CHAPTER VIII.

FATHER RASLE.

One summer morning, Mr. Yorke appeared at the breakfast-table with

a very sour face. He was bilious, and he had not slept well. Even

Hester's cooing ways failed to mollify him.

"Why, you are feverish, papa," she said. "Your hand is hot and dry."

He moved his chair impatiently. "Yes, your mother insisted on my

taking charcoal instead of calomel, and I think she must have slily

administered a lucifer-match with it: I radiate heat."

Mrs. Yorke took these complaints very quietly. She knew that nothing

could be further from her husband's heart than to be dissatisfied

with anything she did. "We were disturbed by that fearful noise," she

said quietly, taking her place at the table.

Owen began to laugh. The Seaton "cast-iron band" had been out the

night before, and the young man found himself very much amused by it.

"Do you like lawlessness, sir?" demanded Mr. Yorke.

"That depends on what the law is," the son replied pleasantly.

"Well, sir, in this case it is the law of common decency, of respect

for the clergy, and courtesy to strangers. Father Rasle, the

Catholic priest, came here yesterday, and that Babel of cow-bells,

and sleigh-bells, and mill-saws, and tin trumpets, and wooden drums,

and I know not what else, was before his door. I call it a shameful

outrage."

"So do I," Owen replied promptly. "I had no idea what it meant."

The young ladies all exclaimed indignantly; but Edith dropped her

eyes and was silent. Theology was nothing to her, and as yet her

faith had no life in it. She was deeply ashamed of that religion

which all seemed to scoff at save those who tolerated it for her

sake. Only her promise held her to it. That the voice of the people

is not always, is very seldom, the voice of God, she could not be

expected to know; neither could she be expected to love that church

which as yet she had heard spoken of only by its enemies. She did not

dream of forsaking the religion of her mother; but her constancy to

it seemed to her of the same nature as Mrs. Rowan's constancy to her

drunken husband.

After breakfast, her uncle bade her dress to go with him to call on

Father Rasle. She obeyed, though with a shrinking heart. She had

heard priests spoken of in the street and by the school-children with

contempt and reviling, and her impression was that they must be very

disagreeable persons to meet. But the religion was hers, and she must

stand by it, never confessing to a doubt nor allowing any one to

reproach it unchallenged by her. And if she stood by the religion,

she must stand by the priest.

Father Rasle, being only a missionary there, had no house in Seaton,

but stopped with a decent Irish family. It was a poor place, and the

room in which he received Mr. Yorke and his niece was as humble as

could well be imagined. But there needed no fine setting to show that

he was that noblest object on earth, a Christian gentleman. His age

might have been a little over forty, and his manner was almost too

grave and dignified, one might think at first; but it soon appeared

that he could be genial beyond most men.

Mr. Yorke presented his niece, and, before explaining their errand,

apologized for the insult that had been offered the priest the night

before.

"Oh! I certainly did not expect the honor of a serenade," said Father

Rasle, laughing pleasantly. "But, if it gratified them to give

it, I am not in the least offended. It is, perhaps, a loss to me

that I did not care; for I might have derived some profit from the

mortification. On the contrary, I own to you, sir, that I enjoyed

that concert. It was the most laughable one I ever heard."

Mr. Yorke looked at the speaker in astonishment. Here was a kind of

pride, if pride it could be called, which he could not understand.

In such circumstances, his own impulse would have been to shoot his

insulters down instantly. What he despised he wanted to crush, to rid

the earth of, to spare himself the sight of; what the priest despised

he pitied, he wished to raise, to excuse, to spare God and the world

the sight of. It was admirable, his visitor owned, but inimitable by

him.

Not being able to say any more on the subject, he then stated Edith's

case. "You will know what she needs," he concluded, "and I shall see

that she follows your directions."

The father questioned his young catechumen, and found her in a state

of the most perfect ignorance. "The child is a heathen!" he said,

in his odd, broken English, his smile taking the harsh edge off the

words. "She must study the catechism--this little one--and see how

much of it she will have to say to me when I come here again in a

month. I will then prepare her for her first confession."

Edith uttered not a word, except to answer his questions. She was not

sure whether she liked him or not; she was only certain that he did

not offend her.

There was a little more talk, then Mr. Yorke rose to go, cordially

inviting the priest to visit him. As they were going, "I think,

Edith," he said, "that you should kneel and ask Father Rasle's

blessing."

She knelt at once, for her mother's and her uncle's sake, with a

murmured, "Please to bless me, sir!" But when he had given the

blessing, laying his hand upon her head, and looking down into

her face with that expression of serious sweetness, she felt a

dawning sense of reverence and confidence, and perceived dimly some

sacredness in him.

She went to Mass the next day in the little chapel that had been

desecrated. The picture-frames still hung on the walls, with the rags

of the stations in them. There was enough left to show how Christ the

Lord had suffered, and this new insult was but a freshening of the

original text. Mr. Yorke sat on the bench beside his niece, and she

stood, or knelt, or sat with the rest, not in the least understanding

what it all meant, but impressed by the gravity and earnestness of

those around her. When Mass was over, the priest, who had seen them,

sent for them into the sacristy. He had some books for Edith, and

wanted to point out the lessons she was to learn first.

"And I have a present for you," he said, giving her an ormolu

crucifix, with a broken foot that showed marks of violence. "This is

the crucifix that was torn from our tabernacle. I want you to keep

it; and whenever you are called upon to suffer, and feel disposed

to complain, look at this, and remember that our Lord was not even

allowed to hang upon his cross in peace."

She took the crucifix from his hand silently, and held it against

her breast as she went out. She did not propose to endure suffering;

she desired and looked for happiness; but something in this relic

stirred her to a strange pity, mingled with anger. The idea that lay

behind it was to her dim and vague; but, failing to grasp that, she

would have defended with her life the symbol of that monstrous wrong

and that heart-breaking patience. Reaching home, she went directly

to her own chamber and hung the crucifix beneath the picture of her

father, then stood and looked at it awhile. There was a wish in her

heart to do something--to offer some reparation to the real Sufferer

behind this image of pain. She kissed with soft lips the broken foot

of the cross, and a tear fell where she kissed. She took it down,

and pressed the rough edge against her bosom till the sharp points

pierced the skin and brought a stain of blood. Then, hearing some

one call her, she hastily replaced it, and brought as an offering to

it a precious bouquet of ribbon-grasses, that Carl had gathered that

morning to fasten in her hair. She had meant to keep it because of

some sweetness with which it was offered, but now she gave it up to

that unseen Patience and Love. Her instinctive action proved that

the feeling and precept of the church only sanctifies, but does not

change the impulse of a pure and tender nature.

Meantime, the child was being discussed down-stairs.

"I observe that Edith has an inclination to stay alone a good deal,"

Mr. Yorke said, "and I do not wish to have that encouraged. It is not

a wholesome disposition. Her father was a visionary, her mother was a

visionary, and she is--"

"A vision!" concluded Mrs. Yorke, as Edith appeared, with the

thoughts of the last few hours still in her eyes and on her lips.

About that time, Carl received a letter from Miss Mills which he

read many times. "You ask my advice," she wrote, "and you tell me

that I know better than you know yourself. I would not claim so much

as that, but I think I may tell you something more clearly than you

yourself perceive it, or confirm you in some thought which you doubt

or wish to doubt. As to your choice of a profession and staying in

Seaton for the present, you might well try the experiment; but I

cannot express any great confidence as to the result. It is almost

a disadvantage to you that your powers are so various. There are a

good many things which, with application, you could do excellently;

whether you have any specialty remains to be proved, and will be hard

to prove; for, in order to find that out, you must concentrate your

powers, and that you hate to do. If this world were but a playground,

then you would have nothing to do but follow in the trail of every

new beauty which calls you; but life is earnest, and you must

work, or you not only lose what you might accomplish, but you lose

yourself. You are one of those whom the devil finds worth fighting

for, and, lacking faith to your armor, you have all the more need of

labor. _Qui laborat orat_, might have a sort of truth even for one

without faith.

"Let me warn you against two dangers: one is, that you may be injured

by flatterers. Not that you like flattery in itself, but it will

soothe your painful sense of not having reached your own ideal. It

will seem to you that your best must have transpired at least, and

that you must have done better than you thought. Not so; receive that

soothing praise only when you have striven hard, even though you

failed, but never when you have tried weakly or not at all. What the

flatterers like in you is not your best, but your worst. They have no

wish for you to rise above them; they praise you to keep you low.

"I warn you, too, against your excessive love for the beautiful, in

which you are an ultra-pagan. The infinite beauty is alone worthy of

that passion with which you seek and admire; and infinite beauty is

infinite truth. Seek truth first, and you will always be rewarded by

the vision of beauty; but, if you seek beauty first, you will find to

your sorrow, possibly to your ruin, that it is often but the mask of

falsehood.

"Lay aside some of your fastidiousness, my dear friend, and take up

your life strongly with both hands. Do something, even if it should

prove to be the wrong thing. Wrong work done honestly prepares us

for right work. Strengthen your will, and be manly, as a man should

be. Discipline yourself, and you will escape much pain and loss of

time, for, let me assure you, Carl, you need either an immensity of

resolution or an immensity of suffering.

"My lecture is done, and I am Minerva no longer. My thoughts follow

you with solicitude and indulgence. On the night after you left,

which you spent on the sea, I went to the quiet chapel near me, and

placed you under the protection of _Stella Maris_. But life has waves

and gulfs more fearful than those of the sea, and my prayers for you

do not cease with the end of your journey.

"Look well at Robert Yorke's child, remembering what the story of my

life is; and then, if you think that I could love her, kiss her on

the forehead for me, and tell her that I send a loving greeting."

Owen folded the letter, and hid it in his bosom. He had been walking

in the woods, and he returned thoughtfully homeward. The afternoon

was sultry and still. The low brooks hissed along like white flames,

the branches drooped over the birds that murmured, and the flowers

hung wilted. All about the house was silent as he entered. Going

through the kitchen, he saw Betsey sitting in the northern window

reading a novel. Betsey was the most romantic soul alive, and, having

got hold of _David Copperfield_, was crying her eyes out over poor

little Dora. Passing on to the sitting-room, he found his father

sitting asleep in a deep wicker-chair, a copy of _Religio Medici_

lying open on his knee. The quiet tone of the book, familiar by many

readings, had lulled him into a pleasant slumber, and his hand had

dropped with the finger pointing to a passage on which he had closed

his eyes: "I love to love myself in a mystery, to pursue my reason to

an _O altitudo_!" From that the reader had gone out into the mystery

of sleep with a smile lingering on his face.

"It is the castle of indolence," muttered Owen, stepping noiselessly

on. He paused at the foot of the stairs and listened. No sound came

down. His sisters, in white wrappers, each with a pillow under her

head, were lying on the cool matting in the north chamber, too much

exhausted to talk. He went out into the portico, and stood there a

moment, seeing no one. Then, turning, he beheld Edith asleep on a

bench in the shadow of the vines, her arms thrown up over her head.

Smilingly he approached her, literally to obey the command of his

friend, and look well to see if his uncle's deserted mistress could

love his uncle's child. She was fair enough to love, for all the

roughness of her former life had passed away. The bloom of the lily

was in her face, warmed now to a rose by the heat, and her hair had a

shine of gold.

"Dear little cousin," he said, "a friend of yours sends loving

greeting."

She stirred, her face grew troubled, and she started up with a cry:

"Dick, come back. I did not mean to!"

She sighed on seeing Owen. "I was dreaming that I had hurt Dick, and

he was going away angry," she said.

"Are you, then, so fond of him?" Carl asked, seating himself by her.

"O Carl!" she said earnestly, "you have no idea how fond he is of me."

"And you of him, then, of course," said Carl.

"Why, of course!" she echoed, with a look of surprise. "If I were

to do anything to Dick to make him unhappy, I should never forgive

myself, never! I have written him a letter to-day, and told him I

want him to be a Catholic."

"You have!" said Carl with a faint smile. "Do you think he will obey

you?"

"Oh! yes," she said confidently; "I told him some good reasons why he

should."

And may I ask what the good reasons were, Edith?" was the smiling

question.

"Why, in the first place, I want him to."

"Excellent!" laughed the young man. "The doctors couldn't do better."

Edith blushed deeply. "No; the good reasons were the reasons why I

wanted him to," she said.

TO BE CONTINUED.

SAINT CECILIA.

HER INFLUENCE ON LITERATURE AND THE ARTS.

FROM THE REVUE GENERALE.

While the great men who have dreamed of distinguishing their names

die and are forgotten, or at least, as Juvenal said of Alexander,

become the idle theme of a rhetorical recitation, those who in this

world have lived and suffered for God leave behind them, through all

ages, an immortal memory.

The work for which each of us has been sent into the world has

been conspicuously accomplished by the saints. This makes them our

rightful masters; and, while we rarely imitate them, we can at

least understand that such heroism must elevate the soul, and we

admire them all the more that we feel ourselves unable to follow in

their steps. Nor is such a recognition a useless sentiment. From

the mansion of glory whence they see all things, the saints never

cease to interest themselves in the affairs of the world, and among

the dogmas of the Catholic Church which our estranged brethren have

rejected, the communion of saints is one of the most touching and

sublime.

There is indeed between the two worlds, visible and invisible, a

strange but undeniable communication. Each of us, in investigating

his own soul, will find there certain phenomena which have their

origin neither in ourselves nor in the outer world: sadness from

no apparent cause, inexplicable sensations of internal happiness,

bursts of enthusiasm or sudden inspirations which Plato attributed

to superior intelligences. Many of us, recalling some miraculously

escaped danger, and profoundly touched by this heavenly protection,

will bear willing witness, unless checked by dread of worldly

criticism, to this influence of the saints and angels on our human

career. "The people," with the good sense which so happily inspires

them (at least, where the sophists have not succeeded in corrupting

them)--"the people" believe in it; and when the peasant or the poor

working-woman gives a name in baptism to the child just entering on

the struggles of life, she believes, in her simple, lucid faith, that

she is securing a patron for it. It is not in vain, they say, that a

young girl is called Mary; surely she will the more readily share in

the sweetness, the self-denial, the incomparable purity, of the Queen

of Virgins; the name of Agnes will be a pledge of innocence; that of

Theresa promises a heart of fire; that of Cecilia, a soul gentle yet

strong, eager for harmony; while the name of Francis recalls heroic

isolation; those of Paul and of John, indefatigable zeal and perfect

charity. If it is not always thus, it is because the human soul is

free to resist grace; but these occasional rebellions do not prevent

a harmony between heaven and earth as mysterious as it is sure.

These thoughts have frequently passed through our mind; but one day

last October, while visiting the church of St. Cecilia in Rome, they

monopolized it.

In such moments, we persuade ourselves very easily that we can

express them in writing. Undoubtedly, they are not new; but, if the

life of this great saint, one of the glories of Rome, is well known,

it is a story which will bear repetition: really fine old melodies

never lose their charm, and, if they thrill one human soul with a

divine emotion, who will complain of hearing them again?

HISTORY OF SAINT CECILIA.

In the year 250 after Christ, in the reign of Septimus Severus, at a

time when the Roman Empire was still the most formidable power of the

world, there lived in Rome a young girl who will be famous when the

imperial glories shall be forgotten.

Beauty, the reflection of heaven in the human countenance; grace,

mysterious charm whose origin is invisible; modesty, that exquisite

reserve of a virgin soul; nobility, precious perfume of the past;

and, above all, the power of loving, the most magnificent and the

most powerful present of the Creator to the created: all these gifts

were united in the daughter of Cæcilius. It was an illustrious

family: in the records of the Republic it counted eighteen consuls

and several conquerors, nor had it degenerated under the Empire.

To-day, when the traveller, weary from a day spent in the galleries

of Rome, setting forth from the city towards sunset, wanders

pensively down the long Appian Way, while he contemplates with

emotion the outlines of the aqueducts with their broken arches,

the Sabine mountains gilded by the light, and all that celebrated

landscape of the environs of Rome, majestic and melancholy as a

fallen queen, he finds upon his right, rising like a great tower,

the tomb of Cæcilia Metella. There slept of yore the long-forgotten

ancestress of her who will render immortal, for time and for

eternity, the name of Cæcilius.

Cecilia was eighteen. The Roman poor knew her charity. Often had they

seen her in the caves of the martyrs alone, or only accompanied by

a faithful servant. Her father, although he respected her religion,

did not share it: he hoped, indeed, at a suitable time to marry his

daughter to some distinguished husband, and to see himself, through

her, live again in her beloved children. But Cecilia had raised her

heart above this world, and night and day prayed that the palm of

virginity she had dreamed of should not be taken from her.

He whom her parents had chosen for her seemed not unworthy of the

honor. Though still a pagan, Valerian possessed at least those

natural gifts which prepare the soul for faith, hope, and charity,

the supernatural gifts of Christ crucified. Nevertheless, who can

express the fears of the young Christian? Had not God accepted all

her heart as she had offered it? Could a pagan understand this

mystery, and would not this union of the soul with an invisible

spouse seem a strange folly to a man still living in the world of the

senses? More than one Christian soul has felt these chaste doubts.

It is honorable to hesitate before making for a mortal a sacrifice

for which a young girl sometimes can never console herself. Cecilia

felt these terrors most acutely, but she loved God well enough to

feel perfect confidence in him. So she poured forth her whole soul in

prayer, and, against all hope, trusted in his aid.

So, when, towards evening, already married in the eyes of the world,

she found herself alone with her husband, she said to him in that

incomparable conversation whose charm has come down to us in her life:

"There is a secret, Valerian, that I wish to confide to you. I have a

lover, an angel of God, who watches over me with jealous care. If you

preserve inviolate my virginity, he will love you also as he loves

me, and will overpower you with his favors."

Much astonished, Valerian wished to know this angel.

"You shall see him," said Cecilia, "when you are purified."

"How shall I become so?"

"Go to Urban. When the poor hear my name, they will take you to his

sanctuary: he will explain to you our mysteries."

Drawn by an unknown power, the young man consented to go. We know

the result of this decision--his interview with the Pope in the

catacombs, his conversion, and his baptism. Still dressed in his

white robe, he returned to Cecilia. He could now understand the love

of the angels, and its perfect beauty. In future, he loved Cecilia as

his sister in God, to whom belong the heart and mind.

In those Christian ages others loved as he did. Undoubtedly most of

them carried their secret with them to the tomb; but among those

whose genius has made them famous, Dante had his Beatrice; Petrarch

sang of Laura: and these pure loves, unknown to the ancient pagans,

and scoffed at by our modern pagans, will remain an ornament to the

soul, an act of faith in its immortality, and for us who read their

history a breath of heaven on earth.

No one knows what conversation took place, in those hours of rapture

and prayer, between this pair, whose marriage was to be perfected in

heaven; what thanksgivings they rendered to God, who in a moment

transforms hearts: nor would it be easy to describe. Of all the arts,

music alone might perhaps dare to attempt it, and the revelation

would require the genius of Handel or Beethoven.

In his ardent zeal, Valerian, like Cecilia, understood the value of

the soul.

So, when the beloved brother Tiburtius sought them, what eloquence

they displayed to prove to him that his gods were only idols! Subdued

by the mysterious charm of the Christian virgin, conquered by the

eagerness of the convert, Tiburtius also wished to see the angel who

watched over Cecilia. If for this it was necessary to be purified,

purified he would be; and thus became the first conquest of his

brother, who had besought God for it.

Such souls were too beautiful for pagan Rome. In the absence of

Septimus Severus, Almachius, the governor, summoned Valerian and

Tiburtius before his tribunal. The two young patricians avowed their

faith in Christ, to the great scandal of the worldly and prosperous.

Valerian went to his martyrdom as to a triumph. He went to wait for

Cecilia in heaven.

Tiburtius did not forsake him. On the Appian Way, four miles from the

city, they were beheaded for having dared to worship a different God

from those of the Empire. Cecilia piously reclaimed their bodies,

and prepared to rejoin them. Called in her turn to answer for her

conduct, she disconcerted the judge. Before such purity, innocence,

and heroism, entreaties, artifices, and threats failed; the daughter

of Cæcilius, convicted of loving the poor and a crucified God, was

instantly confined in the bath-room of her own house, there to be

suffocated in a hot vapor bath. But in the midst of this fiery

atmosphere she remained uninjured. The stupefied jailers related how

they had discovered her singing the praises of God. Such a delusion

could but provoke Almachius. The executioner was summoned. With a

trembling hand, he inflicted three wounds on the neck of the virgin

martyr, without succeeding in severing the head. Then, terrified

himself, he fled. Stretched on the flags, bathed in her blood,

Cecilia lived three days. The Christians gathered round her. She was

able to bid farewell to the poor, to whom she had bequeathed her

property. Then, feeling her strength fail, while Urban was in the

act of giving her his blessing, she drew her robe around her, and,

turning her face away, gave back her soul to God.

According to her last desire, the Pope transformed the house that

had witnessed her martyrdom into a church. The bath-room became a

chapel; and by its arrangement bears witness to-day to the truth of

the saint's life. One can still see the mouth of the pipes which let

in the vapor, covered with a grating; and on the same flags where the

Roman virgin expired, the kneeling Christian can ponder in his heart

the example of heroism that she has given to the world. He who has

not had the good fortune to pray on the tombs of the martyrs cannot

appreciate the strength one finds there, or what precepts their

relics give forth. The martyrs are the incontrovertible witnesses of

the value of faith, of the power of love; and it is said that their

beatified spirits lend to these bones, which were their bodies, an

all-powerful eloquence.

The remains of the young girl were taken down into the catacombs of

St. Callixtus, and remained there six centuries. After the invasion

of the Lombards, most unhappily, all trace was lost of them till, in

822, the place where they were hidden was revealed to Pope St. Pascal.

The long-sought coffin was placed in the basilica of St. Cecilia,

which had been repaired by the Pope's care. It was placed under the

high altar. And even in our day the custodian points out to the

pilgrim a curious fresco of the thirteenth century, representing

the apparition of the saint to the sleeping Pope. In 1599, Cardinal

Sfondrate ordered the tomb to be opened with solemnity. To the great

delight of Christian Rome, the corpse of the Roman virgin, respected

by centuries, appeared, miraculously preserved.

The chaste folds of her dress were restrained by a girdle. At her

feet were found the blood-stained cloths which had bound her wounds;

and her arms, thrust forward, still seemed to serve as a veil. Three

fingers of her right hand were open, only one of the left, as if

even in dying she had wished to avow her belief in one God in three

persons. Finally, so that she might not give to the world her last

look, but think only of Christ, her spouse, by a supreme effort she

had turned her head aside.

Thus she reposes on her bier of cypress; thus extended on the flags

she had died; and thus a great artist has faithfully represented her

to us. The celebrated statue of Etienne Maderno, lying on its side,

full of modesty and of grace, seems the dying virgin herself; and the

whiteness of the marble, which so resembles the paleness of death,

adds yet more to the illusion. Seen in this honored place, in this

house which was the saint's and has become God's, this masterpiece

of Christian sculpture, admirably executed and in exquisite taste,

touches the heart profoundly.

THE INFLUENCE OF ST. CECILIA ON LITERATURE.

Such a beautiful story could not fail to be repeated. As long as the

persecutions lasted, to strengthen their courage, the faithful passed

from mouth to mouth these details which had been so affectionately

collected. So great, indeed, was the enthusiasm for the memory of

Cecilia that she obtained the great and rare honor of being mentioned

in the canon of the Mass with Saints Felicitas, Perpetua, Agatha,

Lucy, Agnes, and Anastasia. Thus for fifteen centuries, throughout

the Catholic world, wherever the holy sacrifice is celebrated, her

name is invoked; and, truly immortal, each hour, each moment perhaps,

her memory rises from earth to heaven with incense and with prayer.

Her acts, chronicled in the fifth century, have since then been

the subject of several works. We shall only mention the Greek

translation of Simeon Metaphrastes, the verses of St. Adhelme and

of the Venerable Bede in England, the works of Flodoard at Rheims,

and Rhoban Maur. Then, during that magnificent efflorescence of

philosophy and Catholic literature, we see Victor de Beauvais

relate the story of St. Cecilia;[109] Albert the Great, St. Thomas

Aquinas, St. Bonaventure, preaching several sermons in her honor. In

the fifteenth century, the eloquent St. Vincent Ferrer recited her

praises; but the Reformation came soon after, and it is only in Italy

now that they think of the glories of St. Cecilia.

In vain her history is its own defence; in vain may it claim in its

favor the imposing testimony of Christian tradition, in the East as

in the West, during fourteen centuries; in vain the liturgies of

the churches of Rome, of Milan, of Toledo, of Greece, and of Gaul

have inserted in the office for the 22d of November fragments of

the text; in vain even the discovery of her body testified anew to

its veracity. Towards the middle of the seventeenth century, the

Jansenist school rejected it.

The historical works on the first centuries of Christianity which

during the last forty years have been undertaken in France and

Germany, by tracing out the original sources with scrupulous care,

and taking advantage of monuments, have dealt justly with this

excessive criticism.

But error is more prone to spread than easy to uproot. Launoy, that

"great demolisher of saints," who, in attacking the most poetic

beliefs of the faithful, strayed into the road to rationalism, made a

school. Even now Feller's _Dictionary of Universal Biography_, and,

following him (for these works usually copy each other), those of

Michaud and of F. Didot, have repeated, on the authority of Tillemont

and of Baillet, that the authenticity of the life of St. Cecilia is

very doubtful, although the arguments cited in support of this thesis

had been successfully refuted by Laderchi early in the eighteenth

century,[110] and annihilated for ever twenty years ago by R. P. Dom

Guéranger, in his excellent book on St. Cecilia.[111]

The touching story of St. Cecilia must also inspire poets. Without

mentioning the ancient hymns to be found in the Italian, Spanish,

and Gallic liturgies, several poems in her honor may be quoted. At

the time of the Renaissance, Baptiste Spagnuolo made it the subject

of a real epic poem, where we find, as in the _Æneid_, the speeches

of Venus and Juno, and the conspiracies of the inhabitants of Olympus

against common mortals. The god of pagan love, accompanied by his

mother, comes sadly to Juno to complain of the disdain of Cecilia,

who wishes to remain a virgin. Forgetting her resentment, the wife

of Jupiter inspires the father of Cecilia with the idea of uniting

his daughter to a pagan. Foiled in their attempt by the conversion of

Valerian, the angry goddess instigated Mars to suggest to Almachius

the plan of drowning in blood this Christian band, rebels against the

Olympian gods. Among the nine hundred verses may be found some fine

ones, but we must confess that these unfortunate pagan reminiscences,

so popular in the sixteenth century, ruin the poet's work for us.

Happily, the Roman virgin was to have her life, her death, and her

glories sung in poems of purer inspiration. Angelus Tangrinus,

priest of Monte Cassino,[112] wrote on this subject a long

epithalamium,[113] which lacks neither grace of expression nor of

thought.

The English poet Pope has also written an ode to St. Cecilia. The

poem is elegantly versified, but cold and unmarked by any Christian

feeling. The classic author recalls the magical effect of music in

all ages, nor has he forgotten the adventure of Eurydice; he speaks

with complacency of the Styx and of Phlegethon, of Ixion and of

Sisyphus, of Proserpine and the Elysian Fields. Finally, feeling a

pang of remorse, and remembering that he had dedicated his ode to

a virgin martyr, he asserts that the poets must instantly abandon

Orpheus and proclaim Cecilia the queen of music; for if the musician

of Thrace drew by his music a spirit from hell, Cecilia by hers

raised the soul to heaven.[114]

Very recently, Count Anatole de Ségur has published a dramatic poem,

which seems to us the finest homage that poetry has yet offered to

St. Cecilia. The style pure and musical, the interest sustained

and engrossing, it merits the praises which the best judges have

bestowed on it;[115] and we should willingly quote some verses of

this exquisite book,[116] did we not prefer to leave our readers the

pleasure of perusing it as a whole.

THE INFLUENCE OF SAINT CECILIA ON THE FINE ARTS.

We have seen the story of St. Cecilia inspire eloquence and poetry,

but it was destined to exercise a still greater influence on the

fine arts. There are, indeed, some general rules for these intimate

relations between art and holiness that it would be well to remember.

Besides, we may say that the saints were themselves powerful artists.

Who has sought the ideal more eagerly than these indefatigable lovers

of heavenly things? But they have not contented themselves with

seeking infinite beauty in an abstract form; they have endeavored,

as far as it was possible to human weakness, to realize it in their

lives. As the sculptor cuts into a block of marble to render it

into beautiful forms, they, with obstinate labor, have sought to

model their souls, to render them more pure, less unworthy of God.

The contemplation of martyrdom, so habitual to the first Christians,

gave them that serene dignity now become so rare. As a bride

prepares herself for the bridegroom, so did these souls of virgins,

of mothers, of the young and of the old, endeavor, day by day, to

grow in grace in the eyes of Jesus Christ, till the blade of the

executioner harvested them for heaven. The soul, grown beautiful,

transfigures in its turn the body which it animates, and the living

mirror of the countenance reflects strength and gentleness, peace and

ardent zeal, purity and ecstatic rapture. Thus we may fairly conclude

that Christianity has offered to artists, through the saints, not

only the perfection of form, but a type of human beauty elevated by

an ever-constant love.

But why was St. Cecilia singled out from such an innumerable band

of the beatified to become especially dear to artists? Many others,

gifted with all worldly advantages, in all the radiance of youth and

beauty, died, like her, virgins and martyrs, without attaining her

distinction. We will examine later the motives of the musicians in

taking her for their patron. As for the artists, they had no long

discussion on the causes of this secret sympathy. Each one, when he

dreamed of heaven, painted Cecilia, saying to himself, probably,

that there was not in the world a young girl's face which could so

perfectly express the rapture of the soul listening to ineffable

harmony.

It would require time to glance even hastily over the long gallery

of pictures of which our saint has been the subject. We will only

mention the most celebrated. It is probable that many, scattered

through the many galleries of Europe, have escaped us; but we wish

only to discuss those which we have appreciated with our own eyes,

and, also, the limits of this article would prevent our attempting to

mention all.

In order to preserve some regularity in this examination, and that

it may not become an adventurous journey through all ages and

countries in search of pictures of St. Cecilia, we will separate

these works into three classes, and, according to their nature and

their predominant tendencies, we will class them, one by one, in the

sensualistic, rationalistic, and mystical schools.[117] Nevertheless,

we must say that here, as in all other classification, the confines

of each class are very apt to mingle with each other. Sometimes,

indeed, in the same picture one figure will express sensuality and

the others religious emotion.[118]

But let us render judgment on the entire effect of the picture and

its predominant tendency. We must repeat here that in all artistic

works we note two things: first, the idea of the artist, and, in

consequence, the order of psychological effect--sensual pleasures,

spiritual joy, or heartfelt rapture--which the picture gives rise

to in the souls of those who behold it; secondly, the execution,

the dexterity, more or less perfect, with which the idea has been

expressed, and, consequently, the greater or less satisfaction felt

by connoisseurs, whom a special education has fitted to appreciate

the technical merits or faults of a picture. These are two widely

different points of view; and, to be just, one should specify from

which standpoint a picture is judged, for it might easily happen that

the spirit of a picture would be really beautiful and the execution

very feeble; the coloring perhaps unpleasing, the perspective faulty,

or even the drawing incorrect.

First, The sensual school. Among the greatest geniuses, Rubens,

perhaps, falls oftenest into sensualism. It is to the senses, indeed,

that he usually addresses himself; hence the vividness of his

coloring, the brilliancy of the flesh, which seems palpitating with

life and ready to rebound under the critic's finger. But, indeed,

except "The Descent from the Cross" and "The Elevation of the Cross,"

nothing could be less religious than most of his religious pictures.

In vain his "St. Cecilia" passionately raises her eyes; her plumpness

and her dress wake only worldly thoughts. Others may admire the

intensity of the flesh tints, the lustre of the robes. We think such

exuberant health little suited to the young Christian who watched

and fasted the more entirely to give herself up to prayer. As for

the pouting cherubs which frolic round her, they are not adapted for

inspiring heavenly aspirations.

But let us look no longer to the sensual school for a type of

beauty which it cannot give us. Let us see how St. Cecilia has been

understood by those artists who, without troubling themselves much to

express Christian ideas, have, at least, endeavored to satisfy the

intelligence and to appeal to the mind through the eyes.

Second, The rationalistic school. Of all the painters whom we class

under the name of the rationalistic school (that is, spiritual

without being Christian), Domenichino is the most celebrated, or, at

least, the one who has consecrated the most important works to the

glory of St. Cecilia. His frescoes in the church of St. Louis des

Français, at Rome, are considered classics. There we see St. Cecilia

distributing, from the terrace of her house, her garments to a crowd

of poor people, who, in picturesque groups, are disputing over them.

Then, Almachius, on his judgment-seat, commanding, by an imperative

gesture, the saint to sacrifice to the idols. But she expresses

with dignity her horror; and it is in vain for the priests to offer

a goat, and in vain incense smokes on a tripod before a statue of

Jupiter. Here Cecilia dies, surrounded by kneeling women; some

watching her, others putting the blood from her wounds into vases

by the aid of sponges. In the meanwhile, the Pope, Urban, gives her

his blessing, and an angel brings her, from heaven, a crown and a

palm. In yet another fresco, an angel presents crowns to Cecilia and

Valerian. And last, on the ceiling is painted the apotheosis of the

saint supported in the arms of angels, and borne to heaven.[119]

But Domenichino's picture in the great gallery of the Louvre is more

generally known than the frescoes of St. Louis. Here St. Cecilia

is standing, and while she sings the glories of God, accompanying

herself on a violoncello, an angel offers her a music-book. But she

does not heed it, and raises to heaven eyes that seem just melting

in tears. Undoubtedly the head is truly dignified and inspired, but

we must regret that the religious sentiment is not more manifest in

this fine picture, for without the nimbus round the head one might

take the saint for a sibyl.[120]

Guido, with his usual grace, has represented Cecilia dying, lying on

her side, as in Maderno's statue. She has, however, her arms crossed

upon her breast, and the head is not turned aside; two women staunch

her bleeding wounds with cloths, and in the background an angel holds

a palm, which he hastens to give her.

To Annibal Carracci is usually attributed the St. Cecilia which

is to be found in the Museum of the Capitol at Rome. At all

events, one easily recognizes, by a certain shade of naturalism,

a work of the Bologna school. As before, the saint is singing and

accompanying herself on an organ; but here, we see beside her the

Blessed Virgin holding the infant Jesus in her arms, and a Dominican

priest--expressive faces, apparently enraptured with the celestial

concert.

The majority of French artists, above all in the reign of Louis

XIV., belong to the rationalistic school. Their composition is

clever, their drawing correct, the style dignified, sometimes almost

theatrical. They are indeed almost always natural, but with the

exception of some of Lesueur's, one rarely perceives in their works

the inspiration of a superhuman emotion. There are in the galleries

of French art in the Louvre two pictures which do not contradict

these observations. Jacques Stella, who lived during the first half

of the seventeenth century, has left us a St. Cecilia. She is

standing playing on an organ, her eyes modestly lowered, while two

angels are singing at her side. She wears a wreath of roses in her

hair; but, more charming than inspired, resembles the portrait of a

young girl of the age of Louis XIII. with a taste for music.

Mignard's picture is, however, more celebrated. Of finished

execution, perfect in detail, so that even the glimpse of landscape

seen through the pillars of the portico is treated with great care,

it inspires artists with admiration also by the beauty of its

coloring. The saint, richly dressed, and wearing a large turban,

which gives her a very oriental look, is seated playing on the harp.

No wonder that this picture pleased the king, or that he desired it

to adorn his collection. Unfortunately, all this magnificence fails

to move us. We see the Persian sibyl executing a prelude to her

oracles, but nothing reminds us of Rome and the early martyrs, and

neither in the piteous figures nor in those up-raised eyes can we

trace any Christian feeling.[121]

Third, the mystical school. Beyond the region of the senses and of

that which usually bounds the human spirit, opens the supernatural

and divine world. One cannot enter here without a pure heart, and

to enjoy its beauty we must by prayer and humility, those two wings

of the soul, rise above ourselves and transitory things. Thus the

mystical school of art, disdained by hypercritical connoisseurs,

requires a sort of moral preparation, and might write above its

door, as a salutary warning, "Let none enter here save him who loves

God entirely." It is here that we must finally seek the type of St.

Cecilia in all its supernatural beauty: a human face illuminated by

ecstasy.

We shall only mention, for the satisfaction of antiquaries, the

St. Cecilia of Cimabue at the entrance to the magnificent Uffizi

Gallery at Florence. This also is a type of the Byzantine virgin,

not however without a certain majesty in its stiffness. Far more

celestial is the impression left on us by the St. Cecilia of

blessed Fra Angelico da Fiesole, in that wonderful picture of the

"Incoronazione della Vergine," which so worthily commences the great

gallery of the Louvre. Cecilia is in the foreground, close to St.

Magdalen, recognizable by her long golden hair. Entirely absorbed in

the contemplation of Christ, and indifferent to the world, she turns

away, so that one sees only the long blue mantle and the crown of

roses, emblems of virginity, which encircles her head. Nevertheless,

the lost profile which we can only glance at is not without grace,

and suggests a countenance radiant with love and purity.

To the mystical school also may be attributed five little pictures by

Pinturicchio in the gallery at Berlin, which were much admired by Dom

Guéranger. Undoubtedly, Pinturicchio has none of Cimabue's stiffness;

we willingly acknowledge his ease and natural grace; but how far he

is from the angelic touch of Beato, or the perfection of Raphael!

Perhaps Bologna contains the largest array of fine pictures. In the

chapel of St. Cecilia, behind St. Giacomo Maggiore, ten admirable

frescoes represent the entire history of St. Cecilia. By the hand

of Francesco Francia himself, we have her marriage with Valerian,

and her funeral; six other scenes were painted by his pupils, G.

Francia, Chiodarolo, and Aspertini. The two representing Pope Urban

instructing Tiburtius, and the virgin distributing her property to

the poor, are considered Lorenzo Casta's masterpieces. But it is to

the Museum one must turn to admire the St. Cecilia of Raphael, one

of the most beautiful of pictures, and certainly the most splendid

homage offered by art to the Roman virgin. It was to be seen in

Paris from 1798 till 1815, when it was taken back to Bologna; and

it is well worth a voyage across the Alps. Letting fall the organ

she still retains in her hands, St. Cecilia stands, seeming to

listen in ecstasy to the concert of angels, contemplating this

transporting choir, which the artist has revealed in the yawning

skies. At her side stand St. John, St. Paul, St. Magdalen, and St.

Augustine; at her feet lie the broken instruments of earthly music.

Apparently Raphael wished to recapitulate on this sublime page the

highest precepts of philosophy. Here is typified by the instruments

of pleasure the world of the senses, whose bonds we must break and

free ourselves from. But if it is well to know something of this

material world, the realm of the human intellect, it is necessary

sometimes to know, like Cecilia, how to raise one's self still

higher and prepare to listen to the ineffable music of the soul.

Do we accuse ourselves of being sinners? Here is Magdalen with her

vase of ointment, and behind her Augustine. They may well inspire us

with hope, they also have experienced the temptations of the senses

and the proud rebellions of the will, but there they stand to prove

that humility and penitence may conquer these. Do you say that,

obliged to lead an active life, you daily find yourself overwhelmed

by a thousand cares? Behold St. Paul, the apostle of nations, who

also experienced pain, labor, shipwrecks, and dangers of all kinds;

nevertheless, leaning on his sword, he meditates. Finally, are you

philosophers or theologians? Behold St. John, the master of you

all. Radiant, he contemplates the enraptured saint, and seems to

say, "Forget yourselves for a space; turn from the sound of human

words; like Cecilia, listen to the celestial harmonies of the Word.

Look at this young girl. She has known how to find love, peace, and

happiness."[122]

According to M. Passavant,[123] it was also the history of St.

Cecilia, and not the martyrdom of St. Felicitas, as is usually

believed, which formed the subject of Raphael's fresco, formerly to

be admired in the chapel "De la Magliano" at Trastavere. In 1830, an

unknown vandal of a proprietor bethought himself of cutting a huge

gash through the centre in order to place a "pew, where he could hear

Mass without mingling with his servants!" Thus mutilated, the fresco

was transferred to canvas in 1835, and has probably been bought

by some more enlightened connoisseur; but the most enthusiastic

appreciation cannot now repair such outrages.

Among the moderns, we shall only mention, in Germany, the St. Cecilia

of Molitor, whose attitude reminds us much of Raphael's. Certainly it

has not the same nobility of style, but we find there the charming

grace of the Düsseldorf school. In France, we may mention with praise

the St. Cecilia of Paul Delaroche. Seated on an antique chair,

dressed in a robe falling in long folds, the virgin with one hand

restrains her mantle, bordered with a fringe of gold, with the other

she touches a little organ presented to her by two kneeling angels,

under the semblance of pure-faced boys. This sweet picture, full of

poetry and grace, is a happy contrast to some others, and makes us

the more regret the painter of this Christian martyr, so beautiful

and chaste--night brooding on the face of the waters.

But of one art St. Cecilia is especially the patron, and that is

music. Why the Roman virgin was chosen from so many others, would be

very difficult to explain with any precision. The mystic sense of the

tradition which makes Cecilia the queen of harmony is now lost, and

on this point we are reduced to conjectures. Let us hope, however,

that the conjectures we shall advance may seem probable after a

little reflection.

Undoubtedly Cecilia, the daughter of a noble family, enjoying all

worldly advantages and instructed to please, was taught music.

Without doubt, also, she consecrated to God a talent acquired for

worldly ends; and in the meetings of the faithful in the catacombs

she must have taken part in the psalms and canticles. But the most

weighty argument in favor of this glorious patronage which the

Christian ages have ascribed to our saint, is the sentence from her

life incorporated in the Roman Litany: "Cantantibus organis, Cæcilia

Domino decantabat: Fiat cor meum immaculatum ut non confundar."

In January, 1732, a Jansenist critic, otherwise entirely

unknown,[124] remarked, in the _Mercury_ of France, "that the

selection of St. Cecilia as the patron of music was not a good

choice." Indeed, he says, a little farther on, "we can easily see

that this saint was very insensible to the charms of music; for

on her wedding day, while they played on several instruments, she

remained absorbed in prayer."[125] Poor man! he could not get beyond

the outer husks of things, and the material side of art. He did

not know that elevated natures naturally respond to human music by

prayer, that heavenly music. And undoubtedly, he had never heard

those sublime melodies which a loving soul sings to itself, and of

which the most beautiful concerts of this world are but a feeble echo.

But the Christian people had a better inspiration. They understood

that music, and, above all, religious music--the most beautiful of

all, whose highest aim is to free us from the senses and lift us out

of ourselves, in order to raise us to God--might well be protected by

this young girl, whose soul had become like a lyre, from which the

faintest breath will wake harmonious vibrations, and who, virgin and

martyr--while for three days she lay on the bloody flags, seemed in a

long song of love to render back her spirit.

In Rome and Italy, musical societies early placed themselves under

the patronage of St. Cecilia. We find one in France, founded in

1571, at Evreux, "by the choristers of the cathedral church, and

other pious inhabitants of this city, for the purpose of learning

music." Henry III. gave letters patent to the "Society of Madame

St. Cecilia," established at Paris, in the church of the "Grands

Augustins," by zealous artists and amateurs of music. These societies

disappeared with many others in the revolutionary troubles, but

their charitable intentions have been revived. Every year, on the 22d

of November, the Association of Musical Artists gives in the great

church of St. Eustache at Paris a musical mass,[126] whose proceeds

are destined to relieve their sick and poor members. Undoubtedly

one might often wish more religious music. These pretended masses

are far too theatrical to seem much inspired when compared to the

oratorios which Handel and Beethoven have dedicated to St. Cecilia.

Nor is it there that one could find pious meditation. Nevertheless,

we may still rejoice that at a time when materialism has corrupted

so many hearts, these solemnities still attract crowds. Indeed, one

may say of music as Tertullian said of the soul, that it is naturally

Christian. To draw the soul from all that occupies it, weighs on it,

and destroys it, to sustain it by prolonged melody, inspiring dreams

of infinity, is also to elevate it above itself, and gently prepare

it for the broken utterances of prayer.

We know, then, that St. Cecilia is powerful enough in heaven to turn

an idler into yet another Christian. Never in vain was she approached

while on earth, or her memory celebrated since she has reigned in

heaven. She has held her court of littérateurs, poets, painters, and

musicians, men with impassioned hearts, which she has gently drawn

toward heaven. For each she has obtained some special grace. Let

others come; for the treasures she distributes are never exhausted.

In the early Christians who read her history, she inspired love of

purity and a martyr's strength; to the artists who have striven to

represent her, she has revealed a type of beauty unknown on earth.

For the most humble of her servants, she has smiles which heal the

soul wonderfully. Who has inspired more masterpieces? who has been

more loved than this virgin? who is more alive than she, who has been

dead for sixteen centuries? But, martyr to love, she died for Christ.

Is this really dying?

FOOTNOTES:

[109] In his _Speculum Historiale_, lib. iv., chap. 22.

[110] See the notes of Jacques Laderchi in the life of St. Cecilia

published by him, and the long list of memorials which he has

collected in her honor. _Sanctæ Ceciliæ, V. et M., acta_: edidet

Jacobius Laderchius. 2 vols. in 4to, Rome, 1723. The work is very

rare, but may be found in the Imperial Library, Paris.

[111] Justice and gratitude oblige us to acknowledge the great

advantage we have received from Dom Guéranger's book. As well written

as it is learned, it is still the best history of St. Cecilia. But

the learned Benedictine has only touched slightly on the influence of

St. Cecilia on the fine arts, and we have been obliged to fill out

these notes by personal research and observations made in a recent

journey to Italy.

[112] Died 1593.

[113] See Laderchi, op. cit. t. ii., pp. 438-450.

[114] See _Select Works of Alexander Pope_. One vol. in 12mo,

Leipsic, 1848, Tauchnitz edition. "Ode for Music on St. Cecilia's

Day."

[115] He was decorated by the "Académie Française" (Nov., 1869).

[116] _St. Cecilia_, a tragic poem. By Count Anatole de Ségur. One

volume folio, at Amb. Bray's, Paris, 1868.

[117] This is not an arbitrary philosophic division. It corresponds

to the three worlds recognized by the greatest geniuses of antiquity

or of modern times--Plato, Aristotle, Bossuet, and Malebranche--the

world of the senses, the world of human thought, and the divine world.

[118] So in Raphael's famous picture, the pearl of the gallery at

Bologna; while its exacted symbolism and heavenly sentiment tempt us

to class it among the masterpieces of the mystic school, it must be

confessed that St. Magdalen has a very _earthly_ look. We know, alas,

how this noble form has been profaned by some artists; the victim,

even after her penitence, of the sensual tastes of the Renaissance,

she remained a courtesan in the eyes of Titian and Correggio; and the

pagans of the sixteenth century have turned our saint into a nymph

lying in a grotto, or standing veiled only by the masses of her long

hair.

[119] The frescoes of St. Louis have been engraved by Landon in his

great book on the life and works of celebrated painters. See _Works

of Domenichino_. 3 vols. in 4to, Paris, 1803.

[120] There are two more pictures of St. Cecilia by Domenichino. One

is in the Rospigliosi Palace at Rome; the other was in England at the

beginning of this century. See the engravings already mentioned in

Landon.

[121] In this second school may be classed the pictures of Paul

Veronese and of Garofolo in the Dresden Museum. As for Carlo Dolce's

St. Cecilia, it is far sweeter, and forms the connecting link between

the rationalistic and mystic schools. We have not seen the picture,

which is in the Museum at Dresden, but it has become well-known

through engravings, and has been published by Schulger at Paris.

[122] Raphael has also represented St. Cecilia bearing witness to

Christ at the tomb. This may be seen at the Museum at Naples. Dom

Guéranger considers the type of this picture far higher than any of

the others.--C. F. Vasari, t. iii. p. 166.

[123] Raphael d'Urbin, t. ii., p. 277.

[124] His name was M. Bottu de Toulmont, it appears.

[125] _Dictionary of Plain Chant_, in the _Theological Encyclopedia_

at Migne, 256.

[126] At Brussels this mass is sung in St. Gudule.

DISILLUSIONED.

I blush that I am England's son!

Yet deemed her once the inviolate home

Of matchless freedom nobly won:

And little thought the hour would come,

When, freer on an alien strand,

My soul should scorn its native land.

How mocks my ear the idle song

That "Britons never shall be slaves"

_These_ Britons _have been_ slaves _so long_

To fraud and falsehood, fiends and knaves,

They spurn true freedom's very name,

And, self-duped, revel in their shame.

O Albion! once the "Isle of Saints,"

The "Dower of Mary," what thy crime?

Not sternest pen--not envy's--paints

The annals of thy golden time

In aught but glory. Whence the call

For such a vengeance, such a fall?

A tyrant's lust, a woman's pride,

Could rend thee from the parent stem,

And lay thee wither'd by the side

Of barren branches--cursed with them!

Save that thy head was too elate,

What hadst thou done for such a fate?

And oh! if thou hadst welcomed back

The Christless worship of the Celt,

Thy darkness were of hue less black--

Were less like Egypt's, "to be felt"!

'Twere rather twilight of the morn:

Another day might still be born.

But no: more hellward yet thy fall!

To turn and trample in her blood

The Mother who had brought thee all

Thou ever hadst of highest good:

Behold a guilt--ay, deeplier dyed

Than blinded Juda's deicide!

And lo! a sleek usurper now--

Meet tool of perjured royalty--

Rears shameless her apostate brow:

Her creed a sham, her claim a lie!

The children's bread no more divine,

A hireling throws them husks of swine.

This vaunted church, they built her stout:

And if by dint of fellest strife

She failed to crush and strangle out

Her foe's imperishable life,

'Twas not, I ween, from lack of force,

Or craft of state, or base resource.

'Twas not that mildness ruled the day,

And penal codes were voted down;

And fair the question, fair the play

From chair and pulpit, bench and crown;

While forgery disdain'd to vie

With slander in the dextrous lie.

But more. As harlots aim to link

A sister's ruin with their own

So thou, my England, couldst not drink

The "cup of devils" quite alone,

But needs must press it on a shore

The rival of thy light before.

And Erin loathed it. There's a prayer

That kept her then, and triumphs still.

'Twill take thee more than hate may dare

To break the Patrick in her will:

Though treachery _was_ the lurking sin

That sold the soil thou couldst not win.

And what, at last, has hate achieved?

For her, thy victim, such a name

As points--and must, to be believed--

To thy long parallel of shame:

The Isle of Martyrs--peerless gem

In Rome's thick-rubied diadem.

Nor this alone. Not vainly fled

Her patriot sons thy cruel hand;

Not vainly to the West were led,

Where the great future's chosen land

O'er thralless ocean beacon'd fair,

To find God's mission waiting there.

Thus, England, has thy baffled rage

But spread the faith it sought to slay:

And lo! the nations see thee wage

The bigot's combat ev'n to-day!

They cry: "Her very pride is o'er:

The lion in her wakes no more!"

Fool-doubly fool! Art thou so strong

No mightier arm can lay thee low?

If patient heaven has linger'd long,

This hour thy last--for weal or woe:

And what 'twere penance to accord,

Wilt thou but forfeit to the sword?

Enough. My heart is too much thine

To curse thee, though I blush to own:

Too fondly prized thee as a shrine,

Too proudly hailed thee as a throne:

And, turning from the bitter truth,

Finds sweetness in the dream of youth.

For memory gathers in that dream

A fragrance as of morning dew:

The freshness of the grove and stream,

When Nature woo'd me first, and knew

So well to draw me to her breast,

And wed me to her love's unrest.

And if henceforth I twine my wreath

To crown the land where now I sing,

Content to pray in peace beneath

The shadow of her eagle's wing;

'Tis not that charms of clime and scene

Estrange me from thy gentler mien.

It is that truth is chainless here,

And swift her march from shore to shore;

And little need her children fear

For coming days--though clouded o'er;

For God must shape a gracious plan

Where truth is free, and man is man.[127]

JULY, 1868.

FOOTNOTE:

[127] Though the above lines were written before the disestablishment

of the State Church in Ireland, their author's indignation has been

little appeased by that extorted act of justice. The measure was

unaccompanied by any attempt at reparation for the past. At the

very least, the old Catholic churches might have been returned to

their lawful owners. And is there any sign to-day of full justice

ever being done or half-done? None--except in the event of divine

vengeance forcing England to kneel to her generous victim and "sue to

be forgiven." Fiat, fiat.

ORIGIN OF CIVILIZATION.[128]

Sir John Lubbock, though his name is not euphonious, is, we

understand, an English scientist, highly distinguished and of no

mean authority in the scientific world, as his father was before

him. He certainly is a man of large pretensions, and of as much

logical ability and practical good sense as we have a right to

expect in an English scientist. He, of course, adopts the modern

theory of progress, and maintains that the savage is the type of the

primitive man, and that he has emerged from his original barbarism

and superstition to his present advanced civilization and religious

belief and worship by his own energy and persevering efforts at

self-evolution or development, without any foreign or supernatural

instruction or assistance.

One, Sir John contends, has only to study and carefully ascertain

the present condition of the various contemporary savage tribes,

or what he calls the "lower races," to know what was the original

condition of mankind, and from which the superior races started

on their tour of progress through the ages; and one needs only to

ascertain the germs of civilization and religion which were in their

original condition, to be able to comprehend the various stages of

that progress and the principles and means by which it has been

effected and may be carried on indefinitely beyond the point already

reached. Hence, in the volume before us the author labors to present

us a true picture of the present mental and social condition of

contemporary savages as that of the primeval man. He assumes that the

mental and social condition is that of the infancy of the human race,

and by studying it we can attain to the history of "prehistoric"

times, assist, as it were, if we may be pardoned the Gallicism, at

the earliest development of mankind, and trace step by step the

progress from their first appearance on the globe upward to the

sublime civilization of the nineteenth century--the civilization of

the steam-engine, the cotton spinner and weaver, the steamboat, the

steam-plough, the railway, and the lightning telegraph.

This theory, that finds in the savage the type of the primitive man,

is nothing very new. It was refuted by the late Archbishop Whately,

by the Duke of Argyll in his _Primeval Man_, and on several occasions

by the present writer in THE CATHOLIC WORLD. The facts Sir John

adduces in the support of this theory, as far as facts they are,

had been adduced long ago, and were as well known by us before we

abandoned the theory as untenable, as they are by Sir John Lubbock or

any of his compeers. They may all, so far as they bear on religion,

be found summed up and treated at length in the work of Benjamin

Constant, _La Religion considerée dans sa Source, ses Developpements,

et ses Formes_, published in 1832, as well as in a mass of German

writers. Sir John has told us nothing of the mental and social

condition of savages that we had not examined, we had almost said,

before he was born, and which we had supposed was not known by all

men with any pretension to serious studies. In fact, we grow rather

impatient as we grow old of writers who, because they actually have

learned more than they knew in their cradles, imagine that they have

learned so much more than all the rest of mankind. No men try our

patience more than our scientific Englishmen, who speak always in a

decisive tone, with an air of infallibility from which there would

seem to be no appeal, and yet utter only the veriest commonplaces,

old theories long since exploded, or stale absurdities. We have no

patience with such men as Herbert Spencer, Huxley, and Darwin. We are

hardly less impatient of the scientists who in our own country hold

them up to our admiration and reverence as marvellous discoverers,

and as the great and brilliant lights of the age. We love science, we

honor the men who devote their lives to its cultivation, but we ask

that it _be_ science, not hypothesis piled on hypothesis, nor simply

a thing of mere conjectures or guesses.

The modern doctrine of progress or development, which supposes man

began in the lowest savage, if not lower still, is not a doctrine

suggested by any facts observed and classified in men's history,

nor is it a logical induction from any class of known facts, but a

gratuitous hypothesis invented and asserted against the Biblical

doctrine of creation, of Providence, of original sin, and of the

supernatural instruction, government, redemption, and salvation

of men. The hypothesis is suggested by hostility to the Christian

revelation, prior to the analysis and classification of any facts

to sustain it, and the scientists who defend it are simply

investigating nature, not in the interests of science properly

so-called, but, consciously or unconsciously, to find facts to

support a hypothesis which may be opposed to both. Any facts in

nature or in history, natural or civil, political or religious,

that seem to make against Christian teaching, are seized upon

with avidity, distorted or exaggerated, and paraded with a grand

fanfaronade, sounding of trumpets, beating of drums, and waving of

banners, as if it were a glorious triumph of man to prove that he

is no better than the beasts that perish; while the multitude of

facts which are absolutely irreconcilable with it are passed over in

silence or quietly set aside, as of no account, or simply declared to

be anomalies, which science is _not yet_ in a condition to explain,

but, no doubt, soon will be, since it has entered the true path,

has found the true scientific methods, and is headed in the right

direction. Science is yet in its infancy. In its cradle it has

strangled frightful monsters, and, when full-grown, it will not fail

to slay the hydra, and rid the world of all its "chimeras dire." But

while we do not complain that your infantile or puerile science has

not done more, we would simply remind you, men of science, that it is

very unscientific to reason from what you confess science has not yet

done as if it had done it. Wait till it has done it, before you bring

it forward as a scientific achievement.

We confess to a want of confidence in this whole class of scientists,

for their investigations are not free and unbiassed; their minds are

prejudiced; they are pledged to a theory in advance, which makes

them shut their eyes to the facts which contradict it, and close

their intelligence to the great principles of universal reason

which render their conclusions invalid. There are other scientists

who have pushed their investigations as far into nature and history

as they have, perhaps even further, who know and have carefully

analyzed all the facts they know or ever pretended to know, and yet

have come to conclusions the contrary of theirs, and find nothing in

the facts or phenomena of the universe that warrant any induction

not in accordance with Christian faith, either as set forth in the

Holy Scriptures or the definitions of the church. Why are these less

likely to be really scientific than they? They are biassed by their

Christian faith, you say. Be it so: are you less biassed by your

anti-christian unbelief and disposition? Besides, are you able to say

that these have not in their Christian faith a key to the real sense

or meaning of the universe and its phenomena which you have not, and

therefore are much more likely to be right than you? Do you know that

it is not so? There is no science where knowledge is wanting.

The unchristian scientists forget that they cannot conclude against

the Biblical or Christian doctrine from mere possibilities or even

probabilities. They appeal to science against it, and nothing

can avail them as the basis of argument against it that is not

scientifically proved or demonstrated. Their hypothesis of progress,

evolution, or development is unquestionably repugnant to the whole

Christian doctrine and order of thought. If it is true, Christianity

is false. They must then, before urging it, either prove Christianity

untrue or an idle tale, or else prove absolutely, beyond the

possibility of a rational doubt, the truth of their hypothesis. It

is not enough to prove that it may, for aught you know, be true;

you must prove that it is true, and cannot be false. Christianity

is too important a fact in the world's history to be set aside by

an undemonstrated hypothesis. And it is anything but scientific to

conclude its falsity on the strength of a simply possible or even

probable hypothesis, not as yet indeed proved, and of which the best

you can say is that you trust science will be able to prove it when

once it is out of its nonage. You cannot propose it at all, unless

you have scientifically demonstrated it, or previously disproved

_aliunde_ the Christian revelation. So long as you leave it possible

for me to hold the Christian faith without contradicting what is

demonstrated to be true, you have alleged nothing to the purpose

against it, and cannot bring forward your theory even as probable,

far less as scientific; for, if it is possible that Christianity is

true, it is not possible that your hypothesis can be true, or even

scientifically proved. The scientists seem not to be aware of this,

and seem to suppose that they may rank Christianity with the various

heathen superstitions, and set it aside by an unsupported theory or a

prejudice.

Let the question be understood. Christianity teaches us that in the

beginning God created heaven and earth, and all things therein,

visible and invisible, that he made man after his own image and

likeness, placed him in the garden of Eden, gave him a law, that

is, made him a revelation of his will, instructed him in his moral

and religious duty, established him in original justice, in a

supernatural state, under a supernatural providence, on the plane of

a supernatural destiny; that man prevaricated, broke the law given

him, lost his original justice, the integrity of his nature attached

thereto, and communion with his Maker, fell under the dominion of

the flesh, became captive to Satan, and subject to death, moral,

temporal, and eternal; that God, of his own goodness and mercy,

promised him pardon and deliverance, redemption and salvation,

through his own Son made man, who in due time was born of the Virgin

Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, was dead and

buried, and on the third day rose again, ascended into heaven, whence

he shall come again, to judge the living and the dead. This doctrine,

in substance, was made to our first parents in the garden, was

preserved in the tradition of the patriarchs, in its purity in the

synagogue, and in its purity and integrity in the Christian church

founded on it, and authorized and assisted by God himself to teach it

to all men and nations.

According to this doctrine, the origin of man, the human species,

as well as of the universe and all its contents, is in the creative

act of God, not in evolution or development. The first man was not

a monkey or a tadpole developed, nor a savage or barbarian, but

was a man full grown in the integrity of his nature, instructed by

his Maker, and the most perfect man of his race, and as he is the

progenitor of all mankind, it follows that mankind began not in

"utter barbarism," as Sir John asserts, but in the full development

and perfection of manhood, with the knowledge of God and Providence,

of their origin and destiny, and of their moral and religious duty.

Ignorance has followed as the penalty or consequence of sin, instead

of being the original condition in which man was created; and this

ignorance brought on the race by the prevarication of Adam, the

domination of the flesh, and the power of Satan acquired thereby, are

the origin and cause of barbarism of individuals and nations, the

innumerable moral and social evils which have afflicted mankind in

all times and places.

Now, to this doctrine Sir John opposes the hypothesis of the origin

of man in "utter barbarism," and his progress by natural evolution

or self-development. But what facts has he adduced in its support,

or that conflict with Christian teaching, that prove that teaching

false or even doubtful? He has adduced, as far as we can see, none

at all, for all the facts that he alleges are, to say the least, as

easily explained on the supposition of man's deterioration as on the

supposition of progress, development, or continuous melioration.

Some of the facts he adduces _might_, perhaps, be explained on his

hypothesis, if there were no reason for giving them a contrary

explanation; but there is not one of them that must be so explained.

This is not enough for his purpose, though it is enough for ours. He

must go further, and prove that his facts not only _may_ but _must_

be explained on his hypothesis, and can be explained on no other.

If we are able to explain, or he is unable to show positively that

we cannot explain, all known facts in accordance with the Christian

doctrine, he can conclude nothing from them against Christianity or

in favor of his naturalism. We do not, he must remember, rely on

those facts to prove the Christian doctrine, but he relies on them to

disprove it, by proving his hypothesis; and if he cannot show that

they absolutely do disprove it, or positively prove his hypothesis,

he proves nothing to his purpose.

Sir John dwells at great length on the real or supposed rites,

forms, and barbarous customs observed by outlying savage tribes or

nations, but, before he can draw any conclusion from them in favor

of his theory of progress, he must prove that they were primitive.

He knows them only as contemporaneous with what he would himself

call civilized marriage: how then, without having first proved that

the race began in "utter barbarism," conclude from them that they

preceded civilized marriage? One thing is certain, we never find them

without finding somewhere in the world contemporary with them the

civilized marriage. There is no history, historical intimation, or

tradition of any custom or conception of marriage older than we have

in the Book of Genesis, and in that we find the true idea of marriage

was already in the world at the earliest date of history, and the

vices against it are plainly condemned in the Decalogue, contemporary

with these very usages, customs, and notions of savages on which Sir

John dwells with so much apparent delight, and which are barbarous,

and lax enough to satisfy even our women's-rights men; and, so far as

history goes, preceding them, the true idea of marriage as something

sacred, and as the union of one man with one woman, was known and

held, and therefore could not have been, at least so far as known, a

development of barbarian marriages.

The same answer applies to the question of religion. Contemporary

with the savage and barbarous superstitions of the heathen, and

even prior to them, we find practised in its fervor and purity

the true worship of the true God. True religion is not developed

from the impurities and absurd superstitions of the heathen, and

is by no means the growth of the religious sentiment becoming

gradually enlightened and purifying itself from their grossness,

for it is historically as well as logically older than any of them.

Men worshipped God the creator of heaven and earth before they

worshipped the fetish, the elements, or the hosts of heaven. Religion

is older than superstition, for superstition is an abuse of religion,

as the theologians say, by way of excess, as irreligion is its

abuse by way of defect; but a thing must exist and be entertained

before it can be abused. Nothing can be more certain than that

true religion has never been developed from false religions, or

truth from falsehood; for the true must precede the false, which is

simply the negation of the true. Christianity is, if you will, a

development, the fulfilment of the synagogue or the Jewish religion;

Judaism was also, if you will, a development of the patriarchal

religion; but in neither case a self-development; and in neither

case has the development been effected except by supernatural

intervention. It would be absurd to suppose the patriarchal religion

was a development of heathenism, since it is historically prior to

any form of heathenism, and every known form of heathenism supposes

it, and is intelligible only by it. So far was Judaism from being

self-evolved from the superstitions of the heathen, that it was with

the greatest difficulty that the Israelites themselves, as their

history shows, were kept from adopting the idolatry and superstition

of the surrounding nations, which shows that their religion was

not self-evolved, and that it was above the level of the moral and

religious life of the people. Christianity develops and perfects

Judaism, but by supernatural agency, not by the natural progress or

self-development of the Jewish people; for if it had been, the bulk

of the nation would have accepted it, and we know that the bulk of

the Jewish people did not accept it, but rejected it, and continue to

reject it to this day.

We know, also, that the progress of the heathen nations was very far

from raising them to the level of the Christian religion. Traces

of some of its principles and several of its moral precepts may be

found with the Gentile philosophers, as we should expect, since they

pertained to the primitive revelation; but these philosophers were

not the first, but rather the last to accept it. Nowhere amongst the

heathen did any Christian communities spring up spontaneously or

were of indigenous origin. Christianity sprang out of Judea, and the

nations adopted it, in the first instance, only as it was carried

to them by Jewish missionaries. And who were these missionaries?

Humble fishermen, publicans, and mechanics. Who first received

them, and believed their message? Principally the common people,

the unlettered, the poor, and slaves of the rich and noble. "For

see your vocation, brethren," says St. Paul (1 Cor. iv. 26), "that

not many are wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many

noble." Were the fishermen of the Lake Genesareth, and the slaves of

the Roman Empire, we may ask with Mgr. Maret, "the most enlightened

and advanced portion of mankind"? Who dare maintain it, when it is

a question of natural development or progress? Had Christianity

been the natural evolution of the human mind, or the product of the

natural growth of human intelligence and morality, we should have

first encountered it not with the poor, the ignorant, the unlettered

and wretched slaves, but with the higher and more cultivated classes,

with the philosophers, the scientists, the noble, the great generals

and the most eminent orators and statesmen, the _élite_ of Greek

and Roman society, those who at the time stood at the head of the

civilized world. Yet such is not the fact, but the fact is the very

reverse.

The Biblical history explains the origin of the barbarous

superstitions of heathendom in a very satisfactory way, and shows

us very clearly that the savage state is not the primitive state,

but has been produced by sin, and is the result of what we call the

great Gentile apostasy, or falling away of the nations from the

primitive or patriarchal religion. When language was confounded at

Babel, and the dispersion of mankind took place, unity of speech

or language was lost, and with it unity of ideas or of faith, and

each tribe or nation took its own course, and developed a tribal or

national religion of its own. Gradually each tribe or nation lost

the conception of God as creator, and formed to itself gods made

in its own image, clothed with its own passions, and it bowed down

and worshipped the work of its own hands. It was not that they knew

or had known no better. St. Paul has settled that question. "For

the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all impiety and

injustice of those men that detain the truth of God in injustice.

Because that which is known of God is manifest in them. For God

hath manifested it to them. For the invisible things of him, from

the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by

the things that are made: his eternal power also and divinity; so

that they are _inexcusable_. Because when they had known God, they

glorified him not as God, nor gave thanks; but became vain in their

thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened; for, professing

themselves wise, they became fools. And they changed the glory of the

incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of a corruptible

man, and of birds, and of four-footed beasts, and of creeping

things. Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their hearts,

to uncleanness; to dishonor their own bodies among themselves, who

changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the

creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen."

(Rom. i. 18-25.)

St. Paul evidently does not believe Sir John Lubbock's doctrine that

the race began in "utter barbarism," and have been slowly working

their way up to the heights of Christian civilization. He evidently

ascribes the superstitions, and consequently the barbarism, of

the heathen to apostasy. Sir John, of course, does not accept the

authority of St. Paul; but, if he cannot prove St. Paul was wrong, he

is debarred from asserting his own hypothesis, even as probable. If

it is possible to explain the facts of the savage state on the ground

of apostasy or gradual deterioration, the hypothesis of development,

of self-evolution or natural and unaided progress, falls to the

ground as wholly baseless. His hypothesis becomes probable only by

proving that no other hypothesis is possible.

But all the known facts in the case are against our scientific

baronet's hypothesis. Take Mohammedanism. It sprang up subsequently

to both Moses and the Gospel. It is a compound of Judaism and

Christianity, more Jewish than Christian, however, and is decidedly

inferior to either. How explain this fact, if the several races of

men never fall or retrograde, but are always advancing, marching

through the ages onward and upward? Many of the ancestors of the

present Mussulmans belonged to highly civilized races, and some of

them were Christians, and not a few of them Jews. Yet there is always

progress, never deterioration.

But we need not go back to the seventh century. There has been a

modern apostasy, and we see right before our eyes the process of

deterioration, of falling into barbarism, going on among those who

have apostatized from Christianity. The author regards as an evidence

of the lowest barbarism what he calls "communal marriage," that

is, marriage in which the wife is common to all the males of her

husband's family. We do not believe this sort of marriage was ever

anything more than an exceptional fact, like polyandry; but suppose

it was even common among the lowest savage tribes, how much lower

or more barbarous is the state it indicates, than what the highly

civilized Plato makes the magistrates prescribe in his imaginary

Republic? How much in advance of such a practice is the free love

advocated by Mary Wolstonecraft and Fanny Wright; the recommendation

of Godwin to abolish marriage and the monopoly by one man of any

one woman; than the denunciation of marriage by the late Robert

Owen as one of the trinity of evils which have hitherto afflicted

the race, and his proposal to replace it by a community of wives,

as he proposed to replace private property by a community of goods;

or, indeed, than we see actually adopted in practice by the Oneida

Community? Sir John regards the gynocracy which prevails in some

savage tribes as characteristic of a very low form of barbarism; but

to what else tends the woman's-rights movement in his country and

ours? If successful, not only would women be the rulers, but children

would follow the mother's line, not the father's, for the obvious

reason that, while the mother can be known, the father cannot be with

any certainty. Does not free love, the mainspring of the movement,

lead to this? And are not they who support it counted the advanced

party of the age, and we who resist denounced as old fogies or as

the defenders of man's tyranny?

Sir John relates that some tribes are so low in their intelligence

that they have no or only the vaguest conceptions of the divinity,

and none at all of God as creator. He need not go amongst outlying

barbarians to find persons whose intelligence is equally low. He

will search in vain through all Gentile philosophy without finding

the conception of a creative God. Nay, among our own contemporaries

he can find more who consider it a proof of their superior

intelligence and rare scientific attainments that they reject the

fact of creation, relegate God into the unknown and the unknowable,

and teach us that the universe is self-evolved, and man is only a

monkey or gorilla developed.[129] These men regard themselves as the

lights of their age, and are so regarded, too, by no inconsiderable

portion of the public. Need we name Auguste Comte and Sir William

Hamilton, among the dead; E. Littré, Herbert Spencer, J. Stuart Mill,

Professor Huxley, Charles Darwin, not to say Sir John himself, among

the living? If these men and their adherents have not lapsed into

barbarism, their science, if accepted, would lead us to the ideas

and practices which Sir John tells us belong to the lowest stage of

barbarism. Sir John doubts if any savage tribe can be found that is

absolutely destitute of all religious conceptions or sentiments, but,

if we may believe their own statements, we have people enough among

the apostate Christians of our day who have none, and glory in it as

a proof of their superiority to the rest of mankind.

Sir John sees a characteristic of barbarism or of the early savage

state in the belief in and the dread of evil spirits, or what he

calls demonism. The Bible tells us all the gods of the heathens are

devils or demons. Even this characteristic of barbarism is reproduced

in our civilized communities by spiritism, which is of enlightened

American origin. This spiritism, which is rapidly becoming a religion

with large numbers of men and women in our midst, is nothing but

demonism, the necromancy and witchcraft or familiar spirits of the

ancient world. Men who reject Christianity, who have no belief in

God, or at least do not hold it necessary to worship or pay him the

least homage or respect, believe in the spirits, go to the medium,

and consult her, as Saul in his desperation consulted the Witch

of Endor. If we go back a few years to the last century, we shall

find the most polished people on the globe abolishing religion,

decreeing that death is an eternal sleep, and perpetrating, in the

name of liberty, virtue, humanity, and brotherly love, crimes and

cruelties unsurpassed if not unequalled in the history of the most

savage tribes; and we see little improvement in our own century, more

thoroughly filled with the horrors of unprincipled and needless wars

than any other century of which we possess the history. Indeed, the

scenes of 1792-3-4 are now in process of reproduction in Europe.

We must remember that all these deteriorations have taken place in

or are taking place in the most highly civilized nations of the

globe, whose ancestors were Christians, and with persons many of

whom were brought up in the belief of Christianity. Take the men

and women who hold, on marriage and on religion, what are called

"advanced views"--free-lovers and free-religionists--remove them

from the restraints of the church and of the state, not yet up to

their standard, and let them form a community by themselves in which

their views shall be carried out in practice; would they not in two

or three generations lapse into a state not above that of the most

degraded and filthy savages? We see this deterioration going on in

our midst and right before our eyes, as the effect of apostasy from

our holy religion. This proves that apostasy is sufficient to explain

the existence of the savage races, without supposing the human race

began in "utter barbarism." If apostasy in modern times, as we see it

does, leads to "utter barbarism," why should it not have done so in

ancient times?

We might make the case still stronger against the author's

hypothesis, if necessary, by referring to the great and renowned

nations of antiquity, that in turn led the civilization of the

world. Of the nations that apostatized or adhered to the great

Gentile apostasy, not one has survived the lapse of time. To every

one of them has succeeded barbarism, desolation, or a new people.

The Egypt of antiquity fell before the Persian conqueror, and the

Egypt of the Greeks was absorbed by Rome, and fell with her. Assyria

leaves of her greatness only long since buried and forgotten ruins,

while the savage Kurd and the predatory Arab roam at will over the

desert that has succeeded to her once flourishing cities and richly

cultivated fields. Syria, Tyre, Carthage, and the Greek cities of

Europe and Asia have disappeared or dwindled into insignificance,

and what remains of them they owe to the conservative power of the

Christianity they adopted and have in some measure retained. So true

is it, as the Psalmist says, "the wicked shall be turned into hell,

and all the nations that forget God." How explain this fact, if

these ancient nations could by their own inherent energy and power

of self-development raise themselves from "utter barbarism" to the

civilization they once possessed, that they could not preserve it;

that, after having reached a certain point, they began to decline,

grew corrupt, and at length fell by their own internal rottenness?

If men and nations are naturally progressive, how happens it that

we find so many individuals and nations decline and fall, through

internal corruption?

Another fact is not less conclusive against Sir John's hypothesis,

that in all the nations of the heathen world their least barbarous

period known to us is their earliest after the apostasy and

dispersion. The oldest of the sacred books of the Hindus are the

profoundest and richest in thought, and the freest from superstition

and puerilities so characteristic of the Hindu people to-day. The

earliest religion of the Romans was far more spiritual, intellectual,

than that which prevailed at the establishment of the empire and the

introduction of Christianity. Indeed, wherever we have the means of

tracing the religious history of the ancient heathen nations, we find

it is a history of almost uninterrupted deterioration and corruption,

becoming continually more cruel, impure, and debasing as time flows

on. The mysteries, perhaps, retained something of the earlier

doctrines, but they did little to arrest the downward tendency of the

national religion; the philosophers, no doubt, retained some valuable

traditions of the primitive religion, but so mixed up with gross

error and absurd fables that they had no effect on the life or morals

of the people. One of the last acts of Socrates was to require Crito

to sacrifice a cock to Esculapius. If Sir John's hypothesis were

true, nothing of this could happen, and we should find the religion

of every nation, as time goes on, becoming purer and more refined,

less gross and puerile, more enlightened and intellectual, and more

spiritual and elevating in its influence.

The traditions of some, perhaps of all heathen nations, refer their

origin to savage and barbarian ancestors, and this may have been the

fact with many of them. Horace would seem to go the full length of

Sir John's theory. He tells us that the primitive men sprang like

animals from the earth, a mute and filthy herd, fighting one another

for an acorn or a den. Cicero speaks somewhat to the same purpose,

only he does not say it was the state of the _primeval_ man. Yet

the traditions of the heathen nations do not in general favor the

main point of Sir John's hypothesis, that men came out of barbarism

by their own spontaneous development, natural progressiveness,

or indigenous and unaided efforts. They rise, according to these

traditions, to the civilized state only by the assistance of the

gods, or by the aid of missionaries or colonies from nations already

civilized. The goddess Ceres teaches them to plant corn and make

bread; Bacchus teaches them to plant the vine and to make wine;

Prometheus draws fire from heaven and teaches them its use; other

divinities teach to keep bees, to tame and rear flocks and herds, and

the several arts of peace and war. Athens attributed her civilization

to Minerva and to Cecrops and his Egyptian colony; Thebes, hers to

Orpheus and Cadmus, of Phœnician origin; Rome claimed to descend

from a Trojan colony, and borrowed her laws from the Athenians--her

literature, philosophy, her art and science, from the Greeks.

The poets paint the primitive age as the age of gold, and the

philosophers always speak of the race as deteriorating, and find the

past superior to the present. What is best and truest in Plato he

ascribes to the wisdom of the ancients, and even Homer speaks of the

degeneracy of men in his days from what they were at the siege of

Troy. We think the author will search in vain through all antiquity

to find a tradition or a hint which assigns the civilization of any

people to its own indigenous and unassisted efforts.

Sir John Lubbock describes the savages as incurious and little given

to reflection. He says they never look beyond the phenomenon to its

cause. They see the world in which they are placed, and never think

of looking further, and asking who made it, or whence they themselves

came or whither they go. They lack not only curiosity, but the power

of abstraction and generalization, and even thought is a burden to

them. This is no doubt in the main true; but it makes against their

natural progressiveness, and explains why they are not, as we know

they are not, progressive, but remain always stationary, if left to

themselves. The chief characteristic of the savage state is in fact

its immobility. The savage gyrates from age to age in the same narrow

circle--never of himself advances beyond it. Whether a tribe sunk

in what Sir John calls "utter barbarism," and which he holds was

the original state of the human race, has ever been or ever can be

elevated to a civilized state by any human efforts, even of others

already civilized, is, perhaps, problematical. As far as experience

goes, the tendency of such a tribe, brought in contact with a

civilized race, is to retire the deeper into the forest, to waste

away, and finally to become extinct. Certain it is, no instance of

its becoming a civilized people can be named.

In every known instance in which a savage or barbarous people has

become civilized, it has been by the aid or influence of religion,

or their relations with a people already civilized. The barbarians

that overthrew the Roman Empire of the West, and seated themselves

on its ruins, were more than half Romanized before the conquest by

their relations with the Romans and service in the armies of the

empire, and they rather continued the Roman order of civilization in

the several kingdoms and states they founded than destroyed it. The

Roman system of education, and even the imperial schools, if fewer

in number and on a reduced scale, were continued all through the

barbarous ages down to the founding of the universities of mediæval

Europe. Their civilization was carried forward, far in advance of

that of Greece or Rome, by the church, the great civilizer of the

nations. The northern barbarians that remained at home, the Germans,

the Scandinavians, the Sclaves, were civilized by the labors of

Christian monks and missionaries from Rome and Constantinople, from

Gaul, England, and Ireland. In no instance has their civilization

been of indigenous origin and development.

Sir John Lubbock replies to this as he does to Archbishop Whately's

assertion that no instance is on record of a savage people having

risen to a civilized state by its own indigenous and unassisted

efforts, that it is no objection, because we should not expect to

find any record of any such an event, since it took place, if at

all, before the invention of letters, and in "prehistoric times."

We grant that the fact that there is no _written_ record of it is

not conclusive proof that no instance of the kind ever occurred;

but if so important an event ever occurred, we should expect some

trace of it in the traditions of civilized nations, or at least

find some tendencies to it in the outlying savage nations of the

present, from which it might be inferred as a thing not improbable in

itself. But nothing of the sort is found. The author's appeal to our

ignorance, and our ignorance, cannot serve his purpose. He arraigns

the universal faith of Christendom, and he must make out his case by

positive, not simply negative proofs. Till his hypothesis is proved

by positive evidence, the faith of Christendom remains firm, and

nothing can be concluded against it.

But how really stands the question? Sir John finds in the various

outlying savage tribes numerous facts which he takes to be the

original germs of civilization, and hence he concludes that the

primitive condition of the human race was that of "utter barbarism,"

and the nations, or, as he says, the races, that have become

civilized, "have become so by their indigenous and unaided efforts,

by their own inherent energy and power of self-development or

progress." But the facts he alleges may just as well be reminiscences

of a past civilization as anticipations of a civilization not yet

developed; and in our judgment--and it is not to-day that for the

first we have studied the question--they are much better explained as

reminiscences than as anticipations, nay, are not explicable in any

other way. The facts appealed to, then, can at best count for nothing

in favor of the hypothesis of natural progress or development. They

do not prove it or render it probable.

He is able, and he confesses it, to produce no instance of the

natural and unassisted progress of any race of men from barbarism to

civilization, and even his own facts show that barbarous or savage

tribes are not naturally progressive, but stationary, struck with

immobility. Where, then, are the proofs of his hypothesis? He has

yet produced none. Now, on the other hand, we have shown him that,

in all known instances, the passage from barbarism into civilization

has been effected only by supernatural aid, or by the influence

of a previously civilized race or people. We have shown him also

that the Gentile apostasy, which the Bible records and our religion

asserts, sufficiently explains the origin of barbarism. We have also

shown him nations once civilized falling into barbarism, and, in

addition, have shown him the tendency of an apostate people to lapse

into barbarism existing and operating before our very eyes, in men

whose ancestors were once civilized and even Christians. The chief

elements of barbarism he describes exist and are encouraged and

defended in our midst by men who are counted by themselves and their

contemporaries as the great men, the great lights, the advanced party

of this advanced age. Let the apostasy become more general, take

away the church or deprive her of her influence, and eliminate from

the laws, manners, and customs of modern states what they retain of

Christian doctrine and morality, and it is plain to see that nations

the loudest in their boast of their civilization would, if not

supernaturally arrested in a very short space of time, sink to the

level of any of the ancient or modern outlying savage tribes.

Such is the case, and so stands the argument. Sir John Lubbock brings

forward a hypothesis, not original with him indeed, and the full

bearing of which we would fain believe he does not see, for which

he adduces and can adduce not a single well-authenticated fact, and

which would not be favored for a moment by any one who understands

it, were it not for its contradiction of the Biblical doctrine and

Christian tradition. But while there is absolutely no proof of the

hypothesis, all the known facts of history or of human nature, as

well as all the principles of religion and philosophy, with one

voice pronounce against it as untenable. Is not this enough? Nothing

is more certain than Christian faith; no fact is or can be better

authenticated than the fact of revelation; we might then allege that

the hypothesis is disproved, nay, not to be entertained, because it

is contrary to the Christian revelation, than which nothing can be

more certain. We should have been perfectly justified in doing so,

and so we should have done; but as the author appeals to science

and progress to support himself on facts, we have thought it best,

without prejudice to the authority of faith, to meet him on his own

ground, to show him that science does not entertain his appeal,

and that his theory of progress is but a baseless hypothesis,

contradicted by all the known facts in the case and supported by

none; and therefore no science at all.

Sir John's theory of progress is just now popular, and is put forth

with great confidence in the respectable name of science, and the

modern world, with sciolists, accept it, with great pomp and parade.

Yet it is manifestly absurd. Nothing cannot make itself something,

nor can anything make itself more than it is. The imperfect cannot

of itself perfect itself, and no man can lift himself by his own

waistbands. Even Archimedes required somewhere to stand outside of

the world in order to be able to raise the world with his lever.

Yet we deny not progress; we believe in it, and hold that man is

progressive even to the infinite; but not by his own unaided effort

or by his own inherent energy and natural strength, nor without the

supernatural aid of divine grace. But progress by nature alone, or

self-evolution, though we tried to believe it when a child, we put

away when we became a man, as we did other childish things.

Thus much we have thought it our duty to say in reply to the theory

that makes the human race begin in utter barbarism, and civilization

spring from natural development or evolution, so popular with our

unchristian scientists or--but for respect to the public we would

say--sciolists. We have in our reply repeated may things which we

have said before in this magazine, and which have been said by

others, and better said. But it will not do to let such a book as the

one before us go unanswered in the present state of the public mind,

debauched as it is by false science. If books will repeat the error,

we can only repeat our answer.

FOOTNOTES:

[128] _The Origin of Civilization and the Primitive Condition of Man:

Mental and Social Condition of Savages._ By Sir John Lubbock, Bart.,

M.P., F.R.S., etc. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1871. 16mo, pp. 380.

[129] See _The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex_, by

Charles Darwin.

PAU.

American tourists make a great mistake in not generally including

the Pyrenees in their route of European travel. Unless ordered there

by a physician to repair a wasted or broken-down constitution, they

scarcely think of visiting the most beautiful country perhaps in

the world. Paris is France, and, as the route from Paris to Spain

lies direct, they pass through the Pyrenees, admire them casually,

but rarely pause to examine their beauties and the curiosities of

the quaint old towns embedded in their hills. Since chances of

this nature alone led me to discover what since has remained in my

memory an exquisite picture to be revivified at any moment, I cannot

blame others for following the usual guide-book routes of Europe,

and spending their money freely on places far less worthy their

attention. After a severe typhoid fever of ten weeks in Paris, and

still so feeble that I had to be almost carried to the depot, I set

out on the 5th of January, 1869, accompanied by my nurse, to make

the journey to the Pyrenees, if possible, in a day and a half. We

left Paris at 10.45 A.M., by the Chemin de Fer d'Orléans. Resting

for a few minutes at the historical old towns of Orléans, Tours,

Poitiers, Angoulême, and Livourne, we arrived at Bordeaux at eleven

P.M., where we remained for the night. The next morning at eight

we pursued our journey, passing Dax, so celebrated for its warm

mud-baths, said to be a remedy for rheumatic complaints, and a little

after one P.M. I found my friends awaiting me at Pau. Entering one

of the queer little half-omnibuses that hold six people and their

luggage, I was carried through the oddest of small white streets to

my lodging in the Jurançon, near the villa of my friend.

Never shall I forget my impressions while entering the room prepared

for me, and leaning on the arm of the dear girl who with her mother

and sister had done everything for my comfort. It was the Epiphany,

the day of light; and it seemed as if the soft sunlight that shone

in that pretty room and rested on the fragrant flowers was to me the

foreshadowing of a renewed life and happy future. The air was balmy

as a June day, and from my window rose the glorious Pyrenees. Covered

with their everlasting mantles of snow, they rose proudly to heaven,

as if they defied the clouds above them. A second lower range, with

its varied shades of green and the tropical luxuriance at its base,

completed the picture. Exhausted with my journey, my eyes filled with

tears of joy at all my sweet surroundings, I could have begged my God

there and then to let me sleep for ever.

Day after day I walked my few steps in my balcony and took in this

lovely picture. As yet I had not seen the town; my strength was

insufficient, and I simply rested and recuperated. The climate seemed

to me a strange one for invalids--a queer mixture, as I thought it,

of flannels and sun-umbrellas. The mornings and evenings were cold

and chilly with the air that blew down from the mountains, and the

middle of the day, from eleven until three o'clock, so intensely hot

that it was necessary to be well protected against sun-stroke. Still,

it is the great resort of consumptives, and at almost every turn

one encounters the muffled-up pale countenance of the poor invalid.

But for this one sad feature, the exquisite scenery, the tropical

foliage, the picturesque villas, and the town itself, of white

limestone, rising around its great chateau to the very heavens, with

the merry hum of voices, that greets you on every side, might well

make you imagine you had at last found the fairy dreamland--a country

that realized the fairy ideal of childhood.

This, too, is the land of the troubadour, and the quaint wild music

chanted by the peasantry has a something about it irresistibly

attractive, something one hears nowhere else; now dreamy, now bright,

almost monotonous at times, then suddenly bursting into strains of

sadness in which the whole depths of a life are portrayed. Then there

is the ringing mountaineer song, too, with its clear and measured

cadence, and a certain bravery in its tones which could easily

foretell the difficult mastering of such a people, should it ever

again be required.

The mixture of Spanish merchants and wanderers among the population

gives to their parks and squares a pretty effect. They cross the

Pyrenees with their showy wares, their strings of perfumed beads,

bracelets, necklaces, rosaries, all made of the wood that grows

at the foot of their mountains. Dressed in their own picturesque

costumes, and carrying their merchandise of every imaginable

color--red and bright yellow predominating--they accost you with a

grace which renders them irresistible, and you find yourself rather

poorer for the encounter.

I improved so rapidly in this climate, getting wholly rid of my cough

and gaining twenty-five pounds in little over four weeks, that I

concluded I was well enough to return to Paris, and thence, after

another rest in England, home. I resolved, therefore, to see all that

Pau offered to the sight-seer.