with melancholy gravity; “the death which God has ordained for men—the
death which most men die, which finds consolation and resignation in
the tears of tender regret shed by loving friends—that death appeared
to me, in my solitary agony, like a sweet, untroubled feast.... I made
many a singular reflection that night! But come, George, are you
ready?”
“When you will; ... but, first, what were your reflections?”
“Well, to tell you the truth, I lost somewhat of my self-sufficiency.
And then I congratulated myself a little less on the path I had chosen
for my life’s journey. Why not say it? The book of life seemed suddenly
to be opened before me, and I read on every page, traced by God’s own
hand, the words ‘duty and sacrifice.’ I had rejected that law. Hitherto
I had only seen its hardships; now I recognized its benefits. I had
avoided its bonds that I might live independently, and exile and
isolation had been my lot. I had fancied that, by escaping the usual
dull routine of humble duties, I should win for myself a happiness
unknown—pleasures inconceivable to the vulgar crowd. Alas! I found that
I had experienced nothing save a loveless youth, a solitary old age,
and an unlamented death. Then, George—_then_ I understood what an
erroneous price we pay for the indulgence of our selfishness.”
“Were you long in this agitated state?” asked Dupuis.
“Long enough for it to be indelibly impressed on my memory,” replied
his friend. “When the young physician perceived that I was looking at
him, he arose and approached me, and I felt the touch of his hand, cold
and indifferent as his heart. I pushed it away and closed my eyes. And
then a vision of my father’s death-bed flashed before me, distinct and
clear. I saw again, grouped around it, the faithful friends of his
youth—our ancient servants, the old doctor, the white-haired priest,
and, dearest of all, my mother, my good mother. They leaned over him,
they wiped his damp brow, they smiled at him through their tears; they
had gladdened his life, and they were beside him now, to cheer and
sustain him as he passed away! My dried-up heart melted within me as I
gazed on this vision of a scene I had long since ceased to recall, and
I burst into tears; they saved me!”
Rouvière stopped, overpowered by his emotion, and, covering his eyes
with his hand, leant forward against the mantle-shelf.
“These recollections are too painful,” said Dupuis gently.
“They _are_ painful,” replied Rouvière, his voice hoarse and trembling,
“and everything I see around me here awakens them. Oh! how alike these
old houses are,” he continued, speaking to himself and looking around
the room. “All this is familiar to me. There stood my mother’s little
work-table near the window, just as that is—I always found her seated
at it when I came home for a holiday—and there, in the chimney-corner,
was the great arm-chair in which my father always sat. And the family
portraits looked down from the walls just as these do. There, as here,
the trace of two lives closely entwined, never to be separated, was
visible everywhere. Why did I not learn by their example? Why was I
compelled to drag my weary, vagrant life, my unceasing remorse, all
over the wide world, ere I could comprehend that they were happy? Did
_they_ know that they were happy? I doubt it. How often I have heard my
father speak with envy of the very pleasures I have found so hollow!
How often they confided to me their mutual grievances! And yet when one
went the other could not stay. Dear old father! dearest mother!”
“My dear friend!” whispered George.
“And I,” continued Rouvière, with increasing emotion—“I sold their home
as soon as it was empty—I had the heart to do that! I sold the room
where I was born; I sold all our family traditions; I sold the ancient,
faithful friendships which seemed to adhere to the house and soil. I
alienated my patrimony.... I riveted the chain of egotism I was so
eagerly forging. I did my work well; no kind care, no friendly
companionship will ever be the solace of _my_ old age. I have nothing
to offer in return—not even the bribe of a legacy. I cannot even buy
back that humble home; my last days may not be sheltered by those walls
whose very shadows I have learned to love. I may not even die there.
Come! let us go,” he added with vehemence, dashing away the tears which
suddenly inundated his face.
“Yes, Tom, we will go”—and George seized his friend’s hand—“we will go,
if you refuse to accept a brother’s place by my fireside. And you,
Reine,” he said, turning to his wife, “dry your tears and forget this
hour’s ingratitude. It was the first; it shall be the last!”
“O George, my husband!” sobbed the sweet little woman as she gave him
the kiss of pardon; then, approaching Rouvière with gentle grace, she
said softly and beseechingly:
“Will not the happiness you have restored to us tempt you to remain
with us? We should be so glad to share it with you!”
“Madame, dear, good friends,” stammered the guest.... “O George! you
have caught me in the very snare I spread for you.”
He sank into a chair, overcome by his emotion, while George and Reine
stood by him, clasping his hands in theirs. “Oh!” sighed he at last,
“it is too sweet a dream for such a forlorn wretch as I am.”
“He will stay with us!” exclaimed Mme. Dupuis joyfully.
“And I will go and make his bed in the best blue chamber,” cried
Marianne, wiping her eyes with her apron. The poor girl had been
standing quietly near the door, an involuntary listener, during almost
the whole of Rouvière’s confession.
“What! the deuce! Marianne!” growled Rouvière, rising hastily from his
seat.
“I’m going to make your bed, sir!” cried Marianne, in great good-humor.
“Very well, then; but don’t let the head be lower than the heels, my
good creature, as you house-maids generally manage it. Slope it down
gently from head to foot, mind you, and....” He stopped a moment, then
smilingly resumed: “Make it as you will, Marianne; I’m sure it will be
first-rate. You see,” he added, turning toward his hosts when Marianne
had left the room, “how this disgusting egotism crops up incessantly;
... you must try to cure me of it. Oh! what a rest I’m going to have
now,” he exclaimed as he threw himself on the sofa.... “Madame, dear
madame, will you do me a favor? I know what the pains of exile are by
sad experience—pray, let the cat come in!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE RECENT PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CONVENTION AND CONGRESS.
This convention, which met in Boston on the 3d of October and continued
in session for twenty days, was the triennial “Convention of the
Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America.” The
bishops sat in a house by themselves and conducted their proceedings in
secret, following in this the precedent of the Anglican Church as well
as the custom of the Roman Catholic Church in its provincial and
plenary councils. The House of Deputies consisted of one hundred and
eighty clergymen and one hundred and eighty laymen, representing
forty-five dioceses, and eight clergymen and eight laymen representing
eight “missionary jurisdictions.” These sat in public, and a verbatim
report of their proceedings is before us. Among the lay delegates were
several gentlemen of national fame—the Hons. John W. Maynard, of
Pennsylvania; Thomas A. Hendricks, of Indiana, the Democratic candidate
for the Vice-Presidency at the recent election; John W. Stevenson, of
Kentucky; John W. Hunter and L. Bradford Prince, of Long Island; Gen.
C. C. Augur, U. S. Army; Daniel R. Magruder and Montgomery Blair, of
Maryland; Robert C. Winthrop, of Massachusetts; General J. H. Simpson,
U. S. Army; Hamilton Fish, Cambridge Livingston, and W. A. Davies, of
New York; Morrison R. Waite, of Ohio; and Geo. W. Thompson and Richard
Parker, of Virginia. It is not probable that any of the other sects
could marshal laymen like these to sit in its councils. We mention
their names because the list affords some explanation of the fact that
the social and political influence of the Protestant Episcopalians is
vastly out of proportion to their numerical strength. At a preliminary
session, the bishops and deputies being together, Dr. Williams, the
Bishop of Connecticut, preached a sermon in which he introduced a
subject that subsequently occupied much of the attention of the
convention—“the most threatening social evil of our time, the growing
lack of sympathy between different classes and individuals of such
classes.” “To-day,” he said, “we see great chasms opening everywhere
because of this, which threatens church and state alike with sad
disaster.” And he added:
“I think those chasms are more entirely unrelieved and ghastly
in this country than in almost any other. I know that we have
not been wont so to think or speak, and I know that to say this
involves some chance of incurring severe displeasure; but I
fully believe it to be true. In most lands there are things—I
speak of things outside of Christian sympathies and labors—that
somewhat bridge over these threatening severances. There are
ancient memories; ancestral offices and ministries that in
their long continuance have almost become binding laws;
relations, long enduring, of patronage and clientship; and many
other things besides. With us—we may as well face the
fact—those things have, for the most part, no existence. The
one only helping thing we have—still apart from what was just
alluded to—is political equality. And how much virtue has that
shown itself to have in pressing exigencies and emergencies?
When, all at once, in the late summer months, that yawning
chasm opened at our feet which appeared to threaten nearly
everything in ordinary life, how little there seemed to be to
turn to! There stood on either side contending forces in
apparently irreconcilable opposition, and everywhere we heard
the cry about rights! rights! rights! till nothing else was
heard. If some few voices dared to speak of duties they were
lost in the angry clamor. And yet those voices must be heard.
Those words about duty on the one side and the other must be
listened to, if ever we are to have more than an armed truce
between these parties—a truce which may at any time burst out
into desolating strife.”
Dr. Williams’ remedy was, of course, that the Protestant Episcopalians
should teach the people their duties. To do this, however, they must
first get the hearing of the people. But this is just what they have
failed to get, and will always fail in getting—certainly so long as
they provide fine churches with eloquent preachers for the rich, and a
very different order of preachers and churches for the poor. The
Catholic Church, before whose altars all distinctions of earthly rank
and position disappear, can and does teach the people what their duties
are, and she does it with effect, since her priests speak with
authority and by virtue of an incontestably divine commission—two
things quite unknown among the sects. This is what Rev. Hugh Thompson
felt and acknowledged when, in the Episcopal Church Congress held in
this city, he said:
“What is the worth of a church in this world except as a moral
teacher—except this: to get the Ten Commandments kept on earth?
The church canons are usually busy with questions affecting
garments, gestures, postures, and the orthodoxy of the
Prayer-Book, but rarely do we find any moral legislation. There
are plenty of instructions to the clergy and bishops, and we
are led to think what a wicked lot of people these clergy and
bishops must be to need all these laws, and what a good and
pious laity we must have when they have no need of such
legislation! The church gives no real expression of opinion on
the complicated questions of marriage, so that one minister may
bless a union while another would not do so under any
circumstances. Is it right that the church should evade such
responsibilities as these? The church must place itself plainly
on record. The church must be to a millionaire and beggar the
same, must demand equal justice for all—for the railway
president and the railway brakeman, for the worshipper in the
gilded temple and in the ordinary meeting-house. Such a church,
with the courage and fearlessness and ability to tell and
enforce the eternal truth, without fear or favor, is what this
country is waiting for, and would have an influence here
unequalled since the days of Athanasius.”
The first two days of the convention were spent chiefly in rather
unseemly discussions upon a proposition to print fifteen hundred copies
of Dr. Williams’ sermon, to appoint a committee “to consider the
importance of the practical principles enunciated in it,” and in
attempts to begin a debate upon three amendments to the constitution
proposed three years ago by the last convention. Much interest was
excited by some remarks by the Rev. Dr. Harwood, of Connecticut, who
thought that one of the most pressing duties of the convention would be
the invention of a method whereby clergymen who had grown tired of
their work might be retired without incurring disgrace. It is curious
to observe how the Catholic doctrine, “once a priest always a priest,”
still lingers among the laity of this Protestant body, while its
clergymen, or some of them, seem anxious to destroy it. Dr. Harwood
complained that although at present the regulations of his church
permitted any clergyman to “withdraw from the ministry for causes not
affecting his moral character,” nevertheless “somewhat of a stigma
rests upon the man, and people may even point to his children and say,
‘There go the children of a disgraced clergyman.’” This state of things
was found to be “a grievous burden”; for there were numbers of good
fellows who feel that “they are out of place in the ministry of the
Protestant Episcopal Church,” and who still continue in that service
because they fear to incur disgrace by leaving it. Dr. Harwood drew a
pitiful picture of the condition of these unhappy persons: “They may
have changed their minds about some doctrine; they may believe too much
or too little; they may be drifting towards a blank unbelief or towards
a wretched superstition; they may feel that they have mistaken their
calling and cannot do their work, for neither their hearts nor their
minds are in it.” We agree with Dr. Harwood that his church would be
better off without such parsons; and it is sad to record that his
proposition, looking towards the adoption of a cheap and easy, although
“honorable,” method of getting rid of them, was not finally successful.
On the third day of the convention the Rev. Dr. De Koven, of Wisconsin,
brought forward the question of changing the name of the Protestant
Episcopal Church. This proposition was made in the interest of that
section of it which follows the Anglican ritualists. This section has a
real or affected horror of the word “Protestant”; its members wish to
persuade themselves that they are Catholics—and the wish is very
natural and most praiseworthy—but they are resolved never to seek the
reality and yield to the living authority of the Catholic Church. In
order to avoid this submission, they set up the claim that they are
themselves the Catholic Church, or rather “a branch” of it. To make
this claim a little less absurd the elimination of the word
“Protestant” would be advisable; and for some time past, it appears, an
industrious propaganda for this purpose has been carried on. Certain of
the bishops, many of the clergymen, and a number of the journals of the
Protestant Episcopalians have been enlisted in the proposed “reform,”
and its advocates mustered all their forces in the convention. Dr. De
Koven introduced the matter by reading a paper adopted in the diocese
of Wisconsin last June, and moving a resolution. The paper was as
follows:
“_Whereas_, The American branch of the Catholic Church
universal [_sic_] includes in its membership all baptized
persons in this land; and
“_Whereas_, The various bodies of professing Christians, owing
to her first legal title, do not realize that the church known
in law as the ‘Protestant Episcopal Church’ is, in very deed
and truth, the American branch of the one Catholic Church of
God; therefore, be it
“_Resolved_, That the deputies to the General Convention from
this diocese be requested to ask of the General Convention the
appointment of a constitutional commission, to which the
question of a change of the legal title of the church, as well
as similar questions, may be referred.”
Dr. De Koven accordingly presented a motion for the appointment of this
commission and moved its reference to the Committee on Constitutional
Amendments. The absurd side of the assumptions made in the preamble is
apparent; but the ridicule and scorn which they excite should not blind
one to the arrogant claim therein set up. It is laughable to assert
that a sect with less than 270,000 communicants, and with a history of
less than a century, claims as its members all the baptized persons in
the United States, including seven or eight millions of Roman
Catholics; it is still more ludicrous to be told that the reason why we
and all the other “baptized persons” do not recognize this sect as our
mother the church is that up to this time she has chosen to call
herself by a false name. The name—the name’s the thing wherewith to
catch the conscience of the people! Let us only call ourselves
something else, and then “all the baptized persons in this
land”—Papists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Mormons, and all
the rest—will hasten to exclaim, “Our long-lost mother! Behold your
children!” This is the ludicrous side of the business, and it is funny
enough. The serious side of it is the fact that a claim so arrogant
should be seriously presented in a convention composed of respectable,
and in some cases eminent, American gentlemen. Let us see what became
of it.
Dr. De Koven’s motion immediately caused an animated debate. An attempt
to get rid of it by laying it on the table was lost; and after a
disorderly and heated discussion, in which the president seemed
occasionally to lose his head, the motion for reference to the
committee was carried. On the eighth day of the session the committee,
through Mr. Hamilton Fish, reported that it was “inexpedient to
institute any commission to revise and amend the constitution of the
church,” for the reason, among others, that such a commission would be
unlimited in its powers and might upset everything. On the tenth day
another committee, to whom had been “referred certain memorials and
papers looking to a change in the legal title of the church,” reported
that such a change might impair the legal right of property in the
several dioceses, and that it would be better to make no change. The
two reports came up for decision on the twelfth day of the session, and
the ball was opened by Dr. De Koven in a long and clever speech. He
proposed the adoption of a new resolution providing for the appointment
of a commission to consider and report upon the best method of
“removing apparent ambiguities,” and “the setting forth our true
relations to the Anglican communion as well as to the whole Catholic
Church.” He drew a very curious and not at all a pleasant picture of
his church as at present constituted. So far as the laity are
concerned, anybody may be a lay member, if he “merely goes to church a
few times a year” and pays money for the support of the minister. “He
need not be baptized; he need not be confirmed; he need not be a
communicant. He may even be Jew, Turk, or infidel, if you please,
_provided he has the money qualification which makes up the franchise
of the church_.” Here, indeed, is a pitiable state of things; a society
composed of unbaptized persons can scarcely be called a Christian
association. “Underneath it all,” Dr. De Koven went on to say, “lies
this money qualification. The parish elects its vestry, and its vestry
need not be communicants. The vestry and parish elect the lay delegates
to the diocesan convention, and they need not be communicants. The
diocesan convention elects the lay members of the standing committees,
and they need not be communicants.” The truth is that the ruling laymen
of the sect need not be, and probably are not, Christians at all, and
that they “run the machine” for social and political purposes, just as
they would manage a club or a political party. If the laymen are of
this stripe, what can be said of the priests? “Like people, like
priest,” said Dr. De Koven; “As you go through the land and witness the
sorrow, the trials, the degradation of the parochial clergy, you are
quite well aware that underneath all lies this simoniacal taint.” The
bishops are almost in as sad a state. Their councils of advice are the
standing committees; these may be composed of unbaptized men, and the
bishops have no voice in their nomination; and “thus you have the
marvellous spectacle of a bishop sitting at the head of his diocesan
synod, but bound by laws which that synod (possibly composed of
non-Christians) makes, and in the making of which he has had no voice
whatever, either of assent or dissent.” It could scarcely be supposed,
however, that evils so great as these would be removed simply by a
change of name, and Dr. De Koven found himself at last willing to admit
as much. He was willing, he said, to go on for a while longer with the
old name, although as long as it was retained such evil consequences
would follow. But he insisted that “the day will come when this church
shall demand, not that an accident of its condition, not that a part of
its organization, should represent it to the world, but that its
immortal lineage shall represent it.”
The church may demand what it pleases, and may call itself by whatever
name it chooses to invent; but its history is written and cannot be
changed. Men will always know that it is the daughter of that creature
whose father was Henry VIII. and whose nursing mother was Queen
Elizabeth. A delegate from Illinois pleaded for the change of name, for
the reason that he was tired of saying on Sundays, “I believe in the
Holy Catholic Church,” and all the rest of the week, “I believe in the
Protestant Episcopal Church.” Mr. Hamilton Fish declared that it was
“too late to change the name of Protestant Episcopal,” and that if the
sect was not Protestant it was nothing. His great objection, however,
was that if the change were made the church would be in danger of
losing its property. Finally, on the thirteenth day of the session, the
resolution for the appointment of the constitutional committee to
consider this and other changes was voted down by a vote of 16 to 51;
and a separate resolution, that no change should be made in the name of
the church at present, was carried by an almost unanimous vote.
The convention also touched upon marriage and divorce, but rather
gingerly. The House of Bishops passed a resolution repealing the
present canon on this subject, and adopting the following in its place:
“SECTION 1. If any persons be joined together otherwise than as
God’s Word doth allow, their marriage is not lawful.
“SEC. 2. No minister of this church shall solemnize matrimony
in any case where there is a divorced wife or husband of either
party still living, and where the divorce was obtained for some
cause arising after marriage; but this canon shall not be held
to apply to the innocent party in a divorce for the cause of
adultery, or to parties once divorced seeking to be united
again.
“SEC. 3. If any minister of this church shall have reasonable
cause to doubt whether a person desirous of being admitted to
holy baptism, or to confirmation, or to the holy communion, has
been married otherwise than as the word of God and discipline
of this church allow, such minister, before receiving such
person to these ordinances, shall refer the case to the bishop
for his godly judgment thereupon; _provided_, however, that no
minister in any case refuse the sacrament to a penitent person
_in extremis_.