"Oh! it is not going to be to-morrow," said Ragaud; "the day of

betrothal is not yet fixed. I leave all that to good M. Perdreau. He

is taking a great deal of trouble; and I am glad he is, for I know

precious little about legal matters."

"So, then, you don't bother yourself with anything?--very pretty

conduct on your part."

"What should I do?" asked Ragaud innocently. "Each one has his part to

play. M. Perdreau was brought up among books, and I at the plough. When

he has the papers ready, he will tell me where to sign my name."

"And you will sign it?"

"Undoubtedly, after he has read them to me."

"All very nice," said Michou. "If I were in your place, I would sign

without reading them; it would be more stupid...."

"What do you say?" asked Ragaud.

"I say," replied Jacques, "if you will allow me to offer a word of

advice, you will not only make them read your daughter's marriage

contract to you, but also have it read to others--to M. le Curé, for

example; he is learned also--that he is."

"That would be insulting to M. Perdreau."

"Not at all. Two such learned men would soon understand each other.

After all, you know, you must do as you think best. Good-morning! Thank

you for Jean-Louis; send him to me quickly. I must hurry off to my

rascally wood-cutters in the wood of Montreux."

And the game-keeper turned his back without waiting for an answer,

puffing away at his pipe so tremendously his cap was in a cloud of

smoke.

Ragaud continued to shell his peas, but it was easy to see he felt

rather anxious. Nevertheless, when he had ended his work, he re-entered

the house without showing any discomposure.

Jean-Louis left home that morning to spend a fortnight with Michou,

depressed in spirits, but still hoping the best. On passing through

Val-Saint, he stopped at M. le Curé's, who confirmed all that Michou

had said about the Perdreaux. That dear, good man was much distressed,

but could not think of any remedy for the evil; but he promised Jeannet

to say Mass for the family, and highly approved of his leaving Muiceron

for a time.

Meanwhile, the Ragauds acted as though they were bewitched. During

the first week after the departure of Jeannet, his name was scarcely

mentioned, even by Pierrette. They appeared to have lost all

recollection of the services the excellent-hearted boy had rendered his

adopted parents. No one thought of him or noticed him when he returned

sometimes late at night from his hard day's work; and, had it not been

for the good Luguets, poor Jean-Louis would have been as isolated in

the world as if he had been brought up in a foundling asylum--his

first destination. But God did not abandon him, and, although always

very sad, he did not lose courage. Every evening, whether he returned

or not to Muiceron, he visited his friends, and there, with Pierre

and Solange, he recovered his good-humor, or at least maintained his

gentleness and resignation. His friendship for Solange increased

day by day. He suspected nothing, nor she either; for although very

friendly and intimate, they only felt toward each other like brother

and sister. However, all was known in the village--better, perhaps,

than elsewhere--and the gossips commenced to say that the devout

Solange jumped at marriage as quickly as any other girl. Several of the

girls even commenced to tease her about him; all of which she received

gently, and smiled without being displeased, contenting herself with

the remark that, after all, she might choose worse; and her work was

continued more faithfully than ever.

One evening, when Pierre and his parents remained rather late at the

fair at Andrieux, which is three good leagues from Ordonniers, and

which is only reached by roads very difficult to travel in the bad

season, Jeannet, as usual, went to the Luguets, and was surprised to

find Solange all alone. She blushed slightly when she saw him, not from

embarrassment, however, but only, I imagine, because she remembered the

reports that were circulating in the village. Jeannet took his usual

seat, which was always near hers. The month of November was nearly

ended, and that morning Michou had told Jean-Louis that Jeannette's

betrothal would take place a little before Christmas, and the marriage

soon after. The poor fellow was overwhelmed with sorrow; he poured all

his grief into Solange's ear, and so great was his confidence in her

that he allowed himself to weep in her presence.

"You have lost your courage and become thoroughly hopeless," said

Solange gently. "I don't like that in a man, still less in a Christian."

"How can I help it? Am I made of stone?" replied Jeannet, his head

buried in his hands. "Alas! alas! Solange, I believed your words. I

thought that God would have mercy on us, and that this unfortunate

marriage would not take place."

"I don't see that it has yet," replied Solange. "In the first place,

they only speak of signing the contract a month from now, and up to

then the mill will turn more than once; and, after all, does not God

know better than we what is good for us, poor blind things that we are?"

"That is true; but to see Jeannette the wife of that man, without faith

or fear of God or law; to see my old father and dear, good mother

reduced to want; to be obliged to leave the country, and never see

Muiceron again! For think, Solange, that Jeannette, when she signs her

marriage contract, will know that I am not her brother! I will not wait

to be told that my place is outside of the house. God knows I have

worked for my parents, and their tenderness never humiliated me, but to

receive a benefit from Isidore--no, never!" cried Jean-Louis, raising

his eyes that flashed with honest pride.

"You are right in that," said Solange quietly; "but listen a

moment, ... and first sit down there," she added, gently placing her

hand on his arm. "Come to your senses. There, now, can you yet listen

patiently to me?"

"Go on," said Jean-Louis obediently; "you need not talk long to calm

me."

"Well," resumed Solange, resting her elbow on the table in such a

manner that her sweet face nearly touched Jeannet's shoulder, "I will

repeat again that the story is not yet ended; but as this good reason

is not weighty enough for your excited brain, I beg you will tell me

why you think Jeannette will despise you when she will learn that you

are not her brother."

"But how can you expect it to be otherwise, my dear friend? Is it not

against me that I seem to be installed in her house for life? that I

have had half the hearts of her parents? Do you think that Isidore,

who detests me, will not tell a thousand falsehoods to prejudice her

against me? Ah! Solange, I have suffered terribly during the last

month; but to see Jeannette regard me as an intruder; to have her crush

me with her scorn, and make me feel that I am a foundling, picked up

from the gutter--it is beyond all human strength, and the good God will

not compel me to endure such agony. I will not expose myself to such a

trial."

"But what can you do? You cannot get work in the country without

running the risk of meeting her at every turn."

"I will manage it," said Jean-Louis. "France is a kind mother, Solange,

and has never refused food to one of her sons, even though he had no

name but the one given in baptism. I know that my dear father intended

to procure a substitute for me; but, in the present situation, I can no

longer accept a cent of Jeannette's inheritance, which will one day be

Isidore's."

"Good," said Solange. "But wait another moment. All this is still in

the future, since you can only be drawn next year; so put that aside.

I will only say that you have spoken like a good-hearted fellow, for

which I don't compliment you, as I knew you were that before. But,

to return to what we were speaking of, why do you think you will be

scorned by Jeannette? Come, now, tell me all. You love the little

thing? and ... more than a brother loves a sister?"

"Ah!" cried Jeannet, hiding his face, which he felt crimsoning, like

a young girl surprised, "you drag the last secret from my heart. Yes,

I love her, I love her to madness, and that adds to the bitterness of

my despair. May God pardon me! I have already confessed it, but with

my great sorrow is mingled a wicked sentiment. Solange! I am jealous;

I know it well. What can you expect? I was so before I knew it, and I

cannot drive it from me. Did I ever feel that she was not my sister?

No, not once until the day that there was question of her marriage;

and yet," added he clasping his hands, "God, who hears me, knows that

if she had chosen one worthy of her, I would have had the strength

to conquer it for the sake of her happiness. But so many misfortunes

have made me what I am, and--what I only avow to you--incapable of

surmounting my jealousy and dislike."

While he spoke thus, beautiful Solange smiled, not like a scornful

woman, who has no pity for feelings to which she is insensible, but

like a mother who is sure of consoling her sick child. Her clear,

tranquil eyes rested upon Jean-Louis, who gradually raised his, that he

might look at her in his turn; for everything about this girl of twenty

years was so gentle and calm, and at the same time so good, one always

expected to receive consolation from her.

"You wish to scold me?" said Jean-Louis. "If so, do it without fear, if

you think I am in fault."

"Not at all," she replied; "there is nothing wrong in what you have

confided to me, Jeannet. I pity you with my whole heart, only I

scarcely understand you."

"Why so, Solange? You are, however, very kind, and certainly have a

heart."

"I hope so," said she; "but when a creature is loved so dearly, she

should be esteemed in every respect."

"Don't I esteem Jeannette? O Solange! why do you say that?"

"But I only repeat what you first said, my child," she replied in her

maternal tone, which was very sweet in that young mouth. "You think her

capable of despising you, and imagine that she will disdain you when

she learns the misfortune of your birth; therefore, you do not esteem

her, and so, I repeat, I can't understand such great affection."

"You can reason very coolly about it," said Jeannet; "but if your soul

were troubled like mine, you would not see so clearly to the bottom of

things."

"It is precisely because you are so troubled that the good God permits

this conversation to-night," she replied. "Let me tell you now why I

still hope. Jeannette at this moment sins by the head, but her heart is

untouched; and here is the proof: the secret you so dread her knowing

she has known as well as either of us for more than three months. Have

you seen any change in her manner?"

"Oh! is it possible?" cried Jeannet. "And who told her?"

"I myself," answered Solange. "She had heard at the château some

words dropped by Dame Berthe, which excited her curiosity. After

her sickness, when I went to stay with her, she one day asked an

explanation of her doubts; and as I feared, if she questioned others,

she would not be properly answered, I told her all."

"You did right; and what was her reply?"

"She threw herself in my arms, and thanked me," said Solange. "For more

than an hour she spoke of her great affection for you, which time had

augmented instead of diminishing. She wept for your misfortune, and

thanked God that her parents had acted so well, as by that act they had

given her a brother; and never did I see her so gentle, tender, and

kind. She made me promise I would never tell you that she knew your

secret; but the poor child did not then foresee the necessity that

compels me to speak to-night on account of your wicked thoughts."

"Dear, dear Jeannette!" said Jean-Louis, with tears in his eyes.

"I have heard lately," continued Solange, "that she came near sending

off Isidore, because he presumed, thinking she knew nothing, to make

some allusion to the subject. She declared that she considered you her

brother, and those who wished to be friends of hers must think the

same."

"Say no more," said Jeannet. "I will love her more than ever."

"No," replied she, "it is useless. Only don't despair. Take courage,

for there is always hope when the heart is good; and the moment this

poor child, who is now acting without reflection, will know she should

despise Isidore, she will dismiss him and drive him away as she would a

dangerous animal."

"But will she ever know it?" said Jean-Louis.

"Hope in God," replied the pious girl. "Has he ever yet abandoned you?"

"Beg him to make me as confident as you," said he, looking at her with

admiration. "What good you do me! How can I repay you, Solange, for

such kind words?"

"Perhaps," said she seriously--"perhaps, one day, I may ask you to do

me a great service."

"Really! Let me know it now. I will be so happy to serve you."

"Yes? Well, then, I will," replied Solange, after a moment's

hesitation. "You have laid bare your heart to me; I will return your

confidence. Jean-Louis, I also have a secret love in my soul, and I

will die if I do not obtain what I desire."

"You!" said Jeannet, astonished; "you, dear Solange! I always thought

you so quiet and so happy in your life."

"It is true," said she, sighing. "I look so, because I cannot let

people see what they could not understand. But with you, Jean-Louis, it

is different; I can tell you everything."

"I hope, at least," said Jeannet, smiling, "that he whom you love is

worthy of your esteem."

"Oh! yes," she replied, crossing her arms on her breast, while her

pale, beautiful face crimsoned with fervor--"oh! yes, for he whom I

love is the Lord our God. I wish to be a Sister of Charity, Jeannet,

and until then there will be no happiness on earth for me."

Jean-Louis for a moment was dumb with surprise at this avowal; then he

knelt before her, and kissed her hands.

"I might have suspected it," said he, much moved; "you were not made to

live the ordinary life of the world. God bless you, dear Solange, and

may his holy angels accompany you! But what can I do to aid you in your

holy wishes?"

"Much," she replied; "you can inform my parents, and afterwards console

them; reason with Pierre, who will be half crazy when he hears of my

departure; and perhaps you can even accompany me to Paris, for I am

afraid to go alone. I have never been away from home, and I would not

dare venture on that long journey."

"But, dear Solange, you will need a great deal of money for that."

"Oh!" said she, laughing, "do you think me a child? For two years I

have deprived myself of everything, and I have more than enough. See,"

she added, opening a little box, which she kept hidden under a plaster

statue of the Blessed Virgin, which stood near her bed. "Count!"

"Three hundred francs!" said Jeannet, after having counted; "and ten,

and twenty, and thirty more--three hundred and sixty, besides the

change. There are nearly four hundred francs."

"There will be when I am paid for what I am now embroidering," said

she. "Is that enough?"

"Ten times too much," replied Jeannet. "Poor dear Solange! what

happiness to think that I shall see you until the last moment!"

"And afterwards again," said she gaily; "the white cornets are made to

go over the world. We will meet again, don't fear!"

It is truly said that example is better than precept. Jean-Louis became

a man again before that beautiful and pious girl, so brave and so good.

His heart was comforted, his soul strengthened. He would have blushed

now to weep about his sorrows, when Solange was about to sacrifice her

whole life to the sorrows of others. She commenced to play her part of

Sister of Charity with him, and God doubtless already blessed her; for

never did balm poured into a wound produce a more instant effect.

They finished their little arrangements just as the Luguets returned

home. Pierre was rather gay, as he could not go to the fair without

drinking with his friends; and when a man's ordinary drink is water

colored with the skins of grapes, half a pint is enough to make him

feel jolly.

Therefore, when he found Solange and Jeannet in conversation, looking

rather more serious than usual, he commenced to look very wise,

whistled, winking from one to the other, to let them know he understood

what was going on. Jean-Louis was seated near the fire, and pondered

over the mutual confidences made that evening. He paid little attention

to Pierre's manœuvres; but Solange saw them, and, while laying the

cloth for supper, begged her brother to explain, in good French what

was on his mind.

"Yes, yes, my pretty one!" said he, trying to put his arm around

her waist, something which she did not permit even in him; "we know

something about you."

"Nothing very bad," she replied, laughing; "here I am before you in

flesh and blood, and you see I am not at all sick."

"Don't be so sly," he answered; "this is not the time. We returned from

the fair with lots of acquaintances, and every one told us you were

going to be married, and that your bans would be published next Sunday."

"It is rather too soon," said Solange quietly; "the consent of the

parents will be needed, and I don't know yet whether it will be given.

And to whom shall I be married? Those people who are so well informed

should have told you that."

Thereupon Pierre, without answering, struck Jean-Louis on the shoulder.

"Look up, sleepy-head!" cried he in his ear. "Can you tell me who is

going to marry my sister Solange?"

"Who? What?" answered Jeannet, like one coming out of a dream. "What

are you talking about?"

"I say that you and Solange can keep a secret famously," said he,

rather spitefully. "It is well to keep it secret, when you are only

thinking of marriage, and I don't object to your first arranging it

between yourselves; but now that everybody knows it except us, it is

rather provoking for the family."

"You are crazy," said Jean-Louis.

"A big baby, at least," said Solange, shrugging her shoulders.

"All very well," said Pierre; "we know what we know. We say nothing

further. When you choose to speak of your affairs, well, we will be

ready to listen to you."

Jeannet was about to reply, but Luguet and his wife, who all this

while had been in the barn, giving a look at the cattle, to see that

all was safe for the night, re-entered the room, and Solange motioned

to Jean-Louis not to continue such a useless conversation before her

parents.

But whether Pierre was more obstinate than usual that night on account

of the wine in his head, or whether his great friendship for Jeannet

inflamed his desire for the alliance, certain it is he would not give

up his belief in the approaching marriage, and continued throughout

supper to make jokes and clack his wooden shoes underneath the table;

in fact, he acted like a boy who is sure of his facts and loves to

torment people. Jean-Louis several times was on the point of telling

him to be quiet, but Solange, with her gentle smiles, always prevented

him.

You can well perceive this confirmed Pierre in his belief that they

understood each other, as honest lovers have the right to do; so that,

if he was a little doubtful on his return from the fair, he was no

longer so at the end of the supper, and went to bed so firmly persuaded

that he would soon have Jeannet for brother-in-law, they could easier

have cut off his right hand than make him believe to the contrary.

TO BE CONTINUED.

EPIGRAM.

TO DOMITIAN, CONCERNING S. JOHN, COMMANDED TO BE CAST INTO A CALDRON OF

BURNING OIL.

Thou go unpunish'd? That shall never be,

Since thou hast dar'd to mock the gods and me.

Burn him in oil!--The lictor oil prepares:

Behold the saint anointed unawares!

With such elusive virtue was the oil fraught!

Such aid thy olive-loving Pallas brought![198]

--CRASHAW.

FOOTNOTES:

[198] The allusion is to wrestlers anointing themselves to prevent

their adversaries grasping them.

NANO NAGLE:

FOUNDRESS OF THE PRESENTATION ORDER.

There is no fact more apparent or more full of significance in the

history of the church than the constant acting and reacting upon

each other of races and nations in the perpetual struggle between

civilization and religion with barbarism and infidelity, light with

darkness. While the faith seems dimmed and its professors the victims

of persecution in one land, in another the torch of learning and

piety is slowly but surely kindling into brilliancy, and the ardor of

apostolic zeal is being awakened, even by the supineness and apostasy

of its neighbors. That this should be permitted or ordained by divine

Providence is a mystery to all, but its effects can easily be perceived

by any ordinary student of history.

For proof of this mutation and transition we need not go beyond our own

day and generation. Europe of the XIXth century presents a spectacle,

if not alarming, at least discouraging to many who have the cause of

Christianity sincerely at heart. In one country we perceive a direct

attack on the Sovereign Pontiff, wholesale spoliation of his temporal

possessions, restriction of his personal liberty, and a general

onslaught on the religious orders--those most efficient agents for the

propagation of morality, charity, and intelligence--which surround

him--and that, too, by a prince of Catholic origin and education, who

claims the right to govern twenty millions of subjects. In another we

have a stolid, sordid _imperator_, instigated by a more intellectual

but not less arbitrary minister, not only claiming complete dominion

over the lives and property of twice that number, but assuming also the

right to dictate the terms upon which they shall worship their Maker,

what shall be their faith, and who may be their teachers and guides in

the way of salvation.

Again, in such countries as Austria, France, Spain, and Belgium,

until very recently considered the bulwarks of Catholicity on the

Continent, indifferentism, communism, and open infidelity, if not

yet triumphant, have certainly of late made rapid strides towards

power and authority, and to the human eye seriously threaten the very

existence of society, of all order and all law, human and divine,

in those distracted nations. And still, a prospect such as Europe

now presents, though seemingly gloomy, is actually full of hope and

promise. While the hitherto supine Catholics of the Italian peninsula

are being aroused into earnestness by the outrages daily perpetrated

on the Holy Father and the religious orders, and their co-religionists

of Germany are forming themselves into a solid, compact, and energetic

array in defence of their rights, elsewhere the cause of the church is

progressing with a rapidity and uniformity that equally astonishes and

alarms her enemies.

Take our own republic, for example, with its seven archbishops, its

forty-nine bishops, thousands of priests, and millions of earnest

and obedient spiritual children, where a century ago a priest was

an object of curiosity to most of the people, and a Catholic was

generally regarded with less favor than is now shown the Chinese

idolaters. Now, what has wrought this change; what has scattered

broadcast over this vast continent, and engrafted in the heart of

our vigorous young republic the doctrines of the church, but the

persecutions which our co-religionists have endured and are still

enduring, in the Old World? To the irreligious maniacs of the French

Revolution, to the penal code of Great Britain, and now to the

mendacity of Victor Emanuel and the truculent tyranny of Bismarck,

are we mainly indebted, under Providence, for the origin, growth, and

increase of Catholicity among us. Like a subterranean fire, the spirit

of the church can never be repressed. Subdued in one place, it will

burst forth in another with redoubled force, intensified by the very

attempts made to confine it.

Then let us look at England--England which among the nations was the

land of the Reformation; who not only stoned the prophets, but whose

annals for nearly three centuries are the most anti-Catholic and

intolerant to be found in the records of modern history. She, also, as

in the early ages of her conversion, felt the effect of continental

barbarism and persecution. At the very time when the faith seemed

to have been utterly extirpated within her boundaries, the French

Revolution drove to her shores many Catholics, lay and clerical, of

gentle birth, cultivated manners, and varied accomplishments, and to

those exiles does she owe primarily the revival in her bosom of the

religion planted by S. Augustine. She has now sixteen archbishops and

bishops, sixteen hundred priests, over one thousand places of worship,

where assemble large congregations, including many of the most eminent

and distinguished of her sons.

The Catholics of Ireland, always true to the faith and loyal to the

head of the church, were common sufferers with their co-religionists

across the Channel, and, though in a different manner and at an earlier

period, they were equally the gainers with those of England, and from

causes almost similar. The property of that cruelly tried people was

not only confiscated by the penal laws, their clergy outlawed, and

their persons subjected to all sorts of pains and penalties, but they

were denied the poor privilege of acquiring the principles of the

commonest education. The consequences of such persecution, continued

generation after generation, were what might have been, and no doubt

was, expected to be--that the people, persistently refusing to yield

to cajolery or threats in matters of conscience, within two centuries

after the "Reformation" had almost universally sunk into abject poverty

and secular ignorance. In fact, had it not been for their traditional

knowledge of the great truths of religion, and the instruction

sometimes stealthily given them by some fugitive priest in remote

mountains and the fastnesses of the bogs, they must inevitably have

degenerated into something like primitive barbarism.

However, such an anomalous state as this could not last for ever.

All Christendom was about to cry out against it, and an incident

occurred in 1745, under the administration of the celebrated Lord

Chesterfield, which awakened at home general attention to the wretched

manner in which four-fifths of the inhabitants of the country were

obliged to worship their Creator. It happened that in that year a

small congregation was assembled secretly in an old store, in an

obscure part of Dublin, to hear Mass, when the floor gave way, and

the entire body was precipitated to the ground below. F. Fitzgerald,

the celebrant, and nine of his parishioners, were killed, and several

others severely injured. The viceroy, who, whatever may have been

his other faults, was certainly less bigoted than his predecessors,

thereupon took the responsibility of allowing the Catholics, under

certain restrictions, to open their chapels, and worship in public.

This limited concession was the commencement of a new era in the

affairs of the Irish Catholics. The number of priests began to

increase; churches, rude and small of necessity, sprang up here

and there, generally in secluded localities, as if afraid to show

themselves; and incipient efforts for the education of the masses of

both sexes were soon noticed.

In this latter great work of benevolence the most zealous and efficient

was the lady whose name heads this article. She seems to have been

endowed by Providence with all the gifts, mental and moral, necessary

to constitute her the pioneer of that host of noble women who, since

her time to the present, have devoted themselves to the education and

training of the females of Ireland. Born of an ancient and thoroughly

Catholic family of considerable wealth and wide popular influence,

she grew up amid home scenes of comfort, peace, and charity, a devout

believer in the sanctity of religion, and in perfect accord with the

instructions of indulgent but watchful parents. The position her father

held among his poorer and less fortunate neighbors, his charity to

the needy, and his protection to the helpless, afforded her, even in

her extreme youth, many opportunities of studying the wants of the

distressed, and of sympathizing with their afflictions: principles

which, then perhaps nourished in her heart unconsciously, were in

after-years destined to grow and fructify into those nobler deeds of

charity that have made her memory so cherished and revered.

Honora, or, as her friends and beneficiaries loved to call her,

Nano Nagle, was the daughter of a gentleman named Garret Nagle, of

Ballygriffin, near Mallow, in the county of Cork, where she was born

A.D. 1728. Through both parents she was related, not only to many

of the old Catholic houses, but to several of the most influential

Protestant families in the South; which is only worthy of remark

as furnishing a clew to the fact of her parents' wealth and social

standing in times when those of the proscribed religion were not only

disqualified from accumulating or holding property in their own right,

but were personally objects of contempt and contumely to the dominant

class. It may also, perhaps, account for the impunity with which Mr.

Nagle, despite the numerous statutory enactments, was enabled to send

his favorite child to the Continent to complete an education the

rudiments only of which could be obtained in the privacy of her family.

Accordingly, at an early age, Nano quitted her pleasant and cheerful

home by the Blackwater for the retirement and austerity of a convent

on the banks of the Seine, in which institution she acquired all the

accomplishments and graces then considered befitting a young lady of

position.

Having entered school a mere girl from a remote part of a

semi-civilized country, untutored, undeveloped, and, it is even said,

a little petulant and self-willed, she now, at her twenty-first year,

emerged from the shadow of the convent walls into the sunshine of

Parisian life, an educated, beautiful, and self-sustained woman. Her

family had many friends in the French capital, particularly in the

households of the Irish Brigade officers and other Catholic exiles,

and her entrance into the best society was unimpeded, and was even

signalized by rare scenes of festivity and mutual gratification.

Her native _naïveté_ and buoyancy of spirits, tempered with all the

well-bred courtesy and dignity of a French education under the old

_régime_, made her a general favorite; and though it does not appear

that she was in the least spoiled by the admiration and adulation that

everywhere awaited her, there is little doubt that she participated in

the fashionable dissipations of the gay capital with all the ardor and

impetuosity latent in her disposition. Admitted to such scenes, it is

little wonder that for a time she forgot the land of her birth, its

persecutions and tribulations, its degraded peasantry and timid and

degenerate aristocracy. One so young and so capable of appreciating the

refinements and elegancies of the most cultured city in Europe, might

well have been excused if she found it difficult to exchange them for

the obscurity and monotony of a remote provincial town.

But the spell which at this time bound her was soon to be broken. The

still, small voice of duty and conscience was soon to find a tongue

and speak to her soul with the force almost of inspiration. The

circumstances of this radical change in her life are thus graphically

described in a very valuable book recently published:

"In the small, early hours of a spring morning of the year 1750,

a heavy, lumbering carriage rolled over the uneven pavement of

the quartier Saint Germain of the French capital, awakening the

echoes of the still sleeping city. The beams of the rising sun

had not yet struggled over the horizon to light up the spires

and towers and lofty housetops, but the cold, gray dawn was far

advanced. The occupants of the carriage were an Irish young lady

of two-and twenty, and her chaperon, a French lady, both fatigued

and listlessly reclining in their respective corners. They had

lately formed part of a gay and glittering crowd in one of the

most fashionable Parisian _salons_. As they moved onward, each

communing with her own thoughts, in all probability reverting

to the brilliant scene they had just left, and anticipating the

recurrence of many more such, the young lady's attention was

suddenly attracted by a crowd of poor people standing at the yet

unopened door of a parish church. They were work-people, waiting

for admission by the porter, in order to hear Mass before they

entered on their day's work.

"The young lady was forcibly struck. She reflected on the hard

lot of those children of toil, their meagre fare, their wretched

dwellings, their scanty clothing, their constant struggle to

preserve themselves and their families even in this humble

position--a struggle in many a case unavailing; for sickness, or

interruption of employment, or one of the many other casualties

incidental to their state, might any day sink them still deeper in

penury. She reflected seriously on all this; and then she dwelt

on their simple faith, their humble piety, their thus 'preventing

the day to worship God.' She contrasted their lives with those of

the gay votaries of fashion and pleasure, of whom she was one. She

felt dissatisfied with herself, and asked her own heart, Might

she not be more profitably employed? Her thoughts next naturally

reverted to her native land, then groaning under the weight of

persecution for conscience' sake--its religion proscribed, its

altars overturned, its sanctuaries desolate, its children denied,

under grievous penalties, the blessings of free education.

"She felt at once that there was a great mission to be fulfilled,

and that, with God's blessing, she might do something towards

its fulfilment. For a long time she dwelt earnestly on what we

may now regard as an inspiration from heaven. She frequently

commended the matter to God, and took the advice of pious and

learned ecclesiastics; and the result was that great work which has

ever been since, and is in our day, a source of benediction and

happiness to countless thousands of poor families in her native

land, and has made the name of Nano Nagle worthy of a high place on

the roll of the heroines of charity."[199]

Miss Nagle then set out for Ireland, firmly determined to commence the

noble work so suddenly contemplated and so maturely considered; but on

her arrival in Cork, she found her friends exceedingly lukewarm, and

the amount of ignorance and destitution in that city so appalling that

she shrank from the very magnitude of the difficulties to be overcome,

and began to fear that she had, in a moment of enthusiasm, overrated

her ability and mistaken her vocation. This was natural. What could a

young lady, scarcely entered on womanhood, delicately nurtured, and

hitherto accustomed only to the society of the most fastidious--what

could such a frail scion of aristocracy do to remove even an

infinitesimal part of the incubus of poverty, ignorance, and crime, the

result of centuries of misgovernment, which then weighed so heavily on

the people?

She therefore resolved to visit the French capital again to consult

eminent clerical friends, and to lay before them all her doubts

and difficulties. They heard her explanations and arguments with

attention, weighed her objections with proper gravity, and finally,

having dispelled her doubts and strengthened her self-confidence,

assured her that in their opinion--and it was a unanimous one--God had

evidently called her to be the succor and comfort of her afflicted

countrywomen--a decision which subsequent events proved to have been

little short of prophetic. Thus reassured, and casting aside once

for all the allurements of life, the rational pleasures which youth,

beauty, and wealth might reasonably command, Miss Nagle resolved to

eschew the things of the world for ever, and devote herself heart and

soul to the self-imposed duties from the performance of which she

had lately shrunk, more from a consciousness of the weakness of her

position than from any lack of intention to perform them faithfully.

The resolve she so solemnly made then she kept till the day of her

death, thirty years afterwards, with unflinching fortitude and fidelity.

In 1754 we find her back in Cork, steadily but quietly, almost

secretly, as the spirit of the times demanded, initiating her crusade

against squalor and ignorance. With what precocious circumspection

she commenced her labors is best shown in a letter to a friend, Miss

Fitzsimmons, then in the Ursuline Convent at Paris. The extract is

long, but it will repay perusal, as it may be considered an exact

reflex of the working of her strong, simple, but thoroughly earnest

mind. She writes under date July 17, 1769:

"When I arrived, I kept my design a profound secret, as I knew, if

it were spoken of, I should meet with opposition on every side,

particularly from my own immediate family; as, to all appearances,

they would suffer from it. My confessor was the only person I told

of it; and as I could not appear in the affair, I sent my maid to

get a good mistress, and to take in thirty poor girls. When the

little school was settled, I used to steal there in the morning.

My brother thought I was in the chapel. This passed on very well

until, one day, a poor man came to him, to speak to me to take

his child into my school; on which he came in to his wife and me,

laughing at the conceit of a man who was mad and thought I was in

the situation of a schoolmistress. Then I owned that I had set

up a school; on which he fell into a violent passion, and said

a vast deal on the bad consequences that may follow. His wife is

very zealous, and so is he; but worldly interests blinded him at

first. He was soon reconciled to it. He was not the person I most

dreaded would be brought into trouble about it; it was my uncle

Nagle, who is, I think, the most disliked by the Protestants of any

Catholic in the kingdom. I expected a great deal from him. The best

part of my fortune I have received from him. When he heard it, he

was not at all angry at it; and in a little time they were so good

as to contribute largely to support it. And I took in children by

degrees, not to make any noise about it in the beginning. In about

nine months I had about two hundred children. When the Catholics

saw what service it did, they begged that, for the convenience of

the children, I would set up schools for children at the other end

of the town from where I was, to be under my care and direction;

and they promised to contribute to the support of them. With this

request I readily complied, and the same number of children that

I had were taken in; and at the death of my uncle, I supported

them all at my own expense. I did not intend to take boys, but my

sister-in-law made it a point, and said she would not allow any

of my family to contribute to them unless I did so; on which I

got a master, and took in only forty boys. They are in a house by

themselves, and have no communication with the others."

This letter, it will be observed, was written fifteen years after the

first school was founded, and already there were in active operation,

in various parts of the city, two schools for boys and five for girls,

all under the supervision of Miss Nagle, and supported from her private

purse, or by a contribution of one shilling per month, which she was in

the habit of collecting from a few of the more wealthy of the citizens.

In these nurseries of intelligence and morality--model schools, in

fact--the children of both sexes were taught to read and write, to say

their daily prayers, learn the catechism, and, in the case of the older

girls, to acquire a familiarity with such useful work as befitted

their condition. Those who were of sufficient age heard Mass every

morning, went to confession monthly, and to communion as frequently as

their confessor considered advisable.

In supervising so many schools, and constantly instructing hundreds

of pupils, whose moral as well as mental culture had been neglected

hitherto most wofully, this heroic woman's self-imposed labors, it may

well be imagined, were of the most arduous description, and we are not

surprised to find that her health began to show signs of giving way.

"In the beginning," she says, "being obliged to speak for upwards of

four hours, and my chest not being so strong as it had been, I spat

blood, which I took care to conceal, for fear of being prevented from

instructing the poor. It has not the least bad effect now. When I have

done preparing them at each end of the town, I feel like an idler that

has nothing to do, though I speak almost as much as when I prepare

them for their first communion. I find not the least difficulty in it.

I explain the catechism as well as I can in one school or other every

day; and if every one thought as little of labor as I do, they would

have little merit. I often think that my schools will never bring me

to heaven, as I only take delight and pleasure in them. You see it

has pleased the Almighty to make me succeed when I had everything, I

may say, to fight against. I assure you I did not expect a farthing

from any mortal towards the support of my schools; and I thought I

should not have more than fifty or sixty girls until I got a fortune;

nor did I think I should in Cork. I began in a poor, humble manner;

and though it has pleased the divine will to give me severe trials in

this foundation, yet it is to show that it is his work, and has not

been effected by human means. I can assure you that my schools are

beginning to be of service to a great many parts of the world. This

is a place of great trade. They are heard of; and my views are not

for one object alone." The fortune here so delicately alluded to was

left her by her uncle Nagle, who, profoundly penetrated with a sense

of her discretion and of her devotion to the friendless, bequeathed

her the bulk of his property. It was a very considerable sum, and was

unstintingly devoted by her to further the great objects she had ever

in view.

As her schools multiplied, and the attendance on each increased, with

a rapidity that astonished every one, Miss Nagle saw the absolute

necessity of calling in other and, if possible, organized assistance,

that thus, by making her system more perfect, she might perpetuate the

good work already so auspiciously begun. She therefore resolved on a

bold measure--one that could have entered only the mind of a dauntless

spirit, fortified by implicit faith in the protection of Providence.

She determined, in fact, despite the many inhuman and ingenious penal

statutes against monastic institutions, to establish a convent in Cork.

For this purpose, some time previous to the date of the above letter,

four young ladies, representing some of the best families in the

neighborhood, were sent to the Ursuline Convent of S. Jacques, in

Paris, to enter their novitiate, while Miss Nagle, with her usual

generosity and prudence, set silently to work to build a suitable house

for their reception on their return. That event took place in 1771, and

marks a new era in the history of the church in Ireland and England.

The young novices who thus not only abandoned the allurements of the

world, home, friends, and future, to serve God, but braved the terrors

of the penal laws and the sneers of the anti-Catholic rabble, deserve

to have their names handed down for the admiration and homage of their

sex in every age and clime. They were "Miss Fitzsimmons, the special

friend and correspondent of the foundress; Miss Nagle, her relative;

Miss Coppinger, of the Barryscourt family, and cousin of Marian,

Duchess of Norfolk; and Miss Kavanagh, related to the noble house of

Ormonde." They were accompanied by Mrs. Margaret Kelly, a professed

sister of the Ursuline Convent of Dieppe, none of the sisters of S.

Jacques being willing to undertake so hazardous an enterprise.

They arrived in May, and on the 18th of September following took

formal possession of their convent, and from that day may be dated the

reintroduction of the conventual order into the United Kingdom of Great

Britain and Ireland.[200]

Thus in the wise designs of God, while the Encyclopedists and the

secret societies of the Continent were maturing their plans of attack

on the church and her institutions, when monasteries, convents,

colleges, and hospitals from one end of Europe to the other, already

feeling the premonitory symptoms of that monstrous earthquake of

immorality and infidelity which was soon to be felt throughout

Christendom, were shaking to their very foundations, in an obscure

little city in the South of Ireland were planted the seeds of religion

and Christian instruction which have since grown up and produced such

marvellous fruits. The incident becomes even more interesting when we

consider that the five ladies who commenced this beneficent work were

all educated in that country and city, which ere long were to furnish

the deadliest enemies of Catholicity.

It is not to be supposed that so daring an act as that of the intrepid

Nano could pass unnoticed. Though the sisters studied the greatest

seclusion, it was at one time proposed by the local authorities to

enforce the laws against them; but better counsels prevailed, and the

humble community grew rapidly in popularity and usefulness. A few

months after its establishment, a select school, with twelve young

ladies as pupils, was founded, and this number was quickly augmented

by children from the more wealthy Catholic families of the adjoining

counties. There are now five houses of this order in Ireland.

At first Miss Nagle lived in the convent; but her impatient soul, her

burning love for the children of the lowly, was not yet satisfied;

for though the good Ursulines devoted all their available time

to the instruction of the poor, while perfecting in the higher

branches of education those destined in turn to become teachers,

she felt that another and a more comprehensive organization was

necessary to combat so vast an array of popular error, ignorance,

and destitution. A society that would devote itself, as she had so

long done, individually, exclusively, and gratuitously to the service

of the impoverished and untrained masses was what she desired, and

what she felt called upon to form and direct. With that indomitable

energy which I ever characterized her, though enfeebled in health,

reduced in fortune, and prematurely old from incessant labor, at the

age of forty-four she retired from the companionship of her friends

and _protégés_, the Ursulines, to a house adjacent to the convent,

purchased by herself, and, gathering around her some pious women,

formed a society that was to be known as "Of the Presentation of Our

Blessed Lady in the Temple." The objects of this association were:

"Going through the city, looking after poor girls; inducing them to

attend school, and instructing them in their religion; and, further,

visiting, relieving, and consoling the sick poor in their own homes

and in the public hospitals--duties analogous to those now discharged

by the Sisters of Charity and Sisters of Mercy."[201] Being approved

by the bishop of the diocese, the Rt. Rev. Dr. Moylan, it began its

pious labors on Christmas day, A.D. 1777, by entertaining at dinner

fifty poor persons, the foundress being the presiding genius, or rather

angel, of the entertainment. She also established, in connection with

the home, an asylum for aged females.

This was the origin of what is now known as the _Presentation Order_,

and was the last and crowning glory of Nano Nagle's remarkable career.

Though of exclusively Irish origin, and notwithstanding that the

original design of its foundress has been somewhat changed, and its

field of labor circumscribed and partly occupied by other orders

or congregations, the institution founded by her with such limited

means and materials has, with God's blessing, flourished with amazing

rapidity, and has spread its influence, not only over the native land

of the foundress, but to Great Britain, the lower provinces of North

America, and even to India and Australia. In Ireland alone there are

at least fifty convents of the order, with poor schools, industrial

schools, and asylums for the aged attached.[202]

In 1791 the society was reorganized and founded into a congregation

at the request of the Bishop of Cork. The brief of Pope Pius VI.

granting the prayer, directed that the members should observe as near

as possible the rules governing the Ursulines, taking, after proper

novitiate, simple vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience. Sixteen

years later the congregation was changed into an order by brief of

Pius VII., under the title and invocation of the "Presentation of

the Blessed Virgin Mary." The rules and constitutions governing the

congregation and order were, at the request of His Holiness, drawn up

by Dr. Moylan, approved by the archbishops and bishops of Ireland, and

upon being forwarded to Rome, and upon proper examination, received the

Papal sanction.

The six or seven years spent by Miss Nagle as head of the Society

of the Presentation were perhaps the most useful of her life; for

not only did she create and perfect a plan of practical instruction

and discriminating charity which has since been of infinite benefit

in promoting the cause of religion and industry in other parts of

Ireland; not only did she inculcate in others who were to survive her,

principles of order, charity, and self-denial, but she organized a

system of relief and a scheme of instruction which were of infinite

benefit to the deserving poor of Cork, and which were afterwards

applied with equal advantage by other religious bodies in other cities

and towns. None knew so well as she did to whom to give and whom to

refuse, though it may be well imagined that her gentle heart, when it

erred, leaned in favor of the latter.

Nor must we suppose that the early years of what might be called her

missionary labors were devoted exclusively to the instruction of her

little waifs. On the contrary, much of her time--all, in fact, that

could be spared from her private devotions and her beloved schools--was

devoted to the visitation of the sick and the relief of the starving;

for starvation, be it remembered, was even then chronic in the South of

Ireland. On her return from France, she at first mingled occasionally

in society, as much to conceal, perhaps, her immature plans as in

deference to the wishes of her friends; but gradually she withdrew from

all association with those of her own station, and devoted her entire

time to acts of practical charity. Even the most inclement winter

weather could not deter her from her duty; and it is said that before

daylight she might be noticed wending her way to the little North Cork

chapel, to hear Mass as the commencement of a long day's labor, and

that far into the night, in the unlighted streets of Cork, a female

figure, closely enwrapped in a cloak and bearing a lantern, could

be seen hurrying to the death-bed of some poor sufferer, regardless

of rain or snow or the cutting night-blast. So familiar had this

apparition become to the citizens, and so well her errands of mercy

were known, that the vilest of both sexes passed her with respect, and

she trod the lanes and alleys of the worst parts of the city with

perfect safety. At the sight of that little lantern in the distance,

the drunken brawler, as he reeled home, ceased his ribald song or

stayed the half-uttered oath; and the ill-starred wanderer, the pariah

of her sex, fled to some hiding-place, or came forth for a few words of

gentle admonition, which fell like healing balm on her wounded, sinful

soul; for Nano Nagle, in humble imitation of her Redeemer, had charity

for all, even for the most degraded of mankind.

It is unnecessary to say that, in all her toils and struggles,

Miss Nagle enjoyed the respect and esteem, and, when required, the

assistance, of all the more wealthy and respectable of the citizens

of Cork, Protestant as well as Catholic; but it was amid her children

and in the hovels of the poor that she was best beloved, because best

known. Where famine hollowed the cheek and glazed the eye, she was

to be found, with her brave words of comfort and hope, and, better

still, with her well-filled basket and open purse; where sickness and

disease lurked, and the atmosphere of the miserable dwellings of the

fever-stricken was laden with almost certain death, her place was at

the bedside of the dying, consoling and solacing; now administering the

cooling draught to the poor patient's burning lips; now, by prayer and

spiritual instruction, endeavoring to smooth the path to a better world

of the soul that was struggling to be free. No danger daunted her, no

sight, however repulsive, stayed her persistent charity; and it is even

said that the once brilliant and accomplished favorite of the Rue St.

Germain did not hesitate, when she considered herself called upon to

do so, to perform the most menial of domestic offices for her sick or

aged pensioners.

Thirty years of such unremitting labor was more than a constitution of

ordinary strength could well bear; and even Miss Nagle, buoyed up as

she was by intense devotion to the poor, felt that the hand of death

was upon her, and that she was about to receive the eternal reward of

her virtues, her charity, and her zeal in the service of God. Early in

1784 her health completely broke down, and, thus timely warned, she

prepared, with Christian sincerity and humility, to leave the scenes of

her earthly labors, and pass through those portals which, for the just,

open to an infinity of happiness. In the house of the society, and

surrounded by its members, her spirit calmly took its upward flight on

the 26th of April, 1784. Her last advice to her little community was:

"Love one another as you have hitherto done."

Such, in brief, were the life and labors of one whose name even is

seldom heard, and of whose heroic efforts in the cause of religion

and education so little mention is made beyond the boundaries of the

locality in which she wrought and which she sanctified. Judging her

by the sacrifices she made, there may be found many even of our own

day equally meritorious; but considering the age in which she worked,

the dangers and difficulties which constantly beset her path, the

invincible energy with which she surmounted all obstacles, and the

widespread and beneficent character of the results of her thirty years'

toil, we may assuredly place her among the most remarkable and most

devoted of the daughters of the church.

FOOTNOTES:

[199] _Terra Incognita; or, The Convents of the United Kingdom._ By

John Nicholas Murphy. London: 1873.

[200] There are now in England and in Wales alone two hundred and

thirty-five convents, containing about three thousand nuns of various

orders and congregations. Among these is the Presentation Convent in

Manchester, to which is attached a female orphanage, a poor school

attended by four hundred and seventy-five day and five hundred

Sunday-school scholars.

[201] _Terra Incognita._

[202] The convents are those of the city of Cork, South, opened in

1777, in which is also an asylum for aged women; the city of Cork,

North; Bandom, Doneraile, Youghal, Midleton, Fermoy, Michelstown,

Limerick, Killarney, Tralee, Dingle, Milltown, Cahirciveen, Millstreet,

Listowel, Castleisland, Thurles, attached to which is an industrial

school; Cashel, with an orphanage and an industrial school; Fethard,

Ballingary, Waterford, Dungarvan, Clonmel, Carrick-on-Suir; Lismore,

George's Hill, Dublin; Roundtown, near Dublin, Maynooth, Clondalkin,

Lucan, Kilkenny, Castlecomer, Mountcoin, Carlow, Maryborough, Kildare,

Bagnalstown, Clane, Stradbally Portarlington, Mount Mellick, Wexford,

Enniscorthy, Drogheda, Rahan, Mullingar, Granard, Tuam, Galway, and

Banmore.

GRACE SEYMOUR'S MISSION.

In a small village of New England, elm-shaded and far from the resorts

of travellers, there lived, a great many years ago, two people in easy

circumstances, the owners of a lovely cottage--a father and his only

daughter.

They were well descended, and fully showed it; moreover, the girl's

mother had been an Englishwoman of high birth, the daughter of a great

house which, in the past, had also been allied to that of the man she

married. Edward Seymour had once been the pastor and the favorite of

the village of Walcot, an upright, believing, uncompromising Calvinist,

a kind of Cromwell with all the ambition turned heavenwards, and all

the hardness tempered by a warm, generous nature. His wife also had

been a vigorous believer in the same theology. Sprung from a family

noted for its "Low Church" views in England, she had been strongly

interested in the narrative of the American missionary, in the days

when he, fresh from the university, and filled with vehement but

practical enthusiasm, had gone to the "mother country" on a tour of

alms-asking and receiving. From interest sprang attraction; then love,

with its impulsive and whole-hearted logic, rushed in and pleaded the

cause of the disciple with that of the religion, and suggested forcibly

that a fortune thrown at the feet of the minister would eventually find

its way to the feet of God. Sweet argument of the heart! though in this

case an argument misapplied.

So it fell out that, despite warnings and shakings of heads and holding

up of hands, Elizabeth Howard and her fortune (not a princely one,

though) crossed the seas, and Edward Seymour presented a fair young

foreign enthusiast to his congregation as his beloved and hard-won

bride, under the fire of a rude battery of eyes belonging to the

startled maidens whose charms had long since (in their own individual

minds, at least) been destined for the minister's solace and support.

She won her way into the hearts of all, this young English Calvinist,

full of pure-hearted sincerity, gentle yet steadfast as "Priscilla, the

Puritan maiden," courageous in self-denial that the poor might profit

by her privations, a confidant the most unhappy ever found sympathetic,

and the most guilty, indulgent. Her husband used to say of her that the

Scriptures had never received a more fitting and perfect fulfilment, a

more ideal accomplishment of true womanhood, as set forth in the many

sentences where wise and holy women are depicted, than Elizabeth had

proved herself to be.

In household matters she was no less at home than in those graver

concerns of the parish and the soul-life of her husband's spiritual

people. A good deal of the old earnestness regarding religious truth

remained in the little favored community of Walcot, and serious,

intelligent investigation was one of the many sturdy though reverential

habits of thought that yet lingered with these world-forgotten

villages. To Seymour himself the place was a paradise; the work was

not such as to overtax his bodily strength to that degree that leaves

but little energy for the intellectual requirements of his calling;

neither was the stress upon his imagination so unwholesomely great

as it is with too many of his successors, whose brain, in order to

froth up according to their Sunday audience's expectations, must be

in a moral ferment for the previous six days of the week. His wife,

no frivolous gossip to whom tea and petty scandal are dear, no mere

drudge from whom household cares have worn away the bloom of poetry

and the freshness of early enthusiasm, was to him a living guide, a

true helpmate, bearing his burdens and sharing his joys, a gospel-law

written in sweetest, most natural human characters, and a most winning,

womanly embodiment of the stern and glorious word "Excelsior."

Was it a reward for _her_ many virtues, or a trial for _his_ strong

and faithful nature, that God should call her hence, and close the

book abruptly which had been to her husband a living commentary on the

divine law? Yet it happened so, but not at the outset of their purified

love-career; for when Elizabeth Seymour came to die, she saw not only

her husband near her, with faith subduing sorrow in his inspired eyes,

but two children, one a girl of fifteen, the other a boy of four

years, the only ones she had had, but upon whom she had lavished the

holy mother-love that would have been intense still for each had her

children numbered as many as the sons of Jacob.

Grace--she had been called so because it was through earnest prayer

alone that her mother had survived her birth--was holding her father's

hand, while his other one and her own were clasped in the dying woman's

wasted fingers; and as the little one at her feet pulled unconsciously

at her long dress, she felt her heart throb strangely, solemnly, when

her mother said:

"Grace, I leave you my place; be a helpmate to your father, be a mother

to little George. Bring him up a brave, Christian man, like _his_

father--like _my_ father, for whom he is named. Never let him do wrong,

though the greatest worldly advantages might be the result. Remember

that, my child; offer your life to the Lord sooner than see your

brother offend him. God bless you, my precious Grace!"

The sick woman turned her longing eyes earnestly upon her husband,

and he, half kneeling, sank on the floor, and supported her head on

his shoulder. The burden was featherlight, but the strong man shook

and swayed as in mortal weakness, and his voice was low and broken.

Grace took the child's hand, and turned away. Those last moments

were too sacred even for a daughter's eye to gaze upon; angels alone

listened to the secret heart-speech of those two, whose lives had

been as the two strands of one rope. They had been all in all to each

other. The husband's love, if the greatest, had not been the less

faithful; but the burden was now for him, the reward for her. Strange

dispensation--and yet one that no lover would alter if he could--that

the deepest love should be but an earnest of the deepest suffering;

that the higher the heart goes in its sublime learning, the greater

should be its privilege of agony. And yet this thorny path is a very

Via Triumphalis, and those who tread it would not give one drop of the

royal purple that dyes their weary feet for all the kingly mantles

of rare and costly hue that grace the throne of the earthly monarch

or strew the path of the earthly victor. Edward Seymour had a double

right to this brotherhood of sublimest sorrow; for in his heart his

love had grown so strong that not once, but many times, it had held

unholy struggles with the higher, wider Love, to whom he had vowed

himself from his childhood, and he had had to wrestle mightily with its

strength, and had only overcome because, after all, the enemy he fought

was human, and the weapons he used were of God's eternal fashioning.

In Elizabeth's calmer, more even nature, love had never risen to that

height; it had flowed a tranquil stream in the channel of duty, and, if

deep, had never been turbulent. The trial had never come to her which

had threatened shipwreck to her husband; she had never even known of

it, for it had been the _one_ secret of his frank and pure life. The

awful moment came at last; Grace and little George had come nearer

again, and all three said afterwards that "Jesus" was the last sound

that passed the dying woman's lips. For a few minutes a trembling

stillness reigned; it was as if those left behind were listening

to the feet of the bearer-angels that had come to carry their mate

away. Could they but have listened at the same time to the wondrous

revelation of lightning-like truth that flashed from those angels'

solemn eyes, and transformed the blind belief of the living woman into

the exultant faith of the heaven-illumined Catholic! Strange and awful

thought! that those from whose mortal sight the scales have only just

been taken by death should, on the instant, enter into such communion

with the unknown, unsuspected truth, and be borne so far deeper in its

blessed knowledge than those who spend lives of long and humble search

on earth. Elizabeth Seymour knew now where truth had always been, and

yet she must look with spirit-eyes on her loved ones bending over her

beautiful, senseless body, all unconscious of that truth, all unknowing

of their dark and dangerous pathway. Would her agonized prayers ever

bring them to her new resting-place? Would God ever allow them to join

her in the other world? And meanwhile, the minister, with his dear

burden still in his clasped arms, lifted his head, and poured forth a

prayer into which his very life was breathed, ending with a passionate

flinging of his whole nature into the bosom of the all-knowing,

all-loving Father--"Thy will be done, not mine!"

As he lifted the inanimate form gently on the pillows, closed the eyes,

and pressed a kiss of all but despairing grief upon the white, warm

forehead of the lost one, his daughter, letting the child go, seized

his hand, and pressed it to her bosom, kissing it passionately, as

if, from the very instant of her mother's departure, she was taking

possession of the precious trust made over to her on the same spot only

a few short moments before.

He, ever mindful of others before himself, felt his child's signal, and

pressed her hand in return, leading her gently from the room, while the

old nurse, his wife's attendant from her early childhood by the sunny

brooks and fragrant meadows of Gloucestershire, performed the last

necessary duties towards the loved remains.

Day after day the dead lay in a darkened room, with flower-wreaths

framing her simple coffin, a queen in death as she had been in life,

with a touching court about her of widows and orphans, of mourners

comforted, of children and old men, of strong young laborers whose

minds she had turned soul-wards, and whose reverence for her had been

little less than that--so misconstrued by those very men--of Catholics

for a patron saint. At night, when the stream of villagers would

cease, the husband and the daughter watched hand-in-hand by the one

they could not think of as really gone from them while her sleeping

form lay so near their own resting-place. Now and then the minister

would say a few words, half in soliloquy, half to his companion, and

she, with her clear, pitying gray eyes upturned, would look at him in

dumb sympathy, and a pang would shoot through his heart, as he read the

mother's expression in the daughter's face. They renewed the flowers

and rearranged the internal draperies of the coffin; they spoke in

whispers, as one does in a sick-room, fearing to wake the happy dreamer

whom the first sleep has just come to relieve from a load of burning

pain and constant restlessness; little George was even allowed to bring

his quiet toys, and crawl over the floor round the strange bed where

he was told his mother was sleeping--at first sight of the coffin,

he had asked gravely, Was that a cradle, and had a new baby come to

play with him?--and, in a word, the death-veiled chamber seemed more

like home than any other part of the cottage. Then came the last day,

and the lid was to be fastened over the white-robed, white-crowned

sleeper. Grace brought her father a bunch of heliotrope to lay in her

mother's hands; it had been her own and her husband's favorite flower

in life; and just over her heart, together with a heart-shaped paper,

on which the name "Jesus" was illuminated in red and gold, was placed

a triple tress of hair, and attached to it a scroll with the names

of "Edward--Grace--George." Thus something living, something of her

earthly treasures, went down with her to the tomb; and on the day of

the great awakening, who shall say that those tokens will not make the

wife and mother's heart throb with a deeper joy, as she rouses herself

to meet those whose last pledge of undying love she will find thus laid

on her breast?

Slowly the procession moved to the meeting-house, and slowly on to

the churchyard; a neighboring minister performed the simple service,

and the three bereaved ones walked immediately behind the coffin.

The villagers were more awed by the face of the husband than by the

black-palled coffin of the wife; and some one remarked, "It was

more as if the minister had been walking between two angels to the

judgment-seat of the Almighty than as if, a father and a widower, he

was leading his orphan children to a new-made grave."

The silent cottage, buried under its wealth of flowering creepers,

seemed very cold and desolate when the mourners returned; tea was laid

in the cosey library, the blinds were drawn up, and the little birds

twittered in the veranda; everything was ordinary and as usual again,

the same it had been just one week ago, the day before _she_ died; but

it seemed so different! Mr. Seymour threw himself in an arm-chair by

the window, and took up a paper-knife mechanically; little George had

been taken up-stairs, and the third chair at the tea-table was for the

kind clergyman who had come to help his brother in his affliction.

Grace had taken off her bonnet and shawl, and was making tea in the

tea-pot that, together with the high, old-fashioned English urn, had

been one of her mother's most cherished wedding-gifts. Tears came

to her eyes and blinded her, and her hand shook as she touched the

tea-caddy of old English oak and wrought iron. Still, with all these

homely mementos rendering her sad inauguration of new duties sadder

still, she bravely thought of her trust, and struggled successfully to

be calm, at least in outward seeming. Her father's friend now came in,

and sat down in silence in a low chair opposite Mr. Seymour. Grace laid

her hand on her father's arm:

"Will you have your tea here by the window, on the little, low table?"

she said tremulously.

"No, my pet," he answered, taking her hand, and stroking it gently;

"let us sit down together, as usual." And he led her to her new place

at the head, as if he wished her to see that he would not shrink from

the everyday details of sorrow that each triviality of life would be

too certain to throw into relief.

They made no pretence of talking beyond the few necessary questions

of even the smallest assemblage at tea; but when Mr. Ashmead, their

guest and the minister of the neighboring parish, said that he thought

he must leave on the morrow early, both his host and his young, grave

hostess begged he would stay for a few more days, till next Sunday

even, if he could.

And so the new life began--the life we meant to start with at

the beginning of our story, but which has seemed so to need its

introduction, to be so much more interesting through it, that we could

not help putting in this long, explanatory prelude.

* * * * *

The long days of winter passed, and a year was gone since the day that

saw Elizabeth Seymour's burial. Grace was growing tall and womanly, and

had taken her mother's place with as great seriousness as success. She

it was who taught her little brother all he was capable of learning

at his age; she who helped the worn-out teacher in the school; she

who copied out her father's sermons, and looked out his texts and

quotations.

The father and daughter, now knit together by a doubly tender tie,

and fully realizing all its happy solemnity, turned to the welcome

occupations of study to fill the many vacant hours their duties allowed

them. Mr. Seymour's library was extensive, and every month brought from

Boston some valuable and interesting additions. Of course, theology

figured mainly among the subjects treated of in these old and new

books; but not alone the theology of his own sect, for he had the

early fathers' magnificent works, those Thebaids of literature where

the vastness of the seemingly endless desert is only a veil for the

innumerable caves of deepest science, and hidden recesses filled with

most beautiful dogmas. The councils, too, were not unrepresented on

his shelves, though the earlier ones were to him the best known and

the least obnoxious. Among them was a dusty little book, in ancient

type, evidently a very hermit of a book, whose solitude had not been

disturbed since, by some accident, it had once made its way there among

the miscellaneous collection of a small library purchased nearly twenty

years ago. We may have occasion to refer to it again.

Mr. Seymour, confident of the truth of his own doctrines, never

hesitated to simulate doubts and ask questions, or propound religious

problems for the further mental training of his daughter's inquiring

disposition; but this habit of constant investigation at last produced

in her a tumult of the brain which she found she no longer had the

power to quell. Questions forced themselves upon her, doubts wrestled

for mastery in her mind, all things began to take strange, hitherto

undreamt-of shapes, and truths, elusory yet alluring, seemed to

rise out of axioms which she thought she had long ago laid aside as

proved and dangerous errors. She strove to hold on to her once blind

and unreasoning acceptance of her father's teaching. She would have

welcomed any superstition, could it only have promised her peace; but

the restless spirit, once roused in her, hurried her remorselessly,

till at last, in sheer despair, she turned to sweeping and systematic

denial of everything she had been taught to look upon as truth.

At first she did not speak to her father about these strange

experiences; she clung to the idea that it was physical excitement, a

fever of the brain, which would subside and let her see her landmarks

plainly once more. But the tempest grew wilder and more hopeless;

questions rose up, and would not be crushed out of existence--faced her

and mocked her, and would not be answered by the catechism formulas

she strove to oppose to them; her life seemed resolving itself into an

eternal, tormenting, unspoken, but ever suggested "why?" that rose and

took the shape of a demon she could not lay nor yet would listen to.

Importunate voices were all around her, chasms opened on every side;

and while she taught her little brother, and wrote out her father's

sermons, it seemed as if a stern and pitiless query sounded within her

very heart, demanding why she abetted the enslaving of other minds to

codes of which she herself felt the utter insufficiency. The keenest

misery to her was that this mocking voice, whose every vibration pulled

down a stone of her former religious temple, and sent it echoing in

hollow tones of fiendish triumph down the recesses and depths of her

torn heart--this voice never suggested one idea upon which she might

have seized and made the corner-stone of a new organization of truth.

The strange demon that beset her seemed, to her agonized mind, the

spirit of heartless destruction only, not even of the most perishable

and paltry substitution. Hollow, empty, heartless, seemed life to

her; faith gone, or proved an illusion good only for those whose

weak brain could not bear the spiritual loneliness of unbelief; the

world a charnel-house, in which death-doomed fools quarrelled about

precedence in another world, whose very existence was a myth of their

own miserable creation; life a journey aimless and useless, and the

faiths men carried through it only so many wind-threatened torches they

bore for their own deception--was this all, was this the beginning and

the end? Blindly her heart cried out, "Somewhere there must be a God,

somewhere there must be happiness!" and the fiend within her brain made

answer: "There is no God save the one the coward imagines; there is no

happiness save that which the fool finds in ignorance."

One day, after many months of this life-wearing struggle, Grace spoke

of her state to her father; and strange indeed was the shock to the

earnest, clear-thinking minister. Grave and tender, he tried to handle

the wounded child, but Grace was not to be soothed into faith; it

was conviction she required. Firmly yet patiently she heard him, and

answered:

"All that I have said to myself, but it is of no avail."

He tried to speak to her of her mother--of her belief, her unwavering

hope in God, her sure knowledge of Jesus, her feeling of rock-bound

security at the moment of her death; but to all this Grace answered: "I

know it all, but I cannot feel it; tell me something else, something

more."

Then the father, roused out of his half-hopeful state as to her

difficulties, and out of his hitherto so sweet reliance upon her

kindred strength, turned to the dogmatic aspect of his faith, and

prayed fervently that the Lord would open his child's eyes once more,

and draw her in out of the cold desert where her soul wandered, a

shivering stranger. But, alas! those apparently clear-cut arguments,

those knife-like dogmas, so trenchant, so uncompromising, those

technicalities of crystallized religion, so satisfying to the old

exiles and first settlers of New England, fell unheeded on the ear

of Grace, who, had she believed them, would have been as competent a

teacher of them as her own father, as far as her thorough knowledge of

their slightest details went. Mr. Seymour was trying to do God's work;

he was trying to _create_, to give life to a lifeless organization, to

put a quivering human soul into a shapely but ice-cold form.

Grace had once said she did not want example nor personal experience,

but clear, frigid demonstration. She was right as to the seeming want

in her soul--the want of absolute, incontrovertible truth; she was

wrong as to the fire from heaven, which was her real want--the purely

personal gift of faith, direct from God, which only can descend and

strike the waiting soul as a sacrifice, and enkindle it for ever, no

more to be extinguished by error or by doubt.

Another year passed, and things were unchanged. No, not unchanged, for

Mr. Seymour, in his great anxiety to bring his daughter back to the old

belief in which he and his ever-remembered wife had been so carefully

reared, had explored hitherto sealed books and commentaries in the vain

hope that, since none of the old arguments touched her, some newly

suggested ones might. He did not expect to find anything in these works

which would strike _him_ as either proving or disproving his settled

belief; still, he thought chance might throw into his hands some

demonstration that would have the desired effect upon Grace. She seemed

to be inclined to magnify beyond his utmost powers of toleration the

absolute independence and free will of man; she proudly took her stand

on human reason, insisting that if there were a creative God, and if it

were really he who had given reason to man, it followed that this regal

gift must be allowed full play in determining the object of faith. His

Calvinism rebelled and retreated to its old entrenchments, denouncing

reason as the natural enemy of faith, as an inventive principle ever

actively evil and godless. But he once read in a work of one of the

"great" reformers these strange and somewhat coarse words:

"The devil's sole occupation is to get the Romish priests to measure

God's will in his works, with reason."

He was staggered. He searched his book-shelves for some work of

Catholic theology. As he was passing his hand along the volumes, and

running his eye down their titles, the little, dusty book we have

mentioned fell down. He picked it up, and, looking at it carelessly,

saw its name, _Catechism of the Council of Trent_. Curiosity at

once made him forget the first motive of his expedition among the

books, and he sat down to examine the newly-found volume. By and by

he got interested, and from page to page his eyes ran eagerly, now

sparkling with defiance, now widening in astonishment, and anon his

brow contracting with intense earnestness, as clear dogmas revealed

themselves from out the ancient text--dogmas directly opposite to

his own, it is true, yet at every moment appealing to rational and

unbiassed human nature.

Here man was represented as a grand monument of God's glory, a

being worth redemption in the eyes of God, a creature endowed

with intellectual gifts to lead him rationally towards faith and

virtue, even as he was provided with feet to carry him to the clear

mountain-spring, and with hands wherewith to till the yielding,

fruitful soil. Here he beheld a humanity not degraded to brutishness

by the fall, but redeemable through the very qualities God's grace

had yet left to it; here he saw reconciled man's dignity and God's

majesty; here, in a word, a religion which, claiming to be divine, was

consequently not afraid to acknowledge and to guide the good tendencies

whose very humanness put them beyond the pale of competition with

herself. Mr. Seymour had always been taught to adhere to the Bible

as the one infallible rock of salvation; he now saw the Bible merged

into a system he had once called idolatrous, but could not at present

stigmatize as such. He determined to read the Bible from the point of

view of the Council of Trent, for pure intellectual curiosity's sake,

he said to himself. Alone and almost hiding from his daughter's still

hopeless but always eager inquiries, he began this study, with what

result would be almost useless to mention. The Council of Trent had

seemed plausible when studied by itself; but when referred to the book

he had always called the rule of faith, this council was irrefutable.

Could he have been mistaken all his lifetime? could it be that God

had purposely left him in ignorance so long? Or was not his belief at

least as good as the faith of the Council of Trent? But then came

his clear philosophical training to the rescue; for, it said, how can

contradictory axioms both be true? Hitherto he had unhesitatingly

held the Catholic doctrines to be intrinsically, nay blasphemously

untrue, and it followed that his own, their direct contradictories,

must be right; but if, upon examination, the reverse was evidently the

case, then his former opinions--for doctrines he could no longer call

them--must be radically, irredeemably false. One day he spoke to Grace

about it, and was surprised at the calm manner in which she received

a communication whose mere rudiments had been such a shock to him. To

her mind, this curious development of her father's researches was a

really interesting study, quite apart from its religious bearing, and

considered principally as a logical _passe-temps_. But to her father it

was a heart-stirring reality, which he pursued with all the hitherto

pent-up passion that his cold creed had forced to run in such narrow

channels. Once he said to his child:

"Grace, I used to believe the Bible was the only rule of faith; but

I never saw that the Bible presupposed a church, a heaven-ordained

society to shelter it from the conflicting explanations and

interpolations of men; presupposed, also, a willing obedience on the

part of the faithful to believe it as it is written, not a desire to

shrink from its plain teachings and explain away its doctrines. How

could we, without a church to interpret it to us, be sure that we were

not following some far-fetched human adaptation of its teaching, or

pandering to some cowardly modification of its code of morals? No; the

Bible presupposes the church, and, without it, would be more of a dead

letter than the Hebrew is a dead language."

Grace was silent, and wondered. Her own feelings were as unsettled as

ever, but she tried to live less in her own hopeless struggle than in

the noble, fruitful, self-forgetting life that was dawning for her

father. As his convictions grew deeper and took stronger root, his

anxiety for his child waxed more and more terrible. Would the grace

of God that had come to him through the yellow pages of an old book

never touch her with its rod of power? Had reason no influence on

her logical-seeming mind, had sentiment no power on her undoubtedly

loving heart? She went about her self-imposed duties as usual, bringing

consolation wherever she went, cheering others with words that were

powerless to cheer her own heart, kind and considerate to the poor,

amiable to all. Her father, smitten with dread as to her bodily as

well as spiritual welfare, asked himself how he could expose her at

this moment to the poverty that must result from the only step he knew

he ought to take. To leave Walcot as a convert meant to throw himself

and his children--Grace especially--into the most absolute penury. He

could endure it, George would hardly feel it, but his daughter, brave

and affectionate as she was, could her shattered heart bear up under

so unexpected a necessity? So he cheated himself and hesitated yet;

but the evil spirit was to be defeated soon. God could not allow his

returning son and no longer blinded servant to wander long in human

weakness outside the holy fold.

Grace was sitting at a reading-desk in her father's library one Sunday

evening in June, the purple sunset streaming in and giving the lilacs a

deeper hue, and the laburnums a more burnished shade, when a young man

swung open the garden gate, and, with free and unfettered step, almost

ran up to the house-door.

Seeing he was a stranger and a gentleman, Mr. Seymour opened the

library window, and leaned out, saying in a courteous tone:

"I am Mr. Seymour, if you are looking for me. I'll let you in directly."

The young man paused with his hand on the door-knocker, and waited till

his host came round.

"You must excuse my abruptness," he said pleasantly, as he handed his

card to Mr. Seymour. "I am already presuming on a relationship you may

choose to ignore."

"Why ignore it? The nephew of my dear wife is as welcome to my house as

if he were my own son," answered Mr. Seymour, laying the card on the

table. "Come," he continued, "let us be at home at once. I'll introduce

you to my daughter, your cousin."

They went into the library together, and the father, turning to Grace,

said:

"Here is a cousin from over the sea, child--George Charteris."

Grace had heard her mother talk of her younger sister's marriage to a

Mr. Charteris years before she herself was married, so the name was

familiar to her.

"I wish, my boy," said the host, "that God had spared your dear aunt to

see you here; but he knows best. And you have come to stay with us a

little before you go home again, I hope? Have you seen anything yet?"

"I only landed in Boston yesterday," answered the young man, "and have

had hard work to get here so soon. I came on business, to tell the

truth."

"Really!"

"You see, letters are very uncertain; and I just felt in the humor, so

I came across myself. I have got important papers for you. My uncle,

George Howard, died five weeks ago at his place in Gloucestershire,

and, as he left no children, the estate goes to the next of kin--your

son, George Seymour."

Grace and her father looked at each other in solemn, strange wonderment.

"My son!" he said slowly, "my son!"

"Yes, the son of the eldest sister. My mother was the younger sister,

you know. And so I came over about it; I am supposed to be a lawyer,

but the fact is, business is not overpowering with us young fellows,

and, as I had enough money to spare, I thought I would sooner go myself

than pay a man to make a mess of it. You and my father are appointed

guardians during the minority of the heir."

"And they will expect him to go and live in England?" said the father

thoughtfully.

"Of course; will there be any difficulty about that?"

Seymour did not reply; he only glanced at his daughter with an awed

expression about his face. She was looking at him intently. Young

Charteris noticed how ill she seemed.

The rest of the evening passed very sociably, and, having shown his

young guest his room, Seymour returned in his dressing-gown and

slippers to the library. Grace stole in softly, still dressed, and

looking anxious. She drew a chair beside him, and, taking his hand in

her own, said solemnly:

"Dear father, it was ordained we should leave this place."

"Was such _your_ idea also, my child?" her father asked.

"Of course; and if I have not spoken of it before, my dear father, it

was only because I was waiting for _you_ to mention it first."

It seemed a reproach! Was God using this blind instrument to show him

more forcibly where his duty lay?

"I know, father," continued Grace, "what that means for you in the

circumstances you newly stand in. It means that you will not be allowed

to be guardian to your son, that you will be denied access to him,

that he will be brought up a Protestant before your eyes, and that

practically you will be as homeless as the outcast you would have made

yourself from this village and this church. But remember, whatever

happens, Grace is always with you--will always be, whether she believes

or not, happy or wretched, poor or rich, until it shall be your own

pleasure to drive her from your side. Although thy God may not be my

God, yet thy people shall be my people, and we will stand or fall

together!"

"My brave child!" was all the father could answer through his tears.

"But, father dearest," she resumed in a quick, decided voice, "if

George is to be brought up as you wish, the first thing to secure is

his being rightly baptized; and you can do that this very next day. I

shall be allowed to see George, and thus my mother's trust will be in

my hands yet."

"O my girl! it is hard, you cannot tell how hard."

"I have lost what you have won, father. Think you the loss of faith a

lesser evil than the changing of it?"

"Poor child! poor child! God grant you may see it one day."

"God grant I may," she answered frankly, "if it be the truth."

They spoke far into the night, and Seymour determined to announce

from the pulpit next Sunday his unshaken conviction of the truth of

the Catholic faith, and to take a final leave of his congregation.

Young Charteris knew nothing of it. George was baptized the following

morning. The week passed by, and the young English cousin was more

than ever attracted by the strange, silent, preoccupied manner and

the serious, anxious beauty of his girl-companion. A gay young man,

with hardly any surface of religion about him, he yet had that deep

observative faculty which renders some men's perceptions so acute and

true in the field of religion. Half an unbeliever himself for fashion's

sake, he was yet quick to detect how really far from unbelief the

seemingly cold, doubting girl's heart was; and he smiled to himself

as he shrewdly thought how both Puritanism and this present phase

of feeling would be rudely shaken when brought face to face with

the hot-pressed life of wealthy, bewildering London. But something

whispered to him that neither father nor daughter would allow the

brilliant world to stand between them and their convictions, whatever

those might be. Meanwhile, Charteris romped with little George, who was

wisely kept in ignorance as to his new honors, and the days sped fast

towards the eventful Sunday which was to have so strange and stormy an

ending.

The Saturday previous, Mr. Seymour sat at the window of his library, in

his favorite arm-chair, his daughter leaning her head upon his knee,

and holding one of his hands clasped to her bosom. For a long time

there was a silence; then, like the evening breeze just born among the

tree-tops, a faint whisper of conversation began to stir the quiet of

the darkened room. The sun was gone down, and the crescent moon was

rising in white mistiness behind the shrubbery.

"It was just such a night, Grace," said the minister, "that we sat here

with Ashmead more than two years ago--the day we began our new life

without your dear mother; and now we have turned another leaf already,

and are on the threshold of another new life!"

"Yes, my own darling," said his child; "but it is not without me that

you are going to begin it. In any case, I shall never leave you. And if

we are parted from little George, why, what can we do but cling more

and more to each other?"

"Have you thought, Grace, that it may be a life of toil that we are

going to meet?" asked her father earnestly.

"Father dearest, would my mother have shrunk from entering it with you?

And do you think _I_ love you less than she did?"

"My brave girl!" he answered, with a soft light coming into his dreamy

eyes. Presently he said: "But, Grace, you will have little consolation,

little support, for my principles are leading me; but you?"

"My love for you is _my_ guide!" she said fervently.

"Truly, my child, you are even as Ruth, who clung to Naomi for very

love, and thereby reaped the reward of faith. God grant you may be led

to the same end through my humble instrumentality."

There was a pause. The father, after a few moments' earnest thought,

spoke again.

"Grace, darling," he said, and she started, as if collecting her

runaway thoughts.

"Yes," she answered, with a loving look.

"Do not blame me for speaking abruptly, Grace," her father resumed;

"for circumstances are such as allow us little spare time for forms of

speech. Has it ever struck you that you will most likely marry? And

have you noticed your cousin's manner towards you?"

At the first hint of marriage Grace had lifted her great, startled eyes

to her father's face; then, on the second and more personal question,

she looked quickly down, and a burning blush came like sunset hues over

her usually pale cheeks. But she never hesitated nor wavered in her

answer, for the blush was more that of surprise than consciousness.

"I never thought of my cousin in that way. Did _you_? And I have

thought vaguely some day I might be a good man's wife--a minister's,

most likely; but now these strange doubts have come to me, I could have

no peace in any new relation in life. In conscience, my father, I could

enter upon none."

"Well, child, I am glad so far. But if your cousin had many

opportunities, depend upon it he would love you. I only say this to

caution you. You know your own heart; you know I could approve such a

marriage under certain circumstances, always provided you do not come

to the happy truth I have reached. Now, you can act as your conscience

and your reason impel you; but it is always better, I think, to work in

the full daylight."

"I could not marry as I am now. Besides, I could not leave you."

"You might have to leave me."

"Father!" cried the girl, startled.

"Never mind," he said soothingly, but not offering to explain himself,

and then went on: "Supposing a thing to be possible, still, in the case

that you remained out of the church, would you let your cousin be your

helpmate and your protector?"

"If you wish it, I will think of it, and question my own heart," said

Grace; but the words were measured, and the tone was cold. Her father

felt it.

"Grace, I did not wish to hurt you, child. I cannot tell you all I

meant, for I hardly discern yet what is God's voice within me, and what

the voice of my own earthly enthusiasm, perhaps even ambition. But, my

own precious daughter, our hearts will always be one; and after God,

there is no one on earth more dear to me than you are."

Grace laid her head on her father's knee again.

"So if your cousin Charteris should speak to you on the subject of

marriage before your views of religion are changed, you will answer

deliberately and calmly, will you not, having searched your innermost

feelings well?" said the father.

"I will," said Grace firmly.

The next day dawned fair and bright; the very air had a holiday feel

about its quiet, fresh-scented crispness; the birds sang softly in

the vivid-painted trees, and it seemed as if nature had reserved a

very jubilee of delights for the lovely summer afternoon. Crowds came

soberly to church, the children glancing longingly at the tempting

hedges, the young people now and then looking into each other's eyes

the things they dared not put in words, and would have spoilt in the

saying had they done so; to some, older and more spiritually-minded

persons, came, on the fragrant breeze, faint suggestions of the

fabled millennium, in which they believed with the grasping faith of

disappointed souls; to all came, on the wings of this Sunday morning,

impressions of peace, of happiness; perceptions of a life holier and

higher than that of the present; vague stirrings of the soul, as if

some mystery, both dread and beautiful, were coming out to meet them

from the unusual radiance of this never-to-be-forgotten day.

Very solemn indeed did the day's brightness seem to the earnest

minister; a new bridal, far different from the bridal eighteen years

before in the very country for which he was now again bound--a bridal

of the soul with sorrow and with sacrifice, a taking up of the crown

of thorns and the cross of dereliction. He would walk into the old

meeting-house, a hero among his people; he would leave it, an outcast

and a leper among his brethren. He would meet his flock a revered

pastor, an acknowledged guide; he would go out of that pulpit, his no

longer, an exile, a suspected impostor, an accursed and condemned man.

And not there only was the sting; beyond and far above it was the human

sense of deep humiliation at having to unsay his teaching, to renounce

the doctrines he had taught for twenty years, to warn his people of

the very faith he had believed in from his cradle. It is no slight

thing for a man, learned and looked up to, an eager and practical

theologian, to stand before a congregation of intelligent, sharp-witted

hearers, and say, "I was mistaken!" For when you feel that every word

you speak is changed, as it falls on their ears, into a barbed weapon

against yourself, and will be handled by remorseless and unsympathizing

fellow-men until twisted into meanings you never dreamed of and

deceptions you would scorn, then it is that the painful, human side

of the great and heroic sacrifice is revealed, and that our fleshly

weakness has to turn perforce in helpless and blind reliance upon God.

Solemn also, and far sadder, seemed the glorious beauty of that Sunday

morning to Grace Seymour by her open window, through which came the

scent of lilacs and blossoming horse-chestnuts; her books ranged in

melancholy silence on the shelf above the mantel, the old family Bible

lying solitary and unopened on a little table by itself, an air of

desolateness hanging over the simple, innocent-looking room, with its

chintz hangings and two or three old prints and faded pictures. Some

were of sacred subjects, and these, unless this were the spectator's

fancy, seemed more forlorn than any others; Grace herself thought

so sometimes, as she would give a pathetic survey to the room that

had known no change since her childhood, save when the great change

of death had wafted into it some of the old mementos of her English

mother's youth.

On the eve of this last change, that was almost another death, the

young girl sat with clasped hands on the wide window-sill, and gazed

with sad yet steadfast eyes on the beauty of the breaking day. To her

it was indeed a setting forth on a journey without scrip or staff,

without guide or compass. In her love for her father, she gloried in

his grand, manly act, though it drove her forth into the desert world;

but though she rejoiced at his stern following of principle, as at a

deed of heroism in itself, yet what comfort was there for her in the

dreary waste of an untried world? To set out on the road to heaven,

leaving the paths of men, was one thing; but to leave the known for the

unknown, the real life of human sympathy for a dark, companionless one

among things that were only shadows and mocking figures of mist--what

was that? And would human love carry her through? Could she follow, by

the glow-worm light of an earthly though hallowed feeling, the same

path in which a fiery pillar preceded her father's soul, and angels

guided his footsteps? But come what might, she would try; so she had

resolved from the beginning. Besides, was it not she who had, according

to the instinct of her true nature, decided for her father the step

his own conscience had counselled, but from which his human love

still weakly recoiled? And, therefore, was she not bound to share his

fortunes, even though love had not impelled her to do so? She could not

pray that this day's work might end in good, she could not pray for

strength or guidance; she could only helplessly gaze upon the familiar

home-scene she had watched so often from that window--the spread of

orchard and garden and meadow-land beyond, the golden lights flickering

among the shrubs, and playing with the soft, changing shadows--all the

beauty that had been her soul's book for years, and was now the only

book she could still read and love as of old. A sort of dumb prayer was

that wistful gaze, the hopeless, half-conscious murmur of paralyzed

lips striving to form once more sounds that long ago, they remember,

used to mean _something_ to the understanding. Little George at this

moment ran across the lawn after a yellow butterfly, and looked up

fearfully at the library-window, as if expecting to be reproved for

such unwonted exercise on the sacred day.

Grace started and looked at her watch. It was time; the bells had been

ringing some minutes, and the hour was drawing nigh. She stole down to

her father's side, very solemn and quiet, and took his hand. He turned

and clasped her in his arms.

"God will bless you yet, my little one," he said, with an earnest look

into her brave eyes, "for all you are to me."

Hand-in-hand they walked the short distance between their cottage

and the meeting-house. The great trees stood protectingly round the

little church, shading it like a temple, with broad shadows flung like

curtains before its doors, as if to supplement the bareness in which

human hands had left it. The people were crowding in; some stepped

aside as the minister passed, making room for him; others nodded to

him, and were startled at the unwonted look in his far-searching eyes.

Grace, on the contrary, seemed almost defiant, as if she thought of

nothing save the storm which one short hour would bring about her

darling's head. The congregation seated themselves with that undertone

of quiet rustling peculiar to country audiences. Grace sat directly

facing her father; but she had turned herself so that her features were

visible to those who sat in the nearest pews behind. Edward Seymour

slowly came up the pulpit stairs, and stood before his people. One

long, sweeping glance he gave them, then his eyes went upward, and a

light came into them, as of something more than human.

The crowd was thrilled, and men and women gazed at each other

inquiringly.

Then he began: "My friends, I have come to say farewell to you. This is

no sermon, but an explanation which is due to you. I am not going to

leave you for the city, nor for another flock, nor for the retirement

of a college-life. It is not a man who has called me, it is not the

world or my own interests that have bidden me leave you; it is God.

"Truly, 'God's ways are not our ways, nor his thoughts our thoughts.'

If you will bear with me, I will show you how this has been borne in

upon me, and will give you, what you have a right to hear, the brief

history of the change which is calling me away from you."

The interest of his hearers was acutely, if not painfully, awakened;

every one waited breathlessly for the novel experiences of one who had

always seemed so strong in the belief he taught. Some thought he had

turned to the Methodist views, some suspected him of Episcopalian

leanings; of the truth, not one had the slightest inkling, for, to

their minds, such a change was more irrational than suicide, and more

awful a judgment than insanity.

Step by step, with clear, sharp-cutting words, he developed the doubts

and fears of his soul; he dissected his life for the last year, and

showered Bible texts upon his hearers in his rapid way that would have

been impassioned had he let it be; and when, one after the other, he

had sapped all the axioms his former teaching had rested on, and had

carried the mind of his audience, against its will, out of the sphere

of certainty, he then paused a moment, and said in a more gentle voice

than he had used in his dogmatic course:

"And now, my friends, what remains to be said? This: to confess my

mistake before you all, to humble myself at the feet of God, whom I

have so long misunderstood and mistaught, and to ask your forgiveness

for having given you, in my ignorance, stones when you asked for bread,

serpents when you cried for food. You know the church which alone

teaches all that God has now shown me to be true; you know that it is a

church flouted and condemned, persecuted and poor--none other than the

Holy Roman Catholic Church (here the stir was like an electric shock

among the rapt audience, and Grace half rose up in her seat, and looked

defiance from her flashing eyes upon her nearest neighbors), none other

than was founded in the poverty of Bethlehem, the ignominy of Calvary,

the secrecy of the catacombs.

"I have but few words left to say to you, my friends. We have walked

together for many years, seeking God. I knew not that I had not found

him; _now_ I know that I walked in darkness and in the shadow of

death. I pray that each of you, in God's appointed time, may be led,

like me, to find him. I thank him that this grace should come with

sorrow, exile, and poverty in its train. I take up the cross willingly,

and leave home and country, and a beloved grave, and a people to whom

my soul was knit, to follow humbly where God shall lead me. And now,

once again farewell, and may God bless you, every one, and reward you

for all that your friendship and your fidelity have ever done for him

who was once your pastor."

With a grave and simple salutation, he went down the pulpit stairs,

passed out of the church, his daughter eagerly joining him and linking

her arm in his. Her English cousin, who had come in late to the

service, hastened after them, and frankly expressed his astonishment

at the sudden turn of affairs. The people, who streamed out after them

in hurried groups, as if anxious to get into the air, that they might

talk over this extraordinary event, eyed them askance as they walked

home; the deacons spoke together in shocked whispers, and the older

men and women quoted texts about wolves in sheeps' clothing. Some

of the younger church members were scared and disturbed more by the

uncompromising arguments than by the tangible result; while others,

the reckless and the more "unregenerate," boldly said they admired the

minister's "pluck."

George Charteris dwelt very seriously on the exclusion from the

guardianship of his son which this course of Mr. Seymour's would

inevitably entail; but the father only answered sadly: "The Lord did

not speak to me of such things; those affairs are in his hands, and his

secrets are not for us to inquire into. So far as I saw my way clear,

I have answered the call of God."

Several friends called in the evening to speak to the minister about

the incredible announcement he had made that morning; they found him

the same as ever, patient, kind, and courteous, and his young daughter

more beautiful and more attractive than before; for the determined way

in which she supported her father's conduct gave her a touch of the

heroine.

Late that night the two visited the moonlit grave near the little

church. Great elm-shadows veiled it, and the night-wind rustled the

violet and primrose leaves that bordered it all round. In the summer

a cross of heliotrope grew at its head, but as yet it had been too

cold to put the plants out. In his new-found faith, the husband could

now kneel and pray, and speak to the angel guardian of his lost wife,

and send messages to the soul that knew all he had so lately learnt,

and knew it so much better than he. But the great thing of which he

spoke was the future of his children and hers, praying that they too,

especially Grace, should be brought to the same knowledge and saved

through the same faith. Grace stood like a statue, her hands clasped

and resting on her father's shoulder, her slight form bending forward

as he knelt. When he rose, she pressed his arm and drew him towards

her, looking up into his tear-veiled eyes with looks of hungry love. It

was a rare and a piteous sight to see the strong man weep, to see the

wave-like emotion of this solemn hour bow the head of the deep thinker,

the calm and kingly scholar. It made him more sacred in her sight, and

kindled her rapturous feelings to that degree that she could gladly

have died, that he might be spared one pang more in his future path of

thorns.

He hardly suspected _all_ that he was to his child; for great

though his love was, broad, and deep, and still, it was silent as

the great ocean that sleeps round the islands of coral, beneath the

changeless radiance of southern constellations. But few outward signs

passed between father and daughter, for his grand, noble nature was

self-contained and grave; and for that very reason Grace honored him

in her heart, calling him to herself a hero among men. Was it strange

that, by his side, other men seemed dwarfed, that their virtues seemed

shallow, and their very vices more contemptible than horrible? Was

it strange that his intellect, so far-reaching, and his practical

business abilities, so clear and straight-forward, should make other

men seem only half men, with one side of their nature alone monstrously

developed, till it grew to overbalance the other, and make the whole

into a grotesque travesty of humanity, a moral satyr, more beast than

man, and more fool than either?

I do not say that such ungracious thoughts came to her when she noticed

her cousin, George Charteris; but something hollow and unreal suggested

itself to her, as she listened to his brilliant, frivolous talk or

his cynical, off-hand observations. She thought, if that is what

modern fashion breeds in men, the world of to-day is no better than a

smelting-furnace, obliterating all but the changing current of mingled

ore and dross constantly running with aimless speed through its many

channels. She looked forward to any contact with it as a trial, and

only stayed herself with the idea that everything noble and pure and

dignified was embodied in her father's life, in which she would always

be wrapped up. Yet she had promised to think of marriage!

The day following this eventful Sunday the Seymour family left Walcot.

Their cottage, which was their own property, was to be let for a year,

as their affairs were still unsettled and their plans quite undecided.

From that day Edward Seymour again felt that a new journey had begun

for him; and where his soul would be landed he knew not, nor cared to

know, so God was before him and his daughter at his side.

TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH.

CUI BONO?

Pale star, if star thou be, that art

So fain to shine, though far apart

From all thy stately peers;

Thou whom the eye can scarce discern--

Oh! who hath set thee there to burn

Among the spheres?

Thou com'st too late: the firmament

Is full, and thou wast never meant

For yonder gorgeous steep;

The night hath counted all her pearls,

And, pillow'd on her casket, furls

Her wings in sleep.

The night needs not thy tardy ray;

Thou canst not usher in the day,

Nor make the twilight fair;

What sailor turns to thee at sea?

What mourner doth look up to thee

In his despair?

Mournful or glad, no eye shall chance

To light on thee; no curious glance

Thy motions shall discern;

No lonely pilgrim pause to catch

Thy parting ray, nor lover watch

For thy return.

Oh! leave the world that loves thee not--

For who shall mark the vacant spot?

Oh! drop into the cloud

That waits to take thee out of sight,

Beyond the glare of yonder bright

And chilly crowd!

"I may not, if I would, return

Into the dark, or cease to burn

My spark of light divine:

For he that in my lamp distils

The sacred oil, he surely wills

That I should shine.

"I fret not at the blaze of spheres,

The distant splendor that endears

The night to men; but strive--

Finding strange bliss in perfect calm--

To keep with these few drops of balm

My flame alive.

"It may be that some vagrant world,

Or aimless atom, toss'd and whirl'd

Through windy tracts of space,

Perceives by me the Hand that tends

It ever, and the goal that ends

Its tedious race.

"I know not: me this only care

Concerns, that I for ever bear

My silver lamp on high,

Nor lift to God a laggard flame,

Because on earth I cannot claim

A partial eye."

THE JANSENIST SCHISM IN HOLLAND.

JANSENISM IN THE CHURCH OF UTRECHT.

FROM LES ETUDES RELIGIEUSES. BY C. VAN AKEN.

I.

I shall not undertake to write the history of Netherland Jansenism. I

have a more special purpose in view; it is to demonstrate the actual

existence of that heresy in the so-called Church of Utrecht. To this

end, I shall, after showing what the principles of Jansenism are,

make it clear that the errors of Baius, as developed, or, so to say,

amended, by Jansenius, are reproduced by Quesnel, and are to be found

in the false Synod of Pistoia. This assembly, held in 1786, under the

authority of Leopold II., Grand Duke of Tuscany, and presided over

by Scipio Ricci, Bishop of Pistoia and Prato, merits our attention;

for the principal documents I shall make use of in this paper concern

the official adhesion given by the schismatical clergy of Holland

to the synod.[203] As to the events which are related and admitted

by all historians, I shall only refer to them in order to point out

their significance, or to dissipate the obscurity in which the recent

promoters of the schism have sought to envelope facts.

"Jansenius had been a great reader of S. Augustine; but he brought to

the study of this author far more of zeal than of prudence or real

knowledge. In some passages he renders the thoughts of the Doctor

of Grace well enough; almost everywhere else, and even in the most

important points, he is grossly in error. An extensive reader he was

not; one author alone absorbed his whole life, and the more he dwelt

upon his author, the less he understood him. His posthumous work is

bad, impious, and truly heretical. Calvin, as Jansenius presents him,

is no longer Calvin."