About this time, Mrs. Thorndyke begins to have her attention drawn to

certain vile papers and periodicals of the day, introduced cautiously

at first, and with some discrimination, as if the better (or rather,

_less bad_) ones have been selected. She finds them lying about Mr.

Vanderlyn’s room, and she reads them without comment, but the seeds

take root. Afterwards Mr. Vanderlyn calls her attention to certain

cleverly written but mischievous articles; flattering her intellect

by appealing to her supposed ability to decide on these abstruse

questions. When he finds that she reads with avidity all he procures,

faster and thicker the vile flood, which disgraces the press and the

name of literature, pours in upon her. Here she is almost defenceless.

With no thorough education, no religious influence to penetrate into

her life, and guard her against this assault, she is left to stem this

torrent of sophistry, to answer these devil’s thoughts penned too often

by the hand of her own sex. It is a sad but significant fact that, in

this sort of vile writing, women, when they do stifle their better

natures and take up unclean pens, excel the other sex. Some of the most

dangerous books of the day are written by females, under the guise of

pretended morality, which deceives silly girls and weak women who read

them and are unable to detect the poison under the honey. Alas! that

women should thus prostitute their intellects in the service of the

devil!

When a woman of Agnes Thorndyke’s stamp can be found reading long

editorials in a paper devoted to the destroying of the marriage

relation, and to the advance of “free-love” principles, alas! for the

happiness, the very legitimacy, of her children! But what cares Martin

Vanderlyn for any such considerations? To corrupt this woman’s nature

and to win her is his present and sole object, and so he calls to his

aid all those of her own sex as well as of his, who dip their pens in

envenomed ink for mercenary ends.

But John Thorndyke has become jealous, and, being so, he is not

a more agreeable husband. He soon signifies his desire that Mr.

Vanderlyn shall find for himself some other lodgings. In doing this,

he expresses himself so coarsely, and hints so broadly at the cause of

his displeasure, that it increases the very danger he seeks to avoid,

by forcing an understanding and recognition of the situation between

his wife and her patient. This is just what Mr. Vanderlyn desires. He

wishes Agnes Thorndyke to know him to be her lover, long before he

will dare to avow it to her. Well he knows that he must prepare her

for that, lead her step by step up to that avowal; and he knows that

she may recoil at any moment, and turn out from the slippery path

through which he is leading her. Too many good instincts and habits of

early training are warring with the bad teachings he is so assiduously

implanting, to make his task a perfectly easy one. Now that John

Thorndyke has shown his jealousy so plainly, these two cannot look

into each other’s eyes without knowing there is some cause for it.

They cannot ignore it, and, while Mr. Vanderlyn is preparing to leave,

he improves the opportunity to remark how unhappy he is at the sad

necessity. He tells her how pleasant it would be if he could continue

to pass all his days with her; and at last, finding himself unreproved,

he asks if that is not possible?

At this she does recoil, with a wild and frightened look like that of a

hunted deer. But he knows that it is the first shock which either kills

or leaves the victim able to bear another. Her mind has taken in the

full force of the proposal, and yet she does not send him at once from

her presence. She only says, “How can it be possible?” admitting by the

very question that she might like it to be possible.

“Leave him, Agnes,” he says, “and come to me—to me, your adorer—I

can appreciate the jewel of which he knows not the value!”

“But I am his wife, and I cannot be that to you; so, if not that,

nothing, Martin.”

“Yes; you can be a wife to me, Agnes, if you must be tied by the law.

The law will soon free you as it has freed many another. Cast off your

chains as I cast off mine, and come to me!”

He holds out his arms as he speaks, and she goes to them. The serpent

has coiled almost his last coil!

In no relation except that of wife can this woman be persuaded to live

with Vanderlyn; but the law may be perverted, her marriage contract

basely set aside and broken. “For better, for worse” she has taken

John Thorndyke, and she has plighted him her troth; but she will not

have the worse, and her troth she will not keep. Yet the law must make

her _seem_ a wife, even in this degradation. So it is agreed that

steps shall be taken to obtain a divorce, Vanderlyn’s money being at

her service. It is so agreed, but not without many struggles on her

part. If she is not a loving wife, she is a tender mother. This new

infatuation cannot crush the true maternal instinct in her heart. It

requires the wildest assurances on Vanderlyn’s part that the law will

give her the control of her children, and that he will care for them

and educate them as if they were his own, to keep her from receding.

Vanderlyn is no longer an inmate of her house, but he hovers around her

neighborhood, seeing her during her husband’s absence, upon which she

can always count for a certain number of hours every day. He writes to

her letters which seem to her gems of poetry and eloquence, but which

are really only fulsome flatteries, and sophistries of a godless school

which he studies and copies. He knows that it is necessary to keep her

mind always clouded by these false arguments, and her vanity fed by

these protestations, because she is not by nature prone to the falsity

to which he is luring her. This woman with a better husband, or even

with a worse husband, and better religious teaching, could not have

been so tempted. She is no syren, no coquette; it really needs much

careful tact, and study, and address on Vanderlyn’s part to make her

take the first steps in this path.

The children seem to be her guardian angels now. In their innocent

helplessness there is great strength. Vanderlyn often wishes them in

their graves, for it seems to him, chafing in his vexation, as he

repeats,

“Baby fingers, waxen touches, press me from the mother’s breast,”

that these are rivals indeed, which may yet laugh him down and bring

her rest, unless he is unremitting in his efforts to prevent it.

As if in answer to his bad desires, scarlet-fever prostrates them all

at once, but drives him, for the time, from the thoughts of their

mother. Wan and pale with watching, anxiety, and dread, Agnes weeps

and prays over her little flock—prays as she has not prayed for a

long while. Yet two are taken. The youngest darlings are buried in one

grave, leaving a boy of seven years to fill the empty places.

For a time, Vanderlyn almost thinks his game is lost to him, and that

Death has checkmated him; for the dead children, whose lives have

seemed in his way, are even yet his most powerful opponents. So truly

does Agnes mourn now, so bitterly reproach herself, that, if her

husband will meet her with any tender sympathy in this their common

sorrow, some love for him may yet spring up, watered by her tears for

children which were his as well as hers.

“Oh! the child, too, clothes the father with a dearness not his due.”

But John Thorndyke is not the man to be tender and delicate to any

one whose grief takes such a form as hers. Her brooding melancholy he

calls “moping.” Her silence and shrinking from every one, he speaks

of as “airs” put on to disturb him. He thinks the loss is his as well

as hers, and _he_ is not inclined to “mope and take on so.” He goes

to his work every day as usual, and, although he does miss his little

prattlers, to whom he has always been indulgent, the world does not

seem all dark to him. He is utterly incapable of understanding how

differently this blow affects her, and it chafes him that she does not

bear it as he does. He cannot see that the very need of going to his

daily toil, of mixing with other men whose minds are not on his loss,

and the leaving of his sad home every day, helps to dissipate much

morbid feeling which might cling to him were he obliged to stay at

home, as his wife is compelled to do. He never thinks of the greater

difference which it has made to her in every little change which the

absence of the children demands. The very lightening of her care and

toil for them leaves greater time and room to grieve. Her bereaved

heart cries for love and sympathy in this her sorest need, and her

husband does not heed the cry; does not soften to her just at the time

he can save her.

Vanderlyn does not slight the chance of increasing his influence. He

has been jealous of these children living, he has feared their memories

may even now crowd him from the mother’s heart, but he sees the need

of some one to _appear_ at least to share her grief. She does not

scruple to tell him how cold and unfeeling her husband is at this time;

and thus she furnishes him with one more weapon in the contest he is

waging against her better nature. He plays now the part of tender,

devoted friend, rather than that of lover. He sees that just now no

lover’s image can obtrude before the angel faces always present to her

thoughts; he has the tact and patience to wait and turn the present

digression ultimately to his favor. It may be that, after all, if

these children had lived, she never could turn entirely from her duty.

But this delicate attention to her now in her grief, contrasting so

unhappily with Thorndyke’s unfeeling, stupid impatience with her, is

the most dangerous temptation of all, because it wins her confidence in

his being a real friend as well as lover.

When the first acute feelings have worn off after the children’s death,

and her life has gradually become more cheerful, she turns from her

husband with a bitterness and contempt which produce in him a still

worse frame of mind. Now he taunts her for her assumed superiority to

him, and scoffingly pictures how happy she might have been with some

rich man—Vanderlyn, for instance. And so matters go on from bad to

worse, until he consents to her applying for a divorce, seeming as

willing as she to part for ever.

Of what use lingering over the details? The divorce is granted, as

such things are, in open defiance of Heaven’s decree and the apparent

law of the land. When a New York daily paper has frequently a list of

divorces longer than its list of marriages, can we wonder over the

fact? In this case, it has been necessary to change their residence

for a time, because the laws of one state are more favorable to this

object than another. But Christ’s law is the same everywhere. Can a

couple be considered married to each other in one part of our country,

and divorced in another? Are the children of a second union legitimate

in one state, and illegitimate in another? It would really seem so.

But Agnes Thorndyke, or rather, Agnes Rodney, as she is now

called—taking back her maiden name, without her maiden heart—is

deprived of one comfort on which she had surely counted. Her one child

is left to its father. Thorndyke has schemed for this with deliberate

malice. It is not that he loves the boy overmuch, but it is his revenge

upon her. He would rather burden himself with the care of this little

child than forego the pleasure it gives him to punish her. And so,

while the father of her child lives, she lays her head on another man’s

breast, and calls him husband. Vanderlyn is spared either the keeping

or the breaking of his promise to care for her children—two in the

graves where he wished them, and one in a strange woman’s care. He has

all he wished for—John Thorndyke’s pretty wife at last.

Thorndyke takes to his forsaken home a housekeeper at first, as if he

were a widower. This woman is a widow who makes him so comfortable that

he speedily marries her, without considering law or Gospel as they may

bear on his case. No compunctions trouble her easy conscience, and she

accepts the lot offered to her as the best thing in a business point

of view likely to fall to her. Being disinclined for reading poetry,

having no refined yearnings, having little intellect to cultivate, she

never reads _Maud Muller_, nor thinks of herself as out of her place

in any sense. Being good-natured and not oversensitive, she gets along

with John Thorndyke remarkably well, and no thought of Agnes ever makes

a ripple of disturbance between them. She might be forgotten, except

for the boy, with her eyes and features, left in her old home. He calls

the woman in her place “mother,” and does get quite motherly treatment.

He loves the brothers and sisters who in time spring up around him, and

seems as happy in his boyish plays as if his own mother were guarding

and guiding him. Who can say how much his future life might be changed

if that mother had been left to him? To be sure, her death might have

brought as great a change to him, and we will now only follow her fate.

Is she happy in her new relations? Is joy her duty, and love her

law, now? Can that ever be, after broken vows and outraged honor?

“It is not in the bond.” For a time she thinks herself happier in

all her more refined associations; with leisure, books, servants,

all at her command, and with Martin Vanderlyn devoted to her. He

does not introduce her into society, but lives remote from all his

acquaintances and former friends. This never troubles her. Two people

like these, who have closed or tried to tear out a chapter in their

life-history, naturally shrink from having it recalled. They prefer

to think themselves sufficient for each other, looking always to the

future—never to the past, if they can avoid it.

But before a year is passed, Agnes begins to see that Vanderlyn is

not so entirely devoted to her as she would wish and he has at first

seemed. It is the first shadow of a misgiving, not really harbored,

but resting upon her heart in spite of herself. She does not wish to

see any difference in him, and she tries to think it is business which

keeps him so often away from her. He says it is, and why not think so?

why not believe him? Alas! small clouds of doubt already dot the sky of

her belief in him. Whence they have arisen she can scarcely tell; but

there they are, and threatening to increase. However, she has risked

too much for him, braved too much, to foster anything now which may

wreck her life-venture. If this man fail her, where can she turn? But

after a while a little child is born—a boy to help divert her thoughts

from that other boy bearing another father’s name. The mother does

blush when she thinks of these boys, each hers, having each a different

father living _now_. She had named her first-born after her own father,

and some idea of trying to fill his place leads her to call this one by

the same name—George Rodney. Vanderlyn, however, playfully calls him

Martin after himself, and, as the child grows, he learns to answer to

that, and calls himself “Martie” quite as often as by the name which

his mother has given him, and which she will never relinquish.

So truly does the pure instinct of motherhood show her the falsity of

her present position that she often feels that two fathers should not

be living at the same time for the two boys for whom she is mother. Of

that other boy she often thinks still with yearning love, and of his

sisters in their little grave; more now than at first, when Vanderlyn

was with her so much, for his absences grow longer and more frequent.

He takes no father’s pride in this child of his, but rather seems bored

by the care and trouble it has brought. A baby _is_ a tyrant in a

household, especially if it is loved as Agnes loves this one, giving it

almost all her time and care. Now, indeed, Vanderlyn might say, if he

remembers the poet he quoted before in his jealousy of her love for her

children:

“Nay, but nature brings thee solace; for a tender voice will cry:

‘Tis a purer life than thine—a lip to drain thy trouble dry:

... My latest rival brings thee rest.”

But it does not bring her rest. She often now remembers that Thorndyke

was a fonder and better father than his successor; that his children

seemed at their birth and during their lives to form a tie between his

wife and himself; that he always faithfully brought his hard-earned

money to her, to spend or save for them as well as for himself. She

gives him this credit now, because Vanderlyn, with his more abundant

means, shows in many ways a carelessness of her comfort and pecuniary

wants. True, she has not really suffered, but small misgivings have

oppressed her that she may yet come to that. She has found that

Vanderlyn is not the substantial business man she was at first led to

believe. She had thought him a lawyer, and so he is by education; but,

in reality, he is an adventurer and a speculator, and, although often

commanding money easily, he has no real fortune, and has only a very

fluctuating income. This it is that worries him and takes him often

away from home long at a time. He has not the honesty to deny himself

any accustomed luxury for the sake of those dependent upon him. It

chafes him to be obliged to meet his household expenses, and not always

have the means to do so conveniently. He knows that Agnes will not

insist upon unnecessary expenditure, but he has not the courage to tell

her frankly of his affairs. There is a respect for her in his heart

in spite of all, and he knows that there is an uprightness about her

which would lead her to insist on plainer living and fewer servants.

She is not weakly self-indulgent as he is. He is so unprincipled at

heart that no tie, no obligation, can bind him when it once becomes

irksome. He is a greater moral coward than the woman he has perverted.

And so at last, when her boy is about five years old, Agnes finds

herself deserted. Martin Vanderlyn has gone to California, and left

her with her household effects, and about one hundred dollars in

money—that is all.

She looks her fate steadily in the face. Young enough and strong enough

yet for work, but with a helpless child upon her hands, what shall she

do? She sells promptly her furniture, books, pictures, and jewelry. For

the last she has never cared, but Vanderlyn had lavished it upon her

during the days she was seeking a divorce. Very rarely has she worn it.

With the sum thus raised, she can, for a time, pay her board until she

can find employment, and she seeks the most retired house she can find

for a refuge.

In bitterness of spirit beyond anything she has ever endured while the

honest wife of John Thorndyke, Agnes now feels in almost overwhelming

force the folly of the course she has pursued—_almost_ overwhelming,

but not quite, for she still believes herself to be Martin Vanderlyn’s

lawful wife. Bad as he has proved himself, she as yet has no doubt

that he is her lawful husband, and so, in her present abode, she calls

herself Mrs. Vanderlyn, with no thought but that she is so honestly, if

not wisely.

She has been in her new home rather less than a week, when, passing

along the corridor, she meets, coming from a room near her own, two

Sisters of Mercy, who have apparently just taken leave of an invalid

lady; at least, so she judges from the voice which comes through the

open door, saying:

“Good-by, and come again soon, Sisters,” followed by a cough that to

her experienced ear sounds like consumption. She has heard that cough

in the night when she has been wakeful, and she hears it again many

times this day. She thinks of the invalid often, with her old instinct

of sympathy for the sick—a sympathy which of late years has not been

much called forth in her retirement. The next day, coming in from her

quest for employment, she meets on the porch a gentleman who, she feels

almost sure, is a Catholic priest. He enters the house at the same

time with herself, and, proceeding before her up the stairs, passes

directly and quietly to the room occupied by her sick neighbor. “She is

a Catholic, then,” says Agnes to herself; “but that does not matter. I

wonder if I could do her any good?” And she acknowledges to herself a

very strong desire to see her neighbor, and offer any service in her

power. But she does not act at once. Her peculiar position makes her

shrink from meeting strangers or forming acquaintances. Still, the

cough strikes upon her ear appealingly, all the more that there comes

no sound of any voices from the room, save when the priest or the

Sisters of Mercy are there. She knows her neighbor must be alone, and,

she suspects, lonely also, for many hours. She resolves to go to see

her, and take little George, thinking, in the fondness of her mother’s

heart, that his pretty ways may divert the sick woman.

But who is she, and what is her name? Agnes asks this of her landlady

the first time she finds that everbusy and worried woman alone.

“The sick lady in the front room? Why, she is your namesake, perhaps a

relation.” And the landlady eyes keenly her questioner, thinking her

curiosity about both of her boarders will now be gratified, as she

slowly adds: “She is a Mrs. Vanderlyn, as well as yourself.”

Agnes feels herself trembling and almost choking at the swift rush of

conviction coming over her as to who this Mrs. Vanderlyn is: The priest

and the Sisters of Mercy! Martin Vanderlyn’s wife was a Catholic! She

can hardly command her voice to ask:

“Is she a widow?”

“I guess so, but she hasn’t said so,” replied the landlady. “She has

no friends, except them horrid spooks of nuns and that there sneakin’

priest; I do declare I’m ashamed to see ‘em a-comin’ in and out o’ my

door—but _you_ be’ent a Catholic, be you?” she says, in sudden alarm,

lest her burst of confidence has been misplaced. Agnes reassures her by

saying:

“Oh! no; I am not a Catholic, nor is any of my family; so I think this

lady can be no relative, as my husband was never a Catholic.”

What makes her voice change as she shapes her reply in this evasive

way? It is not altogether the keen, inquiring eyes of the landlady

trying to find if she is wife or widow. She can scarcely tell herself;

but the sharpened sense of expectation of some coming revelation, or

else the nearness of Martin Vanderlyn’s wife, makes her feel for the

first time a sense of guilt in speaking of him as her husband. Not that

she says even to herself as yet that he is _not_ her husband; but the

two wives—if this is his wife—in such close proximity, impresses her

much as the fact of the two living fathers of her two boys has done.

It cannot seem to her quite right for herself to be Martin Vanderlyn’s

wife, while the woman in the next room is such a reality. As long as

the divorced wife had seemed to belong to the past—perhaps dead—it

had not impressed Agnes so keenly as to be living under the same

roof with her; for Agnes feels almost sure that it is so. Still, her

desire to see her neighbor is by no means lessened; and it is not idle

curiosity, but a nobler feeling, which leads her to ask the landlady to

introduce her. That person has, in the meantime, remarked:

“The lady is a real lady, and, if she _is_ a Catholic, I can’t say

aught agin her. I do hate to see them beads, and crosses, and figgers,

and picturs of folks with Saturn’s rings on their heads, which she

keeps in her room; but, if she gits any comfort from ‘em, poor soul,

why, I can’t begrudge her that. Only I wish she had more light and some

_real_ religion, now that she’s so near dyin’. I do hate to see her

sunk in darkness, without no light o’ the Gospel. But ‘tain’t no use

talkin’ to her, she never gits offended; but, when I wanted to send a

good Methodist minister to pray with her, she said her spiritooal needs

was already cared for by. Father what’s-his-name, and she jist give me

back that lovely tract about _Going to Hell_, as if she warn’t scared a

bit. ‘Tain’t no use, Mrs. Vanderlyn, to talk to her. They’re all of ‘em

so set and superstitious they _can’t_ experience religion or have any

realizin’ sense o’ their sins.”

Says Agnes: “I don’t want to minister to her soul. That is not my

mission. I only thought she was lonely, and I might do her some good in

being a little company for her some of the time, if nothing more.”

“And so you might, and it’s right good of you to think of it. It’ll

take some off my mind to know you’ll see her sometimes, as I can’t

find time to go in and sit with her as often as I think she may expect

of me.”

And the landlady, followed by Agnes, taps at the door of Mrs.

Vanderlyn’s room. In a minute more, Agnes finds herself face to face

with the invalid, who is sitting in a large easy-chair by the window.

After some words from the landlady, explaining Agnes’ kind intention

and sympathy, that garrulous person withdraws to her pressing household

cares.

TO BE CONCLUDED IN OUR NEXT NUMBER.

“BEATI QUI LUGEANT.”

FROM THE FRENCH OF MARIE JENNA.

Go; vainly in thy breast lies hid the steel

That pierces. I perceive thy sad estate,

Thy silent fortitude; and for thy weal

I pray thee meet thy fate.

And weep before me! Cast thy burden down,

I know that sorrow finds a drear relief

In solitude, and wears abroad the crown

Of a majestic grief.

The hand of friendship may not put aside

The heavy folds of the funereal veil,

And on the threshold of an arid pride,

Words seem to faint, and fail.

But days have passed, I come—nay—never start,

Suffer my presence, place thy hand in mine,

Pour thy full soul into my faithful heart

Whose pulses all are thine.

If friendship only bore me to thy side,

I would withdraw before thine icy face,

Obey the teachings of my _human_ pride,

My eager steps retrace.

But I, too, have known sorrow, and have earned

The right to minister before its shrine.

A mighty secret, too, my heart has learned,

Whose sources are divine—

A secret that shall set thy soul aglow

When once its holy meaning I unfold,

And make thee bless its author for the woe

That _thus_ could be consoled.

JOHN BAPTIST DE ROSSI AND HIS ARCHÆOLOGICAL WORKS.

FROM THE HISTORISCH-POLITISCHE BLAETTER.

THE ruins that lie by the banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates give us

a better notion of the power of the kings of Babylon and Assyria, of

the civilization, religion, and moral condition of the ancient peoples

of these countries, than the writings of historians. The obelisks and

pyramids, the ruined temples and the columns covered with hieroglyphic

characters, tell us more of Egypt than Herodotus and Manetho. In like

manner do the tombs and inscriptions in the catacombs bear witness to

the faith and morality, the usages and manner of living, of the early

Christians.

The study of these catacombs has therefore a double aim: one dogmatic,

the other historical. Considered from the latter standpoint alone,

the discoveries recently made in the catacombs destroy the theories

and appreciations of many historians. It is literally true, as a

distinguished non-Catholic has said, that, “since Rossi published

his works, the history of the age of the Christian martyrs has to be

rewritten.” The distinguished Alfred de Reumont, on page 806 of the

first volume of his _History of the City of Rome_, says: “No one knows

better than the author how much this work is indebted to the researches

of De Rossi.”

The pontificate of Pius IX., among its other glories, can claim that of

having especially aided De Rossi in his archæological studies; and on

this account alone it would deserve the gratitude of all the friends

of science. Pius IX. has deserved the name of the “second Damasus,”

not only because he founded “The Archæological Commission for the

Investigation of the Ancient Christian Monuments of Rome,” and aided

it with pecuniary subsidies, but more particularly because he took a

lively personal interest in all its undertakings.

The zeal of Pius IX. found in John Baptist de Rossi, a born Roman, a

most suitable person for the advancement of archæological lore. And,

in fact, Rossi alone, as all acknowledge, made more progress than

all his predecessors. Although he has been more than a quarter of a

century at work, he is still a hale man; and if Piedmontese brutality

or revolutionary barbarism does not prevent him, he may yet make

more splendid progress in his learned studies. Rossi has wonderful

powers of observation, united with great calmness and perseverance in

investigation, ardent love of science, and vast erudition. He is well

versed in all the branches of his favorite science—in archæology,

bibliography, history, æsthetics, topography, and architecture. With

keen discernment, which his complicated investigations never lead

astray, he knows how to choose and value his materials. We know

not which to admire more—the persevering industry, or the great

and unflinching mental and physical strength, which he displays in

assorting the various materials which come before him. His judgment in

forming hypotheses, in drawing conclusions and consequences, is always

prudent. He prefers to prove too little rather than too much. On this

account, as well as because of his critical acumen, he has obtained

such a reputation among archæologists that Martigny, in his _Dictionary

of Christian Antiquities_, says: “We can rely implicitly on every word

that Rossi writes.” Rossi never builds a card-house; he makes no vague,

superficial reasonings. All is deeply thought; monuments and documents

are always brought in to corroborate his assertions; and we know that

nothing is more solid and convincing than the hard marble.

It is true Rossi has not published the half of his immense collections;

but from what has been published we can perceive that nothing so

important has appeared in the archæological world since the time of

Bosio, perhaps never anything so vast from one archæologist.

The first great archæological work of Rossi appeared when he was yet

a young man. It was printed in the third volume of the _Spicilegium

Solesmense_, published by the celebrated Benedictine Dom Pitra, now

cardinal of the church. Rossi always quotes it with pleasure as his

first work. The title is _A Letter on the Christian Monuments bearing

the Inscription ΙΧΘΥΣ_. Paris, 1855.

The figurative and poetical style of the Sacred Scriptures, as well

as the discipline of the secret, introduced into the “Church of the

Catacombs” those numerous symbols, so full of meaning, which, disguised

in the simplest pictures or the simplest words, expressed so much to

the initiated. The lamb, the anchor, ship, the stag, peacock, the cock,

the dove, etc., were symbols of sublime Christian ideas. But the most

important of all the Christian symbols was the _fish_. It is mentioned

as a Christian hieroglyphic all through the works of the Fathers, and

appears on all the old monuments. On these latter, sometimes the Greek

word _ΙΧΘΥΣ_ sometimes the painted, and some times the engraved, image

of the fish, is found. During the period of the discipline of the

secret, especially during the first three centuries of the church, the

most holy mysteries of Christianity were concealed from the uninitiated

under the symbol of the fish.

The fish is the symbol of Jesus Christ. The Fathers before the IVth

century insinuate this in obscure and ambiguous terms, while those of

the IVth and Vth centuries proclaim it plainly. Thus writes towards the

end of the IVth century Bishop Optatus Milevitanus:[110] “The fish,

according to its Greek orthography, _Ιχθυς_ expresses by its letters

a number of holy names, which in Latin are _Jesus Christus Dei Filius

Salvator_”—Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour—_Ιησοῦς Χριστός Θεοῦ

Υἱὸς Σοτήρ_. S. Augustine[111] expressly says that, if you take the

first letters, of these five Greek words, and unite them together, you

have _ἰχθυς_, _i.e._ _fish_, which name is a symbol of Christ.

Some ecclesiastical writers strive to connect the fish-symbol of Christ

with the Sibylline prophecies; other Fathers endeavor to find in it

certain analogies between the nature and acts of the fish and the human

nature and works of Christ. The different passages of ancient writers

on these points are brought together in De Rossi’s treatise. Rossi

himself has beautifully explained the origin of this symbol.

The fish is the symbol of Christ according to his human nature. In the

figurative language of the church, the present life is likened to a

sea. _Ubique mare sæculum legimus_,[112] says Optatus Milevitanus.

Ambrose calls men the fish who swim through this life. When the divine

Word became man, he became a fish as we. Hence Gregory the Great wrote:

“Christ condescended to hide himself in the waters of human nature, in

order to be captured by the angel of death.”

More frequently the fish is used as the symbol of the divine nature of

Christ. The large fish caught by Tobias that he might have food for his

journey, use the liver and gall to free Sara from devils, and restore

sight to his father, was considered by the Fathers as a striking symbol

of the divine Redeemer, who by the light of his doctrine cures the

blindness of ignorance, redeems the world from the power of demons,

and feeds us with his body on the pilgrim route from earth to heaven.

Therefore is Christ symbolized as Teacher of truth in his church; as

Redeemer from the power of Satan by baptism; and as Food of souls in

the Eucharist.

Out of the many beautiful and expressive symbolical representations of

the intimate connection between Christ and his church, we shall select

only the two figures numbered 104 and 105 in De Rossi’s tract. In the

midst of a surging sea a fish is swimming, carrying on its back a ship,

the symbol of the church. It is the divine _Ιχθυσ_, who, according

to his promise made to his church, carries her safely through the

storms of the world. The ship is managed by rowers, the hierarchy of

the church. The only pilot and leader of the ship is the Holy Ghost,

represented by a dove sitting on the top of the mast. In order that

no one may mistake the vessel, the scene of Christ giving the keys

to Peter is painted in the foreground exactly as our modern painters

represent it. In order to make this point clear, namely, that the Holy

Ghost is guiding the bark of Peter, the words _ΙΗΣ_ (_Ιησοῦς_) and

_ΠΕΤ_ (_Πέτρος_) are written over the picture.

Man is born the child of divine wrath: Christ frees him from

Satan’s power by baptism; makes him a child of God, a new man, a

_neophyte_.[113] Now, as Christ the Fish scatters these his blessings

in the baptismal font, it was called by the names of _baptisterium_,

_illuminatorium_, and, more frequently during the time of the

discipline of the secret, _piscina_, or fishpond. Therefore Bishop

Oriontius of Auch wrote in the Vth century: “The fish, born in

the water, is the author of baptism.” Therefore were the oldest

baptisteries commonly ornamented with the picture of a fish (Rossi, p.

3).

In many of the monuments collected by Rossi, near the word _ΙΧΘΥΣ_ we

have also the word _ΝΙΚΑ_. The fish conquers. The neophyte is freed

from ruin and the power of Satan—he is a trophy of Christ’s victory.

Since the word fish, as well as the picture of it, was perfectly

identified with Christ the Redeemer, it was natural to use this symbol

to conceal that mystery which the pagans so fearfully misrepresented

when they said that the Christians met together at stated times,

slaughtered a child, drank its blood, and ate its flesh.[114]

The fish became the symbol of the Holy Eucharist. This could be done

with the greater propriety, since Rossi tells us that, at the banquets

of the wealthy pagans, fish was considered a delicacy, and it is seldom

found on pagan monuments. Hence, to eat _the fish_, and to receive

Holy Communion, became synonymous expressions. Prosper of Aquitaine

calls Christ the great Fish, who gives himself as food to his disciples

and the faithful.

We cannot enter into details, and shall only consider the monumental

inscription found at Autun in 1839, which has attracted so much

attention from the archæologists. The text begins with the words:

_Ιχθυσ οὐρανίου θεῖον γένος ἤτορι σεμνῷ χρῆσαι_: “O divine race of

the heavenly Ikthus, guard, after you have received it, the immortal

fountain of grace flowing from divine sources. Bathe thy soul, my

friend, in the ever-flowing waters of wealth-giving wisdom. Receive the

sweet food of the Saviour of the saints; eat and drink the Ikthus which

thou holdest in thy hands.[115] O Ikthus, I have prepared my hands,

I long for thee, my Lord and my Redeemer! That I may behold thee in

happiness, O my mother; I beseech this favor of thee, O light of the

dead. Aschaudius, my father, thou dearest to my heart, with my sweet

mother and my sisters, in the peace of the Ikthus remember thy son

Pektorius.”

The first verse of this beautiful inscription which many of the learned

in the time of Marcus Aurelius and at the end of the IIId century use,

alludes to the grace of baptism; the following sentences refer to the

sacramental use of the Ikthus. In the concluding phrase, the founder

of the monument, Pectorius, addresses himself to his parents and

relatives, with the petition that they would remember him in heaven,

where they enjoyed the peace of the Ikthus.

From this important monument, as well as from many others collected

by Rossi, it is proven that the Holy Eucharist was thought to be a

_sacrament_ by the early Christians. In others, it is equally clear

that they considered it a _sacrifice_ also.

In one of the oldest cemeteries, that of Domitilla, as well as in

that of Callistus, we see a thrice sweet sacrificial table, on which

three loaves and one fish are lying. On each side of the table are

seven baskets with loaves. The meaning of the picture is plain. The

connection of the Ikthus with the bread is clearly shown. “The table

represents the Christian altar. This was usually a portable slab of

marble with brazen rings, placed over a martyr’s grave, and supported

by little columns. But what else could the Christian artist wish to

symbolize by placing the fish beside the bread than the offering of

the divine Ikthus on the altar? We have, therefore, on the one hand,

the invisible presence of the divinity in the fish; on the other, the

visible form of the bread, and then the position of the mysterious

representation. The sacrifice is the table of the Lord, the Eucharistic

banquet. To make this clearer, the seven baskets filled with loaves

surround the sacrificial table. They represent the seven baskets which

were filled with the remnants left after the multiplication of the

loaves in the wilderness—a miracle which has always been considered a

type of Holy Communion.”[116]

Dom Pitra, in his _Spicilegium_, has added to Rossi’s documents

many found in Gaul. Ferdinand Becker, in the _Historisch-Politische

Blätter_, vol. lxiii., p. 736 _et seq._, has written, since Rossi’s

time, a remarkable article on the “Symbol of Jesus Christ under the

Figure of a Fish.” Professor Jacob Becker has published something

on the same subject. Rossi naturally did not treat of the German

discoveries in this line of archæology.

It is singular that the symbol of the fish continued to be used in

Germany up to the middle age. In the _Hortus Deliciarum_ of the Abbess

Herrad, written in the XIIth century, and still preserved in the

Strasbourg Library, there is a representation of the sacrament of the

altar, by means of a small basket with a loaf and a fish. In a picture

in the cathedral library at Einsiedeln, there is the symbol of a fish

whose blood is represented as opening the gates of limbo.

Northern Africa, once so celebrated in the annals of the church, did

not escape the research of Rossi. Léon Rénier has collected, in a

work entitled _Roman Inscriptions of Algeria_, published at Paris,

A.D. 1838, most of those documents which caused Rossi to

undertake his second great work, _A Letter to J. B. Pitra, Benedictine

Monk, on the Christian Titles found at Carthage_. These documents are

very important as explaining the symbol of the cross. The Christians,

for various reasons, were unwilling at first to represent the cross

among their symbols. The cross was the _damnata crux_ of Apuleius,

the _infelix lignum_ of Seneca, the _teterrimum, crudelissimumque

supplicium_ of Cicero. The Christians, therefore, did not wish to give

the pagans an occasion of insult, nor to give scandal to the weak

faith of the catechumens. Prudent respect, as well as wise foresight,

induced them to conceal their most holy symbol in the interest of the

progress of faith. Consequently, as Rossi proves, we find the _cruces

dissimulatæ_ among the symbols, which, by their similarity with the

real figure of the cross, became Christian symbols, but, on account

of their being also recognized as heathen symbols, excited no scandal

or suspicion. Such concealed symbols, or _cruces dissimulatæ_, are,

according to Rossi, the _Tau_ or crooked cross, the oblique or S.

Andrew’s cross, the anchor cross, and the monogram of Christ with all

its varieties.

The oldest monogram is the simple _Χ_, the first letter of Christ’s

holy name. At a later period, the _Χ_ was united with the _Ι_, the two

together standing for _Ιησοῦς Χριστός_. Before the time of Constantine,

the monogram was represented by the union of the Greek letters _Χ_ and

_Ρ_, the two first letters of the word _ΧΡΙϹΤΟϹ_. After the conversion

of Constantine, when the punishment of the cross was abolished, and all

that was offensive or scandalous in it removed, the symbol became more

striking by the introduction of a cross-line. In the second half of the

IVth century, in spite of the Julian persecution, the symbol of the

cross became more plain. But when Christianity, in and since the time

of Theodosius the Great, took possession of the laws, and ordinances,

and customs of the empire, the symbol became so clear that all could

understand it. Therefore, after the end of the IVth century, and in the

beginning of the Vth, we find the simple figure of the cross on all

public monuments, without any attempt to conceal it.

The progress of this symbol of the cross was not so slow in development

in some of the remote provinces as in the city of Rome and its

environs. In some of the distant provinces, the power of paganism

ceased to control the people at an earlier date than in the city, and,

consequently, allowed the Christians to manifest their symbols without

fear. This happened as early as the IId century in Northern Africa,

where the Christians were powerful at a very early date. Rossi, in the

same work, gives us valuable documents and proofs to show the important

place which the symbol of the triangle should hold in archæological

disquisitions. It was a recognized symbol of the Holy Trinity.

It is a common custom among certain prejudiced modern writers to speak

of the “hatred of the early Christians for art.” By degrees, however,

the bandage begins to fall from their eyes, and the truth becomes

clearer. To Rossi much credit is due for having labored to destroy this

prejudice also. The attention of the early Christians was called to

works of sculpture rather than to works of painting. And this was quite

natural. The statues were mostly naked. And “among the entirely naked

Aphrodites of the later Greek and Roman artists, there is hardly one in

which the woman does not predominate over the goddess. Sensuality and

grossness are conspicuous in most of them.”[117] Some of them also knew

that the Venus of Praxiteles, which he represented at first entirely

unclothed, was copied after a model of Phryne.

It is different with painting—after music and poetry, the most

spiritual of arts. “By the blending of light and shade, and the laws

of perspective, it can give a tone of spirituality to the bodily form,

and an ethical appearance to the inanimate. Painting is the art of

soul impressions. Everything great, noble, and refined can be better

expressed on the canvas than in marble.” The Christian muse, therefore,

naturally took to painting. Hence on the walls in the catacombs we find

the first efforts of the Christian painters. Likenesses of the Mother

of God are among the first which we meet. These pictures, in which

virginal innocence, maternal tenderness, holy worth, tender grace and

piety, are manifested, have been collected and published in 1863 in

large chromo-lithographs in his work entitled _Imagine Scelte della B.

Vergine tratte dalle Catacombe Romane_.

The earliest likeness of the Mother of God is found in the catacombs

of Priscilla. On account of the many likenesses of the Blessed Virgin

found in them, these have been called the Marian Catacombs. There is no

doubt that these pictures are of apostolic date, and originated with

that Priscilla who was known both to Peter and Paul, the mother of

the Senator Pudens, and grandmother of the holy virgins Praxedes and

Pudentiana. In the arch of the central crypt, the adoration of the magi

is painted. The Blessed Virgin holds the Infant Jesus in her bosom;

before her in the sky is the star whose light leads the three wise men

from the East to visit the divine Child.

In another crypt is delineated the annunciation of the angel. The

Blessed Virgin sits on a throne like the ancient episcopal chairs;

before her stands the archangel as a beautiful, ethereal youth,

without wings, dressed in tunic and pallium, his right hand raised,

and the index finger of it pointed at the Virgin. In her face there

is a look of surprise and holy, virginal shyness. On the ceiling of

another grave-niche, in the very oldest part of the catacomb, close

to the graves of the family of Pudens, we find a painted picture of

the Virgin and Child in the pure classic style. Rossi, supported by

the most various archæological and historical documents, places this

picture in the time between the second half of the Ist and the first

half of the IId century. The Blessed Virgin, clothed with many-folded

drapery and cloak, bears on her head the veil usually worn by the

married or betrothed. Over her hangs the star of Bethlehem; before her

stands a young, powerful-looking man, with a prophet’s mantle thrown

over his shoulders. In his left hand he holds a scroll, and with the

right he points to the star and the Virgin and Child. He is Isaias

the Prophet, pointing out the favored Virgin, the branch of the root

of Jesse, who was to conceive and bring forth the blessed Fruit; and

showing the great light which was to shine over Jerusalem. The beauty

of the composition; the grace and dignity of the figures; the swelling

folds of the drapery; and the correctness and spiritual beauty of the

expression, make this, although the oldest picture of the Madonna, one

of the most striking which we possess. The elder Lenormant did not

hesitate to compare it with Raphael’s best productions.

The picture of the Madonna in the second table of Rossi is of more

recent origin. In this picture, the Mother of God sits on a chair of

honor, holding the divine Child in her lap. The three kings, led by a

star, come to meet her. It is from the cemetery of Domitilla. We omit

the other pictures of the adoration of the magi in the other catacombs

of Callistus, Cyriaca, etc.

The assertion of the Calvinist historian Basnage, that the pictures of

the Blessed Virgin were not introduced into the church until after the

Council of Ephesus, A.D. 431, sinks to the ground in the face

of Rossi’s documents.

He has collected in his works the chief inscriptions to be met with

in the catacombs, and has surpassed all his predecessors in the

completeness of his information and documents. Although, after the

discovery and investigation of the catacombs by the celebrated Bosio,

many authors like Aringhi, Bottari, Boldetti, the Jesuit Lupi, Marchi,

and others, had treated on them, and the relations of their contents to

theological sciences and ecclesiastical studies, none has equalled the

distinguished Rossi, whose ardor, energy, and talent were always aided

by the most liberal sympathy of the Roman Pontiff.

A LEGEND OF S. CHRISTOPHER.

OFFERO (the bearer), afterwards S. Christopher, being proud of his vast

strength and gigantic limbs, resolved to serve—for he was poor—only

the most powerful monarch on earth.

Accordingly, he searched far and near until at last he came to the

court of a king who, as he was told, was the greatest monarch on earth.

To him Offero offered his services.

They were gladly accepted, for his powerful frame pleased the eye of

the king, who knew that no other prince could boast of such a servant.

Offero, supposing his master to be afraid of no one, was greatly

surprised on perceiving the king tremble and cross himself, whenever

the name of Satan was mentioned. “Why dost thou do so?” he inquired of

the monarch.

“Because Satan is very mighty,” replied his master, “and I am afraid

lest he should overcome me.”

“Then I must leave thee, for I will serve only him who is afraid of no

one,” said Offero.

Again he commenced his wanderings; this time in search of Satan. One

day, on crossing a desert, he perceived a horrible object with the

appearance of great power coming towards him. Offero’s great size

seemed not in the least to startle him, and with an air of authority he

asked: “Whom dost thou seek?”

“Satan,” Offero answered, “for I have heard that he is the most

powerful upon earth. I wish to have him for my master.”

“I am _he_,” said the other, “and thy service shall be an easy one.”

The giant bowed low, and joined his followers.

As they pursued their way they came in sight of a cross. No sooner had

Satan’s eyes perceived it, than he turned with evident fear and haste

and took another road, so as to avoid passing the cross.

Offero was not slow in noticing these signs of alarm. “Why dost thou do

so?” he asked his master.

“I fear the cross,” Satan made answer, “because Christ died upon it,

and I fly from it lest it should overcome me.”

“Then there is one more powerful than thou, and I shall leave thee and

seek him,” replied Offero. With these words, he left Satan and went in

search of Christ.

After much toil and long wanderings, he came to a hermit, whom he

entreated to tell him where Christ could be found.

The holy man, seeing him thus ignorant, pitied and taught him. “Christ

is indeed the greatest king in heaven and on earth,” he said, “for his

power will endure throughout eternity; but thou canst not serve him

lightly—he will impose great duties upon thee, and he will require

that thou fast often.”

“I will not fast,” said Offero, “for that would weaken my strength,

which makes me so good a servant.”

“Thou also must pray,” continued the hermit, taking no heed of the

interruption.

“I have never prayed and will never do so. Such service is for

weaklings, not for me,” replied the giant.

“Then,” said the hermit, “dost thou know of a river whose waters are

wild and deep, and often swollen by rains, sweeping away in its swift

current many of those who would cross it?”

“Yes,” said Offero.

“Then go there and aid those who fight with its waves; carry the weak

and little ones across upon thy strong, broad shoulders. This is good

work, and, if Christ will have thee in his service, he will assure thee

of his acceptance.”

Offero went to the river, and on its banks built himself a hut. Day

and night he aided all who came, carrying many upon his shoulders, and

never wearying in assisting them across the river. A palm-tree was his

staff, which he had pulled in the forest, and which was well suited to

his great strength and height.

One night, when resting in his hut, he heard a voice like that of a

weak child, and it said: “Offero, wilt thou carry me?”

He rose quickly and went out, but, search as he would, he could find

no one; and he re-entered his dwelling; but presently the voice

called again: “Offero, wilt thou carry me?” A second search proved

fruitless. At the third call he rose again, taking with him a lantern.

He searched, and at last found a child. “Offero, Offero, carry me over

this night?”

He lifted him up and began crossing the stream. Immediately the wind

commenced to blow, the waves rose high, and the roar of the waters

sounded like thunder. The child also began to increase in weight,

grew more heavy upon his shoulders, and Offero feared that he must

sink; but, with the aid of his staff, he kept himself up, and at last

succeeded in reaching the opposite shore. Then he cried: “Whom have I

carried? Had it been the whole world, it could not have been heavier.”

Then the child replied: “_Me_, whom thou desirest to serve, and I have

accepted thee. Thou hast not only carried the world, but _him_ who made

it, upon thy shoulders. As a sign of my power and my approbation of

thee, fix thy staff in the earth, and it shall grow and bear fruit.”

Offero did so, and soon it was covered with leaves and fruit. But the

wonderful child was gone. Then Offero knew that it was Christ whom he

had carried, and he fell down and worshipped him.

Thenceforth he called himself Christopher, served his Master

faithfully, holding fast to his new faith through all kinds of tortures

and sufferings.

King Dagnus of Lycia, after having thrown him into prison, and not

succeeding in turning him from his faith, commanded that he should be

executed.

Arrived at the place of execution, he knelt down and prayed that all

who saw him and believed in Christ, should be delivered from earthquake

fire, and tempest. It was believed that his prayers were heard, and

that all who look upon the figure of S. Christopher are safe, for that

day, from all dangers of earthquake, flood, and fire. The sight of it

is believed also to impart strength to the weak and weary.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

CHURCH DEFENCE. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.

“Our Clerical Friends” appear to be suffering pain from the strong

sinapisms of Dr. Marshall. At least, we suspect they must be in pain,

from certain suppressed, inarticulate cries and moans of the _Church

Journal_, _Churchman_, etc. Their doctor is inexorable, however, and

has already applied another blister. Their internal disorder is too

deeply seated and obstinate to allow of any milder treatment. They

have been seized with such a violent madness of fancying themselves

priests and playing at Catholic that argument is lost on them, unless

plentifully infused with ridicule. _Church Defence_ is unmerciful

in its ridicule, like the _Comedy of Convocation_, but it is also

perfectly genteel and polished in its style, and as overwhelming in

argument as an essay by Dr. Newman. Those who have laughed over the

sparkling pages of the classic _Comedy_, will enjoy another laugh

over this new drama, and those who have been thrown into a rage by

_My Clerical Friends_ will be at a loss for epithets wherewith to

give vent to their pent-up bosoms when they read this new amiable

discussion, which they will and must do, in spite of themselves. Dear

friends and would-be Catholics, you might as well laugh with the whole

world that is laughing at you! Your little farce is played out. It is

a small business to be trying to cheat poor girls who are entrapped

by your counterfeit Sisters, by pretending that you are Catholic

priests and can give them sacraments. Something else is wanted besides

acolytes and nicolytes, candles and high celebrations, mimicry of our

sacerdotal dress, and high collars or high altars. You are outdone

even in counterfeiting Catholicity by the little Greek schismatical

chapel, where there is a better Signor Blitz than any of your feeble

imitations. Do, if you please, try something new for the amusement of

mankind, and let the curtain fall on the Anglo-Catholic farce!

THE PROGRESSIONISTS, AND ANGELA. By Conrad von Bolanden. New

York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1873.

The second of these novelettes by the most popular writer of fiction

among the Catholics of Germany is really a charming story. The

character of “Angela” is remarkably well drawn, and is the type of

a perfect Christian woman, in the three phases which are so full

of moral and poetic beauty, as maiden, bride, and mistress of the

household. The first one is very different, dealing with incidents and

scenes which are not so pleasing, but unfortunately equally real. As

both are reprints from the pages of this magazine, our readers will

remember them, and no doubt be glad to get them in a separate form.

Those who have not read them will find them not only entertaining

reading, but full of thought and instruction on most important and

practical topics of modern life.

LIFE OF J. THEOPHANE VÉNARD, Martyr in Tonquin; or, What Love

Can Do. Translated by Lady Herbert. New York: The Catholic Publication

Society. 1873.

LIFE OF HENRY DORIÉ, MARTYR. Translated by Lady Herbert. New

York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1873.

These two works are translations from the French by Lady Herbert, for

the benefit of S. Joseph’s Foreign Missionary College at Mill Hill

near London, to which she has been a warm friend and liberal patron

from the beginning. Americans cannot help feeling a great interest in

that institution, for the first band of missionaries it sent forth

came to labor among the colored people of our Southern States.

Nothing could be better calculated to stimulate the fervor of the

aspirant to the missionary life than the example of these two young

Christian heroes worthy of the primitive ages of the church—worthy,

it might be said, of the XIXth century; for never was there an age

that required more firmness of purpose and constancy to the truth

than this, with its glorious confessors of the faith in Asia, and as

large an army of martyrs on the other side of the globe undergoing the

slower torture of heart and soul that is far worse than that of the

cangue.

The lives of the two missionaries before us are affecting to the

last degree. Every Catholic youth should read them, if not to fully

emulate their example, to which all have not the happiness of being

called, at least to catch something of the unworldliness and burning

piety they manifested from their very childhood. Indeed, we wish

everybody could read them, for there could be no better proof of the

holy influences of the Catholic religion upon the young heart. We

linger with admiration over the account of their boyhood overshadowed

by their future martyrdom. One golden thread runs through their

whole lives—one constant aim—the wish to win souls to Christ, and

at last to gain the martyr’s crown. And this intense desire for

martyrdom was no mere youthful enthusiasm, as was proved when their

lifelong prayer was granted. But amid all the self-denial with which

they fitted themselves for their glorious destiny, nothing in their

character is more striking than the tender affection—passing ordinary

human love—apparent in their intercourse with their families, as

if religion had refined every fibre of their hearts, and made them

more keenly susceptible of love, of suffering, and of devotion to

the service of God. They never allowed earthly affections, however,

to come between them and their great aim in life. What angels of the

sanctuary they were while preparing for the sublime functions of the

priesthood! What a lofty conception they had of the sacrament of holy

orders that consecrated them to a life of sacrifice! How joyfully they

entered upon the life that promised them the radiant crown.

“Prepared for virgin souls and them

Who seek the martyr’s diadem.”

“_Souffrir pour Dieu_—To suffer for God—will henceforth be my

motto,” said Henri Dorié, about to leave his country for ever.

Everything at the _Séminaire des Missions Etrangères_ was calculated

to strengthen this desire for suffering. Old missionaries, who bore

in their bodies the marks of the Lord Jesus, were their professors.

Every day they went to pray in the Hall of Martyrs, around which

are ranged the relics of those who have suffered for the faith in

China, Japan, and the isles of the sea, together with the instruments

of their martyrdom—an appalling shrine at which to pray! And the

whole room is crimsoned with the light diffused through the red

hangings—significant of blood and suffering.... Among other sacred

articles in this hall is the blood-stained crucifix of Bishop Borie,

whose interesting life has been written by the Rev. F. Hewit.

One of the most affecting scenes related in these books is when a

band of missionaries is about to leave for their field of labor. On

the eve of their departure, the young apostles all stand before the

altar—victims ready for the glorious sacrifice—and one by one the

loved companions and friends they are to leave behind come up to

prostrate themselves, and kiss the feet of these heralds of salvation,

the whole congregation meanwhile chanting: _Quam speciosi pedes

evangelizantium pacem, evangelizantium bona!_—How beautiful are the

feet of them who preach the Gospel of peace, of them that bring glad

tidings of good things!

M. Vénard went to labor in Tonquin. When the first missionary to that

country—a Dominican friar—landed there in 1596, he found a great

cross on that unknown shore, which seemed to prefigure what awaited

those who should attempt to evangelize it. And to see how truly, we

need go no further back than 1861, when, in the course of nine months,

sixteen thousand Christians were martyred in only two provinces of

Anam, and twenty thousand condemned to perpetual slavery. This was the

year in which M. Vénard was martyred. The letter he wrote his beloved

sister in his cage at midnight on the eve of his martyrdom has been

styled by an eminent Frenchman “one of the most beautiful pages of the

history of the martyrs of the XIXth century.”

Henry Dorié was sent to Corea—the very name of which is symbolical to

the Christian ear of persecution and martyrdom. The whole history of

the church in that country is written in blood. Its first missionaries

were all martyrs, its first bishop, its first converts. In one

year—1839—over eight hundred Christians were martyred, and a still

larger number perished from want in the mountains where they had taken

refuge. But M. Dorié had but one desire—when his labors were ended,

to win the palm. His prayer was not denied him.

It is thus the sufferings of Christ are daily perpetuated in some

member of his body in various parts of the world. We should all have a

share in this great sacrifice of atonement, according to the measure

of our calling, if not by personal labors, at least by our prayers

and contributions. England is taking up the foreign missionary work.

America, too, should have her part in it. Such a work would react on

our own hearts, and develop a self-denial and generosity that would

constrain us more powerfully in promoting every good work at home.

As Archbishop Manning says: “It is because we have need of men and

means at home that I am convinced we ought to send both men and means

abroad—in exact proportion as we freely give what we have freely

received will our works at home prosper, and the zeal and number of

our priests be multiplied.”

THE MONEY GOD; or, The Empire and the Papacy. A Tale of the

Third Century. By M. A. Quinton. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co. 1873.

_The Empire and the Papacy_—a title of fresh significance in these

days. It is remarkable how soon the Roman emperors realized that

their authority could not exist in Rome with that of the pope,

the importance of whose office became more and more apparent. The

influence of the papacy gradually widened, and so asserted itself as

to overshadow the very authority of the emperor himself. It excited

alarm. Decius declared he would rather hear of a rival springing up to

contest for the empire than of the election of a new bishop of Rome.

How notoriously eminent must have been the dignity of that office to

excite such jealousy! Was it the dread of this new mysterious power

that led so many of the emperors to exile themselves, as it were, from

their capital? Though pope after pope lived in Rome, and died there,

even if by martyrdom, not one emperor from the time of Heliogabalus

till Constantine ended his days in that city. One was killed in

Germany, another strangled in Carthage, a third slain in Thrace, a

fourth killed by lightning beyond the Tigris; not one died in Rome.

And for more than a century and a half they resided elsewhere, hardly

daring to show themselves in the capital, because they felt more

and more their moral isolation in the midst of the Roman people.

Diocletian went to Rome to be recognized as emperor, but returned

to Nicomedia. When Maximian was made his colleague and assumed the

government of Italy, he did not establish himself at Rome, but chose

Milan as his residence. Constantine’s great object, after triumphing

over his enemies, was to leave Rome and found a new capital. “The

same girdle could not enclose both the emperor and the pontiff,”

says M. de Maistre; “Constantine gave up Rome to the pope.” It was

a moral necessity that the papacy—a power “far above king, law, or

popular right,” should be free, and this has never been contested with

impunity since.

In the work before us, the contrasting influence of the empire and

the papacy is exemplified in the history of two boys who were stolen

from their mother in Thrace and sold at Rome as slaves. Separated in

their childhood, one providentially fell into the hands of Agatho, a

Christian hermit; the other gave himself to the service of Plutus,

the “Money God.” We wish, for the sake of the young into whose hands

this book may fall, that the early history of Eva, their mother, had

been somewhat veiled. It affords, however, a strong contrast between

the violent, passionate courtesan and the subdued and humble Christian

which she finally becomes. A confessor of the faith, she fully redeems

her early career by a life of penitence. Her sad form gives relief

to that of Plautia, a noble Christian matron. Tertullian tells us

how much Christianity improved the condition of woman. No sage of

antiquity ever thought of developing her spiritual nature and thereby

giving her greater moral elevation, but the humblest Christian priest

made this a duty. We have only to read the writings of the Fathers,

particularly S. Jerome, to realize the great renovation that took

place in woman’s nature when her soul was awakened to higher aims

and became conscious of a holier destiny. The _Acts_ of the early

martyrs set before us some of the noblest types of womanhood. There is

a grandeur in their unalterable serenity of soul under persecution,

examples of which are given in the book before us. Indebted so greatly

to the Christian religion, woman became its efficient supporter. We

learn from Ammianus Marcellinus that the first popes were chiefly

supported by the offerings of the Roman matrons. Their devotion to

the service of the church is manifest from the jealous exclamation of

Diocletian: “I hate, as a usurpation of my powers, the influence of

these Christian priests over the matrons.”

This tale of the IIId century evinces great familiarity on the part of

the author with classical and antiquarian lore as well as the early

Christian writers.

THE NESBITS; or, A Mother’s Last Request, and other Tales. By

Uncle Paul. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1873.

The first of these stories and the principal one, _The Nesbits_, is a

rapid sketch of the life and fortunes of a young American, none the

less interesting and, it may be hoped, true to nature because the

figure of the hero, Ned Nesbit, is exactly the reverse of the “Young

America” of the popular imagination. He is honest, manly, truthful,

and religious; and it may be a surprise to some readers to find that

those unusual characteristics of “Young America” neither make him

insipid nor offer an insurmountable barrier to his success in life.

The scenes of the story shift from the backwoods to New Orleans, from

New Orleans to Mexico. There is plenty of fresh air, of sea and sky,

pleasant bits of Mexican scenery and vistas of Mexican life; there are

camping out and long rides and “brushes” with the Indians, hit off

rapidly, and though in an unpretentious style, one admirably adapted

to its purpose. There is a pleasant and harmless little love-plot

that Uncle Paul’s chief readers—the young folk—are likely to vote

“slow,” but they will find plenty of other things more congenial to

their sanguinary tastes scattered throughout the book, while the tone

is thoroughly Catholic from beginning to end. The second story of the

volume—“The Little Sister of the Poor”—is a sketch, condensed from

the French, of a little hunchback, who, finding her deformity rather

an obstacle to her walking pleasantly in the ways of this world, and

that even a dower of 10,000 francs did not serve to smooth it down,

finally hides it away in religion, and becomes “a little sister.” The

story would be very entertaining only that it may tend to strengthen

the stupid idea so prevalent among non-Catholics, that the nun’s

habit is a good covering for personal deformity, and that a convent

is a sort of receptacle for ladies who can “do no better”: whereas,

God culls his flowers where he wills, and women in convents are just

the same as women anywhere else, with the exception that they have

devoted their lives entirely to God’s service. In his last story—“The

Orphan”—Uncle Paul has struck upon a vein which might be worked with

as much profit as interest. It is a short, indeed too short, sketch

of a thing that a few years back was of very common occurrence in

this country. An Irish emigrant girl finds herself suddenly bereft of

her parents, and placed in the keeping of a Protestant family. The

author has made her position superior to that of the generality of

her sisters under similar circumstances; she is a ward rather than a

servant, and among friends rather than enemies to her race and faith.

But even so, she finds herself, young and friendless, placed amid

the thousand difficulties of Protestant surroundings. Her triumph

over them is very touchingly told. The idea contained in this story

might be worked to much greater advantage; and the tracing up some of

those poor children who were snatched away and buried among heretical

families, which, even if acting with the very best intentions, might

consider the religion of these orphans something they were bound to

abolish, would form a sadly interesting story, and one which would

take in much of our recent Catholic history in this country.

WILD TIMES. A Tale of the Days of Queen Elizabeth. By Cecilia

M. Caddell. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.

This is a new and handsome edition of a story which, though it came

out some years back in London, is probably unknown to very many of our

readers. It is just one of those books which Catholics sadly stand

in need of to adorn and grace their, to a certain extent, cumbersome

literature. Miss Caddell has been fortunate in her choice of _Wild

Times_, and _Wild Times_ have been fortunate in Miss Caddell. The

period of the Reformation forms for the Catholic of to-day the most

interesting one of English history; and recent researches, such as

are exhibited in F. Morris’ late books (_Our Catholic Forefathers_,

and _The Condition of Catholics under James I_.) and others similar,

are bringing that particular period home to us with a clearness and

fulness of knowledge which tend to make us acquainted with all the

intricacies and common details of life, particularly Catholic life

in those wild times, as we are with the humdrum life of to-day. Miss

Caddell’s story is really the history of one of the very few noble

English Catholic families who stood firm to their faith in that dark

hour, and who, for the simple reason of being true to their God, were,

according to law, false to their sovereign and country. The chief

characters are two young brothers, Sir Hugh and Amadée Glenthorne, the

latter a Jesuit educated on the Continent, and returning by stealth

to the work of the ministry, which at that time meant martyrdom; the

former a fiery, high-spirited English gentleman, whose hot blood and

lofty aspirations cannot run tamely in the dismal groove set him by

the “law,” because he happens to be a Catholic, but who, when the

hour of trial comes, and he is weighed in the balance, is not found

wanting. Around these two, with their charming sister Amy, the plot

gathers; and the tracing of their fortunes and misfortunes makes a

most beautiful and moving tale. There are plenty of other characters

in the book: Blanche Monteman, Hugh’s betrothed, and Guy, the lover

of Amy, both Protestants, give occasion for some very skilfully

constructed complications; and the proud nature of the girl, and the

terrible fall of that pride, are given with what the lady author may

allow to be called a masterhand. There is also a weird gipsy queen,

Ulrique, who turns out eventually to be something quite different,

powerfully drawn, whilst the premature death of the mischievous little

imp, Tom Tit, is as touchingly told, if not more so, as that of Little

Paul Dombey. To enter into the plot of the story further than has

been done would be to deprive the reader of _Wild Times_ of half the

pleasure of a story so skilfully woven that the interest is sustained

to the very last line, and its development hidden until the author

chooses to disclose it. The style is of the purest, occasionally

rising to the strongest, English. Miss Caddell has mastered the old

forms, without making them as wearisome as some of Scott’s Northern

dialects cannot fail to be to the unhappy uninitiated. The love in

the story is by no means of the namby-pamby order, but good, and

honest, and true; in a word, manly and womanly in the true sense

of those words; and though mainly carried on between Catholic and

Protestant, it serves for that very reason to heighten the interest of

the story, and as here depicted seems a very natural thing in those

wild times; whilst one has the hope all through that earthly love will

blend with a higher. The gradual change effected in the blunt, fiery

character of Hugh by the chastening hand of affliction, under which

at first he chafes till you fear for him, but finally rises with all

his strength of character to the heroism of a Sebastian, is as ably,

though naturally and unconsciously, developed as anything the writer

remembers seeing in this style of book. The only thing he quarrels

with is the preface. Without being dogmatic on the point, it is very

doubtful whether, “when the queen—Elizabeth—ascended the throne,

Catholicity was still the religion of the great masses of the people,

and was either secretly followed or openly professed by a large half

of the noblest families in the land.” English history scarcely bears

this out; and had only one-half the noblest families in the land been

even secretly Catholics, still less such Catholics as Hugh Glenthorne

and his brother, England would never have sworn by a goddess in

petticoats, and Mr. Froude would never have felt compelled to write

his history. Again, when the author speaks of “the brightest and

bravest of the band who form a halo of glory round the throne of Queen

Elizabeth,” the reader involuntarily asks himself, What band? And the

very question is its own answer. Still, a notice is not for a preface;

and however one may quarrel with that, with the story itself no fault

can be found. It is a beautiful, high-toned, moving picture of noble

Catholic struggle, suffering, and death, drawn evidently with infinite

pains and after historic study, and with that highest art which is

nearest nature.

PETER’S JOURNEY, AND OTHER TALES. By the author of

_Marion Howard_ and _Maggie’s Rosary_. WILFULNESS AND ITS

CONSEQUENCES. By Lady Herbert. New York: The Catholic Publication

Society. 1873.

The little book before us is intended for a premium-book for schools,

and is admirably adapted to this purpose. The stories are thoroughly

natural, and written in a good, healthy Catholic spirit. They are

calculated to reach the masses in the most satisfactory way which

could be chosen, that is, through their children. A great deal is

constantly said about the authority of parents in the home, but

we should not forget the immense and preponderating element of

the children’s influence on their parents. This, if used in the

right direction (which means, if guided in that direction by the

teacher) may become of the utmost importance. It may civilize many

a half-savage unfortunate who seems dead even to the stings of his

own conscience; it may turn to serious reasoning the mind hitherto

careless, because not exercised on spiritual things; it may shame

into decency a character not irredeemably bad, but overgrown with the

evil habits of half a century. In _Peter’s Journey_, or a drunkard’s

dream, we see put into plain words the devil’s plea against the victim

of intemperance. He claims him as his own by _fair barter_. “When

thou didst ask for drink, did I not ask thee in return, not only thy

wife’s affection, thy children’s happiness, thy home’s comfort, but,

more than all, did I not demand thy soul? _I asked thee openly, and

thou didst willingly agree...._ Well, didst thou not have the drink,

morning, noon, and night? _And if so, shall I not have my price in

full?_” This is a dark, but far from overwrought picture. Yet the

mercy of God is greater than even such malicious sins, and till the

very last the “pearly shadow” of his angel guardian protects the poor

sinner. Peter awakes, and a sudden reformation is at hand. The poor

wife, breaking down under her troubles, is weary and fretful, but

Peter does not heed this, and in his stormy exit is only stopped by

the baby, who is “examining the handle [of the door] with an attention

worthy of an amateur locksmith.” Peter raised it in his arms, looked

at it for a moment, and then, kissing it almost reverently, gave it

to Mike and clumped down-stairs. “Poor Norah hoped he had not got

_delirium tremens_.” It was a long time before Peter came back; when

he did, it was behind the rampart of a large basket bursting with

eatables. He goes down on his knees to his wife and begs forgiveness

in the most charmingly abrupt and natural way, and when Norah recovers

from a fainting-fit, everything is bright and happy again. “Certain

it is that, when the _Angelus_ rang, it found them sitting side by

side, shelling peas, and the baby on his knee, chuckling over a stick

of rhubarb that it expected every one to smell every five minutes.”

And what is the end? A triumph for Peter, and a hopeful example for

all those who are honestly trying to follow in his footsteps. “In

the whole parish there is not a cleaner house, better children, or

a happier wife than Peter’s.... He collects the subscriptions for

the schools, takes the money in church, carries the big banner at

processions, and seems to do the work of half a dozen men made into

one.... Is there a drunkard to reclaim, Peter is the man to take him

in hand, depend upon it. Is there a drunkard’s widow struggling with

her little ones alone, Peter will help her and put her in a way to get

her living ... and he thanks God for all things, for his home, his

little ones, his means of doing good, but, more than all, he thanks

him for his wife Norah, and for a journey he took, of which he never

speaks, on the Feast of S. Peter and S. Paul.”

Of the “other tales,” we much prefer “A Carpenter’s Holiday.”

The evils of bad companionship are here depicted, the absurd

temptations which human respect thrusts in the path of young and

often weak men, the manliness and true Anglo-Saxon spirit which even

outsiders recognize in a firm refusal to yield to such temptations.

The character of Sam is very interesting, and the history of his

conversion quite a natural one. A lesson here and there is worth

taking from it. For instance, the Catholic carpenter says to his

friend, “People talk so much about our flowers and candles that really

one would think they was a great part of our religion, _and, as it

is, they’re just nothing_.” The old lesson of the example of converts

is also well put forward. The end is, of course, an introduction to

an earthly paradise, in the shape of a snug little farm, “the house

hidden by roses, jasmine, ivy, and honeysuckle ... a dear, large,

old-fashioned garden, with its apple and pear trees, its currant

and gooseberry bushes, and its bed of flowers and cabbages, never

thinking, as grand people’s flowers and cabbages seem to think, that

they are not fit company for each other.” We are inclined to think

that, if all discontented, restless people believed this sort of thing

to be the inevitable reward of virtue, they would immediately become

virtuous and leave off being discontented and restless. _We_ should,

at any rate. And if this kind of life was the ending to which all

good carpenters who spent their early holidays properly had a chance

of attaining, why, then, we should be much freer than we are from

trades-union strikes and International Associations. “The Carpenter’s

Holiday” is the story most full of human interest and natural incident

among all the little group by the author of _Maggie’s Rosary_.—We now

come to Lady Herbert’s story of _Wilfulness_. This is an extract from

the diary of a Sister of Mercy, and reveals one of the many phases

of silent misery of which a large city is always full. The story is

interesting if only as a picture of the heroism, the sacrifices,

the sufferings, and the charity of people in humble, struggling

circumstances, who could never hope to have their virtues set before

an admiring public, and whose only motive was evidently the love of

God and reverent trust in his divine providence. The last days of

the heroine are touchingly told, her unselfishness in behalf of her

father especially. “Every shilling which had been given her to spend

in the little comforts so urgently required, had been hoarded up by

her for this long-expected situation, when she was determined that her

father’s appearance should do no discredit to his kind recommender.

‘Only think,’ she continued, ‘I had enough for everything but one pair

of boots, and I could not conceive where that eighteen shillings was

to come from. But I set to work and prayed one whole night for it,

and the next morning a young priest came to see me, and brought me a

sovereign, which he said a gentleman had given him that very day to

give to his first sick call!’”

TWO THOUSAND MILES ON HORSEBACK. A Summer Tour to the Plains

and New Mexico. By James F. Meline. New York: The Catholic Publication

Society. 1873.

This is the fourth edition of this excellent book, which is now

published by The Catholic Publication Society. As we noticed this book

at some length in THE CATHOLIC WORLD for February, 1868, we

can only reiterate what we then said, viz.:

“There is just about enough fact to make the work decently solid, a

good deal of fancy and impression, and, above all, a light hand.

The style as a whole is really good, because it does pretty evenly

just what it attempts and professes—sometimes more, seldom less.

The descriptions of Denver and Central City, and the account of the

Pueblos of New Mexico, interested us especially—the former for its

manner, the latter for its interesting and curious facts. But another

reader would call our selection invidious, and cite quite another set

of incidents. The fact is, Mr. Meline is everywhere vivid, easy, and

suggestive, and we do think we like those two parts best because we

have friends in Denver and take a special interest in the old Poltec

question.”

PROCEEDINGS OF THE FOURTH ANNUAL CONVENTION OF THE IRISH CATHOLIC

BENEVOLENT UNION, HELD AT PHILADELPHIA, OCTOBER 16-18, 1872; TOGETHER

WITH THE CONSTITUTION, ADDRESSES, ETC. Philadelphia: Office of

the _Catholic Standard_. 1872.

This was a convention of the representatives of nearly 20,000 Catholic

workingmen. These men, living in different parts of the country,

are organized into numerous beneficial societies, each independent

for its own purposes and government, yet enjoying a fellowship with

all the others for the sake of mutual benefit. The Benevolent Union

makes these men each others’ friends, in sickness and in death, in

any part of the country where a society exists. We say it makes them

friends—we might better say brothers; for attention and support in

sickness and Catholic burial after death are acts more than friendly.

Any society which is beneficial and composed exclusively of practical

Catholics, can become associated on payment of five dollars initiation

fee, and not to exceed twenty-five cents a year for each member—this

tax last year having been but ten cents. From these sources a fund

is raised to pay the expenses of the conventions and a very small

salary to the secretary and treasurer. Any member away from home is

entitled to recognition by simply presenting his travelling card.

In case of sickness, it entitles him to receive from any affiliated

society whatever aid his own would give him, and in case of death, to

the expenditure of the same amount for his funeral as would have been

allowed at home. Expenses thus incurred are refunded by the society to

which the recipient belonged.

The mere statement of these advantages suffices to explain the

extraordinary success which has attended the Union. Begun in the

little city of Dayton, Ohio, with a small number of societies, it

has in four years extended itself in every direction; sometimes

creating new societies, sometimes affiliating old ones, everywhere

attracting great attention and eliciting the warmest encouragement;

until it is not too much to say of it now that it is one of the great

beneficial institutions of the country. At the last convention,

the President of the Philadelphia City Council extended a public

welcome to the delegates. The proceedings were opened by a sermon

from the distinguished Jesuit Father Maguire, and the speeches and

debates were orderly and dignified, and sometimes eloquent, the most

important questions being discussed and decided expeditiously and

without ill-temper. Among other things, we noticed that measures

were instituted looking to the settlement of immigrants in favorable

places, and to their safety and comfort while in transit. A full

and minute account was rendered of the receipt and disbursement of

the common fund, and expression frankly and powerfully given to

the unanimous sentiment of the societies with regard to Catholic

education, and of sympathy with the Holy Father in his present

distress. There was no evidence whatever of any spirit of rivalry; on

the contrary, a committee was appointed to negotiate for the extension

of the benefits of the Benevolent Union among other Catholic bodies.

These large assemblages of intelligent and zealous Catholics supply

one of the greatest wants of the church. After business matters

are fairly disposed of, the convention becomes a great Catholic

representative body—not indeed to make laws or to enforce them, but

to give voice to the thoughts of the Catholic laity on questions which

concern the general welfare of the church. Never did the clergy, from

the Pope down to the parish priest, stand in greater need of the

encouragement of the faithful, and never before have the faithful

exhibited greater alacrity in giving it. Such gatherings as these

are the best support which the church nowadays can have in resisting

oppression and securing her rights. We therefore pray God to give this

Benevolent Union a great success; and we are at a loss to perceive why

such should not be the prayer of every good Catholic. The organization

of a branch society in a parish will be the best preventive of

Freemasonry and other condemned societies; it will secure the poor

man and his family from want in case of sickness or accident at home

or among strangers; it will give the priest and the educated layman

an audience outside the church for the advocacy of Catholic public

rights; and at least once a year the convention will exhibit to the

American public, in a most striking manner, the unity, the charity,

the patriotism, and the power of the Catholic people of this country.

THE HOMES OF OBER-AMMERGAU. A series of Twenty Etchings in

heliotype, from the original pen-and-ink drawings, together with Notes

from a diary kept during a three months’ residence in Ober-Ammergau,

in the summer of 1871. By Eliza Greatorex. Munich: Published by Jos.

Albert, photographer to the courts of Munich and St. Petersburg. 1872.

New York: Putnam.

Many books have been published about Ober-Ammergau and its

Passion-Play. This one is not, however, a mere repetition of their

substance under a different form. It is altogether different in

substance, and, therefore, a really new as well as most interesting

description. The accomplished author does not occupy her pages with an

account of the play itself, but takes us into the homes of the actors,

and among the scenes of that picturesque German village. Though

she is not a Catholic, her heart is full of kindliness, sympathy,

and reverence, and we have read her truly exquisite portrayal of

the primitive and most Christian life of the favored inhabitants

of Ammergau with pleasure and admiration. The etchings are in the

style of the best and truest art. The author has been honored by an

autograph letter from the King of Bavaria, who, in spite of his faults

as a ruler, is a man of taste and cultivation in the fine arts, and

by a very kind reception at the private audience which was granted to

her by the august Pius IX. We recommend this beautiful volume very

cordially to all lovers of art, and of the most genuine, simple, and

charming phases of nature and of Catholic piety which are to be found

in the modern world, which is so full of glaring but empty illusions.

As the edition in the hands of the New York publisher is a small one,

those who desire to procure a copy would do well to be in haste about

ordering it from the publisher.

FILIOLA. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co. 1873.

ERNSCLIFF HALL. THE REVERSE OF THE MEDAL. Dramas for young

ladies’ school exhibitions. New York: The Catholic Publication

Society. 1873.

The latter of these, a whimsical satire on the discontent of each

class with its own duties, pleasures, and belongings, and envy of

those of every other class, is amusing. To every rose there is a

thorn, and while some envy their superiors in position those luxuries

which the latter care nothing for, these again are often constrained

to envy the freedom of those on a lower level. But nothing is truer

than the adage, that _the back is fitted to the burden_.

THE DEAF-MUTE: OR, THE ABBÉ DE L’EPÉE. Historical Drama in

Four Acts. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1873.

The following, taken from the preface of the work, is a synopsis of

this little play: Julius is exposed in Paris at the age of ten by his

uncle, who procures a written evidence of the boy’s death, and then

seizes upon his property. The Abbé De l’Epée, Director of the Deaf and

Dumb Asylum in Paris, finds the youth, and educates him. Suspecting

the boy to be of noble blood, he bestows all his care on the helpless

deaf-mute during eight years, creates his soul anew, as it were, and

in the meantime endeavors to find out the place of his birth. For this

purpose the Abbé travels with his protégé over a great part of France,

and finally arrives at Toulouse, which city the young man recognizes

as the place of his home. The Abbé consults the young lawyer Frauval,

a friend of St. Alme, who is the son of Julius’s uncle. Darlemont

refuses to recognize his nephew, but is at last prevailed upon to

restore Julius to his rightful inheritance, by the threatened exposure

of his son St. Alme. So the matter is settled amicably, and Julius

grants to St. Alme, his former playmate, half of his estate.

THE

CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XVII., No. 99.—JUNE, 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.

JEROME SAVONAROLA.

“No breath of calumny ever attainted the personal purity of

Savonarola.”—_Henry Hart Milman, Dean of S. Paul’s._

THE bright and shining fame of Girolamo Savonarola, the man upon

whom, in the XVth century, the wondering attention of the whole

civilized world was admiringly fixed, fell during the XVIIIth century

into oblivion or contempt—a not uncommon fate in that period for

religious reputations and religious works. The generally received

opinion concerning him was that of the sceptic Bayle, who, with show

of impartiality and phrase of fairness (‘Opinion is divided as to

whether he was an honest man or a hypocrite’), but with cold and

cruel cynicism, covered the unhappy Dominican with his sharpest and

most pungent sarcasm, leaving the reader to infer that he was a mean

impostor, who most probably deserved the martyrdom he suffered.

In our own day, Dean Milman, of the Established Church of England, asks:

“Was he a hypocritical impostor, self-deluded fanatic, holy,

single-minded Christian preacher, heaven-commissioned prophet,

wonder-working saint? Martyr, only wanting the canonization which was

his due? Was he the turbulent, priestly demagogue, who desecrated

his holy office by plunging into the intrigue and strife of civic

politics, or a courageous and enlightened lover of liberty?”

And—unkindest cut of all—punishment transcending in degree the worst

faults and most terrible crimes of which he has been unjustly accused

by his most cruel enemies—modern German Protestantism has placed

him in bronze effigy in company with the bigamous Landgrave Philip

of Hesse, and with Prince Frederick of Saxony, on the monument at

Worms, as one of the predecessors and helpers of Luther. The ascetic

Savonarola the acolyte of the beery Monk of Wittenberg! The chaste

Dominican the inferior of the sensual Reformer! The ecclesiastic who,

in the flower of his manhood and the fulness of his intellect, made the

unreserved declaration of Catholic faith[118] in which he lived and

died, the aider and precursor of the archheresiarch!

Truly, so far as the judgment of this world is concerned, one hour of

the degradation of Worms is sufficient to have cancelled all his sins.

Poor Savonarola!

Jerome Savonarola, born in Ferrara, in 1452 (Sept. 21), was the son of

Nicholas Savonarola. His mother Helen was of the Buonaccorsi family of

Mantua, and his paternal grandfather a physician of Padua of such high

reputation that Nicholas, Prince of Este, induced him, by the bestowal

of honors and a pension, to come to Ferrara. Jerome’s youth was serious

and studious, and, under the fostering care of one of the best of

mothers, his character developed favorably. At the age of ten, he went

to the public school of his native city, and it was intended that he

should complete the usual studies necessary to his becoming a physician.

The traveller of to-day, who sees the deserted squares and grass-grown

streets of Ferrara, can form but little idea of the Ferrara of that

period; a splendid city of one hundred thousand inhabitants, possessing

one of the most brilliant courts of Italy, and witnessing the frequent

passage of princes, emperors, and popes, whose presence gave constant

occasion for pageants, processions, and banquets. The young Jerome, it

was noticed, sought none of these, but was fond of lonely walks and

solitude, even avoiding the beautiful promenades in the gardens of the

ducal palace.

He pursued his medical studies for some time, but his favorite reading

was found in the works of Aristotle and S. Thomas Aquinas. Long years

afterward, he said of the latter: “When I was in the world, I held him

in the greatest reverence. I have always kept to his teaching, and,

whenever I wish to feel small, I read him, and he always appears to me

as a giant, and I to myself as a dwarf.” Although, like most youths of

his age, he indulged in making verses, his were not of the ordinary

callow model. One of his short youthful poems which survived him was on

the spread of sceptical philosophy and the decay of virtue. “Where,” he

asks—“where are the pure diamonds, the bright lamps, the sapphires,

the white robes, and white roses of the church?” Such language, taken

in connection with his declaration at the time that he would never

become a monk, shows that the idea, although in a negative form, was

already working in his mind. He afterwards related that, being at

Faenza one day, he by chance entered the church of S. Augustine, and

heard a remarkable word fall from the lips of the preacher. “I will not

tell you what it was,” he added, “but it is here, graven on my heart.

One year afterwards, I became a religious.”

Modern novels and the average silly judgment of worldly people in such

matters are usually unable to comprehend why any man or woman should

enter a convent unless they are what is called “crossed in love.” Some

such story is related of Savonarola, and Milman says of it: “There is

a vague story, resting on but slight authority, that Savonarola was

the victim of a tender but honorable passion for a beautiful female.”

We should also incline to be of the same opinion, were it not that

Villari[119] refers to it as having some foundation. He says that, in

1472, a Florentine exile, bearing the illustrious name of Strozzi, and

his daughter, took up their abode next to the dwelling of Savonarola’s

family. The mere fact that he was an exile from Dante’s native city

was sufficient to excite Savonarola’s sympathies. He imagined him

oppressed by the injustice of enemies, suffering for his country and

for the cause of liberty. His eyes met those of the Florentine maiden.

Overflowing with confident hope, he revealed his heart to her. What was

his bitter disappointment on receiving a disdainful answer rejecting

him, and giving him at the same time to understand that the house of

Strozzi could not lower itself by condescending to an alliance with the

family of Savonarola. He resented the insult with honest indignation,

but, says his chronicler, _il suo cuore ne restó desolato_—“his heart

was broken.” This may all be, but certain it is that the disappointed

youth did not instantly rush into a convent to bury his blasted hopes.

On the contrary, the incident of the sermon at Faenza occurred nearly

two years afterward. On this circumstance he frequently dwelt, saying

that a word, _una parola_, of the preacher still strongly affected him,

but he always reserved it as a sort of mysterious secret even from his

most intimate friends.

In returning from Faenza, he was light of heart, but found, on reaching

home, that a hard trial was before him. It was necessary to conceal

his intention from his parents, but his mother, as though she read

his secret, would fix her eyes upon him with a gaze which seemed

to penetrate his very soul. This struggle went on for a year, and

Savonarola often refers to his mental sufferings during that period.

“If I had made known my resolution,” he says, “I believe my heart

must have broken, and I should have allowed myself to be shaken in

my purpose.” Again, on another day, the 22d of April, 1475, Jerome,

seating himself, took a lute, and played an air so sad that his mother,

turning to him suddenly, as if moved by the spirit of prophecy, said to

him in a tone of sorrow: “My dear son, that is a farewell song.” With

great effort, the young man continued to play with trembling hand, but

dared not raise his eyes from the ground.

The next day, April 23, was the feast of S. George, a great festival

for all Florence. Savonarola had fixed upon it to leave his father’s

house, and, as soon as the religious ceremonies of the morning were

over, he quitted home, and made his way to Bologna, where he knocked

for admittance at the

CONVENT OF THE DOMINICANS.

He was then just twenty-two and a half years old. Announcing his desire

to enter on his novitiate, he wished, he said, to be employed in the

most menial of the offices of the community, and to be the servant of

all the others. Being admitted, he seized his first leisure moment that

same day to write a long and affectionate letter to his father, in

which he sought to comfort him and explain the step he had taken. It is

a memorable letter:

“DEAR FATHER: I fear my departure from home has caused

you much sorrow—the more so that I left you furtively. Permit me

to explain my motives. You who so well know how to appreciate the

perishable things of earth, judge not with passion like a woman,

but, guided by truth, judge according to reason whether I am not

right in carrying out my project and abandoning the world. The motive

determining me to enter on a religious life is this: the great misery

of the world, the iniquities of men, the crimes, the pride, the

shocking blasphemies, by which the world is polluted, for there is

none that doeth good—no, not one. Often and daily have I uttered this

verse with tears:

‘Heu fuge crudelas terras! Fuge littus avarum.’

I could not support the wickedness of the people. Everywhere I saw

virtue despised, and vice honored. No greater suffering could I have

in this world. Wherefore every day I prayed our Lord Jesus Christ to

lift me out of this mire. It has pleased God in his infinite mercy to

show me the right way, and I have entered upon it, although unworthy

of such a grace. Sweet Jesus, may I suffer a thousand deaths rather

than oppose thee and show myself ungrateful! Thus, my dear father,

far from shedding tears, you should thank our Lord Jesus, for he has

given you a son, has preserved him to you up to the age of twenty-two,

and has deigned to admit him among his knights militant. Can you

imagine that I have not endured the greatest affliction in separating

from you? Never have I suffered such mental torment as in abandoning

my own father to make the sacrifice of my body to Jesus Christ, and

to surrender my will into the hands of persons I had never seen. In

mercy, then, most loving father, dry your tears, and add not to my

pain and sorrow. I am satisfied with what I have done, and I would not

return to the world even with the certainty of becoming greater than

Cæsar. But, like you, I am of flesh and blood; the senses wage war

with reason, and I must struggle furiously with the assaults of the

devil.[120] They will soon pass by, these first sad days, bitterest in

the freshness of their grief, and I trust we will be consoled by grace

in this world, and glory in the next. Comfort my mother, I beseech

you, of whom, with yourself, I entreat your blessing.”

In the convent at Bologna, Savonarola spent seven years. During his

novitiate, his conduct was the admiration of all his brethren. They

wondered at his modesty, his humility, and his faultless obedience. He

appeared to be entirely absorbed in ecstatic contemplation of heavenly

things, and to have no other desire than to be allowed to pass his time

in prayer and humble obedience. To one looking at him walking in the

cloisters, he had more the appearance of a shadow than of a living man,

so much was he emaciated by abstinence and fasts. The severest trials

of the novitiate seemed light to him, and his superiors had frequently

to restrain his self-imposed denials. Even when not fasting, he ate

hardly enough to sustain life. His bed was of rough wood with a sack

of straw and one coarse sheet; his clothes, the plainest possible,

but always scrupulously neat. In personal appearance, Savonarola was

of middle stature, dark, of sanguine-bilious temperament, and of

extraordinary nervous sensibility. His eyes flamed from beneath dark

eyebrows; his nose was aquiline, mouth large, lips thick but firmly

compressed, and manifesting an immovable determination of purpose.

His forehead was already marked with deep furrows, indicating a

mind absorbed in the contemplation of grave subjects. Of beauty of

physiognomy there was none, but it bore the expression of severe

dignity. A certain sad smile, passing over his rough features, gave

them a kindly expression which inspired confidence at first sight.

His manners were simple and uncultivated; his discourse, plain to

roughness, became at times so eloquent and powerful that it convinced

or subdued every one.

As Savonarola advanced in his studies, he devoted all the time he

could possibly spare to the writings of the Fathers and to the Holy

Scriptures. There are no less than four different copies of the Bible

still existing in the libraries of Florence, and a fifth in the library

of S. Mark, in Venice, of which the margins are covered with Latin

notes written by him, which are excessively abridged, and in a writing

so fine as to be read only with difficulty. According to the custom of

the order, the young monk was in due time sent out on the mission, that

is, to different cities and towns, to preach and exercise his other

clerical duties. In 1482, he was ordered to Ferrara, whither he went,

very much against his will. His relatives desired that he should remain

there, in order to be near his family. Referring to this, he wrote to

his mother: “I could not do as much good at Ferrara as elsewhere. It

is seldom that a religious succeeds in his native place. Hence it is

that the Scripture commands us to go forth into the world. A stranger

is better received everywhere. No one is a prophet in his own country.

Even concerning Christ, they asked: ‘Is not this the son of the

carpenter?’ As to me, it would be inquired, ‘Is not this Master Jerome,

who committed such and such sins, and who was not a whit better than

ourselves? Ah! we know him.’”

THE CONVENT OF S. MARK.

From Ferrara, Fra Hieronimo was sent to the Convent of S. Mark, at

Florence. A mass of saintly and artistic recollections cluster around

the history of this convent. Holy men passed their lives within its

austere cloisters, and eminent artists here consecrated their works by

Christian inspiration. It is sufficient to mention from among them the

names of Fra Angelico, whose admirable frescoes adorn its walls, of

Fra Bartolomeo, known to the world as Baccio della Porta, the equal of

Andrea del Sarto, of Fra Benedetto, and of the brothers Luke and Paul

della Robbia. Villari dwells on one of its greatest illustrations, F.

Sant’ Antonino, the founder or renewer of nearly all the charitable

institutions of Florence, and in particular of the Buoni Uomini di

San Martino, which exists to this day in all its beautiful Christian

edification, if, haply, the tide of modern progress, under Victor

Emmanuel, have not swept it away.

F. Sant’ Antonino’s memory is still cherished there as that of a

man burning with divine charity, and consumed with the love of his

neighbor. His death, which took place in 1459, was deplored in Florence

as a public calamity.

The early history of the convent is closely connected with that of

Cosmo de’ Medici, who was its munificent patron. Besides large amounts

spent on the building, he made them a still more valuable donation.

Niccolo Niccoli, a name well known to scholars, a collector of

manuscripts of European fame, had spent his life and a large fortune in

making a collection of valuable manuscripts which was the admiration

of all Italy. At his death, he bequeathed it to the public, but the

donation was useless by reason of the heavy debts against his estate.

Cosmo paid them, and, retaining for himself a few of the most precious

documents, gave all the rest to the convent. This was the first public

library in Italy, and it was cared for by the monks in a manner which

proved them worthy of the gift they had received. S. Mark became, as it

were, a centre of learning, and not only the most learned monks of its

affiliated convents in Northern Italy, but the most distinguished men

of that period, sought every occasion to frequent it.

Savonarola’s arrival in the Florentine convent had been preceded by his

reputation for learning and for piety. It was even said of him that he

had made some miraculous conversions, and the story was told that, in

making the journey from Ferrara to Mantua by the river, he had been

shocked by the obscene ribaldry of the boatmen. He turned upon them

with terrible earnestness, and, after half an hour of his impressive

exhortation, eleven of them threw themselves at his feet, confessing

their sins, and humbly demanding his pardon.

Savonarola was at first delighted with all he saw of Florence. The

delicious landscape bounded by the soft outline of the Tuscan hills,

the elegance of language, the manners of the people, which appeared to

increase in refinement and courtesy as you approached Florence, all had

predisposed him to find delight in this flower of Italian cities, where

nature and art rival each other in beauty. To his mind, so strongly

imbued with the religious feeling, Florentine art seemed like a strain

of sacred music, attesting the omnipotence of genius inspired by faith.

The paintings of Fra Angelico appeared to him to have summoned the

angels to take up their abode in these cloisters; and, gazing at them,

the young religious was transported into a world of bliss. The holy

traditions of Sant’ Antonino and of his works of charity were still

fresh among the brethren, and everything appeared to draw him closer

to them. His heart was filled with hopes of better days, he forgot

his former disappointments, as well as the possibility that there

might be fresh ones in store for him when in time he came to know the

Florentines better.

LORENZO THE MAGNIFICENT.

When Savonarola came to Florence, Lorenzo the Magnificent had been its

ruler for many years, and was then at the apogee of his fame and his

power. Under his sway[121] everything looked prosperous and happy.

The struggles that formerly convulsed the city had long ceased. Those

who refused to bend to the domination of the Medici were imprisoned,

exiled, or dead. All was peace and tranquillity. Feasts, dances, and

tournaments filled up the leisure of this Florentine people, who, once

so jealous of their rights, now seemed to have forgotten the very

name of liberty. Lorenzo participated in all these diversions, and

even exerted himself to invent new ones. Among these were the _Canti

Carnascialeschi_, first written by him and sung by the young nobility

and gentry of Florence in the masquerades of the Carnival. Nothing

perhaps can better depict the corruption of the period than these

songs. At this day not only educated young men, but the lowest of the

populace, would hold them in scorn, and their repetition in public

would be an offence against decency swiftly to be suppressed by the

police. And yet such were the occupations of predilection of a prince

praised by all, and considered as the model of a sovereign, a prodigy

of courtesy, a political and literary genius. And there are those

who are to-day inclined to think of him as he was then looked upon,

to pardon him the blood cruelly spilled to maintain a power unjustly

acquired by him and his, the ruin of the republic, the violence by

which he forced from the community the sum necessary for his reckless

expenditure, the shameless libertinism to which he abandoned himself,

and even the rapid and infernal corruption of the people which he

studied to maintain with all his force and mental capacity.[122] And

all this must be pardoned him forsooth, because he was the protector of

literature and the fine arts!

Among all the Italian historians who have painted Florence at this

epoch, there is but little difference except in the variety and depth

of the colors used by them. Bruto writes, and what he says is neither

useless nor irrelevant reading if, as we progress in his description,

we bear in mind to what extent it may be applied to New York in the

year 1873 as well as to Florence in 1482. “The Florentines,” he says,

“seeking to live in idleness and ease, broke with the traditions of

their ancestors, and in immoderate and shameful license fell into the

way of the most disgraceful and detestable vices. Their fathers, by

dint of labor, fatigue, virtue, abstinence, and probity, had made the

country flourish. They, on the contrary, as if they had cast aside

all shame, seemed to have nothing to lose: they gave themselves up to

drinking, gambling, and the most ignoble pleasures. Lost in debauch,

they had shameless intrigues and daily orgies. They were stained with

all wickedness, all crime. General contempt of law and justice assured

them complete impunity. Courage consisted in audacity and temerity;

ease of manner, in a culpable complaisance; politeness, in gossip and

scandal.”

SAVONAROLA IN FLORENCE.

In consideration of his acquirements, Fra Hieronimo, was appointed

a teacher of the novices, and held the position for four years

(1482-1486). In 1483, owing either to a want of preachers or to the

high opinion formed of him from his success as a professor, he was

appointed to preach the course of Lenten sermons at the church of

S. Lawrence. Meantime, what he had learned of the Florentines from

personal observation had not tended to raise them in his estimation. He

had discovered that, in spite of their finished education and highly

cultivated intellects, their hearts were filled with scepticism, and

an ever-present sarcasm hovered on their lips. This want of faith and

of high principles caused him to shrink anew into himself, and his

disappointment was the greater as it contrasted so keenly with the

hopes he entertained on entering Florence. With these feelings he

for the first time ascended a Florentine pulpit. Hardly twenty-five

people came to hear him a second time. Twenty-five persons! They

could hardly be seen in the vast building. His voice was feeble, his

intonations false, his gestures awkward, his style heavy. His preaching

was a failure. But he was not discouraged, and was anxious to make

another attempt. His superiors, not caring to renew the experiment in

Florence, sent him to San Gemignano for two years. He made no attempt

to change his style. The Florentines had been accustomed to preachers

who carefully studied the elocutionary part of their sermons, many of

them seeking to form themselves upon some classical mould, and their

delivery was generally polished and graceful. Savonarola despised

these aids, and thundered in his rough, uncultivated way, against

scandals and want of faith, speaking with scorn of the modern poets

and philosophers, and despising their fanaticism for the classics.

The Bible he quoted profusely, and made it the foundation of all his

sermons. His success at San Gemignano was by no means a decided one,

nevertheless it was sufficient to give him confidence in himself, and

to confirm the course he had marked out for himself as a preacher.

Returning to his convent, he continued to fulfil his modest duties as

reader or professor until 1486, when by his superiors he was

SENT TO LOMBARDY,

where he remained four years. These four years are the most obscure of

his life. It is known, however, that during this period he preached

in various cities of that country, and especially at Brescia. Here

his power in the pulpit first fully revealed itself. He preached on

the Apocalypse. With fervid words, imperious accents, and impressive

voice, he reproached the people with their sins, and threatened them

with the anger of God. Making startling application of the prophecies

to Brescia itself, they should see, he told them, their city a prey

to furious enemies, who would make their streets run rivers of blood.

Crime and cruelty would visit them in their worst shape, and everything

would be delivered up to terror, fire, and destruction. His menaces

appalled them, and his voice appeared to come from another world. These

prophecies were recalled when, a few years later, in 1512, Brescia

was taken by assault by the French troops under Gaston de Foix, and

the city sacked and devastated with the most dreadful barbarity. Six

thousand of its inhabitants were killed.

Savonarola is next heard of at Reggio, in 1486, where a chapter of

Dominicans was convened for the discussion of certain questions of

theology and discipline. A number of learned laymen were also present,

attracted by the prospect of theological discussion. Among these was

the celebrated Pico di Mirandola, then only twenty-three, but already

famous as a prodigy of intelligence and learning. He was struck by the

appearance of Savonarola before the monk had said a word, and had noted

his pallid countenance, and sunken eyes, and forehead ploughed with

furrows of thought. In the theological debate, Savonarola took no part,

but when the question of discipline came up he spoke and thundered.

What he said left upon Mirandola the impression that he beheld an

extraordinary man, and on his arrival at Florence some time afterward,

he besought Lorenzo de’ Medici to have Savonarola recalled to

Florence.[123] After preaching at Bologna and Pavia, and delivering a

course of Lenten sermons at Genoa, he was, at the instance of Lorenzo,

recalled by his superiors to Florence, in 1490. Thus it was that the

bitterest enemy of the Medici, the subverter of their power, was by

one of themselves invited to return. Notwithstanding his discernment

Lorenzo little knew what sad disasters he was preparing for his house,

or what a flame he was kindling in the convent which his ancestors

had built. In order to give an example of the Christian simplicity he

preached, Fra Hieronimo made the journey home on foot, and, owing to

physical weakness, accomplished only with difficulty his

RETURN TO FLORENCE.

In his convent he quietly resumed his functions of reader. There

was no question of his preaching, for he had not forgotten the icy

indifference of the Florentines. Devoting himself sedulously to the

instruction of his novices, they became the objects of his tender care

and of his fondest wishes. Meantime his powers had increased and his

fame had spread. It was echoed from Northern Italy, and confirmed by

Mirandola. Gradually the professed brothers of the convent joined

the novices in listening to Savonarola’s lectures, and scholars and

learned men of the city demanded permission to be admitted to them.

Among those was his adviser Pico. The study-room in which he gave his

lectures was no longer sufficient to hold the crowd. The garden of the

convent was then taken possession of, and there, under the shade of a

bush of damask roses, carefully renewed to this day by the brothers

of the convent with religious veneration, he continued his lessons.

His subject was the exposition of the Apocalypse. The crowd of his

hearers still increased, and it was proposed to the Prior of S. Mark

that Fra Hieronimo should continue his lectures in the church. This

was accorded, and on Sunday, August 1, 1490, crowds flocked to hear

the preacher, who, formerly so much despised in Florence, had gained

such a reputation in other parts of Italy. From an account of it left

by himself, he that day preached a terrible sermon. He continued

his explanation of the Apocalypse. The walls rang with his terrible

conclusions, he succeeded in communicating to the excited multitude the

impetuosity of his own feelings, his voice seemed to them superhuman.

The success of that day was complete. Nothing else was talked of in all

Florence, and the literati for a short time forgot Plato to discuss the

merits of the new Christian preacher. Here is his own account of the

event:

“On the first day of August of this year, 1490, I began publicly to

expound the Apocalypse in our church of S. Mark. During the course

of the year, I continued to develop to the Florentines these three

propositions 1. ‘That the church would be renewed in our time.’ 2.

‘Before that renovation, God would strike all Italy with a fearful

chastisement.’ 3. ‘That these things would happen shortly.’ I labored

to demonstrate these three points to my hearers, and to persuade them

by probable arguments, by allegories drawn from sacred Scripture,

by other similitudes and parables drawn from what was going on in

the church. I insisted on reasons of this kind; and I dissembled the

knowledge which God gave me of those things in other ways, because

men’s spirits appeared to me not yet in a state fit to comprehend such

mysteries.”

The reader will not fail to notice the portentous intimation conveyed

in the last sentence of this remarkable record. Savonarola already

believed himself the recipient of supernatural communications “the

knowledge which God gave me of these things in other ways.” We shall

find him presently boldly announcing his celestial visions and commands

from heaven, and here may be discerned clearly and at once the point at

which his noble mind and pure spirit, disturbed by the excitement of

years of mental tension and meditation on Apocalyptic visions, lost its

clearness and its balance, and fell into the gravest errors of judgment

and doctrine.

THE FAMOUS SERMONS.

Crowds continued to press into the church of S. Mark to hear the

preaching of Fra Girolamo, until the utmost capacity of the building no

longer sufficed to hold them. For the Lent of 1491, his preaching was

appointed to take place in the cathedral, and the walls of Santa Maria

del Fiore for the first time echoed to his voice. From this moment

he was lord of the pulpit and master of the people, who, increasing

every day in number as hearers, redoubled in their enthusiasm for

him. The pictures he drew charmed the fancy of the multitude, and the

threats of future punishments exercised a magic influence upon all,

for sinister forebodings appeared to rule the hour. All this was far

from satisfactory or pleasing to the Magnificent Lorenzo, and naturally

begat among his adherents a feeling of strong opposition to Savonarola.

The result was that a deputation of five of the principal citizens

(Domenico Bonsi, Guidantonio Vespucci, Paulo Antonio Soderini, Bernardo

Rucallai, and Francesco Valori) waited upon him, with instructions to

advise him that he was risking his own safety and that of his convent,

and to admonish him to be more moderate in his tone when teaching or

preaching. Savonarola abruptly cut short their discourse, saying: “I

see that you come not of your own motion, but that you are sent by

Lorenzo de’ Medici. Tell him to make haste to repent of his sins, for

God is no respecter of persons, and has no fear of the great ones

of this earth.” Proud of his independence as a priest, Savonarola

desired thus to crush at the outset the established custom in S. Mark

of continually bending and prostrating before the house of Medici. At

this the deputation pointed out to him the danger he was in of being

exiled; and he answered: “I have no fear of exile from your city, which

is, after all, a mere grain of dust upon the face of the earth. But

although I am only a stranger in it, and Lorenzo a citizen and its

head, know ye that I shall remain, and ye shall depart.”

To this he added a few words concerning the actual condition of

Florence, which made them wonder at the intimate knowledge he possessed

of its affairs. Shortly afterward in the sacristy of S. Mark’s, in the

presence of several persons, he said that the affairs of Italy would

soon change, for that the Pope, the King of Naples, and Il Magnifico

had not long to live.