We conclude that the extrinsic principles, to which the first origin

of contingent beings is to be traced, are not fewer, and not more,

than three. Our Catholic readers will be satisfied, we hope, that

this conclusion has been fairly established on what they know to be

secure foundations. Infidels, of course, will object; for they will

think that the whole of our discussion has been based on hypothetical

grounds. In fact, we have supposed that there are "primitive" beings,

that they are "contingent," that they need "a creator," and that

the creator must be an "infinite being," a god. If a Comtist or a

materialist happens to read the preceding pages, he will surely say

that we have built nothing but a cob-house. But we do not care much

what may be objected by such a class of frivolous and unreasonable

philosophers. We know that their favorite theories have been a hundred

times exploded, and their futile objections a hundred times answered.

When a foe is defeated, what is the use of prolonging the contest?

And when noonday light is dazzling the world, what need is there of

lighting candles? Let them, therefore, only open their eyes, if they

really want light. There is no scarcity of good philosophical works,

which, if consulted by them in a spirit of candor, will afford them all

the light that a man can reasonably desire for the full attainment of

truth.

Yet the solidity of the ground on which we have taken our stand may be

established in a very few words.

That there are _contingent_ beings is quite certain; for nothing

which necessarily exists is liable to change or modification. But all

that surrounds us in this world is liable to change and modification;

therefore, nothing that surrounds us in this world necessarily exists.

Accordingly, all that we see in this world exists contingently.

That contingent beings are either _primitive_ or made up of _primitive_

beings is, again, a well-known fact; for all being which is not

primitive is a compound, and can be traced to its first physical

components--that is, to the first elements of its composition. But

the _first_ elements of composition cannot possibly be made up of

other elements, and accordingly must be primitive beings. Therefore,

primitive beings exist everywhere, at least (if nowhere else) in all

the compounds of which they are the first physical components.

That every primitive contingent being must have had its _origin from

without_ is a plain truth; for that which has no origin from without

must have the adequate reason of its existence from within; and,

therefore, it carries in its essence the necessity of its existence.

But evidently contingent and changeable beings do not carry within

their essence the necessity of their existence; therefore, contingent

beings must have had their origin from without.

That every such being must have come _out of nothing_ is not less

evident; for a primitive being cannot possibly come out of pre-existent

beings as its material principles. It must, therefore, be _produced_

either out of God's substance or out of nothing. But not out of God's

substance, for divine substance is not susceptible of contingent forms;

therefore, out of nothing--that is, by creation properly.

Lastly, that the Creator is _an eternal, infinite being_ can be easily

proved, independently of many other arguments, by the following

general theorem, to which modern philosophers are invited to pay close

attention. The theorem is this: _All efficient cause is infinitely more

perfect, and of an infinitely better nature, than any of its effects_.

If this proposition be true, it immediately follows that the Creator of

the universe is infinitely more perfect than the whole universe, and

has a nature infinitely better, nobler, and higher than that of any

contingent being, and therefore is a necessary and independent being,

the supreme being--God. Let us, then, demonstrate our theorem.

It is a known and incontrovertible truth that every efficient cause

eminently contains in itself (that is, possesses in an eminent degree)

all the perfection which it can efficiently communicate to any number

of effects; and it can be proved, moreover, that the efficiency of a

cause is never exhausted, and not even weakened, by its exertions,

however long continued and indefinitely multiplied. The earth, after

having for centuries exerted its attractive power and caused the fall

of innumerable bodies, has preserved to this day the same power whole

and undiminished, and is still acting, with its primitive energy, on

any number of bodies, just as it did at the time of its creation.

Our soul is not exhausted or weakened by its operations; but, after

having made any number of judgments, reasonings, or any other mental

actions, still retains the whole energy and perfection of its faculties

without waste, effeteness, or decay. A molecule of oxygen, after having

for ages, either free in the air or confined in water or in other

compounds, produced such a number of effects as bewilders and beats all

power of imagination, retains yet its efficient causality as entire and

unimpaired as if it were of quite recent creation. These facts show

that the efficient cause suffers no loss whatever by the exertion of

its power, and therefore is fully equal to the production of an endless

multitude of effects.

Some may say that this conclusion cannot be universal, as we see that

natural forces are very often exhausted by exertion. We answer that,

when _natural forces_ are said to be exhausted, the _efficient powers_

from which those forces result remain as intact and as active as

before. We say, indeed, that a man or a horse is exhausted by fatigue;

that our brain, after hours of mental work, needs rest to recover its

lost energy, and many other such things; but, in all such cases, what

we call _exhaustion_ is not a diminution of efficient power in the

agents from the concurrence of which the natural forces result, but

either the actual disappearance (by respiration, perspiration, etc.)

of a number of those agents, or a perturbance of the arrangements

and conditions necessary for their united conspiration towards the

production of a determinate effect. _Natural force_, in the sense of

the objection, is a combination of agents and of efficient powers,

which produce their effect by many concurrent actions giving a

different resultant under different conditions; and as any given effect

proximately depends on the resultant of such actions, the same powers,

though unaltered in themselves, must, under different conditions, give

rise to different effects. Take a car and four horses. If the horses

act all in the same direction, the car will move easily enough; but

if two of the horses act in one direction, and two in the other, the

result will be very different. Yet the powers applied to the car are in

both cases the same. Again, take an army of fifty thousand men facing

the enemy. If the men are well arranged so as to present a good line

of battle, the action of the army will be strong; but if the men are

disorderly scattered, the action will be weak, though the men are the

same and their powers and exertions undiminished. Now, all bodies and

all complex causes are in the same case; which is evident from the

fact that with all of them a favorable change of conditions, all other

things remaining the same, is always attended by an increase of the

effect. Therefore, the so-called _exhaustion_ of natural forces is not

a diminution of the efficient powers of which they are the result, but

a state of things in which _the same_ active powers are exerted in a

different manner, or have to perform a different work, according to the

different conditions to which they are actually subjected. We therefore

repeat that efficient causes suffer no loss whatever by the exertion

of their efficient powers, and that consequently they are fully equal

to the production of an infinite multitude of effects; and since every

efficient cause, as we have premised, must contain within itself, in an

eminent manner, the whole perfection which it can communicate to its

effects, we are forced to conclude that the nature of every efficient

cause _infinitely transcends_ in perfection the nature of its effects.

The theorem could be further confirmed by considering that all the acts

produced by efficient causes of the natural order, either spiritual

or material, are mere accidents, whereas the causes themselves are

substances; and it is manifest that the nature of substance infinitely

transcends the nature of accident.

It might be confirmed, again, by another very simple consideration.

The efficient cause does not communicate any portion of itself to

its effect.[185] In fact, efficient causation is production; and

production is not a transfusion, translocation, or emanation of a

pre-existing thing, but the origination of a _new_ entity which had no

previous formal existence. It follows that the efficient cause, while

producing an effect, retains its _entire_ entity, and therefore is

never exhausted. Thus a syllogism is not a portion of the mind that

makes it; and the making of it leaves intact the substance and the

faculty from which it proceeds. Thus, also, the actual momentum of a

falling body is not a portion of the terrestrial power by which it is

produced; the power remains whole and undiminished in the substance of

the earth, as already remarked, always ready to produce any number of

changes, and always unchanged in itself. This is the reason why every

efficient cause infinitely transcends the nature of its effects.

Our theorem is, then, demonstrated both by facts and by intrinsic

reasons. We are confident that all honest philosophers, no matter

how much their intellectual vision may have been distorted by false

doctrines, will see their way to the right conclusion, and confess the

absolute necessity of an independent, self-existent, infinite Creator,

from whom all beauty, goodness, and perfection proceed, and to whom all

creatures--philosophers not excepted--owe allegiance, honor, and glory.

TO BE CONTINUED.

FOOTNOTES:

[181] Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by

Rev. I. T. HECKER, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at

Washington, D. C.

[182] This argument could be employed against all other forms of

pantheism; but we must abstain at present from the discussion of

particular systems, as we cannot deal fairly with them within the

narrow compass of a single article.

As for _self-existent_ matter, we need only say that nothing which

can receive new determinations is self-existent; and since matter

receives new determinations, therefore matter is not self-existent.

Hence the conception of eternal and uncreated matter cannot be styled a

philosophical opinion, but only a dream of unreflecting or uneducated

minds.

[183] The Aristotelic meaning of the word _privation_ will be easily

understood from the following example: If a cylindrical piece of wax

be made to assume a spherical form, the sphericity will be educed,

as the schools say, from the cylindrical wax, not inasmuch as it is

cylindrical, but inasmuch as it is non-spherical. Such a non-sphericity

is a _privation_, which is more than a _negation_, as it implies

not only the absence of sphericity, but also the presence of its

contrary--that is, of the cylindrical form. Privation is usually

defined _carentia formæ in subjecto apto_. It is a principle _per

accidens_.

[184] We give the original text: _Sic enim scientia Dei se habet ad

omnes res creatas, sicut scientia artificis se habet ad artificiata.

Scientia autem artificis est causa artificiatorum, eo quod artifex

operatur per suum intellectum. Unde oportet quod forma intellectus sit

principium operationis, sicut calor est principium calefactionis. Sed

considerandum est, quod forma naturalis, in quantum est forma manens

in eo cui dat esse, non nominat principium actionis, sed secundum quod

habet inclinationem ad effectum. Et similiter forma intelligibilis non

nominat principium actionis secundum quod est tantum in intelligente,

nisi adjungatur ei inclinatio ad effectum, quæ est per voluntatem.

Quum enim forma intelligibilis ad opposita se habeat (quum eadem

sit scientia oppositorum) non produceret determinatum effectum,

nisi determinaretur ad unum per appetitum, ut dicitur in 9. Metaph.

Manifestum est autem quod Deus per intellectum suum causat res, quum

suum esse sit suum intelligere; unde necesse est quod sua scientia sit

causa rerum secundum quod habet voluntatem conjunctam_ (p. 1, q. 14, a.

8).

[185] Parents, however, communicate a portion of their substance

to their offspring. The reason is that parents are not only the

_efficient_, but also the _material_, cause of their offspring. As

material causes, they supply the matter of which the fœtus will

be formed; but, as efficient causes, they only put the conditions

required by nature for the organization of this matter. The position

of such conditions is an accidental action as well as the subsequent

organization. Therefore, parents, as efficient causes, produce nothing

but accidental acts. The matter of which the fœtus is formed is, of

course, all pre-existing.

DANTE'S PURGATORIO.

CANTO TWELFTH.

Paired, like two oxen treading under yoke,

That burdened soul and I as far had gone

As the loved Tutor let. But when he spoke

These words: "Now leave him! We must travel on,

For here 'tis good with spread of sail and stroke

Of oar, to push his boat as each best may;"

I made myself, as walking needs, erect,

But only in body; just it is to say

My thoughts were bowed, my spirit was deject.

Still I was moving, and with willing feet

Followed my Master; both began to show

How light we were, when thus he said: "'Tis meet

That, walking here, thou bend thine eyes below,

So to observe, and make the moments fleet,

Over what kind of bed thy footsteps go."

Even as, that so their memory may survive,

Our earthly tombs, above the buried, bear

The graven form of what they were alive;

Whence oft one weeps afresh the image there,

Pricked by remembrance,--which doth only give

To souls compassionate a sting of pain--

So I saw figured o'er, but with more skill

In the resemblance, all the narrow plain

Which formed our pathway, jutting from the hill.

Him[186] there I marked, on one side, noblest made

Of all God's creatures, stricken down from heaven

Like lightning! Opposite, there was displayed

Briareus, cast from where he late had striven,

Smit by celestial thunderbolts, and laid

Heavy on earth and in the frost of death.

I saw Thymbræus, Pallas too, and Mars,

Still armed, around their sire, with bated breath

Viewing the giants, their torn limbs and scars!

Nimrod I saw, at foot of his great tower,

As if bewildered, gazing on the tribes

That showed with him such haughtiness of power

In Shinar's plain, as Genesis describes.

O Niobe! with what eyes, full of woe,

Mid thy slain children, upon each hand seven,

I saw thee carved upon the road! And, O

Saul! in Gilboa, that no more from heaven

Felt rain or dew, how dead on thine own sword

Didst thou appear! Thee, mad Arachne, there

I saw, half spider! fumbling the deplored

Shreds of that work which wrought for thee despair

O Rehoboam! there no more in threat

Stands thy fierce figure; smit with fear he flies,

Whirled in a chariot, none pursuing yet:

Showed also that hard pavement to mine eyes

How young Alcmæon made his mother sell

With life the luckless ornament she wore

How, in the temple, on Sennacherib fell

The sons, and left his corpse there on the floor.

The cruel carnage and the wreck it showed

Which Tomyris made, when she to Cyrus cried:

_Blood thou didst thirst for! now I give thee blood_;

And showed th' Assyrians flying far and wide

In utter rout, with Holofernes dead,

And all the slaughter that befell beside,

And the grim carcase by the bloody bed.

Troy next I saw, an ashy, caverned waste:

O Ilion! how vile the work showed thee

Which there is graven,--how utterly abased!

What master of pencil or of stile[187] was he

Who so those traits and figures could have traced

That subtlest wit had been amazed thereby?

Alive the living seemed, and dead the dead!

Who saw the truth no better saw than I,

While bowed I went, all underneath my tread.

Now swell with pride, and on with lofty stalk,

Children of Eve! nor bend your visage aught

So to behold the sinful way ye walk.

More of the mountain than my busied thought

Had been aware of we had rounded now,

And much more of his course the sun had spent;

When he, who still went first with watchful brow,

Exclaimed: "Look up!--to accomplish our ascent

Time no more suffers to proceed so slow.

See yonder angel hastening on his way

To come towards us! and from her service, lo!

The sixth returning handmaid of the day.

Give to thy mien the grace of reverence, then,

That he may joy to marshal us above.

Think thus: _this day will never dawn again_."

I had so often felt his words reprove

My slowness, warning me to lose no time,

That on this point I read his dark words right.

With sparkling face, as glows at rosy prime

The tremulous morning star, and robed in white,

That being of beauty moved towards us, and said,

Opening his arms and then his pinions wide,

"Come, here the steps are!--easy to the tread

And close at hand: now upward ye may glide."

But very few obey this Angel's call:

O human race! born high on wings to soar,

Why at a little breath do ye so fall?

He brought us where the rock a pass revealed

Hewn out, his pinions on my forehead beat

And with his promise my safe-going sealed.

As, to the right, in climbing to the seat

Of the fair church[188] that looketh lordly down

Over the bridge that bears the name this day

Of Rubaconte, on the well-ruled town,[189]

The sharp ascent is broken by a way

Of stairs constructed in the old time, ere

Fraud was in measure and in ledger found;

Thus the steep bank is graduated there

Which falls abruptly from the other round:

On either side the tall rock grazes though.

As we turned thitherward, were voices heard,

_Beati pauperes spiritu!_ singing so

As might not be exprest by any word.

Ah! these approaches--how unlike to Hell's!

With chant of anthems one makes entrance here;

Down there with agony's ferocious yells.

Now, as we climb, the sacred stairs appear

More easy than the plain had seemed before:

Wherefore I thus began: "O Master! say,

What heavy load is tak'n from me? No more

I feel that weariness upon my way."

"When every P, upon thy temples traced,

Almost obliterate now," he answered me,

"Shall be, like this one, totally erased,

So by right will thy feet shall vanquished be,

That they not only no fatigue shall know,

But ev'n with pleasure shall be forward sped."

Then did I like as men do when they go

Unweeting what they carry on their head,

Till signs from some one their suspicion waking,

The assistant hand its own assurance tries,

And seeks and findeth, such discovery making

As may not be afforded by the eyes.

Spreading my right-hand fingers, I could find

Six[190] letters only of the seven which he

Who bore the keys had on my forehead signed:

Observing which, my Master smiled on me.

FOOTNOTES:

[186] Lucifer.

[187] _Stile_ here means a sculptor's tool, and not a writer's _style_.

[188] This is the well-known church of S. Miniato, which every boy who

has been to Florence must well remember.

[189] Florence, in irony.

[190] The Angel, sitting at the gate of Purgatory, had described (as

the readers of the Ninth Canto may remember, v. 112) the letter P seven

times with the point of his sword on the forehead of Dante, in sign of

the seven deadly sins,--Peccata--one of which, and Dante's worst, the

sin of pride, now vanishes from his soul as the letter fades from his

forehead.

THE EPIPHANY.

Let us, then, also follow the Magi; let us separate ourselves from

our barbarian customs, and make our distance therefrom great, that we

may see Christ, since they too, had they not been far from their own

country, would have missed seeing him. Let us depart from the things

of earth. For so the wise men, while they were in Persia, saw but the

star; but after they had departed from Persia, they beheld the Sun of

Righteousness. Or rather, they would not have seen so much as the star,

unless they had readily risen up from thence. Let us, then, also rise

up; though all men be troubled, let us run to the house of the young

Child; though kings, though nations, though tyrants, interrupt this our

path, let not our desire pass away; for so shall we thoroughly repel

all the dangers that beset us; since these too, except they had seen

the young Child, would not have escaped their danger from the king.

Before seeing the young Child, fears and dangers and troubles pressed

upon them from every side; but after the adoration, it is calm and

security; and no longer a star, but an angel, receives them, having

become priests from the act of adoration; for we see that they offered

gifts also.

Do thou, therefore, likewise leave the Jewish people, the troubled

city, the blood-thirsty tyrant, the pomps of the world, and hasten to

Bethlehem, where is the house of the Spiritual Bread;[191] for though

thou be a shepherd, and come hither, thou wilt behold the young Child

in an inn; though thou be a king, and approach not here, thy purple

robe will profit thee nothing; though thou be one of the wise men,

this will be no hindrance to thee; only let thy coming be to honor and

adore, not to spurn, the Son of God; only do this with trembling and

with joy, for it is possible for both of these to concur in one.

But take heed that thou be not like Herod, and say, _That I may come

and worship him_, and, when thou art come, be minded to slay him.

For him do they resemble who partake of the mysteries unworthily; it

being said that such an one _shall be guilty of the Body and Blood of

the Lord_. Yes; for they have in themselves the tyrant who is grieved

at Christ's Kingdom--him that is more wicked than Herod of old--even

Mammon. For he would fain have the dominion, and sends them that are

his own to worship in appearance, but slaying while they worship.

Let us fear, then, lest at any time, while we have the appearance

of suppliants and worshippers, we should indeed show forth the

contrary.--_S. John Chrysostom._

FOOTNOTES:

[191] Bethlehem signifies in Hebrew "the house of bread."

GRAPES AND THORNS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "THE HOUSE OF YORKE."

CHAPTER VIII.

SUMMER FRIENDS.

F. Chevreuse did not allow himself a long indulgence in his own

sorrows. Before half an hour had elapsed, he was stepping through the

portal of the city jail, all private grief set aside and lost sight of

in the errand that had brought him.

Sensitive as he was, the gloom and dampness inseparable from a prison

would have chilled him, but that pity for him who was suffering from

them so unjustly, as he believed, startled his heart into intenser

action, and sent an antagonistic glow through his frame, as though by

force of love alone he would have warmed the stones and chased away

those depressing shadows.

A few swift steps along the stone corridor brought him to the cell

assigned to Mr. Schöninger. Looking with eagerness, yet shrinkingly

too, through the grating, while the jailer unlocked the door, he saw

the prisoner standing there with folded arms and head erect, regarding

him coldly and without the faintest sign of recognition. The place was

not so dim but he must have seen perfectly who his visitor was; yet a

man of stone could not have stood more unmoved.

The jailer was not long unlocking the door, yet, brief as the time was,

it sufficed to work a change in the priest. It was with him as with

the fountain which tosses its warm waters into a chilly atmosphere:

the spray retains its form, but not its temperature. "I am shocked at

this, Mr. Schöninger!" he exclaimed, hastening into the cell. "I will

do anything to relieve you! Only tell me what to do."

The words, the gesture, the emphasis, all were as he had meant; but a

something in the whole manner, which tells when the heart outleaps the

word and the gesture, was lost. It was possible to think the cordiality

of his address affected.

Mr. Schöninger bowed lowly, without unfolding his arms or softening the

expression of his face. "I thank you for your offers of service," he

said; "but they are unnecessary. I have employed counsel, and what the

law can do for me will be done. Meantime, it is not for you and me to

clasp hands."

His look conveyed not only pride, but disdain. He seemed less the

accused than the accuser.

"Whose hand, then, will you clasp?" the priest exclaimed, impatient at

what seemed to him an unreasonable scruple. "You are a stranger here,

and can be sure of no one. I am the very person whose good-will will be

most valuable to you."

It was only the embarrassment resulting from an unexpected rebuff which

could have made F. Chevreuse appeal to the motive of self-interest. To

tell a proud and bitter, perhaps a guilty, man that he stands in his

own light, is only to make him blacken yet more his immovable shadow.

But as a man sometimes relaxes the severity of his manner at the same

time that he increases the firmness of his resolution, Mr. Schöninger

unbent so far as to offer his visitor a seat.

"Please excuse the roughness," he said, indicating a rude bench. "The

furniture is not of my choosing." And seated himself on the bed, there

being no other place.

F. Chevreuse remained standing. The mocking courtesy was more chilling

than coldness.

"I followed an impulse of kindness in coming to you," he said, looking

down to hide how much he was hurt. "I did not stop to ask myself what

was conventional, or wise, or politic. My heart prompted me to fly to

the rescue, and I took no other counsel."

There was no reply. Mr. Schöninger's eyes were fixed with an intent

and searching gaze on the priest, and a faint color began to creep up

over his cold face. As F. Chevreuse raised his eyes and met that gaze,

the faint color deepened to a sudden red; for the priest's glance was

dimmed by tears of wounded feeling he had striven to hide.

"You distrust me!" he said reproachfully; "and I do not deserve it. I

would serve you, if I could. I would be your friend, if you would let

me."

It was Mr. Schöninger's turn to drop his eyes. To look in that face

unmoved was impossible. The reproach, the pain, the tenderness of it

had shot like an arrow through his heart, steeled as it was. But his

habit of self-control was proof against surprise. After the blush had

left his face, there was no sign visible of the struggle that was going

on within. He seemed to be merely considering a question. After a

moment, he looked up.

"You seem to think me innocent of this charge?" he remarked calmly.

F. Chevreuse was silent with astonishment.

"You probably do think so," Mr. Schöninger went on, in the same

tone. "But whatever your opinion may be, you do not know. Crimes are

committed from various motives and under various circumstances. Some

are almost accidental. Neither is crime committed by the low and

rude alone, nor by the bad alone. There is nothing in the character

or circumstances of any man which would render it impossible that

he should ever be guilty of a crime. I repeat, then, that you

cannot be sure of my innocence; and, till it is proved, there can

be no intercourse between us. I am willing to give you credit for a

charitable impulse; but I do not want charity. I want justice!" His

eyes flashed out, and his face began to redden again. Mr. Schöninger

had not become cool by spending a night in jail.

F. Chevreuse did not stir, though he was in fact dismissed. Mr.

Schöninger, seeing that his visitor did not sit, rose, and stood

waiting to bow him out.

"I cannot go away and leave you so, in such a place!" the priest

exclaimed after a moment, during which he seemed to have made an inner

effort to go. "It is monstrous! Cannot you see that it is so? Why, last

night we were like friends; and I insist that there is no reason why we

should not be friends to-day."

"What! Even if I should be guilty?" asked the prisoner in a low voice.

F. Chevreuse made a gesture of impatience, and was about to utter

a still more impatient protest, when he met a look so cold, yet so

thrilling with a significance he could not interpret, that he drew back

involuntarily.

The Jew's face darkened. "Your convictions are, apparently, not so deep

as you had supposed, sir," he said freezingly. "I am afraid you would

find yourself disappointed as to the extent of confidence you would be

able to repose in me. The sober second thought is best. Our paths are

separate."

For the first time something like anger showed momentarily in the

priest's face, and gave a certain sternness to the first words he

spoke; but it was over in an instant. "You are quite right, sir!"

he said. "It is impossible for me to go with you, unless I am met

with entire frankness and confidence. If you choose that our paths

shall be separate, I will not force myself on you; but we need not be

antagonistic. Farewell!"

He turned and groped in the door-way for the passage-step, his own

shadow being added to those which already wrapped the place in an

obscurity almost like night. He saw the jailer in the long corridor

before him, waiting to lock the door, and he had just found where to

set his foot, when he felt a warm touch on his hand that still held by

the stone door-way inside the cell. The touch was slight, but it was

a caress, either a kiss or the quick pressure of a soft palm. He had

hardly time to be fully aware of it before he stood in the corridor,

and the jailer was locking the door behind him.

He stopped, and looked through the grating, but could not see the

prisoner. Only a narrow line of black, like the sleeve of a coat,

seemed to show that Mr. Schöninger had thrown himself on to his bed.

The priest put his face close to the bars, and whispered, "God bless

you!"

The line of black moved quickly with a start, but there was no reply.

Pale and dispirited, F. Chevreuse left the prison, and took his way

slowly to Mrs. Gerald's. He would rather not have gone then, but he

had promised. He wondered a little within himself, indeed, why he

felt such reluctance to see persons who had always been faithful and

sympathizing friends to him, and why he would rather, were the choice

left to him, have gone to Mrs. Ferrier, or, still better, to Annette.

As soon as the true reason occurred to him, he put it aside, and

refused to think on the subject.

Mrs. Gerald was evidently on the watch for him; for as soon as he

approached the house, she came to the door to meet him. The color was

wavering in her face, her blue eyes were suffused with tears, and

looked the sympathy her lips did not speak. But the sympathy was all

for him--for the terrible wound torn open again, for the new wound

added, perhaps, of a misplaced confidence. No look seemed to glance

past him and inquire for the one he had left behind.

Honora sat by a fire in the sitting-room, leaning close to the blaze,

with a shawl drawn about her shoulders, and seemed to shiver even

then. There was a frosty paleness in her face as she rose to meet

their visitor, as though the blood had all flowed back to her heart,

and stopped there, and the hand she gave him was cold. But an eager,

questioning glance slipped from her eyes, swift and shrinking, that

went beyond him and asked for news of the prisoner.

"Well," said F. Chevreuse, glancing from one to the other, "there is

nothing to tell."

Honora sank into her chair again, and waited mutely, looking into the

fire.

"Nothing of any consequence, that is," he continued, folding his hands

together on the back of a chair, and looking down at them. "I went to

the jail; but Mr. Schöninger has so quixotic a sense of propriety that

he will not allow me to do anything for him. It was in vain for me to

urge the matter; he absolutely sent me away."

"He was quite right in that," Mrs. Gerald remarked coldly.

Honora's eyes were again eagerly searching the priest's face, but Mrs.

Gerald was in turn looking away from him.

"And why was he right, madam?" demanded F. Chevreuse.

She did not look up to answer, and her expression was of that stubborn

reserve which some good people assume when they cannot say anything

friendly, and are determined not to be uncharitable. "I may be wrong,"

she said, carefully choosing her words, "but it does not seem to me

that you are the person of whom he should take advice now. Pardon me,

F. Chevreuse! I do not mean to criticise you nor dictate to you, of

course. But I am glad that you are to have nothing to do with this. You

should be spared the pain."

He was too sore-hearted to argue the point; and he knew, moreover, that

argument would be thrown away. He was well aware that the most of his

friends thought his generosity sometimes exaggerated, and were more

likely to check than to encourage him. When he went out of the beaten

track, he had never found sympathy anywhere but with the one whose

loss he felt more and more every day, unless it might be with Annette

Ferrier and her mother.

"It seems that I am not to have anything to do with it," he said;

"though I fail to see why I should not. Let that pass, however. I pity

the poor fellow from my heart, though his detention will be a short

one, since the trial, they tell me, is to come on immediately. It is

a miserable condition, being shut up in that place, and loaded with

such an outrageous accusation. I do not wonder it made him bitter and

distrustful of me."

Mrs. Gerald lifted her eyes quickly, and gave F. Chevreuse a glance

that recalled to his mind that look from which he had shrunk in the

prison. He could not understand it, but it made him shiver. Not that

it expressed any suspicion or accusation; it seemed only to ask

searchingly if there were no suspicion in his own mind.

"Well, good-by!" he said hastily. "Let us all beware of

uncharitableness in thought, word, and deed."

When he had reached the street-door he heard Miss Pembroke's step

following him.

"You have really nothing to tell me?" she asked, trembling as she

held her shawl about her. "Recollect that I and this man have spoken

together as friends. Am I still to believe in him?"

"Oh! fie, Honora Pembroke!" the priest exclaimed sorrowfully. "Is that

the kind of friendship you give, that you doubt a person at the first

wild charge made against him?"

"It is not so much that I doubt, father," she said faintly. "But

nothing so terrible has ever come near me before, and it is

confounding. I want to be reassured."

"Cast all doubt out of your mind, then," he said emphatically. "And

if you should send some little message to Mr. Schöninger by a proper

messenger, saying that you hope he will soon be delivered from his

trouble, it would be a kind and Christian act."

She drew back a little, and made no reply.

"You are not willing to do it?" he asked.

"I would rather not, father," she answered deprecatingly. "I really

hope and pray that he may soon be delivered, and I am willing he

should know it--he must be sure of it, if he gives the subject a

thought--but I would not like to send him a message. There will be men

to go and speak kindly to him; he has many friends. If Lawrence were

here, he would go. I would not like to take any step in the matter."

F. Chevreuse sighed. "You must be guided by your own feeling and sense

of right in this," he said. "I did not mean to advise, but only to

suggest."

He knew, as he went away, that she lingered in the door, looking after

him in painful uncertainty, and he almost expected to hear himself

called back and begged to be her messenger. But no call came; and

he went away from his second visit, as from the first, chilled and

disappointed.

For one moment the thought which he had thrust aside on coming started

out again, and made itself felt. It seemed to him, in that brief glance

at it, that there is nothing on earth which can be more cruel than a

strict and scrupulous respectability. Then instantly he began to make

excuses, and to find reasons why people, women especially, should be

less demonstrative than he might have wished.

"What! you will not recognize me?" said a voice at his elbow.

It was a voice to arrest attention--deep, musical, and penetrating;

and the speaker was not one to be passed with only a glance. He was of

medium height, broad-shouldered, and had an exceedingly handsome face,

with brilliant blue eyes, and wavy, dark hair just beginning to be

threaded with white. This was F. O'Donovan, whose parish, a small one,

lay two miles, or more, from that of F. Chevreuse. Besides these two,

there was no other priest resident within a radius of forty miles.

"Brother!" exclaimed F. Chevreuse, and grasped the hand the other

extended to him, and for a moment seemed to be on the point of yielding

to an emotion natural to one who, having long borne without human help

his own burdens and the burdens of others, sees at length a friend on

whom he can lean in turn, and to whom he can venture to confess his

human weakness. "I thought you were at home, swathed in flannels," he

added, recovering himself.

F. O'Donovan shrugged his shoulders. He had been a good deal in France,

and had, moreover, as all graceful and vivacious persons have, a

natural inclination to use a good deal of gesture. "Rheumatism, my

friend, is not invincible. Yesterday I was helpless; this morning at

seven o'clock I was helpless. At ten minutes past seven I heard news

which made me wish to see you; and here I am--sound, too. It was only

to say, Get thee behind me, Satan! and I could walk as well as you.

From which I conclude that my rheumatism, if it had existence outside

my own imagination, was Satan in disguise."

F. Chevreuse pressed the arm he had taken, and they walked on together

a little way in silence. The news his brother priest had heard need not

be spoken of. His silent sympathy and companionship were enough.

"Has it ever occurred to you that the saints must have been considered

in their day rather disreputable people?" the elder priest asked

presently. "Leaving violent persecution out of the question, what

a raising of eyebrows, and shrugging of shoulders, and how many

indulgent smiles, and looks of mild surprise, and cold surprise, and

gentle dismay, and polite disapprobation, and all that they must have

occasioned!"

"By which I understand," remarked the other, "that somebody has refused

to fly in the face of society at your request."

"Taken with the usual allowance required by your interpretations of me,

that is true," F. Chevreuse admitted.

His friend smiled. There was always this little pretence of feud

between them, and each admired the other heartily, though the Frenchman

was unconventional to a fault, and the Irishman scrupulously polished.

A fastidious taste and a cautious self-control, learned in a large and

varied experience of life, stood in constant ward over F. O'Donovan's

warm heart and high spirit. F. Chevreuse, in his trustful ardor, was

constantly bruising himself on the rocks; his friend looked out for and

steered clear of them, yet not with a selfish nor ungenerous caution.

"Brother Chevreuse," he said in a voice to which he could impart an

almost irresistible persuasiveness, "you are older and wiser than I am,

and I only remind you of what you know when I say that conventionality

is not to be reprobated. It is on the side of law and order. It is the

friend of propriety and decency. It is the rule, to which, indeed,

exceptions are allowed, but not too readily. You speak of the saints

as though they were all persons who have lived before the world

peculiar and exceptional lives. Of course, even while I speak, you

remember that the church does not pretend to have canonized all her

holy children, and that she has appointed a day to commemorate those

who have won the heavenly crown without drawing upon themselves the

attention of mankind. I do not believe that any breath of slander or

of injurious criticism ever touched Our Blessed Lady. She used every

care to preserve herself from them. Why should not women be as careful

now, even at the risk of seeming to be selfishly cautious? Is the high

reputation which they have labored to acquire to be lightly perilled,

even for an apparently good end? Besides, in performing that one good

act, they may, by drawing criticism on themselves, have lost the power

to perform another effectually. You defend an accused person, never

having done so before, and you may save him. Do it a second time, and

people will say, 'Oh! he is always defending criminals'; and your power

is gone."

"It is hard to see a person wrongly accused, and not protest against

the wrong," F. Chevreuse said gravely.

"It is more than hard, it is wicked," the other replied with

earnestness. "But first be sure that the person is innocent; and

then, having ascertained that, try to recollect, my dear friend, that

you alone are not to right all the wrongs of earth. Some must be

endured, some must be rectified by others than you. And, after all,

I am inclined to believe that, as a rule, no innocent person falls

into serious difficulty without having been faulty in some way, as

regards prudence, at least. Now, how is such a person to learn wisdom

by experience, if there is always somebody at his elbow to save him

from the consequences of his own act. It is not pleasant to be obliged

to check a generous impulse in ourselves or in others; and it is not

pleasant, when we are in trouble, to be left to fight our way out of

it alone. But if we are always performing works of supererogation, we

may unfit ourselves for performing duties. And as to finding our track,

unassisted, through difficult ways, and learning by sharp experience

how to avoid them, it develops our inward resources, and is good for

us, though bitter."

The last words were delivered with an incisive emphasis so delicate

as to be observable only in one who seldom spoke with emphasis, and

it touched the listener deeply. F. O'Donovan never complained, and he

had never made any special revelations to his friend; but one who knew

his life could not doubt that he had learned to take his very sleep in

armor. He had risen from poverty and obscurity, as the sparks rise; had

borne the jealousy of those whom he left behind, and of those he had

eclipsed in his higher estate; had been obliged to control in himself

a haughty spirit and a tender heart; yet had never made a misstep of

any consequence, nor given his most jealous detractor an angry word to

remember.

His place was in a metropolitan church; but, at his own request, he

had been sent for a time to a quiet country parish, that he might have

leisure to complete a literary work for which city life and the demands

of a host of admirers were too distracting.

He had followed F. Chevreuse from his own house to the prison, and from

the prison to Mrs. Gerald's, and he understood perfectly what he would

wish to do and where he had been disappointed. Honora had, indeed, told

him, half weeping, of the request she had refused, and had proposed to

make him the bearer of her retraction.

"To think I should have set up my sense of right against his!" she

exclaimed. "To think that I should have refused him anything!"

And yet, though she was sincere in her regret, she was greatly

relieved when F. O'Donovan declined to carry her message, assuring

her that F. Chevreuse would doubtless, on second thought, approve of

her refusal. To have sent a direct message to a man who stood before

the world charged with a horrible crime, and, perhaps, to have

received a message in return from him--to have placed herself thus in

communication with one of the most darkly accused inmates of that jail

which she had passed frequently during her whole life without ever

dreaming of crossing the threshold, even for a work of mercy--the very

possibility plunged Miss Pembroke into confusion and distress. The

regions of crime were as far removed from her experience as the regions

that lie outside of human life; and, of herself, she would as soon have

thought of following any one to purgatory as to prison.

That scrupulous correctness and propriety which we admire in these

fair women, whose whole lives are passed in the delicately screened

cloisters of the world, shows sometimes a reverse not so admirable.

They are seldom the friends in need; and when a fearless heroism is

wanted, they do not come forward. They draw back instinctively those

garments they have been at pains to preserve so white from contact with

the blood-stained, dusty One who goes staggering by with the thorns on

his head and the cross on his shoulders. A look of pity and horror may

follow him from the safe place where they stand; but it is not they who

pierce their way through the rabble, with Veronica, to take the imprint

of his misery on to their stainlessness, nor they who weep around

his tomb through dews and darkness, careless of the world in their

unspeakable sorrow, and floating above the world in the unspeakable

ecstasy to which that sorrow gives place. No, the charity of the human

angel is limited. Only the angels of God, and those generous souls

whose anguish of pity for the suffering is a constantly purifying fire,

can go down into the darker paths of life and receive no stain.

"I am glad F. O'Donovan came," Mrs. Gerald remarked when their second

visitor left them. "I feel better for being reassured by him. Of

course, we all know that we cannot throw ourselves away for everybody,

as dear F. Chevreuse's impulse is; yet he is so good, so much better

than any one else, one feels almost guilty in not following him every

step he wishes. His utter unselfishness and generosity are very

disturbing to one sometimes; for we must think of ourselves."

"It is well for the world that there are those who see no such

necessity," Miss Pembroke replied briefly.

Her companion said nothing more for a moment. She had been conscious

that Honora was not satisfied, but had preferred to take no notice of

it, and to quiet her without seeming aware that she needed quieting.

"Poor Mr. Schöninger!" she said presently. "I pity him with all my

heart. It is, of course, impossible to believe that this arrest is

anything but a mistake which will soon be corrected. Still, the affair

must be very painful to him. How indignant Lawrence will be! I wish

he might hear nothing of it till he comes home, for I really think he

would come sooner if he knew what has happened. He thought a good deal

of Mr. Schöninger."

"Yes, it must soon be corrected," repeated Honora, passing over the

rest. "I cannot imagine on what grounds the arrest was made; but some

are ready to believe of a stranger what they would never listen to

if said of one they knew. One might parody that proverb about the

absent, and say that the foreigner is always wrong. Only imagine what

it must be, Mrs. Gerald"--Honora's brown eyes dilated with a sort of

terror,--"imagine what it must be to find one's self in trouble and

disgrace alone in a foreign land. No person has any special interest

in the stranger; no one knows him well enough to defend him; his

reputation is a bubble that the first breath may break; and if he is

wrong, no one understands what excuses may be made for him. Fancy

Lawrence alone in some European country, and arrested for a great

crime."

Mrs. Gerald had listened at first with sympathy; but at the name of

Lawrence her face changed.

"My dear Honora," she said with decision, "I cannot possibly imagine my

son, no matter how far away, nor how friendless he might be--I cannot

imagine him being arrested on a charge of robbery and murder! It is too

great a flight of fancy, and too unjust. But that does not prevent my

pitying Mr. Schöninger."

Mrs. Gerald would not have shown such asperity, probably, had her son

never given people anything to forgive in him. Tremblingly alive to his

faults, she gladly seized on any charge which it was possible to cast

indignantly aside.

Honora perceived too well her feelings and the mistake that she herself

had made to be in the least annoyed at the reply. It may be that she

understood better than ever before what might be the pain of one whose

affections are engaged by an object which has not her entire approval.

Not that she loved Mr. Schöninger, or for a moment fancied that she

did; it was only that he had come near enough to excite her imagination

on the subject of love.

"Fortunately," she said, after a thoughtful pause, "the people of

Crichton are liberal."

It was such an opinion as might have been expected from her character

and experience. Life had shown her but little of those deeper causes

which underlie so much of the apparent inconsistency of mankind. She

had not learned to distinguish between that firm liberality which is

founded on principle, and is but another name for justice, and its

unstable namesake, which floats on the surface of a soul that has no

convictions. The former can be relied on; the latter may at any time

give place to a violent bigotry. It has an immense vanity beneath, and

fiercely resents on others its own mistakes.

The gradations of the change might have been precisely calculated

beforehand. At first, an astonishment which was unanimous; followed,

after the natural pause, by individual voices in various tones, the

loud ones harmless, the whispering ones poisonous. Crichton was a

city where there could be but one sensation at a time. Whatever of

moment happened there, everybody knew it and everybody talked about

it. The loud voices grew lower, the whispers increased. We have heard

orchestra music like that, where, after the first crash and pause,

the instruments start their several ways, and one scarcely hears the

whisper of violins that runs through the heavy brass, till presently

that whisper becomes an audible hiss, then a sharp cry, and finally its

shrieks overtop trumpet and organ.

People could not imagine on what grounds Mr. Schöninger had been

accused, but considered it a matter of course that there must have

been some proof against him; and they immediately set themselves to

recollecting everything they had observed in him, to magnifying every

peculiarity and perverting every circumstance connected with his

life. Some had always said that strangers whom nobody knew anything

about were received altogether too readily in Crichton. It was only

necessary that a man should be good-looking, or clever, or have a

romantic appearance, or be enveloped in a mystery, for him to be made

the hero of the hour. And here the men bethought themselves, like

true sons of Adam, to lay the blame on the women. Another class, made

up of both Catholics and Protestants, reminded the public that they

had from the first protested against Christians mingling in friendly

intercourse with Jews. It was a treason against their Lord to do so,

these Christians said, and he had shown his displeasure by allowing

this wolf, whom they had admitted into the fold, to destroy one of the

chosen ones. Others there were, microscopic critics, who had always

found something peculiarly sinister in certain expressions of the Jew's

face, and who recollected perfectly having shivered with fear when they

had encountered these peculiar glances.

The sound grew up and gathered, and at the end of a fortnight public

opinion in Crichton had half condemned the man without having heard a

word of testimony against him.

Doubtless his own scornful silence had not predisposed any one in his

favor; and, besides, he was reported to have spoken slightingly of an

institution which it is not safe to attack. Rumor accused him of having

said that a jury hinder more than they help the cause of justice;

and that if public sentiment is not high enough to educate and elect

a proper judge, it is folly to call in from the street to his aid

twelve men who are probably still more incompetent, and certainly less

responsible.

The judges may have been not ill-pleased at this; but few others heard

the story without indignation.

The newspapers also soon became either cold or unfriendly; for though

they had all expressed the most courteous surprise and regret at his

arrest, he had not allowed one of their reporters so much as a glimpse

of him.

One after another the friendly voices grew faint or fell into silence,

till only three or four were left. F. Chevreuse had written Mr.

Schöninger a line, "Whenever you want me, I shall be ready to come,"

and had refrained from all other approach. But he did not cease to

insist on his belief in the prisoner's innocence. Mrs. Ferrier, also,

was loud and warm in her championship. She visited Mr. Schöninger in

prison, and stood at the grate, the jailer by her side, with tears

running down her cheeks, while she poured forth her incoherent but most

sincere indignation and grief; and she scraped the skin from her fat

hand pushing it through the bars to take that of the prisoner.

She also made arrangements for a larger and lighter cell to be given

him, and had begun to furnish it most luxuriously, when he found out

what she was doing, and absolutely refused to move.

"My dear Mrs. Ferrier," he said, "it is not the bare stones and the

hard bench that makes the place intolerable; and I will not consent to

any change. I should be no more at ease locked up in a palace. Let me

remain as I am while I stay here."

"But look at that bed!" she cried; and the diamond glittering on the

indignant finger she pointed through the bars was outshone by the tear

that welled up and hung on her eyelashes. "The idea of a man like you

sleeping on that sack of straw with a gray blanket over it! It's a sin

and a shame!"

"But, my friend, it is good enough for a criminal," he answered, with

something like a faint smile on his face.

"A criminal!" And we hope the reader will pardon the next two words

uttered by this dear, good soul in the heat of her generous trust and

pity. She said, "Shut up!"

"I know what nonsense you talked to F. Chevreuse," she went on; "but

I won't listen to it. You ought to be ashamed of yourself for driving

that man away. You can't serve me so. I shall come here, and I shall

take up for you; and--now, Mr. Schöninger, don't be silly, but let

me fix up that other room for you. The sun shines into it all the

afternoon; and I've got a nice carpet on the floor, and two arm-chairs,

and some wax candles, and a red curtain to draw over the grating, and

I'll make it as comfortable as if my own son was going to be in it. Do

give your consent, now!"

Still he was inflexible, though he softened his refusal with every

expression of gratitude. "There are reasons why it would be very

painful and embarrassing for me to consent," he said; "and since your

wish is to give me pleasure, I am sure you will not urge this when I

tell you that I should be more uncomfortable there than here. Your

kindness does me good; but I cannot receive your bounty."

Mrs. Ferrier was not to be so thwarted, however. She had to relinquish

her project of furnishing a room for him, but she made amends to

herself by supplying his table extravagantly. It was in vain for him

to protest. The waiter gravely assured him that the dishes were sent

in from the prison kitchen; the jailer as gravely added that his wife

overlooked that part of the establishment, and he knew nothing about

it; and Mrs. Ferrier, when the prisoner questioned her, declared, with

an air of the utmost innocence, that she did not send in his food,

and did not know what he had. The truth was that she had ordered the

keeper of a restaurant near by to send Mr. Schöninger the best that

he could supply; and she flattered herself that the waiter could with

truth obey her order to say that the dishes came from the jail kitchen.

"You're not obliged to tell him that they come in at one door of the

kitchen and out at another," she said.

Flowers lined the cell, fruit arrived there in profusion, and

illustrated papers and books, the text of which betrayed the simple

taste that had selected them, piled the one table and filled the

window-ledges--all sent anonymously. Mr. Schöninger found himself

obliged to capitulate to this persistent and most transparent incognita.

In a few weeks another friend, quite as decided, though less

demonstrative, was added. Lawrence Gerald, returning with his wife to

Crichton, went immediately to see Mr. Schöninger and offer any service

in his power to render him.

"It is folly to waste breath in abusing the detectives or whoever has

made this miserable blunder," he said calmly. "Of course, nobody is

safe from suspicion. I'm rather surprised they hadn't hit upon me, for

I was hard up at that time. The point is, however, can I do anything

for you? You will be out of this soon, of course; but, in the meantime,

I should be very glad if I can serve you in any way."

Mr. Schöninger assured his visitor that he needed no services; but his

manner of declining the assistance offered him was far more natural

and cheerful than it had been when F. Chevreuse or Mrs. Ferrier came.

Lawrence Gerald's friendship was, indeed, of more value to him in

this matter than theirs could have been; for as Lawrence was a man of

the world, and not too likely to have much faith in any one, men of

the world would respect his opinion, white they might laugh at the

championship of a woman and look upon the ideal charity of a priest as

a feeling which they could not be expected to sympathize with nor be

influenced by.

This friendly act of Lawrence's greatly pleased his mother-in-law; and,

since Annette looked quite contented and happy, she was still more

disposed to be complacent toward the young man.

"I wouldn't have believed he thought so much of Annette," she said

confidentially to F. Chevreuse. "But he follows her about like her

shadow. It's all the time, 'Ask Annette,' or, 'What does Annette say?'

or, 'How will Annette like it?' and he will hardly go down-town unless

she goes with him. I only hope it may last," sighed the mother, fearful

of being too sanguine.

It was quite true that Lawrence Gerald showed far more affection for

his wife after than he ever had before their marriage, and Mrs. Ferrier

scarcely exaggerated in saying that he followed her about like her

shadow. He perceived more and more every day how strong and reliable

she was, and how full of resources for every emergency. Besides, he

had a cause for gratitude toward her of which her mother was not

aware. During that time when they had been alone, undisturbed by

discordant interruptions, undisturbed also by any excessive happiness

in each other's society, she had perceived that something more than

indifference to herself preyed upon his spirits, and had at length

succeeded in drawing from him a confession of his difficulties. He

owned that the story her mother had heard of his debts was true, and

that he had been able to silence his persecutors only for a short

time. On the very day of his marriage one of them had demanded payment,

and a second letter had followed him to their bridal retreat.

"My dear Lawrence, why did you not tell me at once?" his wife

interrupted as soon as she caught the purport of his stammering

explanation. "It was not treating me with confidence; and surely I

deserve your confidence."

"It isn't pleasant for a man to own that he has been a fool, and a liar

besides," he replied bitterly. "You know I denied it to your mother. I

couldn't very well tell her that it was none of her business, though I

wanted to."

"It isn't pleasant for any one to own that he has failed to live quite

up to his own idea of what is right," she said quickly. "I often blush

at the recollection of some mistake or folly in my life. But where one

understands you, Lawrence, and is bound to you for life, for better or

for worse, you should not be too reserved. All that I have is yours. My

first wish is to spare you pain, and I could have no greater pleasure

than to have you confide in me. Do not be afraid of hearing any

lectures or of seeing me assume the right to criticise you. I only ask

to help you when I can."

This had been said with a haste that gave him no time to interpose or

reply; and before the last words were well spoken she had left his

side, and was opening a little writing-desk in another part of the

room. Her husband leaned on the window-ledge and looked out, appearing

to regard intently the mist that hung over the unseen cataract before

him, and to listen to the soft thunder of its fall; but the color

of his face, burning with a mortification inseparable from such an

avowal as he had made, and the faint lines of a frown that seemed

to be graven between his brows, showed that his mind was far from

being occupied with the beauties of nature. The only thought Niagara

suggested to him at that moment escaped his lips in a whisper as he

leaned out into the air: "If my foot had but slipped a little further

to-day!"

Annette came back and leaned out beside him. "How soft and sunny the

air is for September!" she said. "It is more like June."

He felt her small hand slip under his arm, and push a roll of paper

into his breast-pocket while she spoke.

"Do you not think, husband," she went on, "that we might like to go to

Montreal instead of South? It would be pleasanter to go to Washington

during the season."

And that was all that was said about the matter, except that, the day

after their return to Crichton, Lawrence told his wife that the debt

was paid.

"Oh! yes," she said lightly, as if such a debt were quite a matter of

course. "I'm glad that is off your mind." And would have changed the

subject.

But he, looking at her very gravely, knew well that the lightness was

assumed to spare him, and that the affair was only less painful to her

than to himself.

They were in their own sitting-room, and Annette was filling a vase

with late flowers that she had just brought in from the garden, while

he sat near the table by which she stood. He stretched his hand and

drew her to him, holding her slender fingers that held a cluster of

heart's-ease she had just taken from the basket.

"Let me speak of it once more, Ninon," he said. "You did not exact any

promise from me, dear; but I have one to make you. If my word or my

will are good for anything, I will never again play a game for pleasure

even, still less for money. I have no temptation to now; and if I had,

the recollection of what play has cost me would be enough to save me

from yielding."

His face and voice said more than the words, and the regret, the shame,

and the gratitude they expressed were almost more than she could bear.

It hurt her cruelly to see him whom she had exalted as an idol so

humbled and sorrowful before her. He looked weary; she had thought that

for some time; and though the outlines of his beautiful face were too

delicate to show readily a loss of flesh, she could see that he had

grown perceptibly thinner.

"I was sure of you, without needing any promise," she said, and tried

to smile on him, but with tremulous lips. "And now, do not let it

trouble your mind any longer. I'm going to give you a charm." She

smiled brightly this time, for he had kissed her hand. "With this

magical flower I bar all unrest from you, and assure you peace for the

future."

She fastened the cluster of heart's-ease in his button-hole, then

returned to her flowers.

Her husband could not but remember the time when a tender word or act

of his would bring the blush to her face and set her in a tremor of

delight. He would sometimes have been a little more demonstrative and

affectionate, if the effect had not been so annoyingly great on her.

But now, without the slightest appearance of coldness or anger, in

simple unconsciousness, it seemed, of having changed her manner, she

was altogether changed. She received him kindly, there was no sign of

an estranged heart, but she only received; she did not invite, nor

follow, nor linger about him. Quite naturally and calmly she attended

to whatever employment she might have in hand when he was present;

and though she undeniably liked to have him near her, it was possible

for her to forget his presence for a moment. Looking at her now, as

she began quietly arranging her flowers again, the thought glimmered

dimly in his mind that Honora Pembroke herself could not have behaved

with a sweeter or more dignified tranquillity. But the moment of this

consciousness was brief. Honora's image had too long been enthroned

by him as queen in all things womanly to be disturbed by this slight

figure with her glow-worm lamp.

Still, the development of his wife's character made its impression on

him; and, half needing her, and half curious about her, he felt himself

constantly attracted to her society.

They passed a good deal of time alone together, sometimes walking or

driving in the pleasant autumn days, sometimes shut up in their own

room, where Annette read, sang to, and otherwise amused her husband.

He was going into business; but the two or three months of necessary

preparation and delay were to him very much leisure time, and hung

rather heavily on his hands.

"I shall be glad to get to work," he said to her. "Idleness is

tolerable only in a pleasant atmosphere; and the atmosphere of Crichton

is anything but pleasant now. Sometimes I've half a mind to run away

till this ridiculous trial is over and people can talk of something

else."

"The same thought has occurred to me," his wife replied. "I am growing

nervous and low-spirited with these horrible images constantly before

my mind. I have begged mamma not to mention the subject again at the

table, nor anywhere else without necessity. Some people--I don't mean

mamma, of course--but some people seem to enjoy tragedies, and to be

quite angry if one doesn't put the most terrible construction on every

circumstance. I have no patience with them."

She looked, indeed, quite pale and irritated. Like all persons of a

lively imagination, she was nearly as much affected by the description

of a scene as she would have been on witnessing it; and the frequent

repetitions and amplifications with which others of duller natures

had found it necessary to revive their own impressions had been both

painful and annoying to her. Besides, she had a source of disquiet

which she confided to no one, not even to F. Chevreuse, since she

never alluded to his mother's death when in conversation with him.

While wondering, in spite of herself, what proof sufficient to

justify an indictment could have been found against Mr. Schöninger,

she had recollected the shawl he left in her garden the night Mother

Chevreuse was killed. It did not seem an important circumstance; yet

it constantly recurred to her in connection with other points not

so trivial. She did not for a moment believe him guilty; but her

imagination, seizing on this one fact, held it up suggestively, so

that it cast on her mind various and troublesome shadows that were out

of all proportion to itself. Why had he appeared startled when she

mentioned the shawl to him? And could it be possible he was sincere

in saying that he came for it in the morning, when she had plainly

seen some one remove it at night? She combated these disagreeable

thoughts with all her strength, and sought to atone to Mr. Schöninger

for the wrong she believed they did him by entering heartily into all

her mother's plans for his comfort; but she could not banish them so

entirely but they tormented her into wishing to fly to some place where

she might at least hope to forget the whole subject.

"If every one were like Mrs. Gerald and Honora," she said to her

mother, "how much smoother and deeper life would be! I am sure they

think of dear Mother Chevreuse very often, and always with bleeding

hearts; yet they never speak of her, except, in a pleasant way, to

recall some saying or some kind act of hers; and one would not know,

from what they say, that she had not been assumed bodily into heaven,

or, at least, died tranquilly and beautifully of old age. I have no

sympathy, mamma, with these noisy people who come here wringing their

hands and uttering maledictions on Mr. Schöninger."

Mrs. Ferrier felt a little touched at that part of the speech which

referred to the wringing of hands, for that was her most frequent

manner of expressing distress of mind, and she was not sure that her

daughter did not mean to give her an indirect reproof or warning. Her

reply, therefore, was a dissenting one; and the comparison she used,

though not elegant, was somewhat strong.

"It's all the same difference as there is between a wild horse and a

horse that's broke," she said. "And you can't deny that the creature

loses half its spirit before it bears the bit and the rein. And so I

believe that your fine, quiet people kill some of the life out of their

grief when they teach it to be so polite, and that they forget the

friend they have lost while they are thinking how they shall behave

themselves and cry in a genteel manner. When I die, Annette, may the

Lord give me just such mourners as Mother Chevreuse has in those poor

people!"

"Oh! don't, mamma!" the daughter said coaxingly; for Mrs. Ferrier had

ended by bursting into tears. "I didn't mean to vex you, only I am

nervous and distressed by all this excitement. There! don't cry any

more, and I will own that you are at least half right."

"Not but that they do provoke me when they talk about Mr. Schöninger,"

Mrs. Ferrier admitted, wiping her eyes. "But then, the poor things!

it's a relief to their sorrow to be mad with somebody about it."

It was undeniable that whatever relief could be found in lamentation

for their dear lost friend, and in invoking retribution on her

destroyer, very few hesitated to avail themselves of. Besides what the

law could do, it needed all the influence that F. Chevreuse had, both

with his own flock and with non-Catholics, to prevent the people who

were constantly gathering outside the jail from throwing missiles into

Mr. Schöninger's cell.

"How strong is accusation!" he exclaimed. "People appear to think

that man condemned already, though he is sure to be triumphantly

acquitted. It is astonishing how entirely a grave charge, no matter how

unproved, removes those we have loved and respected beyond the pale of

our sympathy. It is as though we had never heard of innocence being

accused, and believed it impossible that we could ever be calumniated

ourselves."

He was speaking to Mr. Sales, the editor of _The Aurora_, who received

his remarks rather uneasily. _The Aurora_ had of late been interesting

itself very much in the history of the Jews, both ancient and modern,

the items it scattered through its columns with apparent carelessness

not being always calculated to inspire the reader with an increased

affection for that ancient race; and "Fleur de Lis" had every week,

from her corner on the first page, bewailed in facile and dolorous

lines the sorrows and sufferings of that Mother and Son to whom, in the

prose of everyday life, she was far from conspicuous for devotion.

"I have observed, sir," Mr. Sales said, feeling obliged to say

something, "that people who have the reputation of being the most

correct and irreproachable are often the most unmerciful toward

wrong-doers. It gives one an unpleasant impression of religion."

"Not justly," the priest replied. "What you say of some good people is

quite true--they are moral skeletons since, after all, good principles

are only the vertebræ of a character. But there are many charitable

Christians in the world. I find fault with their imaginations chiefly;

they cannot fancy themselves accused without being guilty."

And thus, in the midst of an increasing excitement, Mr. Schöninger's

trial came on.

SPIRITUALISM.

CHAPTER III.

The spiritualists who protest against the attribution of spiritualistic

phenomena to the devil may be divided into two classes: 1st, Those who

believe there is no such being as the devil; 2d, Those who, believing

him to exist, think it unreasonable to attribute such phenomena as

those under consideration to such a being.

To these first I can but admit that there is no demonstrating the

devil; but, on the other hand, I would remind them that, in denying his

existence, they are opposing themselves, 1st, to the religious instinct

of the great mass of mankind, who are persuaded that life is a warfare,

that there is an enemy. 2d, To the unwavering, explicit tradition of

the Christian church. It is impossible to read the Gospels and the

other records of the early church without having the idea of a battle,

and an enemy against whom it is waged, brought prominently before you.

Our Lord came to break the power of Satan, and to take away "the armor

in which he trusted"; and the church was instituted for his detailed

discomfiture. Every soul that is saved is regarded as a spoil snatched

from the hand of the enemy; every one who is cast out of the church is

delivered over to Satan.

Some of the earliest words of the church's ritual are words of defiance

and adjuration of the enemy upon whom it was her mission to trample.

Her exorcisms, for instance, in the baptism service testify to a

consciousness of the devil's presence which is simply startling in its

realism. He is never forgotten from the moment when, gently breathing

on the child's face, she charges the unclean spirit to give place to

the Holy Ghost, to the moment when he is cast out headlong, followed by

the renunciations of his rescued victim.

The extreme antiquity of these exorcisms is sufficiently vindicated by

the poetic paraphrase of Prudentius in the IVth century:

Intonat antistes Domini: fuge callide serpens

Mancipium Christi, fur corruptissime vexas

Desine, Christus adest humani corporis ultor

Non licet ut spolium rapias cui Christus inhœsit

Pulsus abi ventose liquor Christus jubet, exi.[192]

Moreover, though the devil is expelled in baptism, the church never

lets her children lose sight of him. She is ever warning them in the

words of S. Augustine: "Take care, afflicted mortals, take care that

the evil one defile not ever this house of the body; that, introduced

by the senses, he debauch not the soul's sanctity, nor cloud the

intellectual light. This evil thing winds through all the inlets of

the senses, moulds itself in forms, blends with colors, weds with

sounds, lurks in anger and guileful speech, clothes itself in scents,

transfuses itself in savors, and by a flood of troublous movement

obscures the mind with evil desires, and fills with vapor the channels

of the understanding, through which the soul's ray might shed the light

of reason."[193] Voltaire was quite in the right when he set down a

priest who would fain compromise with infidelity by throwing up the

devil, in this wise: "Belief in the devil is an essential point of

Christianity: no Satan, no Saviour."

Those who, admitting the devil to exist, deny that spiritualistic

phenomena are diabolical, urge various pleas which I purpose to examine

in detail. They insist upon, 1st, the innocent and friendly character

of the phenomena. 2d, The difficulty of believing that the devil

would be allowed to take so great a liberty with respectable persons

without some sort of understanding on their parts. 3d, The fact that

spiritualism is a great and most efficient exponent of the immortality

of the soul and the existence of God in a materialistic generation.

Now, as regards the first plea, I simply deny the fact of the

innocence. I submit that pantheism and the non-existence of eternal

punishment are immoral doctrines, the spread of which is calculated to

make the world worse; and that these are pre-eminently the doctrines

of spiritualism, taught always indirectly, and standing out more and

more clearly in proportion as the pious twaddle in which they are

incorporated for the sake of weak brethren is laid aside, and the

spiritualistic element can give itself free way.

Demoralizing, also, is the distaste which spiritualism creates for

all religion, inasmuch as religion lives by faith. An example of

this is given in _Experiences with D. D. Home_, p. 60. The party of

spiritualists had been conversing, as they imagined, with the spirit of

the child of one of them, lately dead, the body, in its coffin, being

in the room in which they were sitting. After the burial, we are told,

"On our way home, every one remarked that the burial-service, which

is, in general, so impressive, had that day, while in church, sounded

strangely flat and unprofitable. Mrs. Cox asked how it was that the

clergyman had not used the words, 'dust to dust, ashes to ashes, earth

to earth.' We assured her that he had; but she declared she had not

heard them, although standing as near to him as any of us."

In other respects spiritualism is by no means innocent. It is

impossible to set aside the strong testimony, not merely of medical

men, who might be supposed prejudiced, but of so many who have either

practised spiritualism themselves, or had spiritualist friends, as

to the gradual exhaustion of the vital powers which it produces

when persevered in to any extent. And, again, it is by far the most

efficacious destructive of the barriers of propriety, particularly

between the sexes. No one can read much even of the most respectable

séances without feeling that the worthy persons who take part in them,

whilst securing, may be, the perfect propriety of the particular

séance in which they are engaged, are lending the cloak of their

respectability to an institution especially marked out for the

dissemination of corruption. My contention is that the devil has in

spiritualism the prospect of an excellent harvest of evil, of which he

has received a very sufficient earnest.

With regard to the gentle behavior, which is supposed to be

inconsistent with the character of one who is spoken of as "a roaring

lion," I would observe that this gentleness on the part of the spirits

is by no means invariable; see the violent scene (_Experiences_, p.

154) in which Home is tormented and screams; or, again, where the

company is struck by the "disagreeable and fearful glowing" of his

eyes (_Rep._, p. 208). However, it must be confessed that the general

character of the manifestations is gentleness itself; but of this sort

of gentleness there are plenty of examples in accounts of mediæval

magic, when spirits have persevered for a considerable time in gentle,

not to say pious, behavior, and, indeed, only came out as devils when

worried by the church. The following is taken from the _Gloria Posthuma

S. Ignatii_.[194]

A little girl of nine, the daughter of an artilleryman at Malta,

was made quite a pet of by spirits, who were always bringing her

little presents of jewelry and fruit, at one time giving her fresh

figs in January. She was frightened just at first; but they talked

so charmingly of their being creatures of the good God as well as

she, and seemed to know so much about the inside of churches, that

the child could not but think well of them. They did her a wonderful

number of kind services of various sorts. For a long time the child's

parents, who never saw the spirits, but only the effects they produced,

acquiesced, and seemed to think it rather a good joke. There was only

one thing that troubled them, and which ultimately made them call

in the priest, and this was that the spirits, who showed themselves

amiably enough disposed towards the family in general, had an

exceptional spite against one little boy. They never saw him come into

the room without showing disgust and saying all sorts of unpleasant

things about him to their little _protégée_. There was nothing peculiar

about the boy, except that he served Mass every morning. When the

priest was sent for, and the house exorcised, the amiable spirits, as

is invariably the case under these circumstances, lost their temper,

and went off in ugly shapes, vomiting fire; in fact, to borrow the

spiritualist expression, showing themselves very unformed spirits

indeed.

With this account we may compare Mr. Fusedale's extraordinary letter

(_Rep._, p. 255), in which he says that the spirits habitually play

with his children and amuse them by showing them pretty scenes in a

polished globe. He tells us that he has himself seen one of these

scenes--a ship hemmed in by ice in an Arctic sea--and that he has

often witnessed his little boy shoved across the room in a chair, his

legs being too short to reach the ground, and "no human agency near."

The two accounts are not unlike, except that in the second story the

materials for playing out the last scene are wanting.

As regards the second plea, no doubt there is something odd, at first

sight, in so many respectable persons having got into such intimate

relations with the devil without knowing anything about it; and

though there are not wanting individual instances in the history of

_diablerie_, I must confess that I have met with nothing of the sort

on so large a scale. But then, we must remember that there never has

been a time when respectables as a body were so irreligious, and it is

religion that is the great obstacle to such unconscious intercourse

with Satan. No Christian who knows anything of the way in which the

ancient world was exorcised need be surprised at the devil's being able

considerably to enlarge his sphere, as the church has been compelled to

narrow hers.

At first, indeed, it seemed as if this was not to be the case. The

philosophy of the last century boasted, with some plausibility, that it

had done what the church, with all her exorcisms, had never succeeded

in doing--that it had swept away Satan altogether, along with his

great adversary. Church and devil had gone down together; and for a

time people persuaded themselves that the devil, anyhow, had gone. In

the solemn obsequies of the whole caste of superstition, as the world

fondly thought it, the devil was carried out first, dead, hopelessly

dead, free-thinking priests, such as Voltaire rebuked, bearing up the

pall. Though many a mocking _requiescat_ has been chanted over his

grave, like that of the church, it has proved to be a cenotaph; and now

that he appears again, we can hardly wonder if he finds himself more at

home than ever since Christianity came into the world.

Satan has ever been, as the schoolmen called him, God's ape (_simius

Dei_), reproducing in the mysteries of the "Sabbath" the rites, and

even the organization, of the church; but now, after the world's

reiterated rejection of Christ, it would seem that the enemy has been

permitted to carry the parody a step further. Not only wherever two

or three are gathered together in his name is he in their midst, but,

good shepherd-wise, he is allowed to seek the sheep that had been lost.

Uninvited he seeks them in the unromantic circle of XIXth-century life,

entrenched as this is amongst elements the least promising, one should

think, for mysticism of any sort. In bright, cheerful, modern rooms,

amongst the rustle of innocent commonplaces, he finds his opportunity

and his profit, and gently and genially weans his victims from what

fragments of dogmatic religion they may still retain to the liberty of

his children. At least, there is nothing unnatural in this view.

The third plea is, in the spiritualist's mind, irresistible, and it has

had, doubtless, considerable influence in preventing various religious

persons from condemning spiritualism. The great evil of the day is

materialism; now, then, it is asked, is it conceivable that the devil

should appear as the advocate of the two great spiritual doctrines

of the immortality of the soul and the existence of God; nay, should

actually convert numbers to a belief in these doctrines? I answer,

1st, that when the devil first came forward as the champion of human

liberty, he certainly did preach both the immortality of the soul

and the existence of God. "Ye shall not die." "Ye shall be as gods."

True, he was denying in one breath the death of the body and the death

of the soul; but this is quite in the fashion of spiritualism, which

invariably denounces any use of the word "death." 2d, That the doctrine

of the immortality of the soul loses all disciplinary force when

converted into that of endless, inevitable progression. The possibility

of a miserable finality has been accepted by the noblest philosophers

as a necessary phase in that melody of a future life which, to use the

expression of Socrates (_Phædo_, cap. 63), it is "so necessary for each

man to sing to himself." There are some, he had said (cap. 62), whom "a

befitting fate casts into Tartarus, whence they never come out." And in

the last book of the _Republic_, where human life is described as going

on in an indefinite series of metempsychosis, we are shown, as the

generations sweep round, a pit into which the very bad fall out of the

circle, never to join it again. Nor is the doctrine of the existence

of God when converted into pantheism of more avail. A deity who is the

mere _terminus ad quem_ of necessary evolution can neither be feared as

judge nor worshipped as God.

Long experience has taught the evil one that man cannot do without

religious sentiment; so he aims at getting its circulation into his

own hands by coming forward boldly as the advocate of its cardinal

points. He is determined to risk no more disappointing losses, by

striving to feed men on the dry husks of materialism, which are

insufficient to support life, and are sure, sooner or later, to provoke

nausea and repulsion. As to those who have been really converted from

scepticism by the spirits, nay, have been landed, as has sometimes been

the case, in the bosom of the Catholic Church, I can only say, Blessed

be God! who has ever exercised seignorial rights upon the devil's

fishing.

So much for the spiritualist amendment. I shall now proceed to consider

the positive arguments and evidence tending to show that spiritualism

is diabolic.

1st. I notice its shrinking and disgust for all active Catholicism

which extends to the use of fragments of Catholic truth in the hands

of zealous sectarians. This antipathy, I contend, is invariable; but I

must guard against being misunderstood. I admit that the spirits have

indulged from time to time in a considerable amount of Catholic, or, I

should rather say Ritualist, talk. Several instances may be found in

Mr. Home's séances in which holy-water and crucifixes are spoken of

with a certain amount of unction. I admit, too, that though sometimes

the spirits are discomfited by the mere presence of a religious

object--a medal, relic, etc.--this is by no means ordinarily the case.

It is quite possible for religious objects to be so presented as in

no way to embarrass the spirits, who have been sometimes permitted to

carry them about with apparent tenderness, even as Satan was allowed

to carry our Lord and set him on a pinnacle of the temple. A sword

requires to be handled with a certain amount of vigor and intention if

it is to avail as a weapon. If holy objects are brought out simply

as so many Catholic testimonials and orders of merit for the spirits,

I know nothing in the nature of things or in the promises of God to

prevent the devil wearing them in his button-hole. On the other hand, a

man uncertain of the spirits' character, but with an honest and lively

intention of rejecting them so far as they are God's enemies, "fugite

partes adversæ," if he adjures them in his name, will either reduce

them to silence and impotence, or extort the confession that they are

devils.

It would be easy to produce numbers of instances of the extraordinarily

hostile sensitiveness of the spirits in regard to the use in their

presence of Catholic prayers, medals, relics, etc. In fact, in order

to avoid being a non-conductor, if not an obstructive, a certain

undogmatic attitude of mind is required. We need not, indeed, reject

Christ, but we must be prepared to look for another beside him,

if not in his place. Mr. Home (_Rep._, p. 188) says that, for the

medium's success, "the only thing necessary is that the people about

should be harmonious." He explains that "the 'harmonious' feeling is

simply that which you get on going into a room and finding all the

people present such as you feel at home with at once.... Scepticism

is not a hindrance; an unsympathetic person is." I have no doubt that

this account is perfectly accurate so far as it goes. A Christian's

hatred of what he suspects to be the devil, and Professor Tyndall's

contemptuous disgust for what he considers a piece of cheating, are

both no doubt _natural_ impediments to spiritualistic manifestations;

although, in the former case, it may well be that it is something more.

The following scene from Prudentius (_Apoth._, 460-502) illustrates

what I have said as to Christian rite and formulary availing against

sorcery, not as a charm, but as a weapon of faith. It must be

remembered that Julian had been baptized, but his baptism had no effect

in breaking the magic rites. We venture thus to render it:

"To give great Hecatè her glut of blood,

Whole troops of cows and lowing heifers stood

About her altar, every frontlet crowned

With shadowy cypress twisted round and round.

And now the priestly butcher drives his brand

Into the victims, and with bloody hand

Gropes keenly in the entrails chilling fast,

To count each fluttering life-pulse to the last.

When suddenly he cries, dead-white with fear,

'Alas! great prince, some greater god is here

Than may suffice these foaming bowls of milk,

The blood of victims, flowers, and twisted silk.

Yon summoned shades are scattering in dismay,

And scared Persephonè glides fast away,

With torch averted and with trailing scourge,

Thessalian charms are powerless to urge

The troubled gods to face the hostile thing.

In vain our spells and mystic muttering;

The flame has withered in yon censer's core,

The blinking embers shrink in ashes hoar.

The server with the plate can scarcely stand,

The rich balm dripping from his trembling hand.

The flamen feels his laurel chaplet go,

The victim leaps, and shuns the fatal blow.

Assuredly some Christian youth has dared

To enter here, and, as their wont, has scared

The assembled gods, and of their rites despoiled.

Avaunt! avaunt! thou that art washed and oiled!

That so anew fair Proserpine may rise.'

He shrieked, and swooning fell, as though his eyes

Had seen Christ angry and in act to slay.

In a like fear the prince now thrusts away

His royal crown, and gazes all about;

For the fond youth had dared his spells to flout

By bearing on his brow the Christian sign.

Lo! one, dragged forward from the brilliant line

Of royal pages, flaxen-haired and bright,

Resigns his arms, and owns that they are right:

That he is Christian, that his forehead bears

The wondrous sign that every witchcraft scares.

The startled monarch, leaping from his seat,

Upsets the pontiff in his swift retreat,

And flees the chapel, while the rest atone

Their impious deed, seeing their master gone,

And bowing low their heads in awe and shame,

In faltering accents call on Jesu's name."

The fathers have the completest confidence in the efficacy of Christian

weapons in Christian hands, and even, when used honestly, in hands not

yet Christian, to defeat sorcery.

Tertullian (_Apol._, c. 23) throws out this bold challenge: "Let any

one, known to have a devil, come before your tribunal. That spirit, if

bidden speak by a Christian, shall as truly confess himself a devil

as he has elsewhere falsely declared himself a god. Or bring forward

some one of those who are thought to be divine patients, who, sniffing

up the altar's deity, conceive of the steam, violent retchers with

panting utterance; the heavenly Virgin herself, the promiser of rain,

Æsculapius too; ... if they do not all confess themselves devils,

not daring to lie to a Christian, then and there shed that insolent

Christian's blood."

Nor is it only the passionate Tertullian who can speak thus. S.

Athanasius (_De Incarn._, num. 48) is hardly less energetic: "Let any

one come who wishes to test what we have said; and let him, in the

midst of the manifestations of demons, and the guiles of oracles, and

the marvels of magic, use the sign of the cross, which these mock

at, or merely name Christ, he shall soon see how quickly the demons

are routed, the oracles silenced, the whole magic art and its charms

utterly wiped out."

The instances of modern spiritualist manifestations being stopped by

religious adjuration are very frequent.

Mr. Glover (_Rep._, p. 205) had been asking the spirits about the time

of our Lord's coming; they had answered glibly enough, and had pointed

out several texts in the Bible, when, apparently on a sudden impulse,

"he made a cross in a circle, and asked, in the name of the Father,

Son, and Holy Ghost, if the communications were of God, and the answer

was 'No.' He then asked if they were of the devil, and the answer was

'Yes.'"

Mr. Chevalier (_Rep._, p. 218) says that, after having received several

communications purporting to come from his recently-lost child, "One

day the table turned at right angles, and went into a corner of the

room. I asked, 'Are you my child?' but obtained no answer. I then said,

'Are you from God?' but the table was silent. I then said, 'In the name

of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, I command you to answer; are you

from God?' One loud rap--a negative--was then given. 'Do you believe,'

said I, 'that Christ died to save us from sin?' The answer was, 'No.'

'Accursed spirit!' said I, 'leave the room.' The table then walked

across the room, entered the adjoining one, and quickened its steps. It

was a small, tripod table. It walked with a sidelong walk. It went to

the door, shook the handle, and I opened it. The table then walked into

the passage, and I repeated the adjuration, receiving the same answer.

Fully convinced that I was dealing with an accursed spirit, I opened

the street-door, and the table was immediately silent; no movement or

rap was heard. I returned alone to the drawing-room, and asked if there

were any spirits present. Immediately I heard steps, like those of a

little child, outside the door. I opened it, and the small table went

into the corner as before, just as my child did when reproved for a

fault. These manifestations continued until I used the adjuration, and

I always found that they changed or ceased when the name of God was

used."

Miss Anna Blackwell (_Rep._, p. 220) gives her evidence immediately

after Mr. Chevalier's. Whilst admitting the fact that the spirits often

call themselves devils, she suggests a twofold explanation: 1st. That

they are coarse, undeveloped spirits. 2d. That they are vexed at the

rude treatment they have received. She is speaking of her sister's

mediumship: "The spirit would use her hand to write what communication

had to be made. The spirits wrote what was good and bad. One wanted

to sign himself Satan and Beelzebub; but," continues Miss Blackwell,

"my sister did not believe in the existence of any such a spirit, and

she said, 'No; if you are permitted to come to me, it is not to tell

such outrageous lies. If you persist in trying to impose upon me, you

sha'n't write.' I have been present at many such little fights. She

would resist the spirit, and, when she saw the capital S of Satan being

written, would twist her hand. The spirit has then written, 'I hate

you, because I cannot deceive you.' ... We never begin without prayer.

We say to the spirits that wish to deceive us, 'Dear spirits, we are

all imperfect; we will endeavor to benefit you by our lights, in so far

as they are superior to yours.' Sometimes they would overturn and break

the table; yet they were rendered better by our kindness. We would

never dream of addressing one as an 'accursed spirit.' From one who was

very violent, and by whom I have been myself struck, we have received

progressive messages, saying, 'We are going up higher now; we have,

through your help, broken the chains of earth, and we leave you.' When

my sister found the S being written, or the capital B for Beelzebub,

she would say with kindness, but firmness, 'Dear spirit, you must not

deceive; it is not for such tricks, but for a good end, that you are

permitted to come.'"

It is often said that the education question is the question of

the day; but I was hardly prepared to find that it embraced the

spirit-world. I know not which to pity most, those to whom the

responsibility has been brought home of having to educate a vast number

of imperfect spirits, who are, as Miss Blackwell admits, "all in a

manner devils," or the wretched spirits who have thus to begin all over

again as day-scholars at a dame's school.

According to Miss Blackwell's theory, the church is evidently

responsible for the existence of the devil. So far as he can be said to

exist at all, he is the church's creation; for, instead of doing her

best to instruct and humanize the rude but well-meaning spirit Arab

thrown upon her hands, she has goaded him to desperation by addressing

him as "_Maledicte damnate_." Oh! if she had only called him "dear

spirit," with Miss Blackwell, he might ere now have comported himself

conformably, instead of masquerading under such uncomfortable names as

Satan and Beelzebub and doing a world of mischief.

My second argument is the similarity between spiritualism and mediæval

witchcraft. I have already noticed incidentally several points of

resemblance, and would now draw attention to what is, perhaps, the most

important point of all. Of course, such similarity has no argumentative

force if Miss Blackwell's theory be admitted.

As I have before remarked, one of the most prominent characteristics

of mediæval magic was its being a parody of the church. The principal

ceremony of the "Sabbath" was a diabolical burlesque of the Mass, in

which the devil preached, and the celebrant stood on his head, and

the servers genuflected backwards. Now, amongst modern spiritualists

I have discovered no such violation of decency; the parody is not so

complete, and, on the whole, it is a decorous one; but it unmistakably

exists, and is on the increase. It is by no means uncommon to assemble

the spirit circle before an altar with crucifix and candles. In

_Experiences with D. D. Home_ we find that that gentleman has quite

a craving in this direction. He baptizes with sand, he stretches

himself in the form of a cross, imitates the phenomena of Pentecost,

the rushing wind, the dove, the tongues of fire, and is perpetually

anointing his friends with some mysterious substance, which apparently

emanates from his hands.

Against what has been said on behalf of the devil hypothesis the

spiritualist can urge nothing, except the by no means unwavering

testimony of the spirits themselves, and the spiritualist's own

recognition of the identity of his departed friends. As to the

spirits' testimony, it is worth just nothing. Evil spirits have always

personated the dead, as philosophers, fathers, schoolmen with one

accord testify. As to the recognition of friends, I should wish to

treat with all due consideration the natural craving of friends to

obtain some intelligence of their departed friends; but, on the one

hand, minute imitations of manner are certainly not beyond the devil's

power; on the other, affection is anything but keen-sighted, and the

rapture of a communication at all, when once the idea is admitted, is

apt to throw all minor details into the shade. Was not Lady Tichbourne

able to trace the features of her drowned boy in the Claimant's

photograph?

Wherever the spirits have represented persons of known character and

ability--men, for instance, who have left a gauge of their mental

qualities in their writings, like Shakespeare or Bacon--the personation

has been invariably a lamentable and most palpable failure. That the

spirits of clever men do not at all talk up to the mark is notorious

and generally admitted by candid spiritualists. Mr. Simkiss (_Rep._,

p. 133) says, "Beyond solving the important question, 'If a man die,

shall he live again?' by the very fact of spirits communicating and

proving their identity, there is to me little that is consistent or

reliable in what is revealed through different mediums." Mr. Varley

(p. 168) endeavors to explain the feebleness of spirit-talk by want

of education and development on the part of the mediums by which

their communications are conditioned. I do not say that there is not

something in this; but surely the communications of genius would, under

the most adverse circumstances, take the form rather of broken sense

than fluent twaddle.

The extreme irritation invariably manifested by the spirits towards

anything like suspicion, particularly if it take the form of trying to

subject them to a religious test, is surely grotesquely unnatural in

the case of spirits who have shuffled off the coil of mortality, with

whom life's fitful fever has passed. We have at least some right to

expect that persons who in their lifetime had a reasonable amount of

dignity and patience should have increased rather than diminished their

stock of virtue with their enlarged experience, unless, indeed, they

have so lost God as to have lost themselves.

It is difficult to conceive a justification for the spiritualist who,

believing that he is dealing with spirits, refuses to entertain the

idea that these may be devils, and makes no attempt to bring them to a

test. His best excuse, perhaps, would be that the world has to such an

extent lost its standard of faith and morals wherewith to test anything.

Spiritualists may object that some thing, at least, of what I have

urged against them avails as much, or even more, against the devil

hypothesis. Thus, if the spirit of Bacon is too nonsensical for Bacon,

_à fortiori_ he is too nonsensical for Lucifer, who must needs be

the cleverer spirit of the two. Upon this I observe that the retort

shows a complete ignorance of the devil's character and position.

"The character of a myth," some one interposes. Well, I am not now

discussing his existence. Even a myth must be in keeping. You have no

right to give Cerberus four heads, or make him mew instead of bark,

for all he is a myth. I suppose people have been seduced by Milton's

grand conception of the "archangel fallen" and the splendid melancholy

of his solemn rhetoric; but the devil of theology never says anything

wise or fine. He is, indeed, understood to retain the natural powers

with which he was created; but he is wholly averse from the God whom

all wise and fine utterances do, in their measure, praise. Wherefore

all such are in the highest degree repugnant to Satan. Neither are such

costly and uncongenial deceits necessary to beguile man. Selfinterest

and curiosity may be gratified at a cheaper rate.

The concessions of spiritualists themselves in reality reduce the

difference between us very considerably. I have gained all that I care

for, if it be conceded that these spirits may be the spirits of the

damned, who are equivalently devils; and Miss Blackwell admits that

these spirits are "in a manner devils," and Mr. Home (_Experiences_, p.

167) says of some of them: "I tell you you do not know the danger, they

are so fearfully low--the very lowest and most material of all. You

might almost call them 'accursed.' They will get a power over you that

you cannot break through." The one great difference between us is that

consistent spiritualists hold that there is no finality; that these

irrepressible devils--for they are always obtruding themselves amongst

the respectable spirit guests--may be reformed. But even so, would it

not be well to consider whether the chances are not in favor of our

being ruined before they are restored? Once and again it may be that a

spirit speaks to them who is from God, even as God spake sometimes in

the high places of Baal.[195] But God is not wont to reward imprudence,

and, on their own showing, spiritualists stand convicted of the most

extraordinary rashness in thus exposing themselves to the whirlwind of

spirit influence without having a spiritual constitution, so to speak,

or any canons or habits of spiritual life wherewith the influence can

be tested.

Man, as Alvernus finely says, is a being created "upon the horizon

of two worlds"--the world of sense and the world of spirit. But in

the sensible world only is he at home, wherein his material nature

is sufficiently developed for him to hold his own; whereas, in the

spirit-world, with which he is also in contact, the God of both

worlds must be his guide, or, horsed upon his excited imagination,

he may easily be lost in the wilderness, and fall a prey to lawless

spirits. Nothing can be more striking than the contrast between the

sobriety of the Catholic Church in her dealings with the spirit-world

and the rashness of spiritualists. The church has always recognized

as a reality spirit communications of various kinds, good and bad;

but she has always tested most rigidly the character of the spirits;

and even when these have satisfied every test, she has only allowed

their sanctity to be highly probable; she has never, so to speak,

granted them her _testamur_. They are ever on their trial, inasmuch

as she insists that the lessons they communicate shall be in strict

subordination to the rule of faith and morals; in other words, to the

ordinary duties of life. The church has ever shown herself keenly alive

to the dangers of supernatural intercourse. She has been jealously on

her guard against overwrought sentimentalism, vanity, or any strained

or undue development of one part of the patient's moral nature at the

expense of the rest.

Whilst she prizes amongst the choicest of her devotional treasures the

private revelations of her saints, such as those of S. Bridget, S.

Gertrude, S. Catharine of Sienna, and many more, yet if one consults

the great masters of Christian spiritualism, if I may so speak--such

as S. John of the Cross, for example--who have themselves experienced

the favors of which they treat--the ecstasy, the vision, and the

prophecy--one is more struck than by anything else by the stern common

sense of their precautions against deception, and the sad sobriety of

their confession that, after all, you can hardly ever be quite sure

that you are not the victim of an illusion.

That a certain moral discipline is necessary in order not to be

deceived, even when you are dealing with one who has a true spirit of

prophecy, is implied in the words of Ezechiel, cap. xiv.: "For every

man of the house of Israel, and every stranger among the proselytes

in Israel, if he separate himself from me, and place his idols in his

heart, and set the stumbling-block of his iniquity before his face and

come to the prophet to inquire of me by him: I the Lord will answer him

by myself.... And when the prophet shall err and speak a word, I the

Lord have deceived that prophet.... According to the iniquity of him

that inquireth, so shall the iniquity of the prophet be."

S. Augustine (_De Gen. ad Lit._, lib. xii. c. 13, 14) might be warning

those spiritualists who place their security in the peacefulness and

truthfulness of their communications: "The discernment of spirits

is very difficult. When the evil spirit plays the peaceful (_quasi

tranquillus agit_), and, having possessed himself of a man's spirit

without harassing his body, says what he is able, enunciates true

doctrine, and gives useful information, transfiguring himself into

an angel of light, to the end that, when persons have trusted him in

what is clearly good, he may afterwards win them to himself. I do not

think he can be discerned except by means of that gift of which the

apostle saith when speaking of the diverse gifts of God: 'To another

discernment of spirits.' It is no great thing to discover him when he

has gone so far as to do anything against good morals or the rule of

faith, for then he is discovered by many; but by the aforesaid gift, in

the very beginning, whilst to many he still appears good, his badness

is found out forthwith."

Again (_Confess._, lib. x. c. 35), he speaks of the danger of seeking

supernatural communications: "In the religious life itself, men tempt

God when they demand signs and marvels, not for any one's healing,

but simply for the sake of the experience. In this vast wood, full of

snares and dangers, what have I not had to drive away from my heart!

What suggestions and machinations does not the enemy bring to bear upon

me, that I may ask for a sign! But I beseech thee that even as all

consent thereto is far from me, so it may be ever further and further."

Amort, _De Rev. Priv._, p. 20, from Gravina, says: "It is often easier

to establish the certainty of the deceitfulness of an apparition than

of its truthfulness, because bad angels have their own characteristics,

which good angels never imitate; on the other hand, the bad often

imitate the appearance and manner of the good."

Amort, _ibid._, p. 104, from S. John of the Cross, says: "All

apparitions, visions, revelations, consolations, sweetnesses,

sensations, etc., which are received by the external senses, should

ever and always be refused by the soul as much as in it lies.... In

most cases they are diabolical.... When they are from God, they are

sent in order that they may be despised, and that the soul, by means

of the victory wherewith it overcomes these pleasures of the senses,

divine though they be, may be led to the things of the understanding."

_Ibid._, p. 115: "When the words in any supposed revelation take the

form of a process of reasoning after the application of the soul in

contemplation, God, the natural reason, and the devil may all three

concur in the same process."

No test of the holiness of a manifestation is considered quite

satisfactory save that of a continued increase in virtue, especially in

humility, in degrees corresponding to the increase of the favor; for

the devil will not consent to be a master of virtue. When S. Teresa

had scruples as to the source of her favors, it was thus her director

consoled her.

So cautious is Catholic mysticism; whilst spiritualists are not afraid

to keep a sort of spirit-ordinary, where

"White spirits and black, red spirits and gray,

Mingle, mingle, mingle; those that mingle may."

I repeat it, spiritualists who think they are communicating with

spirits, and take no pains to test their character, as though the

hypothesis of a devil were absurd, are inexcusably silly.

I must now consider some objections in the mouth of persons who,

without pretending that they have found any satisfactory solution of

the question in the theories of unconscious cerebration or psychic

force, are nevertheless exceedingly impressed by the strong psychic

element in the phenomena of spiritualism--the apparent necessity for

the presence of one or more persons of a peculiar nervous organization,

for a certain harmonious mixture, or rather melodious articulation, of

the company, in order to produce the desired effect. "Surely," they

say, "such law, _i.e._, such regular alternation of cause and effect,

as can be discovered is psychic. So far as we can subject the phenomena

to ordinary scientific tests, everything points to their being the

product of the psychic force of a certain peculiarly constituted

company." This is the tone of Mr. Cox's recent letter to the _Times_,

and Mr. Edwin Arnold's letter in the _Report_ is quite in the same key.

My answer is that I admit all that they say. Of course, so much of

law as is detected is psychic. There is no other law at work within

the sphere of our discovery. The question is whether there are not

indications of an influence at work which is irreducible to psychic

laws, whilst using, in a partially abnormal manner, psychic force.

Mr. Lewes will urge (letter, _Rep._, p. 264): "I might propose as an

hypothesis that the chair leaped because a kobold tilted it up; ... but

you would not believe in the presence of a kobold, because his presence

would enable you to explain the phenomena." Most indubitably I should,

if no less an hypothesis would explain the phenomena; particularly if

I had otherwise reason to believe in the existence and operation of

kobolds. I should hold the likelihood of the hypothesis of his action

in the particular case as steadily increasing in proportion as the

other hypotheses tended to break down.

"No guess," Mr. Lewes insists, "need be rejected, if it admits of

verification; _no guess that cannot be verified is worth a moment's

attention_." The last part of this trenchant dictum _is_ worth a

moment's attention. If it simply mean that it is not worth a scientific

man's while to attempt a direct scientific examination of what clearly

admits of no such treatment, I can only say that, however much the

scientific man may sometimes need the lesson, it is neither more nor

less than a truism. If it mean that no hypothesis is to be regarded

by any one as "worth a moment's attention" which science can never

hope directly to verify, it is conspicuously untrue. Even a _terra

incognita_ is not without scientific interest as marking a boundary;

nay, it may be scientifically proved to contain a place known to exist

and proved not to exist in any known lands.

Of course, the devil, or kobold, if Mr. Lewes prefers it, cannot be

verified in the sense of caught and handed over to scientific men as a

specimen of spiritualistic fauna. Neither do I suppose he can be really

detected, except by the standard of Catholic truth, by Catholic tests,

and Catholic weapons; and even then, in the eyes of unbelievers, he

will be no further identified than as an adverse intelligence in a very

bad temper. But surely this is enough, where men's minds have not been

reduced to mere machines for registering rigid scientific results, to

secure the devil hypothesis something more than "a moment's attention."

What law we detect in spiritualistic phenomena I conceive to be the

working of the conditions in subordination to which the devil is able

to communicate with man. This subordination is probably owing, in part,

to the nature of things which compels certain things to accost certain

other things in one way and not another, in part to the merciful

reservation of God. It would seem as if the spirits were, on the

whole, prevented from being more irreligious than the prevailing tone

of the company, or at least of the most irreligious portion of it. It

may very well be that the conditions limiting diabolical intercourse

are more complex and imperious, where the spirit "_quasi tranquillus

agit_, without harassing the body." In mediæval _diablerie_, the

demon is often represented as hindered or assisted by instruments of

a purely physical character; thus Coleridge makes Christabel lift the

enchantress over the threshold. A crowd, by neutralizing individual

resistance, may present fewer obstacles to the devil--nay, may supply

a medium of its own; just as frightened cattle huddled-together in a

thunder-storm are said, by the steam-column arising from their tightly

compacted bodies, to furnish a conductor for the lightning.