she had been drinking too. There was a long,

solemn pause, and then a sound like the blast of an organ rose up from

the pond, swelling and sweeping over the fields; before it died away a

calf in a distant paddock answered it.”

THE LIFE OF REV. MOTHER ST. JOSEPH, FOUNDRESS OF THE

CONGREGATION OF SISTERS OF ST. JOSEPH OF BORDEAUX. By l’Abbé

P. F. Lebeurier. Translated from the French. New York: D. &

J. Sadlier & Co. 1876.

When, in the early part of the seventeenth century, St. Francis de

Sales founded the Order of the Visitation, he placed the corporal

works of mercy, such as visiting the sick and relieving the poor,

among the duties of its members, but he was afterwards induced to

modify the original plan by making enclosure a part of the

constitution of the order. There was a demand, however, for

communities of women devoted to the relief of human misery; and among

the many congregations of this kind which were founded during the life

or shortly after the death of St. Francis that of the Sisters of St.

Joseph holds an important rank. This order came into existence under

the fostering care of Father Medaille, a priest of the Company of

Jesus, in the year 1650, in the diocese of Puy, and was soon

established in many other parts of France. After an existence of a

hundred and forty years, it was broken up and the sisters dispersed by

the French Revolution; but upon the conclusion of the Concordat

between Napoleon and Pius VII. the religious who still survived

reassembled and opened a house in Lyons, in 1807, under the protection

of Cardinal Fesch.