Of this earliest structure it is impossible to give any description,

as no account of it remains. It was in all probability a basilica

resembling others of the period, built with much less splendor than

solidity, and existed through several centuries until the year 850.

Charles the Bald was then on the throne, and Frothold was Bishop of

Chartres, being the forty-second prelate of that see. The times were

very troubled. Charlemagne had years before gone to his glorious

repose, leaving to his degenerate successors a sceptre too heavy for

their feeble arms to wield--a vast empire without cohesion, and which,

lacking the firm hand of a sagacious ruler, was already torn with

dissensions. The incursions of the Northmen, invariably accompanied

by fire and carnage, were continual upon the hapless kingdom of the

Franks. Hasting, the Danish chieftain, laid siege to Chartres, which

was at this epoch surrounded with strong and solid walls, and held out

courageously, well knowing its fate should it fall into the hands of

the barbarians. After spending some time in ineffectual endeavors to

effect a breach, the wily Northman had recourse to craft, causing the

bishop to be informed that he was ready, with all his followers, to

accept the Christian faith, and humbly requesting admittance into the

city. Scarcely had he entered, when he threw aside the mask; the bishop

and most of the inhabitants were massacred, the church destroyed, and

the city given up to the flames. This exploit was no sooner performed

than rewarded as it deserved. Before the savage invaders had time to

hasten back, laden with plunder, to their vessels, the Franks of the

surrounding country fell upon them and slew them without quarter.

Soon the church and the city arose again from their ashes. The new

sanctuary was but an humble erection. The people gave to God the

best they could, but they were impoverished, and in that age of iron

the arts had sunk to the lowest condition; moreover, another century

had not elapsed before a similar disaster seemed about to befall the

building.

In those barbarous ages, the sacking and burning of towns and the

slaughter of their inhabitants were events always possible, often

impending. In the year 911, Chartres was besieged by the fierce Norman

chieftain, Rollo, at the head of a formidable army provided with

powerful engines of war. The Dukes of France and Burgundy, with the

Count of Poitiers, hastening to the succor of the city, gave battle

outside its walls; but they were hard pressed, and to the anxious

watchers on the ramparts seemed likely to be overborne by the foe. The

bishop, Ganthelm or Gancelin, was not only a warrior in time of need,

but was also full of devotion to Mary. In the heat of the combat,

he put himself at the head of the Chartrians, taking with him the

reliquary containing the greatest treasure of his church--the sacred

tunic of Our Lady--and fell upon the invaders. This vigorous sortie was

so successful that the Northmen were utterly defeated and with so great

a slaughter that, according to the account of the monk Paul, the river

was choked with their corpses.

The holy tunic just mentioned had been given to Charlemagne by the

Emperor Nicephorus and the Empress Irene, who previously kept it at

Constantinople, whither it had been brought from Ephesus in the year

460, in the reign of the Emperor Leo. Charlemagne, who meditated an

Empire of the West, of which the capital should be Aix-la-Chapelle,

had at first placed the relic in that city. His successors, being

unable to carry out his designs, nevertheless recognized the importance

of preserving so great a treasure to France, and Charles the Bald,

removing it from Aix, presented it to the church of Chartres. The

history of this double translation may be seen portrayed in the great

window of the chapel of S. John Baptist; the archives of the cathedral

and the _Poem of the Miracles_ agreeing with these representations

in their account of the facts, with regard to which the poet Maître

Nicolas Gilles, writes:

"Lors prinrent la sainte chemise

A la Mère Dex qui fut prise

Jadis dans Constantinople.

Precieux don en fit et noble

A Chartres un grand Roi de France;

Charles le Chauve ot nom d'enfance.

Cil roy à Chartres le donna."[79]

But the effects of protection from on high are not such as to permit a

people and its rulers to do evil with impunity. Some time afterwards,

Thibault _le Tricheur_--_i.e._ the "sharper" or "cheat"--_ce chevalier

fel et enginous_--"this dangerous and deep-skilled knight," as he

is called in the chronicles of the time, who by some unknown means

obtained possession of the county of Chartres, made an expedition

against the town of Evreux, which he took by stratagem, and, going on

from thence as far as Rouen, so utterly devastated the country that,

in all the land through which he had passed, "there was not heard so

much as the bark of a dog." During his absence, the Normans and Danes

together laid siege to Chartres, which they took by assault, and again

burnt the town, together with the church. Thibault, returning to find

his son slain and his town in ruins, went mad with anger and grief.

Towards the close of the IXth century was a period of great calamities

and sinister predictions. There was a general spirit of discouragement

and gloom. Men said that the end of the world was approaching, for the

year one thousand was close at hand. They built no more churches; for

to what purpose would it be? Still, Our Lady must not surely be left

without her sanctuary at Chartres, nor could the people themselves

dispense with it; they set to work, therefore, and the destroyed

building was speedily replaced by a new one; yet, as they had no hope

of its long continuance, wood had a larger place in its construction

than stone. A few years later, however, when the unchecked course of

time had belied the prophecies of popular credulity, it seemed as if

Heaven itself willed to teach the Chartrians that God and their blessed

Patroness must be more worthily honored; for in the year 1020, under

the episcopate of Fulbert, on the Feast of the Assumption according to

some, on Christmas Day according to others, the church was struck by

lightning, and wholly consumed.

Bp. Fulbert was a holy man, and also a man of intelligence and courage.

He felt that God had given him a mission. Amid the smoking ruins of

his episcopal church, he laid the foundations of a noble structure

which should be fitted to brave the injuries of time, and not be

liable, like the former ones, to the danger of conflagration. In order

to carry out his design, Fulbert needed treasure. He at once devoted

all his own fortune to the work, and then appealed to his clergy, who

imposed on themselves great sacrifices to satisfy their generosity; the

people of his diocese also aiding eagerly with their contributions.

Not satisfied with all this, he addressed himself to the princes and

nobles of France, and especially to King Robert, who has been called

the father of religious architecture, and who could not fail to take a

lively interest in the erection of a sanctuary to Our Lady of France.

The princes of the whole Christian world were in like manner invited

to assist in the undertaking, and the King of Denmark in particular

signalized himself by his munificence.

Gifts arriving from all parts, Fulbert was enabled to commence the

works, as he had desired, on very large proportions, and to push them

forward with so much activity that in less than two years the crypt

was finished--this crypt which is probably the largest and finest in

the world, and which is still admired as a marvel of the architecture

of the XIth century. This sanctuary of _Notre Dame de Dessoubs-terre_,

or "Our Lady of Underground," more worthy than any which had preceded

it of the Druidic Virgin, was then opened to receive, through long

centuries, successive generations of the faithful. Nevertheless, this

was but the root of the majestic tree which was to rise and expand

above this favored spot. Fulbert devoted the remaining years of his

life to the work, so that when he died, in 1029, it had made great

progress; and, being continued with equal energy by Thierry, his

successor, was considered sufficiently advanced to be consecrated in

1037, although still requiring much for its completion.

After the death of Thierry came a period of marked relaxation in

activity. Several bishops in succession made no progress in the

erection. S. Yves, one of the most illustrious prelates who ever filled

the episcopal throne of Chartres, confined himself principally to the

interior adornment of the cathedral. Munificent gifts from Maude, Queen

of England, enabled him to replace the ancient and already dilapidated

roof by one of lead. A new impetus being given to the undertaking,

in 1115 were laid the foundation of the two spires, so remarkable

and so well known to the world. In 1145, the works were in full

activity, and it was wonderful, observes Haymond, Abbot of S. Pierre

sur Dive, to see with what ardor, perseverance, and piety the people

set to work to bring about the completion of their church. "What a

marvellous spectacle!" he writes. "There one sees powerful men, proud

of their birth and of their wealth, accustomed to a life of ease and

pleasure, harnessing themselves to the shafts of a cart, and dragging

along stones, lime, wood, and all the materials necessary for the

construction of the sacred edifice. Sometimes it befalls that as many

as a thousand persons, men and women, are harnessed to the same wagon,

so heavy is the load; and yet so great a silence prevails that there is

not heard the faintest murmur."

It was chiefly during the summer season that these labors were carried

on. At night, tapers were lighted and set on the wagons, while the

workers watched around the church, singing hymns and canticles. Thus it

was at Chartres that the custom, afterwards so prevalent, began of the

laborers assembling together to pass the night as well as the day near

the building in course of erection.

The old spire being at last completed, and the new one reaching to

the height of the roofs, in 1194 another fire broke out, the cause

of which was unknown. It had seemed as if a strange fatality pursued

the pious undertaking, were not every event providentially permitted

or arranged. The faithful of those days so understood this fresh

catastrophe, acknowledging that it was the chastisement of Heaven for

those sins from which, in spite of their zeal, the toilers in this work

had not always kept themselves free. It is easy to comprehend that,

notwithstanding all precautions, these large and prolonged assemblages

could not have been without great dangers. Some considered the disaster

as a manifestation of the divine will that the work was not carried on

to a sufficient degree of perfection; while others again regarded it

as an effect of the jealous hatred of the arch-enemy, and, according

to the historian Mezeray, declared that demons, under the form of

ravens, had been seen flying over the cathedral, with red-hot embers

in their beaks, which they let fall upon the sacred edifice. This time

the destruction was immense. Nothing was saved but the crypt and the

two spires, with the connecting masonry forming the western portal.

The latter, not having as yet been joined to the main building, were

unharmed by the flames.

Historians of the XVIth century and later do not mention this fire, and

suppose the edifice which at present exists to be almost entirely the

work commenced by Bp. Fulbert--an error only to be accounted for by the

most complete ignorance of the laws of ecclesiastical architecture.

Contemporary writers, as, for instance, William le Breton and Rigord,

monk of S. Denis, as well as Robert of Auxerre, who adds that a portion

of the town was also consumed, are unanimous as to the date and

principal particulars of the disaster.

Melchior, the legate of Pope Celestine III., was at Chartres at the

time of its occurrence, and it was he who revived and sustained the

spirit of the people, overwhelmed as they were at first by their

calamity. Assembling them around the ruins of their church, he did

his utmost to console and cheer them, winning from them the promise

to raise a cathedral which should not have its equal in the world,

and which should be built entirely of stone, so as to render its

destruction by fire impossible.

The impulse was easily given. At the conclusion of the legate's

stirring address, the bishop, Regnault de Mouçon, and all the canons

of the cathedral, gave up their revenues for the space of three years

towards the expenses of the building, as may be seen in the _Poème des

Miracles_ of Jehan le Marchant; Philip Augustus adding his offerings

to those of the clergy with a royal liberality. The towns-people,

also, considering that their misfortune was not so great by far as it

might have been, seeing that the reliquary containing the sacred tunic

of Our Lady was saved, thanks to the devotion of certain courageous

men, who bore it from the burning church into a place of safety, felt

bound to show their gratitude by depriving themselves of part of their

possessions in favor of the work.

A powerful and irresistible current of devotion seemed in those days

to carry along with it the hearts of men; and the enthusiasm of the

Crusades having been chilled by reverses, the religious sentiment of

the people found its outlet in another channel--raising sanctuaries of

which the magnificence should be a marvel to succeeding ages.

Moreover, it must not be forgotten that, in those ages of faith and

fervor, the fabulous sums which would be required in our days for

similar erections were not necessary, even taking into account all

proportions with regard to the respective value of money. The time

had not then arrived for none but master-masons, working for ready

money only, and of that a free supply; they who had nothing but their

strength and good-will cheerfully gave the alms of their toil, thus

sharing equally with the rich and great in forwarding the enterprise.

Everywhere architects arose, ready to translate into stone the

religious thoughts and aspirations of the time, which was not a period

of popular enthusiasm only, but that in which Christian art was

rapidly expanding into its most remarkable development, and replacing

the heavy and massive edifices of the Romano-Byzantine style by those

possessing a boldness, freedom, and splendid gracefulness hitherto

unknown.

Where was found the marvellous genius capable of conceiving and

executing the plan of the Cathedral of Chartres?--this man who,

careless of human fame, and careful only to work for God, has left

no record of his name, and is called by Jehan le Marchant simply _li

mestre de l'œuvre_.

The "master of the work" for three years wrought with incredible ardor.

The idea had sprung from his mind complete, and he longed to see it

realized in its colossal harmony. It is only in the crypt, in the old

spire, and in the western portal, spared by the fire of 1194, that

the ancient style is to be recognized; everywhere else the art of the

XIIIth century triumphs, and we behold the poem of stone as it was hewn

out in the first purity of its beauty.

At the end of three years resources failed, and the work could not go

on. "Then," says the poet Jehan, with all the simplicity of a mediæval

chronicler--"then the Holy Virgin prayed her divine Son to work fresh

miracles in her Cathedral of Chartres, in order that the increase of

alms and offerings might be such as to secure its completion:"

"La haute Dame glorieuse

Qui voloit avoir merveilleuse

Iglise, et haute, et longue, et lée,

Si que sa per ne fust trovée,

Son douz Fils pria doucement

Que miracles apertement

En son Eglise à Chartres feist,

Que tout le peuple le veist,

Si que de toutes parts venissent

Gens qui offerendes tous feissent,

Que achevée fust siglise,

Qui estoit à faire emprise."[80]

Miracles, which in this place had at all times been numerous and

remarkable, and which we might cite by thousands, are said to have now

greatly multiplied. Those which at that period excited the enthusiasm

and gratitude of the people to the highest degree were the cures of a

terrible malady very common in the middle ages, and known by the name

of the "burning sickness." The unfortunate persons who were attacked

by it, besides being consumed by fever, suffered internally as if

from torture by fire, while outwardly their bodies were covered with

frightful ulcers, of which the pain was intolerable. The victims of

this malady came from all parts for relief and healing to Our Lady

of Chartres. According to Jehan le Marchant and other contemporary

writers, the disease never failed to disappear, either during or

immediately after the _novena_ which it was customary for each sufferer

to make in the church.

This increase of favors revived the ardor of the faithful. Gifts and

thank-offerings were made in great abundance, and the building of the

church went on, with what vigor may be gathered from the fact that,

in little more than twenty years afterwards, the cathedral was built

and covered with what William le Breton calls its _merveilleuse et

miraculeuse_ roof of stone. It is in the year 1220 that he writes:

"Entirely rebuilt anew in hewn stone, and completed by a vaulted roof

like the shell of a tortoise, the cathedral has no more to fear from

fire before the day of judgment."

The new tower received a spire like that of the old, excepting that it

was constructed of wood and lead, and destined to perish in the very

partial fire of 1506, to be replaced by the beautiful and delicately

sculptured steeple of the XVIth century, still so greatly admired. The

porches were finished,[81] as well as the sculptures, in their finest

details, and the windows put in. On the 17th of October, in the year

1260, the edifice was complete, and on this occasion the Bishop of

Chartres, Pierre de Maincy, seventy-fifth successor of S. Aventine,

solemnly consecrated his cathedral, in presence of the king, S. Louis.

Description, however picturesque, is utterly inadequate to convey

a worthy image or idea of a Gothic cathedral in all the mysterious

fulness, richness, and variety of its details. Chartres must be seen,

must have received many quiet hours of contemplation, before its

magnificences will have shown to what heights Christian art was raised

by Christian devotion in those early centuries of enthusiasm and of

faith.

And yet we cannot leave the reader at the threshold without inviting

him to glance with us rapidly, and therefore most imperfectly, within.

How grand is the perspective which opens upon the view, when, looking

from the "Royal Gate" towards the sanctuary, the eye takes in this

triple nave, with its forest of pillars, amongst which fall, in

rich and softened splendor, warm rays of light and color from the

higher windows! All the dimensions are on a scale of grandeur. In its

elevation, the cathedral is divided into three parts, the idea of the

Blessed Trinity ruling this arrangement. The arcades, springing from

the ground, form the first line, under the triforium, which forms

the second, while above this rises the third height, containing the

clerestory windows, which are lofty, double lancets, each surmounted

by a rose. The lower walls are pierced by simple lancets of very

large size. To the right and left of the nave are aisles without side

chapels; but in the double aisle which is carried round the choir

are seven apsidal chapels, of which the centre one, dedicated to Our

Lady, is the most important. The pillars of the nave are massive in

their proportions, to bear the weight of the lofty superstructure.

There are sixteen circular or octagon pillars round the choir, with

well-sculptured capitals; and in the centre of the transept rise four

colossal pillars, around which cluster a number of smaller ones, which

are carried up to the spring of the roof. The latter was the most

beautiful in the world, and was called _the Forest_, being constructed

of fine chestnut-wood, which time colors with a sort of golden hue,

and which attracts neither dust nor spiders. The roof of St. Stephen's

Hall at Westminster gives a good idea of what this must have been,

with its exquisite fan tracery and graceful pendants, until, on the

fourth of June, 1836, the whole was destroyed by fire. The iron roof by

which it has been replaced, though excellent in its kind, is far from

approaching the worth and beauty of the ancient _Forêt_.

The church is paved throughout with large slabs of stone, not one

of which is a _grave_-stone, as would be the case in almost every

other cathedral, under the pavement of which are buried numbers of

ecclesiastics and other persons; but this is virgin earth, wherein no

sepulture has ever taken place. We give the reason in the words of

Sebastian Rouillard: "The said church has this pre-eminence as being

the couch or resting-place of the Blessed Virgin, and in token thereof

has been even until this day preserved pure, clean, and entire, without

having ever been dug or opened for any burial."

The choir is the largest in France, and one of the most splendid in

existence, notwithstanding the unfortunate zeal of the chapter in

the year 1703 to alter and disfigure its mediæval beauties according

to their own ideas, which appear to have been warped to the lowest

degeneracy of "Renaissance." Happily, however, the prodigious expense

to which they put themselves resulted in but a partial realization

of their plan, in which ancient carving and mural frescos were swept

away to give place to gilding and stucco, marble and new paint, to say

nothing of kicking cherubs and arabesques gone mad. It was at this

time that the groups representing the annunciation of Our Lady and Our

Saviour's baptism were placed at the entrance of the choir, which, even

if they were the work of a more skilful hand, instead of being that of

a very mediocre artist, would yet be out of harmony with the church;

and the same may be said of the group, in Carrara marble, of the

Assumption, which rises behind the high altar, and which is the work of

the celebrated Bridan, who finished it in 1773.

When, two centuries before, the choir was still without enclosure,

the XVIth century provided for it one of the rarest specimens of late

Gothic art ever seen. Jehan de Beauce, who had been charged with

the building of the new spire, was chosen to make the designs and

direct the work; and though he died whilst it was still unfinished,

his plan was carefully carried to its completion. In this marvel of

conscientious labor there are forty groups, each containing numerous

figures, nearly the size of nature, representing the Legend of Mary

and the principal events in the life of Our Lord. Around these groups

cluster pillars and arches, turrets, crocketed spires, everything that

can help to give them, as it were, a framing and background as full and

elaborate as possible, while all sorts of odd and Lilliputian creatures

are playing in and out of the pediments, or clinging to the columns

in the most capricious and fantastic manner. Besides these forty

principal subjects, the enclosure is further enriched with thirty-five

medallions, the first of which represents the siege of Chartres by

Rollo, followed by subjects from the Holy Scriptures, and then, strange

to say, by others taken from heathen mythology! The pagan spirit of

the Renaissance was already daring to invade the sanctuaries of the

Catholic faith.

Before proceeding to mention other architectural details, two of the

especial treasures of the cathedral require some further notice.

Besides the Druidic Virgin, of which we have already given the history,

and whose chapel has, since the Revolution, been carefully restored, as

well as the twelve other subterranean chapels of this marvellous crypt,

there is in the upper church another statue, almost equally venerated,

which dates from the first years of the XVIth century, and is called

"Our Lady of the Pillar," from the columnar pedestal on which it

rests. This figure is enthroned, and adorned with gold and painting of

good execution, as far as may be seen under the abundant vestments of

lace, silk, and gold with which the loving piety of pilgrims, greater

in devotion than good taste, delights to load this statue, of which

the dark but beautiful face has an expression of great sweetness and

benignity, as well as that of the divine Child, whose right hand is

raised in benediction, while his left rests upon the globe of the world.

It was to this venerable image of _Notre Dame du Pilier_ that the

Sovereign Pontiff, Pius IX., granted the signal favor of a solemn

coronation, which took place on the last day of the month of May, 1855,

in the presence of seven prelates and a concourse of clergy and people

so immense that the church could not contain the multitudes. The dogma

of the Immaculate Conception had just been promulgated, and a special

jubilee in honor of Our Lady of Chartres had been granted by the Holy

Father, and the whole city was in a state of indescribable joy.

With regard to the vestment of Our Blessed Lady, to which allusion

has so frequently been made, and which appears to be of indisputable

authenticity, we will give the remainder of its history up to the

present time. When this was presented to the cathedral by Charles the

Bald, it was enclosed in a chest of cedar-wood covered with gold. The

veneration with which the precious relic was regarded did not allow of

the chest being opened without necessity, and its form was naturally

supposed to be that of a tunic or undergarment. Numbers were made

after the imaginary pattern, and, after being laid upon the reliquary,

were greatly valued as pledges of Our Lady's protection, especially by

those about to become mothers. As to one detail, however, everybody was

mistaken, the vestment not being by any means of the form supposed.

This was for the first time discovered in 1712, when, by order of the

bishop, Mgr. de Merinville, the coffer, which was falling to pieces

from extreme age, was opened with the most extraordinary care and

precautions. A kind of gauze, embroidered with silk and gold, enveloped

the sacred relic, which proved to be a veil of great length, woven

of linen and silk. It was then, in presence of Mgr. de Merinville and

other witnesses, enclosed in a chest of silver, and placed again in

the ancient reliquary, which had been strengthened and repaired. This,

being most richly ornamented with precious stones, was, in December,

1793, carried off by the men of the Revolution, who took the relic to

Paris, and submitted it to be examined by the members of the Institute,

without giving them any information respecting it, and anticipating

from their verdict a triumphant proof of its being nothing more than a

cheat and deception of "the priests." It was with less satisfaction,

therefore, than surprise that they were informed by the learned members

that, "although they found it impossible to give the exact age of the

fabric, it was evidently of very great antiquity, and the material was

identical with that of the long, folding veils anciently _worn by women

in the East_." Owing merely to this character of remote antiquity, it

was allowed a place among the curiosities of a museum. When the Reign

of Terror was over, certain pious persons obtained possession of it,

but had the want of judgment to divide it, giving larger or smaller

portions to different churches and individuals. In 1820, Mgr. de

Lubersac succeeded in collecting several of these portions, and, after

having had them carefully authenticated, he placed them in a reliquary

of coral, which has since, by Mgr. Clausel de Montals, been replaced by

one of greater richness, so arranged as to allow the precious relic to

be visible.

We must, before taking leave of the cathedral, bestow at least a

passing glance upon its glorious windows. Here and there one has been

broken by revolutionary or other anti-religionists, one or two others

have had a deep-toned color clumsily replaced by one of brighter hue

by certain of the aforesaid XVIIIth century canons, who required more

light to read their office; but, on the whole, they are in admirable

preservation. We can linger but to read some few of the characters of

this vast book of light, which is justly called by the Council of Arras

"The Bible of the laity"; for months would be insufficient to decipher

its glowing pages.

There are one hundred and thirty-five large windows, three immense

roses, thirty-five roses of a middle size, and twelve small ones. These

are almost all of the date of the XIIIth century, and are the gifts of

kings, nobles, ecclesiastics, burgesses, and workmen of every trade, as

may be seen in each window, which usually contains a kneeling figure of

the donor. The great roses are marvellous in their splendor. That of

the north transept, which, from being the gift of S. Louis, is called

the Rose of France, represents the glorification of the Blessed Virgin,

who occupies the centre, bearing in her arms her divine Son. The five

great windows beneath the rose make the complement of the subject. In

the centre is S. Anne, with Our Lady as an infant. On the right and

left stand Melchisedech and Aaron, types of our Lord's priesthood;

David and Solomon, the types of his royalty.

The southern rose was given by the Count of Dreux, and has for its

subject the glorification of our Lord, which is also that of the

sculpture over the western entrance. In the centre window of the

five below is the infant Saviour in the arms of his Mother, while to

the right and left are the four greater prophets, bearing on their

shoulders the four Evangelists, to symbolize the support which the

New Law receives from the Old. The western rose represents the Last

Judgment. The three splendid windows beneath it are more ancient than

the rest, and are said by those who are learned in stained glass

to date from the XIIth century at the latest. One of these is the

far-famed "Jesse Window," in which the tree of Jesse bears among the

verdure of its branches the royal ancestors of Our Lord; the second

represents scenes from his life, and the third those of his passion and

death; while above appears the resplendent figure of Mary, known by

the name of _Notre Dame de la Belle Verriere_, and justly celebrated

for its admirable beauty. In the seven great windows of the apse, Mary

is still the centre. In those of the choir occur amongst others the

figures of S. Louis, S. Ferdinand of Castile, Amaury IV., Count of

Montfort, and Simon de Montfort, his brother. The lower windows are

filled with scenes from the Holy Bible and the _Golden Legend_, and

contain a great number of figures of small size, while the higher ones

are principally occupied by grand and separate figures of prophets,

apostles, and saints.

Standing in the middle of the transept, one sees the extremities

darkened by the great masses of the porches, but above them shine the

great roses, whose rainbow hues play upon the entrance of the choir;

the aisles and chapels are softened by that sort of half-luminous

obscurity in which we find ourselves on entering the church; but the

shadows flee more and more before the light, which, ever increasing,

streams down in torrents as we approach the centre of the cross,

making the sanctuary resplendent with emerald and ruby rays. And this

marvellous picture has ever-changing aspects, beauties ever new,

according to the hour of the day, the brightness of the sun, and the

season of the year. Reader, when _in propriâ personâ_ you make your

pilgrimage to Notre Dame de Chartres, you will feel how poor and how

inadequate has our description been, and, with the Presence that is

ever there, will own that it is heaven in all but the locality.

We will conclude our sketch with a few historical notices of interest,

without which it would be incomplete.

Although we have lived to see occasionally something approaching to a

renewal of the ancient throngs of pilgrims, and notably so on the last

27th-30th of May, when a multitude of more than sixty thousand persons,

including twelve prelates, besides six hundred other ecclesiastics, two

generals, one hundred and fifty officers, and one hundred and forty

members of the National Assembly, went from Paris and various parts

of France on a pilgrimage to Chartres, still this does not recall the

continuous concourse of former days, when it often happened that the

town was not large enough to contain the crowds of strangers, so that

on the eve of certain festivals it was necessary to allow great numbers

of them to remain all night for shelter in the church itself. The

parvis of the cathedral, which slopes downwards from the choir to the

western door, rendered easy the cleansing process which followed in the

early morning, when floods of water were thrown upon the pavement.

This eager devotion of the common people has in it something more

touching even than the innumerable visits of the rich and great to this

chosen shrine. In the course of the XIIth century, Chartres numbered

among its pilgrims no less than three popes and five kings of France;

Philip Augustus being accompanied by his queen, Isabella of Hainault,

who came to ask Our Lady's intercession that she might have a son.

Whereupon, says William le Breton, even whilst the queen was making her

prayer, the candles upon the high altar suddenly lighted of themselves,

as if in token that her request was granted, and which accordingly came

to pass.

Before the completion of the church, it had been visited by two

princesses greater for their sanctity than for their rank--namely,

Blanche of Castile, the mother of S. Louis, and the gentle and pious

Isabelle, her sister. They were followed not long afterwards by the

holy monarch himself, who, on his first visit, was accompanied by

Henry III., of England, and on his second, in 1260, was present at the

consecration. Philip the Fair, who attributed his success at the battle

of Mons en Puelle entirely to the protection of Mary, came thither to

do her homage by offering the armor he had worn in the combat; and in

like manner Philip of Valois, after the victory of Cassel, gave to

the church of Chartres his charger and his arms. And when the times

darkened over France, and her king, John the Good, was the prisoner

of Edward III., the latter refused to listen to the entreaties of the

Dauphin and the Papal legate that he would grant peace on reasonable

terms, although "the Father of Christendom had again and again with

his own hand written letters to the English king, calling on him to

'forbear from the slaughter of souls redeemed by the Blood of Christ'";

success had made him relentless, and, leading on his victorious army,

he laid siege to Chartres. We learn from Froissart, among other

chroniclers, how Our Lady signalized her power, not only in saving the

city, but in leading, humble and submissive, the lion of England to

her feet: "For there befell to the King of England and all his men a

great miracle: a storm and thunder so great and horrible came down from

heaven on the English host that it seemed as if the end of the world

were come; for there fell down stones so great that they killed men

and horses, and so that even the boldest trembled."[82] ... "Thereupon

the King of England, leaping down from his saddle, and stretching out

his arms towards the church of Our Lady at Chartres, devoutly vowed

and promised to her that he would no longer refuse to grant peace upon

any terms consistent with his honor." When, therefore, he entered the

city, it was not as a warrior, but as a pilgrim; for he repaired at

once to the cathedral, in company with the Prince of Wales, the Duke

of Lancaster, and many other English knights, and shortly afterwards

signed the Peace of Bretigny.

Charles V., having revived the glory of the French arms, was not

unmindful of his gratitude to Our Lady of Chartres, to whom on two

occasions he made a pilgrimage barefoot, prostrating himself before the

sacred image; "considering," as he declares in his letters-patent, "the

splendid, great, and notable miracles which our Lord God works day by

day in the said church," and praying for the peace and prosperity of

his kingdom.

One other fact connected with the kings of France ought not to be

omitted--namely, the sacring of Henri IV., which, instead of taking

place at Rheims, according to, we believe, invariable precedent, was,

by his own special desire, solemnized in the church of Our Lady of

France at Chartres, when he made, as it were, a second abjuration by

thus publicly declaring himself to be henceforth a devoted client of

the Blessed Virgin. "Thus," observes the Abbé Hamon, _Curé_ of S.

Sulpice, "Protestantism, which had flattered itself with the hope of

mounting on the throne of France, was broken at the feet of Our Lady of

Chartres, where also paganism had expired before it in the defeat and

subsequent conversion of Rollo."

Were we to attempt to name the saints who have gone as pilgrims to

Chartres, from S. Anselm and S. Thomas à Becket to S. Francis de

Sales, S. Vincent de Paul, M. Olier, and the Blessed B. Labré, the

enumeration would be endless; and though it would require, not pages,

but volumes, to recount the favors obtained by the intercession of

the Blessed Virgin for her city, we cannot refrain from selecting a

few well-authenticated historical facts in addition to those already

mentioned.

In the year 1137, Louis le Gros, having great cause of displeasure

against Thibault, Count of Chartres, resolved to chastise him in a

signal manner, and advanced against his city, with the resolution to

raze it to the ground. The inhabitants were in the utmost terror and

distress, knowing their helplessness before the power of the irritated

monarch. The bishop, Geoffrey de Lieues, causing the reliquary

containing Our Lady's tunic to be taken from the church, carried it in

procession with his clergy and people outside the gates, and advanced

to the royal tent. At this sight, the anger of the king subsided. He

fell on his knees before the sacred relic, which he then devoutly

followed, entering alone into the city, not to destroy it, but to grant

it special privileges.

More than four centuries later, in 1568, Chartres was besieged by the

Huguenots under Condé. They opened a heavy fire against the Porte

Drouaire, above which gate the Chartrians placed an image of the

Blessed Virgin. This greatly excited their fury, and their utmost

endeavors were used to shoot it down. But the sacred image remained

untouched, though every stone near it was shattered. The rampart was

nevertheless so far weakened as to be unable longer to stand against

the powerful artillery. A large breach was opened, towards which the

besiegers crowded, that they might carry fire and desolation into the

city. But while the defenders believed that all was lost, the whole of

the population not in arms was praying in the cathedral. In the very

moment of their success, the enemy lost courage; the trumpets sounded a

retreat, and the Huguenot army left the city, never to return. It was

in memory of this signal deliverance that a chapel was raised between

the Porte Drouaire and the river Eure, dedicated to "Our Lady of the

Breach," and which, after being destroyed in 1789, was in 1844 rebuilt.

Whenever Chartres has been threatened with pestilence or famine it has

been customary for the bishop and dean of the chapter to bear the holy

tunic in procession from the cathedral to the Abbey of Josaphat, in the

midst of an immense concourse of the faithful, kneeling in the dust,

with heads uncovered. Even in our own time there has been a recurrence

of these expiatory solemnities. The cholera, which in 1832 made so many

victims in Paris, appeared also in Chartres, and deaths multiplied in

the city. But no sooner had the inhabitants, with all the religious

pomp and devotion of ancient days, borne the venerated relic through

the streets, imploring her succor who had for ages proved her right to

the title of _Tutela Carnutum_, than the plague was stayed. All the

sick were cured, and two more deaths only occurred--the deaths of two

persons who had publicly insulted the procession on its way. A gold

medal was struck on this occasion, having the following inscription;

"Voted to Our Lady of Chartres, by the inhabitants of the city, in

gratitude for the cessation of the cholera immediately after the solemn

procession celebrated to obtain her powerful intercession, on Sunday,

the 26th of August, 1832."

FOOTNOTES:

[79] "Then they took the holy garment, which had belonged to the Mother

of God, formerly in Constantinople; and a great king of France made of

it a precious and noble gift to Chartres--Charles the Bald, so called

from his name of infancy. This king presented it to Chartres."

[80] "The high and glorious Lady, who willed to have the church all

marvellous, and high, and long, and large, so that its equal nowhere

might be found, prayed sweetly to her gracious Son that manifest

miracles might be wrought in her church at Chartres for all the people

to behold, so that from all parts there might come persons who should

make offerings wherewith the church might be finished as it was

undertaken to be done."

[81] Except certain parts of the side portals, some of the statues of

which are of the XIVth century, the three gables, the chapel of S.

Piat, that of Vendôme, and the enclosure of the choir.

[82] _Les Grandes Chroniques_, tom. iv. ch. 46.

IN THY LIGHT SHALL WE SEE LIGHT.[83]

The moon, behind her pilot star,

Came up in orbèd gold:

And slowly near'd a fleecy bar

O'er-floating lone and cold.

I look'd again, and saw an isle

Of amber on the blue:

So changed the cloudlet by the smile

That softly lit it through.

Another look: the isle was gone--

As though dissolv'd away.

And could it be, so warmly shone

That chaste and tender ray?

I said: "O star, the faith art thou

That brought my life its Queen--

In her sweet light no longer now

The vapor it has been.

"Shine on, my Queen: and so possess

My being to its core,

That self may show from less to less--

Thy love from more to more."

A touch of the oars, and on we slid--

My cedar boat and I.

The dreaming water faintly chid

Our rudeness with a sigh.

LAKE GEORGE, September, 1873.

FOOTNOTES:

[83] PS. XXXV.

THE SEE OF S. FRANCIS OF SALES.

The "arrowy Rhone" and Lake Leman have become in modern literature

the counterparts of the classic Anio and Nemi of antiquity. Peculiar

memories cluster about their shores; they have been the intellectual

battle-field of systems, even while poets and dreamers were seeking

to make a Lethe of their enchanted waters; and perhaps on no other

northern spot in Europe has God lavished such beauties of color, of

atmosphere, of outline, and of luxuriant vegetation. Geneva rivals

the south in its growth of orange, oleander, and ilex, in its lake

of sapphire hue, its sunsets of intense variety of color, and its

profusion of white villas, homes of summer luxuriance, and temples of

delightful idleness. The clearness of the mountain air, the irregular

outlines of the smaller hills, the view of the Alps beyond--above

all, that of Mont Blanc--the quantity of hardy Alpine flowers, the

dusky, mediæval beauty of the town, and the unmistakable energy of its

sturdy-looking inhabitants, denote the northern character of Geneva.

The old Cathedral of S. Peter, where Calvin's chair is now the greatest

curiosity and almost the greatest ornament (so bare is the church),

and the new Cathedral of Notre Dame, a building hardly large enough

for the now numerous Catholic congregation of Geneva, speak of the

change that has come over the town in the last four hundred years. The

religious phases that have come and gone in this small and seemingly

insignificant spot form an epitome of the religious history of Europe.

The age of faith, the age of fanaticism, the age of indifferentism,

have reigned successively in Geneva. In the XIIIth century, as in

many an earlier one, High Mass was sung at S. Peter's, and monks or

canons sat in the stalls which yet remain in the choir; in the XVIth,

Calvin and Beza sat in plain black gown, teaching justification by

faith alone, and burning Michael Servetus for tenets that disturbed

the new "personal infallibility" of the Reformers; in the XIXth,

Socinianism is the creed of the "national" church, and Catholics,

Evangelicals, and Anglicans have each handsome and roomy buildings,

crowded on Sundays, and adorned with every outward sign of freedom of

worship. Catholics form half the population of the canton, and nearly

half that of the city itself. There are few conversions, however, so

that this proportion does not sensibly increase. Many of the suburbs

are entirely Catholic. The diocese extends to many Savoyard parishes,

which are, of course, altogether Catholic. Until the recent outbreak

against perfect liberty of conscience, when that liberty was to be

applied to the old church, the position of Catholics, clergy and laity,

was comparatively satisfactory; the bishop (of whom we shall speak

later) was universally beloved by his people, respected by his liberal

opponents, feared by his illiberal enemies; the moderate party in

politics, consisting of the class corresponding to an aristocracy, and

all of them men of polite bearing and strong religious (Evangelical)

convictions, were always on the side of Catholics in upholding their

privileges as citizens of the state, voters, and freeholders; the two

churches, S. Germain on "the hill," and Notre Dame on the plain (among

the new hotels and villas), besides other chapels on the Savoy side of

the lake, and the new suburb of Plainpalais, were always crowded, and

there were many schools for rich and poor under religious teachers. The

Sisters of Charity had a house, to which tradition pointed as the house

of Calvin; and many English visitors knocked at their door, to beg to

be allowed a peep into the courtyard, where they would pluck a blade

of grass as a memento or _relic_. These have now been suppressed; the

clergy, who were originally salaried by the state, have been thrown

on their own resources; the bishop has been sent beyond the frontier.

He is said to have remarked to the Holy Father, _à propos_ of this

measure: "Your Holiness sent me to Calvin; Calvin sent me to Voltaire

(the bishop's retreat is Ferney); but I have great hopes of outliving

them both."

Still, we would fain insist upon the great difference between this

mark of intolerance and the old rules of the Calvinistic theocracy.

The _Conseil d'Etat_ does _not_ represent Calvin and his personal

fanaticism; it speaks a language of its own, and one which Calvin

himself would be horrified to listen to--the language of state

supremacy defying God. If Calvin were alive, he would no doubt feel a

hearty satisfaction in burning Mgr. Mermillod; but he would have as

great a relish for the burning of Prince Bismarck. Calvinism was at

least sincere in its fanaticism; the Bismarckian animus is not even

that of a fanatic, but of a _cynic_. So it is not the spirit of the

pale, nervous reformer of the XVIth century that is responsible for

the recent outrage against freedom of conscience at Geneva; but a

spirit more potent, more ambitious, more grasping, and, above all, more

farseeing--the spirit of open infidelity boasting of its material power

of repression.

Of the political attitude of Geneva we need not speak, further than

to say that its acknowledged neutrality, and the intellectual culture

of its inhabitants, have given it a new life, and made of the focus

of the only "Reformation" that had any sincerity or inherent strength

in it a new focus of peaceful and dignified repose. From the _champ

clos_ of Calvinism, it has become the arena of the world, especially of

diplomacy, and the city of refuge of all exiles, royalist, Mazzinist,

and social. Among the latter came one who has contributed to Geneva's

glory--Byron, the gifted prodigal, who is among poets as the "morning

star" once was among angels. We meant, however, to speak rather of one

of Geneva's citizens than of the historic city itself; though such are

the manifold charms of the place that only to name it is a temptation

to plunge at once into a thousand speculations as to its past and a

thousand theories as to its future.

Mgr. Mermillod, the successor of S. Francis of Sales, is a native of

Caronge, a suburb of Geneva, and was born of a Catholic family, poor

in the world's goods, and obscure in its estimation. He has a vivacity

rather French than Genevese, but with a solid foundation of that more

serious character which distinguishes his countrymen. As an orator,

he is hardly second to the Bishop of Orléans, Mgr. Dupanloup; as a

lecturer to pious women on the duties of womanhood, he is superior

to most ecclesiastics. In the guidance of souls, the enlightened

discrimination between what is in itself wrong, and what harmless if

done in a proper spirit, he seems to have inherited the special gift of

S. Francis of Sales in directing women of good family, living at court

or otherwise, in the world. His singular prudence and the graciousness

of his manner are essential helps to him in the prominent position he

holds towards modern governments, and the daily contact which confronts

him with modern sentiment. He is the weapon expressly fashioned for

the last new phase into which the eternal struggle against the world,

the flesh, and the devil has entered. Like S. Francis, he wraps his

strength in gentleness, and carries out the _suaviter in modo, fortiter

in re_. In conversation, of which he is fond--for his is not the

monastic ideal of holiness--he is sprightly, witty, and accurate. His

power of crystallizing ideas into a _mot_ is quite French, and the

childlike joyousness of his demeanor is no less so. The word ascetic

seems to imply the very antipodes of his nature; and yet his private

apartment, which we were once privileged to see, is almost like a

cell. Here is a description of it, gathered from the impressions

of two worthy visitors: "I felt," says one, "in this little _buco_

(hole) as if I were in the cell of a saint, and examined everything

with veneration. That little _prie-Dieu_, so simple in its build,

which daily witnesses the prayers and sighs of the pastor, anxious

for his flock and the souls entrusted to him by God; of the Christian

humbling himself and praying for his own needs.... Perhaps some day

this little room will be visited as S. Charles Borromeo's is now at

Milan. I am favored in that I know it already. Two purple stocks and

the tasselled hat alone recalled the _bishop_, while the framed table

of a 'Seminarist's Duties,' taken in connection with the simplicity,

nay, poverty, of the room, might make one think it the habitation of a

young cleric."

And another account adds: "What a memory to have seen this room, so

narrow, so humble, so evidently the home of a saint! We shall always

be able to fix the picture of the bishop in our memory, night or day,

praying or working, at all times; ... and that beautiful print of

Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque, and that tiny _prie-Dieu_!"

The bishop's library, his ordinary working-room, was also a very simple

retreat, and often fireless in the coldest days of winter. The house

stood next door to the cathedral, and the rest of the clergy, four or

five in all, lived there in community. Among them was the old vicar,

the second priest to whose charge the reconstituted parish of Geneva

had been entrusted before being raised to the dignity of a bishopric.

It was very touching to watch this old man lovingly deferring to the

young bishop, who was formerly but a curate under him, and rejoicing

as a father in the elevation of one of whose fitness for the episcopal

office he, above all, had reason to be certain.

"No man securely commands but he who has learned well to obey."[84]

Another of the clergy was a very remarkable man, the type of a

character found nowhere in these days save under the cowl of the monk,

and even among religious probably nowhere save in the Benedictine

Order. He was the bishop's private secretary, and his right hand in

the business of the diocese. He belonged to the Reformed Benedictines

of Solesmes, and was a friend and spiritual subject of Dom Guéranger,

author of the invaluable _Liturgical Year_, the beautiful _History of

S. Cecilia_, and other works. It was only by a special dispensation

that he was allowed to hold his present position and live outside his

cloister; but having, in early life, been the schoolmate of the bishop,

and being eminently fitted to wield ecclesiastical sway, this privilege

(which was none to him, however) had been obtained by Mgr. Mermillod.

He was called rather by the title of his religious profession, _le

père_, than by his name in the world--a name since become known as

that of the author of a learned and voluminous _Life of S. Dunstan_.

He was, as it were, a stranded pilgrim in this age of compromise--a

stern, heroic soul cast in the giant mould of the XIIIth century;

rather a Bernard of Clairvaux than a Francis of Sales; in learning a

descendant of Duns Scotus, and a disciple of Aristotle; an ascetic, a

scholastic, a rigid disciplinarian, an unerring director. In person

tall, dignified, spare of form, with keen, eagle glance, clear-cut,

largely-moulded features; in dress simple to rusticity, and a fit model

for an old monkish carving at the foot of a pulpit or on the boss of an

arch.

They completed each other, these two saintly characters, the bishop

and the monk, bound together in a mystic marriage for the production

of spiritual children for God and the church; and the contrast between

them seemed, as it were, typical of that other union of distant ages,

one with another, for the furtherance of a principle ever the same,

whether its accidental exponent be Peter the fisherman, Hildebrand the

Reformer, Bernard the monk, Francis of Sales, the gentle bishop, or

Pius IX., the yet more gentle and more persecuted Pope.

Our stay at Geneva covered three-fourths of a year, so that we grew

familiar with the beauties of the neighborhood in its different

aspects of summer, autumn, and winter. It would be difficult to

chronicle every detail of these beauties of earth, sky, and water,

which, as the seasons brought them severally into prominence, seemed to

form a series of cabinet pictures for memory to dwell upon ever after.

There is nothing like a long stay in one place to make one feel its

loveliness; the transient wayfarer among the most enchanting scenes

sees not a quarter as much natural beauty as the constant dweller in

a less favored spot. In the wild rush, named with unconscious satire

a _tour_, the traveller sees a kaleidoscopic mixture of incongruous,

discordant beauties, and of each in detail he sees but one phase,

sometimes an abnormal one, sometimes an obscured one, and not seldom

he sees but the vacant place where this beauty should be. His opinions

are hastily formed, and, strange phenomenon! the more hastily the more

ineradicably, and they are often erroneous, or at least one-sided. A

man looking for the moon during the week when the moon is new, and

concluding, therefore, that no moon exists or is visible at any time,

would not be a rasher tale-teller than he who asserted that because

he passed twenty-four hours in Venice during a fog, therefore the sun

never shone in the Adriatic city; or that since in a week's scamper

through the environs of Naples he never came across a beautiful woman,

therefore the type of the Grecian goddess was extinct among the women

of Parthenope. Sweeping statements are as invariably wrong as they

are temptingly easy to make; it is needless to say how intellectually

absurd they are. Give your experience _as_ your experience, and you

will have contributed something to the sum total of acquisition

on any given subject; but do not give it as the only, absolute,

indisputable, and final result of research. All knowledge is but

partial; it is subject to all kinds of qualifications. Few men can

speak with authority of more than a grain of it at a time, and it is

equally unwise and undignified to put yourself in the position of the

Pharisee whom the lord of the feast directed to give place to a guest

of worthier and seemlier station. But this is a digression. We began by

saying that long residence in one place is the true way to see, learn,

and probe its beauties; as well as its resources. Until your heart

_grows to_ a place, you do not _know_ it, and no place unassociated

with family or patriotic connections can teach your heart to _grow to_

it without long residence. Perhaps there are exceptions, corresponding

to "love at first sight," but even this in human relations is only an

exception. We remember one place, seen for one day only, for which

this sadder feeling of kinship and yearning grew up in our heart--it

was Heidelberg; but intimate knowledge in ordinary cases is the only

channel to a great and appreciative love.

Geneva won its way to our love thus, and, more than any one spot we

visited--not excepting even Rome--came to represent to the memory the

happiest, most peaceful, and most fruitful period of our lives. We

shall be forgiven if we draw a sketch of the surroundings which are

associated with our knowledge of the Bishop of Geneva. In all our

reminiscences his figure is the central one, and the group of persons

who formed our circle of friendship seems naturally to revolve around

his person. Our summer life was spent in a shy little villa, invisible

from the high-road, and embowered in groves of pine, chestnut, and

oak; our winter days were passed, perforce, at the uncongenial but

perfectly appointed Hôtel de la Paix. The party consisted of our

own family only, with one or two accidental additions from England

for a week at a time. The house was slightly built and cottage-like,

with a flight of steps on each side, the front stoop being festooned

with a jessamine-vine, and the wide, grand drive, flanked by a bed of

flaming balsam-flowers, sweeping up to the door under the shade of two

or three massive horse-chestnuts. No room in the house was carpeted,

and only the drawing-room had a _parquet_ floor. The bed-rooms were

miracles of simplicity and cleanliness--milk-white boards, white-washed

walls, no curtains to bed or window, and an absence of any furniture,

save a narrow bed, a washstand, a dimity-covered table, and one cane

chair, making them seem so many dormitory sections partitioned off.

We made the "best" room a little more picturesque, as that of a loved

invalid never fails to be, by the help of crimson velvet coverlets,

blue silk and knitted wool in cushions, a portable easy-chair, muslin

bed-curtains, and a display of cut-glass bottles with gold stoppers--in

short, the contents of an English dressing-case on the pretty,

white-robed table. Books, also, and any pretty thing that struck our

fancy in the treasure-houses of the town, accumulated here, and made

of it the choicest room in the house. We had a severer trysting-place

on the ground-floor, where reading was carried on systematically,

illuminating and ecclesiastical embroidery filled up many an hour,

and our journals (from which we have already quoted) were compiled.

But there was a rarer treasure yet--a chapel. A tiny room, darkened

_all' Italiana_, with red curtains, and containing a portable altar

suitably draped, recalled the oratories of Roman _palazzi_; and here

was often seen the tall figure of _le père_ and a little chorister

from Notre Dame, as we had Mass said there generally twice a week. It

was a sanctification to the house, and we felt it an incitement in our

"labor of love" of reading and manual work. Another gathering-spot was

the wall on the garden side, forming the parapet between the terrace

and the lower level of meadow-land. There was a whole colony of spiders

nestled in the miniature grove of jessamine that hid the wall; and,

as we sat with our books on the steps leading from the terrace, we

assisted, as it were, at a perpetual natural history lecture _in

actu_. The webs were generally very perfect, and, as the autumn came

on, the early dews transformed them into a jewelled network, shining

rainbow-wise, with the loveliest prismatic hues. Sometimes, when they

were broken, they seemed like a cordage of diamonds--the tangled ruins

of some fairy wreck clinging to the mast, represented by a green twig.

But there was in the grounds another more sylvan and lonely retreat

still--our own especial haunt. It was a damp valley, below the level

of the high-road, carpeted with periwinkles and decaying leaves, and

shut out from human observation by a grove of oaks and chestnuts. A

peculiar darkness always brooded over it, and one might have forgotten

the existence of noontide had he spent twenty-four hours in its gloom.

A little brook ran along the bottom, its waters carrying miniature

freight-barks in the shape of half-opened horse-chestnuts or curled

and browned oak-leaves. If anything so small could bear so lofty a

likeness, we should say that this sombre valley was akin to a Druidical

grove.

Our outdoor pleasures were few, as the world understands them; they

mostly consisted of long drives into the interior, where we would

often pass dignified, melancholy-looking iron portals, let into a wall

festooned profusely with the Virginia creeper, and giving a glimpse

of some deserted, parklike expanse of meadow. Other less pretentious

entrances showed a wilderness of roses, flowering shrubs, and vines,

but always in contrast with the luxuriant Virginia creeper, which

nowhere else in Europe grows in such perfection. A variety of shades

absolutely Western greets the eye and delights the imagination; the

hues of the Indian summer seem concentrated in this one plant, and,

from its rich glow, an artist can easily guess what a forest of

indefinitely multiplied trees, painted in the colors of this creeper,

would look like. Two of our visitors were welcome additions to our

party and sympathetic sharers in our pleasures--one, a lady well known

for her energetic and active charity, whose presence in any place

pointed invariably to some hidden work of mercy to be performed there,

and whose mission just then was to comfort a lonely and despairing

widow under peculiarly trying aggravations of her sorrow; the other

an artist whose name in his public capacity has already appeared more

than once in the pages of THE CATHOLIC WORLD, and whose character of

childlike simplicity and reverent earnestness has endeared him to us in

private life as a friend and a model.

People staying at Geneva--at least, English people--always make a point

of going through the arduous expedition to Chamouni and the Mer de

Glace. We do not mean to disparage the spirit which inevitably urges

on our countrymen and countrywomen to put their necks in jeopardy on

the slightest provocation; but, turning the adventurous instinct of our

Anglo-Saxon blood to a better purpose, we chose rather to make two

or three expeditions to sites hallowed by the presence of the Apostle

of Geneva--S. Francis of Sales. Mont Blanc could not, from any point

of view, appear more majestically beautiful than it does from the

shores of Lake Leman; and we preferred to gaze upon the monarch with

the eye of an artist rather than that of a gymnast. We here lean upon

the authority of Ruskin, whom we are glad to appeal to in an instance

where his naturally reverential mind makes him a safe and unbiassed

guide. Our first pilgrimage was to the Castle _des Allinges_, on the

Savoy side of the lake, a ruin now, but where, in former days, the

saint often said Mass in a chapel, which is the only part of the castle

still untouched. There is no lack of visitors to this shrine during

the summer, and each party is generally accompanied by a priest. We

were happy in persuading _le père_ to be our companion, and started

overnight for the village of Thonon. The lake was unruffled, and the

sun shining tropically, as the little steam boat carried us over the

waters. Thonon is a Catholic village, with an ugly church, adorned by

carved and gilded cherubs and other unsightly excrescences ambitiously

striving to be Michael Angelos and Donatellos. Frogs never can let

oxen alone, especially in art. We slept at the inn, a picturesque and

proportionately dirty hostelry, very little changed, we should say,

from what it was in the days of S. Francis. It stands on a high terrace

above the lake, the top of which terrace forms a drilling-ground;

for Thonon has fortifications and the ghost of a garrison. The road

from the boat-landing winds up through stunted vines to a dilapidated

gateway, and is often dotted by the curious one-horse vehicle of the

country, called _char-à-banc_--_i.e._ a sort of diminutive brougham

turned sideways, and hardly capable of holding two persons--a kind

of side-saddle locomotion rather curious to any one accustomed to sit

with his face to the horses. The view over the lake by sunrise the

next morning was dreamlike in its beauty--each rounded peak veiled

in mist, and the motionless waters lying at their base as a floor of

azure crystal. As we went further up into the mountains, the sun's rays

flashed on hill after hill, throwing a softened radiance over each,

and shooting darts of gold across the clear blue of the lake. We met

carts laden with wheat-sheaves, and men and boys going to their day's

work; passed farms and dairies before coming to the heathery waste that

separates the lonely hill-top of _les Allinges_ from the cultivated

lands below; jolted over the stony path, called, in mockery, a _road_;

and, having seen in a short two hours' drive as many beauties as we

could conveniently remember, arrived at the Chapel of S. Francis. It

has been changed since his time, but the altar is said to be the one

at which he celebrated Mass. The chapel is a white-washed room like a

rough school-room, fitted up with painted benches and cheap prints; but

the feeling that draws so many Christian hearts to this refuge of the

missionary Bishop of Geneva hallows the bare walls and open poverty of

the chapel, and a spirit seems to rise from the altar recess to rebuke

any worldly sense of disparagement or even disappointment. The manner

in which _le père_ said Mass was enough to make one feel the solemnity

of the occasion and the gratitude that ought to possess one after

having had the privilege, doubtless not to be repeated in a lifetime,

of praying on this consecrated spot. We all received holy communion

during Mass. An old man is stationed at _les Allinges_ as _custos_,

sacristan, and Mass-server; and his little garden, in full view of the

lake, makes a pretty domestic picture grafted on to the mediæval one of

the "ruined castle ivy-draped."

S. Francis, so says tradition, often wandered day and night over

this mountain on his apostolic missions, and, being once overtaken

by darkness, found no better resting-place than the fork of a

chestnut-tree. Wrapped in his cloak, he there went to sleep, lulled by

the howling of the wolves, which abounded in that neighborhood. Many

similar stories are told in Savoy of his missionary adventures; one of

them recording that one day he presented himself, with two or three

companions, at one of the gates of Geneva. The guard, not knowing him,

asked who he was, before he would allow him to pass; the saint calmly

and smilingly replied, "I am _l'évêque du lieu_" (the bishop of the

place). The guard, concluding he was some foreign visitor, and that

_Dulieu_ was the name of his diocese or manor, nonchalantly opened the

gate, and let him in. When the magistracy discovered _who_ had thus

got entrance into the city of Calvin, there was a terrible outcry;

the too innocent guard was summoned and threatened with death for

his gross neglect of his duty, and a hasty search was begun for the

hated Papist bishop. S. Francis had by that time quietly finished his

business and left the hostile walls of Geneva. This is not unlike the

incident related by Cardinal Wiseman in _Fabiola_, where a Christian

substitutes for the watchword _Numen Imperatorum_, without repeating

which he could not pass out to his secret worship in the catacombs,

the words similar in sound, though widely different in meaning, _Nomen

Imperatorum_, and succeeds in cheating the guard, who was a Pannonian,

and whose knowledge of Latin was but elementary. It was probably during

one of these stolen visits that S. Francis administered the sacraments

to a poor Catholic servant-girl in the cellar of the _Hôtel de l'Ecu

d'or_--an old inn still standing at Geneva, and where the identical

apartment is now shown.

From Thonon we took the boat to Lausanne, on the opposite side of

the lake, visited the Castle of Chillon, and returned to Geneva,

after another night spent at the Vevay end of Lake Leman; where the

mountains, purple and rounded; the vegetation, southern in its quality

and luxuriance; the winding road by the shore--all contribute to remind

you of the Bay of Naples and the Sorrento road along the Mediterranean.

Lausanne itself, its cathedral, monuments, fortifications, and general

quaintness of architecture and beauty of position, was the goal of

another expedition, in which our English friend, Mr. B----, accompanied

us, and became our commentator and artistic guide.

There were many other places we also visited; one of us was

indefatigable, and followed the bishop to Thonex, where he solemnly

deposited a _corpo santo_; to Collonge, where he blessed a new cemetery

with all the pomp of ritual, made easy by this village being situated

on Savoyard ground; and to Caronge, where he distributed the prizes at

a girl's school, and gave an excellent and appropriate lecture on the

education of women in this century.

But the most beautiful ceremony of all was the consecration of the new

parish church of Bellegarde, the French frontier post and custom-house.

This village is a mere handful of white-washed cottages dropped among

the spurs of the Jura range. The mountains, though not high, have all

the beauty of the Alps; their varied outline, their abrupt gorges,

and their swift torrents being yet more beautiful because embowered

in a vegetation of softer aspect than the monumental pineries which

close-clothe the Alps. Within half a mile of Bellegarde is a curious

natural phenomenon--_la perte du Rhône_. The river, here scarcely more

than a mountain brook, after struggling through a barren, sandy bed,

strewn with boulders of a porous white stone worn by the action of

the water into strange shapes of vases, cauldrons, and urns, suddenly

plunges under an arched entrance in a wall of rocks, and disappears.

Its subterranean course is some miles long, and it re-emerges, on a

lower level, a placid, shallow stream. Around the mouth of this unknown

cavern the scenery is very striking; deep clefts of rock, with fringes

of Alpine flowers, alternate with thick growths of oak and chestnut;

and from every peaklet of the mountains some charming pastoral scene

comes into view. The new church was a plain white building, of no

architectural pretensions, but strong and impervious to the weather.

The internal decorations were simple in the extreme; no frog emulation

here, as in ambitious Thonon. For once we saw French peasants _au

naturel_; they really seemed the fervent, hospitable, unsophisticated

people one longs to see. The Jura protects Bellegarde from Geneva;

there is no large town near on the French side, and there is neither

hotel, nor mineral springs, nor iron mines, nor natural resources of

any kind to attract the acquisitive mind of the XIXth century. So God

still reigns undisturbedly in this narrow kingdom--narrow, indeed, if

measured by the numerical strength of its inhabitants, but noble and

precious if measured by the worth of each immortal soul which it holds.

The people were collected outside the church, as the full ceremonies of

consecration were going to be performed, and many of these take place

before the people can canonically be admitted into the interior. A

priest stood on the natural pulpit of a low stone wall, describing to

the faithful the symbolic meaning of each ceremony, as the bishop and

his assistants passed round and round the walls, chanting psalms and

anointing the building, or, entering the portals, inscribed the Greek

and Latin alphabets in the form of a cross on the floor of the church,

made seven crosses on the different internal walls, and recited psalms

and litanies before each. The men stood in the burning sun, bare-headed

and motionless, often kneeling in the dust, and singing hymns in French

corresponding to the meaning of the Latin prayers; a line of _Gardes

Nationales_, in uniforms rather the worse for wear, and many wearing

the Crimean medal, stood opposite the entrance, while an excruciating

brass band played with a will a mixture of national and religious airs.

When at last the congregation all poured into the church, High Mass was

sung, the brass band doing duty in a scarcely less subdued tone than

before, but being as much of an improvement upon the theatrical and

sensuous exhibitions nicknamed _sacred_ music in many grander churches,

as a rough but pious print is--religiously speaking--an improvement

on a lascivious Rubens. The sermon (we forget whether preached by the

bishop or not) was a touching exhortation to the people to remain knit

in heart and soul to this church, the emblem at once of their hopes

in the future and their spiritual struggles in the present. In the

afternoon, the bishop sang solemn Vespers, and towards dusk we all

returned to Geneva, happy in having witnessed a ceremony so seldom seen

in its beautiful entirety. Mgr. Mermillod was throughout the summer

our frequent guest at the villa, and as we purposed staying through

the winter as well, he promised to accompany us to Annecy, in Savoy,

to visit S. Francis of Sales' tomb and other places hallowed by his

memory, on his own feast (29th of January). We started on the eve in

two or three close carriages, with postilions. The road lay over a low

pass of the Savoy Alps; the cold was intense--such as we have never

felt in any other temperate climate in Europe, and which nothing but

the unexpectedly rigorous winters of the Northern States have surpassed

in our American experience. The road was lined with trees, and valleys

here and there opened a vista which in summer must have been gorgeous.

It was scarcely less lovely now. Each slender twig was sharply defined,

and covered with a clinging garment of frost; the white mist wreathed

itself round the mountain-tops, falling down the river-sides like

shadowy waterfalls, and, mingling with the white sky overhead, formed,

as it were, a vast dome of snow. No noise disturbed the silence save

the creaking wheels of our vehicles, and as far as eye could reach

there was no sign of life but our own presence. We might have been in

cloud-land, or below the surface of the ocean, among hedges of gigantic

white coral! After two hours of this elf-like journey, we came to a

ravine over which was thrown an iron suspension bridge, and here the

intensely earthly resumed its dominion and made itself clearly felt

in the prosaic necessity of paying toll and listening to profane

language, rendered yet more uncouth by the Savoyard _patois_.

Annecy is a little, old-fashioned town, with a cathedral in not much

better taste than the church of Thonon. The place wears a deserted

look, and, the cold being terrible, yet fewer of the inhabitants cared

to be seen loitering in the public squares. We adjourned first to the

inn (we fear modern pilgrims are less fervent than of old), but could

get no fire. Grates are unknown, and a miserable stove, badly managed

and half filled, is the starveling and inefficient substitute. The

old inn was a characteristic place. We went through the kitchen, the

general meeting and _table-d'hôte_ room, to our upper chambers. The

staircase was wide enough for a palace, of beautiful carved oak, as

was all the wood-work in the house. The next morning the bishop said

Mass for us at the shrine of S. Francis. The building of greatest

interest after this is the Convent of the Visitation, a rambling house

with a large kitchen-garden, which we crossed to reach it. We were

shown, through a double grating (the Visitation nuns are enclosed),

the various relics which form the spiritual wealth of the convent.

They have the original manuscript of S. Francis' _Treatise on the

Love of God_ written by his own hand, the pen with which he wrote it,

and a shirt embroidered for him by S. Jeanne Françoise de Chantal.

In the lower part of the house, corresponding to the position of a

cellar, is a little chapel partly hewn in the rock, which serves as

the foundation, where S. Francis gave the veil to S. Jane and one

companion, or rather, blessed the first semi-religious costume which

the founders of the order wore. This consisted of a black gown and

cape, and a large, close, white cap in one piece covering the neck and

shoulders as well as the head. This house then belonged to S. Jane in

her own right. In the chapel to the right of the altar is a picture of

her in this dress, and on the other side a description of the simple

ceremony. Later on, when the order was constituted, the dress became

thoroughly monastic, as it has remained ever since. The cell of S. Jane

is exactly as she left it; not made into a regular chapel, but, on days

connected with her memory or that of S. Francis, Mass is said there at

a temporary altar. Her cloak is kept in a press in the room, and one

of us was privileged in having it thrown over her shoulders for a few

minutes by the superioress. The order is not at all austere, but there

is an immense deal of moral sacrifice imposed by the spirit of the

rule. S. Francis designed it rather as a discipline of the mind than of

the body; and since saints have differed about this point, we are not

at a sufficient elevation to pronounce upon it. Individually, however,

we prefer the spirit of the older and more ascetic orders, as involving

a more complete oblation of the whole being to God; but--to every age

its own institutions, and, we might add, its own saints.

Mgr. Mermillod is surely one of those saints of our day. Indefatigable

in preaching (once the distinctive duty of a bishop), his own flock

sometimes complain, not without reason, that he is always away,

preaching a retreat here, a mission there--Lent in Paris, Advent at

Lyons, etc.; but in the winter of 1866, he fortunately preached five

_conférences_ at S. Germain, at Geneva itself. The church was in the

old, hilly part of the town, but neither that nor the difficulty of

approach--the frost made steep roads impassable that winter, and even

the cabs went on runners--seemed to diminish the ardor of the people.

All denominations were represented at these evening lectures, and

the subject was invariably one accessible to the understanding and

commanding the interest of all. One, on the regeneration of fallen

man, was peculiarly fine; but the arguments were perhaps inferior to

the language in which they were clothed. It wound up with a forcible

peroration on that "brutal and atheistical democracy which, in its

most hideous exponent (the French Revolution of 1793), prostrated

itself before a courtesan, and knelt before a scaffold. When the

worship of God perished, the worship of shame was the substitute; and

when the blood of God ceased to flow upon the altar, the blood of man

began to flow on the guillotine." The orator's enthusiasm in speaking

sometimes carried him beyond his argument, and he even lost the thread

of his similes in the ardor of his utterance. His watch invariably

stopped before he had been twenty minutes in the pulpit, and this

_entraînement_ was all the more vivid from being quite spontaneous, as

he never wrote his sermons, but preached extempore from a few scattered

notes. How much study he must have gone through at a previous time to

make him so polished, as well as so forcible, an orator, we can only

conjecture.

In ordinary social intercourse, his charm was chiefly sweetness and

sprightliness, with a certain happy diction which is a special gift,

seldom found except among Frenchmen or those to whom French has

become a second mother-tongue. Our long winter evenings at the Hôtel

de la Paix (the cold having driven us from the villa) were often

enlivened by his genial presence; other friends, too, came sometimes,

and one, a Russian and an acute thinker, M. S----, was one of the

most welcome. He was blind, but his infirmity only seemed to enhance

his powers of conversation, and made his company more agreeable than

it might otherwise have been. One night, the bishop was speaking of

Lamennais and his more hidden life. There were soul-struggles and

temptations assaulting him even in his chosen retreat of La Chênaie,

in the midst of his triumph, when the Christian youth of France

clustered round him, and sat at his feet as his humble disciples. He

sometimes fancied himself irretrievably destined to eternal loss,

and experienced paroxysms of terrible agony. The Abbé Gerbet, his

confessor, once surprised him in one of these fits of despair, and did

his best to strengthen and comfort him; but the demon was not to be

laid so easily. The bishop, telling us this, added: "The three greatest

geniuses of France in this age have fallen, the one through pride, the

others through vanity--Lamennais, Victor Hugo, and Lamartine." The

conversation having rested upon these two failings, some one quoted the

saying that "The greater part of mankind is incapable of rising to the

level of pride." A Russian lady who was present then said: "Indeed,

one ought to have a great deal of pride to save one's self from petty

vanity."

Thereupon M. S---- quickly remarked: "Oh! therefore, we should burn

down a city to prevent fires." Our Russian friend was very sharp at

repartee. Another evening, when he brought with him a young German,

the conversation fell upon Duke Ernest of Saxe-Coburg, Prince Albert's

brother. He had lately had an immense forest awarded to him as damages

for some losses sustained during the Austro-Prussian war of the

previous summer; so S----said:

"There are people who make arrows out of any wood, but he has contrived

to make wood out of any arrow." This is a French rendering of "'Tis

an ill wind that blows no one good"; but the connection in this case

between an arrow, a weapon typical of the war, and the wood, or forest

gained in compensation, is better expressed by the French form.[85]

Later on, some one remarked that in that war the telegraph had been

_Prussianized_ throughout Germany; and when the young German, S----

's friend, was trying to give us an idea of Duke Ernest's ticklish

position, S---- interrupted:

"Yes, yes; I know what you mean; in short, he played the part ... of

the telegraph!"

Mgr. Mermillod had a winning way of turning everything into a moral,

and at the same time giving balm to a rebuke and strength to a counsel.

For instance, one day, as he visited a sick penitent of his, whose

mental energy was for ever soaring beyond her physical capabilities, he

said:

"You will do more good on your sick-bed than you could in the best

of health in the London _salons_. Remember that Our Blessed Lord lay

but three hours stretched upon the cross, and thereby converted the

world; while, during his three years' ministry, he scarcely converted a

handful of Jews."

On New Year's Eve, 1866-7, gave us a few little books of devotion as

a souvenir, and then, making the sign of the cross on each of our

foreheads, said:

"Here are crosses to disperse the crosses of 1866 and frighten away

those of 1867."

Another time, on one of his penitents going to him with a load of

doubt, uneasiness, almost despair, he gave her the wisest and gentlest

counsels, after which he said sympathizingly, comprehending the whole

in a dozen words:

"I understand, my child; you go from one extreme to another--from

sadness to laughter, from melancholy to irony."

Once when some one in his presence expressed a wish that all priests

were like him, he answered humbly: "My dear child, every priest is in

some sort an incarnation of the Spirit of God."[86]

It is sad to think of Geneva without the presence of its pastor, so

admirably fitted as he is to carry on the work of S. Francis and

execute the designs of God in this important see. The faith is most

vigorous just where the attack is hottest, and it is on the missionary

bishoprics, flung thus into the warring bosoms of non-Catholic nations,

that, humanly speaking, the future--and let us say the triumph--of the

church very much depends.

With such internal bulwarks as the Benedictine secretary of Mgr.

Mermillod represents, and such external champions as the eloquent,

energetic, and enlightened bishop himself, it is not too much to say

that not even the faintest heart has reason to dread the fall of the

rock-built citadel of Peter.

FOOTNOTES:

[84] _Following of Christ_, b. 1. c. xx. v. 2.

[85] The original proverb sounds less ponderously: "Il en est qui font

flèche de tout bois, mai lui, il a fait bois de toute flèche."

[86] The Catholic reader will not misunderstand the still more forcible

original: "Tous les prêtres c'est une petite incarnation du bon Dieu."

CATHOLIC LITERATURE IN ENGLAND SINCE THE REFORMATION.

It is not surprising that Catholic literature was at a low ebb for

many years after Henry VIII., of evil memory. Deprived of the means of

knowledge in their own country under Edward VI., Elizabeth, and James

I., Catholics were compelled to seek education abroad in colleges

where they forgot their mother-tongue and the writers of their native

land. As to their brethren who remained at home, it was dangerous for

them even to possess books, and they seldom had time or opportunity to

make themselves acquainted with their contents. A prayer-book, black

with use and carefully secreted, was all the library of those who were

liable at any moment to be ferreted out of vaults and wainscots, and

hanged, drawn, and quartered for believing in the Papal supremacy. The

Puritan movement in the time of Charles I. and the Commonwealth was

highly unfavorable to literature in general; and the Catholics who

joined the royal standard were more anxious to wield the sword than

the pen. But the fewer the authors who broke the long literary silence

of the Catholic body in England, the more their names deserve to be

cherished. We will endeavor, therefore, to make a _catena auctorum_,

and to offer a few comments on each link in the chain. Though all of

them were Catholics at some period or other of their lives, they were

not all persistent in their faith nor exemplary in their practice. It

will be understood that they are cited in their literary capacity, and

not as saints, martyrs, and confessors in a calendar.

Robert Southwell, however, must head the list, as he was both author

and martyr. He published many volumes in prose and verse, though his

life was closed prematurely in his thirty-fifth year. Educated at

Douay, he labored in England eight years during Elizabeth's reign.

He was a member of the Society of Jesus, and he touched the hearts

of his suffering brethren by his tender and plaintive verse. _S.

Peter's Complaint, with Other Poems_, appeared in 1593, and _Mœoniæ,

or Certaine Excellent Poems and Spirituall Hymnes_, in 1595, the year

in which he was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn, under a false

charge of being engaged in a political movement. His real offence

was that of the Bishop of Ermeland and the Jesuits of Germany in the

present day--his allegiance in spiritual matters to the authority

of the Holy See. Robert Southwell's memory is still cherished in

England, and it is not long since selections from his poems were read

to a crowded audience in Hanover Square Rooms, London, by the Rev. F.

Christie, S.J. They do not rise high in poetic merit, but they are full

of noble, just, and devout sentiments. "Time Goes by Turns" is found in

most collections of British poetry. The following are the last stanzas

of his "Conscience":

"No change of fortune's calms

Can cast my comforts down;

When fortune smiles, I smile to think

How quickly she will frown.

"And when in froward mood

She moves an angry foe,

Small gain I find to let her come,

Less loss to let her go."

Religious writings--sermons, meditations, and even works of

controversy--had more importance, in a literary point of view, in

Queen Elizabeth's reign than they have now. At that time, people read

little; books were few and dear. Books of piety cultivated the mind,

though used chiefly to edify the heart. They exercised many persons in

the art of reading, who, but for that branch of literature, would have

read nothing at all. They kept up a habit which was good on secular

grounds, apart from the higher spiritual consideration. Looked upon

in this light, the tracts and letters of such holy men as Campion,

Persons, and Allen (afterwards cardinal) had a twofold value. Edmund

Campion was an accomplished scholar. He received his education at S.

John's, Oxford, and being courteous and refined, as well as clever, he

was universally beloved. After leaving college, he went to Ireland,

and wrote a history of that country, which was highly esteemed. Having

been reconciled to the church, he repaired to the new college at Douay,

that he might there study theology; and after following the usual

course, he was admitted into the Society of Jesus, and sent to England

to comfort and strengthen his brethren who were contending for the

faith. His friendship for Persons, his publication of a work written

by that father, entitled _Reasons for not Going to Church_ (that is,

to the parish Protestant church), and the seizure of a private press,

which a Catholic gentleman had given to the friends, that they might

work off edifying books and tracts, led to his apprehension. He was

dragged through the streets of London, with a paper fixed on his hat,

stigmatizing him as "Campion, the seditious Jesuit" (July, 1581),

and being tried for treason, of which he was quite guiltless, he was

barbarously executed, after suffering the most horrible tortures. The

life of Cardinal Allen, if carefully written, would be an important

addition to English Catholic literature, and involve numerous

particulars of thrilling interest respecting the political and domestic

history of the times. His writings lie in the border-land between

theology and politics. His _Apology or Defence of the Jesuits and

Seminarists_ was a reply, written in 1582, to the proclamations of the

government which denounced the Catholic priests as traitors. Persons

engaged in the same controversy, dwelling chiefly on the dogmatic and

practical side of the question. All honor to these heroes of the cross,

whom literature as well as religion claims as her own!

In placing "Rare Ben Jonson" among Catholic authors, it is not meant

to claim him altogether as one of the church's children. In early

youth, he bore arms and served a campaign in the Low Countries. His

troop being disbanded, he took to the stage; but a hot temper often

led him into brawls, and in one of these he had the misfortune to

kill a brother actor. Being in prison, he contracted an intimacy with

a fellow-prisoner, a Catholic priest, which ended in his conversion.

During twelve years he remained a Catholic, and then returned to the

Established Church. It was the only pathway to worldly success, and he

became a favorite with James I., as Shakespeare had been with Queen

Elizabeth. We name them together, for, indeed, they were rivals; yet

what a difference between the texture and the productions of their

brains! Ben Jonson was made poet-laureate, and wrote comedies and

masques without number. Here and there we find in his works noble

sentiments worthily expressed, as in that classical drama, _Catiline's

Conspiracy_. We find also rhythmical sweetness, as in the song, "To

Celia,"

"Drink to me only with thine eyes,"

and in the "Hymn to the Moon,"

"Queen and huntress, chaste and fair."

Now and then he touches a more sacred chord, and such as might suit a

Catholic lyre, as in the following hymn:

"Hear me, O God!

A broken heart

Is my best part.

Use still thy rod,

That I may prove

Therein thy love.

"If thou hadst not

Been stern to me,

But left me free,

I had forgot

Myself and thee;

"For sin's so sweet,

As minds ill bent

Rarely repent,

Until they meet

Their punishment."

The way had been prepared for Ben Jonson's success as a dramatist--not

to speak now of Shakespeare, Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, and

Marlowe--by the miracle plays or mysteries of the middle ages, similar

to those which are acted at the present time among the Indians in

Mexico, and the famous Ammergau, or Passion Play, in Bavaria. In

these plays, _The Fall of Man_, _The Death of Abel_, _The Flood_,

_Lazarus_, _Pilate's Wife's Dream_, _St. Catharine's Wheel_, and the

like, were brought on the stage with the approbation of the clergy,

in order that they might bring home the mysteries of the faith to

people's heart and imagination, and supply in some measure the place

of books. The miracle plays had been succeeded in time by moral plays,

which, from the early part of Henry VI.'s long reign, had represented

apologues, not histories, by means of allegorical characters. Vices and

Virtues, however, did not stand their ground long at the theatre. They

gradually changed into beings less vague and shadowy, who, while they

represented vices or virtues in the concrete, had, in addition, the

charm of resembling real life.

Richard Crashaw's fame as a poet rests mainly on one line, and that in

Latin; nor was the rest of his poetry of sufficient force and merit to

enable him always to retain the credit of that single line. It has over

and over again been attributed to Dryden and other hands. Yet it is

positively his, and a poem in itself. It is to be found in a volume of

Latin poems published by Crashaw in the year in which he graduated at

Cambridge (1635). The line is a pentameter--on the miracle at Cana of

Galilee--and consists of two dactyls, a spondee, and two anapests. It

is often quoted inaccurately, but we give it exactly:

_Nympha pudica Deum vidit, et erubuit._

"The modest water saw its God, and blushed."

The author's mind was devotional from his earliest years. He had always

been hearing about religion; for his father preached at the Temple,

and took part largely in the controversies of the day. There was one

favorable feature in the religious polemics of that period--both

sides professed belief in God and in the Christian religion; now our

warfare is with atheists, deists, pantheists, positivists, with whom

we have scarcely any common ground. After his election as a Fellow of

Peterhouse in 1637--about the time that Hampden, Pym, and Cromwell

himself were embarking for New England, and were forcibly detained from

sailing--he became noted in the university as a preacher, and passed

so much of his time in devotion that the author of the preface to his

poems says: "He lodged under Tertullian's roof of angels. There he made

his nest more gladly than David's swallow near the house of God. There,

like a primitive saint, he offered more prayers in the night than

others usually offer in the day. There he penned these poems: _Steps

for Happy Souls to climb to Heaven by_."

In 1644, sorrow came to his calm nest; and as he would not sign

the covenant, he was driven from the university he loved and from

surroundings increasingly dear. Accomplished in Hebrew, Greek, Latin,

Italian, and Spanish, skilled in drawing, music, and engraving, he

was still more noted for his talent in the higher art of poetry. He

belonged to what is called the fantastic school of Cowley, which is

full of conceits. But "conceits" are often original and beautiful ideas

quaintly expressed. The poetry of conceits was a reflex of the times,

and is, with all its faults, far preferable to classic platitudes in

flowing verse.

The overthrow of the Church of England by the Commonwealth was to

Crashaw a cause of poignant regret. He could no longer bear to look on

the towers and spires of venerable churches given over into the hands

of bawling, nasal Puritans. He quitted England, and, crossing the

Channel, found that, in France, he was a member of no church at all.

His own communion was extinct, and he was a stranger to the Catholic

Church, before whose altars he now stood as an alien. But he had taken

up his residence in France, and it was not long before he decided

on embracing the faith which that land prized as its most precious

heritage. After the decisive battle of the Civil War had been fought at

Naseby, the poet Cowley, who was an ardent royalist, visited Paris, and

found Crashaw in great distress. He represented his case to Henrietta

Maria, the exiled queen of England, and presented him to her. He

received kindness from her majesty, and letters of recommendation to

her friends in Italy. Having made his way to Rome, he became secretary

to one of the cardinals, and was subsequently appointed canon of the

church of Our Lady at Loretto. Here he resided during the remainder of

his days, and died "a poet and a saint" (as Cowley calls him) in 1650,

the year after the execution of Charles I.

Two years after his death, a volume of his posthumous poems was

published; and his memory was honored by Cowley in what Thomas Arnold

calls "one of the most loving and beautiful elegies ever written."

His _Steps to the Temple: Sacred Poems, and other Delights of the

Muses_, which appeared in 1646, had reached a second edition before his

decease, and a third was published in 1670. In 1785, his entire poems

were published in London, and included a translation of part of the

_Sospetto di Herode_ of Marini. His style resembled that of Herbert,

and a few lines breathing a Catholic spirit shall be quoted from his

works. It is called _A Hymn to the Nativity_:

"Gloomy night embraced the place

Where the noble Infant lay:

The babe looked up, and showed his face--

In spite of darkness, it was day.

"We saw thee in thy balmy nest,

Bright dawn of our eternal day.

We saw thine eyes break from the east,

And chase the trembling shades away.

We saw thee, and we blessed the sight:

_We saw thee by thine own sweet light_.

"She sings thy tears asleep, _and dips

Her kisses in thy weeping eye;

She spreads the red leaves of thy lips_

That in their buds yet blushing lie.

Yet when young April's husband-showers

Shall bless the faithful Maia's bed,

We'll bring the first-born of her flowers

To kiss thy feet and crown thy head:

To thee, dread Lamb! whose love must keep

The shepherds while they feed their sheep."

Sir William Davenant was another poet-convert to the Catholic Church,

and his conversion took place nearly at the same time as Crashaw's.

Like that poet, also, he was in the favor of Queen Henrietta Maria

during her exile in France. His life was full of adventure. As a

child, he was acquainted with Shakespeare, who frequented the Crown

Inn in the Corn Market, Oxford, kept by his father. That father rose

to be mayor, and William entered at Lincoln College. Leaving Oxford

without a degree, he became page to the Duchess of Richmond, and

subsequently was attached to the household of the poet, Lord Brooke.

Exhibiting a decided talent for dramatic composition, he was employed

to write masques for the court of Charles I. These light plays, of

which Milton's _Comus_ is the best specimen ever produced, were highly

popular, and served for private theatricals in the mansions and castles

of lords and princes. William Davenant had fame enough to be celebrated

in his time, and to be made poet-laureate when Ben Jonson died; but his

writings had not body of thought, original conception, or sweetness of

expression enough to preserve them long from oblivion. His ballad, "My

Lodging is on the Cold Ground," seems to have had more of the principle

of life in it than anything else he wrote. During the Civil War, like

many other authors, he flung aside his books, and girded on the sword.

He was then known as General Davenant, and he negotiated in the king's

name with his majesty's friends in Paris. Twice captured, and having

twice escaped to France, he nevertheless returned, took part in the

siege of Gloucester, and was knighted by the king for his services on

that critical occasion. In 1646, we find him in France, in the service

of the exiled Queen of England, attending Mass, and conforming to the

discipline of the Catholic Church. Living in the Louvre with Lord

Jermyn, he had once more leisure to cultivate his taste for poetry.

There he began writing his longest poem, and a very tedious production

it is.

But his versatile mind was now occupied by a new scheme. He promoted an

emigration of colonists from France to Virginia, and, having embarked

for the distant settlement, the ship in which he was sailing fell into

the hands of one of Cromwell's cruisers. He was captured and taken to

Cowes Castle, and is said to have escaped trial for his life through

the kind intercession of his brother poet, Milton. It was not till

after two years of imprisonment that he regained his liberty; and

when at last he did so, all his efforts were directed to a revival

of dramatic performances, which the austere Puritans had entirely

suppressed. He succeeded at last in establishing a theatre, and,

gaining support by degrees, he ultimately restored the regular drama.

With the return of Charles II. his difficulties ended. King and people

alike heaped their favors on him. He died at his house, in Lincoln's

Inn Fields, in 1668, and was buried with distinction in Westminster

Abbey. He was very handsome, of ready wit and a singularly fertile

mind; but it is to be supposed that his attachment to the Catholic

religion was not by any means a prominent feature in his character and

career.

Like several of those already mentioned, John Dryden is but an

imperfect link in the chain of English Catholic authors since the

Reformation. It was not till a late period of his life that he entered

the true church, but he lived long enough to impress on his works a

decidedly Catholic stamp. Indeed, _The Hind and the Panther_, published

in 1687, some months after his conversion, was looked upon as a defence

of Catholicism. The hind represented the Roman Church, and the panther

the Church of England. It was a singular circumstance, to which, so

far as we have observed, attention has never been drawn, that three

poets-laureate in succession, Ben Jonson, Sir William Davenant, and

Dryden, were converts to Catholicity. The life of the last of these

poets was too long and too eventful to allow of our recalling even the

chief occurrences by which it was marked. Suffice it to say that before

he was twenty-eight years old he had passed from Westminster School to

Trinity College, Cambridge, and had acted as secretary to his kinsman,

Sir Gilbert Pickering, who stood high in the Protector's favor,

and went by the name of "Noll's Lord Chamberlain." On the death of

Cromwell, Dryden wrote an elegy upon him, which was also a eulogy; and

soon after the Restoration, he commenced writing for the stage coarse

comedies and stilted tragedies. Married to a daughter of the Earl of

Berkshire, he was appointed poet-laureate, with £200 a year. This was

in 1670, the tenth year of the reign of his licentious majesty, Charles

II.

When that sovereign expired (having been reconciled on his death-bed

to the Catholic Church), Dryden eulogized him as he had eulogized

Cromwell, and in the same poem turned with alacrity to the praises

of James II. Nor was it long before he embraced the religion of the

Duke of York. The motives which induced him to take this step have

often been made the subject of debate. The authority of Lord Macaulay

is constantly adduced in support of Dryden's venality and insincere

conversion. But in opposition to this, it must be remembered that

Dr. Johnson and Sir Walter Scott arrived at a different conclusion.

The latter biographer of Dryden contends that the poet's writings

contain internal evidence of his convictions having been in complete

accordance with the step he took, and that many external circumstances

contributed to make it easy for him to act in the way he thought right.

Duty and interest are not always at variance; and if Dryden gained by

the change in the first instance, when James II. was on the throne, he

lost eventually many temporal advantages. Having refused to take the

oaths of allegiance or forsake his religion, he was dismissed, under

William III., from his offices of poet-laureate and historiographer; he

had the mortification of seeing Shadwell, the dramatist, whom he had

often ridiculed, promoted to wear his laurel; and for the rest of his

life, he was more or less harassed by the ills of poverty. He educated

his children in the faith which he had embraced, and they showed the

strongest signs of heartfelt attachment to the person of the Sovereign

Pontiff and the church of which he is the head. One of them entered a

religious order, another was usher of the palace to Pope Clement XI.

In writing to them both in September, 1697, Dryden said: "I flatter

not myself with any manner of hopes, but do my duty and suffer for

God's sake, being assured beforehand never to be rewarded, even though

the times should alter.... Remember me to poor Harry, whose prayers I

earnestly desire.... I never can repent of my constancy, since I am

thoroughly persuaded of the justice of the cause for which I suffer."

This is not the language of one who had sold himself for a pension of

£100 a year. Dryden did not, like Chillingworth, return after a time to

the Established Church. He died in the religion of his choice, and many

of his poems, particularly the paraphrase of the _Veni Creator_, and

the two odes on St. Cecilia's Day, breathe alike the devotion and the

well-ordered ideas of a Catholic. There is much force in the closing

line of this stanza:

"Refine and clear our earthly parts,

But, oh! inflame and fire our hearts!

Our frailties help, our vice control;

Submit the senses to the soul;

And when rebellious they are grown,

Then lay thy hand, _and hold them down_."

When Dryden, in _The Hind and the Panther_, describes the different

Protestant sects, he very naturally gives the preference to the Church

of England, and speaks of her with a becoming tenderness, she having

been the church in which he was nurtured:

"The panther, sure the noblest next the hind,

And fairest creature of the spotted kind,

Oh! could her inborn stains be washed away,

She were too good to be a beast of prey!

How can I praise or blame, and not offend,

Or how divide the frailty from the friend?

Her faults and virtues lie so mixed that she

Not wholly stands condemned, nor wholly free.

Then like her injured lion (James II.) let me speak,

He cannot bend her, and he would not break.

If, as our dreaming Platonists report,

There could be spirits of a middle sort.

Too black for heaven, and yet too white for hell,

Who just dropped half-way down, nor lower fell;

So poised, so gently she descends from high,

It seems a soft demission from the sky."

Dryden's successor on the throne of letters in England was Alexander

Pope, who was also a Catholic, though not a convert. His father, a

linen merchant of Lombard Street, London, was a Catholic before him,

and had been led to embrace the faith by a residence in Lisbon. His

were the days of penal laws and various disabilities, among which

was exclusion from the public schools and universities. Alexander's

education, therefore, was private, and not of a first-rate kind. He

may almost be called a self-taught man. He had seen Dryden when a boy,

and he knew Wycherley, the dramatist, who is here mentioned because

he was in the number of those who adopted the Catholic profession

under the auspices of James II. Wycherley was, as Arnold calls him,

"a somewhat battered and worn-out relic of the gay reign of Charles

II." Macaulay has little respect for him, for the very reason that he

could interest us--because he became a Catholic. He styles him "the

most licentious and hard-hearted writer of a singularly licentious and

hard-hearted school." But the gentle Charles Lamb was more indulgent

to his memory and his works. "I do not know," he says, in the _Essays

of Elia_, "how it is with others, but I feel the better always for

the perusal of one of Congreve's--nay, why should I not add even of

Wycherley's?--comedies. I am the gayer, at least, for it; and I could

never connect those sports of a witty fancy in any shape with any

result to be drawn from them to imitation in real life. They are a

world of themselves almost as much as fairyland."

We will not pause to discuss the soundness of this criticism; we have

to do with Pope, and chiefly with his religious character. No one can

read his "Dying Christian's Hymn," beginning,

"Vital spark of heavenly flame,"

without being convinced that the author was capable of the deepest

religious feeling. The times were not favorable to a Catholic poet,

nor is it in Pope's writings that we must look for the strongest

evidence of his faith. The "Letter of Eloisa to Abelard," indeed,

could hardly have been written by a Protestant; but it says nothing

of his personal religion. We find, however, by his correspondence

with Racine and others, that though infidelity and gallantry were the

fashion of his day, he was known among his friends as a _Papist_,

and that he speaks of himself as such unreservedly. The words of Dr.

Johnson on this subject are as follows: "The religion in which he

lived and died was that of the Church of Rome.... He professes himself

a sincere adherent.... It does not appear that his principles were ever

corrupted, or that he ever lost his belief of revelation.... After the

priest had given him the last sacraments, he died in the evening of the

30th day of May, 1744."

It is pleasing to reflect that this illustrious poet, so distinguished

by his deep thought, his affluent imagery, his pathos, his scathing

satire and matchless versification, recoiled in his solitude and

sickness from the false philosophy of his friends, and closed his weary

and painful existence at the foot of the cross; that he departed hence,

not only with laurels on his brow, but with the Viaticum on his lips

and the church's blessing on his drooping head. But it was not at the

awful hour of death merely that he began to prize the religion which

England proscribed. There is a little anecdote related of him which

shows that he had a distinct and warm feeling on the subject long

before he came face to face with the last enemy. He and Mrs. Blount had

been invited on one occasion to stay with Mr. Allen, at Prior Park,

near Bath, on a visit. Pope left the house for a short time to go to

Bristol; and while he was absent, it happened that Mrs. Blount, who was

a Catholic as well as himself, wished to attend Mass in the chapel in

Bath, and requested the use of Mr. Allen's chariot for that purpose.

But her host, at that time being mayor of the city, had a decided

objection to his carriage being seen at the doors of such a place, and

begged to be excused lending it. Mrs. Blount felt deeply offended at

this time-serving, and, when Pope returned, told him her feelings on

the subject. The poet was so incensed at this offence offered to his

religion and his friend that he, and Mrs. Martha Blount too, abruptly

quitted the house.

There is, happily, no need of our contending for the places which

Dryden and Pope should occupy among literary celebrities. Their

attachment to Catholicism at a time when it was especially distasteful

to the English people--during the reigns, we mean, of William the

Third and Queen Anne--did not detract from the popularity of their

writings even while they lived. The striking genius of Dryden as

a translator, his racy language and manly style, have been fully

appreciated by posterity; and if we put Pope above him in the rank of

poets, it is because we discover in the latter more profound philosophy

and rhythmical sweetness. He enjoyed, too, an advantage over his

distinguished predecessor in that he was not a convert, but had from

childhood been imbued with the doctrines of the ancient faith. The

Catholic system, even more than he knew, lent force and color to his

imagination, restrained his philosophic speculations within orthodox

bounds, and imparted a certain majesty and consistency to his verse,

even when it was concerned with purely secular topics. It had done the

like for Dante, Chaucer, Calderon, and Corneille before him, and it has

done the like since for Thomas Moore, as we shall endeavor to show in a

future number.

TO BE CONTINUED.

CATHOLIC YOUNG MEN'S ASSOCIATIONS.

The saying is becoming almost trite that the Catholic Church has done

wonders in this country. Its rapid rise, growth, and spread are little

short of miraculous. Half a century ago, the church was scarcely known

here, save in a misty way, as something very remote and powerless.

To-day it stands up as a factor to be counted in American polity.

It points to its five or six millions of believers. It points to

its cathedrals, its magnificent churches, its splendid educational

establishments, its parochial schools, its illustrious hierarchy, its

active and zealous priesthood, its religious orders and societies

of men and women, its lay associations for various pious purposes,

its newspapers, and its multiplying writers. It has seized upon the

very genius of this new people. It lags not behind, but keeps apace

with their enterprise; and scarcely are the piles driven in for the

building of a new city or town than the cross is seen above the growing

settlement.

Protestants have recognized this fact. They are daily bearing witness

to its truth. It is but recently that the press, secular and religious,

was alive with a discussion on "The Decline of Protestantism," here, in

this very land. And the two foes that Protestantism had most to dread

were, as all agreed, the one from without--Catholicity; the other from

within--infidelity. It was expected the Evangelical Council would take

into consideration the same subject: the best means to be adopted in

order to beat off those two terrible foes--Catholicity and infidelity.

All this is well. It is well that the foes of the church should

themselves testify to the irrepressible spread of the truth; that

they should cut the dividing lines so clearly between Catholicity and

infidelity--their Scylla and Charybdis, either of which is destruction

to them. It is well that the men who within living memory despised

the church should now come forward and testify that that church has

conquered them. That they themselves should thus bear witness to the

spread of Catholicity and the corresponding decline of Protestantism is

flattering enough, if mere human feeling were allowed to enter into a

question which involves man's eternal salvation; but it is well, also,

that Catholics lay not too flattering unction to their souls.

They may occasionally point with pardonable pride to their swelling

numbers and all that has been indicated above; but at the same time,

it would be a fatal mistake to imagine that everything has now been

done for the church of God; that it has nothing to do but run on

smoothly in the eternal grooves fixed for it, sweeping triumphantly

through the country, and bearing away all in its track. A young and a

new Catholic generation is coming into possession. It does not know,

and can scarcely appreciate, at what terrible cost, after what long

and painful struggles, cathedral after cathedral, church after church,

college after college, school-house after school-house, were built. It

finds them there and is content, as an heir finds the woods and the

fields won inch by inch by the toil and the sweat of his father. If the

young generation would not squander its inheritance, would not see it

dissipated before its eyes, and slip away out of its nerveless grasp,

it must be up and doing while the morning of life is on it; tilling,

trenching, delving, casting out the weeds, watching for the enemy that

would sow tares among the wheat, that it may leave a larger, a richer,

and a brighter inheritance to its own children when it is gathered to

the soil of its fathers--the good soil consecrated by their bones.

Yes, a goodly inheritance has fallen upon the young Catholic generation

of America to-day; and a goodlier yet is in store, to be won by their

own endeavor. Never in this world's history was there a fairer field to

fight the battle of God in than in this great country; and never yet,

take them all in all, were there fairer foes and less favor to contend

against. But let it be borne well in mind, the battle is a severe one;

all the severer, perhaps, because the field is so open and Catholics

are so free. Here in America there is nothing of the glory of martyrdom

to sustain us--a glory that turns defeat into victory, and by one death

wins a thousand lives. Ours is not the clash of arms and of battle, but

of intellect. We have to reason our way along. The cry of "the decline

of Protestantism" is a cry well grounded. The churches are losing

their children. A reaction against Puritanism has set in as decided

and as disastrous in its results as that which set in in England on

the accession of Charles II. The children throw off even the gloomy

cloak of religion to which their fathers clung long after the many

deformities and defects it concealed had shone through the threadbare

garment. The thought of young America to-day is, "Let the doctors

wrangle about their creeds. All we know or care to know is that we have

life, and let us enjoy it while we may."

And thus the battle of the age is coming to be fought out among and

by the young--young America Catholic and young America non-Catholic.

True, our ranks are swelling daily, and nowadays principally by native

growth. The birth-rate, if classified as Catholic or non-Catholic,

is so strikingly in favor of the former as to attract the universal

attention of the medical faculty. Converts, too, crowd in upon us;

but, numerous as they are, they are only driblets compared to the vast

ocean that roars outside. Five or six millions is a mighty number; but

there are thirty millions or more left. Were it not remembered that

God, although the God of battles, is not always on the side of the big

battalions, our hearts might sicken at the mustering of the forces--our

six millions surrounded, absorbed, as it were, by that mighty army five

times greater, stretching away dim in its immensity, yet meeting us at

every turn, and, directly or indirectly, contesting stubbornly every

inch of ground.

It is true that they are broken whilst we are one. They fight under a

thousand different banners; and even while presenting a united front

against us, they are rending each other in the rear. The deserters from

our side are few--practically none--and such as do go become objects

of infamy even to those who make a show of welcoming them. But besides

the two directly opposing forces, Catholics, and Protestants of some

professed creed, there is a neutral ground, vaster than either, and

equally opposed to both--infidelity; and thither is young America

drifting.

And truly it looks a fair region for a young man to enter. There is

no constraint upon him beyond the pleasant burden, light to bear, of

fashionable etiquette. A dress-coat and a banker's account will pass

him anywhere. The man under the dress-coat does not matter much; and

the inquiry as to how the banking account came into his hands is not

scrupulously close. He will meet there the lights of modern science

and literature--men who can trace the motions of the world, and find

no Mover; who have sifted the ashes of nature, to find only matter;

who have analyzed the body of man, to find no soul in him; to whom

life is simply life, and death, death. There is the abode of wit, and

scoffing, and irreligion, and bold speculation, and the unshackled play

of the undisciplined intellect, and under it all the power to do as you

please, because you may believe as you please, provided you sin not

against the laws of etiquette.

Now, the work of the church is to break up that neutral ground, which,

indeed, is the most formidable of the day. It must keep its own young

men from being drawn thither, and win those that are there into its

bosom. But although in very truth the yoke of Christ is sweet and his

burden light, it takes a long time to impress that fact upon youth

in the heyday of life. And with all the power of the prayer of the

faithful, with the voice of the preacher, and the attractions of the

ceremonies of the church, there is no merely human agency to win

youth like youth itself; no sermon so powerful as the unspoken sermon

preached by a Christian young man, set in the midst of a world that

practically knows not Christianity. And this is one great point of the

present article.

Our young men and young women who mix daily in the army occupying

that neutral territory of infidelity are, or may be made, our best

missionaries. There the voice of the preacher never or rarely

penetrates. His voice is as "the voice of one crying in the

wilderness." But though the preacher's words may not reach there, the

effect of his words may be visible in the conduct of those whom his

words do reach--the Catholic youth who live and move in the daily world.

Hitherto this point has been, perhaps necessarily, much neglected.

Catholics have not half utilized their forces. They have not made

use enough of the young. Indeed, the work of reclaiming them at all

has been a severe one, and is still far from even the full means of

accomplishment; for it may here be noted how Protestants cling to the

godless school system, though many of their best thinkers and leading

organs acknowledge that a system of education founded on no faith at

all must naturally produce scholars of no faith at all. But it is time

for Catholics to see that if they would not only keep their own--hold

fast to the inheritance that their fathers bequeathed them--but also

win more, something more definite must be done to hold together the

young, and unite them in one common cause. If you want missionaries,

you must educate them. If you wish the young to be Catholic, not on the

Sunday only, but always, you must take the proper means to that end.

Our meaning is this: Catholicity must not be confined to the churches

only. Half an hour's Mass weekly is undoubtedly a great deal when

rightly heard; but it is, after all, only a portion of the spiritual

food necessary to carry a man safely through the week. The poison of

the atmosphere of utter worldliness that our young people breathe can

only be counteracted by an antagonistic Catholic atmosphere; and this

can only be created by having Catholic centres of attraction under

church auspices, where Catholics may meet occasionally to converse, to

read, to hear a lecture, or to amuse themselves in a healthful manner.

It is not long since, at the "commencement season," we were listening

to the young orators of the graduating classes of our various

educational establishments. Kind eyes looked on as they poured forth

their eloquent ten minutes of benison on the heads of the comrades

they were leaving behind them. It was pleasant to hear the words of

wisdom, of eloquence, and the soundest morality fall from their lips.

But the listeners, the admiring parents or friends, felt, nevertheless,

that their boys were speaking comparatively from "the safe side of the

hedge," and that it remained to be seen how far the good thoughts to

which they gave utterance on leaving the college would guide them and

rule them in the real battle of life that was only then about to begin.

What has become of the thousands of young men who have gone out and

continue to go out, year after year, from our colleges? For the most

part, they are lost to the eyes of those who trained their boyhood.

They may continue to hold fast by the principles they imbibed at

school, or they may not. In our large cities and towns, there are

always more or less of our Catholic college graduates, most of whom are

unknown to each other, or rarely meet. How different would it be had

they places in which to assemble! Something has been done to meet this

very striking want. Very many churches have attached to them this or

that young men's association, devoted generally to literary pursuits;

but for the most part, these excellent associations have not effected

much; not because they have not the right spirit and energy, but purely

from lack of organization, from not knowing exactly what to do or

what not to do, from not being united with fellow-associations, and

generally from lack of funds.