A perfect silence followed. The priest was struggling with his

feelings, and regretting not having withdrawn before his self-control

gave way, and the gentlemen behind him were recovering the shock of

learning who their neighbor was, and feeling their way to a solution of

the difficulty. One of them had an inspiration. "Let's go and have a

cigar," he said; and F. Chevreuse was left to himself.

But his solitude was full of terrible images, and in that few minutes

all his relations with the Jew had been changed. He would not have

said to himself that he believed the man guilty, and he would have

said that, guilty or innocent, he wished him no harm; but what his

imagination had utterly refused to do in connecting Mr. Schöninger

with his mother's tragical fate the plain talk of this stranger had

accomplished. He could no longer separate the two; and the sight of

the Jew, or the sound of his name even, would, in future, call up

associations intolerable to him.

"You know all, then?" was F. O'Donovan's greeting when they met.

The face of F. Chevreuse showed, indeed, that he had no questions, or

few, to ask.

"The law has decided," he said, "and, for the present at least, I

cannot question its decision. They know better than I how to arrive

at the truth. At the same time, I never will say of a man that he is

guilty till he has himself told me that he is, or till I have the

evidence of my own senses. And now, what have you to tell me about my

people? Is it well with them?"

"It is well," was the echo.

The people had, indeed, settled into their usual quiet mode of life

again with surprising readiness, as often happens to those who, giving

themselves entirely up to an excitement, exhaust its force the sooner.

The conviction and sentence of Mr. Schöninger had not only given them

a satisfying sense of justice vindicated, but had impressed them with

awe. The suddenness of his fall, when they had leisure to contemplate

its accomplishment, was startling. But a few weeks before, he had

walked their streets with a step as proud as the proudest, and there

was not one among them, whatever his prejudices, who was not pleased to

receive his salutation; in a few months longer--months of misery and

disgrace--he would be called on to suffer the extreme penalty of the

law.

Some of them remembered, too, when all was over, the defence the

prisoner had made, if defence it could be called, when he was permitted

to speak for himself. They were bitter words, full of fierce and

haughty defiance and denunciation and at the time their sole effect had

been to provoke still further against him the popular rage; but, for

some reason, there was a thrilling pathos in the recollection of them,

perhaps because they had been uttered in vain, and because they showed

with what horror he contemplated his impending doom.

"You seek my destruction because I am a Jew, not because I am a

criminal," he exclaimed; "and you condemn me without proof. But do not

flatter yourselves that I shall perish so. Do not believe that I shall

fall a victim to your insane and presumptuous bigotry. It may triumph

for a time, but the triumph will be short."

Not a very pleasant sort of address to be listened to by a judge who

had tried to be impartial, and meant to be honest, nor to a jury who

were fully convinced of the speaker's guilt, and who had moreover, as

juries are likely to have, a more than judicial sense of their own

dignity. Yet, for all that, there was not one of them who would have

liked to face again those flashing eyes and that white hand pointing

like a flame where his words should fall. They were rather afraid of

the man, and looked with equal uneasiness toward the execution of his

sentence and the possibility of rescue or escape, or of revenge even,

which he had seemed to threaten.

For the present, however, the prison was strong and well guarded,

and the convict, being in solitary confinement, had no means of

communicating with any friends he might have outside. He was still in

Crichton, the state prison being near the city jail; and still, if he

chose, he could look out from his grated window and see the Christ in

air stretching out arms of loving invitation to him.

TO BE CONTINUED.

FOOTNOTES:

[274] The beasts of prey have triumphed, and the birds have been driven

away.

THE RELIGIOUS POLICY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE.

[The following is the translation of a remarkable memoir presented

to Napoleon III. by one of his Ministers of Public Worship. Its

authenticity is guaranteed under oath by Leon Pagès, and the date

of its presentation seems to be about the year 1860. It furnishes

the key to the religious events of the second period of the reign of

Napoleon III., and shows how a government calling itself Catholic

plotted against, and was gradually destroying the liberty of, the

church. The perfidy and falsehoods contained in the document speak

for themselves. The programme detailed in the second part of the

same was only too faithfully carried out, not only to the ruin of

the emperor, but to that of France also. It began to be put in

practice in the year 1860, and was persevered in until the day when

all power was taken from the hands of its authors and abettors. The

key-note to the whole insidious production is contained in the opening

sentence--viz., that no matter what is done by the Catholic Church,

it must be for the sake of obtaining influence over souls, not for

their spiritual and eternal welfare, but for mere temporal and selfish

ends--for worldly power. To the Catholic reader this one remark will be

sufficient to place him on his guard. We copy from the _Revue du Monde

Catholique_.--_Translator._]

I.

The essential tendency of Roman Catholicism has been, is, and always

will be, the spirit of secular domination, the inevitable result of

transforming a man, the Pope, into the infallible and absolute vicar of

Jesus Christ on earth.

If, before the Revolution of '89, the clergy were Gallican--that is to

say, national--it was because it had sufficiently attained that end

of temporal rule. It was the first order of the state; it possessed

great wealth; it had its own organization, and enjoyed considerable

privileges; its religion was the exclusively dominant one. What else

could it ask, unless it wished to displace royalty itself? The clergy

then was much more French and royalist than Roman, solely because

it had such enormous interests at stake in the soil and in the

constitution of the kingdom.

Again, if we study carefully the so-called maxims and liberties of

the Gallican Church, we quickly recognize that between the kings

and the clergy these liberties constituted a sort of commutative

contract entered into almost wholly at the expense of the Papacy.

The bishops, generously treated by royalty, in return consented to

sacrifice to royalty many of the Roman pretensions, which, however,

were consequences of the spiritual supremacy; and, with more reason,

they allowed the sovereign to settle all matters of purely political

independence. In the Gallican Church, the king rejected Papal

infallibility, because it necessarily implied his temporal supremacy;

and the bishops to whom the doctrine would perhaps in any other

country have been acceptable, rejected it likewise because it would

have disturbed their privileges and their possessions, which they

owed to royalty. It ought to be added that all this was according to

the ancient traditions of the land, which had rendered better service

to the church than any other, and which never desired any foreign

interference in its own affairs. But certainly both the French clergy

and bishops would have gone back to the pope and to ultramontane ideas,

unless their independence, peaceful and magnificent, had been assured

them.

After the Revolution of '89, the clergy, deprived of its possessions,

its privileges, its constitution, reduced to the condition of salaried

functionaries, feeling its utter dependence on the state, felt the

necessity of creating for itself a new influence by detaching itself

from administrations over-neutral in its regard. For a short time it

saluted Napoleon I. as the _restorer of the altar_; then it submitted

to his powerful hand; but it hastened to desert him when conquered,

calling him _the persecutor of Pius VII._ It came to the support of

the Restoration, because of the recollections of the past, and, above

all, because it hoped therefrom the re-establishment of many immunities

which the Restoration did not dare, in opposition to public opinion, to

concede to it. This is the reason that, under the Restoration, it came

to pass that the clergy was more occupied in caring for itself than for

royalty, so much so that it is from this epoch that the first efforts

of return to ultramontanism date their origin. No excuse can be offered

for Louis XVIII. and for Charles X. for having allowed the Concordat of

1801 and the organic articles to remain in force, and for not having

given to the church an indemnity, as they did to the exiles.

Under Louis Philippe, the clergy was not deluded; it understood very

well that a parliamentary and democratic government would never permit

it to work for the re-establishment of its power. Consequently,

and under the pretext that the church, accepting all _de facto_

governments, ought not to mix in the risks and responsibilities of

politics, the clergy proclaimed its absolute neutrality, which was but

another name for a complete separation. Hence nothing is easier of

comprehension that it quickly gave up all Gallican ideas, to rally to

the support of ultramontane doctrines. Isolated, without influence,

without wealth, cramped in its sphere of activity, it had no interest

in upholding the independence of the state against the Holy See, whilst

everything invited it to defend once more the famous thesis of the

Catholic Church, directing kings and peoples, and giving to the clergy

the influence of a class superior to all others. The anti-Gallican

demonstration, aided by the politicians of legitimacy and of the

Catholic party, who had adopted as their watchword _free education_,

began to develop itself rapidly in the episcopate, amongst the inferior

clergy in the seminaries and religious orders, and even in the halls

of the two chambers. Everything was prepared for the solemn return to

Rome, when the Revolution of 1848 burst forth.

The religious party as well as the legitimists, its auxiliary, at first

accepted that revolution because it destroyed the upstart, usurping,

and Voltairian party. It afterwards strove with energy to form a

coalition of all the elements of public order, so as to escape from

the power of the demagogues; it was this same motive which influenced

its votes in favor of the president; it thus struck a blow at the

democratic and social republic. But when it believed that Napoleon

III., who had become successively dictator and emperor, would consent

to play the part of another Charlemagne, _Episcopus ad extra_, it

became devoted to him and enthusiastic. But the emperor had no such

thought; he only wished to attach the clergy firmly to the Empire by

honorable laws ensuring its safety and liberty. By so doing he supplied

one of the greatest social needs, without, however, departing from

a wise public policy; but he had no intention of handing the state

over to the church. The clergy, on its part, easily imagined what he

desired. Hence we see in 1852 (and this must not be passed over) more

earnestness and greater sympathy in that portion of the episcopate

which was notoriously ultramontane. It was that portion which had been

the best initiated by Rome into its projects of encroachment, which

carried them out with the greatest zeal, and which consequently sought

to conciliate the good-will of the sovereign and to engage him to

pursue a course of liberal toleration.

Thus it came to pass that it immediately insinuated how exceedingly

becoming it would be to enter into what was called a compact between

the church and state--viz., the negotiation of a treaty which was to

replace the organic articles.

Now, as has been said at the beginning of this memoir, Roman

Catholicism aiming necessarily at temporal rule, the moment seemed

so much the more favorable to advance in that undertaking, as the

government seemed to give its consent so easily thereunto. The law of

free education already existed. The emperor appeared unwilling to make

use of the prohibitions of the organic law regulating public worship

and of the law concerning religious congregations of men; consequently,

provincial councils were quickly organized and congregations were

multiplied.

The design of gaining possession almost entirely of primary education

was avowed by bringing the influence of the _curés_ to bear on the

various municipal offices, and, by forcing the Christian Brothers to

refuse to receive from their rich pupils any compensation whatever for

attending their schools, which had been built and were supported by

the municipality: in this way the Brothers received from the state a

compensation of 3,000,000, at the expense of the lay schools.

The famous decree of 1852 was then proposed to the emperor, but without

explaining its import. This destroyed the ancient and wise legislation

of the council of state, and allowed the almost unlimited extension of

authorizations to establish congregations of women.

In spite of the lively opposition of the majority of the bishops and

of the secular clergy, the Roman liturgy was then inaugurated and

presented to the emperor as a simple matter of material unity in

Catholic worship; care was taken not to avow that this was a deadly

blow against the customs and constitution of the Gallican Church, the

triumph of Romanism in France, and a tax of more than six millions

on the manufactures and municipalities of the Empire. All this was

necessary in order to obtain a brief from the Pope in 1858 obliging the

clergy to recite in its liturgy the prayer _Domine salvum_, which had

been excluded from the Roman Breviary.

Whilst, on the one hand, the clergy sought to gain possession of the

people through the medium of primary education, which was solicited

for the religious congregations by all the charitable confraternities

(of S. Vincent of Paul, of S. Francis Regis, of S. Francis Xavier,

etc., etc.), through a multitude of foundations of religious charity,

on the other it strove also to enlist in its favor the children of the

higher and middle classes of society through the numerous and immense

educational institutions of a superior character, founded either by the

bishops or by the religious orders of Jesuits, Carmelites, Marists,

Dominicans, etc. Thus the law of 1850, hostile to all state education,

brought forth its fruits.

As to the education of girls, it was and it is almost exclusively

in the hands of religious, from the country infant schools and

protectories up to the most splendid educational establishments of

Paris; on this point it is impossible for the lay element to contend

with the religious element, which, either really or apparently, will

always present far better guarantees to families for morality and

self-devotion. But the point worthy of consideration here is that this

convent education, directed by the inspiration and opinions of the

clergy, is not at all in sympathy either with the existing government

or with public opinion.

This is the reason why the episcopate and Rome have always resisted any

inspection on the part of the state into their institutions, except a

purely nominal one, alleging that these religious congregations could

submit only to ecclesiastical inspection. In the regulations made in

1852 too much was yielded on that point.

It can be affirmed with truth to-day that there is no class of

society which is not to a greater or less degree entangled in the

meshes so admirably laid by the congregations and associations called

_benevolent_ or _charitable_. They gain entrance even into the army,

under the pretext of giving gratuitous instruction and spiritual

conferences; they gather together working-men of every condition; they

establish a kind of freemasonry, and of equality amongst citizens

of every rank; through their trusty friends and adherents they are

represented in all the branches of the government; they have possession

of the child and of the man in his prime of life, of the poor and

of the rich; they are everywhere. This enormous fact becomes a most

convincing proof, if we consider the exact meaning of the name of these

congregations, associations, and works of every kind, and of the end

each of them proposes to obtain. It is almost certain that, directly or

indirectly, the Catholic idea permeates them all; and as the direction

of that Catholic idea belongs more than ever to Rome, the conclusion

is natural that all these means of action so skilfully organized form

a kind of secret government, the helm of which is in the hand of the

Roman cardinals, prefects of the congregations.

The present religious agitation proves the truth of this assertion. The

society of S. Vincent of Paul has thought and acted exactly in the same

way as the convents, seminaries, and religious orders; from one end of

the scale to the other there is but one opinion, and the pamphlet of M.

de Segur can be found in the _salon_ of the nuncio as well as in the

workshop--yes, even on the bench of the lowest primary school.

But it was not enough to have thus securely encircled lay society

with so many arms employed for the benefit of the religious element.

It was necessary to be certain that these arms would always be used

conformably to the end in view--viz., the Roman Catholic supremacy.

The bishops and secular clergy might perhaps grow restless under this

ultramontane domination; they might perhaps, although desiring the

development of religion and of their own personal condition, either

moderate a too quick movement towards, or, for the sake of their own

independence, even oppose themselves to the absorption meditated at

Rome. Therefore, the effort was made, especially since the beginning

of 1852, to crush out even a show of resistance from the bishops and

secular clergy; and the _Univers_, the avowed organ of the Holy See,

whilst praising the emperor and attacking violently the parliamentary

or liberal Catholic party (de Falloux, de Montalembert, Lacordaire,

etc.), undertook to establish a system of ecclesiastical compression,

which in the end triumphed. M. Veuillot became the _lay pope of the

French_; with as much audacity as talent, he set forth the doctrines

of the spiritual and temporal supremacy of the Holy See; he thundered

against the schism of the Gallican Church, and against any compact

which bound the priest to the state.

And at the same time the Papal nuncios in France surrounded the bishops

with an almost intolerable servitude. Near each of them they had

devoted ecclesiastics, who spied into and denounced their actions. Any

bishop suspected of favoring independence or resistance was the object

of those thousands of cunning tricks which Rome has under its command

because of the powers it can either grant or refuse to the episcopate.

Any priest of some eminence who did not go over to the ultramontane

party was made the object of threats and calumnies, which, it was said,

_would break his episcopal cross_. Things came to such a point that a

Minister of Public Worship, frightened at the bold and dogmatic tone

in which a nuncio pronounced his _veto_ on the episcopal nominees, was

forced to make an energetic declaration concerning the rights of the

emperor, and to tell that nuncio to bear it in mind.

At the same time, also, Rome endeavored to render the episcopate

subservient to itself by interfering in the administration of dioceses

by granting the inferior clergy the right of addressing the prefects of

the apostolic congregations on all matters which concerned conscience,

liturgy, or dispensations. So that the bishops, humiliated, and with

their jurisdiction lessened, had no other resource left them to

recover their authority than to show themselves ultramontanes, and so

gain the good graces of the Holy See.

Provincial councils, wherein zealous men domineered, only served to

consummate that ruin of our ancient church and of all opinions which

still bound the French clergy to their native land.

More yet was wanted. The better to secure the dependence of the

episcopate, the gradual substitution of the regular for the secular

clergy was dreamt of. This was the reason why monasteries of religious

congregations were multiplied, under the pretext that there was need of

auxiliary priests to help the _curés_ and their assistants. They built

churches, took possession of the pulpits and confessionals, directed

the different confraternities; they thus set aside and banished the

parochial clergy. In a few years, things going on in this manner,

what would hinder the Pope from saying to the bishops: "You have no

further need of seminaries to recruit your clergy; look at the numerous

religious houses, from which you can take your _curés_ and assistants."

And then what would happen? The clergy of France would no longer

possess any national character whatsoever. It would be exclusively a

Roman army, under the command of the generals of each congregation.

Episcopal authority would be completely annihilated, and the church in

France would be under the absolute command of the Pope. In that case,

only the most violent struggles--a veritable civil war--could alone

save the concordat and the independence of the state!

Nay, even now the Pope, abusing the liberty granted, affects to look

on France as a province of his Catholic empire. He freely promulgates

the acts and laws of his personal administration, and rules here,

just as directly as he would at Ancona or Perugia, the affairs of the

episcopate and of the church according to the famous ultramontane

formula: "The clergy of France is first Catholic, then French."

Nothing better proves the exactness of these views than the study of

the causes and the progress of the existing religious agitation about

the Italian question. The greater part of the episcopate cared but

little for internal demonstrations; the Pope brought the energetic

appeal of two encyclical letters to bear upon them. Each bishop was

harassed, forced, menaced in the name of his Catholic conscience, in

the name of his obligation of obedience to the Pontiff. Three months

were required to wring from each and all the wished-for pastoral

letter. And what do the leaders of the ultramontane party say to-day?

"The French Church has spoken," cries the Bishop of Poitiers; "she is

unanimous."

Yes, by dint of the most violent siege. It began by bending the

episcopate under the imposed doctrine of the infallible superiority of

the Pope. That subjection was accomplished by all the stratagems of

the administrative power of Rome over spiritual matters and diocesan

affairs; and when, in consequence, it was certain that there would be

no resistance on any question whatsoever, even were it the political

question of the Romagna, they boast that the free opinion of the

Catholic world has been given; they place the Pope under the protection

of the universal church, which is judged to have spoken and acted

freely. This is a strange use of power and of trickery!

To recapitulate. Rome, as it never goes out of the path leading to its

end, has wished and wishes to create its own supremacy in France, which

has been so long prevented by royalty allied to the French clergy.

It has found a clergy not attached to the soil and to the state by

great interests of wealth and influence.

Profiting by the situation, it has wished to reduce the clergy into

bondage after a precise fashion by the intrusion of all of the

doctrines of the ultramontane church, and, to obtain its end, has

employed all the powers of polemics, of spiritual administration, and

of the regular clergy.

The clergy conquered, it has marched on to possess itself of all

classes of society through the medium of educational institutions, of

confraternities and congregations of every kind, and has established an

organization as vast as it is formidable.

Henceforth Rome rules the clergy and the Church of France, and, through

the clergy and the church, it means to rule the country.

II.

Such is a true picture of the religious situation.

However, if the French clergy seem unwilling to oppose any further

external resistance to the doctrines, plots, and encroachments of Rome,

it must not be forgotten that very many of its members in conscience

are far from approving what they call the excesses of ultramontanism,

because they fear for their own safety and for that of the true

religion.

A great part of the episcopate realizes the fact that the effort is

being made to reduce them to the condition of simple vicars apostolic,

whose jurisdiction could be recalled, and to suppress the _proprium

jus episcopûm_. They foresee that the nation will never go back on the

civil and political progress made in order to place itself under any

theocracy whatsoever.

Consequently, they are not convinced of the strength of the proposed

ultramontane arrangement, which may be set forth in these terms: "Be

no longer a French episcopate; acknowledge your absolute dependence on

the Pope; and, in recompense, we will have _all_ together the religious

government of France." Such a plan would expose religion to many and

inevitable conflicts, in which it would be either swallowed up by

worldly views, or would be gravely compromised.

As a rule, we may also add that the clergy has no idea of separating

itself from the emperor, who is the highest guarantee of social order,

and whose religious loyalty it well knows.

Finally, to sum up all, it clearly sees that it must live and die in

the bosom of France, where it was born; and that, if it does not enjoy

the advantages it did in times past, it yet receives from the state

whatever constitutes its sphere of activity, its security, and its

existence. For the national clergy to quarrel angrily and irrevocably

with the emperor and with the nation is a thing easier said than done,

the more so as it hates the religious orders, and has no other support

whatsoever for its own independence except the laws and good-will of

the government.

It sees only too well what would become of it if the government,

judging it irrevocably hostile, should all at once suppress all

sympathy towards it, should cut off from it all sources of liberality

and of toleration, and should brand it before the country as alien to

the national feelings and blindly obedient to ultramontane passions.

Here is the key-note to the disagreements which now exist amongst the

clergy. The dispute and the declaration of 1682 are buried in the past.

The controversy is not a theological one at all. It is exclusively one

of our own day, exclusively political, exclusively social; and, if the

ultra-montanists of to-day are the same as those of past times, the

present Gallicans are by no means like those of the time of Louis XIV.

We must live either in our own age or the life of the middle ages; we

must be either French or Roman. Such is the true state of the question.

Under such circumstances, what is to be done?

Must we, by abruptly changing our whole system of government, expel the

religious congregations of men, modify the law concerning education,

apply all the organic articles, and reach such a point that the law,

fully carried out, will look very much like persecution? No; for then

the sincerity of the sovereign might be called into question on account

of his passing so quickly from a generous and affectionate protection

to all the rigors of prohibition; it would inflict a deep wound on the

entire clergy and on a vast multitude of honorable Catholics; it would

give rise to the suspicion that, in spite of all to the contrary, a

return was being made to Voltairian prejudices; and perhaps it would

necessitate a defence against an anti-religious reaction which would

consider all its excesses justifiable.

The measures to be taken ought not to surpass the limits of the abuses

to be suppressed, and to be carried out in behalf of the respect due

to the supreme power, for the welfare of public tranquillity and of

religion well understood. Besides, it is well known that public opinion

acts as a kind of police over the faults of the clergy. As often as the

clergy departs from its true sphere of action and strives to encroach

upon the powers and independence of society, it creates a circle of

resistance and opposition which subdues it. To-day men are frightened

at what they think are the outbursts of revolutionary passion, but

which in reality are only the energetic manifestation of public opinion

rebelling against the wishes of those in favor of theocracy. Preserve

the uprightness of the religious sentiment of the nation; use no

violence; borrow from our public law what is necessary to put a stop

to insupportable encroachments; in this way separate the course of

religion as sincerely practiced from the arrogance and calculations of

the Roman propaganda--such, I think, is a course of action well adapted

to the necessities of the hour, and will obtain the approbation of the

country.

Taking these general notions for a basis, perhaps the following

measures would be most opportune:

1st. Except in cases of local necessity, which is to be well proven,

to tolerate no other new establishment of religious communities of

men, whether it be a question of conventual houses, churches, chapels,

even under the pretext that they are to act as auxiliaries in the

sacred ministry, or whether it be a question of institutions for public

instruction and works of public charity. The hospitality so generously

granted by the emperor to communities of men, although prohibited by

law, will, in this way, remain inviolate. "You are numerous enough, and

France has not been given to you to drain;" this is a sensible answer,

which cannot incur the reproach of exclusion. Besides, why will not

those who force themselves into the religious communities enter and

recruit the ranks of the secular clergy, the parochial clergy? Where

is the necessity of increasing the regular clergy which belongs to the

Roman government? There are at present in France 68 associations or

congregations of men, 19 only of which are authorized as teaching and

charitable communities. They have under their charge 3,088 institutions

or schools, they number 14,304 religious and have 359,953 pupils.

2d. Henceforth exercise the greatest severity in granting permission

for the establishment of congregations of women, only granting the

same when the actual undeniable necessity of public charity or

primary education requires it; demand certain proofs that they have

sufficient resources for their support; do not easily grant permission

for the conversion of local communities into communities subject

to a superioress-general, which inundate France with their annexed

establishments. True it is that _de facto_ congregations cannot be

stopped; but, as they are not recognized by law, they know that every

one of their members remains subject to the common law; and the _de

facto_ congregation, which collectively has no civil existence, can

therefore neither receive gifts nor legacies, neither can it act as

a corporation. At present there are in France 236 communities of

woman subject to superioresses-general, which have, besides the 236

principal foundations, 2,066 secondary or annexed establishments;

and about 700 congregations or communities under local superioresses

(each of these last forms a distinct establishment, governed by its

own superioress, and independent of the establishments of the same

religious order established elsewhere); to which we must add about 250

religious associations of women not yet recognized, but existing _de

facto_.

3d. As to what concerns the _authorized_ communities of men or women,

let the council of state exercise the greatest severity in the matter

of gifts, legacies, and charitable donations it permits them to

receive. Here we must consider not only the condition and protests of

families demanding a reduction of such donations, but we must also

examine into the necessities of the community so rewarded. There is

no reason why we should procure for them the means of a useless or

abusive extension, by authorizing them to receive what is necessary

to defray expenses they ought never to have incurred. Communities

once established will remain what they are, if the fruitful source of

liberality which they provoke and seek for be wanting to stimulate

the natural tendency of these communities to extend themselves

indefinitely. The spirit of rivalry which exists amongst them, the lust

of propagation and of power, all drive them on towards an incessant

development. Once entered on this path, they must have money, and

they put their wits to work to find out and appeal for help, for

donations, and for alms. If the regulations concerning such gifts and

legacies were more severe, if the principle were established that

such liberality, which is only an encouragement to the extension of

expenses and of establishments, would no longer be tolerated, an abrupt

stop would be put to the excess of which we to-day complain.

It must be confessed that these congregations, authorized or

non-authorized, have always the means of evading the law and of

receiving gifts secretly. This cannot be prevented when the affair is

conducted cunningly, and the congregations are not without skilful

counsellors or numerous adherents ready to aid them in everything. But

even in this case, the amount of these evasions or of manual gifts

which deprive families of the livelihood obtained for them by their

author is easily appreciable. Whence, for example, have the immense

resources of the religious orders, vowed to poverty, proceeded, which

they must have consecrated to their numerous and vast establishments?

The real estate of the Jesuits surpasses twenty millions. How did they

buy or build them? Certainly from private donations. Now, this being a

fact, does it not follow that there is an obligation on the state not

to tolerate any new establishments, which would necessitate new appeals

to private charity, and the certainty that by such a prohibition it

would act wisely?

4th. Maintain, as far as possible, without destroying the liberty

of choice in the municipal councils, _lay_ primary education. If,

through the intelligence and firmness of the prefects, a stop be not

put to the incessant plottings of the clergy, forcing the townships to

entrust their schools to the Christian Brothers, there will be soon

no lay teachers, except in such poverty-stricken localities as the

brothers disdain to take. Here we must remark that an effort is being

made to multiply congregations of so called _Little Brothers_, who

install themselves in isolated country places, whilst the Christian

Brothers can only form an establishment in which _three brothers_ will

be in the same school. Townships not having resources and population

sufficient to receive the Christian Brothers will then be attended

to by these _Little Brothers_, called after Lamennais, S. Viator,

Tinchebray, etc., and so it will come to pass that lay teachers will

be entirely suppressed. As these teachers to-day, modest and useful

public officers, are devoted to the emperor, and render notable service

in the rural districts, considering that universal suffrage is the law

of the land, we would be very much weakened if all primary instruction

passed into the hands of congregations which depend more on Rome than

on France. Nay, more, it would be wise henceforth not to recognize as

places of public utility any congregation of men for primary education.

There are at present in France 49,639 _lay_ schools for boys and girls,

attended by 2,410,517 children; and 14,602 _conventual_ schools,

attended by 1,342,564. Moreover, we must remark that in the academies

of young girls directed by congregations, in the free primary schools

entrusted to them, as well as in the secondary schools wherein their

influence reigns, we meet histories compiled to glorify monarchies

of divine right, to exalt religious supremacy, to lower indirectly

the civil and political principles acquired since 1789. Truly these

establishments, so numerous, are, to a greater or less degree, real

branches of the legitimist and Catholic party. On the contrary, it

is in our imperial lyceums, in our municipal colleges, in our lay

schools, that we find a more robust and popular instruction given,

which fosters the national sentiments in the hearts of the children.

Where is it that you hear the cry cordially given, _Vive l'Empereur_?

Certainly not in the congregational establishments.

5th. Uphold with energy state education, because it is the true

national education; place its institutions, by a sufficient budget, in

a condition to enlarge their capacity, to perfect their staff and their

means of instruction--this is the key to the events of the future. The

Catholic legitimist party understood this only too well in demanding

under Louis Philippe, with so much ardor, liberty of education,

monopolized by the university, and in 1850, under the presidency,

in having the law on public instruction passed. Later, under the

dictatorship, it had the hardihood to dream of the total abolition of

state education, in order to hand it over to the clergy and to the

congregations; but the emperor, fully instructed on the intent of such

a measure, refused his consent. But it remains a fact, however, that,

thanks to the law of 1850, granting to every French citizen liberty to

teach, the Catholic legitimist party has been enabled to perpetuate in

the young generations that division of castes and of ideas which would

have disappeared under the system of a united university education.

It has been enabled, through the pupils brought up in congregational

houses, to give continued existence to its own social and political

doctrines. This is a great evil, no doubt; but, great as it is, it is

impossible to think of suppressing the law which guarantees the liberty

of the family. That would necessitate an immense struggle, a bloody

one, and one contrary to justice. There remains, then, but this one

escape, as equitable as it is prudent; everything concurs in it: let us

strengthen and favor state education, which fits one for any career in

life, which is the most solid and most patriotic, whilst, at the same

time, let it be made religious, moral, and paternal.

6th. As far as it can be done without forcing things too far, let

us put in execution the organic regulations, which place salutary

checks on the encroachments of the Papal power over the clergy and the

state; in other words, let us tolerate no new attack against our civil

legislation and our political constitution, whether in writings or in

the pulpit.

Place the office of the nuncio in France under the same regulations

as any other embassador of a friendly power, and do not allow him to

correspond at all, in the Pope's name, with the French bishops, nor

allow him to perform any act of jurisdiction, nor allow him to have the

least say in the choice of bishops.

With a firm hand prevent any act of the court of Rome from either being

received, published, or distributed in France without the authorization

of the government.

Choose resolutely the bishops from pious and honorable ecclesiastics,

but such as are known for their sincere attachment to the emperor, and

to the institutions of France.

Suppress all religious journals, the need of which no one dreamt of

before the invasion and agitations of the ultramontane party. The

clergy has its discipline, its bishops, its priests, its pulpits, its

mandates, its pastoral letters, and a complete government. There is no

necessity at all of adding the polemics of the press to the ordinary

means of publicity for this ecclesiastical government. Besides, the

whole of that press has always been the instrument for spreading

the doctrines and designs of the Roman theocracy, or parliamentary

Catholicism. To-day it supplies the most energetic nutriment towards

a religious agitation. Suppress this focus of excitement, which is

spreading into every presbytery, and the clergy will remain quiet. The

_Univers_ has upset the heads of all the younger clergy by preaching

religious supremacy, and the harm done by it will not be effaced

for many a long year. To impose the protection of the church on the

state; to sap all civil and political liberties; to undermine all lay

institutions; to attack incessantly every European alliance, except

that with Austria and the Catholic states, thus to introduce, above

everything else, and everywhere, the influence, the ideas, and the

power of Rome--such is the work of religious journals supported by the

legitimist party.

Encourage, finally, the public study of the ancient French liberties,

and profess everywhere and with spirit the conservative principles of

the independence of the state alongside of that of the Papacy.

7th. Moreover, persevere in a course of loyal protection for the true

interests of religion and of deference towards the clergy. Nothing

would be wiser, and, at the same time, nothing more just, than to

increase the honor paid to the inferior clergy, who in almost the whole

of France experience the direst privations. In this way they would

be attached to the government. If the episcopate, through weakness

or any other motive, abandoned the emperor, he would be compelled to

conciliate the inferior clergy, who ask nothing better than to have

a little more ecclesiastical independence, and who sometimes suffer

from episcopal despotism. At all events, it is of great importance that

the religious part of the nation be amazed at the noise occasioned by

these Roman quarrels, or remain indifferent concerning them, seeing

the national worship always tranquil, protected, and honored. For this

reason it is very useful that the grants of the budget be increased

towards the construction and repairing of churches, presbyteries, and

diocesan buildings.

8th. Finally, perhaps it would be opportune for the government to

turn its attention to those large lay associations, such as those

of S. Vincent of Paul, of S. Francis Xavier, etc., which, by their

administration and the nature of their works, are really in the

hands of the clergy and of the legitimist party. The conferences

of S. Vincent of Paul to-day are more than nine hundred in number;

they penetrate every rank of society, and even into the lyceums and

colleges, where they affiliate even the children under the title of

_aspirants_. They are connected to a principal conference in each

department of the country; they are governed by a general council of

that society, which has presented to the Holy Father at Rome a report

on the general condition of the French conferences. It is a formidable

association, which, as it has at its disposal so many members and

such resources, forms, as it were, a secret and complete government.

Our laws do not at all admit the independent organization of such

associations. Recognizing the charitable and Christian end of the

Society of S. Vincent of Paul, the benefits which undoubtedly are to

be attributed to it, the excellent spirit of many of its members, it

is impossible not to perceive the intentions of the men who have

the privilege and inspiration of its government; it is impossible,

also, not to grow uneasy at the existence of so vast and so skilful

an organization, through which thousands of citizens can receive such

or such an impulse, or such or such a word of command. Disinterested

benevolence can easily pass to such a society of propagandists; and

charitable societies, in order to exist and to do good, have no need

of going beyond their own district, nor of affecting a spirit of

affiliation and of a cemented union, which up to the present time has

only existed in secret revolutionary societies. Is it not to be feared

that they will in some sort replace the ancient Catholic associations

of the Restoration, which were then named "Jesuits in short-tailed

coats, or the Congregation"?

There can be no doubt at all that there is no one who now enters

these societies solely for love of charity or to satisfy his taste

for religious exercises; they are so numerous, so well filled up from

all ranks of society, that a powerful, compact interest is thereby

established which offers inducements for the welfare of families and

for any career in life. The Society of S. Vincent of Paul, which, as

we have seen, initiates the children in our lyceums and colleges, has

entered into the polytechnic school and into every branch of the civil

administration. It is developing in the army, in the magistracy, at the

bar; everywhere, in fine, it manifests its secret influence, and unites

all its members by the bonds of mutual support. To be a member of the

Society of S. Vincent of Paul to-day is not merely to make an act of

religious adhesion; it is to enter into a secret world, strongly

organized, acting on all sides upon the opinions and the affairs of

society; it is to gain active and influential protectors, and to secure

for one's self all the avenues leading to success in the different

chances or walks of life. The democrats would have desired to establish

a republican unity of interests. The clerics and ultramontanes, allied

to the legitimists, _have_ established the mutual support of the S.

Vincent of Paul Society. What an immense lever this could become in

hostile hands to move political ideas! Yes, we must repeat, the power

of these associations is such that men enter them for purely temporal

motives. They influence the determinations of families more than one

dreams of; and it is a very strange spectacle to see a considerable

number of our civil officers enrolled under their banners, whilst their

children, avoiding the state institutions, receive their instruction

from the Jesuits, the Carmelites, the Marists, the Dominicans.

This memoir has been composed in a spirit of pure frankness and truth.

We have wished to dissemble nothing. Yet if the matters treated of in

this memoir be serious, we know full well that they do not constitute

a fatal danger for the country. We can face them coolly. The material

and moral power of the government of the emperor is immense. The

majority in France cares very little for clerical pretensions, and

will never bow before the theocratical doctrines of Rome nor before

the intrigues and lamentations of the coalesced political parties. The

country has too much trust in the national interests, and too great

faith in the principles of modern society, not to crush, by the very

manifestation of its opinions, all this laborious restoration of men

and of the theories of the past. But as these are elements of agitation

and disorder, it is the duty of a provident government to watch

attentively. "Prudence begets safety."

GRACE SEYMOUR'S MISSION.

CONCLUDED.

September was painting the leaves in the wooded valleys of

Gloucestershire, and the fields were just bared of their golden crowns.

A noble mansion, where generations of Howards had reigned, was waiting

for its little lord to come from beyond the seas. In old days, the

Howards had been among the truest and bravest of the champions of

the old faith; even now their head branches had not thrown off their

allegiance to the church, but the glory of the martyr had paled before

the renown of the statesman and the fame of the soldier, in the eyes of

at least this offshoot of the great Catholic house. Since the reign of

James I., these Gloucestershire squires had been the main stay of the

Low-Church party, and the family tradition had remained the same to the

days of Elizabeth Howard, little George's mother.

One bright day a rather awkward travelling-carriage drove up to the

oaken door of Howard Hall, and George Charteris, with his little

cousin, dashed up the steps. Grace and her father followed; they were

but visitors, with no authority and no influence. Only one day did they

remain there, the young lawyer escorting them back to London; the child

was left to the care of the elder Charteris and his family.

The young man had not let time pass without making good use of it, and

he had already been once refused by the beautiful girl, whose influence

over him seemed so strange and unaccountable to himself. Her father had

said he was well satisfied at his child's conduct, as she was not one

to speak hastily and then repent her words; but George Charteris did

not give up all hope.

Grace and Mr. Seymour lived very quietly, even poorly; the guardian

of their little George allowed them a scanty sum out of the estate,

on his own responsibility, and on the condition that it should be

subject to the child's good pleasure when he should have attained his

majority. Mr. Seymour had serious thoughts of going abroad to study for

the priesthood, and Grace's peculiar religious state had suffered no

alteration since her departure from America.

Among the new convert's self-imposed tasks of charity was a weekly

visit to one poor family, whose drunken son was their shame and endless

burden. Dependent upon him for a precarious living, his old parents,

both crippled by an accident on a farm where years ago they had been

employed, lodged in a miserable den, which, through a large-heartedness

that is oftener seen among the poor than the rich, they had shared

with two sickly orphan children, the only ones left of a family of

seven, carried off with father and mother by the small-pox. Whatever

the drunken man brought home was shared with these desolate little

ones; whatever was given in charity was brought to feed them and keep

in them the little life they had ever had. Four more helpless beings

perhaps hardly existed, and all dependent upon one whose conscience

was dead, and whose animal nature hideously survived the paralyzation

of his soul's organism. Mr. Seymour and his daughter came upon them by

the merest chance, and ever after remained to them the firmest friends,

the most gentle benefactors, they had ever dared to dream of. But the

zealous convert was anxious to do a greater good than the mere corporal

works of mercy implied by his visits to these forlorn creatures. In

moments when his demon was not on him, the unhappy son of these poor

people sometimes listened to Mr. Seymour's earnest appeals to his

buried conscience. With good results for a few hours the poor family

had at first to be satisfied; then, as they hoped their infatuated

son would gradually reward the efforts of his kind adviser, he would

suddenly grow more brutish than before, and more irreclaimable. His

companions would jeer at the "gentleman missioner," in those days when

gentlemen were the worst preachers because the worst violators of

temperance; and the old people would sometimes tremblingly speak to

their benefactor of danger and of trouble to come, if he persisted too

openly in his religious and moral advice.

But the zeal that burnt within Edward Seymour was no faint light to be

extinguished by the first tainted breath of danger-fraught opposition;

bravely he spoke and advised and remonstrated, waiting only for a few

preliminaries to be arranged, in order to leave for a quiet scene,

where in prayer and study he was to prepare himself for tasks as

dangerous and as thankless as were his present occupations.

Meanwhile, his daughter, the domestic angel of his silent, shrine-like

home, thought and read and pondered deeply, her love for her one

companion in life bringing to her heart a longing desire to be at

unity with him, to be a sister and a sharer in his faith, and, above

all, a partaker in his sacrifice. For she could not bear to see him

suffer in earthly comforts, and not feel that she, too, bore a part

of his burden; she longed to believe as he did, if only to suffer as

he did; for as long as she stood aloof from his inner life, she felt,

after all, but as one who should watch sympathizingly on the shore

while another human being was battling with the crested, storm-tossed

waves beyond. Once or twice, with her father, Grace had gone to a

quiet service in a lowly house, where a priest made a temporary chapel

whenever he could spend a few days in town. His coming was a joy to a

faithful knot of friends, and before his impromptu altar many ranks

and stations in life were represented, from the brilliant owner of

lordly estates to the poor Irish artisan and the old women who reigned,

then as now, over the London apple-stalls. Among the silent, earnest

worshippers of this "tabernacle in the desert" was one whose thoughts

had been singularly attracted towards Grace. He saw her sit by her

father's side, grave and attentive, a sad, wistful look on her pale

face, never joining in the simple devotions which evidently were so

familiar to her companion, but often fixing her hopeless, passionate

gaze upon his faith-illumined features. Sometimes Grace would suddenly

feel, like to the rush of a falling star through the purple sky of

night, a glimmering perception of at least a possibility of truth

existing in this persecuted religion. Perhaps the very persecution

roused her pity and her sympathy, and held within itself a fascination

uneasily resisted by a noble mind.

Had the faith of her father been presented to her under its gorgeous

exterior of uncurtailed ritual and acknowledged supremacy, her heart

might have turned away from the glittering triumph; but now, were the

followers of this condemned Catholic faith not exiles and wanderers,

threatened with prisons and fines, hunted down by prejudice and

malignity, oppressed with the worst oppression--social and political

ostracism? How could her heart help going out towards them, and crying

blindly in the darkness that it felt for them and pitied their woes and

admired their self-sacrifice?

The day we have alluded to was one of those on which such awakenings

were stirring in her soul, and the fight between the world and God was

beginning for the holding of this stray prize, whose purchase had been

made, centuries ago, upon the cross of Calvary.

The good priest, who knew of her state through his conversations with

her father, took care to infuse a little wholesome and clearly-defined

doctrine into the short discourse he gave after Mass. It was not

without its effect, and Grace's eager, thoughtful air did not escape

the notice of her silent observer, who was not long in persuading the

pastor to make him acquainted with Mr. Seymour and his daughter.

He was a young, tall, athletic man, a thorough Saxon, with blue

eyes that were truth itself, and a lion-like form that seemed

the very embodiment of unconquerable endurance and indomitable

bravery. One thought instinctively, on looking at him, of the word

"standard-bearer," as if that, and that alone, were a description meet

for him, moral and physical in one; the only adequate word wherewith

to blazon forth his glorious perfection of man and child combined. As

reverent towards God, as loyal towards women, as though he were of

those who "always see the Father's face," he was as uncompromising, as

frank, as firm towards the world of daily shoals in whose treacherous

midst he lived as if temptation were a mythic fear, and the possibility

of sin a sealed book to his heart. The child of persecution, the royal

offspring of danger that could not appall and repression that could not

crush, Edmund Oakhurst was like the mountain-bred hunter who, reared

amid the sterile crags of unscalable Alps and sea-girt coasts, leaps

from rock to rock, regardless of chasm and torrent, and angry tides

rolling over the stone where a moment ago his venturesome but ever-sure

foot had lightly rested. The eagles might scream round his head, the

sea roar at his feet, the sky darken and the frail bark toss, he cared

little, for a brave heart and a bold hand, with God for a guide--are

they not equal to resisting the world's treacherous assaults? Such is

a slight sketch of the young man who now stood before Grace, bashful

yet bold, and looked up into her eyes with such wondering questions

mutely brightening his own. Her father was pleased with the stranger,

and together they soon fell into a conversation on the position of the

faith in America, and of the contrast between its present state and

that of triumphant supremacy it had enjoyed in that hemisphere when

Spain was the queen of nations.

The young man went home with Mr. Seymour, and it was evening ere they

parted. Grace was silently entranced. The faith that had such children

as that, and could draw to itself such an one as her father, must it

not have some unsuspected vitality which could be none other than

_truth_? Often and often their new friend came again, and each time

he came the young girl felt a solemn enthusiasm for all things great

and noble distil from his every word and glance, and wrap her round

in a bewildered dream, the voice of which seemed to sing for ever in

her ears, "Go and do thou likewise." Lights broke in upon her from

unexpected places; books she had laid down in hopeless reverence,

deploring that to her their spiritual beauty was incomprehensible,

yet sure that their beauty of language must be the veil of the hidden

shrine, she now took up again, and, reading, began to understand. Her

father, whose labors among the poor Edmund Oakhurst now joined, was

too silently happy to notice, save by gentle, unobtrusive aid, the

renovating work going on in his child's soul, and seemed to brighten

under this new and blessed influence. Soon his daughter spoke openly

to him, and, not many months after the quiet meeting at the chapel,

she was under instruction. He delayed his already formed plans, to be

at her side at this moment, and, together as ever, the two prayed and

read and studied, till life seemed to Grace too full and happy for

earth.

George Charteris had ceased visiting his relations much, especially

after having once or twice met Edmund Oakhurst. The contact with his

accustomed circle of by no means very intellectual or very sensitive

friends had soon worn off the interest his better nature had once

taken in the thoughtful, earnest life of the convert and his daughter.

He, however, very good-naturedly continued to write to them, giving

accounts of little George's health and general goings-on.

One night Edward Seymour and his young friend sat alone by the dying

fire, while the cold drizzle without veiled the window, and the

damp seemed to soak in through every chink and cranny in the poorly

furnished room. Both men wore their great-coats, but they hardly seemed

to notice the cold.

"It is nearly eighteen months now since we came," said Mr. Seymour,

"and I am not off to France yet. However, in less than a month that

last step will be taken, and I shall be at peace."

"And the favor I have asked you will be mine--so you assure me,"

hesitatingly answered Oakhurst.

"I only bid you try yourself, and see if I am not right," said his

friend. "Nothing would make me happier; and as to her, I have already

told you that she believes it was through your influence that God made

the truth plain to her."

"But if she should think that I take her at a disadvantage; or if she

should marry me because, being unprotected, she would be grateful for

a home--or rather, a husband, for the _home_ is hers--or, worse than

all, suppose she thought I was so poor as to need the little she has to

give?"

"My dear boy, these are groundless fears. She thinks of nothing but of

God and of his leadings in these matters; she never _has_ looked at

things from her childhood up with the world's eyes, and I think the

mere idea of the possibility of a man's marrying for money would be to

her absolutely monstrous and ridiculous. Remember how quiet and lonely

her life at home always was, and say if she _could_ be so worldly-wise?"

"It is true. After all, I wrong her; it is unworthy of me to dream of

such things; only I feel so utterly beneath her in mind and soul, so

simple in the deep things she hides in her heart, so unlearned in the

marvellous paths through which she has been led."

"My son," said Seymour gravely, "do not wrong yourself. I never dreamed

that I was worthy of her mother, but I knew that, all unworthy as I

was, God had chosen me for her guardian; so it is now with you, for

she is her mother over again. But whenever was a treasure given to the

worthy only? Think you Mary was worthy of being the mother of Jesus, or

Joseph of being the spouse of Mary? Are any of us worthy of being sons

of God and heirs of heaven? Above all, am I worthy to be a priest of

the Most High? But the question lies not there; it lies in God's will,

God's decrees, God's call to us, his children. Is the slave worthy to

bear the priceless crown, whose gems flash in his dark hands, in some

eastern procession? But the king has deputed him to bear it, and his

obedience stands for worthiness."

"Mr. Seymour," said the young man earnestly, "you are right, and, if

it be my blessed lot to be your child's guardian, God will give me

grace to find favor in her sight first, and never betray her trust in

me for ever after. I will ask her."

He did ask her a few days later, in simple, manly phrase, and she

answered him in silence. Her heart was too full for speech, and he

loved her too well to dispute her first, though unspoken, behest. But

after a few moments, she knelt down, and hand-in-hand they prayed,

without telling each other why and for what, and yet each seemed to

know.

In the evening of the same day Mr. Seymour and his friend were to go

to the cottage of a poor family, where sometimes a little, informal

meeting used to take place--a forerunner of the crowded temperance

gatherings our more fortunate age can boast.

Once more the father and daughter stood close together, waiting for

Edmund Oakhurst. The pale moon looked in at the narrow casement, the

street was slippery with recent rain, and the wind was damp and cold.

Within burned one low candle on the table before the fireplace, where

the coals were blackening into ashes, and every now and then throwing

out a tongue of dim, red flame, only to make the black emptiness more

noticeable.

"I will have the fire all right when you come back, darling," said

Grace, "and some hot wine and water ready for you. Mind you keep that

cloak well about you. O my love! I cannot bear to think we have so few

days before us still!"

"Almost a few weeks, Grace," said her father cheerfully.

"It seems to me as if they were days," reiterated the girl; "but I

know it is right. My mother would say so, if she could speak to us from

her home in the spirit-land. Kiss me, my father, my own!"

There was almost a despairing wail under that quick exclamation.

Seymour felt strangely moved, but, unwilling to weaken his child's

fortitude, he kissed her and soothed her in the most cheerful way he

could, yet tenderly keeping her hands clasped in his. Edmund Oakhurst

was not long, and the two men were soon ready to start. Grace took the

candle, and led the way down the dark stairs. She motioned her lover to

go out first, and then, detaining her father, said in a voice broken by

uncontrollable emotion:

"My own precious father, bless me before you go."

He caught her in his arms, and laid one hand on her head, murmuring,

"God bless you for ever, my child, as your father does now. Don't give

way, my love, my little treasure, and think of me while I am gone. We

will have a nice evening together when we come home, my pet." And he

gave her a fervent, solemn kiss, and pressed her hands to his heart.

In silence she let him go, but a passionate prayer burst from her lips

as soon as he had crossed the threshold. She shaded the flickering

light with one hand, while she stepped forth and strained her eyes

after him as far as sight could follow. When he disappeared behind

a corner, a sob broke from her, and she turned wearily to go up the

stairs. A cloud scudded across the face of the moon, and the shrill

laugh of a woman sounded clear and cutting down the street. Grace

went back to the little room, where the fire was sullenly going to

sleep, waking up now and then in a fretful, spectre-like glare and

a weird rustle, then leaving utter darkness behind once more. The

girl shuddered; she knew not what ailed her. Thoughts came in upon

her, maddening her, and she paced up and down the small enclosure

with rapid, unsteady steps. She had never felt like this before;

when her mother lay dying, she had stepped lightly and softly, her

mind clear, her loving heart calm, though crushed. What meant this

fever, this horror of something vague, this dread that made her heart

beat as the wind creaked the wooden stairs and shook the ill-fitting

casement? A crucifix hung on the wall, a Bible lay on the table; to

both she looked for comfort and peace, but the one seemed alive with

ruddy blood-stains, and the other opened at these words: "I said, In

the midst of my days I shall go to the gates of hell; I sought for

the residue of my years.... I hoped till morning; as a lion so hath

he broken all my bones: from morning even to night thou wilt make an

end of me."[275] Grace closed the book with pale cheeks and scared

expression, and flung herself on her knees before the burnt-out fire.

She sank to the ground, and a kind of mist seemed to dull her senses;

yet it was not sleep. A child awoke in the room overhead, and began its

wailing, peevish cry; otherwise the stillness was intense. The moon

climbed the sky so that its light went beyond the range of the low

window; the radiance came, however, wan and misty, up from the street.

The clock in the passage ticked, and Grace found herself unconsciously

counting its pulses; and when she tried to break off, a spell seemed

upon her that compelled her to count on. Again she paced the room,

and then, as if impatient of this unaccountable restlessness, she

began to make things ready for her father's return. This occupied her

some time, and she lingered over the homely task as if in it lay a

talisman to shield her against this nameless fear, this importunate,

impalpable horror, that seemed to her almost a _presence_. She said

aloud, to cheat her own belief, "I must be ill; this is fever;" but her

mind was pitilessly alive, and refused this interpretation. She sat

down to read; philosophy would surely drive away the unholy phantom.

But the pages grew dim before her eyes, and, though unclosed, those

eyes saw nothing of what was before them. Twenty times she rose up

to look at the passage clock; the time lagged, she thought, as if it

dreaded to become the present. The fire burnt brightly again, and hot

wine and water were ready on the table. A few flowers that stood in a

common cup on the mantel-piece she took down and laid gracefully in a

shallow saucer, placing it on the table, in green and scarlet contrast

with the white, transparent flagon, and the quaint old silver ewer.

Then she thought, as if forcing her mind to leave her unnamed dread

behind, of the many vicissitudes this piece of Howard plate had seen;

of the drinking bouts of old at which it had figured in the days of the

reckless cavaliers; of the mediæval honors it might have won at jousts

and tournaments; for its date was carved on a small shield up-born by a

griffin and a monk, and went far back into the XVth century. But this

speculation was disturbed by sounds of horrid revel in the street, and

Grace shiveringly met the old horror face to face again. Something

half human seemed to brood over the place; the room seemed tenanted,

and, though brave, the girl was thoroughly unnerved. She opened the

door, the clock ticked, and she saw it was growing late. From the

impatience of two hours ago she rushed back into a shrinking dread

of the lateness of the time, now it had come. Her father was still

away--why? Had he not looked forward to a quiet evening after his work

of charity was done, and would he not have hurried home, that she might

not have to wait long after the usual hour? The shadowy terror that

all the time had obstinately kept _his_ form as a sort of centre round

which it could turn and play in fantastic dreams and ever-changing

pictures, crept nearer to her heart now, and strangled it with a more

certain fear, a more defined vision. Then a cold wind seemed to blow

all round her, and she looked up. It was only the open door into the

passage that was swinging on its grating hinges, and letting in a rush

of air from the outside. Yes; but whence was the cold air that wrung

the frail door? Was not that a sound on the stairs? Her first impulse

was to rush out, and meet her father; her second, a scarcely shaped

wish to prolong the yet doubtful present. Irresolutely she stood and

listened; there were voices on the stairs--whispers.

Then a slow tread came lingeringly up, and through the half-open door

she saw Edmund Oakhurst. She knew it all now. Had he rushed up with

maddening speed, as if human feet were not swift enough for his errand,

she might have hoped. As it was, she saw it all; and when he spoke, she

only answered: "Yes."

He stood silent then, and, taking her hand, waited for her to ask him

where she must follow him. She passed her other hand over her forehead,

and then pointed to the table, with a sort of pathetic smile that wrung

her lover's heart.

"He was to have had a nice evening, he said," she murmured in a dreary

tone. Oakhurst hardly knew whether or no to answer.

"Come, show me," she said again, taking her shawl, and wrapping it

round her, and then, taking the crucifix from the wall, she kissed it

and passed it to Edmund.

"My only father now," she whispered to herself. They went down the

old stairs in silence, the frightened landlady standing at the door,

trembling like an aspen-leaf.

"Tell me," said Grace when they were in the street, "how was it? Did he

fall?"

"Yes, he fell," answered he, hesitating; she saw it.

"You can tell me all," she said dreamily; "he was getting

short-sighted; from study, you know. Did he stumble? Or was it

something struck him?"

"Yes, he was coming out of the house--standing near the door--it did

not hurt him much, and he was insensible."

"And was it all over at once?"

"Before we could get him to the hospital."

"Was there a doctor?"

"One came, and accompanied him to the hospital. But he said nothing

could be done."

"Did he speak?"

"Not once; but he opened his eyes and looked around, as if seeking

something. I said 'Grace,' and then a light came to his eyes, but

otherwise there was no recognition. I hardly think he knew me."

"I had his blessing before he left me, thank God!"

Silence fell upon them, and Grace sobbed softly now and then. She

thought of the grave under the elms, and of the meeting of those

two--those to whom she owed her being--and then of her own lonely

heart left behind to drag out its weary vigil. Her self-possession

was returning, and when she reached the hospital, it was no wailing,

unconscious maniac whom they led to the couch of the calm sleeper, but

a grave, silent woman, wrapped in the majesty of sorrow, armed with

the shield of peace. She stood a few moments steadfastly by the bed,

then dropped on her knees, and kissed the white, still hand. A gash had

scarred the high, broad forehead, but its horror had been obliterated

as much as possible, and she felt no shrinking. Her long, piercing gaze

had made her more strangely calm; a half-smile came to her lips as

she thought of the shuddering girl who had stood in formless terror,

trembling at every shadow, a few hours since; she could hardly believe

that it was herself, so much had the reality of awful grief sobered in

her the wild instincts of dimly perceived danger. The blow had come,

and with it the grace; the balm had been poured in almost by the same

hand that had dealt the wound, and the burden laid upon her had found

more than strength enough whereon to rest and weigh. Crushed she might

be, but had not the same silent teacher she gazed upon now been as

crushed as she by a widely different yet kindred loss, and had not his

soul risen again from under the flail with ten times more sweetness in

its fragrance, and more strength in its tempered fibre?

She turned and whispered to Edmund. He inclined his head, and, speaking

authoritatively, said to the bystanders that the body must be, at

Miss Seymour's wish, carried to her lodgings. She then left, and he

accompanied her home, promising to return with her father's corpse.

In a short time muffled steps and hushed voices were heard, and the

strong man was borne again to the home he had left so cheerfully only a

few hours before. Edmund and Grace were alone. All night through they

watched, and a few candles burned round the sleeping form. Towards the

gray of the morning, when common sounds began to be heard again, and

the city woke up once more to its never-intermitted round of strange,

wicked, checkered life, the girl, rising and kissing the brow of her

dead father, turned to Edmund with a sad look of inquiry.

"Edmund," she said slowly, "you never told me what struck him."

"An iron bar," he answered, with a frightened, startled look. She gazed

full in his eyes.

"I do not believe," she said calmly, with sad reproach trembling in her

voice, "that you have told me untruly, for that you could not do; but,

through kindness and compassion, I _know_ that you have not told me

_all_."

"What more is there to tell?" he stammered.

"You know," she answered; "for God's sake, tell me!"

He looked at her with strange meaning. "You do not know what you are

asking, Grace. I had hoped, if I had had my way, to keep from you

much that would cause you unnecessary sorrow; and you could have left

town, and even the country, so as to more completely take from you all

association with this terrible grief. But you seem to pierce every

veil, and I am not practised at concealing. But, O Grace! it will

break your heart! It well-nigh breaks my own to think of it!"

"I know there is something very dreadful in the background," she said;

"but I have prayed all night for strength to bear it, and I wish to

know it now. Do not hide one thing from me, as you hope for heaven,

Edmund."

He paused, and then, thinking that it would be best to get the shock

over at once, said, intently watching her the while: "Grace, your

father was called of God to be a priest. But God made him a martyr

first; for such a murder _is_, in truth, a martyrdom."

She quivered from head to foot, but, recovering herself, she said: "I

had suspected something like that."

"How, Grace?"

"I thought I heard some whispered words that were hushed as soon as I

went in to that awful place where he lay, and I had seen you flush, and

blanch, and hesitate when I questioned you. It was God's will. Tell me

everything. But who"--and her voice broke here--"who could have been so

lost as to hate _him_?"

"You know, when we left you," hurriedly began the young man, "we went

straight to that meeting. Some were there who are as good as cured, and

some others came from curiosity, or brought by their friends. A few

were not sober. Your father said some prayers, as usual. Then he spoke

to the men, as you know he can speak, very simply, very earnestly.

There was a disturbance at the door. While he was speaking, half a

dozen men, furious with drink, and roaring and swearing like demons,

tried to get in. A few opposed them, and in the struggle the rickety

door came down, and the long, old-fashioned iron hinge came loose from

the rotten wood. One of the men took it up--it was Drake, the son of

those poor old cripples. Another, who was of our men inside, wrenched

it from him, and your father came down near the door to try and quiet

the men. Those of the better sort grouped round him, fearing violence

from the men in the front. I was close to him. I saw a man stoop, and

the next minute Drake passed something to a comrade of his, who stole

behind us, while he himself made a rush at me. I was still grappling

with him, when there was a cry. The men sprang apart, and I heard your

father say, 'O God!' just as he fell. I flung Drake to the ground with

such force that he was stunned, and his head sounded dead on the stone

floor. The men on our side had already caught the murderer, with the

long iron hinge in his hand. It had struck your father on the back

of the head, near the ear, and the scar on the forehead was made by

falling forward. The police did not come till it was all over, and then

they marched off Drake and the other man--Eldridge is his name, so I

was told afterwards. I heard Drake say, with a horrible oath, that it

was lucky for your father he had escaped so long; and the murderer

grinned as he heard this remark. They seemed sober enough the minute it

was over. Drake recovered very soon. The other men seemed stupid with

horror. Grace, was it not a martyrdom?"

"Edmund," she answered solemnly, "it was the noblest death he could

die, the only one befitting him. Die for the good of others! die for

the spread of holiness, for the honor of principle! die that God

might be better known and better served!--it was what he lived for; it

was what he would have chosen to die for, had he had the choice. O my

father! half my soul has gone with him, and my life shall be one eager

longing to be made worthy to follow him. Edmund, is it not grand, is it

not heroic? Has he not a glorious crown wherewith to meet my mother in

heaven?"

Edmund could not help wondering at the quaint suggestions, which, to

his less imaginative nature, seemed even extravagant; but when was

enthusiasm ever less than extravagant, and when was it more meet than

in this case of a glorious, God-ordained death?

After a pause, Grace resumed:

"If I had known this sooner, I should have gone to Drake's parents. I

shall go now. You watch while I am away."

And before Edmund could speak, she was gone.

They were sitting over the embers of a mere apology for a fire, these

two forsaken cripples, with the little, starveling children cuddled

together like frightened rabbits at their feet. When the door opened,

and Grace appeared, pale and worn, they shivered, and leaned one upon

the other, as if they would gladly have fled from her, had they been

able. They were dumb, and seemed to have no instinct but fear within

their bosoms. The children stared with great round eyes, and crept

further away. Grace went up, and knelt down before the old couple,

taking the woman's fingers in her own, and saying softly:

"You are not afraid of me? Did you think I was angry? I have come to

tell you I am not, and _he_ would not be, could he speak to you. Won't

you say something to me?"

The old woman said something, but her teeth chattered so it was

unintelligible. The old man gave a feeble, idiotic laugh, and, for the

moment, Grace was startled. But she soon saw that horror had turned his

brain, and that he was now beyond the possibility of suffering. His

wife seemed verging on the same state. Grace took out some money, and

put it into the poor old crone's hand. "You shall live on here, just

as usual," she said. "I will help you; never mind. Take care of your

husband, and remember I am not angry with you."

The old woman mumbled something under her breath, but appeared quite

stupefied yet. "God bless you!" said Grace sadly, turning from this

unsatisfactory couple, and going gently up to the children.

"Can you tell me where Eldridge lived?" she said. "And if he has a

family?"

The children, also, seemed deaf and dumb for a time; but at last the

promise of a silver piece drew forth from the recesses of their memory

the address of Eldridge's wife. It was not far off. Grace left the

hovel, and took her way down courts and by-streets till she reached

the house where the murderer's wife lived. Up many stairs, and through

many passages, inquiring her way, Grace went, and at last knocked at

the right door. Only a sound of sobbing was heard within. She said

to herself, "This is no hardened woman;" and at once her resolve was

formed. She gently opened the door; a woman sat by the dingy window,

her head buried in her hands, and bent down to her knees. She rocked

herself to and fro, and moaned at regular intervals. A child lay in a

cradle near her, but she did not heed it. The bed stood at one end of

the room, tossed and untidy; the poor little utensils of the wretched

home were flung about in disorder, and some dark stains on the deal

table gave out a strong, sickening odor.

Grace went up to the woman, and touched her on the shoulder. The woman

looked up. Her face was wild and sad, the hair strayed over the cheeks

and forehead, matted with tears, and the expression was awful in its

utter despair. Grace said:

"You are very unhappy; I am come to comfort you, if you will let me."

"Who are you?" said the woman vacantly.

"A friend to all who are in trouble," answered Grace, with a sob in her

voice; "and I thought, if I came to you, it might relieve you."

The woman seemed to try and gather her faculties together. "I do not

remember you. The visiting ladies is not like you."

"But you will let me visit you? Perhaps I can do you more good than

they can."

"No, no; you are very kind, lady, but 'tan't no use."

"I know what your trouble is, but there is comfort even for that

sorrow. He may repent; have you any influence over him?"

She shook her head. Grace pointed to the cradle.

"And has that no influence upon him? To-day, when he is sober, it may

have. Take the baby, and go and see him. If you do him good, it will

make you happier; if not, you will have done your duty."

"Duty!" flashed out the miserable woman. "What have I ever done but my

duty, and to him as used me more as a beast than a woman?"

"Hush! hush! God may touch him yet. Do not despair!"

"Not despair! Lady, it's easy for you as is a lady to say sech things!

God be merciful to me, I'm driven mad with despair!"

"Will you tell me what it is that troubles your poor heart?" said

Grace, who saw that the unhappy woman must speak out or die.

"Won't I?" was the answer, fearfully prompt. "I married that man three

years ago down in Devonshire, and I a farmer's daughter, with a home as

never knowed the want of anything. And he fooled me with his handsome

face and talk of Lunnon, and his fine trade there. Trade, indeed! It

was the devil's trade, if any! And because I listened and liked him,

my father he swore he'd disown me. I ran away, and we was married at

the nearest church. First night, he came home drunk. He never left off

being drunk, and often I thought I'd leave him; but father, he wouldn't

have taken me back, and I didn't want for to be called names! Here in

Lunnon we lived sometimes here, sometimes there, worse than this often,

and he always drunk. He had heaps of money now and then. I know, lady,

where it come from; but he never gave me any, and I don't know as I

could have touched it if he had. But for days he left me, and I had to

beg or starve; he would not have cared if I'd done worse. Then come

home drunk, and swear because there was nothing to eat. He beat me and

kicked me, and, when he come home, wouldn't let me sleep at night.

Other men came, too, and spoke about bad things in whispers; but I

heard. They would drink here till they all slept heavy on the floor,

and the brandy spilt over their clothes. Then baby was born, and I felt

as if I could kill it first; for why bring it up to be like its father?

Three days after it came, my husband struck me terrible, and I nearly

died. He gave brandy to the child, and I in a faint. Baby was like to

die, and I were glad of it. And so it went on--baby better, but me

worse, and drink, drink, till he sometimes went tearing mad, swore he

saw devils, and called for more drink and more. A few months ago, Drake

came--a man my husband knew--and he and the other laughed and said

'some one' shouldn't trouble them long. They had money, in gold, last

time I saw Drake. That was four days back. Then my husband, he came

home drunk still, and every night it was the same, till last night,

when he did not come home at all, but left me not one half-penny, for

he had drunk the last in that brandy he spilt on the table."

The woman paused and shuddered.

"My God, my God!" she moaned, "that I should come to this, with my

father's home, so peaceful-like, and me not daring to go back. Well,

the last I heard of that man were when, at twelve o'clock last night,

a neighbor rushed in and says to me, says she, 'Mrs. Eldridge, your

old man's been and done it!' And as I looked at her, stupid-like, she

says, 'He's killed that preaching gentleman as used to try and get all

our men to leave off spirits.' And I fell back on the bed, and knowed

nothing for hours."

Grace had listened throughout the pitiful story with calm, patient

interest; she now said soothingly:

"Come, Mrs. Eldridge, it is a fearful blow, but God tempers the wind

to the shorn lamb, does he not? Tell me, you have not tasted anything

since yesterday; is it not so? You must be faint, and, if we would bear

up against sorrow, we must not lose our health. I have brought you

money, but I think it is better I should send for some things for you,

as you will hardly care to go out and be seen just now."

"Indeed and indeed it's true," sobbed the poor creature; "but you are a

world too good, miss."

"I will read to you while you are waiting; it will soothe you," said

Grace, as she went to the door, and called a girl from one of the

multitudinous cavities of this warren-like house. She gave her money

and instructions, and turned back into the room. The child in the

cradle awoke. Grace took it up. The mother shuddered, saying: "Better

it should die, lady, than live to be like its father."

The girl looked curiously down at the infant's poor, pinched face, and

then answered:

"Let God settle that; it is not for you or I to question his doings

towards children. I remember my little brother when he was like this."

"Ah! miss, no doubt he had a different father."

Grace turned pale, and did not answer. The woman was silent, but seemed

merged in her own grief again. Then, with the child on her lap, the

young girl began to read out of a Catholic Bible she had in her pocket.

She thought Mrs. Eldridge would never know the difference, and she

preferred her father's gift to herself to all the Bibles she had had

during his pastorship. The poor woman seemed entranced. When Grace

paused, she said:

"Them visiting ladies never does that, but they brings tracts and

groceries. But how peaceful-like that do sound jest like our parson's

daughter as used to read to mother at home."

"How old are you, Mrs. Eldridge?" asked Grace.

"Going twenty-four, miss. But, ah! I was a different woman when I got

married. If you had a-seen me then, lady, you would not believe it was

me."

And, in truth, the poor, wasted face looked old, and hungry, and

thin, as if the spirit had aged so that it grew jealous of the once

comely mask without, and withered it remorselessly with watching, and

weepings, and sharp care. The little messenger came back to the door,

bearing with her creature comforts, whose taste had long been unknown

to the drunkard's wife. Then Grace rose to leave her, saying, "You

shall not want, my poor friend; and whenever you wish to see your

husband, I will try and manage it for you. If there is any possibility

of saving him, it shall be done. While there is life, there is hope--of

the soul as well as of the body. He might repent and be a help and an

example to you. And then, no doubt, his wicked companions tempted him

much, and the sin was perhaps not all his own. So look to God, and try

and bear up, and I will come again."

She left the house with a pure joy at her heart, praying to God that

he would keep her for ever in the path on which she had entered, and

feeling that, in her weak measure, she had been permitted to bring

herself a little nearer to the ideal of her dead father's life. She had

laid upon his tomb a garland worthy of him, she had said words his

spirit would have approved, and done a deed such as he himself would

have bidden her do.

Back again to the dark, silent chamber of the dead she went, and found

her watchful lover there; but she did not tell him that she had sought

out the murderer's wife. That day came various torturing details, but

she allowed Oakhurst to spare her much of their sorrow, and throughout

the legal proceedings she never had to appear. The murder caused some

stir, as the victim was an American citizen and the father of the young

heir of the Howards. George Charteris visited his cousin, and offered

her his services in every way, professional or friendly, that she might

choose. She was touched by his ready sympathy, but wisely refused his

_professional_ assistance.

"You see, George," she said, "it would seem ungenerous to have one so

nearly related to him to plead against his murderer; besides, I would

rather save the unhappy man from his due punishment, if it can be done."

"What, Cousin Grace!" he echoed, unable to understand her.

"It seems strange to you, I know; but I have not lived with my father

all my life without knowing well how full of Christian charity he

always was when any personal injury was done to him, and I am following

his will, no less than the Christian precepts, when I say I would spare

his unhappy murderer as much as lays in my power."

"My dear child, this is perfect quixotism. A fellow who should have

been hung long ago!"

"I know you think differently; it is natural you should. You judge

things by another standard, and from another point of view. Looked at

in the light of the Gospel, things are very different, dear cousin.

Do not let us speak about it. If it is romance to you; it is life and

truth to me."

"For George's sake! Think what it will be when he learns it by-and-by!"

"You will not tell him now?" she asked in sudden alarm, clasping her

hands. "Oh! do not, do not! My mother gave me that boy to watch over

and guard from sin with my very life, but God has willed that his angel

should be alone to watch him; yet I must ask you, if you have any

influence, do not breed thoughts of wicked revenge in his mind--oh! do

not, for, if you do, not only he will suffer, but it will fall back

upon you all as a curse. God has made this to happen in his childhood,

as if on purpose to hide it from him; do not, for pity's sake, run

counter to the evident decrees of Providence."

Reluctantly George Charteris promised his cousin he would exert his

influence to keep the father's murder a secret from the child. And so

passed the terrible weeks of waiting, Grace ministering almost daily

help to the wretched murderer's wife, and Edmund seeking to soothe her

whom he loved so tenderly and so reverently. A priest was found to give

a quiet blessing to the unconscious form they both had loved so well,

and then the dark earth hid the body away, and sowed one more seed for

the mystic coming harvest, which shall clothe the valley of judgment

with such marvellous blossoming beauty.

When the final conviction of the prisoner and his sentence of capital

punishment were made known, Grace was the first to break the news to

the wretched wife, and the only one to soothe these dire tidings with

suggestions of hope and mercy. The poor woman still refused to visit

her husband, and it was more the shame of his crime, and the ignominy

of his approaching death, than any spark of feeling left within her

bosom for the man who had wooed and won her, that tortured her heart

and bowed her head. Grace tried repeatedly to soften her, to melt the

terrible callousness which was alive only to the earthly aspect of her

grief; but for many weeks she tried in vain. The wild, horror-struck

eyes of the unfortunate creature would fasten themselves upon her as

she spoke--burning orbs, with unspeakable defiance in them, as if, from

this day forth, the felon's wife felt herself to be a hunted creature,

with the brand of her husband's sin undeservedly scathing her future

life and that of her unconscious child.

When Grace hinted of a possible pardon, the poor thing stared with a

frightened expression that only seemed to say: "And I must be his slave

again," as if the thought of her own bondage were the only thing on

earth that could move her. But at last, being appealed to in the name

of her own self-respect, she seemed to have a dawning sense that her

present course was hardly the one to elevate her once again into the

sphere of tranquil content whence her husband's degradation had, three

short years ago, so fatally withdrawn her. The dikes of her soul burst

suddenly, and the flood of sweet memories of past days, and of the

happy hours spent in the old farm-house, of the flood of womanliness

and pity, of the sensibility of the mother, of the forbearance of the

Christian, broke over her in saving waves, each teaching the same

lesson in their infinite variety of tenderest human voices. She rose,

took her child in her arms, and followed her young protectress nearly

as far as the prison. Grace would go no further, but agreed to wait

till the interview with the condemned man was over. The woman came

out weeping and softened. Her husband was at least not obdurate, and

expressed sincere regret for what he had been led to do. He bade his

wife implore of the unknown lady who had so generously befriended

them to accept the blessing he was not worthy to give, but which

nevertheless was the last and only tribute a dying man could offer.

Grace shuddered as this message was conveyed to her through tears and

sobs, but her companion was too greatly busied with her own griefs to

notice it.

One evening, as Edmund Oakhurst sat, with his promised wife, in the

room the presence of the dead had hallowed to their simple, trusting

hearts, he was astonished at her unusual agitation, and at the remark

she quietly made as the expression of it.

"Edmund, I am going to get a reprieve for Eldridge, and that may lead

to a commutation of sentence. He is very penitent, I hear, and, for his

wife's sake, I should wish it."

"But, Grace," replied her lover, with characteristic common sense, "if

he is penitent and well-prepared, it would be safer even for his own

soul's sake that he should suffer the full penalty of the law."

"We are no judges of that, Edmund," she answered, her bright eyes

turning, with suppressed enthusiasm, towards the open window, all

bathed in wintry sunlight. "God, I think, must mean otherwise for him,

or else he would never have put this idea in my mind. I have thought

of it ever since he lay there" (pointing to the centre of the room,

where the dear dead had rested), "and his spirit seemed to whisper it

constantly to my heart, as if it were some message of God's mercy, of

which he vouchsafed to make us the bearers to the rulers of earth."

"Grace, I thought your training would have led you a different way. I

thought you would be the first to see God's hand in the established

law. Darling, this is sentimentalism. You can forgive the wretched man,

and pray for him, and help the forsaken ones he leaves behind, without

hindering the law in its operations. You will have fulfilled the

Christian duty of forgiveness, without interfering with another sphere

of equally binding duty on the community."

"I think you might be right in an ordinary case, Edmund, but God seems

to put this beyond common rules, to me."

"Is that not pride, Grace?"

"I trust not," she replied, gently but firmly; "it is a call, a command

from God, just as my father's conversion, and my still more unexpected

one, were calls from on high--direct calls that took our hearts by

storm."

"Grace, dear, I cannot help thinking it presumptuous in you to dream of

these things; you make them miracles almost!"

"Surely not, Edmund. Supposing a king were to send for his servant,

and give him some important order to transmit, which, in the ordinary

course of things, should have been conveyed through his prime minister;

do you think the servant would be justified in feeling proud, or the

person who received the order in feeling hurt, at the unusual way in

which the king had been pleased to act?"

"Grace!" exclaimed Edmund, "you talk just as your father used! He

always made me feel that he was right. I will not attempt to influence

you any longer; I will leave the matter in the hands of God, and pray

that you may be guided by him. If I were you, I would speak with a

priest, though!"

"I have, dearest," answered Grace, looking less rapt, and perhaps

mingling with her high thoughts a little unconscious human spice of

innocent triumph.

"Oh!" said her lover, and, smiling, he relapsed into silence. After

incredible efforts and unflagging energy had been spent upon the task,

Grace succeeded in getting her father's murderer first reprieved,

then re-sentenced to transportation for life. The shock of this news,

the utter stupor of gratitude into which he was thrown, even though

the name of his benefactress still remained a mystery to him, wrought

a miracle in his nature, and sobered him for life. Faith came to

the help of solemn thankfulness, and the husband and wife secretly

became Catholics before leaving England. Grace, for some inexplicable

reason, positively refused to see Eldridge, even at his wife's most

earnest request. The fact was that she had once been face to face with

him, in days when neither dreamed of the strange relations they were

fated to bear to each other, and she feared, in her humility, lest he

recognize her now. But Edmund, fully aware as he was of how matters

stood, resolved that, without wounding his betrothed's sweet lowliness,

he would yet reveal to the recipients of her charity the inestimable

sacrifice she had made of her natural feelings for the sake of the

"new commandment" of love and forgiveness taught by Christ's Gospel.

So while the four stood in a group just before the departure of the

convict-ship--Grace far apart with the mother, and her back turned to

the convict--he slipped into the hand of the murderer a folded paper,

saying something under his breath of its being of some little pecuniary

use to them in their new home, and adding with a half-smile:

"_She_ knows nothing of it, but her name is written inside. Do not open

it till you are on board."

Grace, meanwhile, was comforting the mother, whose little boy was in

her arms for the last time, as Grace had wished to have it brought up

under her own care.

"I have a little brother, you know," she said, "and, while I cannot

fulfil my mother's trust with regard to him, I will lavish all my care

on your child, and, please God, in a few years, when your husband earns

his freedom, you shall see the boy again in my country, where nothing

but good will ever be known of any of you."

So the ship sailed, and the convict's hand clasped the paper nervously.

The mother was holding out her arms to her little boy, who struggled

and cried in Grace's embrace. The man, standing on the deck, touched

his wife's shoulder, and passed the paper to her. Had any one been

close enough, he might have seen the swarthy cheek pale to a sickly

hue, then flush as suddenly again. Those on shore only saw his face

swiftly hidden in his hands, and his whole frame rock violently.

Simultaneously the woman dropped on the deck, and Grace thought she

must have fainted with the grief of leaving her child behind. Indeed,

she was too much occupied with the little one to notice the ship

minutely. The poor babe wailed and then struggled by turns, and it was

no easy work to keep it quiet till the small party could find a coach

to take them home. Edmund took care to look unconcerned and innocent,

and, thanks to his betrothed's sweet unsuspiciousness of disposition,

as also to the circumstances we have mentioned, his secret was kept

until a passionately grateful letter from the poor convict reached her

in her own home across the ocean. Edmund was her husband by that time,

and she could not find it in her heart not to forgive him!

But we are slightly anticipating.

A few days after the departure of the convict-ship, George Charteris

called on his cousin, to report to her about certain arrangements which

he had volunteered to take on his own hands. He had now completed

them, and had found a responsible and aged companion for Grace on her

homeward voyage. The old lady was going out to some relations settled

in Virginia, and was delighted to find a young girl of refinement and

of good family to bear her company on her somewhat tedious journey.

Edmund had begged Grace Seymour to consent to be married before they

left England; but the girl had some unaccountable longing for her own

land, which, though he smiled at as childish, he nevertheless was too

chivalrous to combat. He was to follow speedily, with George Charteris

as groomsman, and an older friend, a priest bound for some of the

Indian missions.

So the ocean was crossed once more, and in her own home, the beautiful

marriage-gift she brought her husband, Grace Seymour was married. Mr.

Ashmead, whom, with characteristic courtesy, she would not exclude from

her quiet, unattended wedding, told her solemnly, as he walked by her

side to her mother's grave under the thick-shaded elms, that he had

had a secret once, which he wished to tell her now.

In grave wonderment she turned her eyes upon him. "My child," he said

sadly, but with no shame flushing his clear cheek, "I once dreamt to

have you for my own, and I waited from the moment I saw you first,

standing here, bending down to look into the unfilled grave, till I

saw your mind unfolding and blossoming, as in a cloistered garden, all

alone; but when I knew that your faith was disturbed, my heart bled for

you and for myself, for I saw that I had no spell wherewith to give

you back what you had lost. And since the day your father left us,

the dream faded as a thing that God had ordained not to be. So now,

though our faiths are widely different, and though the memory of those

times is very dear to me still, I can take your hand in all a father's

freedom, and give you and your husband a father's blessing. Let us be

friends for ever, Grace, will you?"

She had listened to him with a bright blush and attentive expression;

she now took his hand, and said earnestly: "Yes, Mr. Ashmead; God bless

you!"

The years sped on. Edmund Oakhurst soon owned estates that would have

thrice bought the old homestead of his wife's early days; his fields

were the fullest, his experiments the most successful, his men the best

cared for, his profits the largest, his prosperity the most steady, in

the whole country around. People left off calling him the "Britisher,"

and spoke respectfully of him as the "Squire"; even his religion was

favorably regarded in consideration of his position and his well-known

generosity. Children like himself rose up around him, and the convict's

child seemed only like the elder brother of the rest. Things gradually

changed, and Catholic schools and colleges made their appearance in

the land. Oakhurst thought it more prudent to send his sons and his

so-called nephew to American centres of Catholic education, rather

than to the more advanced universities of France; but he reserved

for home-teaching the nameless refinement he wished to stamp on his

children. His wife was the worthy successor of her mother, whose sweet

presence had once been so dear to the villagers of Walcot; only _her_

silent influence was now directed to that end which, after death, had

become that of her mother too.

When, fifteen years later, the man who had left England a convict

landed in America an emigrant, he found his oldest boy studying for the

priesthood, and fast and enthusiastically outstripping his companion

and rival in theological learning, Oakhurst's own second son. Again

another change and another joy had been added to Grace's life, when her

brother, on attaining his majority, came over with his uncle, George

Charteris, now a tolerably well-behaved married man, and paid her a

long visit within the walls of the old home, untouched and unchanged

from what he recollected, save by accumulation of mosses, and a denser

growth of creepers round the gables and the porch.

They have all gone to their rest now, these friends with whom we

have been treading the past--all, save the sons of Grace and Edmund,

and their only daughter, who afterwards married George Howard's son

and heir. The old name that had been alternately the watchword of

Catholicism and Low-Churchism in Gloucestershire veered round again

in their persons to its first allegiance, and contributed unwavering

steadfastness to the sum of heroic courage shown forth by that army

whose chiefs in England are called Newman, and Manning, and that modern

S. Bernardine of Sienna, Frederick Faber.

Walcot, too, though of Puritan breeding, knows the sound of Catholic

bells now, and the priest's house is the unchanged old Seymour cottage,

while the pastor himself is the English convict's child.

Edmund Seymour's sacrifice had sown the first grain of which Grace

Oakhurst's children reaped a hundred-fold.

FOOTNOTES:

[275] Isaias xxxviii. 10, 13.

THE PRINCIPLES OF REAL BEING.

III.

INTRINSIC PRINCIPLES OF PRIMITIVE BEINGS.

We have shown in a preceding article[276] that every primitive being

proceeds from three extrinsic principles--the _final_, the _efficient_,

and, if we may so call it, the _eductional_ or _pro-material_

principle; that is, the term out of which the being is educed, which

term, as we there remarked, holds the place of the material principle

still wanting.

We are now ready to prove that every primitive being has also _three

intrinsic principles_, not more, and not fewer--a truth the knowledge

of which is of the utmost importance in philosophy, as it enables the

student to point out without hesitation everything that may enter into

the constitution of primitive beings, with the gratifying certainty

that, when he has once reached the said three principles, his analysis

is perfect, and can go no further. But as our proposition is altogether

universal, its demonstration will need the employment of arguments

drawn from the most abstract of all philosophical notions; and our

readers must bear with us if we fill a portion of the following pages

with dry, though not abstruse, reasonings. The determination of the

first constituents of things needs precision, not ornament, as it

is nothing more than the drawing of the outlines by which the whole

building of metaphysics is to be encompassed.

Our first proof is based on the following consideration. Of every

existing being two things are cognizable: the first, _that it is_, the

second, _what it is_. In other terms, all complete being is knowable

both as to its _existence_ and as to its nature or _essence_. But

while the existence of any given being is simply _affirmed_ as a

fact, the essence is _understood_ as an object. Now, nothing can be

understood which does not present itself to the intellect under the

form of an intelligible ratio; for to understand is to see a relation

of things, as _intelligere_ is nothing but _inter-legere_,[277] "to

read between"--a phrase which clearly implies two definite terms,

between which a definite relation is apprehended. Accordingly, nothing

is intelligible, except inasmuch as it implies two correlatives;

and, therefore, since every essence is intelligible, every essence

implies two principles conspiring through mutual relativity into an

intelligible ratio. These two principles of a primitive essence are

themselves intelligible only as correlated; for the constituents of

a _primitive_ essence are not other essences, as is evident; and

therefore cannot have a separate and independent intelligibility.

They are therefore absolutely simple and unanalyzable, and of such

a relative character that they cannot exist, or even be conceived,

separated from one another. The same is true of existence also,

which has no separate intelligibility, as it is utterly simple and

unanalyzable, and cannot be conceived or affirmed, except with

reference to the essence to which it may belong. It follows, then, that

every primitive being can be resolved into three simple principles,

of which two constitute its real essence, whilst the third--viz.,

existence--completes the same essence into real being. Such is our

first proof.

A little reflection will now suffice to determine the general nature of

the two essential principles just mentioned, and to obtain at the same

time a second proof of our proposition. Existence is the actuality of

essence. Now, actuality can spring only from actuation; and actuation

necessarily implies an _act_, which actuates, and a _term_, which is

actuated. Therefore the two constituents of any primitive essence must

be a real act whose intrinsic character is to actuate its term, and

a real term whose intrinsic character is to be actuated by its act;

whilst the actuality of the essence follows as a simple result from the

mutual conspiration of these essential principles. Accordingly, every

primitive being involves in its constitution three principles--viz., an

_act_, its _term_, and the _actuality_ of the one in the other. This

last is called the _complement_ of the essence.

Readers accustomed to intellectual speculations will need no additional

evidence to be satisfied of the cogency of the two preceding proofs.

But those who are less familiar with philosophy may yet want some

tangible illustration of our reasonings before they fully realize the

nature of the three principles and of their relations. We hope the

following will do. Physicists show that if a material point moves for

a time, _t_, with a uniform velocity, _v_, through a space, _s_, the

relation of the three quantities will be expressed by the equation--

_s_ / _v_ = _t_

It is plain that the three quantities, _s_, _v_, _t_, are the three

intrinsic principles of movement. In fact, the velocity, _v_, is the

_act_, or the form, of movement; whence the epithet of _uniform_

applied to all movement of constant velocity; the amount, _s_, of

space measured is the _term_ actuated by the said velocity; the time,

_t_, is the duration of the movement, that is, its _actuality_;

for as movement is essentially successive, its actuality also is

successive, and constitutes a length of time. Here, then, we have most

distinctly the three principles of movement. Let us remark that the

first member of the equation is the _ratio_ of the term to its act,

and therefore represents the essence of movement; whilst the second

member exhibits the duration of its existence. The sign of equality

between the two members does not mean that the essence of movement

is the same thing as the existence of movement, but only that both

have the same _quantitative value_. For it should be remarked that,

although a ratio is usually defined as "the quotient of a quantity

divided by another of the same kind," nevertheless the quotient is not

exactly the ratio, but its result or value; and is not the equivalent

of the ratio in quality, but in quantity only. In pure mathematics,

which are exclusively concerned with quantities, the distinction

between the ratio and its value may not be important; but when a ratio

is viewed in its metaphysical aspect, the distinction is of great

consequence. For a metaphysical ratio is not looked upon as the ratio

of two quantities, of which the one is the measure of the other, but as

the ratio of two realities, of which the one actuates the other, and

which, though belonging to the same kind of being, are, however, of a

relatively opposite character, as is evident from the very example we

are considering. The space, _s_, and the velocity, _v_, are, in fact,

conceived as quantities of the same kind, only because velocity is

mathematically expressed in terms of the space measured through it in a

unit of time; yet velocity is certainly not space, but is that by which

matter is compelled to move through space; so that while the extent of

the space measured in a unit of time corresponds to the velocity with

which it is measured, velocity itself has no extension, but intensity

only. Hence the ratio of space to velocity, metaphysically considered,

is a ratio of extension to intensity, or of potency to act, as we shall

presently explain.

The third proof of our proposition is very simple. The intrinsic

principles of being must correspond to its extrinsic principles, each

to each respectively. For were any of the extrinsic principles not

represented in the principiated being by something real proceeding from

it, and corresponding to it, such an extrinsic principle evidently

would principiate nothing, and would be no principle at all. Now, we

have seen that the extrinsic principles of primitive being are three.

It is evident, therefore, that its intrinsic principles likewise

must be three. The extrinsic principles, as before stated, are God's

volition of bringing something into existence, the term of its

eduction, and the creative power exerted in its production. Hence it

follows that every thing created must contain within itself an _act_

as the product of the Creator's action, a _term_ as an expression of

the term of its eduction, and an _actuality_ as the accomplishment and

fulfilment of the volition of bringing it into existence.

We may here remark that the _act_ of the created being is produced

_by_ God as its efficient _cause_, proceeds _from_ God's omnipotence

as its efficient _principle_, and is produced _through_ action as the

proximate _reason_ of its causation and principiation.

The _term_ of the created being, on the contrary, comes _out of_ mere

nothingness, acquires its reality _through_ the mere position of an

act, is not made, but actuated, and therefore has no efficient cause,

but only a formal principle, the reality of which is the sole reason

why the term is called real, and the disappearance of which would

leave nothing behind. As a spherical form, by the necessity of its

own nature, gives existence to a geometric centre, without need of an

efficient cause, so does the essential act to its essential term. Let

the spherical form be annihilated, and the centre will be gone; let

the essential act vanish, and the essential term will have vanished

together with it.

Finally, the _actuality_ of the created being proceeds from the act

and the term as making up its formal source, or the _principium

formale quod_; while the formal reason, or the _principium formale

quo_, of its proceeding is the actuation of the latter by the former,

and the completion of the former in the latter; for to actuate a term

is to give it actuality, and to be actuated is to become actual; and

therefore the result of such an actuation is the actuality of the act

in its term, and of the term in its act, or the complete actuality of

the created essence and of the created being.

Thus the whole being, by its act, its term, and its complement, points

out adequately and with the utmost distinction the three extrinsic

principles whence it proceeds.[278]

The fourth proof is as follows: Every created being possesses an

intrinsic natural activity and an intrinsic natural passivity. It

possesses activity; for every creature must have an intrinsic natural

aptitude to reveal, in one way or another, the perfections of its

Creator, as such is the end of all creation; but to reveal is to

act; and, therefore, every creature possesses its intrinsic aptitude

and determination to act--that is, _activity_. It also possesses

passivity; for all contingent beings are changeable, and therefore

capable of receiving new intrinsic determinations; and such an

intrinsic capability is what we call _passivity_, or _potentiality_.

The consequence is, that every creature possesses something by

reason of which it is active, and something on account of which it

is passive; which amounts to saying that every creature possesses

its intrinsic principle of activity, or, as it is styled, its _act_,

and its intrinsic principle of passivity, or, as we call it, its

_potency_ or its _potential term_. Hence the well-known fundamental

axioms of metaphysics: "Every agent acts by reason of its act," and

"Every patient suffers on account of its potency."[279] Now, since the

same being that can act can also be acted on, it is evident that that

by reason of which it can act, and that on account of which it can

be acted on, are the principles of one and the same actual essence,

and therefore conspire into one formal actuality, which completes

the essence into being. Accordingly, in all creatures, or primitive

complete beings, we must admit _act_ and _potency_ as the constituents,

and _actuality_ as the formal complement, of their essence.

These four proofs more than suffice to show that all primitive complete

beings consist of _act_, _term_, and _complement_ as their intrinsic

principles. But, as I am satisfied that on the right understanding

of such principles the soundness of all our metaphysical reasonings

finally depends, I think it necessary, before we proceed further,

to make a few considerations on their exact notion, character, and

attributions.

The _term_ of a primitive being owes its reality to its act. Before

its first actuation, it had no being at all; it was only capable

of acquiring it, and therefore was, according to the language of

the schools, a reality _in mere potency_; since everything that has

no being, but can be actuated into being, has received the name of

_pure potency_.[280] Now, pure potency, though it is nothing real, is

infinite and inexhaustible; not that nothingness can have any such

_intrinsic_ attribute, but simply because no limit can be assigned to

the possible eduction of beings out of nothing through the exercise of

God's infinite and inexhaustible power. And it must be added that such

a potency is thus infinite not only with regard to the substances that

can be created out of nothing, but also with regard to the accidents

which can be produced in those substances, and with regard to the modes

resulting from the reception of such accidents. This being admitted, it

is evident that, when the term of a created being acquires its first

reality, a pure potency is actuated by an act; but is not actuated to

the full amount of its actuality, which is infinite and inexhaustible.

Indeed, no act gives to its potency the plenitude of all being; but

every act gives that being only which corresponds to its own specific

nature. And therefore the term of a primitive being, though actuated in

its first actuation as much as is needed to make it the real term of

a determinate essence, remains always capable of further and further

actuation; in other words, such a term is still, and always will be,

entirely _potential_ in regard to all other acts compatible with the

nature of the first by which it is actuated.

Hence we come to the conclusion that every created being, for the very

reason of its having been educed out of nothing, retains potency,

as the stamp of its origin, in its essential constitution. _All

creatures_, then, _are essentially potential_, and therefore imperfect;

as potency means perfectibility. _God alone is free from potency_, as

he is the only being that did not come out of nothing.