TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.
—The Table of Contents is shaped as an Index and so it has been
retained.
THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
A
MONTHLY MAGAZINE
OF
GENERAL LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.
VOL. XVII.
APRIL, 1873, TO SEPTEMBER, 1873.
NEW YORK:
THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION HOUSE,
9 Warren Street.
1873.
CONTENTS.
“Abraham”—“Abron”—“Auburn,” 234
Abuse of Diplomatic Authority, An, 130
Antiquities of the Law, 69
Appeal to Workingmen, 751
Art, Necessity _versus_, 558
Art Pilgrimage through Rome, An, 808
Bolanden’s The Russian Idea, 27, 161
Bolanden’s The Trowel or the Cross, 308, 473
Bread-Winner, Woman as a, 223
Brittany: Its People and its Poems, 252, 537
Bruté, Memoirs of the Rt. Rev. S. G., 711
Casgrain’s The Canadian Pioneers, 687
Casgrain’s Picture of the Rivière Ouelle, 103
Chapman’s The Evolution of Life, 145
Charlevoix, Shea’s, 721
Charities, Public, 1
Chartres, 834
Church and State in Germany, 513
Civilization? What is, 486
Conciliar Decrees on the Holy Scriptures, 195
Country Life in England, 319
Darwinism, More about, 641
Dick Cranstone, 392
Diplomatic Authority, An Abuse of, 130
Domestic Festivities, English, 630
Dubois’ Madame Agnes, 78, 182, 330, 446, 591, 731
Early Marriage, 839
Education, Home, 91
Empire, The, 606
England, Country Life in, 319
English Domestic Festivities, 630
Erckmann-Chatrian, Mme. Jeannette’s Papers, 566
Error Rectified, An, 144
Evening at Chamblay, An, 765
Evolution of Life, The, 145
Fiske’s Myths and Myth-Makers, 209
Fontainebleau, 241, 382
For Better—For Worse, 257, 408
Germany, Church and State in, 513
Grapes and Thorns, 362, 498, 655, 792
Heaven, 220
Holy Scriptures, Conciliar Decrees on the, 195
Home Education, 91
Indians of Ysléta, The, 422
Jerome Savonarola, 289, 433, 577
Jesuits in Paris, The, 701
John Baptist de Rossi, and his Archæological Works, 272
Joseph in Egypt, a Type of Christ, 77
Koche, King of Pitt, 545
Lace, Something about, 56
Laughing Dick Cranstone, 392
Law, Antiquities of the, 69
Legend of S. Christopher, A, 278
Legend of S. Martin, A, 137
Life, The Evolution of, 145
Madame Agnes, 78, 182, 330, 446, 591, 731
Madame Jeannette’s Papers, 566
Marriage, Early, 839
Memoirs of a Good French Priest, 711
Middlemarch and Fleurange, 775
More about Darwinism, 641
My Cousin’s Introduction, 171
Myths and Myth-Mongers, 209
Necessity _versus_ Art, 558
Palais Royal, The, 113
Paris, The Jesuits in, 701
Peace, 157
People and Poems of Brittany, 252, 537
Philosophical Terminology, 463
Picture of the Rivière Ouelle, The, 103
Poet and Martyr, 40
Political Principle for the Social Restoration of France, The, 348
Present Greatness of the Papacy, The, 400
Public Charities, 1
Ramière’s The Political Principle of the Social Restoration of France,
348
Records of a Ruin, The, 113
Reminiscence of San Marco, A, 707
Rome, An Art Pilgrimage through, 808
Rossi, John Baptist de, and his Archæological Works, 272
Russian Idea, The, 27, 161
Sales, S. Francis de, 171
San Marco: A Reminiscence, 707
Savonarola, Jerome, 289, 433, 577
Scholars _en Déshabillé_, 844
Shakespearian Excursus, A, 234
Shea’s Charlevoix, 721
Something about Lace, 56
Southwell, F. Robert, 40
Stories of Two Worlds, The, 775
Terminology, Philosophical, 463
Travellers and Travelling, 676, 822
Trowel or the Cross, The, 308, 473
Unity, 307
What is Civilization? 486
Woman as a Bread-Winner, 223
Workingmen, Appeal to, 751
Ysléta, The Indians of, 422
POETRY.
Angel and the Child, The, 570
Beati qui Lugent, 271
Christe’s Childhoode, 472
Dante’s Purgatorio, 24, 158, 304
Dies Iræ, 221
Marriage Song, 462
May Carol, A, 407
Mother of God, 710
Music, 807
Sonnet: The Poetry of the Future, 399
Sonnet: To the Pillar at S. Paul’s, Rome, 590
Sonnet: To the Ruins of Emania, 750
Temple, The, 764
To a Child, 426
To a Friend, 497
To be Forgiven, 821
To the Sacred Heart, 536
Virgin Mary, The, to Christ on the Crosse, 39
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
Augustine, S., Harmony of the Evangelists, etc., 855
Augustine, S., On the Trinity, 855
Alcott’s Aunt Jo’s Scrap-Book, 142
Amulet, The, 575
Bagshawe’s Threshold of the Catholic Church, 572
Bateman’s Ierne of Armorica, 427
Begin’s La Primauté et l’Infaillibilité des Souveraines Pontifes,
etc., 576
Bolanden’s, The Progressionists, and Angela, 281
Brady’s Irish Reformation, 573
Brady’s State Papers on the Irish Church, 573
Brann’s Truth and Error, 142
Brothers of the Christian Schools during the War, The, 430
Burke’s Lectures and Sermons, 718
Caddell’s Wild Times, 284
Catechism of the Holy Rosary, 428
Church Defence, 280
Conscience’s The Amulet, 575
Conscience’s The Fisherman’s Daughter, 575
Constance and Marion, 432
Deaf Mute, The, 288
Devere’s Modern Magic, 575
Directorium Sacerdotale, 574
Doctrine of Hell, 571
Donnelly’s Out of Sweet Solitude, 720
Ernscliff Hall, 288
Elements of Philosophy, 427
Estcourt’s Anglican Ordinations, 856
Filiola, 288
Fisherman’s Daughter, The, 575
Formby’s Catechism of the Holy Rosary, 428
Garside’s The Prophet of Carmel, 858
Gaume’s Sign of the Cross in the XIXth Century, 429
Gaume’s Suema, 428
God Our Father, 143
Greatorex’s Homes of Ober-Ammergau, 288
Hare’s Memorials of a Quiet Life, 431
Herbert’s Wilfulness, 285
Hill’s Elements of Philosophy, 427
Humphrey’s Mary magnifying God, 428
Hundred Meditations on the Love of God, A, 574
Ierne of Armorica, 427
Illustrated Catholic Sunday-School Library, 430
Isabelle de Verneuil, 430
King and the Cloister, The, 430
Laboulaye’s Poodle Prince, 431
Landroit’s Sins of the Tongue, 719
Landroit’s The Valiant Woman, 858
Life and Letters of a Sister of Charity, 142
Life of Dorié, 281
Life of Vénard, 281
Limerick Veteran, 719
Lunt’s Old New England Traits, 720
McGee’s Sketches of Irish Soldiers, 860
Mary magnifying God, 428
Marshall’s Church Defence, 280
Marshall’s My Clerical Friends, 138
Meditations on the Blessed Virgin, 860
Meline’s Two Thousand Miles on Horseback, 286
Meyrick’s Life of S. Walburge, 855
Mericourt’s Vivia Perpetua, 575
Money God, The, 282
Mulloy’s A Visit to Louise Lateau, 574
Munro’s Lectures on Old Testament History, 858
Nesbits, The, 283
Old New England Traits, 720
Only a Pin, 574
Out of Sweet Solitude, 720
Palma’s Particular Examen, 860
Peter’s Journey, etc., 285
Potter’s Rupert Aubrey, 859
Primauté, La, et l’Infaillibilité des Souveraines Pontifes, etc., 576
Proceedings of the Convention of the Irish Catholic Benevolent Union,
287
Progressionists, The, and Angela, 281
Quinton’s The Money God, 282
Reverse of the Medal, The, 288
Sainte-Germaine’s Only a Pin, 574
Sermons for all the Sundays and Festivals of the Year, 428
Sign of the Cross in the XIXth Century, 429
Snell’s Isabelle de Verneuil, 430
Sœur Eugénie, 142
Southwell’s Meditations, 574
Stewart’s Limerick Veteran, 719
Suema, 428
Sunday-School Library, 430
Sweeney’s Sermons, 428
Taylor’s Lars, 430
Thebaud’s The Irish Race, 432, 718
Thompson’s Hawthorndean, 430
Threshold of the Catholic Church, 572
Truth and Error, 142
Two Thousand Miles on Horseback, 286
Valuy’s Directorium Sacerdotale, 574
Visit to Louise Lateau, A, 574
Walworth and Burr, Doctrine of Hell, 571
Wild Times, 284
Wilfulness, 285
Winged Word, A, etc., 572
Wiseman’s Essays, 431, 575
Wiseman’s Lectures on the Church, 143
THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. XVII., No. 97.—APRIL, 1873.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by Rev.
I. T. HECKER, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at
Washington, D. C.
PUBLIC CHARITIES.
MODERN civilization has no higher or more important question to
deal with than that of ameliorating the condition of the poor, the
unfortunate, the ignorant, and the vicious. Governments are and can
be engaged in no more appalling work than that of legislating wisely
in regard to these classes, and in seeing that not only are their
inevitable wants provided for and the public interests protected,
but also that their rights are secured in fact as well as in theory,
and that the instruments employed in these exalted spheres of public
administration are suited to their purpose, and are guarded against
degenerating from means of amelioration into agencies of oppression,
cruelty, and injustice.
There are two chief motives which lead to the care and provision for
the unfortunate members of the social body—charity on the one side,
and philanthropy on the other. Religion inspires every motive for this
great and holy work, and of all the virtues which religion inspires,
charity is the highest, purest, and best. Charity is the love of God,
and of man for God’s sake. That God of charity has revealed to us that,
of faith, hope, and charity, the greatest is charity; that he that
giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord; that he who performs works of
charity to the least of the human race performs them _ipso facto_ to
the Lord, creator and ruler of the universe; and that the eternal doom
of every human being at the last dread day will be decided by this
great test. Christianity itself, like her divine founder, is charity.
The church of God, like her Lord and Spouse, is charity. She is imbued
with and reflects his divine essence, which is charity. Charity arises
from no statute or arbitrary decree, which might or might not be made
according to the option of the legislator; it is the essence and motive
of all good. It exists in the very nature of things. And as the love
of God by man is the first and necessary relation of the creature to
the Creator, and as our fellow-creatures exist from God, and in and
by him, it is only through God and in him that we love them. Thus
charity is no human sentiment or affection, like philanthropy or the
natural love of our neighbor and brother; it is a supernatural virtue,
springing from God, and sustained by his grace. The man who does not
love his neighbor cannot love God, but rejects his love and violates
the first law of his being. Every word and act of our divine Saviour,
while engaged on earth in establishing his church, proves this, if
there be need of external proof. Even after his work on earth was done,
and he had ascended to his Father, he speaks to us through the mouth of
S. Paul: “If I speak with the tongues of men and angels, and have not
charity, I am become as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. And if
I have prophecy, and know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and have
all faith, so I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am
nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and
should give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me
nothing.”[1]
Philanthropy, on the other hand, is the love of man for the sake of
man; in other words, humanitarianism. It is a human affection springing
from natural motives. To alleviate human sufferings, and promote human
pleasures and enjoyments, are its aims. Its object is the body rather
than the soul, earth rather than heaven, time rather than eternity. Its
motive power is sentiment or feeling rather than reason or religion.
It is a sensitiveness to all human suffering, because suffering or
pain is repulsive to human nature. Philanthropy is a virtue in the
natural order, springing from human motives, and not a supernatural
virtue springing from religious motives and inspired by divine grace.
Philanthropy is good in itself, for our human nature still remains;
nature and grace are not antagonistic, and may co-exist; nature is
dependent on grace to raise it to the supernatural state and transform
it into charity. Charity includes philanthropy, as the greater includes
the lesser. Philanthropy without charity is earthly in its aims,
frequently rash and sometimes unjust in its measures, tyrannical in the
exercise of power, and not unfrequently barren in its results.
Now, the church and the state are the organized representatives of
these two virtues, the divine and the human. The church is a divine
kingdom, and cultivates the divine virtue of charity; the state is a
human kingdom, and cultivates the human virtue of philanthropy. The
church is a supernatural body, and practises the supernatural virtue
of charity; the state exists in the natural order, and practises the
natural sentiment of philanthropy. The church is of heaven, and her
greatest jewel, charity, is of heaven; the state is of earth, and the
greatest of her merits is philanthropy, which is of earthly birth.
The church is eternal, so is charity; the state is temporal, as is
philanthropy. The church is of God, God is charity, so the church is
charity; the state is of man, so is philanthropy. The rewards of the
one are eternal; of the other, temporal. Charity is a Christian virtue,
and can violate no other Christian virtue in adopting her measures;
she cannot make the end justify the means; but philanthropy is a human
virtue, and stops at no means necessary to attain its end. Abuses are
not necessarily the results of philanthropy, for philanthropy, guided
by even human reason, is capable of respecting the rights of God and
men, and, when guided by supernatural grace, is exalted to charity.[2]
What we have chiefly to deal with in this article are institutions of
benevolence, which are either wholly public property, and such as,
though conducted either by private individuals or by incorporated
boards of citizen managers, yet receive large shares of the public
funds for their foundation, buildings, or current support, and thus
become, to that extent, public institutions, and as such liable to be
inquired into and criticised by the state and its citizens who pay the
taxes thus expended.
The state in our times and in almost every country undertakes the
restraint and custody of the persons of idiots, lunatics, drunkards,
and other persons of unsound mind, for their safety; of paupers, for
their maintenance; and of minors, unprovided with natural guardians,
for purposes of their education, reformation, and maintenance. It is
not for us to discuss at length in this article the right of the state
in any country to _educate and reform_ minors, or, in other words,
to assume the place of teacher and priest; for it cannot undertake
to educate without assuming the place of teacher, and still less can
the state undertake the work of reformation without usurping the
sacred functions of the sacerdotal office. Our faith, our reason, and
our convictions teach us that such offices belong not to the state,
but to the church. The state can establish places of restraint and
punishment, and support and maintain them, both for the protection
of the public, for the safety of the individuals themselves, and for
purposes of philanthropy. Having done this, it is the duty of the
state to leave free the consciences of its wards and prisoners, and
to give every facility to the ministers of every church and religious
persuasion to have free and unrestricted access to the children and
prisoners belonging to those respective churches or persuasions. We
claim this for ourselves as Catholics, and we leave the sects, the
Jews, and every other society of religionists to claim the same for
themselves. We are willing to make common cause with them for the
attainment of our rights. That it is a charity for the state, or, more
correctly speaking, a work of humanity, to assume the temporal care
and provision for those unfortunate members of society who, either by
their own fault, by the visitation of Providence, or by misfortune,
are unable to take care of themselves, we are not disposed to deny at
present, though even this belongs primarily to the religious duties
of the individual, and, therefore, comes within the province of the
church; and we know how well the church discharged this duty before
the Reformation, and is doing it now. Yet we do not deny to the sects,
to all men, and to the state, the right to perform good deeds and to
practise the broadest philanthropy. Such at least seems to be one of
the accepted works of government. We therefore accept such institutions
and works as we find them, and we will view them in the same light
in which our fellow-citizens generally regard them. As citizens, as
Americans, we feel the same interest in them, experience the same
pride in them, and, as a question of property and public right, we
hold them as a common heritage, in which we have the same interest and
authority as our fellow-citizens. We are, therefore, equally interested
in their proper management and good government, and we yield to none
in our desire to promote their prosperity and success. There is no
part of public administration more sacred or important, no function
of the state so momentous, no public responsibility so awful, as
this. Accepting them, as we do, as a part of our common property and
united work, we shrink not from any effort for their good government
and success, and, if need be, for their improvement, reformation,
and correction. When properly conducted, we have nothing but praise
for them; and if, on the other hand, they are mismanaged, the funds
extravagantly applied; if they are made the instruments of cruelty,
perversion, or despotism; if in them or any of them religious liberty
is violated, and systems of proselytizing are carried on against
Catholic children, or the children of the sects, or those of the Jewish
Church, we as Catholics and as American citizens will speak out freely
and boldly in denouncing them. We are not disqualified from doing this,
either as citizens or Catholics; not as citizens, because they belong
to us as much as to other citizens; our money is there with that of
others; and the Constitution gives us liberty of speech and of the
press, and guarantees to us “the right to assemble and petition for
the redress of grievances”;[3] not as Catholics, for we have as such
the experience of eighteen hundred years of the most exalted works of
charity; and because we claim for ourselves no special privilege over
others, but are willing to concede to all what we claim for ourselves.
No clamor will deter us from the exercise of this right, or from the
performance of this duty. And whilst we cannot yield our rights to any
one sect of Protestantism, we are equally determined, while respecting
the rights of all Protestants, not to yield our constitutional rights
to all the sects of Protestantism combined under the false and
deceptive name of unsectarianism. We do not believe in _ex-parte_ and
sham investigations of public abuses in respect to public institutions,
and we do not belong to, and are determined not to be deluded by,
whitewashing committees of investigation and amiable grand juries. We
are ever ready to praise, yet we shrink not from administering censure.
The theory upon which governmental institutions are founded, and those
established by private citizens or boards are assisted is, that of
protecting society from a large, idle, ignorant, vicious population,
by providing the means for the temporal relief and social improvement
and correction of these classes, so as to bring them to the age of
self-support in the case of children, to punish criminals, relieve
the poor, and thus gradually return them all to society as sober,
enlightened, honest, industrious, and thrifty citizens. For these
purposes heavy taxes are laid on the citizens, immense piles of
buildings are erected at the public expense, and such institutions are
annually maintained or aided at enormous cost to the people. In our
November, 1872, number, while admitting and praising the philanthropic
motive which sustains these institutions, we regarded them “as really
nuisances of the worst kind, so far as Catholic children are concerned,
on account of their proselytizing character. Moreover,” we said, “in
their actual workings they violate the rights both of parents and
children, and we have evidence that these poor children are actually
sold at the West, both by private sale and by auction. The horrible
abuses existing in some state institutions are partly known to the
public, and we have the means of disclosing even worse things than
those which have recently been exposed in the public papers.” It is
difficult to perceive the success of such institutions as ameliorating
or reformatory agents, for our public press is loaded every day with
evidences of the enormous increase of crime and pauperism, and with
dissertations on the causes of such increase. The public are naturally
slow in believing that such institutions, upon which so much treasure
has been spent, are failures. Such a reflection is an unpalatable one;
it is humiliating to our pride, and damaging to the boasted progress
of the XIXth century. It crushes our self-esteem to know that, of all
places needing correction, our Houses of Correction need correction
most; and that, of all institutions calling for the stern hand of
reform, there are none that need so much reformation as our schools
of reform. A religious paper called _The Christian Union_ has given
strong proof of its dislike to have the public eyes opened to these
unpalatable truths, and we do not think we should have returned so
soon to this subject but for a rather disingenuous article in that
paper, couched in terms not calculated to convince the public that it
derived its name from the practice or spirit of the virtue of Christian
union, which, while challenging us to expose these wrongs and abuses,
declared but too great a willingness to believe “that these charges,
so frequently made in Roman Catholic journals, have already received
thorough investigation and perfect refutation.”
We complain that our Catholic children in institutions which are
supported in whole or in part by public funds—funds, therefore, in
which we have a common property with our fellow-citizens—instead of
being allowed the instruction and practice of their Catholic religion,
are taught Protestantism in its, to us, most offensive form, and are
thus exposed to the almost certain loss of their faith. The facts
upon which we base the charge have never been denied, but, on the
contrary, they are openly admitted and announced. Protestants deny
that they proselytize Catholic children so as to make them members
of any distinctive sect, but they admit that Catholic teaching
and practices are rigidly excluded, and yet that the children are
taught a certain religion. Is it not evident that, if such religious
instruction produces any result, it is to make these children cease
to be Catholics, to become non-Catholics, to take the Bible as their
only rule of faith, to reject the infallible teachings of their own
church, and to accept the teachings of the institutions as all that is
necessary for them to know? This is proselytism of the most offensive
kind; our children are either made _liberal Christians_, or are placed
in circumstances which inevitably lead to their joining one or other of
the distinctive forms of Protestantism or lose all religion whatever.
Wherever a chaplain is employed, he is either a Methodist minister,
such as Rev. Mr. Pierce in the New York House of Refuge, or he is a
Baptist, Episcopalian, or other sectarian minister. In many of these
institutions, the religious instruction is under the direction of a
lay superintendent, as in the Providence School of Reform. And here
we beg to give a piece of testimony showing how incompetent laymen are
for religious instruction in public reformatories. The witness under
examination was at the time one of the trustees of the Providence
Reform School:
“Q. Have you any knowledge in relation to the distribution of
religious books among the pupils, and their being taken away?
“A. I don’t of my own knowledge; I furnished once one book of a
religious character, and one only; I furnished it to the _officer
having in charge the devotional exercises_ on the girls’ side; I
gave that to the officer for his own use; it was given to him in
consequence of considerable religious feeling that there was existing
among the girls at the time; the girls were holding among themselves
what they called prayer-meetings; the _gentleman having in charge the
devotional exercises said he felt utterly incompetent to conduct the
devotions in suitable words_,” etc.
Religious liberty is openly and positively denied in the New York House
of Refuge, as will be seen from their own “Report of Special Committee
to the Managers of the House of Refuge,” 1872; from which it appears,
at pp. 21, 22, that the religion of the house consists in “Christian
worship in simple form, and Gospel lessons in Sunday-schools,” and that
the “inmates are brought into the _same_ chapel for public worship,”
and that “the whole regimen of the house,” including of course the
religious part, “is devised and pursued with careful attention to
the _wants of the inmates, but is not submitted to the control of
themselves or their friends_.” As Americans we have been taught from
our infancy that liberty of conscience is the dearest right of the
American citizen. We learned in our college days that even “Congress
shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof”; but we now learn that what the
highest legislative power in the nation, and what no state legislature,
can do, the managers of the New York House of Refuge have done and
are now doing: they have made a law respecting the establishment of a
religion in the House of Refuge, a public institution—a religion which
they have called variously “Christian worship in simple form,” “Gospel
lessons,” “Unsectarianism,” “The Broad Principles of Christianity”—and
have forbidden the free exercise of any other religion. Even if all
Christians were united in this worship and in these principles, have
Jewish citizens no rights under the Constitution? As citizens of the
State of New York, we have learned from the state constitution and
Bill of Rights “that the free exercise and practice of religious
profession and worship without discrimination or preference shall
_for ever be allowed to all mankind_.” Chancellor Kent, in his
_Commentaries on American Law_, says that “_the free exercise_ and
enjoyment of religious profession and worship may be considered as one
of the _absolute rights of individuals_, recognized in our American
constitutions and secured to them by law.”[4] And Story, in his
_Commentaries on the Constitution_, maintains in equally strong terms
“the freedom of public worship according to the dictates of one’s
conscience.”[5]
But we are now told by the Managers of the House of Refuge that
“delinquency has, under the law, worked some forfeiture of rights, and
that neither the delinquents nor their friends for them can justly
claim, while under sentence of the courts, equal freedom with the rest
of the community who have not violated the law.”[6] Such was the
answer given by American citizens, constituting the Board of Managers
of the New York House of Refuge, to the committee of American citizens
sent by the Catholic Union to demand liberty of conscience and freedom
of religious worship for the Catholic children in the Refuge! Either
this answer means that the children in the House of Refuge are not a
portion of _mankind_, or that religious freedom is one of the rights
forfeited by delinquency, or the Board of Managers have proclaimed
themselves guilty of the grossest violation of the rights of man and
of God. We presume these gentlemen will not admit either the first
or the third of these alternatives; indeed, they almost say in terms
that a commitment to the House of Refuge works a forfeiture of that
religious liberty guaranteed to all mankind. We know delinquency under
the law suspends the civil rights of the delinquent while in prison,
such as the right to hold public office or administer a private trust;
but it does not work even a forfeiture of property except in the case
of an outlawry of treason. These are all the forfeitures worked by the
highest crimes known to the law. Religion is not a civil right; no
crime can forfeit it; no power on earth can extinguish it. The greatest
of public malefactors, the murderer and the traitor, enjoy it even on
the scaffold: does the child whose only offence is poverty or vagrancy
forfeit it? In the sacred names of Liberty and Religion, what sort of
_Refuge_ is this to stand on American soil?
The Children’s Aid Society is another New York institution largely
supported by public funds. We learn from its Nineteenth Annual Report,
1871, that one of its objects is to shelter in its lodging-houses the
orphan and the homeless girls and boys, and labor incessantly to give
them the “_foundation ideas of morals and religion_” (p. 5). Alluding
to the _Italian_ School, No. 44 Franklin Street, the report says: “We
have _conquered the prejudices and superstition of ignorance_, and
_converted_ into useful citizens hundreds of this unfortunate class.”
With such a programme of unsectarian conversion, the leading feature
in which is indifferentism in religion, the immediate forerunner of
infidelity and agrarianism, it is no wonder that the report immediately
proceeds: “So much so, indeed, that the Italian government,” that same
godless government which is so ferociously waging war on Catholicity,
“has taken a deep interest in our institution” (p. 28).
It is only necessary to read these reports to be convinced that the
system either leads to materialism, the religion of worldly prosperity
and thrifty citizenship, or to some form of Protestant sectarianism.
The system of “emigration” pursued by such institutions, by which
children are sent out West and placed with anybody and everybody who
will take them, completes the work commenced in the East. On pages
54-56 of the report last quoted is related the case of a youth sent
East, who “cannot speak of his parents with any certainty at all”; it
matters not what religion they were of, the son is now _preparing for
the ministry_ of one of the sects. His letter also recites a similar
case in reference to another boy “who was sent out West.” It is certain
that he is not preparing for the Catholic ministry, for his impressions
of a miracle are thus expressed: “To be taken from the gutters of New
York City and placed in a college is almost a miracle.” The story of
young “Patrick,” p. 59, whose education was obtained at the Preparatory
School at Oberlin and at Cornell University, is significant. On page
60 is told the story of an _Irish_ orphan girl sent to Connecticut, and
placed with “an intelligent Christian woman, who means to do right.”
On page 63 is told the history of a little boy sent to Michigan, who
is well pleased with toys and new clothes, “like all other children;
he has a splendid new suit of clothes just got, and _he attends church
and Sabbath-school_.” A similar case is related at page 65, of a
little girl sent to Ohio, and we shall show below what has become of
little girls sent to that state. These are some of the model cases of
which this unsectarian society makes a boast in its report. It is a
significant fact that, of the 8,835 who came under the influences of
this society in one year, 3,312 were of Irish birth, and it may be
estimated with certainty that a considerable proportion of the other
children of foreign, as well as many of home birth were Catholics.
The number of children born in Ireland who were sent West during the
year was 1,058. This institution received for the furtherance of these
unsectarian objects the sum of $66,922.70 in this year from our public
funds.
We have also before us the Twentieth Annual Report of the New York
Juvenile Asylum, 1871, which proves the proselytizing character of
this public-pap-fed unsectarian institution. “The children that are
entrusted to us are at the _most susceptible period of life_,” etc.,
“when their destiny for time, if not _for eternity_, may be fixed” (p.
9). “They must be drilled into systematic habits of life in eating,
sleeping, play, study, work, and _worship_” (p. 10). To “attend church”
(p. 21), and “the evening worship,” and religious services generally,
are frequently recurring duties of the children. In this institution
the children of foreign birth during the year were 3,648, and of these
1,981 were born in Ireland. Of course we cannot say how many of the
children of home birth were the children of Irish and Catholic parents.
We have, alas! but too much certainty that a large proportion of the
children are Catholic. We casually met recently with an interesting
proof of this in _Scribner’s Magazine_, November, 1870, in an account
given by a visitor to the Juvenile Asylum. In the evening the visitor
was invited to see the girls’ dormitory as the girls were going to bed.
She writes: “All the children were saying their prayers. I noticed that
several of them made the sign of the cross as they rose.” Touching
evidence of their traditional faith and parental teaching! a simple
but sublime tribute to holy church! an earnest sign of love and hope
for those sacraments which came to us through the cross, but which,
like that cross itself, were not a part of the religion, worship, and
practice of this unsectarian asylum.
In the list of model examples presented in the report of the Western
agent will be seen the usual proselytizing influence of such
institutions. The cases either show mere material or worldly advantage,
or the embrace of pure sectarianism. On page 50 is related the case
of a little girl, who “scarcely remembers her parents,” of whom it is
related that “she is a member of the Presbyterian Church.” Two other
girls are indentured to members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The
“church and Sunday-school” are prominent features in nearly every case.
The amount received during the year by this _unsectarian_ institution
from our public funds was $62,065.24..
The Five Points House of Industry, which received, from 1858 to
1869, the sum of $30,731.69. from our Board of Education, states
in its charter, among the objects for which it was incorporated,
the following: “III. To imbue the objects of its care with the pure
principles of Christianity, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures,
without bias from the distinctive peculiarities of any individual
sect.” This means that the children belonging to distinctive religious
denominations, instead of being allowed to follow the distinctive
tenets, and practise the worship, in which they were reared, are
deprived of this right, and, as respects the Catholic children, they
are to reject and exclude every tenet and devotion distinctively
Catholic. How far even this profession of unsectarianism is carried
into practice will be discovered from the _Monthly Record_ of the Five
Points House of Industry for April and May, 1870, p. 302, giving an
account of the dedicatory exercises:
“The services consisted of an opening anthem by the children, followed
by a prayer by _Rev._ Dr. Paxton, asking a blessing upon the House and
its objects.
“This was followed by a hymn; a statement of the affairs of the
institution, by _Rev._ S. B. Halliday; a recitative by the children;
a statement as to city missions, by _Rev._ G. J. Mingins; a short
discourse on the ‘Union of Christian Effort,’ by _Rev._ H. D. Ganse; a
discourse on the ‘Lights and Shadows of Large Cities,’ by _Rev._ John
Hall, D.D.; and, finally, a roundelay given by the children.”
How far the pledge given in the charter of this establishment, “without
_bias_ from the distinctive peculiarities of any individual sect,”
is carried out is further seen from the following extract from a
letter addressed by the president to the Rev. John Cotton Smith, a
prominent minister of the Episcopalian sect: “Between your church and
the institution the most kind and harmonious _co-operation_ has ever
existed. They will ever cherish a most pleasing remembrance of the
relations that have subsisted between them.”[7]
We might have alluded to the “Howard Mission and Home for Little
Wanderers,” founded by that arch-proselytizer, the Rev. W. C. Van
Meter, which during seven years _disposed of_ 7,580 “little wanderers”
of this city, in an unsectarian manner; but want of space forbids
our doing so. But the _animus_ pervading this and other unsectarian
institutions is exhibited to us now in the fact, that this reverend
has transferred the field of his labors from the Five Points to the
city of Rome, the centre and headquarters of Catholicity. He has there
established a mission and home for the little Romans. We do not stand
alone in our opinion that such institutions are nuisances for Catholic
children, and we quote the closing words of a letter recently addressed
to the Rev. Mr. Van Meter by the editor of the _Voce della Verita_, at
Rome:
“Now, dear sir, excuse me if I remind you, that although a very
ignorant person, ‘when I was a little boy,’ I also went to school,
and learned a few things about your country. I remember to have heard
it said that misery and ignorance abounded there, and that many
hundreds of thousands of your compatriots knew of no other God than
the almighty dollar. Why do you not go back and teach in Nebraska
or Texas, and leave us alone? You might positively do some good
there—now you are a—well, let me tell the truth—a _nuisance_. By
your homeward voyage, you will benefit both your own country and
ours.”[8]
Another complaint that we make against our semi-governmental charities
relates to the violation of the rights of parents and children, in the
sale of these children at the West. This pernicious practice of exiling
and transporting children from New York to the West is still in full
vigor amongst these institutions. How can we boast of our charities,
when their main feature consists in shifting the burden from our own
shoulders to those of others, and they are strangers? It is in vain
that we claim these children as the wards and _protégés_ of society
and of our city, if we repudiate the duties and responsibilities of
our guardianship. Against this cruelty and injustice we protest in the
names of civilization and Christianity. The institutions whose reports
we have referred to not only admit, but they boast of this outrage upon
the rights of parents and of children. One of them, the Children’s Aid
Society, refers to this branch of operations, “its Emigration System,”
as the “crown” of all its works. The number of children thus exiled
from the state by this society and transported to distant regions,
during the year of the report referred to, was 3,386; the whole number
since 1854 was 25,215. More than half the 3,386 were sent to Ohio, and
to the distant states of Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kansas,
and Nebraska. Of one little boy thus exiled, who was separated from his
parents at the age of eight years, the Western agent reports: “I think
his mother would scarcely know him.” He reports that the mistress to
whom another was “disposed of” writes of him: “Indeed, I don’t know
what I should do without him, for he saves me a great many steps. I
wish we could find out about his brother and sister, he often cries
about them.”
Exile and transportation of children is also practised by the Five
Points House of Industry. They have obtained extraordinary powers for
this purpose from the Legislature. For while the Commissioners of
Public Charities and Correction, a purely governmental institution,
possess the power of indenturing children to citizens of the state of
New York and adjoining states only, the Five Points House of Industry
has received the power to send them anywhere and everywhere. But the
Commissioners of Public Charities and Correction send the poor children
they get into their power to the most remote states in violation of the
express law of the case. For instead of confining their indentures to
citizens of New York and the adjoining states, as the law directs, they
send them indiscriminately to every state, even the most distant. We
ask those public servants by what fiction of law they make California
and Texas _adjoin_ New York?
The New York Juvenile Asylum has also a “regular agency at Chicago, by
which the work of indenturing children at the West is conducted.”[9]
The total number of children sent West during fifteen years, from 1857
to 1871 inclusive, is 2,206, and the annual average, 147-1/15 (p. 47).
The extent to which this _crowning_ cruelty of our non-sectarian
institutions is carried, is appalling. We have only cited the
cases of the three whose reports happened to be before us. But we
have been informed, unofficially, and we think the statement can
be made good, that there are in the city of New York no less than
twenty-eight _charitable_ institutions engaged in this cruel practice
of transporting our New York children to the West and other remote
parts, and the average number of these little exiles per week is about
two hundred, making about ten thousand every year. What untold abuses
and hardships must result from this barbarous practice! However noble,
generous, and philanthropic may be the motives of the citizen-managers
of these institutions, they cannot attend in person to the details or
even the general management of their work. Not only are their houses in
the city confided to the management of hired and salaried agents and
servants, but the work of transporting children to the West is confided
generally to the same class of agents, and we intend to show how this
_charitable_ function is discharged. They are actuated by no higher
motives than usually actuate their class. The love of God, and of man
for God’s sake, is not the spirit that inspires their labors and guides
their steps. Corruption and infidelity to duty have stalked brazenly
into the public service everywhere; what reason have we for claiming
an exemption in favor of those who find profitable employment in the
administration of public charities?
But, as the _Christian Union_ demands further proof than is accessible
to the public, we will produce some additional evidence, although we
think we have already shown enough to condemn this system; and the tone
of that journal’s article leads us to believe that if an angel from
heaven disclosed to its view the same corruption and oppression which
we see in this branch of public administration, it would still cling to
its idols.
Now we have before us a letter, dated September 23, 1872, addressed by
a clergyman at Tiffin, Ohio, to a clergyman in the East, from which we
quote:
“In answer to your request concerning those children brought on some
four or five years ago from the East to be disposed of, I might say
with prudence, that to several counties of Ohio had been brought
car-loads of children from three years on to twelve and thirteen years
old, and offered to the _public_ to take one or more; for they who
offered the children said those who would take them had to pay the
expenses of bringing them to the place. For some children the man said
the expense would be fifteen dollars, for others more, others less.
This is the way the affair was carried on for some time.”
The gentleman to whom the foregoing letter was addressed, and who
sent it to us, gives also his own testimony on this public traffic in
innocent human beings. His letter is dated September 25, 1872, and
reads as follows:
“At that time,” some four or five years ago, “I was on a trip to
Tiffin. Delayed for a short time at Clyde, I asked some questions of
the baggage-master. Three little girls were near him, and I asked him:
‘Are these your daughters?’ A. ‘No, I bought them?’ ‘Bought them! how?
from whom?’ A. ‘Oh! from the ministers. They bring car-loads of these
little ones every few weeks, and sell them to any one who wants them.
I gave $10 for this one, $12 for the next, and $15 for the oldest. I
had not the money, but I borrowed it from the tavern-keeper, and paid
for the girls. Lately there was another load of them. There was a very
fine girl. I wanted her. But the minister said, ‘No; I have promised
her to a rich man in Forrest, who will pay more than you.’ After some
further conversation of a similar character, the train came in sight,
and I left. The next day I was speaking of the circumstance at table.
Rev. Mr.—— remarked that he knew the baggage-master well, and that
what he said was true. He added, ‘Within the last month there was a
sale of some thirty of these children in our Court House. One of my
parishioners, Mr.——, came along as the sale was about over. A little
boy was standing before the Court House crying; the German asked him,
‘What is the matter?’ He said, ‘That man wants to sell me, and no one
will buy me.’ The boy was bought by the German for $10. I had heard
such transactions described in one of his lectures by F. Haskins.
But I scarcely realized how fearful such conduct is until I heard a
description of these sales from persons who had seen them.”
Such, indeed, is the “crowning” work of some of the charitable
institutions of New York! Is this the fulfilment of the Gospel of
charity, or of the Sermon on the Mount, or of the broad principles of
Christianity? Perhaps, rather, it is the Rev. Mr. Pierce’s _elastic_
system of religion.[10] Compare these humiliating facts with the
self-congratulatory reports on “Emigration” of the Children’s Aid
Society, which in 1871 sent three hundred and seven of these little
wards of the city to the same state of Ohio.[11] At page 10 we read:
“Every year we expect that the opposition of a very bigoted and
ignorant class will materially lessen this _the most effective of our
charitable efforts_. We have surpassed, however, owing to the energy
of our Western agents, the results of every previous equal period, in
the labors of the past year.
“Crowds of poor boys have thronged the office or have come to the
lodging-houses for a ‘chance to go West’; great numbers of very
destitute but honest families have appealed to us for this aid, and
our agents have frequently conveyed parties of a hundred and more.
The West has received these children _liberally_ as before; and there
has been less complaint the past year than usual of bad habits and
perverse tempers. The larger boys are still restless as ever, and
inclined to change their places where higher inducements are offered.
But this characteristic they have in common with our whole laboring
class.”
Again:
“Emigration.—This department has worked most successfully the past
year. A larger number has been removed from the city than ever before.”
It would seem, however, that the experience of the New York Juvenile
Asylum, though still persevering in this traffic as a good work, has
not been as satisfactory as that of the Children’s Aid Society. We will
give an extract from the Twentieth Annual Report, showing even from the
mouths of those who practise it as a good work what a crying evil this
is, and confirming the extracts we have given in reference to the sales
of children in Ohio:
“Removing and replacing children is one of the important functions
of the agency. Our children are first placed on trial, and in nearly
every company some have to be replaced over and over again before they
are permanently settled. But even after indentures have been executed,
new _developments_ often compel removals. Such are the weaknesses
of human nature, and such the instability of human affairs, that,
without provision to meet the exigencies consequent upon them, _cases
of extreme hardship and inhumanity would be frequent_. They who have
not had experience in this kind of work are not apt to realize, and it
is often difficult to persuade them of, _the imperative need of such
provision_. _Children will not unfrequently get into improper hands in
spite of every precaution, and in many cases success is more or less
problematical._ Death of employers also, and change of circumstances,
are often the occasion of removals. _Not a month goes by that does not
furnish cases where, but for timely attention, suffering, mischief,
and irreparable evil would result._ A little familiarity with the
field work of this agency would convince its most obdurate opponent
that _to leave children without recourse among strangers in a strange
land is an unjustifiable procedure_.”
Apart from the inhumanity of this procedure, from its unchristian
character, from its proselytizing effects, we protest against it in the
name of law, of right, and of human liberty. The common law of England
is our heritage, and by that common law “no power on earth, except
the authority of parliament, can send any subject of England out of
the land against his will; no, not even a criminal. The great charter
declares that no freeman shall be banished unless by the judgment of
his peers or by the law of the land; and by the _habeas corpus_ act
it is enacted that no subject of this realm who is an inhabitant
of England, Wales, or Berwick shall be sent into Scotland, Ireland,
Jersey, Guernsey, or other places beyond the seas.”[12] Chancellor
Kent, in his _Commentaries on American Law_ (ii. 34), claims the same
proud privilege as one of the absolute rights of American citizens,
and, while declaring that “no citizen can be sent abroad,” states that
the constitutions of several of the states of our confederacy contain
express provisions forbidding transportation beyond the state.
We come now to the last and not the least painful task, which the
_Christian Union_ insists upon our undertaking; it relates to “the
horrible abuses existing in some of our state institutions.” And
here, as in the preceding remarks, we must confine ourselves to a
portion only of the mass of materials before us, and, in fact, confine
ourselves to a single institution; for, if such things exist in a
single case, this is enough to prove not only the possibility, but also
the probability of the same thing in others, and to dispel the fatal
blindness which can see nothing defective either in their constitution
or management. We must pass over the charges recently preferred against
the New York House of Refuge, relating to improper food, of excessive
labor, of cruel punishments, employment of unfit and incompetent agents
in the management of the institution, and of religious intolerance.
While we think that the evidence produced on the trial of the boy,
Justus Dunn, for killing one of the officers of the Refuge, goes far
to substantiate most of the charges preferred, we have, in common with
the community, but little respect for the whitewashing certificate
given by the grand-jury, who made a flying visit to the institution,
by invitation, on an appointed day. Of course the officers put their
house in order, and failed not to put their best foot foremost, on
this preconcerted occasion. The managers placed no reliance on this
acquittal, for they courted another soon afterwards. The second
investigation by the State Commissioners of Charity was very little
better; it was _ex parte_ on all the charges except that of religious
intolerance, and the Refuge was acquitted on all the charges except
this last.
We must also pass over, for want of space, the revolting case which
occurred at the New York Juvenile Asylum in June last, in which one of
the inmates of the asylum, a colored girl, instead of finding there
an asylum from temptation and seduction, fell a victim to the lust
of one of the officers of the institution, who fled precipitately on
discovery of the fact.[13] We must pass over, for the same reason, the
investigations recently conducted at St. Louis, which are far from
showing a satisfactory result for the management and conduct of public
reformatories. We must confine ourselves now to a single institution—a
case in which the evidence is replete with horrible abuses, cruelties,
improprieties, and wrongs. While we would be sorry to apply the maxim,
_ex uno disce omnes_, we can but regard this case as a general warning
to our people to beware of regarding as good everything in the moral
order that goes under the much-abused name of _reform_.
The Providence School of Reform is an institution supported by funds
received both from the state of Rhode Island and from the city of
Providence. Its object seems to be the temporal, social, and moral
reformation of juvenile delinquents of both sexes. Some time prior to
1869, it had been the subject of the gravest charges and investigation,
which tended to show that, so far from having been in all its
departments and workings a school of reform, it had in some instances
become a school for vice and immorality. The whitewashing process,
that facile and amiable way of avoiding disagreeable complications,
prevented the accomplishment of any change for the better. But in
1869 the charges against the institution took a more definite form,
and were signed and presented by thirty-one citizens of Providence to
the corporate authorities—citizens of the first respectability and
standing. The Board of Aldermen of the city of Providence, headed by
the Mayor, undertook the investigation, and the evidence is contained
in two large volumes in one, extending over eleven hundred and
forty-two pages.[14]
The charges were the most serious ones that could be brought against an
institution, especially against one professing _reform_, and had their
origin with citizens without distinction of creed. Their true character
and extent can only be understood by a perusal of them:
“First. That vices against chastity, decency, and good morals have
prevailed in the school, and have been taught and practised by
teachers as well as by pupils; that these vices have existed both in
the male and female departments, and that the children usually leave
the school more corrupt than when they entered it.
“Second. That teachers have used immodest and disgusting language in
the presence of children, and have addressed females in an indecent
manner by referring to their past character, and by calling them vile
and unbecoming names.
“Third. That modes of punishment the most cruel and inhuman have been
used in said school, such as knocking down and kicking the pupils, and
whipping them when naked, and with a severity not deserved by their
offences.
“Fourth. That young women are said to have been kicked, knocked down,
dragged about by the hair of the head, and otherwise brutally treated,
but more especially that all modesty and decency have been outraged
by stripping them to the waist and lashing them on the naked back;
taking them from their beds and whipping them in their night-dresses;
tying their hands and feet and ducking them; and by other forms of
punishment which no man should ever inflict upon a woman.
“Fifth. That names of children committed to said school have been
changed and altered by the officers of the said institution.
“Sixth. That children have been apprenticed to persons living in
remote sections of the country, and who have no interest in taking
proper care of them, and that a needless disregard to the rights and
feelings of their parents has often been evinced by the officers of
the school.
“Seventh. That the goods of said school are reported to have been used
dishonestly for purposes for which they were not intended, and that
the state of Rhode Island is said to have been charged with the board
of children who were living at service and were no expense to said
school.
“Eighth. That a spirit of proselytism and of religious intolerance
has prevailed in the school, as is shown in the fact that children of
different creeds are compelled to attend a form of worship which is
contrary to the conscientious convictions of a large majority of them;
which is directly in conflict with the spirit and letter of our state
constitution, which ensures to the inhabitants thereof the liberty
of conscience, in the following language: ‘No man shall be compelled
to frequent or to support any religious worship, place, or ministry
whatever, except in fulfilment of his own voluntary contract;’ and
that the children of said school are denied the use of books and all
religious instruction in the religion of their choice.”
Although there is evidence in the volume of _Investigation_ before us
tending to sustain the “fifth” and “seventh” charges, we yet except
those two charges from our remark, when we say that the other six
charges, constituting the gravamen of the prosecution, are not only
sustained in whole or in part by nearly one hundred witnesses, but,
with all deference to the five aldermen out of ten who found most of
them _not proved_, we think that no unbiassed reader of the heavily
laden and sad volume before us, no true philanthropist, no man of true
charity, can fail to pronounce the word _guilty_ as to all or some
part of every one of the first, second, third, fourth, seventh, and
eighth charges. We are sorry to be forced to the conviction that the
testimony is overwhelming. There are cases of punishment cruel in the
extreme—some have called them inhuman, and even brutal—inflicted on
about sixty boys; and, while nearly every page shows this, we refer
particularly to pages 112, 123, 172, 234, 238, 274, 279, 280, 281, 289,
290, 295, 318, 364, 366, 375, 379, 383, 387, 388, 402, 403, 410, 414,
416, 419, 421, 425, 432, 437, 440, 446. See evidences more particularly
referring to the use of the loaded whip, page 378; the strap, the cat,
the strings, 286, 339; the butt, 492; blood drawn, 364, 485; terrorism,
239, 269, 270, 305, 371, 418, 424, 425, 492; whipping little boys over
the knuckles with a bunch of keys, 146, 147; kicking, 447, 485, 526,
and 323 of vol. ii.; boys struck on the head with a hammer, 331, 379;
profanity and indecency, 280, 302, and page 135 of vol. ii.; Catholic
books taken away from Catholic children, 308, 309, 310; state of Rhode
Island charged with board of children who had been put out of the
institution, 307, which was regarded as “an error of the head and not
of the heart,” 327 of vol. ii.
There are also detailed in the _Investigation_ cases of about thirty
girls punished in a cruel and revolting manner. For girls lashed,
bodies striped and bruised, see pages 18, 19; a girl struck, caught
by the throat, pounded, and dragged by the hair of the head, 23; a
girl struck with fist, and black eye, 55; a girl stripped to the
waist of all her clothes, except undergarment, and whipped with
cat-o’-nine-tails, and body marked, 93; another girl dragged by the
hair, 95; a girl ducked, 102; a girl boxed until her nose bled, and
water dashed on her, 102; a girl chased, kicked, and held under flowing
water, 108; a girl dragged by the hair, kicked, and ducked, 219, 220;
another girl dragged by the hair and kicked, 228; another lashed black
and blue, 229; a girl lashed on the back after she had gone to bed,
338; another girl whipped with the straps, and kicked, 344; another
girl stripped to the waist, leaving only undergarment on, and whipped
with a knotted strap, 360; a girl ducked, 272. A mother is refused
permission to see her child, who was whipped, and refused information
as to whither the child was transported. The mother said: “I will
travel Rhode Island through, and I will travel Connecticut through,
but what I will find her. I have not seen her for the last six or
eight years, and a mother’s nature goes beyond any mortal thing in
this world. A mother wants to see her child. I could not get anything
from them,” 374. Another girl is stripped like the others, and lashed,
marked, and scarred on the back, 395. A witness, at page 396, says:
“I saw—— stripped with her dress down; she was badly bruised on the
shoulder; I did not see any blood, but I saw the bruises were pretty
bad bruises; there were scars clear across her shoulders; you could not
see scarcely a piece of plain flesh on her shoulders.” At page 443, a
former inmate testifies to the treatment received by another inmate: “I
saw him shower her and strike her; he knocked her against the building
with his fist, and the blood ran out of her nose and ears while she
was by the fence, while he stood there punishing her.” At page 454,
we read an extract from the testimony of a Mrs. Bishop: “Q. Were you
ever kicked or beaten in the school by——? A. Yes, sir. I was punished
up-stairs because I could not learn my lesson. I had had no schooling
at that time; I could not do much reading; he punished me up-stairs; I
told him I could not learn it, unless he could let a girl come up and
help me; I was told to kneel down; I looked around, and he kicked me
across the aisle; he pulled me by my dress, and kicked me across the
aisle, and twice across the room; I was put up-stairs before devotions
were to come off; I said I was going to tell my mother; he said I could
not see my folks again if I did tell her; he was going to give me two
hundred dollars if I had not said anything; I was sick after this
kicking; he carried me home himself away from the school; I could not
move nor stir; I could not move one eye; I walked on crutches after it;
it affects me now; affects my gait, so I can’t walk all the time; I
have to hire my work done part the time now; when there comes a storm,
I can’t move, I have to sit still in the house; sometimes I have to
lie in bed, because it affects me so; I was thirteen years old at that
time.” A girl, a new-comer only three days in the school, is ducked,
strapped, and locked up two days for laughing in school, p. 629, and
further ill-treated, 639. Another girl dragged by the hair, pounded,
and dreadfully bruised, 661. Girls ducked and whipped at night, 678.
Girls called names of supreme contempt by teachers in allusion to their
past lives, 684, 737, and 39, 71, 317, of vol. ii. A girl taken up at
night, and whipped in her night-clothes by male officer, 693. A girl
is pulled over the desk by the hair, for not singing, 705. A girl is
imprisoned and fed on bread and water for twenty-three days, 320 of
vol. ii.
For instances of girls whipped on the naked back by men, see pp. 61,
339, 630; girls kicked by men, 318, 328, 345, 348, 354, 360, 631; same
proved by defence, 41 of vol. ii.; girls dragged by the hair by men,
231, 347, 348, 636; girls struck with fist by men, 347, 349; black eye
given, 350; marks on bodies, 360, 367, 395, 719; girls taunted about
their former lives, 86, 96, 100, 397, 687, 737, and 317 of vol. ii.;
terrorism, 269, 270, 305, 371, 424, 425, and 41 of vol. ii.; girls
ducked by men, 92, 94, 97, 102, and 295 of vol. ii.
The first charge, the most serious that could be brought against
a school of _reform_—“crimes against chastity, decency, and good
morals”—is fearfully sustained. One of the employees, a man of years,
who had become notorious for his vulgarity and indecency in both the
male and female departments, to both of which he had access, is caught
_flagrante delicto_. The partner of his sin was one of the female
inmates, who was sent there to be _reformed_, and they were detected
by other female inmates of this school of reform (page 75). And again,
_horribile dictu_, a _teacher_ in the same nursery of _reform_ lived,
“month in and month out,” in criminal conversation with one of the
inmates of the female department (pages 63, 76), and the appalling fact
is again proved by the defence (ii. 322). But, more shocking than all
this, not only were immodest and indecent conversations held by an
employee with the boys and girls, but another fiend in the flesh, an
officer of the Providence School of Reform, introduced among the boys
and taught them habits the most immoral and disgusting, destructive at
once of their souls and bodies, of their manhood, and of their temporal
and eternal happiness. This fact is proved solely by the defence at
page 321 of vol. ii. The offender was dismissed, but the school still
exists! Where are Sodom and Gomorrah?
The evidence for the defence consists chiefly of denials and
_non-mi-ricordos_ by the officers and employees; but some of the
charges are proved by the defence itself, and some of the most damning
evidence against the institution came from this very quarter. The mayor
and one of the aldermen declined to take any part in the decision,
because they were members of the board of trustees. Three other
aldermen refused to sign the decision, and gave decisions of their
own, finding portions of the charges true. Five out of ten of the
judges sign the decision, which, while finding most of the charges _not
proved_, strongly inculpates the institution on several of the charges.
In it is stated that two instances have occurred of offences against
chastity, decency, and good morals, on the part of officers and female
inmates, page 384 of vol. ii.; that knocking down was practised, though
alleged to have been in self-defence; and that boys were whipped on the
bare back, 384 of vol. ii.; that girls have had their dresses loosened
and removed from the upper part of the back and shoulders, leaving only
the undergarment on, and thus punished by the (male) superintendent;
and in a very few cases during the past nine years, when they have, in
violation of the rules of the school, made loud noises and disturbances
in the dormitories at night, they have been punished in their
night-clothes (by a male officer) in the presence of a female officer,
page 385 of vol. ii.; ducking is admitted, page 385.
One of the dissenting aldermen in his decision says: “Being fully
aware that the class of inmates sent to this school require a strong
and efficient discipline, and not feeling competent to say what that
discipline should be, yet I cannot resist the conviction that the
punishments described have a tendency to _degrade rather than to
elevate_, not only the one who receives, but the one who administers
them.” “I therefore feel bound to protest against such punishments,
and earnestly hope that some better mode of discipline will speedily
be adopted by the managers of this institution” (p. 394, vol. ii.).
The superintendent stated on oath that, in case a child sick and _in
extremis_ required a Catholic priest to be sent for, he would first
go and seek the advice of three or four of the trustees before he
would admit, even under such circumstances, a Catholic or any other
clergyman; and on this subject the same alderman remarked: “In my view,
any superintendent of this institution who would hesitate to allow the
consolations of religion to be administered in the form desired by
the child, under such circumstances, should be promptly relieved from
duty,” page 396 of vol. ii. Another alderman says: “I am of opinion
that cruel and unnecessary punishment has been inflicted. I do not
suppose that striking with the clenched fist, kicking, or dragging by
the hair of the head has been common, but I think it has occurred in
some instances,” page 397; and he mentions the case of an “unfortunate
girl who seems to have suffered every form of discipline known to this
school, from being _ducked_ to being ‘pushed under the table with the
foot.’ If it be said she was vile, I would ask how she came to be? She
was but six or seven years of age when she entered this institution.
No one is wholly bad at that tender age. She remained under its care
and influences for _nine years_, and, if she is vicious and dissolute,
why is she so? If, on the other hand, she was insane, is it not painful
to reflect that such punishments were inflicted on an irresponsible
child?” (p. 399.) One of the trustees actually resigned a year before
the investigation, rather than be connected with such scenes; he
started an investigation, but it seems to have done no good; and such
was the condition of things at the time of this first investigation
that the assistant superintendent offered to give one hundred dollars
to a friend to shield him from being called as a witness.
The religious instruction given in this institution is _of course_
unsectarian; everything distinctively Episcopalian is denied to
Episcopalian children, everything distinctively Baptist is denied to
Baptist children, everything distinctively Methodist is denied to
Methodist children, everything distinctly Presbyterian is denied to
Presbyterian children, and everything distinctly Catholic is denied to
Catholic children. Nothing whatever is said tending “to keep children
in the faith to which they belonged when they entered the school.” “Q.
Does not the system of religious instruction tend to bring the children
to that form of religion which gives to each person the private
judgment and interpretation of the Scriptures? A. We hope it tends to
make them better. Q. Does it not tend to have them choose their own
Bible and their own interpretation of it as the source and principle
of religion? A. I should hope that it tends to have them accept the
Bible. Q. Do you teach them the doctrine of the private interpretation
of the Scripture? A. No, sir, not at all. Q. As I understand it, all
the religious instruction they get is simply reading from the Bible,
and no interpretation. They can interpret it just as they please.
A. They can interpret it just as they please. Sometimes one speaker
comes, and sometimes another” (page 234, vol. ii.) ... “Q. Now state
the afternoon services on Sunday? A. One of the trustees (they all
alternate except the mayor) procures a speaker for Sunday afternoon
to address the scholars. Q. Of what class are those speakers—of any
particular or of all classes? A. Since I have been there, I think every
denomination has been represented or been invited to speak? Q. Are
they particularly members of churches, or laymen, lawyers, doctors,
or anybody who will give a moral address to the children? A. I could
not speak with certainty of the professions. We often have clergymen,
perhaps oftener than any other class, but not unfrequently men of other
professions, and many times those following no profession to speak in
connection with others. We often have more than one speaker—sometimes
half a dozen. Q. These are business men of the city? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do
you have lawyers sometimes? A. I think all professions are represented.
Q. Do you have ministers if you can get them? A. Yes, sir.” And yet in
this unsectarianism the most direct sectarianism prevailed. “Q. Do you
know what version of the Bible is used? A. It is the common English
translation. Q. (By the mayor) It is the ordinary Bible, is it not?
A. Yes, sir. (By Mr. Gorman) The _Douay_ is the ordinary one. (By
Mr.——) We call that an _extraordinary_ one” (page 62, vol. ii.).
Now, we have the Bible without comment, but ministers, lawyers,
doctors, and business men are called in every Sunday, sometimes half
a dozen at one time, to give the comments, each according to his own
view. Every religious denomination was invited, but it does not appear
that any Catholic ever accepted the invitation; for, if he accepted, he
would leave his Catholicity outside until he finished his unsectarian
discourse. There may be something in common with all the sects which
sometimes may be called general Protestantism, though they profess to
call it unsectarianism; but one thing we know is common to them all,
and this something is opposition to Catholicity, and the dodge of
unsectarianism is adroitly invented in order to exclude Catholics from
enjoying equal rights with Protestants in matters relating to public
education and public charities. The state must let religion alone, and
unsectarians must desist from their disguised effort to unite church
and state in this country, while it has so strenuously opposed their
union in every Catholic country. They know that Catholics can take no
part in unsectarian teachings, but they would like us to do so, for in
proportion as we did so would we cease to be Catholics. The Catholic
view was so admirably expressed by the late Bishop Fitzpatrick, of
Boston, in his letter in the Eliot School difficulty, that we must give
it to our readers:
“I. Catholics cannot, under any circumstances, acknowledge, receive,
and use, as a complete collection and faithful version of the inspired
books which compose the written Word of God, the English Protestant
translation of the Bible. Still less can they so acknowledge, accept,
or use it, when its enforcement as such is coupled expressly with
the rejection of that version which their own church approves and
adopts as being correct and authentic; and yet this is required of
them by law. The law, as administered, holds forth the Protestant
version to the Catholic child, and says, ‘Receive this as the Bible.’
The Catholic child answers, ‘I cannot so receive it.’ The law, as
administered, says you must, or else you must be scourged and finally
banished from the school.
“II. The acceptance and recital of the Decalogue, under the form and
words in which Protestants clothe it, is offensive to the conscience
and belief of Catholics, inasmuch as that form and those words
are viewed by them, and have not unfrequently been used by their
adversaries, as a means of attack upon certain tenets and practices
which, under the teachings of the church, they hold as true and sacred.
“III. The chanting of the Lord’s Prayer, of psalms, of hymns
addressed to God, performed by many persons in unison, being neither
a scholastic exercise nor a recreation, can only be regarded as an
act of public worship—indeed, it is professedly intended as such in
the regulations which govern our public schools. It would seem that
the principles which guide Protestants and Catholics, in relation
to communion in public worship, are widely different. Protestants,
however diverse may be their religious opinions—Trinitarians, who
assert that Jesus Christ is true God, and Unitarians, who deny he
is true God—find no difficulty to offer in brotherhood a blended
and apparently harmonious worship, and in so doing they give and
receive mutual satisfaction, mutual edification. The Catholic cannot
act in this manner. He cannot present himself before the Divine
presence in what would be for him a merely simulated union of prayer
and adoration. His church expressly forbids him to do so. She
considers indifference in matters of religion, indifference as to the
distinction of positive doctrines in faith, as a great evil which
promiscuous worship would tend to spread more widely and increase.
Hence the prohibition of such worship; and the Catholic cannot join in
it without doing violence to his sense of religious duty.”
Non-sectarianism is the plea upon which those public institutions
justify their interference with the religious rights of their inmates.
They argue that, because this system is acceptable to Protestants of
every sect, therefore it must be acceptable to Catholics. Whereas,
on the contrary, what is called unsectarianism is the concentration
of sectarianism. Unsectarianism is made up of all those points upon
which the sects concur, and is therefore pre-eminently sectarian. It
is either that or simple deism; for if you take away the distinctive
tenets of Catholics, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, and of all
the distinct sects, there remains nothing but deism. This involves,
and will inevitably lead to, the denial of revelation; and the very
Scriptures themselves, which Protestantism claims as the sole source of
religious teaching, must and will inevitably, if non-sectarianism long
prevails, be cast away. Is the teaching of deism alone inoffensive to
Christians? The teaching of a few points, even if agreed upon by all,
would be, on account of its exclusiveness, as sectarian as any other
religious system—indeed more so; and is subject to an objection not
applicable to the others, in that it conceals its true nature, and
assumes a false name: whereas the Catholic Church and the avowed sects
proclaim their distinctive and exclusive character, and in this at
least are truthful and honest. If religious teaching resolves itself
into latitudinarianism, it then constitutes a new sect in itself. A
perfect neutrality, as long as anything positive is taught, is an
impossibility. This very selection, which makes up this professed
unsectarianism, is an anti-Catholic principle. It proclaims the right
of man to determine all things in religion by his own private judgment,
and in this consists the distinctive feature of Protestantism.
We have thus shown that non-sectarianism, as a system of religious
teaching, is an impossibility. We now propose to show that in our
schools, asylums, reformatories, etc., it is in practice, as well as
in theory, an impossibility. We will show this, too, by Protestant and
unsectarian authority. At p. 264, vol. ii., _Providence Reform School
Investigation_, we read from the testimony of a Protestant Episcopal
trustee, who resigned on account, in part, of this impossibility:
“Q. Didn’t you know that no sectarian instruction was admitted inside
that institution? A. I don’t know what you call sectarianism. It is
pretty hard to say down in that school. We have had everything taught
and preached there. Q. Was not this an Episcopal book? A. It was a
book of devotions and prayers—a work by a divine of the English
Church. It was an Episcopal book. Q. Do you mean to say that a book of
Episcopal exercises is or is not a sectarian work? A. I am a member of
the Episcopal Church; we do not call ourselves a sect. Q. Didn’t you
know at the time you gave this book to the teacher that it was against
the rules of the school to have the doctrines of the true church given
out there, or of any church? A. I had never supposed it was against
the rules of that institution, and I should have been unwilling to
have sat for one hour as its trustee if I had supposed that I was
myself forbidden to pray, or to advise others to pray there, through
Jesus Christ, our Lord; and if the prayers I indicated, marked, and
numbered in that book are prayers forbidden in the Providence Reform
School or any other school, I have for the first time to learn what
is sectarianism. They are prayers which every Christian, whether he
belongs to any one of the various organizations of Christians in
this or any other country or not, would, I think, be willing to use
morning, noon, and night. Q. Didn’t you know that the by-laws place
religious instruction exclusively under the care of the superintendent
of the school” [who is a layman]?
The Hon. John C. Spencer, Secretary of State and Superintendent of
Schools in 1840, said in his report to the New York Legislature:
“There must be some degree of religious instruction, and there can be
_none_ without partaking more or less of a _sectarian character_. _The
objection itself proceeds from a sectarian principle_, and assumes the
power to control that which it is neither right nor practicable to
subject to any denomination. Religious doctrines of vital interest will
be inculcated.”
Another who has discussed this question of sectarianism with force and
great plainness of speech is the Rev. Dr. Spear, of Brooklyn, in the
columns of the _Independent_, thus:
“It is quite true that the Bible, as the foundation of religious
belief, is not sectarian as between those who adopt it; but it is
true that King James’ Version of the Holy Scriptures is sectarian as
to the Catholic, as the Douay is to the Protestant, or as the Baptist
Version would be to all Protestants but Baptists. It is equally true
that the New Testament is sectarian as to the Jew, and the whole Bible
is equally so as to those who reject its authority in any version....
There is no sense or candor in a mere play on words here. It is not
decent in a Protestant ecclesiastic, who has no more rights than the
humblest Jew, virtually to say to the latter: ‘You are nothing but
a good-for-nothing Jew; you Jews have no claim to be regarded as
a religious sect, or included in the law of state impartiality as
between sects which Protestants monopolize for their special benefit.
Away with your Jewish consciences! You pay your tax bills, and send
your children to the public schools, and we will attend to their
_Christian_ education.’ It is not decent to say this to any class of
citizens who dissent from what is known as Protestant Christianity.
It is simply a supercilious pomposity of which Protestants ought to
be ashamed. It may please the bigotry it expresses, but a sensible
man must either pity or despise it. In the name of justice we protest
against this summary mode of disposing of the school question in
respect to any class of American citizens. It is simply an insult.”
Again, Dr. Anderson, President of the Rochester University, one of the
first men in the Baptist Church in these United States, addressing the
Baptist Educational Convention in the city of New York, says:
“_It is impossible for an earnest teacher to avoid giving out
constantly religious and moral impulses and thought. He must of
necessity set forth his notions about God, the soul, conscience, sin,
the future life, and Divine Revelation._
“If he promises not to do so, he will fail to keep his word”—these
are true words—“or his teachings in science, or literature, or
history will be miserably shallow and inadequate. Our notions of God
and the moral order form, in spite of ourselves, the base line which
affects all our movements and constructions of science, literature,
and history. Inductions in physics, classifications in natural
history, necessitate a living law eternal in the thought of God.”
These gentlemen speak of religious instruction, only inasmuch as it
is connected with the education of youth, and yet their logical minds
showed them the absurdity of unsectarianism. What, then, could they
have said of visionary men attempting direct teaching of religion
without sectarianism?
The following extract is too pertinent to our subject and too clever
to be omitted, as an illustration of the impossibility of teaching
religion upon the unsectarian system:
“UNSECTARIANISM.”
SOME OF THE DIFFICULTIES OF A TEACHER IN A MIXED SCHOOL.
(From the New Orleans Morning Star.)
We find the following in our San Francisco contemporary, the _Pacific
Churchman_, taken originally from the _London Church Review_, an organ
of the Church of England. The editor of the _Churchman_ remarks that
“with some changes it will equally apply to some of our _un_-sectarian
schools.” As far as the _Churchman_ goes against _un_-sectarian
schools in this country, we are with it. This seems to be one scene
taken from others. Considering that it conveys a good argument for us,
our readers will excuse the term “Romanism,” thrown in as a reproach.
We quote:
The schoolroom of a boarding-school. Time, the hour of religious
instruction. Bible to be read and explained without inculcating
the dogmas of any particular denomination. Teacher certificated,
unsectarian, highly conscientious. Class consisting of children from
thirteen down to six or seven, and of various grades, from respectable
poor to gutter children. Schoolroom and teacher span new. Teacher a
little nervous. Children—some looking curiously about them, some
disposed to loll and idle, some attentive. Teacher opens the great
Bible, and begins to read St. Matthew ii., as being a narrative likely
to interest the auditory, and easy to explain in an undenominational
sense. First, however, a little preliminary explanation is necessary.
_Teacher._ You must know, my dear children, that Joseph and Mary
were two very good people who lived a very great many years ago in a
country far away from London, and I am going to read to you about them
and their son (reads slowly verse 1. of the chapter).
_Ragged Arab_ (not accustomed to observe much ceremony). Please, sir,
who’s that?
_Teacher_ (aghast, and wishing to gain time). Whom do you mean, my boy?
_Arab._ That there Jesus.
_Teacher_ (aside). [How can this question be answered in an
undenominational sense? This is the religious difficulty, full blown.
If I say “a good man,” that will hardly do, for I know several of the
boys are the children of the church people and Romanists; and if I say
“the son of God,” that won’t do, for Tommy Markham is a Unitarian, or,
at any rate, his parents are; besides, such a dogmatic statement is
sectarian.] (Aloud.) I will explain all about him when I have finished
the chapter.
Continues to read. The class listens with various degrees of attention
until the 11th verse is finished, and then—
_A Boy._ Please, sir, who’s Mary? The mother of the little baby,
wasn’t she?
_Teacher._ Yes; she was his mother.
_Boy._ Oh! and what does “wusshupped” mean?
_Teacher._ It means paying great respect, kneeling down and bowing, as
we should to God.
_Another Boy_ (better taught than boy No. 1, and jumping at once to a
sectarian conclusion). Then, that there baby was God, sir?
_Tommy Markham_ (stoutly). No, that he wasn’t!
_Teacher._ Silence, boys, the lesson cannot go on if you talk and
quarrel. (Struck by a bright idea.) You know that a great many people
believe that he was God; but some do not; but we must not quarrel
because we do not all think alike.
_First Boy_ (disagreeably curious). Well, but what do _you_ think,
master?
[Terrible dilemma! Teacher hesitates. At length, desperately]—
_I_ think he was God.
_Boy._ Don’t yer _know_ it?
_Teacher_ (aside). [Perverse youth. Pest take his questions and him
too! If I’d known what “unsectarian” teaching involved, I’d sooner
have swept a crossing. What _will_ the Board say? Why, the very
essence of our principle is to _know_ nothing and think anything. But
you can’t make the boys reason.] (Aloud.) My dear boy, it is very
difficult to say what we know. I can only teach you what I think, and
teach you how to be good and do what is right, and obey all that God
tells you to do in this Holy Book.
_A Boy_ (interrupting, _sans cérémonie_). Did God write that there
book?
_Teacher._ Yes; and he tells us what we are to do to get to heaven;
and his son came, as you see, as a little child, and when he grew up,
he preached and told us how we ought to love one another, and all we
ought to do to lead a good life.
_Boy_ (interested). And was he a _very_ good chap?
_Teacher_ (a little shocked). Yes, of course; you know he
was—[pauses; his haste had almost betrayed him into a dogmatic
explanation, and the forbidden word “know” had actually passed his
lips].
_Another Boy_ (with vexatiously retentive memory). You said afore,
master, that he was God, and the gentlemen wusshupped him—was he
_reelly_ God?
_Teacher_ (boldly, taking the bull by the horns). Yes.
_Boy._ And did God’s mother wusshup him too, master?
_Teacher._ You must not call her the mother of—[interrupts himself;
recollects that it is as sectarian to deny to the Blessed Virgin the
title of Mother of God as to bestow it upon her; continues]: yes, she
worshipped him too; but I want you to learn about the things that he
told us to do.
_Another Boy_ (doggedly). But we wants to know fust who he be, ‘cause
we ain’t to do jist what a nobody tells us; only, if that there
gentlemen be God, there’s somethin’ in it, ‘cause I’ve ‘eard parson
say, at old school, where I was once, that what God said was all right.
_Teacher_ (aside). [Certainly that poor Arab has got the root of
denominational education. It is, I begin to think, a failure to
attempt the teaching of morality without first making manifest what
that morality is based upon, and the moment you come to _that_ you are
in for denominationalism at once. (Wipes his brow and continues)—
Of course, my boy, you must know why it is right to tell the truth and
do what is right, but then if I tell you God commanded all this and
read to you what his Son said about it, there is no need for troubling
so much about—about—
_Boy_ (interrupting). Oh! but I likes to ax questions, and it ain’t no
sort of use you telling us it’s wrong to lie—nobody at ‘ome ever told
me _that_—if yer don’t say who said it, ‘cause I ain’t bound to mind
what _you_ say, is I?
[_Teacher_ checks the indignant “Indeed you are” that rises to his
lips, arrested by the terrible and conscientious thought whether it
be not a new and strange form of denominationalism for the teacher
to make his own dictum infallible in matters of morality. Would not
this be to elevate into a living, personal dogma an unsectarian
teacher?—a singular clash, surely. Teacher shivers at the bare idea.
Soliloquizes: How can I meet this knock-down reasoning? These Arabs
are so rebellious, so perverse; why must they ask so many questions,
and require to know the why and wherefore of everything? (Glances at
the clock.) Ah! thank my stars, the time is almost up! but this dodge
won’t do every time. I’m afraid I shall have to give up the whole
thing as a bad job.] (Aloud.) We have only five minutes more to-day,
lads, so you must let me finish the chapter without asking any more
questions.
(Boys relapse into indifferent silence. Curtain falls.)
In conclusion, we insist that the state shall obey its own
constitution, and let religion alone. In purely state institutions,
the consciences must be left free, and no experiments with religion
can be tried. Every child in such institutions must enjoy liberty of
conscience and free access to its own ministers and sacraments.
If any sect undertakes to help the state to do its work, by
establishing reformatories, protectories, and asylums for its own
children, excluding all other religions and the children of other
religions, we shall not object to its receiving a just _per capita_
from the state; and under this system we claim the same and no more for
purely Catholic institutions doing the work of the state in respect to
Catholic children. If, however, sectarian, unsectarian, or non-Catholic
institutions receive support from the state, and receive the children
of the Catholic Church and of other persuasions, they must be conducted
upon the same principle with state institutions, and in them “no law
respecting the establishment of a religion” must be made or enforced,
but the most perfect liberty of conscience must prevail. We ask no
special favors for ourselves or our church; all we claim is perfect
equality before the law and the state, and the full benefit of that
fair play which we extend to others.
DANTE’S PURGATORIO.
CANTO SEVENTH.
[Still among souls, on the outside of Purgatory, who have delayed
repentance, Dante, in this Canto, is conducted to those who had
postponed spiritual duties from having been involved in state affairs.
The persons introduced are the Emperor Rodolph, first of that Austrian
house of Hapsburg, Ottocar, King of Bohemia, Philip III. of France,
Henry of Navarre, Peter III. of Aragon, Charles I. of Naples, Henry
III. of England, and the Marquis William of Monferrat. To know more
of these men the curious reader must consult more volumes than we
have space to mention in this magazine. He may spare much research,
however, and find the most accessible information by turning to
the interesting notes which Mr. Longfellow has appended to his
translation.—TRANS.]
THREE times and four these greetings, glad and free,
Had been repeated, when Sordello’s shade
Drew from embrace, and said: “Now, who are ye?”
And thereupon my Guide this answer made:
“Ere to this mountain those just souls, to whom
Heavenward to climb was given, had guided been,
My bones Octavian gathered to the tomb.
Virgil I am, and for none other sin
But want of faith was I from heaven shut out.”
Like one who suddenly before him sees
Something that wakes his wonder, whence, in doubt,
He says, _It is not_; then believing, _’Tis!_
Sordello stood, then back to him without
Lifting his eyelids, turned and clasped his knees.
“O glory of the Latin race!” he cried,
“Through whom to such a height our language rose,
Oh! of my birthplace everlasting pride,
What merit or grace on me thy sight bestows?
Tell me, unless to hear thee is denied,
Com’st thou from hell, or where hast thou repose?”
VIRGIL.
He to this answered: “Grace from heaven moved me,
And leads me still: the circles every one
Of sorrow’s kingdom have I trod to thee.
My sight is barred from that supernal Sun,
Whom I knew late, and thou desir’st to see,
Not for I did, but for I left undone.
A place below there is where no groans rise
From torment, sad alone with want of light,
Where the lament sounds not like moan, but sighs.
The little innocents whom Death’s fell bite
Snatched, ere their sin was purified, are there:
And there I dwell with guiltless ones that still
The three most holy virtues did not wear,
Though all the rest they knew, and did fulfil.
But if thou knowest, and may’st us apprise,
Tell us how we most speedily may find
Where Purgatory’s actual entrance lies.”
SORDELLO.
“We have,” he answered, “no set place assigned;
Around and upward I am free to stray;
My guidance far as I may go I lend:
But see how fast already fails the day!
And in the night none ever can ascend:
Best, then, we think of some good resting-place.
Some souls there be, removed here to the right,
Whom, if thou wilt, I’ll show thee face to face,
And thou shalt know them not without delight.”
“How, then,” said Virgil—“should a soul aspire
To climb by night, would other check be found?
Or his own weakness hinder his desire?”
And good Sordello drew along the ground
His finger, saying: “Look! not even this line
May’st thou pass over when the sun hath gone:
Not that aught else, though, would thy power confine,
Save want of light, from journeying upwards on:
Darkness makes impotent thy will. By night
One may go back again, and grope below,
And, while the horizon shuts the day from sight,
Wander about the hillside to and fro.”
My Master then, as ‘twere in wonder, spake:
“Then lead us thitherward where thou hast said,
That we in lingering shall such pleasure take.”
Nor had we forward far advanced our tread,
When I perceived that on the mountain-side
A valley opened, just like valleys here.
“We will go forward,” said our shadowy guide,
“Where on the slope yon hollow doth appear;
There let us wait the dawning of the day.”
‘Twixt steep and level went a winding path
Which led us where the vale-side dies away
Till less than half its height the margin hath.
Gold and fine silver, ceruse, cochineal,
India’s rich wood, heaven’s lucid blue serene,[15]
Or glow that emeralds freshly broke reveal,
Had all been vanquished by the varied sheen
Of this bright valley set with shrubs and flowers,
As less by greater. Nor had Nature there
Only in painting spent herself, but showers
Of odors manifold made sweet the air
With one strange mingling of confused perfume.
And there new spirits chanting I descried—
“Salve Regina!”—seated on the bloom
And verdure sheltered by the dingle side.
SORDELLO.
“Ere yon low sun shall nestle in his bed”
(Began the Mantuan who had brought us here),
“Desire not down among them to be led;
You better will observe how they appear,
Both face and action, from this bank, instead
Of mixing with them in the dale. That one
Who sits the highest, looking, ‘mid the throng,
As though some duty he had left undone,
Who moves his lips not with the rest in song,
Was Rodolph, Emperor, he who might have healed
Those wounds which Italy have so far spent
That slow relief all other helpers yield.
The other, that on soothing him seems bent,
Once ruled the region whence those waters are
Which Moldau bears to Elbe, and Elbe the sea.
His name was Ottocar, and better far,
Yea, in his very swaddling-robe, was he
Than Vincislaus, his big-bearded son
Whom luxury and ease have made so gross.
And he of slender nose, who, with the one
So bland of aspect, seems in consult close,
Died flying, and in dust his lilies laid.
Look! how he beats the breast he cannot calm:
Mark too his mate there sighing, who hath made
For his pale cheek a pillow of his palm!
One is the Father of that pest of France,
Father-in-law the other: well they know
His lewd, base life! this misery is the lance
That to the core cuts either of them so.
And he so stout of limb, in unison
Singing with him there of the manly nose,
Of every virtue put the girdle on;
And if that youth behind him in repose
Had after him reigned in his Father’s stead,
Virtue from vase to vase had been well poured,
Which of the other heirs may not be said.
Frederic and James now o’er those kingdoms lord,
In whom that better heritage lies dead.
Rarely doth human goodness rise again
Through the tree’s branches: He hath willed it so
Who gives this boon of excellence, that men
Should ask of him who can alone bestow.”
“Not more these words of mine at Peter glance
Than him he sings with (of the large nose there)
Whose death Apulia mourneth, and Provènce,
So ill the tree doth with its stock compare!
Even so much more of her good lord his wife
Constance yet vaunts herself, than Margaret may,
Or Beatrice. That king of simplest life,
Harry of England, sitting there survey
All by himself: his branches are more blest!
The one who sits there with uplifted gaze
Among the group, but lower than the rest,
Is Marquis William, in whose cause the frays
Of Alexandria have with grief oppressed
Both Monferrato and the Canavese.”
THE RUSSIAN IDEA.
FROM THE GERMAN OF CONRAD VON BOLANDEN.
“We must obey the emperor rather than God.”
I.
A GOOD MOTHER.
THE Baroness Olga von Sempach was respected, wealthy, benevolent, and
therefore loved by the poor. When, in the summer, she visited her
estates in Posen, to breathe for some months the healthy country air,
the poor of that place would exclaim: “Our mother has come again!”
The baroness had, however, seemed lately to be greatly depressed, and
her sad countenance had excited the sympathy of every one.
“Our mother is sick,” said the poor. “Her face is pale, and her kind
eyes look as though she wept often. We will pray for our benefactress,
that God may preserve her to us.”
And in the hours of want and suffering, many hands were raised in
supplication to heaven for their mother Olga; but the eyes of the
noble lady continued to be dim with weeping, and her sorrow seemed to
increase daily.
She was sitting, one morning, in a room of her palace; her hands
were clasped together, and she gazed absently before her, while tear
after tear streamed down her cheeks. Opposite to her on the wall
hung a crucifix, upon which she would often fix her eyes; but her
sufferings seemed to be those of the spirit rather than of the body.
The affliction of soul, as seen in her distressed face, had something
sublime and venerable in it, for it was the grief of a mother.
The sound of approaching footsteps are heard. The baroness made
an effort to conceal her agitation; she wiped away her tears, and
endeavored to receive with a smile the young man, who, upon entering,
saluted her.
“I am rejoiced, dear Edward, that you have come to visit us at our
retired summer-residence,” said she. “The invigorating air of the
country will be of great service to you. Your incessant application to
study is injurious to health, and you must therefore remain with us for
several weeks.”
He hardly seemed to hear her words of welcome, so lost was he in
astonishment at the appearance of his noble hostess.
“I must ask your pardon, gracious lady, for having disturbed your quiet
household last night at such a late hour,” said he; “but the train was
delayed, and I could not find a carriage to bring me here.”
“No formal excuse is necessary, Edward! Have you spoken yet with my
son?”
“Only a few words. He is writing to his betrothed.”
These latter words made such an impression upon the baroness that it
seemed as though a sword had pierced her heart. The emotion did not
escape the observation of the young gentleman, and, together with her
sad aspect, convinced him that her son was in some way the cause of her
unhappiness.
“O sorrowful mother that I am!” she exclaimed, “to see my Adolph, my
only child, rushing into certain misfortune, perhaps into eternal ruin,
and I unable to help or save him—how it pains and terrifies me!”
Her lips trembled, and she found difficulty in preserving her
self-command.
“You alarm me, dear baroness! Why should Adolph fall into such deep
misery because of his marriage as you seem to predict? He loves
Alexandra truly and sincerely. He praises her noble qualities, her
magnificent beauty, her accomplishments, and therefore I see every
prospect of a happy life for them both.”
“Alexandra is beautiful, very beautiful!” replied the baroness sadly;
“but this exterior beauty, perishable and worthless as it is, unless
united with nobility of mind as well as virtue, blinds my son.
Alexandra’s personal loveliness prevents him from seeing the ugliness
of her heart, mind, and spirit.”
The young professor seemed really perplexed. He knew that the baroness
was an admirable judge of character, and he loved his friend.
“Adolph wrote to me in his last letter that Alexandra is the daughter
of a Russian nobleman named Rasumowski, who fills the distinguished
position of governor of a province in Poland. I should think that the
daughter of a man to whom the Russian government has confided such a
trust would resemble her father.”
“She is his counterpart,” replied the Baroness von Sempach; “and her
father is the incorporate spirit of the Russian form of government;
he is imperious, proud, tyrannical, and utterly destitute of feeling.
You know the inhumanities practised by Russia upon Catholic Poland. An
endless succession of oppressive laws completely crushed the unhappy
Poles, from whom everything was taken—liberty, religion, property,
and life. In this atmosphere of cruel tyranny and injustice Alexandra
has grown up. From her childhood she has breathed an air which has
stifled all the gentle emotions of the heart. In a word, Alexandra is
a thorough Russian. How, then, can my son, with his respect for the
rights of man, with his enthusiastic love of freedom with his studious
disposition of mind, and his warm heart—how can he be happy in the
possession of such a wife? Never! A terrible awakening, bitter sorrow,
and lasting misfortune will soon poison the life of my child.”
“I believe you, dear madame! Why have you not expressed your fears to
Adolph?”
“I have done so often and urgently; but his blind passion for Alexandra
makes him deaf to all my representations.”
“If,” said Edward, after some reflection, “we could only succeed in
letting Adolph have a closer insight into Alexandra’s nature and
spiritual life, I am sure that he would turn with aversion from her.”
“But in this lies the difficulty, dear Edward. The Russians understand
well how to conceal by an artificial gloss of refinement their real
spiritual deformity.”
“Notwithstanding all this, the mask must be torn from the face of the
Russian lady, in order to save Adolph. I know what to do! My plan will
succeed!” exclaimed the professor.
“What do you intend doing, Edward?”
“I will enlighten my friend Adolph in regard to Russian manners. Do not
question me any further, dear madame, but confide in me!” said he, with
a cheerful face. “Wipe away your tears, and have courage, noble mother!”
He bowed and then sought the presence of his host. Adolph, a stately
young man with a kind face and the expressive eyes of his mother, had
just concluded a letter to his betrothed.
“Have you at last finished writing?” asked Edward. “You lovers never
know when to stop. I wonder what you have to say to each other day
after day?”
“A heart that loves is inexhaustible,” replied Adolph. “I could write
ten letters a day, and not say all I wish.”
“I know it,” said Edward, nodding his head.
“What do you know?”
“The readiness of love to make sacrifices,” replied his friend.
Adolph laughed aloud.
“The idea of your understanding what it is to love! When you begin to
love, the world will come to an end!” he exclaimed good-humoredly. “As
the city of Metz has inscribed over her gates, so also can you write
upon your forehead, ‘No one has ever conquered me.’ Although you speak
with great wisdom about many things, you know nothing of love.”
“But I am of the opposite opinion,” said Edward, looking with his
brilliant eyes at the laughing face of his friend. “Your love is about
six months old, but mine has lasted for ten years; it commenced when I
was sixteen. My love has been put to the test, and is still as enduring
as it was in the beginning. Your young love of only six months’
duration must, however, be tried as yet. How will it be when ten years
have passed away, and Alexandra’s beauty has faded? My beloved, on the
contrary, never grows old. She is always young and beautiful, like her
Father, the eternal fountain of all knowledge—like God; for my beloved
is—Knowledge.”
“You malicious fellow, to remind me of Alexandra’s future wrinkles! I
do not care, however, for my betrothed is at present the handsomest
girl living.”
“I will not deny the fact,” said Edward. “And if you will introduce
me into the much-to-be-envied atmosphere which the beautiful Russian
breathes, you will oblige me and my beloved very much.”
“I do not understand you!”
“I wish, in other words, to know something of Russian affairs by means
of my own observations,” replied Edward. “I would like to make a study
of her government for the benefit of the Germans.”
“For the benefit of the Germans?”
“Yes, indeed; for it is a well-known fact that the Russian system of
government is to be gradually introduced into the German Empire. A
beginning has already been made by enacting the famous law against the
Jesuits and kindred orders. Alexandra’s father is the highest official
of his district. Through him I could easily obtain a peep into state
matters, if you would recommend me.”
“With the greatest pleasure, my friend!” exclaimed Adolph, springing
from his chair in joyful surprise. “We will go together. I will
introduce you myself to the governor, and, while you labor in the
interest of your ever-youthful beloved, I will devote myself to
Alexandra.”
II.
THE PLETI.
Two days later, the friends were sojourning in the Rasumowski palace,
a stately building, formerly the property of a noble Polish family
whose only son now languished in Siberia. When the guests arrived, the
governor was absent, but his daughter received them with the greatest
hospitality. Edward found the youthful Russian lady very beautiful in
appearance, but his keen eyes soon detected beneath the surface of
her charming exterior a spirit of such moral deformity that he became
really alarmed in regard to the fate which threatened his friend if he
persisted in uniting himself to such a being.
“Oh! what joy! What an agreeable surprise!” exclaimed Alexandra.
“It is, in truth, an imperial joy! And papa also will be imperially
delighted to see you and your friend.”
“Is your father absent, Alexandra?” asked Adolph.
“Only for a few hours. He is with a distinguished gentleman from
Berlin. I expect him any moment, and his surprise will be really
imperial.”
The professor seemed astonished at her language. He availed himself of
the first suitable opportunity to satisfy his desire for knowledge.
“Pardon me, mademoiselle; you use the word imperial in a manner which
is incomprehensible to me—you speak of a really imperial joy, of a
truly imperial surprise. Will you permit me to ask you why you make use
of this peculiar expression?”
“If you had ever travelled through the holy Russian Empire,” she
replied, with a haughty look, “you would know that we use the word
imperial in the same sense as you in Germany say divine. Are you amazed
at that?”
“Indeed, mademoiselle,” answered the professor calmly, “I never
imagined that the words imperial and divine could be synonymous, for
the reason that there is an infinite difference between the emperor and
God.”
“That is your view of the subject, but we think differently in our holy
empire,” replied the arrogant beauty. “In Russia, the emperor is the
most exalted of beings; he is the autocrat of all Russia, and upon his
dominions the sun never sets. If we wish to express the highest degree
of joy, of surprise, of pleasure, or of beauty”—and she threw her head
proudly back—“then we say an imperial joy, an imperial pleasure, an
imperial beauty!”
“I am greatly indebted to you for this interesting explanation,” said
the professor, bowing low.
At this moment, the sound of an approaching carriage was heard.
“They have arrived!” said Alexandra. “What a pity that our
distinguished visitor from Berlin makes it necessary for papa to absent
himself so often!”
“Your company, dear Alexandra, is a charming substitute for your
father’s absence,” said Adolph von Sempach.
Two loud male voices in animated conversation resounded through the
corridor. Alexandra ran to open the door of the salon.
“Papa, who do you think is here? You will be delighted.”
“Who is it? Can it be Prince von Bismarck?” replied a rough voice, and
the governor entered the room. He was an elegantly dressed gentleman,
of stout appearance, and wore a light mustache; but his rubicund
countenance, which plainly betokened an unrestrained appetite, was
almost repulsive, on account of the cruel look in his eyes. The visitor
from Berlin followed him; he was a tall, broad-shouldered man, with a
bald head, sharp eyes, a heavy mustache, which overshadowed an ugly
mouth, and with features not less disagreeable than were those of the
Russian.
“Oh, Baron von Sempach? Is it possible!” exclaimed the governor,
pressing the hand of his future son-in-law. “It is really imperial!”
“My friend Edward Beck, Professor of History,” said Adolph, introducing
his travelling companion.
The untitled name seemed to displease the Russian, for he looked almost
with contempt at the stranger, and returned his bow with a scarcely
perceptible nod of the head. Von Sempach noticed this reception of his
friend, and, although very angry, hastened to pacify the ill-humor of
his proud host.
“I must inform you, governor,” said he, in a whisper, “that my friend
Edward Beck occupies a distinguished social position; and not only
that—he is the owner of vast estates, and the possessor of two
millions of guilders.”
“I feel highly honored at your presence in my house, Herr Beck,” said
the now polite Russian. “Allow me to introduce to you my esteemed
guest, Herr Schulze, of Berlin.”
The tall Prussian made a desperate effort to smile, and to force his
rigid, military figure to return the professor’s bow.
“The visit of my friend to your country has, at the same time, a
scientific object in view,” said Adolph. “He desires to learn something
of Russian affairs by personal observation. You will therefore oblige
me very much, Governor Rasumowski, if by means of your high official
position you consent to further his wishes in this respect.”
“What a happy coincidence!” replied the governor, with a significant
glance at the gentleman from Berlin. “Herr Schulze has come for the
same purpose. He also seeks to inform himself in regard to the glorious
administration of state and social affairs in our holy empire; but of
course with a different motive from that of Herr Beck, whose researches
are of a purely historical nature.”
“The knowledge of which I am in pursuit is for practical ends,” said
Herr Schulze, assuming a learned air. “I wish to examine and see if the
admirably constructed machinery of the Russian government cannot be
introduced with advantage into the new German Empire.”
“I am rejoiced to hear you speak as you do,” replied Beck; “for your
opinion in regard to the policy now in force throughout the new German
Empire corresponds with mine. Since the last Diet, it has become
evident to me that in future Germany must be governed as Russia now
is. The map of Europe,” he added, with a meaning smile intended for
Rasumowski, “would then not only have a Russian Poland, but also a
German Russia.”
“Rejoice at such a beneficial change, gentlemen!” exclaimed the
governor. “All nations can learn from and profit by the example of
our holy Russian Empire. In no country upon earth is there a stronger
government, and nowhere has the absurd idea of liberty taken less root,
than in the immense territory of the czar. Of course, in Germany,
some little concessions must be made at first, until an iron-bound
constitution, like that of Russia, can be formed—above all, the
inferior German princes must be set aside.”
“The beginning has been already made; it is only necessary to continue
our efforts,” replied the Berlin gentleman.
“See with what regularity everything proceeds with us,” asserted
Rasumowski. “All the wheels of state are controlled by the will of one
man, of our gracious sovereign, the emperor”—and he made a reverence
before the marble statue of the czar. “Whoever does not obey the will
of the sovereign will be surely crushed into atoms.”
A servant announced dinner. The party entered the dining-room, where
a magnificent banquet was served. The whole attention of Adolph was
absorbed by Alexandra, and Edward saw with deep regret his burning
passion for a creature who was unworthy of his noble-minded friend.
“As I said before, gentlemen, with us everything moves with
regularity,” said Rasumowski. “We do not permit the least
contradiction. The word liberty has no meaning with us; for
unconditional obedience is with us the fundamental law of the empire,
and whoever does not wish to obey must go to Siberia.”
“As far as I can understand, there does not exist in Russia any
fundamental law of state,” said Beck. “Or am I wrong?”
“No; you are right. We know nothing about it. The sovereign law is the
will of the emperor. Nothing but what the emperor commands has legal
power. The meeting of Deputies, Chambers, and of Diets is unheard of in
Russia. The almighty will of the czar answers instead of it. All laws
and decrees, no matter how long they have existed, can be abolished
by the emperor with one stroke of the pen. To him, as the sovereign,
everything belongs: the country and the people, the peasants and the
nobility, the church and the state. In fact, it can be said that the
only fundamental law of state in the holy Russian Empire is absolute
obedience to the will of the czar.”
“Excellent!” said Schulze. “If we had only made the same progress in
our new German Empire!”
“It is to be questioned whether this manner of government can be
introduced into Germany,” replied Beck. “There the people have a will
which makes itself heard in the Chambers.”
“Bah! of what account are the Diet and the Chambers?” exclaimed Schulze
contemptuously. “Acknowledge candidly, Herr Beck, what a miserable
_rôle_ our Chambers have recently played. Is not the will of the
chancellor the only law? Is not everything possible to the diplomatic
wisdom of Bismarck? Do the Deputies, Chambers, or Diet dare to
contradict the all-powerful minister? No! They only make such laws as
are pleasing to their master. Therefore I am right when I say that the
people no longer have a voice in the new German Empire. Wait a little
while, and the antiquated folly of Chambers and Diets will be also
abolished.”
“Your view is not entirely correct,” said Adolph von Sempach. “A strong
party in the Diet is opposed to the designs of Bismarck.”
“Yes, the ultramontanes!” answered Schulze. “But we are prepared for
them; we will conquer this rebellious set, so hostile to the empire!”
he exclaimed, with an angry flash of his eyes. “The ultramontanes in
Germany form only a rapidly disappearing minority, and this rabble, so
dangerous to the state, will soon be exterminated. Liberalism reigns
supreme in the new German Empire; Bismarck depends upon its support.
Every right-thinking man will see that in a well-organized state but
one will must be paramount, and not two or even three wills. The
emperor alone must rule. Therefore away with the will of the people,
away with the will of the church! The form of the Russian government
alone is sound; for here the emperor is the head of the state and of
the church. The civil officers rule according to the command of the
emperor—in a word, everything is done, as the governor has correctly
remarked, with regularity. And whoever does not obey will be sent to
the mines of Siberia.”
Von Sempach, whose countenance gave evidence of his disapproval, wished
to reply, but, at a sign from his friend, he remained silent.
“Yes, indeed, Siberia is a splendid place!” exulted the Russian. “The
new German Empire must also have a Siberia, to which her rebellious
subjects can be sent.”
“If German affairs continue to shape themselves so closely after the
example of Russia, we will undoubtedly have a Siberia very soon,” said
the professor, with an ambiguous smile.
“Without Siberia, what would we have done with the unruly Poles?”
exclaimed the charming daughter of the governor. “There in the mines,
in want and misery, the wretches can do penance for their presumption,
and repent for having disobeyed the Emperor of Russia.”
At hearing her remarks, all color forsook Adolph’s face; he looked
with amazement at his beautiful betrothed. Beck, however, noticed with
secret delight the impression she had made upon his friend.
“I am really anxious to learn,” said he, “how the people of the holy
Russian Empire live, and if they are so supremely happy.”
“You shall have proofs of it this afternoon,” said the governor. “We
will drive in half an hour to a village in the vicinity of the city.
The village is inhabited by Roman Catholics; but even there you will
find that the will of the emperor is respected.”
All now rose from the table; the guests retired to their rooms; but
Adolph, who seemed greatly depressed, sought the society of his friend.
“How do you like Alexandra?”
“She is, in truth, imperially beautiful,” answered Beck.
“But you heard her cruel remarks about the poor Poles?”
“Yes, I heard what she said, and am not astonished that a Russian lady,
whose father is governor, should think as he does; it is very natural,”
replied the professor.
Adolph appeared to be overwhelmed with sadness.
“Will you not go with us on our tour of inspection?” asked Edward.
“After such a painful exhibition of Alexandra’s sentiments, I need
something to distract my thoughts.”
“Have you noticed that the bust and portrait of the emperor, seated
on his throne, is to be seen in every corridor, chamber, and salon of
the palace?” remarked Edward. “He is like an idol in the house, before
which even the lovely head of Alexandra bows in reverence. This fact is
of the highest interest to me. Man must have a god, a sovereign being,
to serve. In Russia, the emperor is this sovereign; and Almighty God
in heaven is, as the Russians imagine, the vassal of the emperor; for
bishops, priests, and popes can only teach and preach that which the
imperial sovereign commands and permits. And such a sovereign is to sit
upon the throne of the new German Empire! A glorious prospect for us!”
“Ridiculous nonsense!” exclaimed the young nobleman. “The German nation
would never submit to such a yoke of tyranny. Germans will never become
slaves!”
“Do not be too confident, Von Sempach! A keen observer has said that
the Germans are a most servile people.”
“But they never will be the slaves of a Russian czar,” replied Von
Sempach. “The German people, two years ago, gave ample proofs of what
they can do. Like our imaginary Michael,[16] who for a long time
allowed himself to be kicked about and abused, but who suddenly shook
off his lethargy, and fought like a lion, so will it be with Germany,
which seems to have fallen into a state of good-humored torpor, during
which cunning men have taken advantage of her apparent indifference to
deprive her gradually of her ancient privileges; but let the Germans
once feel the weight of Russian despotism, and you will see with what
fury they will break loose the chains that bind them.”
Ten minutes later, the carriage of the governor rolled through
the streets of the city. He had given orders to be driven over a
well-paved public road to a neighboring village. At a short distance
from the carriage followed four Cossacks, mounted on small horses from
Tartary. One of them carried in the belt of his sabre a very peculiar
instrument. Attached to a strong wooden handle were nailed seven straps
of leather, which terminated in hard knots. It was commonly called “the
pleti,” and was, by the command of the Emperor Nicholas, used as a
substitute for the notorious knout.
Just as the village became visible behind the rows of trees that
bordered the public road, the governor commanded the driver to stop. In
looking from the window, he had observed, upon a lately cleared space,
a collection of wooden huts which were situated a short distance from
the road.
“What is the meaning of this? Who has dared to build these huts?” he
exclaimed, in amazement.
“They look very much like our barracks in Berlin,” said Schulze. “Some
poor wretches built huts outside of the city because they could not
earn enough to pay house-rent. The fact of their being permitted to
remain so near Berlin is a disgrace to the intelligence of the capital
of the new empire. It will be quite difficult to remove them.”
“I shall not tolerate such things in my district,” said the Russian
abruptly.
The carriage proceeded on its way, and stopped before a handsome house,
the residence of the mayor, who was the only person in the village who
belonged to the Russian state Church. This man had very small eyes and
an immense mustache; and it was evident, from the odor of his breath,
that he had been imbibing freely. When summoned before the governor, he
assumed a most abject appearance, and his form seemed really to shrink
while in the presence of the powerful official.
“What huts are those outside of the village?” said Rasumowski,
addressing him roughly.
“To reply, with your honor’s permission, they are the dwellings of
some poor people who have settled there. They are very orderly, pay
their taxes punctually, and support themselves by mending kettles, by
grinding scissors, by making rat and mouse traps, and such means.”
“Who gave them permission to settle there?”
“The parish, your honor. The ground upon which the huts stand belongs
to the parish.”
“Listen, and obey my orders!” said the governor. “These huts must be
taken down without delay; for the emperor has not given this ground to
peasants, that they may propagate like vermin. If the rabble cannot
rent houses in the village, then they must go further, perhaps to
Siberia, where there is plenty of work in the mines.”
The mayor of the village bowed most obsequiously.
Beck watched his friend Adolph, who seemed greatly revolted at the
inhuman command.
Herr Schulze, of Berlin, on the contrary, looked as though he had heard
something that would prove of incalculable benefit to mankind.
“On what text did the Catholic pastor preach last Sunday?” asked the
governor.
“With the permission of your honor, his sermon was on redemption
through Jesus Christ.”
“Did he make no mention of the emperor?”
“No, your honor.”
“Did he say nothing about the obedience due the emperor?”
“No, your honor.”
“Go at once, and bring the priest before me!”
“I beg pardon, your honor, but he has gone to visit a sick person at
some distance.”
“Then send him to me in the city. To-morrow, at nine in the morning, he
must appear before me, and bring his sermon with him!”
The mayor made an humble obeisance.
“Did the priest presume to say anything about the Pope?”
“No, your honor; since the Roman Catholic priests who preached about
the Pope were sent to Siberia, nothing is said about him.”
“With regard to other matters, how are things progressing in the
village?”
“Admirably, your honor! After the twenty Catholic families were sent
to Siberia, all the inhabitants are willing to die in obedience to our
good emperor. The people are all satisfied; no one wishes to go into
exile.”
“In how many villages of Germany,” said the governor to his guests,
“can you find the people so contented and ready to give their lives
in obedience to our good emperor? The form of government in the holy
Russian Empire works miracles. Now, gentlemen, follow me to the
schoolhouse, so that you may see how Russia educates her subjects.”
They left the mayor’s residence, and crossed the street to the
schoolhouse.
“I must tell you in advance,” observed Rasumowski, “that in Russia we
do not cultivate a fancy for popular education. Our peasants are only
entitled to be taught three things: to obey, to work, and to pay taxes.
In this consists their knowledge; it is the axis around which revolves
our national education.”
He opened the school door. About one hundred children, dirty and poorly
clad, sat upon the benches. The schoolmaster, who had already espied
the arrival of the governor, bowed in fear and trembling.
“How is it with the children of the emperor, teacher? Do you fulfil
your duty in obedience to my orders?”
“I endeavor to do so, your honor.”
“I shall convince myself, and ask some questions from the catechism of
our state religion,” said the governor.
He called up several children, and began to question them, which
questions were as remarkable and as interesting to the professor as
were the answers.
“Who is your sovereign lord?”
“The good emperor of holy Russia.”
“What do you owe to the emperor?”
“Unconditional obedience, love, and payment of taxes.”
“In what does the happiness of a Russian consist?”
“In being a brave soldier of the good emperor.”
“Where does the soul of man go after death?”
“To heaven or to hell.”
“What soul goes to heaven?”
“That soul which always obeys the good emperor and owes no taxes.”
“What soul goes to hell?”
“That soul which was disobedient to the emperor.”
The governor turned towards his guests.
“You have already commenced a system of compulsory education in
Germany,” said he; “but when you succeed in establishing a state
church, and have a catechism of state religion, then will the new
German Empire, like our czar, be able to educate subjects who must obey
him blindly.”
He now turned again to the children.
“Is there a pope in Rome?”
The child who was questioned looked at the teacher, who had become as
pale as death.
“Answer me! Is there a pope in Rome?” repeated the governor.
“No; there is only one emperor, who is at the same time the pope of all
the Russians,” replied the child.
“Schoolmaster, I am satisfied with you,” said Rasumowski approvingly.
“You know that the only things which every good Russian must do is
to work diligently, to pay taxes punctually, and to blindly obey the
emperor. These three things you must impress upon the minds of the
children!”
The governor was about to leave the schoolroom, when he suddenly
stopped, and his face became crimson with anger. He had espied the
portrait of the emperor, which hung in a gilt frame on the wall.
The glass that covered it was broken, and it was soiled with a few
ink-stains.
“Schoolmaster, what is this?” exclaimed the governor furiously.
“Pardon, your honor!” implored the trembling teacher. “A wicked boy
threw his inkstand at the picture.”
“And you, miserable wretch that you are, left it thus disfigured upon
the wall! Follow me!”
The governor, with his guests and the teacher, left the room, and
entered an office where the mayor held his sessions.
“Schoolmaster!” began the governor, “you deserve to be sent to Siberia,
for you Roman Catholics are only fit for the mines. You refuse blind
obedience, and deny the right of the emperor to command in church
affairs; you are constantly rebelling against the empire, and all of
you should, therefore, be sent into exile. For your insolence, however,
in leaving the portrait of our holy emperor in this neglected state,
you will receive ten blows with the pleti.”
He stepped forward to the window, and summoned the Cossack who carried
the instrument of torture.
“Corporal, give ten heavy strokes with the pleti on this teacher’s
back!”
The Cossack seized a bench, and motioned the teacher to stretch himself
upon it.
Von Sempach and Beck, finding it impossible to conceal their
indignation, left the room. In going down-stairs, they heard the
whizzing sound of the lash and the screams of the poor teacher.
“I shall lose my senses,” said Adolph, while waiting at the threshold.
“My God! has Alexandra grown up amid such scenes?”
The professor was delighted to hear this remark.
“It is, indeed, a very demoralizing atmosphere for a woman to breathe,”
said he.
“Can it be that Alexandra has escaped the contaminating influence of
Russian customs? Has _she_ also lost all feeling and the delicacy of
her sex? We must find out, if possible.”
Rasumowski and Schulze approached.
“Ah! gentlemen,” exclaimed the governor laughingly, “the singing of
the pleti caused you to leave! Well, we Russians accustom ourselves to
such things. When, with other practical institutions, the pleti is also
introduced into the new German Empire, then you will learn to think it
as useful an instrument as is the whip in the hands of the cartman.”
“Who drive oxen and donkeys,” added the professor.
“Our new German Empire has already introduced a punishment for the
soldiers, which causes as much pain as the pleti,” said Adolph von
Sempach. “I have read repeatedly in the newspapers that soldiers, while
upon drill, have fallen fainting to the ground. The reason was their
being compelled to carry heavy stones in their knapsacks, until their
strength gave way.”
“It is a Russian invention that you have borrowed from us; we have long
practised it,” asserted Rasumowski.
“And I suppose we have also adopted your severe system of military
arrest, which Count von Moltke justifies by ingeniously remarking that
even in time of peace the soldier owes his health to his country.”
“Yes, it is true we keep up the same strict discipline,” exclaimed the
Russian; “but Moltke should have said that the soldier owes his health
and life to the _emperor_, and not to the _country_. Words are useless;
acts are what we insist upon.”
When leaving the house, there were a number of men, women, and children
outside who awaited the governor. At seeing him, they all fell upon
their knees, and lifted up their hands in supplication.
“Pardon! Mercy! Humanity!” were heard in confused accents.
“Keep quiet!” commanded Rasumowski. “Schulze, what does this mean?”
“Your honor, these are the poor people who live in the huts. They ask
you, for God’s sake, not to destroy their only place of shelter.”
“Asking me to do a thing for God’s sake!” exclaimed the governor
harshly. “If they had asked me to do so for the emperor’s sake, I would
perhaps have granted their request. Begone! Away with you! My orders
are to be obeyed!”
The people, however, did not rise, but burst forth into fresh
lamentations and tears.
“Your honor,” said an old man, “graciously listen to us, as the good
emperor would do, who always wishes to help his people. We built those
huts by permission of the parish, and we strive to make a living in an
honest way. We pay the taxes, and are not in debt to the emperor. If
your honor destroys our huts, whither shall we poor people go? Must we
live with the foxes and wolves in the forests? Is this the will of the
emperor?”
“The emperor desires his subjects to live in comfortable houses, for
which reason the huts must be removed,” answered Rasumowski.
“Your honor, we have no means to build comfortable houses,” replied the
old man. “Look at the little children; they will die if the orders of
your honor are executed.”
“I will hear no more: it is the emperor’s will!” exclaimed the governor.
The words “It is the emperor’s will” had the most disheartening effect
upon the poor people. The haggard, wretchedly-clad assemblage gave way
to despair, but a low murmur was all that was heard.
Rasumowski looked triumphantly at his guests, as if he had said in so
many words: “You see what the will of the emperor can do!”
But the professor was not to be deceived. The suppressed wrath plainly
visible in the faces of the men did not escape him.
A young man rose humbly from his knees, and looked with strangely
glittering eyes upon the governor.
“It is not true!—the emperor does not, cannot wish us to suffer!” he
exclaimed.
Rasumowski looked with astonishment at the bold youth.
“How do you know that it is not the will of the emperor?” he asked.
“The emperor is human, but what you command is inhuman!” answered the
intrepid peasant.
The Russian governor absolutely trembled with anger.
“Fifteen lashes with the pleti—give it to him soundly!” he cried, and
walked towards the carriage, which drove slowly through the village.
Adolph von Sempach sat depressed and silent. What he had seen and
heard did not tend to elevate the character of the beautiful Alexandra
in his estimation, as her remarks concerning the cruelties upon the
unfortunate Poles seemed to prove that she had inherited the barbarous
disposition of her father.
“Do you hear the screams of the insolent fellow?” said the governor.
“The pleti is unfortunately a poor affair—it has not sufficient
swing and force. The old knout was much better; for it was made of
strong leather straps, intertwined with wire. The Emperor Nicholas I.
introduced this new knout, however—and whatever the czar does, is well
done; but if I were consulted, I would bring the old knout again into
use.”
“I fear, governor,” said Beck “that even the new knout or the pleti
would meet with invincible opposition in Germany.”
“You are mistaken,” answered the Russian. “The Germans can also be
subdued—the German neck must bow to him who has the power. Now,
gentlemen, I will show you some evidences of the industry of our
farmers,” he continued, when the carriage had left the village. “Look
at our abundant crops! The German farmer can hardly excel the Russian.
You find everywhere signs of prudent husbandry as well as of diligence
and perseverance.”
Herr Schulze gave a token of assent, the professor knew nothing about
agriculture, and Von Sempach preserved a gloomy silence.
“Do you see that village?” said Rasumowski, pointing in a certain
direction. “All the inhabitants are Roman Catholics, with the
exception of the mayor, of course; but for ten years they have been
without a priest, without divine service, without a church.”
“I think I see a church,” remarked Beck.
“Yes, the church is there, but it has been closed for ten years. The
former Roman Catholic pastor, who persisted in preaching upon the
dignity of man, the liberty of the children of God, and even of the
pope and other dangerous things, was transported to Siberia, and the
church was closed by my command.”
“I admire your eminently practical method,” observed the guest from
Berlin. “We would not dare as yet to do such a thing in the new German
Empire.”
“But it will be done in good time,” replied the Russian.
The carriage, in returning, had by this time reached the outskirts of
the city.
“Ah!” exclaimed Herr Schulze in joyful surprise, “the huts have already
disappeared. I shall write at once to my friends in Berlin, and apprise
them of the expeditious manner in which the Russian government acts.”
TO BE CONCLUDED IN OUR NEXT NUMBER.
THE VIRGIN MARY TO CHRIST ON THE CROSSE.
What mist hath dimd that glorious face? what seas of griefe my sun
doth tosse?
The golden raies of heauenly grace lies now eclipsèd on the crosse.
Iesus! my loue, my Sonne, my God, behold Thy mother washt in teares:
Thy bloudie woundes be made a rod to chasten these my latter yeares.
You cruell Iewes, come worke your ire, vpon this worthlesse flesh of
mine:
And kindle not eternall fire, by wounding Him which is diuine.
Thou messenger that didst impart His first descent into my wombe,
Come help me now to cleaue my heart, that there I may my Sonne
intombe.
You angels all, that present were, to shew His birth with harmonie;
Why are you not now readie here, to make a mourning symphony?
The cause I know, you waile alone and shed your teares in secresie,
Lest I should mouèd be to mone, by force of heauie companie.
But waile my soul, thy comfort dies, my wofull wombe, lament thy
fruit;
My heart giue teares unto my eies, let Sorrow string my heauy lute.
—_Southwell._
POET AND MARTYR.[17]
PART FIRST—MARTYR.
“Hoist up sail while gale doth last,
Tide and wind stay no man’s pleasure:
Seek not time when time is past,
Sober speed is wisdom’s leisure.
After-wits are dearly bought,
Let thy fore-wit guide thy thought.”
“Time wears all his locks before,
Take thou hold upon his forehead;
When he flies, he turns no more,
And behind his scalp is naked.
Works adjourn’d have many stays;
Long demurs breed new delays.”
—_Robert Southwell, 1593._[18]
CONCERNING the writer of these beautiful lines, the English historian,
Stow, makes the following brief mention in his _Chronicle_: “February
20, 1594-5.—Southwell, a Jesuit, that long time had lain prisoner in
the Tower of London, was arraigned at the King’s Bench bar. He was
condemned, and on the next morning drawn from Newgate to Tyburn, and
there hanged, bowelled, and quartered.” From this account we are unable
to discover that the man whose judicial murder Stow thus records was
put to death for any offence but that of being a JESUIT,
and of having “long time lain in prison in the Tower of London.”
And yet, in thus stating the case, Stow tells the simple truth; for
Southwell was guilty of no more serious crime than his sacerdotal
character, and of suffering the imprisonment and tortures inflicted
upon him in consequence thereof. For three years previous to his
death he had been in prison and in the Tower, had lain in noisome
and filthy dungeons, and been subjected many times to torture and
the rack. From the high social position of his family, the fame of
his literary accomplishments, his admirable and saintly bearing as a
missionary priest in England, for six long years carrying his life
in his hand while ministering to a scattered flock, obliged to move
from place to place in disguise as though he were a malefactor, and
finally, from the wonderful fortitude and constancy with which he was
said to have suffered torture, his case was very generally known in
London, and deeply commiserated even by many Protestants. So deep and
widespread, indeed, was this sympathy that, when it was determined by
the officers of the crown to try and condemn him on one and the same
day, and execute him the next morning, they withheld from the public
all announcement of his execution, meanwhile giving notice of the
hanging of a famous highwayman in another place in order to draw off
the concourse of spectators. But it availed not, for there were many
who kept so close a watch upon the movements at Newgate, to which
prison he had been removed a few days before his trial, that, when
Southwell was brought out to be drawn on a sled or hurdle to the place
of execution at Tyburn, he was followed by great numbers of people, and
among them many persons of distinction, who witnessed the carrying out
of his dreadful sentence, which was that he should be “hung, bowelled,
and quartered.”
That our readers may understand that our qualification of Southwell’s
execution as a judicial murder is not the result of mere personal
sympathy or of religious prejudice, we will here record the judgment
of several Protestant authorities, who speak out concerning it in a
manner not to be misunderstood. In the valuable _Cyclopædia of English
Literature_, by Chambers, we read concerning Southwell that, after
having ministered secretly but zealously to the scattered adherents
of his creed, “without, as far as is known, doing anything to disturb
the peace of society, he was apprehended and committed to a dungeon
in the Tower, so noisome and filthy that, when he was brought out
for examination, his clothes were covered with vermin. Upon this his
father, a man of good family, presented a petition to Queen Elizabeth,
begging that, if his son had committed anything for which, by the
laws, he had deserved death, he might suffer death; if not, as he was
a gentleman, he begged her majesty would be pleased to order him to
be treated as a gentleman. Southwell after this was somewhat better
lodged, but an imprisonment of three years, with ten inflictions of the
rack, wore out his patience, and he entreated to be brought to trial.
Cecil is said to have made the brutal remark that, ‘if he was in so
much haste to be hanged, he should quickly have his desire.’ Being at
the trial found guilty, upon his own confession, of being a Romish
priest, he was condemned to death, and executed at Tyburn accordingly,
with all the horrible circumstances dictated by the old treason laws of
England. Throughout all these scenes he behaved with a mild fortitude
which nothing but a highly regulated mind and satisfied conscience
could have prompted.”
Cleveland (_Compendium of English Literature_, p. 88), after stating
the circumstances of Southwell’s imprisonment, trial, and execution,
remarks: “The whole proceeding should cover the authors of it with
everlasting infamy. It is a foul stain upon the garments of the maiden
queen that she can never wipe off. There was not a particle of evidence
at his trial that this pious and accomplished poet meditated any evil
designs against the government. He did what he had a perfect right to
do; ay, what it was his duty to do, if he conscientiously thought he
was right—endeavor to make converts to his faith, so far as he could
without interfering with the right of others. If there be anything to
be execrated, it is persecution for opinion’s sake.”
Allibone, in his _Dictionary of English Literature_, says that
Southwell, “to the disgrace of the English government, suffered as a
martyr at Tyburn, February 21, 1595, after three years’ imprisonment
in the Tower, during which it is asserted he was ten times subjected
to the torture. He was a good poet, a good prose writer, and a better
Christian than his brutal persecutors.”
Old Fuller, in his _Worthies of England_, as might be expected, views
Southwell with a stern English Protestant eye, and thus dismisses
him: “Robert Southwell was born in this county (Norfolk), as Pitsons
affirmeth, who, although often mistaken in his locality, may be
believed herein, as professing himself familiarly acquainted with him
at Rome. But the matter is not much where he was born, seeing, though
cried up by men of his own profession for his many books in verse and
prose, he was reputed a dangerous enemy by the state, for which he was
imprisoned and executed March the 3d, 1595” (vol. iii. p. 187).
Robert Southwell was the third son of Richard Southwell, Esq., of
Horsham, St. Faith’s, Norfolk. The curious in genealogy, while
investigating family lines associated with the Southwell pedigree,
have found connected with it, in degrees more or less near, the names
of Paston, Sidney, Howard, Newton, and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Of his
early years there is but slight record, save that, when still very
young, he was sent to Douai to be educated. From Douai he passed to
Paris and thence to Rome, where, in 1578, before he had yet reached
the age of seventeen, he was received into the order of the Society of
Jesus. On completion of his novitiate and termination of the courses
of philosophy and theology, he was made prefect of studies of the
English College at Rome. Ordained priest in 1584, and, as appears
from his letter addressed, February 20, 1585, to the general of the
order, seeking the “perilous” errand wherein his future martyrdom seems
rather to have been anticipated than merely referred to as a simple
possibility,[19] he left Rome on the 8th of May, 1586, a missionary to
his native land, or, in other words, took up his line of march for the
scaffold and for heaven. We have, naturally enough, but scant record
of the young priest’s journey to and arrival in England; for, as the
mere landing in England by a Catholic priest was then a penal offence
punishable with death, Southwell’s return to his native country was
surrounded as much as possible by secrecy. Although yearning to visit
his home and embrace his family, he carefully abstained from going near
them—of doing that which, in his quaint phrase of the day, “maketh my
presence perilous.” But he was aware that his father was in danger of
losing, if he had not already lost, his faith; and these fears were
almost confirmed by the facts that he had formed a marriage with a lady
of the court, and that his wealth gave him entrance to court circles
which were necessarily violently Protestant. Deeply solicitous for his
father’s spiritual condition, he therefore addressed him a letter of
admonition and advice, not less remarkable for its tone of affection
than for its energy and eloquence. We cite it in another place.
HUNTED DOWN.
At a time when, as Mr. Grosart says, “it was a crime to be a Catholic:
it was proof of high treason to be a priest: it was to invite ‘hunting’
as of a wild beast to be a Jesuit,” we cannot reasonably look for many
recorded traces of Father Southwell’s presence and journeyings to and
fro while in England. He could only move in disguise or under the
darkness of night; he was liable to be thrown into prison anywhere on
the merest suspicion of any irresponsible accuser. The few Catholics
who were ready to give him shelter and hospitality did so with the
halter around their necks; for confiscation and death were the penalty,
as they well knew, for “harboring” a priest. It is nevertheless certain
that his refuge in London was the mansion of the Countess of Arundel,
whose husband, Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel, was imprisoned in the
Tower, and died there, the noblest victim to the jealous and suspicious
tyranny of Elizabeth, _non sine veneni suspicione_, as his epitaph
still testifies.
Hundreds of Southwell’s letters to his superiors still exist, but they
are all from necessity written in such general terms and in so guarded
a manner as to afford but little historical information. Here is one
of them, as given by Bishop Challoner in his _Memoirs of Missionary
Priests_:
1. “As yet we are alive and well, being unworthy, it seems, of prisons.
We have oftener sent, than received, letters from your parts, tho’ they
are not sent without difficulty; and some, we know, have been lost.”
2. “The condition of Catholic recusants here is the same as usual,
deplorable and full of fears and dangers, more especially since our
adversaries have look’d for wars. As many of ours as are in chains
rejoice and are comforted in their prisons; and they that are at
liberty set not their heart upon it, nor expect it to be of long
continuance. All by the great goodness and mercy of God arm themselves
to suffer anything that can come, how hard soever it may be, as it
shall please our Lord; for whose greater glory, and the salvation of
their souls, they are more concerned than for any temporal losses.”
3. “A little while ago, they apprehended two priests, who have suffered
such cruel usages in the prison of Bridewell as can scarce be believed.
What was given them to eat was so little in quantity, and, withal,
so filthy and nauseous, that the very sight was enough to turn their
stomachs. The labors to which they obliged them were continual and
immoderate, and no less in sickness than in health; for, with hard
blows and stripes, they forced them to accomplish their task how weak
soever they were. Their beds were dirty straw, and their prison most
filthy. Some are there hung up for whole days by the hands, in such a
manner that they can but just touch the ground with the tips of their
toes. This purgatory we are looking for every hour, in which Topcliffe
and Young, the two executioners of the Catholics, exercise all kinds of
torments. But come what pleaseth God, we hope we shall be able to bear
all in him that strengthens us. I most humbly recommend myself to the
holy sacrifices of your reverence and of all our friends. (January 15,
1590.)”
PURSUIT AND ESCAPE.
In a work[20] published so lately as 1871, we catch a few fugitive
glances of Father Robert Southwell. Father Gerard spoke of him at the
time (1585) as “excelling in the art of helping and gaining souls,
being at once prudent, pious, meek, and exceedingly winning.”
A descent was made by the pursuivants upon a house in the country,
where the two fathers happened to be together, and but for the devotion
of the domestics the two missionaries would have been captured. They
escaped, however, and journeyed away together. The peculiar danger
they were then subjected to was that arising from intercourse with the
gentry. Father Gerard tells of a gentleman who violently suspected
him, and adds: “After a day or so he quite abandoned all mistrust, as
I spoke of hunting and falconry with all the details that none but
a practised person could command.” He concludes: “For many make sad
blunders in attempting this, as Father Southwell, who was afterwards
my companion in many journeys, was wont to complain. He frequently
got me to instruct him in the technical terms of sport, and used to
complain of his bad memory for such things; for on many occasions when
he fell in with Protestant gentlemen he found it necessary to speak of
these matters, which are the sole topics of their conversations, save
when they talk obscenity or break out into blasphemies and abuse of the
saints or the Catholic faith.”
With danger of possible arrest at every house and on every road,
followed by swift and barbarous execution, Father Southwell for six
long years carried his life in his hand.
PROTESTANT OPINION.
“Granted,” says his Protestant biographer (Grosart, xlix.), “that
in our Southwell’s years 1588 is included, and that the shadow of
the coming of the Armada lay across England from the very moment of
his arrival; granted that, in the teeth of their instructions, there
were priests and members of the Society of Jesus who deemed they did
God service by ‘plotting’ for the restoration of the old ‘faith and
worship’ after a worldly sort; granted that politically and civilly
the nation was, in a sense, in the throes of since-achieved liberties;
granted that _Mary_, all too sadly, even tremendously, earned her
epithet of ‘Bloody’; granted that the very mysticism, not to say
mystery, of the ‘higher’ sovereignty claimed for him who wore the
tiara, acted as darkness does with sounds the most innocent; granted
nearly all that Protestantism claims in its apology as defence—it
must be regarded as a stigma on the statesmanship and a stain on the
Christianity of the reformed Church of England, as well as a sorrow
to all right-minded and right-hearted, that the ‘convictions’ of
those who could not in conscience ‘change’ at the bidding of Henry
VIII., Elizabeth, or James were not respected; that ‘opinion,’ or,
if you will, ‘error,’ was put down (or attempted to be put down) by
force, and that the headsman’s axe and hangman’s rope were the only
instrumentalities thought of. The State Trials remain to bring a blush
to every lover of his country for the brutal and ‘hard’ mockery of
justice in the higher courts of law whenever a priest was concerned—as
later with the Puritans and Nonconformists.”
FALSE BRETHREN AND THE MAN-HUNTER.
With malignant pursuit that never slackened, and that old peril of
S. Paul, “false brethren,” Southwell’s arrest was, of course, a mere
question of time. His day came at last, after six years of labor and
danger in the field. The circumstances are as follows, from Turnbull,
verified by other authorities. There was resident at Uxenden, near
Harrow on the Hill, in Middlesex, a Catholic family by the name of
Bellamy, occasionally visited by Southwell for the purpose of religious
instruction. One of the daughters, Ann, had in her early youth
exhibited marks of the most vivid and unshakable piety; but having
been committed to the gatehouse of Westminster, her faith gradually
departed, and along with it her virtue: for, having formed an intrigue
with the keeper of the prison, she subsequently married him, and by
this step forfeited all claim which she had by law or favor upon her
father. In order, therefore, to obtain some fortune, she resolved to
take advantage of the act of 27 Elizabeth, which made the harboring
of a priest treason, with confiscation of the offender’s goods.
Accordingly she sent a messenger to Southwell, urging him to meet her
on a certain day and hour at her father’s house; whither he, either
in ignorance of what had happened, or under the impression that she
sought his spiritual assistance through motives of penitence, went at
the appointed time. In the meanwhile, having apprised her husband of
this, as also the place of concealment in her father’s house and the
mode of access, he conveyed the information to Topcliffe, an implacable
persecutor and denouncer of the Catholics, who, with a band of his
satellites, surrounded the premises, broke open the house, arrested
his reverence, and carried him off in open day, exposed to the gaze
of the populace. Topcliffe carried Southwell to his own (Topcliffe’s)
dwelling, and there, in the course of ten weeks, tortured him with
such pitiless severity that the unhappy victim, complaining of it to
his judges, declared that death would have been preferable. A letter,
qualified by Grosart as “fawning, cruel, and abominable,” written by
this human bloodhound, Topcliffe, and addressed to no less a personage
than Queen Elizabeth, reports the capture and torture of Southwell, and
states, with details, how he proposes further to torture him.
The letter is dated Westminster, June 22, 1592, and advises the queen:
“I have him here within my strong chamber in Westminster churchyard
(_i.e._ the gatehouse). I have made him assured for starting or
hurting of himself by putting upon his arms a pair of;[21] and so to
keep him either from view or conference with any but Nicolas, the
underkeeper of the gatehouse.... Upon this present taking of him it is
good forthwith to enforce him to answer truly and directly; and so to
prove his answers true in haste, to the end that such as he be deeply
concerned in his treachery may not have time to start, or make shift
to use any means in common prisons; either to stand upon or against
the wall will give warning. _But if your highness’ pleasure be to know
anything in his heart, to stand against the wall, his feet standing
upon the ground, and his hands put as high as he can reach against the
wall_ (like a trick at Tremshemarn), will enforce him to tell all;
and the truth proven by the sequel....[22] It may please your majesty
to consider, I never did take so weighty a man, if he be rightly
considered.”[23]
The reader will here readily recognize a partial description of one
of the modes of torture then most common in use throughout the reign
of Elizabeth. It seems that it _was_ “her highness’ pleasure” to know
something that was in this poor martyr’s heart, for Southwell was
afterwards again repeatedly tortured. The intimate personal relations
existing between the virgin queen and this man Topcliffe, whose very
name was a stench in the nostrils of Protestants of respectable
behavior, were maintained long after the Southwell capture, as we learn
from the best authority. The cruelty of Elizabeth was only surpassed
by her mendacity, as her mendacity was only exceeded by her mean
parsimony, and when she travelled or made progress from one country to
another it was always at the expense of her good and loyal subjects.
Eventually the announcement of a visit from their good queen, received
outwardly with such declarations as might naturally follow the promise
of the call of a special envoy from heaven, was in reality looked upon
as the coming of a terrible calamity. It was at that time considered at
the English court—where, as we all know, all the civil and religious
virtues had taken refuge—an excellent jest to so direct the course
of the queen’s progress as to make her visits fall at the residences
of well-known Catholic gentlemen. It is only necessary to say that
the anniversary of all such events yet lives in the traditions of the
descendants of such families as that of a day of horror. The royal
retinue treated the house like a captured place, and it was well for
the proprietor if confiscation or death, or both, were not the sole
reward of his generous hospitality.
Mr. Topcliffe gives us valuable information on this point. On the
30th of August, 1578, he writes to the Earl of Shrewsbury: “The next
good news (not in account the highest), her majesty hath served God
with great zeal and comfortable examples; for by her council the two
notorious papists, young Rookwood (the master of Ewston Hall, where
her majesty did lie upon Sunday now a fortnight), and one Downs, a
gentleman, were both committed, the one to the town prison at Norwich,
the other to the county prison there, for obstinate papistry; and seven
more gentlemen of worship were committed to several houses in Norwich
as prisoners; two of the Lovells, another Downs, one Benings, one
Parry, and two others.... Her majesty, by some means I know not, was
lodged at his (Rookwood’s) house, Ewston, far unmeet for her highness,
but fitter for the blackguard; nevertheless her excellent majesty
gave to Rookwood ordinary thanks for his bad house, and her fair
hand to kiss; after which it was braved at. But my lord chamberlain,
nobly and gravely understanding that Rookwood was excommunicated for
papistry, called him before him, demanded of him how he durst presume
to attempt her real presence, he, unfit to accompany any Christian
person; forthwith said he was fitter for a pair of stocks; commanded
him out of the court, and yet to attend her council’s pleasure; and
at Norwich he was committed,”[24] etc. etc. In the beginning of the
letter Topcliffe “joys at her majesty’s gracious favor and affiance in
your lordship—next some comfort I received of her for myself that must
ever lie nearest my own heart.” Tender Topcliffe! But we must have “no
scandal about Queen Elizabeth,” and our most delicate susceptibilities
for the fair fame of the royal virgin may be quieted by the certainty
that the comfort nearest the human bloodhound’s “own heart” was
something substantial—a country house, an estate, or the like.
Lodge says that this Topcliffe was respectably connected, but that
he could only find that he was distinguished as a most implacable
persecutor of Roman Catholics. In a letter of Sir Anthony Standen, in
which he praises the agreeable manners of the Earl of Essex, he writes:
“Contrary to our _Topcliffian_ customs, he hath won more with words
than others could do with racks.” From another letter of the period
it appears that _Topcliffzare_ in the quaint language of the court
signified to hunt a recusant.
But to return to Southwell. Transferred to a dungeon in the Tower,
“so noisome and filthy that, when he was brought out at the end of
the month, his clothes were covered with vermin,” his father wrote
to her majesty Queen Elizabeth the letter we have already mentioned.
This petition was to some extent regarded. A better lodging was allowed
him, and leave accorded his father to supply him with “cloaths and
other necessaries”; and amongst the rest, with books which he asked
for, which were only the Holy Bible and the works of S. Bernard. “The
selection of books,” says Mr. Grosart, “_the_ book of books, and the
father of the fathers, for a poet is very noteworthy; and through all
his weary imprisonment ‘spiritual things,’ not civil or earthly, were
his theme when he discoursed to his sister Mary (Mrs. Bannister) or
others permitted occasionally to visit him.”
TRIAL AND EXECUTION.
We adopt mainly the relation of Southwell’s trial and execution as it
is given by Bishop Challoner, supported by a Latin MS. preserved in the
archives of the English College of S. Omer’s:
“After Father Southwell had been kept close prisoner for three years
in the Tower, he sent an epistle to Cecil, Lord Treasurer, humbly
entreating his lordship that he might either be brought upon his trial
to answer for himself, or at least that his friends might have leave
to come and see him. The treasurer answered that, if he was in so much
haste to be hanged, he should quickly have his desire. Shortly after
this orders were given that he should be removed from the Tower to
Newgate, where he was put down into the dungeon called _Limbo_, and
there kept for three days.
“On the 22d of February, without any previous warning to prepare
for his trial, he was taken out of his dark lodging and hurried to
Westminster, to hold up his hand there at the bar. The first news of
this step towards his martyrdom filled his heart with a joy which he
could not conceal. The judges before whom he was to appear were Lord
Chief-Justice Popham, Justice Owen, Baron Evans, and Sergeant Daniel.
As soon as Father Southwell was brought in, the lord chief-justice made
a long and vehement speech against the Jesuits and seminary priests,
as the authors and contrivers of all the plots and treasons which, he
pretended, had been hatched during that reign. Then was read the bill
of indictment against Father Southwell, drawn up by Cook, the queen’s
solicitor.”
THEIR FAITH WAS THEIR GUILT.
It would be well to remark here that Protestants nowadays frequently
contend that the missionary priests judicially murdered during the
reign of Elizabeth were not executed on account of their religion,
but because they were stirrers up of sedition and traitors, and were
in every case so proven to be upon their respective trials. The good
people who set up such pretext are sadly in ignorance of the history of
that dark period. So far from asserting the slightest pretence of guilt
on the part of such acts accused of as commonly constitute sedition and
high treason, the statute of Elizabeth under which they were sent to
the gallows only made it necessary to show that they were Englishmen
and Catholic priests, and were arrested in England. The statute, in
fact, enacted substantially that, “if any Jesuit, seminary priest, or
deacon, or religious or ecclesiastical person whatever, born within
the realm, shall come into, be, or remain in any part of this realm,
every such offence shall be taken and adjudged to be high treason.”
The indictment against Southwell was “drawn up by Cook, the queen’s
solicitor,” says the S. Omer MS. Now, “Cook, the queen’s solicitor”
here referred to was no less a personage than the great Coke. Here is
the indictment presented by him in Southwell’s case, from which it will
be seen that the prisoner was charged only with the crimes of, _first_,
being a priest of English birth; _second_, of having remained in the
county of Middlesex:
“The jury present, on the part of our sovereign lady the queen, that
Robert Southwell, late of London, clerk, born within this kingdom
of England; to wit, since the feast of S. John the Baptist, in the
first year of the reign of her majesty, and before the first day of
May, in the thirty-second year of the reign of our lady the queen
aforesaid, made and ordained priest by authority derived and pretended
from the See of Rome; not having the fear of God before his eyes, and
slighting the laws and statutes of this realm of England, without any
regard to the penalty therein contained, on the 20th day of June, the
thirty-fourth year of the reign of our lady the queen, at Uxenden, in
the county of Middlesex, traitorously, and as a false traitor to our
lady the queen, was and remained, contrary to the form of the statute
in such case set forth and provided, and contrary to the peace of our
said lady the queen, her crown, and dignities.”
The grand jury having found the bill, Father Southwell was ordered to
come up to the bar. He readily obeyed, and, bowing down his head, made
a low reverence to his judges; then modestly held up his hand according
to custom, and, being asked whether he was guilty or not guilty, he
answered, “I confess that I was born in England, a subject to the
queen’s majesty, and that, by authority derived from God, I have been
promoted to the sacred order of priesthood in the Roman Church, for
which I return most hearty thanks to his divine Majesty. I confess,
also, that I was at Uxenden, in Middlesex, at that time, when, being
sent for thither by trick and deceit, I fell into your hands, as is
well known; but that I never entertained any designs or plots against
the queen or kingdom, I call God to witness, the revenger of perjury;
neither had I any other design in returning home to my native country
than to administer the sacraments according to the rite of the Catholic
Church to such as desired them.”
Here the judge interrupted him, and told him that he was to let all
that alone, and plead directly guilty or not guilty. Upon which he
said, _he was not guilty of any treason whatsoever_. And being asked by
what he would be tried, he said, “By God and by you.” The judge told
him he was to answer, “By God and his country,” which, at first, he
refused, alleging that the laws of his country were disagreeable to the
law of God, and that he was unwilling these poor harmless men of the
jury, whom they obliged to represent the country, should have any share
in their guilt, or any hand in his death. “But,” said he, “if through
your iniquity it must be so, and I cannot help it, be it as you will; I
am ready to be judged by God and my country.” When the twelve were to
be sworn, he challenged none of them, saying that they were all equally
strangers to him, and therefore charity did not allow him to except
against any one of them more than another.
After Coke had presented the case to the jury, they went aside to
consult about the verdict, and in a short time brought him in guilty.
He was asked if he had anything more to say for himself why sentence
should not be pronounced against him? He said: “Nothing; but from my
heart I beg of Almighty God to forgive all who have been any ways
accessory to my death.” The judge having pronounced sentence according
to the usual form, Father Southwell made a very low bow, returning him
most hearty thanks as for an unspeakable favor. The judge offered him
the help of a minister to prepare him to die. Father Southwell desired
he would not trouble him upon that head; that the grace of God would
be more than sufficient for him. And so, being sent back to Newgate
through the streets, lined with people, he discovered, all the way, the
overflowing joy of his heart in his eyes, in his whole countenance, and
in every gesture and motion of his body. He was again put down into
limbo, at his return to Newgate, where he spent the following night,
the last of his life, in prayer, full of the thoughts of the journey he
was to take the next day, through the gate of martyrdom, into a happy
eternity; to enjoy for ever the sovereign object of his love.
We have seen by what device and with what ill success the officials
directing the execution sought, on the next morning, to draw away the
crowd from Tyburn where Father Southwell was to be “hung, bowelled, and
quartered.”
EXECUTIONS UNDER ELIZABETH.
The modern reader generally, and very naturally, supposes that this
sentence, horrible as it is in its simplest form, would be carried
out as stated, that is to say, that, when the condemned man was hung
until dead, his body was then butchered as described. This probably was
the intention of the law, and the latter two of the three incidents
of the executions were intended more as indignities to the remains
of a criminal supposed to be guilty of the greatest of human crimes
than as any part of the means of procuring death. But under the
reign of Elizabeth the cruelty and bestiality of the mode in which
the horrible sentence was carried out had reached its height. As a
general thing, the victim was butchered alive. According to the whim
or the bloodthirstiness of the executioner, the condemned man was
allowed to hang a short time, or he was scarcely swung off before he
was cut down and the hangman was—as he is described in a well-known
phrase—“grabbling among his entrails.” Sometimes the executioner would
spring upon the body as it was swung off, and plunge his knife into the
victim before they reached the ground in their fall together. When a
young priest named Edward Genings was executed, in 1591, the butchery
was superintended by Topcliffe, who adjured the victim to submit and
recant and he should be pardoned. His reply was: “I know not in what I
have offended my dear anointed princess; if I had, I would willingly
ask forgiveness. If she be offended with me because I am a priest,
and because I profess my faith and will not turn minister against my
conscience, I shall be, I trust, excused and innocent before God. I
must obey God, saith S. Peter, rather than men.” At this Topcliffe was
enraged, and bade the hangman turn the ladder; scarcely giving him time
to say a _Pater Noster_. Cut down by his order before he was dead, the
butchery began, and, the hangman’s hand being already on his heart,
Genings was heard to say, “Sancte Gregori, ora pro me!”—which the
hangman hearing, he swore, “_Zounds, see, his heart is in my hand_, and
yet Gregory is in his mouth! O egregious papist!”[25]
We return to Father Southwell, who was drawn on a hurdle or sled from
Newgate to Tyburn, and resume the account of the S. Omer’s MS.: “When
he was come to the place, getting up into the cart, he made the sign of
the cross in the best manner that he could, his hands being pinion’d,
and began to speak to the people those words of the apostle (Rom. xiv),
‘Whether we live, we live to the Lord, or whether we die, we die to the
Lord; therefore, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.’ Here
the sheriff would have interrupted him, but he begged leave that he
might go on, assuring him that he would utter nothing that should give
offence. Then he spoke as follows: ‘I am come to this place to finish
my course, and to pass out of this miserable life; and I beg of my Lord
Jesus Christ, in whose most precious Passion and Blood I place my hope
of salvation, that he would have mercy on my soul. I confess I am a
Catholic priest of the Holy Roman Church, and a religious man of the
Society of Jesus; on which account I owe eternal thanks and praises to
my God and Saviour.’ Here he was interrupted by a minister telling him
that, if he understood what he had said in the sense of the Council of
Trent, it was damnable doctrine. But the minister was silenc’d by the
standers-by, and Mr. Southwell went on, saying: ‘Sir, I beg of you not
to be troublesome to me for this short time that I have to live: I am a
Catholic, and in whatever manner you may please to interpret my words,
I hope for my salvation by the merits of Our Lord Jesus Christ; and as
to the queen, I never attempted, nor contrived, or imagined any evil
against her, but have always prayed for her to Our Lord, and for this
short time of my life still pray, that, in his infinite mercy, he would
be pleased to give her all such gifts and graces which he sees, in his
divine wisdom, to be most expedient for the welfare both of her soul
and body, in this life and in the next. I recommend in like manner, to
the same mercy of God, my poor country, and I implore the divine bounty
to favor it with his light and the knowledge of his truth, to the
greater advancement of the salvation of souls, and the eternal glory of
his divine Majesty. In fine, I beg of the almighty and everlasting God,
that this my death may be for my own and for my country’s good, and the
comfort of the Catholics my brethren.’
“Having finished these words, and looking for the cart to be
immediately drove away, he again blessed himself, and, with his eyes
raised to heaven, repeated with great calmness of mind and countenance,
‘Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit,’ with other short
ejaculations, till the cart was drawn off. The unskilful hangman had
not applied the noose of the rope to the proper place, so that he
several times made the sign of the cross whilst he was hanging, and was
some time before he was strangled, which some perceiving, drew him by
the legs to put an end to his pain, and when the executioner was for
cutting the rope before he was dead, the gentlemen and people that were
present cried out three several times, ‘Hold, hold!’ for the behavior
of the servant of God was so edifying in these his last moments, that
even the Protestants who were present at the execution were much
affected with the sight.” After he was dead he was cut down and the
remainder of the sentence carried out. Turnbull relates that “Lord
Mountjoy (Charles Blount), who happened to be present, was so struck by
the martyr’s constancy that he exclaimed, ‘May my soul be with this
man’s!’ and he assisted in restraining those who would have cut the
rope while he was still in life.”
Father Southwell’s reverend and Protestant biographer declares, in
concluding his relation of the execution: “I must regard our worthy as
a ‘martyr’ in the deepest and grandest sense—a good man, and full of
the Holy Ghost. I should blush for my Protestantism if I did not hold
in honor, yea reverence, his stainless and beautiful memory.
‘Through this desert, day by day,
Wandered not his steps astray,
Treading still the royal way.’
—_Paradisus Animæ._
“So perished Father Southwell, at thirty-three years of age, and so,
unhappily, have perished many of the wise and virtuous of the earth.
Conscious of suffering in the supposed best of causes, he seems to have
met death without terror—to have received the crown of martyrdom not
only with resignation, but with joy.”[26]
It is matter of regret that there exists no authentic portrait of
Southwell. His biographer is of opinion that a genuine likeness of him
would have shown an intellectual, etherealized face, and fancies that
he might have sat for the portrait of the Prior in _The Lady of Garaye_:
“Tender his words, and eloquently wise;
Mild the pure fervor of his watchful eyes;
Meek with serenity and constant prayer,
The luminous forehead, high and broad and bare.
The thin mouth, though not passionless, yet still
With a sweet calm that speaks an angel’s will.
Resolving service to his God’s behest,
And ever musing how to serve _him_ best,
Not old, nor young; with manhood’s gentlest grace,
Pale to transparency the pensive face,
Pale not with sickness but with studious thought,
The body tasked, the fine mind overwrought;
With something faint and fragile in the whole,
As though ‘twere but a lamp to hold a soul.”
PART SECOND.—POET.
And here, first, a few words on the prose writings of Southwell. We
have already referred to the remarkable letter of admonition by him
addressed to his father. It is a severe test to put the prose of any
cultivated language to that of comparison with the productions of the
same tongue nearly three centuries later. And yet this letter will
support such comparison surprisingly well both as to substance and
style. The reader will bear in mind the peculiar circumstances under
which Southwell addressed this
LETTER TO HIS FATHER.
“I am not of so unnatural a kind, of so wild an education, or so
unchristian a spirit, as not to remember the root out of which I have
branched, or to forget my secondary maker and author of my being. It
is not the carelessness of a cold affection, nor the want of a due and
reverent respect, that has made me such a stranger to my native home,
and so backward in defraying the debt of a thankful mind, but only
the iniquity of these days that maketh my presence perilous, and the
discharge of my duties an occasion of danger. I was loath to enforce
an unwilling courtesy upon any, or by seeming officious to become
offensive; deeming it better to let time digest the fear that my
return into the realm had bred in my kindred than abruptly to intrude
myself, and to purchase their danger, whose good-will I so highly
esteem. I never doubted but what the belief, which to all my friends
by descent and pedigree is, in a manner, hereditary, framed in them a
right persuasion of my present calling, not suffering them to measure
their censures of me by the ugly terms and odious epithets wherewith
heresy hath sought to discredit my functions, but rather by the
reverence of so worthy a sacrament and the sacred usages of all former
ages. Yet, because I might easily perceive by apparent conjectures
that many were more willing to hear of me than from me, and readier
to praise than to use my endeavors, I have hitherto bridled my desire
to see them by the care and jealousy of their safety; and banished
myself from the scene of my cradle in my own country. I have lived
like a foreigner, finding among strangers that which, in my nearest
blood, I presumed not to seek.”
Then, regretting that he has been barred from affording to his dearest
friends that which hath been eagerly sought and beneficially attained
by mere strangers, he exclaims passionately:
“Who hath more interest in the grape than he who planted the vine?
Who more right to the crop than he who sowed the corn? or where can
the child owe so great service as to him to whom he is indebted for
his very life and being? With young Tobias I have travelled far, and
brought home a freight of spiritual sustenance to enrich you, and
medicinable receipts against your ghostly maladies. I have with Esau,
after long toil in pursuing a long and painful chase, returned with
the full prey you were wont to love, desiring thereby to ensure your
blessing. I have, in this general famine of all true and Christian
food, with Joseph prepared abundance of the mead of angels for the
repast of your soul. And now my desire is that my drugs may cure you,
my prey delight you, and my provisions feed you, by whom I have been
cured, enlightened, and fed myself; that your courtesies may, in part,
be counterveiled, and my duty, in some sort, performed.
“Despise not, good sire, the youth of your son, neither deem your
God measureth his endowments by number of years. Hoary senses are
often couched under youthful locks, and some are riper in the spring
than others in the autumn of their age. God chose not Esau himself,
nor his eldest son, but young David, to conquer Goliath and to rule
his people; not the most aged person, but David, the most innocent
youth, delivered Susannah from the iniquity of the judges. Christ,
at twelve years of age, was found in the temple questioning with
the greatest doctors. A true Elias can conceive that a little cloud
may cast a large and abundant shower; and the Scripture teacheth us
that God unveileth to little ones that which he concealeth from the
wisest sages. His truth is not abashed by the minority of the speaker;
for out of the mouths of infants and sucklings he can perfect his
praises.... The full of your spring-tide is now fallen, and the stream
of your life waneth to a low ebb; your tired bark beginneth to leak,
and _grateth oft upon the gravel of the grave_; therefore it is high
time for you to strike sail and put into harbor, lest, remaining in
the scope of the winds and waves of this wicked time, some unexpected
gust should dash you upon the rock of eternal ruin.”
The entire letter is given in both Walter and Turnbull’s _Memoirs of
Southwell_, and has been extravagantly praised as being the composition
of Sir Walter Raleigh, among whose _Remains_ it is frequently
reprinted. Mr. Grosart, a Protestant clergyman, says of it: “I know
nothing comparable with the mingled affection and prophetlike fidelity,
the wise instruction, correction, reproof, the full rich scripturalness
and quaint applications, the devoutness, the insistence, the pathos of
this letter.” The edition of Sir Walter Raleigh’s _Remains_, published
in London in 1675, was the subject of an article in the _Retrospective
Review_ for 1820, in which the reviewer remarks: “‘The Dutiful Advice
of a Loving Son to his Aged Father’ is supposed to be a libel on
Sir Walter, written by his enemies. It will be seen, however, that
it bears a strong resemblance to his style, although the metaphor
is more profuse and ornamental, and seems to be rather engrafted on
his thoughts than to spring up with them. That this piece should be
dictated by personal hostility is strange. It contains exhortations
that might with the greatest propriety be directed to any man.
“It is possible that it might be written by another in imitation of
Sir Walter Raleigh’s ‘Advice to his Son’; _yet if he was an enemy, he
was of a most uncommon description_. As the advice, however, is worth
quoting for its own merit, and is written with great force and beauty,
we shall give our readers an opportunity of judging for themselves.”
This letter is Southwell’s earliest dated prose, and was followed by a
variety of treatises, epistles, and pamphlets, printed on the “private
press” at his own house in London. Besides these, there remain several
English and a large number of Latin prose writings still in manuscript.
“Mary Magdalene’s Funerall Teares,” although prose in form, is in fact
far more fervid and impassioned than the greater part of his poetry.
SOUTHWELL’S POETRY.
To the readers of poetry for its merely sensuous qualities of flowing
measure, attractive imagery, and brilliant description, the poems
of Southwell possess but few attractions. Their subjects are all
religious, or, at least, serious; and, in reading him, we must totally
forget the traditional pagan poet pictured to us as crowned with
flowers, and holding in hand an overflowing anacreontic cup. Serious,
indeed, his poems might well be, for they were all composed during
the intervals of thirteen bodily rackings in a gloomy prison that
opened only upon the scaffold. And yet we look in vain among them
for expressions of the reproaches or repining such a fate might well
engender, and we search with but scant result for record or trace
of his own sufferings in the lines traced with fingers yet bent and
smarting with the rack. The vanity of all earthly things, the trials
of life, the folly and wickedness of the world, the uncertainty of
life, and the consolations and glories of religion, are the constantly
returning subjects of his productions, and, however treated, they
always reflect the benignity and elevation of the poet’s character.
Certain it is that Southwell was largely read by the generation that
immediately succeeded him. Many years ago, Ellis[27] said: “The
very few copies of his works which are now known to exist are the
remnant of at least seventeen different editions, of which eleven
were printed between 1593 and 1600”; and at a later period, Drake, in
his _Shakespeare and his Times_, says:[28] “Both the poetry and the
prose of Southwell possess the most decided merit; the former, which
is almost entirely restricted to moral and religious subjects, flows
in a vein of great harmony, perspicuity, and elegance, and breathes
a fascination resulting from the subject and the pathetic mode of
treating it which fixes and deeply interests the reader.”
A valuable tribute of admiration to Southwell’s poetic talent is that
of Ben Jonson, who said: “that Southwell was hanged; yet so he (Jonson)
had written that piece of his, ‘The Burning Babe,’ he would have been
content to destroy many of his.”[29] Our readers, we are sure, will
thank us for giving it here, although we strongly suspect that Mr.
Grosart will not approve of its modern orthography.
As I in hoary winter’s night stood shivering in the snow,
Surprised I was with sudden heat, which made my heart to glow;
And lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was near,
A pretty Babe all burning bright did in the air appear,
Who, scorched with excessive heat, such floods of tears did shed,
As though his floods should quench his flames which with his tears
were fed;
Alas! quoth he, but newly born, in fiery heats I frye,
Yet none approach to warm their hearts or feel my fire but I!
My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns,
Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scornes;
The fuel Justice layeth on, and Mercy blows the coals,
The metal in this furnace wrought are men’s defiled souls,
For which, as now, on fire I am, to work them to their good,
So will I melt into a bath to washe them in my blood:
With this he vanished out of sight, and swiftly shrunk away,
And straight I called unto mind that it was Christmas day.
Our limits will permit but slight citation from the body of
Southwell’s poetry. He is most widely known by his chief poem
“S. Peter’s Complaint,” consisting of one hundred and thirty-six
stanzas (six-line). But his most attractive pieces are his shorter
poems—“Times go by Turns,” “Content and Rich,”[30] “Life is but
Loss,” “Look Home,” “Love’s servile Lot,” and the whole series on our
Saviour and his Mother; and, making some allowance for the enthusiasm
of our editor, no true lover of poetry who reads these productions of
Southwell will seriously dissent from Mr. Grosart’s estimate of them.
“The hastiest reader will come on ‘thinking’ and ‘feeling’ that are
as musical as Apollo’s lute, and as fresh as a spring budding spray;
and the wording of all (excepting over-alliteration and inversion
occasionally), is throughout of the ‘pure well of English undefiled.’
When you take some of the Myrtæ and Mæoniæ pieces, and read and re-read
them, you are struck with their condensation, their concinnity, their
polish, their _élan_, their memorableness. Holiness is in them not as
scent on love-locks, but as fragrance in the great Gardener’s flowers
of fragrance. His tears are pure and white as the ‘dew of the morning.’
His smiles—for he has humor, even wit, that must have lurked in the
burdened eyes and corners o’ mouth—are sunny as sunshine. As a whole,
his poetry is healthy and strong, and, I think, has been more potential
in our literature than appears on the surface. I do not think it would
be hard to show that others of whom more is heard drew light from him,
as well early as more recent, from Burns to Thomas Hood. For example,
limiting as to the latter, I believe every reader who will compare the
two deliberately will see in the ‘Vale of Tears’ the source of the
latter’s immortal ‘Haunted House’—dim, faint, weak beside it, as the
earth-hid bulb compared with the lovely blossom of hyacinth or tulip or
lily, nevertheless really carrying in it the original of the mightier
after-poem.”
Our warmest tribute of praise can render but scant justice to the
intelligence, the industry, the erudition, the keen poetic sense, and
the enthusiasm which the editor of the volume before us has devoted to
what has evidently been to him a labor of love. Mr. Grosart is well
known in the literary world as the editor of Crashawe and of Vaughan,
as also of the forthcoming editions of Marvell, Donne, and Sidney.
His laboriously corrected version of our martyr-poet’s legacy has, it
may be said, restored Southwell to us, so obscured had he become by
mistakes, misprints, and false readings. Indeed Mr. Grosart’s somewhat
jealous love of his subject betrays him into apparently harsh judgment
on the efforts of others, when, for instance, he declares himself
“vexed by the travesties on editing and mere carelessness of Walter
earlier (1817) and Turnbull later (1856) in their so-called editions of
the poems of Father Southwell,” adding: “Turnbull said contemptuously,
‘I refrain from criticism on Mr. Walter’s text’—severe but not
undeserved, only his own is scarcely one whit better, and in places
worse.”
There is one passage at the close of Mr. Grosart’s interesting
preface which has a special interest for us as Americans. We mean his
reference to the verdict pronounced on Father Southwell’s poetry by
Prof. James Russell Lowell in his charming book _My Study Windows_.
“It seems to me,” says Mr. Grosart, “harsh to brutality on the man
(meet follower of him ‘the first true gentleman that ever breathed’);
while on the poetry it rests on self-evidently the most superficial
acquaintance and the hastiest generalization. To pronounce ‘S.
Peter’s Complaint’ a ‘drawl’ of thirty pages of ‘maudlin repentance,
in which the distinctions between the north and northeast sides of
a (_sic_) sentimentality are worthy of Duns Scotus,’ shows about as
much knowledge—that is, ignorance—of the poem as of the schoolman,
and as another remark does of S. Peter; for, with admitted tedium, S.
Peter’s complaint sounds depths of penitence and remorse, and utters
out emotion that flames into passion very unforgettably, while there
are felicities of metaphor, daintinesses of word-painting, brilliancies
of inner-portraiture, scarcely to be matched in contemporary verse. The
‘paraphrase’ of David (to wit, ‘David’s Peccavi’) is a single short
piece, and the ‘punning’ conceit, ‘fears are my feres,’ is common to
some of England’s finest wits, and in the meaning of ‘fere’ not at all
to be pronounced against. If we on this side of the Atlantic valued
less the opinion of such a unique genius as Prof. Lowell’s, if we did
not take him to our innermost love, we should less grieve over such
a vulgar affront offered to a venerable name as his whole paragraph
to Southwell. I shall indulge the hope of our edition reaching the
‘Study,’ and persuading to a real ‘study’ of these poems, and, if so, I
do not despair of a voluntary reversal of the first judgment.”
ARIS WILMOTT
pronounced Southwell to be the Goldsmith of our early poets; and
‘Content and Rich,’ and, ‘Dyer’s phansie turned to a Sinner’s
Complaint’ warrant the great praise. But beneath the manner recalling
Goldsmith, there is a purity and richness of thought, a naturalness, a
fineness of expression, a harmony of versification, and occasionally a
tide-flow of high-toned feeling, not to be met with in him.
“Nor will Prof. Lowell deem his (I fear) hasty (mis)judgment’s
reconsideration too much to count on, after the present Archbishop of
Dublin’s well-weighed words in his notes to his _Household Book of
English Poetry_ (1868):
“‘Hallam thinks that Southwell has been of late praised at least as
much as he deserves. This may be so; yet, taking into account the
finished beauty of such poems as this (“Lewd Love is Loss”) and No.
2 (“Times go by Turns”) of this collection, poems which, as far as
they go, leave nothing to be desired, he has scarcely been praised
more than he deserves. How in earlier times he was rated, the fact
that there were twenty-four editions of his poems will sufficiently
testify; though probably the creed be professed, and the death which
he died, may have had something to do with this. Robert Southwell
was a seminary priest, and was executed at Tyburn in the reign of
Queen Elizabeth, in conformity with a law, which even the persistent
plottings of too many of these at once against the life of the
sovereign and the life of the state must altogether fail to justify or
excuse’ (pp. 391-392).
“To Archbishop Trench’s I add, as equally weighty and worthy, the
fine and finely sympathetic yet discriminative judgment of Dr. George
Macdonald in _Antiphon_ as follows:
“‘I proceed to call up one WHO WAS A POET INDEED, although
little known as such, being a Roman Catholic, a Jesuit even, and
therefore, in Elizabeth’s reign, a traitor and subject to the
penalties according (accruing)? Robert Southwell, thirteen times most
cruelly tortured, could “not be induced to confess anything, not even
the color of the horse whereon he rode on a certain day, lest from
such indication his adversaries might conjecture in what house, or in
company of what Catholics, he that day was,’ etc.
“I believe, then,” concludes Dr. Grosart, “I shall not appeal in vain
to Prof. Lowell to give a few hours behind his ‘Study Windows’ to a
reperusal of some of the poems of Southwell named by us and these
sufficiently qualified critics.”
SOMETHING ABOUT LACE.
THERE is probably no article, not a necessity, which has employed so
many heads and hands, and been the subject of such varied interests,
as lace. The making of it has given employment to countless nunneries,
where the ladies, working first and most heartily for the church, have
also taught this art to their pupils as an accomplishment or a means of
support. It was, indeed, so peculiarly the province of the religious
that, long after it was done in the world, it still bore the name of
“nun’s-work.”
In those old days when railroads were not, and when swamps and forests
covered tracts of land now thick with villages and cities, country
ladies made fine needle-work their chief occupation; and it was the
custom in feudal times for the squires’ daughters to spend some time
in the castle, in attendance on the _châtelaine_, where they learned
to embroider and make lace. It was then a woman’s only resource, and
was held in high esteem. In the cloisters of Westminster Abbey, one
Catherine Sloper was laid to rest, in 1620, with the inscription on her
tombstone that she was “exquisite at her needle.”
Millions of poor women, and even men and children, have earned their
bread by this delicate labor; women of intelligence and fair estate
have devoted their lives to it; and noble and regal ladies have been
proud to excel in the art.
It is related that when Cardinals Wolsey and Campeggio went down to
the palace at Bridewell to seek an interview with the repudiated wife
of Henry VIII., they found her seated among her ladies embroidering,
and she came to meet them with a skein of red silk around her neck. In
those days they wrought and made lace with colored silk. We can imagine
how the bright floss must have trembled over the tumultuous beatings of
that wronged heart during the cruel interview that followed.
But the work of Catherine of Aragon was not for vanity’s sake, nor even
to pass the heavy hours. In her native Spain the rarest laces were made
for the church, and not only nuns, but ladies of the world, wove pious
thoughts in with that fairy web. Perhaps nowhere else, save in Rome,
was the church lace so rich as in Spain. Images of favorite saints and
Madonnas had wardrobes of regal magnificence, changed every day, and
the altars and vestments were no less regally adorned.
Beckford writes that, in 1787, the Marchioness of Cogalhudo, wife of
the eldest son of the semi-regal race of Medina Cœli, was appointed
Mistress of the Robes to Our Lady of La Solidad, in Madrid, and that
the office was much coveted.
It is supposed that the peasantry of Bedfordshire, in England, first
learned lace-making through the charity of Queen Catherine. While at
Ampthill, it is recorded that, when not at her devotions, she, with
her ladies, “wrought a needle-work costly and artificially, which she
intended for the honor of God to bestow on some of the churches.”
The country people had the greatest love and respect for the disgraced
queen; and, till lately, the lace-makers held “Cattern’s Day,” the 25th
of November, as the holiday of their craft, “in memory of good Queen
Catherine, who, when trade was dull, burnt all her laces, and ordered
new to be made. The ladies of the court followed her example, and
the fabric once more revived.” Lace was and is considered a suitable
present from a king to a pontiff. These earlier gifts were, it is true,
sometimes of gold and silver lace wrought with precious stones, but
they were scarcely more costly than the later white-thread points. In
the Exhibition of 1859 was shown a dress valued at 200,000 francs, the
most costly work ever executed at Alençon. This Napoleon III. purchased
for the empress, who, it is said, presented it to his Holiness the Pope
as a trimming for his rochet. Also, so early as the XIIIth century, the
English cut-work was so fine that, according to Matthew Paris, Pope
Innocent IV. sent official letters to some of the Cistercian abbots
of England to procure a certain quantity of those vestments for his
own use. His Holiness had seen and admired the orfrays of the English
clergy.
The finest specimens extant of this old English work (_opus
Anglicanum_) are the cope and maniple of S. Cuthbert, taken from his
coffin many years ago in the cathedral of Durham, and now preserved in
the chapter library of that city. One who has seen them declares them
beautiful beyond description.
This work seems to have been at first used only for ecclesiastical
purposes, and the making of it to have been a secret preserved in the
monasteries.
Nor have the clergy been merely the wearers of lace. We hear of monks
being praised for their skill in “imbrothering”; and S. Dunstan himself
did not disdain to design patterns for church lace. Pattern-books for
these needle-laces were made by monks as well as laymen, and plates
in them represent men seated at the embroidering frame. Some of these
old pattern books of the XVIth century are preserved in the library
of S. Geneviève at Paris, inherited from the monastery of that name.
These books are prized and sought for as some of the earliest specimens
of block-printing. But few remain, and doubtless their high price
prevented them from being made in great numbers. Their place was taken
by samplers, into which were copied the patterns desired. From these
old lace-samplers come the later alphabetical samplers, which many now
living will remember to have made in their youth.
Large quantities of rich old lace were lost in the last century, when
the French Revolution brought in gauzes and blondes, and fashion tossed
aside as worthless these exquisite products of the needle. In Italy,
where the custom was to preserve old family lace, less was destroyed;
but in England it was handed over to servants or farm people, or stowed
away in attics, and afterwards burned. Some ladies gave point-laces
which now they could not afford to buy, to their children to dress
their dolls with. Sometimes it was thrown away as old rags.
In the church, however, fashion had no power, and old lace has been
usually preserved. Some collections are exceedingly valuable. Notable
among these is that of the Rohan family, who gave princes-archbishops
to Strasbourg. Baroness de Oberkirck, in _Memoirs of the Court of Louis
XVI._, writes: “We met the cardinal coming out of his chapel dressed
in a soutane of scarlet moire and rochet of inestimable value. When,
on great occasions, he officiates at Versailles, he wears an alb of
old lace of needlepoint of such beauty that his assistants were almost
afraid to touch it. His arms and device are worked in a medallion above
the large flowers.” This alb is estimated at 100,000 livres.
It is impossible to exaggerate the extent to which lace was used prior
to the French Revolution, or the immense extravagance of the sums
spent on it. Everybody wore it, even servants emulating their masters
and mistresses. It trimmed everything, from the towering Fontanges,
which rose like a steeple from ladies’ heads, to the boot-tops and
shoe-rosettes of men. Men wore lace ruffles not only at the wrist,
but at the knee, lace ruffs, cravats, collars, and garters; and bed
furniture was made of lace, or trimmed with it, costly as it was. A
pair of ruffles would amount to 4,000 livres, a lady’s cap to 1,200
livres. We read that Mme. du Barry gave 487 francs for lace enough to
trim a pillow-case, and 77 livres for a pair of ruffles. Lace fans were
made in 1668, and lace-trimmed bouquet-holders are not a new fancy.
When the Doge of Venice made his annual visit to the convent _Delle
Vergini_, the lady abbess used to meet him in the parlor, surrounded by
her novices, and present him a nosegay in a gold handle trimmed with
the richest lace that could be found in Venice.
Voltaire says that the mysterious Iron Mask was passionately fond of
fine linen and rich lace.
So extravagant had the use of this luxury become that in England
there was an outcry against it, and the Puritans laid great stress on
discarding vanity in clothing.
We have a little scene illustrative, between the Princess Mary and
Lady Jane Grey. The princess had given the maiden some gorgeous
dresses trimmed with lace. “What shall I do with it?” asks Lady Jane.
“Gentlewoman, wear it,” was the reply, a little vexed, may be. “Nay,”
says Lady Jane, “that were a shame to follow my Lady Mary against God’s
will, and leave my Lady Elizabeth, which followeth God’s will.”
“My Lady Elizabeth,” however, set aside her scruples before long, and,
when queen, did not hesitate to adorn herself as bravely as she might,
though she had no mind her fashions should be copied by the vulgar; for
we read that, when the London Apprentices adopted white stitching and
guards as ornaments for their collars, Queen Elizabeth forbade it, and
ordered that the first transgressor should be publicly whipped in the
hall of his company.
There is another incident, which, as one of the sex in whom vanity is
supposed to be prominent, we take special pleasure in relating.
The Puritan nobles had not in dress conformed to Puritan rules as
strictly as some desired, the foreign ambassadors dressing as richly as
ever. When, therefore, the Spanish envoy accredited to the Protectorate
of Cromwell arrived and was about to have an audience, Harrison begged
Lord Warwick and Colonel Hutchinson to set an example by not wearing
either gold or silver lace. These gentlemen did not disapprove of rich
clothing, but, rather than give offence, they and their associates
appeared the next day in plain black suits. But, to their astonishment,
Harrison entered dressed in a scarlet coat so covered with lace and
_clinquant_ as to hide the material of which it was made. Whereupon
Mrs. Hutchinson remarks that Harrison’s “godly speeches were only
made that he might appear braver above the rest in the eyes of the
strangers.”
Lace has frequently employed the thoughts of law-makers, and in 1698
was the subject of a legislative duel between England and Flanders.
There was already in England an act prohibiting the importation of
bone-lace (_i.e._ bobbin-lace), loom-lace, cut-work, and needle-work
point; but this proving ineffectual, since everybody smuggled, another
act was passed setting a penalty of twenty shillings a yard and
forfeiture. We regret to learn that forfeiture meant, in some cases at
least, burning, and that large quantities of the finest Flanders lace
were seized and actually burned. It reminds one of the burning of Don
Quixote’s library of chivalric records.
Flanders, however, with its nunneries full of lace-makers, and its
thousands of people depending on the trade, had no mind to be thus
crippled without retaliation. An act was immediately passed prohibiting
the importation of English wool; whereupon the wool-staplers echoed
with addition the groans of the lace-makers, and England was forced to
repeal the act so far as the Low Countries were concerned.
As we have said, everybody in England smuggled lace in those days.
Smuggling seems indeed to be everywhere looked on as the least shameful
of law-breaking. But never, perhaps, were officers of the customs as
incorruptible as these. Suspicious persons were searched, no matter
what their rank, and no person living within miles of a seaport dared
to wear a bit of foreign lace unless they could prove that it had been
honestly obtained. Many were the devices by which men and women sought
to elude the customs. When a deceased clergyman of the English Church
was conveyed home from the Low Countries for burial, it was found that
only his head, hands, and feet were in the coffin—the body had been
replaced by Flanders lace of immense value. Years after, when the
body of his Grace the Duke of Devonshire, who had died in France, was
brought over, the custom-house officers not only searched the coffin,
but poked the corpse with a stick to make sure that it was a body.
The High Sheriff of Westminster was more fortunate, for he succeeded
in smuggling £6,000 worth of lace in the coffin that brought over from
Calais the body of Bishop Atterbury.
In the present century, Lady Ellenborough, wife of the lord
chief-justice, was stopped near Dover, and a large quantity of valuable
lace found secreted in the lining of her carriage.
At one period, much lace was smuggled into France from Belgium by means
of dogs trained for the purpose. A dog was caressed and petted at home,
then, after a while, sent across the frontier, where he was tied up,
starved, and ill-treated. The skin of a larger dog was then fitted to
his body, the intervening space filled with lace, and the poor animal
was released. Of course he made haste to scamper back to his former
home.
_A propos_ of the customs, there is a story in which George III.
had an active part, and displayed his determination to protect home
manufactures.
On the marriage of his sister, Princess Augusta, to the Duke of
Brunswick, the king ordered that all stuffs and laces worn should be of
English manufacture. The nobility, intent on outshining each other on
this grand occasion, took but little notice of the command. We may well
believe that the rooms of the court milliner were gorgeous with these
preparations; that there was unusual hurry and flurry lest everything
should not be done in time; and that high-born and beautiful ladies
were constantly besieging the doors, bringing additions to the stock.
Fancy, then, the consternation of the expectant and excited dames,
when, only three days before the wedding, the customs made a descent on
this costly finery, and carried off in one fell swoop the silver, the
gold, and the laces! There was not only the loss of these dear gewgaws
to mourn, but a new toilet to be prepared in three days!
The camp, too, as well as the church and the court, has cherished lace,
and the warriors of those days did not fight less gallantly because
they went into battle elegantly arrayed. Lace ruffles at the wrist did
not weaken the sword or sabre stroke, nor laces on the neck and bosom
make faint the heart beneath. Possibly they helped to a nobler courtesy
and a braver death; for slovenly dress tends to make slovenly manners,
and slovenly manners often lead to careless morals.
A graceful fashion called the Steinkerk had a martial origin, and was
named from the battle so-called, wherein Marshal Luxembourg won the day
against William of Orange. On that day, the young princes of the blood
were suddenly and unexpectedly called into battle. Hastily knotting
about their necks the laced cravats then in fashion, and usually tied
with great nicety, they rushed into action, and won the fight.
In honor of that event, both ladies and gentlemen wore their cravats
and scarfs loosely twisted and knotted, the ends sometimes tucked
through the button-hole, sometimes confined by a large oval-shaped
brooch; and Steinkerks became the rage.
But evidence enough, perhaps, has been brought to prove that lace is
not an entirely trivial subject of discourse. We may, however, add that
Dr. Johnson condescended to define net lace in his most Johnsonian
manner. It is, he says, “anything reticulated or decussated, with
interstices between the intersections.” After that, ladies may wear
their ruffles not only with pleasure, but with respect; for if he was
so learned in defining plain net, what unimaginable erudition would
have entered his definition of Honiton guipure, or the points of
Alençon, Brussels, or Venice!
Spiders were probably the first creatures that made lace, though the
trees held a delicate white network under the green of their leaves.
After the spiders came the human race, following closely. Old Egyptian
pictures and sculptures show us women engaged in twisting threads;
and the Scriptures are full of allusions to “fine twined linen” and
needle-work. Almost as soon as garments were worn they began to be
adorned at the edges; and among savages, to whom garments were of
slight consequence, tattooing was practised, which is the same idea in
a different form.
The Israelites probably learned from the Egyptians, and from them the
art travelled westward. One theory is that Europe learned it from the
Saracens. It matters but little to us which is the real version. It
is most likely that all the children of Adam and Eve had some fancy
of this sort which reached greater perfection in the more cultivated
tribes and nations, and was by them taught to the others. The waved
or serrated edges of leaves would suggest such adornments to them, or
the fur hanging over the edge of the rude skins they wore. The very
waves of the sea, that curled over in snowy spray at their tips, had a
suggestion of lace and ornamental bordering; and the clouds of sunrise
and sunset were fringed with crimson and gold by the sun. Flower petals
were finished with a variegated edge, and it was not enough that birds
had wings, but they must be ornamented.
When embroidery at length became an art, the Phrygian women excelled
all others. Presently close embroidery became open-worked or
cut-worked, and out of cut-work grew lace.
This cut-work was made in various ways. In one kind, a network of
thread was made on a frame, and under this was gummed a piece of fine
cloth. Then those parts which were to remain thick were sewed round on
to the cloth; and afterward the superfluous cloth was cut away.
Another kind was made entirely of thread, which was arranged on a frame
in lines diverging from the centre like a spider’s web, and worked
across and over with other threads, forming geometrical patterns.
Later, a fabric still more like our modern lace was made. A groundwork
was netted by making one stitch at the beginning, and increasing a
stitch on each side till the requisite size was obtained. On this
ground was worked the pattern, sometimes darned in with counted
stitches, sometimes cut out of linen, and _appliqué_. Still another
kind was drawn-work, threads being drawn from linen or muslin, and the
thinned cloth worked into lace. Specimens still exist of a six-sided
lace net made in this way, with sprigs worked over it.
The earlier rich laces were not made of white thread. Gold, silver,
and silk were used. The Italians, who claim to have invented point
lace, were the great makers of gold lace. Cyprus stretched gold into
a wire, and wove it. From Cyprus the art reached Genoa, Venice, and
Milan; and gradually all Europe learned to make gold lace. In England,
the complaint was raised that the gold of the realm was sensibly
diminishing in this way, and in 1635 an act was passed prohibiting the
melting down of bullion to make gold or silver “purl.” And not only
in Western and Southern Europe was this luxury fashionable. A piece
of gold lace was found in a Scandinavian barrow opened in the XVIIIth
century. Perhaps the lace was made by some captive woman stolen by
the vikings, a later Proserpine ravished from the South, who wove the
web with her pale fingers as she sat in that frozen Hades, while her
piratical blue-eyed Pluto looked on marvelling, and waiting to catch a
smile from her relenting eyes. Gold lace was sold by weight.
Some of the most magnificent old points of Venice were made of silk,
the natural cream-color. The rose Venice point—_Gros point de Venice,
Punto a rilievo_—was the richest and most complicated of all points.
It was worked of silk, on a parchment pattern, the flowers connected by
_brides_. The outlines of these flowers were in relief, cotton being
placed inside to raise them, and countless beautiful stitches were
introduced. Sometimes they were in double, sometimes in triple, relief,
and each flower and leaf was edged with fine regular pearls. This
point was highly prized for albs, _collerettes_, _berthes_, and costly
decorations.
Another kind of Venice lace—knotted point—had a charmingly
romantic origin. A young girl in one of the islands of the Lagune, a
lace-worker, was betrothed to a young sailor, who brought her home from
the Southern seas a bunch of pretty coralline called mermaid’s lace.
Moved partly by love for the giver, and partly by admiration for the
graceful nature of the seaweed, with its small white knots united by
a _bride_, the girl tried to imitate it with her needle, and, after
several unsuccessful efforts, produced a delicate guipure, which soon
was admired all over Europe.
We must not, in this connection, forget that handkerchief given by
Othello to Desdemona, the loss of which cost her so dear. It was
wrought, he tells her, by an Egyptian sibyl, who
“In her prophetic fury sewed the work.”
And he declares that
“The worms were hallowed that did breed the silk.”
The flat points of Venice were no less exquisite than the raised, the
patterns sometimes being human figures, animals, cupids, and flowers.
In the XVIth century, Barbara Uttmann invented pillow-net, a great
advance in the making of lace. This lady’s father had moved from
Nuremberg to the Hartz Mountains, to superintend mines there, and there
the daughter married a rich master-miner, Christopher Uttmann, and
lived with him in his castle of Annaberg. Seeing the mountain girls
weave nets for the miners to wear over their hair, her inventive mind
suggested a new and easier way of making fine netting. Her repeated
failures we know not of, but we know of her success. In 1561 she set up
a workshop in her own name, and this branch of industry spread so that
soon 30,000 persons were employed, with a revenue of 1,000,000 thalers.
In 1575, the inventress died and was laid to rest in the churchyard of
Annaberg, where her tombstone records that she was the “benefactress of
the Hartz Mountains.”
Honor to Barbara Uttmann!
Pillow-lace, as most people know, is made on a round or oval board
stuffed so as to form a cushion. On this is fixed a stiff piece of
parchment with the pattern pricked on it. The threads are wound on
bobbins about the size of a pencil, with a groove at the neck. As many
of the threads as will start well together are tied at the ends in a
knot, and the knot fastened with a pin at the edge of the pattern;
then another bunch, and so on, till the number required by the lace is
completed. The lace is formed by crossing or intertwining these bobbins.
Hand-made lace is of two kinds, point and pillow. Point means a
needle-work lace made on a parchment pattern, also a particular kind
of stitch. The word is sometimes incorrectly applied; as, _point de
Malines_, _point de Valenciennes_, both these laces being made on a
pillow.
Lace consists of two parts, the ground and the flower pattern or gimp.
The plain ground is called in French _entoilage_, on account of its
containing the ornament, which is called _toilé_, from the texture
resembling linen, or being made of that material or of muslin.
The honeycomb network or ground—in French, _fond_, _champ_,
_réseau_—is of various kinds: wire ground, Brussels ground, _trolly_
ground, etc. Double ground is so called because twice the number of
threads are required to make it.
Some laces, points and guipures, are not worked upon a ground, the
flowers being connected by irregular threads worked over with _point
noué_ (button-hole stitch), sometimes with pearl loops (_picot_).
Such are the points of Venice and Spain and most of the guipures. To
these uniting-threads lace-makers in Italy give the name of “legs,” in
England “pearl ties,” in France “brides.”
The flower is made either together with the ground, as in Valenciennes
and Mechlin, or separately, and then either worked in or sewn on
(_applique_).
The open-work stitches in the patterns are called “modes,” “jours,” or
“fillings.”
The early name of lace in England and France was _passement_, so
called because the threads were passed by each other in the making.
The learned derive lace from _lacina_, a Latin word signifying the hem
or fringe of a garment. _Dentelle_ comes from the little toothed edge
with which lace was finished after awhile. At first, it was _passement
dentelé_, finally _dentelle_.
The meaning of guipure is hard to connect with the present use of the
word, which is very loose and undefined. It was originally made of silk
twisted round a little strip of thin parchment or vellum; and silk
twisted round a thick thread or cord was called guipure, hence the name.
The modern Honiton is called guipure, also Maltese lace and its
Buckingham imitations. The Italians called the old raised points of
Venice and Spain guipures. It is hard to know what claim any of these
have to the name.
A fine silk guipure is made in the harems of Turkey, of which specimens
were shown in the International Exhibition. This _point de Turquie_ is
but little known, and is costly. It mostly represents black, white, or
mixed colors, fruit, flowers, or foliage.
The lace once made in Malta was a coarse kind of Mechlin or
Valenciennes of one arabesque pattern; but since 1833, when an English
lady induced a Maltese woman named Ciglia to copy in white an old Greek
coverlet, the Ciglia family commenced the manufacture of black and
white Maltese guipure, till then unknown in the island.
It is the fineness of the thread which renders the real Brussels
ground, _vrai réseau_, so costly. The finest is spun in dark
underground rooms; for contact with the dry air causes the thread to
break. The spinner works by feeling rather than sight, though a dark
paper is placed to throw the thread out, and a single ray of light is
admitted to fall on the work. She examines every inch drawn from her
distaff, and, when any inequality occurs, stops her wheel to repair the
mischief.
The _réseau_ is made in three different ways: by hand, on the pillow,
and more lately by machinery—the last a Brussels-net made of Scotch
cotton. The needle ground costs three times as much as the pillow; but
it is stronger and easier to repair, the pillow ground always showing
the join.
There are two kinds of flowers: those made with the needle, _point à
l’aiguille_, and those on the pillow, _point plat_. The best flowers
are made in Brussels itself, where they excel in the relief (_point
brode_).
Each part of Brussels lace is made by a different hand. One makes the
_vrai réseau_; another, the footing; a third, the point flowers; a
fourth works the open _jours_; a fifth unites the different sections of
the ground together; a sixth makes the _plat_ flowers; a seventh sews
the flowers upon the ground.
The pattern is designed by the head of the fabric, who, having cut the
parchment into pieces, hands it out ready pricked. In the modern lace,
the work of the needle and pillow are combined.
Mechlin lace, sometimes called _broderie de Malines_ is a pillow lace
made all in one piece, its distinguishing feature being a broad, flat
thread which forms the flower. It is very light and transparent, and
answers very well as a summer lace. It is said that Napoleon I. admired
this lace, and that, when he first saw the light Gothic tracery of the
cathedral spire at Antwerp, he exclaimed: “_C’est comme de la dentelle
de Malines._”
Valenciennes is also a pillow lace, but the ground and gimp, or flower,
are all made of the same thread.
The _vrai Valenciennes_, as it was at first named, that made in the
city itself, was made in the XVth century, of a three-thread twisted
flax, and reached its climax about the middle of the XVIIIth century,
when there were from 3,000 to 4,000 lace-makers in the city alone.
Then fashion began to prefer the lighter and cheaper fabrics of
Arras, Lille, and Brussels, till in 1790 the number of lace-workers
had diminished to 250. Napoleon I. tried unsuccessfully to revive
the manufacture, and in 1851 only two lace-makers remained, both
over eighty years of age. This _vrai Valenciennes_ which, from its
durability, was called _les eternelles Valenciennes_, could not, it
was asserted, be made outside the walls of the city. It was claimed
that, if a piece of lace were begun at Valenciennes and finished
outside of the walls, that part not made in the city would be visibly
less beautiful than the other, though continued by the same hand, with
the same thread, upon the same pillow. This was attributed to some
peculiarity of the atmosphere. That lace, therefore, which was made in
the neighborhood of the city was called _bâtarde_ and _gausse_.
The makers of this lace worked in underground cellars from four in the
morning till eight at night. Young girls were the chief workers, great
delicacy of touch being required, any other kind of work spoiling the
hand for this. Many of the women, we are told, became blind before
reaching the age of thirty. So great was the labor of making this lace
that, while the Lille workers could produce from three to five ells per
day, those of Valenciennes could not finish more than an inch and a
half in that time. Some took a year to make twenty-four inches, and it
took ten months, working fifteen hours a day, to finish a pair of men’s
ruffles.
It was considered a recommendation to have a piece of lace made all by
one hand.
This old Valenciennes was far superior to any now made under that name.
The _réseau_ was fine and compact, the flowers resembling cambric
in their texture. The fault of the lace was its color, never a pure
white, but, being so long under the hand in a damp atmosphere, of a
reddish cast. In 1840, an old lady, Mlle. Ursule, gathered the few
old lace-makers left in the city, and made the last piece of _vrai
Valenciennes_ of any importance which has been made in the city. It was
a head-dress, and was presented by the city to the Duchesse de Nemours.
In the palmy days of Valenciennes, mothers used to hand these laces
down to their children as scarcely less valuable than jewels. Even
peasant women would lay by their earnings for a year to purchase a
piece of _vrai Valenciennes_ for a head-dress.
One of the finest specimens of this old lace known is a lace-bordered
alb belonging to the Convent of the Visitation, at Le Puy, in Auvergne.
The lace is in three breadths, twenty-eight inches wide, entirely of
thread, and very fine, though thick. The ground is a clear _réseau_,
the pattern solid, of flowers and scrolls.
There is a story of Le Puy that in 1640 a sumptuary edict was issued by
the seneschal, forbidding all persons, without regard to age, sex, or
rank, to wear lace of any kind. Lace-making being the chief employment
of the women of this province, great distress resulted from the edict.
In this time of trial, the beggared people found a comforter in the
Jesuit F. Régis. He not only consoled them, but he proved the sincerity
of his sympathy by acts. He went to Toulouse, and obtained a revocation
of the edict; and at his suggestion the Jesuits opened to the Auvergne
laces a market in the New World.
This good friend to the poor is now S. Francis Régis, and is venerated
in Auvergne as the patron saint of the lace-makers.
The finest and most elaborate Valenciennes is now made at Ypres, in
Flanders. Instead of the close _réseau_ of the old lace, it has a clear
wire ground, which throws the figure out well. On a piece of this Ypres
lace not two inches wide, from 200 to 300 bobbins are employed, and for
larger widths as many as 800 or more are used on the same pillow. There
are now in Flanders 400 lace-schools, of which 157 are the property of
religious communities.
We may say here that lace-makers now use Scotch cotton chiefly, instead
of linen, finding it cheaper, more elastic, and brilliant. Only
Alençon, some choice pieces of Brussels, and the finer qualities of
Mechlin are now made of flax. The difference can scarcely be perceived
by the eye, and both wash equally well, but the cotton grows yellow
with age, while linen retains its whiteness.
Alençon, the only French lace now made on a pillow, was first made in
France by an Italian worker, who, finding herself unable to teach the
Alençon women the true Venetian stitch, struck out a new path, and,
by assigning to each one a different part of the work, as Brussels
did afterward, succeeded in producing the most elaborate point ever
made. Early specimens show rich scroll-work connected by _brides_. One
piece has portraits of Louis XVI. and Maria Theresa, with the crown
and cipher, all entwined with flowers. The patterns were not at first
beautiful, scarcely at all imitating nature; but their work was perfect.
Point Alençon is made entirely by the hand, on a parchment pattern, in
small pieces afterwards united by invisible thread. This art of “fine
joining” was formerly a secret confined to France and Belgium, but is
now known in England and Ireland.
Each part of this work is given to a different person, who is trained
from childhood to that specialty. The number formerly required was
eighteen, but is now twelve.
The design, engraved on copper, is printed off in divisions upon
pieces of parchment ten inches long, each piece numbered in order.
This parchment, which is green, is pricked with the pattern, and
sewed to a piece of very coarse linen folded double. The outline of
the pattern is then made by guiding two flat threads around the edge
with the left thumb, and fixing them by minute stitches passed with
another thread and needle through the holes in the parchment. The work
is then handed over to another to make the ground, either _bride_ or
_réseau_. The _réseau_ is worked back and forward from the footing, or
sewing-on-edge, to the _picot_, or lower pearled edge. The flowers are
worked with a fine needle and long thread, in button-hole stitch, from
left to right, the thread turned back when the end of the flower is
reached, and worked over in the next row, making thus a strong fabric.
Then come the open-work fillings and other operations, after which
the lace is taken from the parchment by passing a sharp razor between
the two folds of linen. The head of the fabric then joins the parts
together. When finished, a steel instrument is passed into each flower
to polish it.
The manufacture of Alençon was nearly extinct when Napoleon I. restored
its prosperity. Among the orders executed for the emperor on his
marriage with Marie Louise was a bed furniture of great richness.
Tester, coverlet, curtains, and pillow-cases were all of the finest
_Alençon à bride_. Again the manufacture languished, though efforts
were made to revive it, and, in 1840, two hundred aged women—all who
were left of the workers—were gathered. But the old point had been
made by an hereditary set of workers, and the lace-makers they were
obliged to call to their help from other districts could not learn
their stitches, consequently changes crept in. But the manufacture
was revived, and some fine specimens were shown in the Exhibition of
1851, among them a flounce valued at 22,000 francs, which had taken
thirty-six women eighteen months to complete. This appeared afterwards
in the Empress Eugénie’s _corbeille de mariage_.
Alençon was chiefly used in the magnificent _layette_ prepared for the
prince imperial. The cradle-curtains were Mechlin, the coverlet of
Alençon lined with satin. The christening robe, mantle, and head-dress
were also of Alençon, and Alençon covered the three _corbeille_ bearing
the imperial arms and cipher, and trimmed the twelve dozen embroidered
frocks and the aprons of the imperial nurses.
Remembering all the magnificence which clustered around the birth of
this infant, who had
“Queens at his cradle, proud and ministrant,”
one thinks with sadness of that exiled boy who now, weeping bitterly
the loss of a tender father, beholds receding from his gaze, like a
splendid dream, that throne he once seemed born to fill. Nowhere on the
face of the earth is one who has possessed so much and lost so much as
that boy; and nowhere are a mother and son around whom cling such a
romantic interest and sympathy.
The specimens of Alençon in the Exhibition of 1862 maintained the
reputation of the ancient fabric. _Bride_ is but little made now, and
is merely twisted threads, far inferior to the clear hexagon of the
last century. This hexagon was a _bride_ worked around with _point
noué_.
Of late, the reapplication of Alençon flowers has been successfully
practised by the peasant lace-workers in the neighborhood of Ostend,
who sew them to a fine Valenciennes ground.
The Chantilly lace, which owed its foundation to Catherine de Rohan,
Duchesse de Longueville, has always been rather an object of luxury
than of commercial value. Being considered a royal fabric, and its
production for the nobility alone, the lace-workers became the victims
of revolutionary fury in ‘93, and all perished on the scaffold with
their patrons. The manufacture was, however, revived, and prospered
greatly during the First Empire. The white blonde was the rage in Paris
in 1805. The black was especially admired in Spain and her American
colonies. No other manufactories produced such beautiful scarfs,
mantillas, and other large pieces. Calvados and Bayeux make a similar
lace, but not so well. The real Chantilly has a very fine _réseau_,
and the workmanship of the flowers is close, giving the lace great
firmness. The so-called Chantilly shawls in the Exhibition of 1862 were
made at Bayeux. Chantilly produces only the extra fine shawls, dresses,
and scarfs.
Honiton owes its reputation to its sprigs. Like the Brussels, they
are made separately. At first they were worked in with the pillow,
afterwards _appliqué_, or sewed on a ground of plain pillow-net. This
net was very beautiful, but very expensive. It was made of the finest
thread procured from Antwerp, the market price of which, in 1790, was
£70 per pound. Ninety-five guineas have been paid a pound for this
thread, and, in time of war, one hundred guineas. The price of the
lace was costly in proportion, the manner of fixing it peculiar. The
lace ground was spread out on the counter, and the worker herself
desired to cover it with shillings. The number of shillings that found
a place on her work was the price of it. A Honiton veil often cost a
hundred guineas. But the invention of machine-net changed all that, and
destroyed not only the occupation of the makers of hand-net, but was
the cause of the lace falling into disrepute.
Desirous to revive the work, Queen Adelaide ordered a dress of
Honiton sprigs, on a ground of Brussels-net, the flowers to be copied
from nature. The skirt of this dress was encircled with a wreath of
elegantly designed sprigs, the initials of the flowers forming her
majesty’s name: Amaranth, Daphne, Eglantine, Lilac, Auricula, Ivy,
Dahlia, Eglantine.
Queen Victoria’s wedding lace was made at Honiton, difficulty being
found in obtaining workers enough, the manufacture had been so little
patronized. The dress, which cost 1,000 pounds, was entirely of Honiton
sprigs connected on a pillow. The patterns were destroyed as soon as
the lace was made. Several of the princesses have had their bridal
dresses of Honiton.
The application of Honiton sprigs upon bobbin-net has of late almost
entirely given place to guipure. The sprigs are sewed on a piece of
blue paper, and then united by the pillow, by cut-works, or purlings,
or else joined with the needle, button-hole stitch being the best of
all, or by purling which is made by the yard. But Honiton has fallen in
public esteem by neglecting the pattern of its lace, which does not
well imitate nature.
A new branch of industry has lately risen there—that of restoring or
remaking old lace.
When old lace revived, it became a mania. The literary ladies were the
first to take this fever in England. Sidney, Lady Morgan, and Lady
Stepney made collections, and the Countess of Blessington left at her
death several large chests full of fine antique lace.
In Paris, the celebrated dressmaker, Madame Camille, was the first one
to bring old laces into fashion.
Much lace is taken from old tombs, cleansed, and sold, usually after
having been made over. All over Europe it was the custom to bury the
dead in lace-trimmed garments, and in some cases these burial toilets
were of immense value. In Bretagne, the bride, after her marriage, laid
aside her veil and dress, and never wore it again till it was put on
after she was dead. Many of these old tombs have been rifled, and the
contents sold to dealers.
In Ireland, lace-making was at one time quite successful. Swift, in the
last century, urged the protection of home manufactures of all kinds,
and the Dublin Society, composed of a band of patriots organized in
1749, encouraged the making of lace, and passed strong resolutions
against the wearing of foreign lace. Lady Arabella Demy, who died in
1792, a daughter of the Earl of Kerry, was especially active in the
work, and good imitations of Brussels and Ypres lace were made. In
1829, the manufacture of Limerick lace was established. This is tambour
work on Nottingham-net. But the emigration of girls to America, and the
effort of the manufacturers to produce a cheap article, thus bringing
it into disrepute, have prevented this lace from attaining success.
For half a century, machine-lace has been striving to imitate hand-made
lace, and in some instances with such success that the difference
can scarcely be perceived. In 1760 a kind of looped lace was made in
England on the stocking-frame, and the fabric has been constantly
improving. But hand-made lace still maintains its supremacy, and is
growing in favor, and old laces are more highly prized even than
old jewels, since the former cannot be imitated, or can scarcely be
imitated; the latter may be. There is a delicacy and finish in needle
and pillow laces which the machine can never give; besides that,
the constant tendency of machine-work, when once it has attained
excellence, is to deteriorate.
We are glad of this revival of lace-making; for in no other way can the
luxury of the rich in dress so well benefit women and children among
the poor. Most working-women have to work too hard, and they have to
leave their homes to earn money. But lace-making accords admirably with
feminine taste and feminine delicacy of organization, and it can be
done at any time, and at home, and of every quality. It is refining,
too. One can scarcely imagine a very coarse person making a very
beautiful lace. It teaches the worker to observe nature and art, in the
selection and working of patterns, and it stimulates inventiveness,
if there be any. And more than that, by the multitudinous ticking of
these little bobbins, and the myriad points of these shining needles,
thousands of that tortured and terrible class called “the poor” might
be able to keep at bay not only the wolf of hunger, but the lion of
crime.
ANTIQUITIES OF THE LAW.
[WE have received this article from a very distinguished and learned
member of the New York bar, with an accompanying letter, in which he
writes, among other things, as follows:
“Confined as I am by my infirmities to my house, and wearying of the
sameness of the life I have to lead, I sometimes vary my occupation by
delving into the ‘Antiquities of the Law.’
“I have lately come across an old law book published in 1711, which
has been several years in my library, but entirely lost sight of by me
until recently.
“From that I have been compiling some articles for one of our law
journals, and began the accompanying article for the same publication.
“While writing it, it occurred to me that it might be more useful,
if not more interesting, to the readers of such a journal as your
CATHOLIC WORLD than to those of a mere law journal; and as I
abhor religious intolerance in all forms, and see so much of it in this
country, I concluded to send it to you, thinking perhaps you may deem
it advisable to use it.”]
ABJURATION.—The statute 35 _Eliz. cap._ 2 was made wholly
against Popish Recusants convict above 16 Years of Age, enjoining them
not to remove above 5 Miles from their Habitation: if they do, and not
being covert (married?), nor having Land to the Value of 20 Marks _per
Annum_ or Goods worth £40, they must abjure the Kingdom. _Hale’s Pl.
Cr._ 228.
“Likewise upon Persons who absent themselves from Church without just
Cause, and refusing to conform within 3 Months after conviction.” _35
Eliz. cap. 1._
ARMOUR.—(Recusancy was denying the Supremacy of the Queen
and adhering to the Pope as Supreme Head of the Church.) “The Armour
of Recusants convict shall be taken from them by Warrant from Four
Justices of Peace.”
“If they conceal their Arms or give any Disturbance in the Delivery,
one Justice may commit them for 3 months without Bail.” _3 Jac. cap. 5._
BAIL: When allowed or denied.—A Minister “depraving” the
Common Prayer-Book, as fixed by Statute, was liable, for first offence,
to commitment for 6 months; for second offence, for a year; and for
third offence, for life.
“Being present at any other Form: First Offence, Commitment for 6
Months; Second Offence, 12 Months; Third Offence, for Life.”
Recusants. “Suspected to be a Jesuit, Seminary, or Priest, and being
examined refuseth to answer, may be committed till he answer directly.”
“Impugning the Queen’s Authority in Ecclesiastical causes; perswading
others to it or from coming to church; meeting at Conventicles, under
Colour of Religion, or perswading others to meet there, commitment
till they conform and make an open Submission and Declaration of their
conformity.”
“Absenting from Church on Sunday, and no Distress to be had, Commitment
till Forfeiture is paid.”
“Above the Age of 16, and absenting for a Month: Forfeiture 20_s._ per
Month, or be committed till paid.” _23 Eliz. cap. 1._
Keeping a School Master or “any other Servant in the House, and not
coming to Church for a Month, the Master of such House forfeits £10
_per_ Month.”
BLASPHEMY.—By Statute 9 and 10 _Will._, “Any Person bred
in or professing the Christian Religion, and who shall, by Writing,
Printing, Teaching, or advised Speaking deny any one of the Persons in
the Trinity; or assert that there are more Gods than one; or deny the
Christian Religion to be true, or the Holy Scriptures to be of Divine
Authority, shall be disabled to have any office,” and “if convicted
a second time, he shall be disabled to sue in any court, or to be a
Guardian or Executor or Administrator, and be incapable of any Legacy
or Gift, or of any office, and shall be committed for Three Years
without Bail.”
CHURCH WARDENS.—“By Common Law they are a corporation to take
care of the Goods of the Church.”
“An Attorney cannot be made a Church Warden.” _2 Roll. Abr. 272._
“He is to see that the Parishioners come to Church every Sunday and
Holiday, and to present the Names of such who are absent to the
Ordinary, or to levy 12d. for every offence, _per Stat. 5_ and _6 Ed.,
1 Eliz. cap. 1_.”
“Arresting a Minister going to or returning from Church may be punished
by Indictment or bound to Good Behaviour. The Offence is the same
if a Layman be arrested. Quarreling in Church or Church Yard, if a
Layman may be suspended _ab ingressio Ecclesiæ_; if a Clergyman, _ab
officio_. But if a Weapon be drawn with intent to strike, the Party may
be convicted, etc., and Judgment to lose one of his Ears by cutting it
off, and if no Ears, to be marked in the Cheek with the Letter F.” _5_
and _6 Ed. VI. cap. 4_.
_Seats in Churches._ “The Ordinary may place and displace whom he
thinks fit.”
“A Man may have a Seat in a Church appendant to his House, and may
prescribe for it, etc. But one cannot prescribe to a Seat in the _Body
of the Church_ generally.” _Roll. Abr., 2 Pars. 288._
“The case is the same in an _Isle of a Church_.” _2 Cro. 367._
“_Presentments_” are to be made by the Church Wardens, usually twice a
year, but cannot be compelled oftener than once a year, except at the
Visitation of the Bishop.
The Articles commonly exhibited to them to make their Presentments may
be reduced thus, viz.:
_To Things which concern_ the Church, the Parson, the Parishioners.
_And First, to those Things which concern the Church; as_,
Alms, whether a Box for that Purpose; Assessments, whether made for
repairs; Bells and Bell Ropes, if in Repair; Bible, whether in Folio;
Canons, whether a Book thereof; Carpet; Chest, with three Locks; Church
and Chancel in Repair; Creed in fair Letters; Cups and Covers for
Bread, etc.; Cushion for Pulpit; Desk for Reader; Lord’s Prayer in fair
Letters; Marriage, a Table of Degrees; Monuments safely kept; Parsonage
House in Repair; Church Yard well Fenced; Commandments in Fair Letters;
Common Prayer-Book; Communion Table; Flaggon; Font; Grave Stones well
kept; Queen’s Arms, set up; Register Book in Parchment; Supplies,
whether any; Table-cloth; Tombs well kept.
2. _Those Things which concern the Parson_:
Articles 39, if read twice a Year; Baptizing with Godfathers; Canons,
if read once a Year; Catechising Children; Common Prayer, if read,
etc.; Dead, if he bury them; Doctrine, if he preach good; Gown, if he
preach in it; _Homilies_, if read or he preach; _January_ 30th, if
observed; May 29th, if observed; Marrying privately; _November_ 5th,
if observed; Preaching every _Sunday_; Peace Maker; Perambulation;
Sacrament, if celebrated; Sedition, if vented; Sick, if visited; Sober
Life; Surplice, if wear it.
3. _Those Things which concern Parishioners_:
Adulterers, if any; Alms Houses, if abused; Ale Houses, and in Divine
Service; Answering, according to Rubrick; Baptism, neglected by
Parents; Blasphemers; Church, resorting to it; Dead, if brought to be
buried; Drunkards, if any; Fornicators, if any; Legacies, if any given
to pious Uses; Marrying within prohibited Degrees; Marrying without
Banns, Licence, or at unlawful hours; Sacraments received 3 times in a
year of all above 16, whereof Easter to be one time; School, if abused;
Seats, if Parishioners are placed in them without contention; Standing
up; _Sundays_, working therein; Swearers, if any; Women, if come to be
Churched.”
“A Warrant against one for not coming to Church.
“To the Constable, etc.: “Sussex, ss. Whereas Oath hath been made
before me That J. O. of, etc., did not upon the Lord’s Day last past
resort to any Church, Chapel, or other usual Place appointed by Common
Prayers, and there hear Divine Service according to the Form of the
Statute in that case made and provided.
“These are therefore to require you, etc., to bring the said J. O.
before me to answer the Premises. Given, etc.”
“Any Man may build a Church or Chappel, but the Law takes no Notice of
it as such till it is consecrated, and therefore, whether Church or
Chappel, it must be tried by the Certificate of the Bishop.”
CLERGY AND BENEFIT OF CLERGY.—“Before the 20 _Ed. I._, the
Clergy paid no Tenths to the King for their Ecclesiastical Livings, but
to the Pope; but in that King’s reign, their Livings were valued all
over England, and the Tenths paid to the King; and by the Statute 26
_Hen. VIII. cap._ 3, they were annexed to the Crown forever.”
Many of their privileges were “confirmed by _Magna Carta_, viz., _Quod
Ecclesia sit libera_.”
“As to the Benefit of Clergy, it was introduced by the Canon Law,
Exempting their persons from any Temporal Jurisdiction. ‘Tis a
Privilege on purpose to save the Life of a Criminal in certain cases,
if he was a man of learning, as accounted in those Days, for as such he
might be useful to the Publick.—At first it was extended to any person
who could read, he declaring that he had vowed or was resolved to
enter into Orders, and the Reading was to show he was qualified.—But
afterwards the reading without a Vow to enter into Orders was held
good, and now ‘tis become a legal conveyance of Mercy to both Clergy
and Laity.”
“But tho’ the Ordinary usually tenders the Book, the Court are the
proper Judges of the Criminal’s Reading: Therefore, where the Ordinary
answer _Quod legit_, the Court judged otherwise, fined the Ordinary,
and hanged the Person.”
“Now, if a Man cannot read where Clergy is allowable, and ‘tis recorded
by the Court _Quod non legit_: if the Offender be reprieved, the Book
may be tendered to him again because ‘tis _in favorem vitæ_, for which
Reason he may have it under the Gallows.” _Dyer_, 205 _b_.
“In those days, an offender might have his Clergy even for Murder
_toties quoties_, but this was restrained by the statute of 4 _Hen.
VII. cap._ 13, that he should have it but once. And for the better
Observance of that Law, it was then provided That the Criminal should
be marked upon the Brawn of the Left Thumb, that he might be known
again upon a second Offence”—“which was not intended as any Part of
the Judgment”—“It was only a Mark set upon the Offender that he might
not have his Clergy a second Time.”
By the Common Law, “all Offenders, except in Treason against the Person
of the Queen,” should have the Benefit of Clergy “and _toties quoties_;
but by statute of 25 _Ed. III. cap._ 4, it was prohibited in Treasons;
and by that of 4 _Hen. VII._ it is restrained to one Time, so that
now (_i.e._ in 1711) there are but very few cases wherein the Common
Law denies Clergy, but in many ‘tis taken away by several acts of
Parliament.”
Among those from whom it was thus taken away, were Popish Recusants by
act of 35 _Eliz. cap._ 1 and 2, and those who receive Priests being
natives of England, and ordained by the See of Rome by act of 27 _Eliz.
cap._ 2.
“In Anno 2 _Ed. VI._, the Reformers, intending to bring the Worship
of God under set forms, compiled a Book of Common Prayer, which was
established by Act of Parliament in that year.”
“But because several things were contained in that Book which showed
a compliancy to the superstitious Humours of those times, and some
Exceptions being made to it by precise Men at Home and by JOHN
CALVIN abroad, therefore two years afterwards it was reviewed, in
which _Martin Bucer_[31] was consulted and some Alterations were made,
which consisted in adding some Things and leaving out others, as in the
former Edition:
{ A general Confession
{ of sins to the daily service.
{
{ A general Absolution
{ to the truly Penitent.
{
{ The Communion to
{ begin with reading the
The { Commandments, the
Additions { People kneeling.
were, viz.: {
{ And a Rubrick Concerning
{ the Posture of
{ kneeling, which was
{ afterwards ordered to be
{ left out by the statute of
{ the 1 _Eliz._, but is now
{ again explained as in 2
{ _Ed. VI._
{ The use of Oil in Confirmation
{ and Extream
{ Unction. Prayers for
{ Souls departed.
Left out: {
{ And what tended to a
{ Belief of the Corporeal
{ Presence in the Consecration
{ of the Eucharist.”
“Afterwards, _Anno_ 5 _Ed. VI._, a Bill was brought into the House of
Lords to enjoin Conformity to this new Book with these Alterations, by
which all People were to come to those Common Prayers under pain of
Church Censure, which Bill passed into a Law, _Anno_ 5 and 6 _Ed. VI._;
but not being observed during the reign of Queen Mary, it was again
reviewed by a Committee of Learned Men (naming them), and appointed to
be used by every Minister, _Anno_ 1 _Eliz._, with some Additions, which
were then made, viz.:
“Certain Lessons for Every Sunday in the Year, some Alterations in
the Liturgy, Two Sentences added in the Delivery of the Sacrament,
intimating to the Communicants that Christ is not Corporeally present
in the Elements, etc. The Form of making Bishops, Priests, and Deacons
was likewise added.”
“Upon these and other Statutes several Things are to be considered:
1. The Punishment of a Minister for refusing to use or depraving the
Book of Common Prayer.
2. The Punishment of any other Person depraving it, and of such who
shall hear or be present at any other form.
3. Who are bound to use it.
4. Who must provide it.”
The Punishment of the Minister was for 1st offence, loss of a year’s
Livings and six Months’ imprisonment; 2d offence, Deprivation and
Imprisonment for a Year; 3d offence, Imprisonment for Life and
Deprivation.
Any other Person, for 1st Offence, six months’ Imprisonment; 2d
Offence, twelve months; and 3d Offence, for Life. 5 and 6 _Ed. VI.
cap._ 1.
“No Form of Prayer should be used in any Public Place other than
according to the said Book.”
By Statute 3 _Jac. cap._ 4, Constables “must once a Year present to the
Quarter Sessions those who absent themselves for the space of a Month
from Church”; and he must levy certain forfeitures on those who keep
or resort to Bowling, Dancing, Ringing, or any sport whatever on the
Sabbath; and on a Butcher who shall kill or sell Flesh on that day.
RECUSANTS “are those who refuse or deny Supremacy to the Queen
by adhering to the Pope as Supreme Head of the Church.”
“_Anno_ 24 _Hen. VIII. cap._ 12, Parliament prohibited _Appeals_ to
_Rome_, etc.”
25 _Hen. VIII._ “The King appointed that _Convocations_ should be
assembled by his Writ, and that no _Canons_ or _Constitutions_ should
be contrary to his Prerogative or the Laws of the Land.”
“In the same Year an Act passed to restrain the Payment of _First
Fruits_ to the Court of _Rome_.”
“In the next Year, 26 _Hen. VIII._, An Act passed by which the First
Fruits of all Spiritual Livings were given to the King.”
In the same Year, “an Act passed, prohibiting _Investitures_ of
Archbishops or Bishops by the Pope; but that in a Vacancy the King
should send his _Letters-missive_ to a Prior or Convent, Dean or
Chapter, to choose another.”
“Likewise, in the same Year, all _Licenses_ and _Dispensations_ from
the Court of Rome were prohibited, and that all _Religious Houses_
should be under the _Visitation of the King_.”
And by an Act passed the same Year (viz., 1534), The King was “declared
to be _Supream Head of the Church_.”
“But he did not exercise any act of that Power till a year afterwards,
by appointing Sir Thomas _Cromwell_ to be his Vicar General in
Ecclesiastical Matters, and Visitor of all the _Monasteries_ and other
Privileged Places in the Kingdom.”
In 27 _Hen. VIII._ (1536) “all the _lesser Monasteries_, under the
number of _twelve Persons_, and whose Revenues were not of the Value of
£200 _per annum_, were given to the King, his Heirs and Successors; and
a Court was erected on purpose for collecting the Revenues belonging to
these Monasteries, which was called _The Court of Augmentation of the
King’s Revenue_, who had full power to dispose of those Lands for the
Service of the King.”
The officers of this Court had, among its other duties, that of
inquiring “into the Number of _Religious_ in the House, and what Lives
they led; how many would go into other Religious Houses, and how many
into the _World_, as they called it.”
The whole of the goods thus confiscated were valued at £100,000, and
the rents of these small Monasteries came to £32,000 _per annum_.
“This occasioned great Discontents amongst the people,” to appease
which the King sold some of the Lands “to the Gentry” at low Rates,
“obliging them to keep up Hospitality.”
“This pleased both them and the ordinary Sort of People for a little
time; and, to satisfy others,” the King “continued or gave back
thirty-one Houses. But these, about two Years afterwards, fell under
the Common Fate of the great Monasteries, and were all suppressed with
them.”
“But notwithstanding he gave back some of these Houses, yet the People
were still discontented, and openly rebelled in _Lincolnshire_, which
was quieted by a Pardon: There was another Rebellion in _Yorkshire_ and
the Northern Counties, which ended also in a Pardon, only some of the
chief of the Rebels were executed for this last Rebellion.”
Most of the Monasteries, “seeing their Dissolution drawing near,
made voluntary Surrenders of their Houses in the 29th _year of Hen.
VIII._, in Hopes by this means to obtain Favor of the King; and after
the Rebellion, the rest of the Abbots, both great and small, did
the like; for some of them had encouraged the Rebels, others were
convicted by the Visitors of great Disorders, and most of them had
secured all the Plate, Jewels and Furniture belonging to their Houses,
to make Provision for them and Relations and then surrendered their
Monasteries.”
“Afterwards, _Anno_ 31 _Hen. VIII._, a Bill was brought into the House
of Peers to confirm these surrenders. There were 18 Abbots[32] present
at the first Reading, 20 at the second, and 17 at the third. It soon
passed the Commons and the Royal Assent; and by this Act all the
Houses, etc., were confirmed to the King.”
“‘Tis true, the Hospitallers, Colleges and Chanteries, etc., were not
yet dissolved.... These had large endowments to support themselves and
to entertain Pilgrims,” etc.
“But notwithstanding the King was declared to be the Supreme Head
of the Church, yet these Hospitallers would not submit,” etc., “and
therefore, Anno 32 _Hen. VIII. cap._ 24, The Parliament gave their
lands to the King and dissolved their Corporation.”
“The Colleges and Chanteries still remained; but the Doctrine of
Purgatory being then grown out of Belief[33] and some of those
Fraternities having resigned in the same manner as the Monasteries,
the Endowments of the rest were then thought to be for no purpose, and
therefore, _Anno_ 37 _Hen. VIII._, all these Colleges, Free Chapels,
Chanteries, etc., were given to the King by Act of Parliament.”
“Thus in the Compass of a few years, the Power and Authority of the See
of _Rome_ was suppressed in this Kingdom. And because frequent Attempts
have been made to revive it, therefore, in succeeding Times, several
Laws have been made to keep them in subjection.”
Among those were the following: Recusant Convict above 16 must go
to his place of Abode and not remove 5 miles without license or
otherwise abjure the Realm. Not departing within the time limited by
the Justices, or returning without license from the Queen, was felony
without Benefit of Clergy. 35 _Eliz. cap._ 2.
“To absolve or to be absolved by Bulls from the Bishop of Rome was High
Treason.” 13 _Eliz. cap._ 2.
“Bringing an _Agnus Dei_ hither, or offering it to any Person to be
used, both he and the Receiver incurs a _Premunire_.[34] 13 _Eliz.
cap._ 2. All Armour shall be taken from Recusants by order of four
Justices.” 7 _Jac. cap._ 6.
Bringing over Beads or offering them to any person, both he and the
Receiver incur a Premunire. 13 _Eliz. cap._ 2.
“Two Justices may search Houses for Books and Relicks, and burn them.”
3 _Jac. cap._ 5.
“Every Popish Recusant must be buried in Church or Church yard
according to the Ecclesiastical Laws, or his Executor or Administrator
forfeits £20.” 3 _Jac. cap._ 5.
“Children of Recusants must be baptized by a lawful Minister, or the
Parent forfeits £100.” 3 _Jac. cap._ 5.
“Popish Recusant, if he sue any person, the Defendant may plead it in
Disability.”
He “shall not be Executor, Administrator, or Guardian.” 3 _Jac. cap._ 5.
A married woman, a Popish Recusant convict, “not conforming within 3
months after conviction, may be committed by two Justices until she
conform, unless her Husband will pay to the King 10 shillings per month
or a third part of his Lands.” 7 _Jac. cap._ 6.
“Popish Recusant marrying otherwise than according to the Forms of the
Church of England shall forfeit £100. If a woman, not have her Dower or
Jointure or Widow’s Estate.” 3 _Jac. cap._ 5.
“Saying Mass forfeits 200 marks, hearing it 100 Marks.”
“Jesuits, Seminary Priests, etc., and other Ecclesiastical Persons
born within the Queen’s Dominions, coming in or remaining in the said
Dominions, is guilty of Treason.” 27 _Eliz. cap._ 2.
“Any knowing a Jesuit or Priest to be here and not within 12 days
afterwards discovering him to a Justice of Peace shall be committed and
fined.” 27 _Eliz. cap._ 2.
“Per Stat. 3 _Jac. cap._ 4, to move any one to promise Obedience to the
See of Rome or other Prince is High Treason in the Mover and he that
promiseth Obedience.”
“Recusant Convict must not practice the Art of Apothecary, Civil Law,
Common Law, Physick, or be an officer in any Court or amongst Soldiers,
or in a Castle, Fortress or Ship.” 3 _Jac. cap._ 5.
“Sending Persons beyond Sea to be instructed in Popish Religion
forfeits £100, and the Persons sent are incapable to take any
Inheritance.” 1 _Jac. cap._ 4.
“Children shall not be sent beyond Sea without License from the Queen
or six of her Privy Council, whereof the Principal Secretary of State
to be one.”
“Notwithstanding all these Laws, the Parliament (11 and 12 _Will._) was
of Opinion that Popery increased, and therefore to prevent its growth
a Law was made That if any person should take one or more _Popish
Bishop_, _Jesuit_ or _Priest_, and prosecute him till he is convicted
of _saying Mass_ or exercising any other part of the Office or Function
of a _Popish Bishop_ or _Priest_,” he shall have a reward of £100.
“If any Popish Bishop, Priest or Jesuit, shall be convicted of saying
Mass, etc., or any Papist shall Keep School, etc., he shall be adjudged
to perpetual Imprisonment in such place where the Queen by Advice of
her Council shall think fit.”
“Every Papist, after the 10th of April, 1700, is made incapable of
purchasing Lands, etc., either in his own Name or the name of other
Person, to his use.”
THE SABBATH.—“Shoemaker putting Boots or Shoes to sale
forfeits 3_s._ 4_d._ and the goods.” 1 _Jac. I. cap._ 11.
“Carriers, Drivers, Waggoners, travelling on that day forfeit 20_s._” 3
_Car. I. cap._ 1.
“Butchers killing or selling, or causing to be killed or sold or privy
or consenting to kill or sell Meat on that day, forfeit 6_s._ 8_d._” 3
_Car. I. cap._ 1.
By 29 _Car. II. cap._ 7 “Public and private Duties of Piety are
enjoined, all worldly business is prohibited, and all above the Age of
14 forfeit 5_s._”
“Drovers or their servants coming to their Inns on that day forfeit
20_s._”
“If the Offender is not able to pay the Forfeiture, he shall be put in
the Stocks for two Hours.”
“Meeting together out of their own Parish for any Sports or Pastimes,
forfeit 3_s._ 4_d._” 1 _Car. I. cap._ 1.
SACRAMENT.—“Depraving or doing any Thing in contempt of the
Sacrament must be committed.” 1 _Ed. VI. cap._ 1, 1 _Eliz._ 2, 3 _Jac._
4.
SCHOOLMASTER.—“Not coming to church or not allowed by the
Bishop of the Diocese, forever disabled to teach Youth, and shall be
committed for a year without bail.” 23 _Eliz. cap._ 1.
TYTHES.—“A canon was made _Anno_ 1585 for payment of Tythes
as founded on the Law of God and the ancient Custom of the Church.”
“When Glanville wrote (about 1660), a Freeholder was allowed to make a
Will, so as he gave the best Thing he had to the _Lord Paramount_, and
the next best to the _Church_.”
“They are said to be Ecclesiastical Inheritances collateral to the
Estate of the Land, out of which they arise, and are of their own
Nature due only to Spiritual Persons.”
Certain Lands were, however, exempt. “Most orders of Monks were first
exempted; but in time this was restrained to three orders—Cistertians,
Hospitallers, Templars.”
DISSENTERS.—After the various laws against “Popish
Recusants,” as they were called, had had the effect of rendering
somewhat firm the establishment of the English Protestant Church, and
about the time of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, a new trouble arose
from those who dissented from that church, in its forms and in some of
its principles, and government then began to interfere with them.
In the 1st Year of the reign of William and Mary these “Dissenters”
were exempted from the statutes of 1 _Eliz. cap._ 2, 23 _Eliz. cap._
1, 3 _Jac. cap._ 4, above mentioned. “But they must not assemble in
Places with Doors locked, barred, or bolted, nor until the place is
certified to the Bishop of the Diocese or to the Arch Deacon or to the
Justices at the Quarter Sessions, and registered there and they have a
certificate thereof.”
Their Preachers must declare their Approbation, and subscribe the
“Articles of Religion,” except the 20th, 34th, 35th, and 36th articles,
and must take the oaths and subscribe the Declaration prescribed Dy
certain statutes, and that at the Quarter Sessions where they live.
So that, from the reign of Elizabeth, through the reign of James
I., and until the the troubles which ended in the civil war and the
Protectorate of Cromwell, Dissenters were subject to many of the
restrictions which had been imposed on the Roman Catholics; and even
when those troubles finally ended in the flight of James II., and the
elevation of William and Mary to the throne, freedom of religion was
not allowed to the Dissenters, but they were permitted to enjoy their
dissent from the forms and ceremonies of the Church of England only by
declaring their assent to many of its most important tenets of faith or
doctrine.
The oaths of allegiance and supremacy enjoined by the statutes of _1
Eliz._ and _3 Jac._ were abrogated by the Statute of _1 Will., and Mar.
cap. 8_, and the following substituted:
“I, A. B., do sincerely promise and swear that I will be faithful and
bear true allegiance,” etc.
“I, A. B., do swear that I do from my Heart abhor, detest and abjure
as Impious and Heretical, that damnable Doctrine and Position that
Princes excommunicated or deprived by the Pope or any authority of the
See of Rome may be deposed by their subjects or any other whatsoever;
and I do declare that no Foreign Prince, Person, Prelate, State or
Potentate, hath or ought to have any Jurisdiction, Power, Superiority,
Pre-eminence or Authority, Ecclesiastical or Spiritual, within the
Realm. So help me God.”
JOSEPH IN EGYPT A TYPE OF CHRIST.
LOOK down, O Lord, holy Father, from thy sanctuary, and from thy high
and heavenly dwelling, and behold this all-holy Victim, which thy great
High-priest, thy holy Child Jesus, offers thee for the sins of his
brethren; and have mercy on the multitude of our iniquities. Lo! the
voice of the blood of Jesus our Brother cries to thee from the cross.
For what is it, O Lord, that hangs on the cross? Hangs, I say; for past
things are as present with thee. Own it, O Father! It is the coat of
thy Joseph, thy Son; an evil wild beast hath devoured him, and hath
trampled on his garment in its fury, spoiling all the beauty of this
his remanent corpse, and, lo! five mournful gaping wounds are left in
it. This is the garment which thy innocent holy Child Jesus, for the
sins of his brethren, has left in the hands of the Egyptian harlot,
thinking the loss of his robe a better thing than the loss of purity;
and choosing rather to be despoiled of his coat of flesh and go down to
the prison of death than to yield to the voice of the seductress for
all the glory of the world.—_S. Anselm._
MADAME AGNES.
FROM THE FRENCH OF CHARLES DUBOIS.
CHAPTER I.
IN WHICH WE ARE MADE ACQUAINTED WITH MADAME AGNES.
ABOUT twenty years ago, I lived in a town in France which I may be
allowed to call Philopolis. It need not be sought on the map: it will
not be found there, at least under the name I think it proper to call
it by, in order to avoid all appearance of indiscretion. The story I am
about to relate is really a true one.
I had just finished my school-days, and, having carefully thought over
the different professions which seemed to accord with my tastes, I
felt—and it may be imagined how bitterly—that not one of them was
within my means. To embrace any of them would have required a larger
sum than I had the least hope of. Under such unfavorable circumstances,
I became a tutor in a Lycée.
God preserve my very enemies, if I have any, from so trying an
occupation! At the end of three months, worn out with my labors, and
overwhelmed with humiliations and sadness, I had fallen into such a
state of discouragement, not to say of despair, that I regarded myself
as the most unfortunate of men.
To those who wish to be distinguished from the crowd, there is
something peculiarly attractive in looking upon themselves as more
unhappy than common mortals. I gave myself up to this notion, at first
through vanity. But this kind of superiority is by no means cheering, I
assure you, so I soon sought consolation. Thank God, I had not far to
go. My old friend, Mme. Agnes, was at hand. I sought refuge with her. I
speak as if she were advanced in years, but it must be acknowledged she
would have seemed a mere child to Methuselah. She was thirty-six years
of age; but I was only eighteen, and thought her old.
Mme. Agnes lived on a broad and pleasant quay that gently sloped
towards a noble river. Not fifty steps from the house rolled the swift
current of the Loire. Beyond was an extensive plain from which rose
innumerable spires.
When I arrived, I found my friend in her usual seat near the window.
She was in a large arm-chair, with a table before her, on which were
all the materials necessary for a painter of miniatures. Mme. Agnes was
renowned in Philopolis as an artist. Her uncommon talent enabled her to
support her mother and young sister in a comfortable manner. Alas! poor
lady, she had been a paralytic for ten years.
According to her custom, she laid aside her work when I entered, and
welcomed me with a smile. But this expression of pleasure gave place to
one of motherly anxiety when she observed the sad face I wore.
“What is the matter, my poor child?” said she. “You have grown
frightfully thin.”
“I cannot say I am ill,” I replied, “but I am down-hearted, and have
so much reason to be, that things cannot continue long in this way: I
should die.”
Thus saying, I leaned my head against Mme. Agnes’ chair, like a great
child as I was, and cried heartily. I had so long restrained my
tears!...
Mme. Agnes softly placed her hand on my head, and consoled me with a
kindness truly maternal. When my explosion of grief had passed away,
she made me give her an account of my troubles. I told her, perhaps for
the tenth time, what an inclination I had for a literary life, only
I was absolutely too poor to embrace it. I added that my duties as a
tutor were repugnant; the pupils were insolent and unfeeling; in short,
I concealed nothing that afflicted me. At length I ended with these
words:
“You now see, Mme. Agnes, that I could not be more wretched than I am.
This must end. Give me, I beg, some of the good advice I have so many
times received from you. Tell me what I must do.”
“Have patience, my child, and wait till God makes the way smoother.”
“Wait! when one suffers as I do?... When I abhor my position?... When
I feel how happy I could be elsewhere!... Ah! Mme. Agnes, if you knew
what I have to endure—if you only comprehended my complete despair!”
“Poor child, your trials are bitter, I acknowledge; but you are young,
capable, and industrious, and will get a better position by-and-by.”
“To be forced to endure it only a year would be beyond my strength.
Neither my disposition, nor tastes, nor health could stand what I have
to bear.”
“How many others are in a similar position, but without even the hope
you have of soon exchanging an employment without results—detestable,
if you like—for one more congenial! The task they are pursuing must be
that of their whole lives. They know it, and resign themselves to it.
You, who have only to bear your trials for a certain time, must imitate
their example. Come, come, my friend, every one has his cross here
below. Let us bear ours cheerfully, and it will soon seem light.”
These consoling words were uttered in a sympathetic tone, as if they
came from the heart. I was touched. I began to look at Mme. Agnes
more attentively than ever before, and the thought occurred to me
like a revelation: “How much this woman must have suffered, and how
instructive would be the account of her life!”
“Mme. Agnes,” said I, “your advice is excellent, but example would
produce a still greater impression on me. I beg you to relate the
history of your life. You have evidently gone through much suffering,
and with great patience, I am confident. I will endeavor to conform to
your example.”
“You require a sad task of me,” she replied; “but no matter, I will
gratify you. My story—and who of us has not one?—will prove useful
to you, I think. But you must not be so ready to declare me a saint.
I never was one, as you will soon see. Yes, I have suffered, as you
suppose—greatly suffered, and have learned that the best means of
mitigating our sufferings is to submit to God’s will, and to cherish
it. The lesson to be derived from my history will be of use to you, I
trust, and therefore I yield to your request.
“One word more before commencing. I would observe that the account of
my own life is closely interwoven with the lives of several persons
whom you will not reproach me for making you acquainted with. By
a concurrence of circumstances which would appear to me almost
inexplicable did I not behold the hand of God therein, my life for
many years was identified, so to speak, with theirs. I witnessed the
struggles these loved ones had to make; I shared their very thoughts;
I sympathized in their sorrows, as they in mine; and I also had the
happiness of participating in their joys.
“When, therefore, I invoke these remembrances you wish me to recall, I
find all along the pathway of my life these friends now gone. I could
not relate my own history without relating theirs. But everything
encourages me to go on. The task is pleasant. It is sweet to speak of
those we have loved! The faithful picture I am going to draw of their
lives will be as full of instruction to you, my friend, as that of my
own.”