Is this, indeed, our ancient earth?

Or have we died in sleep, and risen?

Has earth, like man, her second birth?

Rises the palace from the prison?

Hills beyond hills ascend the skies;

In winding valleys, heaven-suspended,

Huge forests, rich as sunset’s dyes,

With rainbow-braided clouds are blended.

From melting snows through coverts dank

White torrents rush to yon blue mere,

Flooding its glazed and grassy bank,

The mirror of the milk-white steer.

What means it? Glory, sweetness, might?

Not these, but something holier far—

Shadows of him, that Light of Light,

Whose priestly vestment all things are.

The veil of sense transparent grows:

God’s face shines out, that veil behind,

Like yonder sea-reflected snows—

Here man must worship, or be blind.

“FOR BETTER—FOR WORSE.”

CONCLUDED.

“PRAY take an easier chair, Mrs. Vanderlyn,” says the invalid; “I thank

you for your sympathy, and trust my cough has not disturbed you.”

“Oh! not at all,” says Agnes; “it only made me want to come to see you,

and I hope you will not regard it as an intrusion on my part.”

“By no means. You are very kind. I see it in your eyes. You do not shun

the sick. It is a good heart that leads you to me. I thank you.”

These words are interrupted by painful coughing, but, after the

paroxysm has passed, she becomes more quiet, and Agnes has a better

opportunity of studying her face while they converse.

In spite of her wasting disease, it is a beautiful and _saintly_ face

still, and evidently has been much more beautiful in health and youth.

Refinement and purity are stamped on every feature, and in every

gesture and every fold of her raiment. The small, thin hands, folded

over the book in her lap, are those of a delicately bred lady. A heavy

plain gold ring, on the third finger of her left hand, is so loose that

it is guarded by another and smaller one. These are all the ornaments

she wears. A soft, warm wrapper of brown merino, a little white cap of

thin muslin which does not altogether hide her abundant dark hair, are

all of feminine costume to tell of the wearer’s character.

The room is very neat and comfortable, and shows no sign of poverty. On

the walls are a few wood engravings, mostly of religious subjects, and

a few photograph portraits finished in oils. A crucifix stands on the

mantel, and a smaller one, attached to a rosary of Roman pearls, on the

table by her side, where also is an exquisite Parian statuette of the

Blessed Virgin and Child. Agnes sits on the other side of this table,

and, while she converses with her hostess, her attention is drawn to a

small book lying near her. Apparently only to read the title, she takes

up this book, and opens at the fly-leaf. It is a prayer-book, and, in a

lady’s writing, she reads:

“Martin Vanderlyn, from his wife.” Although prepared to know the truth,

almost knowing it before she came into the room, Agnes feels her cheeks

and lips grow pale; but she has always great command of herself, and

now has not been taken quite by surprise.

“My husband is not a Catholic, although that book bears his name,” says

Mrs. Vanderlyn. “Perhaps he is a relative of yours,” she adds, looking

inquiringly at her guest.

“I never heard my husband speak of any relative of that name,” Agnes

says. “The name is not a very common one, either. It seems strange that

two of us should meet here. Is your husband absent?” She has remarked

that Mrs. Vanderlyn had said, “My husband is not a Catholic,” and the

avoidance of the use of the past tense gives her the chance to put her

question, which she does to cover her own confusion, and mislead the

lady as to herself. An expression of pain passes over Mrs. Vanderlyn’s

face, as she quietly replies:

“Yes; he is absent, travelling.” It is not the first time that the poor

lady has been obliged to answer a similar question, so she is not much

disturbed; but Agnes feels sorry she has asked it. Mrs. Vanderlyn goes

on speaking of her increased indisposition: “Mr. Vanderlyn does not

know how very rapid has been the progress of the disease. I am much

worse now than when he left home.”

Agnes cannot find it in her heart to ask how long it is since he left

her. She thinks she knows, and she thinks she understands that Mrs.

Vanderlyn does not wish her to know that she is a divorced woman.

She respects this as a delicacy of feeling which her own position

fully teaches her to appreciate. With her present knowledge of Martin

Vanderlyn as a husband, her sympathies are all with his wife. She

believes now that it was his fault and not hers which made the trouble

between them. Her strong good sense tells her that Mrs. Vanderlyn being

a Catholic was no sufficient reason for his separating from her; and

she cannot believe that this lady has been a disagreeable companion to

live with.

Overwhelmed with all the thoughts surging in her mind, she soon takes

her leave, all the sooner that she hears her boy calling to her.

“You have a little son,” Mrs. Vanderlyn remarks. “Will you not bring

him in to see me? I am very fond of children, and the only one I had is

dead; I shall soon meet her, I hope. But to-morrow you will bring your

boy to see me, will you not?” And she holds her hand out to Agnes, and

looks wistfully in her face. Agnes is touched almost to tears as she

promises.

The next day, with her “curled darling” clinging to her skirts, she

goes to see this _sister_, as she somehow feels Mrs. Vanderlyn to be

to her. Are they not both the deserted wives of the same man? And she

feels that this one is more truly the wife than herself, in spite of

all the law can do for her. And it has not escaped her notice that Mrs.

Vanderlyn spoke of Martin as her husband still.

As she approaches Mrs. Vanderlyn, little George is hiding his face

in her skirts, only allowing himself to look out, from time to time,

between his fingers, at the lady. No urging from his mother seems

likely to get him out of his intrenchment.

“Let him alone,” Mrs. Vanderlyn says; “that is the way with many

children. When we stop urging him, he will show himself of his own

accord.”

And so he does. After the attention of the two is, as he supposes,

removed from himself, the chubby fingers come down, and the bright eyes

gaze steadily at Mrs. Vanderlyn. She, becoming aware of this, turns,

saying, “What is your name, darling?”

“Martin Van’lyn,” proudly speaks out little George, using the name by

which his father had nearly always called him, and which he now seems

to choose in a spirit of sheer mischief, for Agnes has rarely called

him by that name. She had opposed it because it confused the address

she used for his father. The child speaks out the “Martin” with unusual

distinctness too, although he has oftener called himself “Marty” than

Martin. Agnes has never thought of the boy thus betraying her, and she

has said truly that his name is George. She is confused, and looks

distressed, feeling that Mrs. Vanderlyn will naturally suspect her of

falsifying, if not much more.

That lady seems equally disturbed, but in a different way from that

which the child’s blunder might be supposed to create. She pauses,

stammers, and, in great agitation, looking at Agnes, exclaims:

“_Whose_ child is this? I could almost think I had my own again! Holy

Mother, help me!” Then reaching for a little velvet miniature case, she

opens it with trembling fingers, saying, “Look at that!”

Agnes looks, and sees the face of a child nearly the age of her own,

which is so good a likeness of George that it might be taken for him.

What wonder? It is the picture of his half-sister. These children

of the same father had inherited a resemblance to his family rather

than to himself, and here is little George looking at Mrs. Vanderlyn

with the eyes and smile of her own child. Who has not observed how

wonderfully lineage will proclaim itself in this way? The poor lady is

more overcome by this sight than by any question as to George’s name;

but that has not escaped her notice. She lays her wasted hand on the

arm of Agnes, and says appealingly:

“Tell me the name of this child’s father! Pardon me! See, I will tell

you first why I ask, that you may know why I take this liberty with

you. I am Martin Vanderlyn’s deserted wife. This is his child’s face,

and that is your child. He says his name is Martin. Pardon me, dear

lady, again, for asking. I do not wish to pain you as I am pained; but

what that man did to one woman he may have done to another—deserted

her. I have heard that he did deceive another, and married her. I

had not believed it, because he came to me for money within the past

year, and spoke of returning to me after he had done travelling. I

could not believe he had pretended to marry another woman; but with

this” (pointing to the picture and to the boy), “you see I cannot help

believing it. Are you that unfortunate woman?”

She speaks with tender commiseration for Agnes rather than with any

animosity toward her. Agnes has stood during all this time, with her

hands nervously clutching her dress, and vainly trying to be composed.

Of what need, after all, is concealment from this woman, evidently not

long for this life, and so full of pity and forgiveness? So she answers:

“You have rightly guessed. This is Martin Vanderlyn’s son, and I am

what you truly call that unfortunate woman whom he has deserted. But I

knew you immediately to be his divorced wife.”

“Divorced! who says so? No; I am not _that_. He would have made me so,

but I am a Catholic, and I would not consent to it. I _could_ not.

He is my husband still, and, while I live, no law can make another

woman his wife. But, oh! this is too cruel to you!” she says, seeing

Agnes droop at once. “Did you really believe, dear, that you had the

law on your side? You thought he was divorced from me. Ah! no; not

even that doubtful right had he to marry you. He has not even the

Protestant permission, for he is not divorced from me. Even if the law

had so parted us, he ought not to have married another, and I, as a

Catholic, _could not_ do so; for you remember our Lord’s words that

“he who shall marry her that is put away, committeth adultery.” I pain

you, madam, very much, I know, but I must not deceive you more than

you have been deceived already. I have not much longer to live, and I

must speak truth. If he ever returns to you, as I once hoped he would

return to me, I may be in my grave then. Beg him, in that case, to

marry you, else you will never be his wife. I say this for your good.

I am sure you cannot think it is in malice. Look at me. I have nearly

done with this life—above all, with Martin Vanderlyn. You have shown

me kindness. I say to you what I do now, that you may see to it that

no more wrong in the sight of Heaven is done. I cannot look into your

face, and think that you will live with him again while I live.”

“Oh! no, no! God forbid!” cried Agnes. “I am not _that_, I could not

be!”

“Then see to it when I am dead,” says Mrs. Vanderlyn, and she sinks

back exhausted in her chair. Agnes kneels before her, and does

everything in her power to restore her; but, in the meantime, her own

condition is almost as pitiable. Little George has got hold of Mrs.

Vanderlyn’s rosary, and is quietly playing with it during all this

time. When Mrs. Vanderlyn is more composed, Agnes gives way herself.

Drawing her boy to her heart, she cries:

“Oh! what am I, and what is he? What is our name, and what can we

call ourselves? Can a few words more or less from judge or jury thus

disgrace us? If I am not his wife, what am I? God knows I insisted on

marriage with him, and entered upon it in good faith.”

“I do not doubt you,” Mrs. Vanderlyn says gently. “But, my dear,

call yourself by your own name again. Try to put yourself, as far as

possible, back into your old life, until you can get him to make it

right.”

Alas! she little knows how these words pierce Agnes, and enlighten her

as to the great wrong that has been done. Her own name again? Why, what

is it? Not Thorndyke now. Her old life! She shall

“Hear the ‘Never, never,’ whispered by the phantom years.”

Another woman fills her place, closed now for ever to her, even if

she could wish to take it. No honored wife can she be now; only a

dishonored woman, deceived, betrayed, deserted. Her child without

a father’s name to call his own—in the eyes of the law, “nobody’s

child.” Where shall she go? What shall she do? To earn their bread

she expected, but she had not thought to do it in disgrace. The two

women weep together, Mrs. Vanderlyn trying to comfort Agnes, who now

tells all her former history to this new and strange friend. Strange,

indeed, that to Martin Vanderlyn’s true wife this shameful story should

be confessed by his victim; but Agnes feels that she has not a wiser,

kinder friend.

“Oh! where shall I go? What shall I do!” she sobs, with her head in

Mrs. Vanderlyn’s lap.

“My dear, if you were a Catholic, I should answer: ‘Go to your

confessor.’ As it is, could you not seek advice of your pastor? What

kind of Protestant are you, dear?”

“Alas! I have no pastor. I _was_ a Presbyterian. I am nothing now. _He_

destroyed all my faith.”

“Yes, yes; I can well believe it; only a faith rooted deep as mine is,

and as invulnerable, could withstand his assaults,” Mrs. Vanderlyn says

sadly. “But, my poor child, you need some counsel wiser than I can give

you, and a strength greater than your own or mine to lean upon in this

sore trial. Are you too prejudiced to let me bespeak for you the aid

of my own pastor, F. Francis? Our fates seem so to meet in this great

trouble of our lives (though I know yours is the greater burthen) that

I feel sure F. Francis will give you the advice and consolation you

need.”

Agnes is startled at the proposition, but it does not repel her as

it once would have done. This much, at least, unbelief will do for

its victims, if they have been Protestant—it destroys that intense

prejudice against the Catholic clergy which is the very life of

Protestantism. Indeed, it often ploughs up the soil of the mind, and

roots out the weeds of prejudice and bigotry, leaving a fair chance

for the seeds of the true faith to find root. Agnes has been a very

thoughtful woman, and has often suspected that there must be some

divine influence in the Catholic religion to bind its believers to it,

and to sustain them as she has seen no others held and sustained. In

Mrs. Vanderlyn, she has perceived, through all her own perplexity and

grief, a marked example of this divine assistance. Now that the way is

open, she feels a yearning to lay hold of the same support. It is the

desperate groping of a despairing soul for something beyond itself.

Moreover, she has seen the gentle face of F. Francis, and heard the

kind tones of his voice. So she answers humbly:

“If he will let me, Protestant as I am, trouble him with my affairs,

I would be indeed glad to have his advice. He must be often called to

comfort distressed Catholics, who keep nothing back from their priests.”

“Indeed he is—none oftener. Then I will tell your part of this sad

story to him first. He, of course, knows mine already. What shall I

call you to him, dear? You will be Mrs. Thorndyke still to him and

to me, but you may not like to hear the name from us, and we must

designate you.”

“Call me Agnes Rodney—my father’s name may yet be mine. This is the

second time I have taken it back. I gave my boy that name. Poor child!

He has no other now.”

The boy has been sleeping on the pillows of a sofa for some time,

happily hidden from Mrs. Vanderlyn’s sight by the back of his mother’s

chair. As he turns now in his sleep, Agnes rouses him, and leads him

from the room.

On the following day, Agnes is asked by a servant to come to Mrs.

Vanderlyn’s room. She suspects that it is to meet F. Francis, and she

is not mistaken. It is not so great a trial to her as she has feared,

for Mrs. Vanderlyn has told the story first to him.

From this interview she goes with a chastened spirit, and yet with

more of comfort than she has thought it possible for her to feel. He

has not spared her in the matter of how much she has been blamable all

through her trials in not bearing with her husband more patiently and

dutifully, and, above all, in tampering with divorce. He has shown her

how the church regards marriage: not as a civil contract, but as a

sacrament; and that, in his eyes, she is still John Thorndyke’s wife.

So the wish of Mrs. Vanderlyn that Martin might be persuaded to legally

marry Agnes after her own death, could not be granted while Agnes had

yet a husband. True, the _law_ has freed her from that tie, but no

Catholic could bid her take any such advantage. Moreover, it is very

doubtful if she will ever see Vanderlyn again. No thought of pursuit or

of punishment ever enters her mind. To work for herself and her boy is

now all that is left for her, and F. Francis promises to try to find

that work for her to do. In the meantime, it is arranged that she shall

stay for the present with Mrs. Vanderlyn, making no difference in her

name to the landlady, to whom she says that they have discovered that

they are remotely connected.

“I guessed it would turn out so,” says the landlady, “and I am right

glad the poor soul has found a friend. I think she grows worse very

fast. She won’t last long.”

The landlady is not wrong in her conclusions. From this time, Agnes

devotes herself to the care of Mrs. Vanderlyn in her fast-failing

strength. Indeed, did Agnes not fill the place of nurse, a hired one

would be necessary, for the invalid has no relatives in the country

upon whom to call. She was an only child, and her father the only one

left of his family. From him she has inherited a small competence

which has placed her above want and above the need of trying to wring

from her husband any support. It was this which tempted him to come so

meanly to her, even while living with Agnes, for pecuniary aid, well

knowing, as he did, her generous nature.

It is a loving, but short task for Agnes to perform. In little more

than three months, Margaret Vanderlyn is dead. But what a missionary

even on her dying bed she has proved herself! Agnes sees now what it

was that gave the angelic patience, and lent such a glory to the last

days of her friend. Day by day, she has been necessarily thrown within

the influence and teaching of F. Francis. The soil has indeed been

ready, and, after Mrs. Vanderlyn’s burial, she feels, in her desolate

condition, that only in the bosom of kind Mother Church is there

any consolation for her. Perhaps, too, the desire to get as far as

possible from all the infidel tendencies and teachings which Vanderlyn

had brought to bear upon her mind makes her turn to the church as the

surest and safest refuge. So Agnes Rodney becomes a Catholic, and a

sincere one. As she kisses the crucifix, which was Mrs. Vanderlyn’s,

she feels that she is a Magdalen, and longs to pour some precious

ointment over her Saviour’s feet.

Mrs. Vanderlyn has left nearly all of her property to Agnes, not only

as an acknowledgment of untiring devotion in her last days, but as some

amends for the wrong done to her by Martin Vanderlyn. No finer proof of

Margaret’s noble heart could have been given than in this generosity to

the woman who had supplanted her.

But Agnes cannot rest content in the ease thus afforded her. She feels

that she does not deserve it. She longs to make some greater expiation

than any she has yet offered for the error of her life. A Magdalen she

seems always to herself. It is this feeling which culminates at last in

a desire to make the devotion of all her energies, and the sacrifice of

all ease the precious ointment to pour at his feet. With this thought,

she goes to F. Francis, and proposes to place her boy in a Catholic

asylum, and that she may become a religious in some severe order.

“My daughter, it must not be,” replies the good priest sadly.

“Why not, father? I will strive so hard; I think I can be steadfast,

with God’s help, after all I have endured. It would be such a blessed

refuge, too, from my name and from my sad place in life—perhaps too

great a privilege for me,” she adds, watching the unconsenting look in

F. Francis’ eyes.

“You have said it, my child,” he replies. “Those who wear that garb

have never been in your doubtful position. Besides, your husband lives.”

Agnes’ face falls. She never thinks of herself now as a married woman.

“But if I should become a real widow ever?” she pleads; for the purpose

is dear to her, and she has hoped that her boy can be made a priest.

“Even then,” says F. Francis, “that which was your relation to Mr.

Vanderlyn would be in the way of your reception into any of these

orders, and your boy’s birth would be an impediment to his entering the

priesthood.”

Never before has Agnes felt how great has been her degradation as

now, when she finds that the all-pitying, loving, and gentle church

which has washed her sins and granted her comfort and hope has yet its

reservations for such as she and her boy.

It may be taken as a proof of the thoroughness of her conversion that

she so meekly acquiesces.

“But, my daughter, I will tell you what you may do, if you feel like

devoting yourself. We will put George in an asylum, and educate him,

and by-and-by we will find his place for him; and you can go into a

hospital as nurse.”

Her face brightens.

“You may not be a real sister; but a good hospital nurse, braving all

contagion, and discomfort, and fatigue, is the next thing to one; and

you may fashion your garb plainly, and shun the world’s comforts and

pleasures very effectually in such a calling.”

“I will, father! Oh, I will!” she says with warmth, for this is her

true vocation. “And then I may not have to part from George entirely,

which, after all, would wound me _here_.” She lays her hand upon her

heart as she speaks. “He is the only tie that is left me now.”

So Agnes Rodney watches beside the sick and dying in a hospital.

Dressed in a plain brown gown, with her hair drawn under a simple white

cap, she looks almost a real “sister,” and many of her Protestant

patients think her such. She is happier now than ever since her

girlhood. She is doing her Saviour’s work and that which she has

always loved—ministering to the sick. No other nurse throws into her

work such tender, loving care, such sympathy for the homeless and

friendless. The doctors rely upon her skill; the patients love her for

her gentle ministrations.

“And slow, as in a dream of bliss,

The speechless sufferer turns to kiss

Her shadow, as it falls

Upon the darkening walls.”

It is some five years from the time when Agnes Rodney commenced this

life, that a young man, indeed scarcely more than a youth, for he

cannot be more than nineteen, is hurt by a fall from a scaffold, and

brought into the hospital. He is a carpenter, and has been at work

on an adjoining building. To care for him, Mrs. Rodney is sent. The

youth is unconscious at first, and under the surgeon’s hands. She does

not learn his name at once, and it seems as if no one knows it. His

fellow-workmen have withdrawn for the time, but will return to-morrow.

While Mrs. Rodney is disposing of this youth, washing and removing

superfluous clothing, a pocket-book falls from his pockets, opening,

and scattering its contents. She gathers these up, and is returning

them, when her eye falls on a little picture which makes her start and

gaze curiously at the youth on the bed before her. This picture is

of a woman much younger than herself, and fairer, but it is her own

likeness, nevertheless, taken many years ago. The face has a sweet

girlish look, and soft, dark ringlets hang about the white throat. Her

own hair is now more gray than dark, and stern lines are traced about

the eyes and mouth; yet something of the same expression characterizes

the face of the picture and the face of the hospital nurse. How many

changes have come in her life since the sun portrayed that girlish

face! How well she remembers sitting for it years ago! She gazes at it

now, and criticises it, as if it were that of another person—never of

herself. So completely changed does she seem to herself that no feeling

has she now in common with the girl in the picture. And yet she knows

it so well. Who is this youth who carries it about him? Is it for a

chance admiration of it? She knows this may be, for it is the picture

of a very pretty girl of about his own age. She almost fears to allow

herself to believe who he may be as she scans his face closely. He

moans and opens his eyes, turning to her, saying:

“Please give me some water.”

She gives it, and asks, with a quiet voice, but with eyes and ears

expectant of the answer:

“What is your name?”

“George Thorndyke, ma’am.” And Agnes knows that her own son lies before

her. How anxiously, for many days and nights after this, does she

devote herself to this patient! No wonder the boy grows to be very fond

of her? To him she is only Mrs. Rodney, and he has connected no idea of

his mother with that name, although it has been his middle name also.

His father struck it out, and he does not even know his mother’s maiden

name. During his illness, she, by little and little, gleans this from

him—that his father is dead; that he has three sisters (she sighs to

herself as she remembers the other two); that he is working with a

carpenter, of whom he is learning his trade; that his “_stepmother_”

has been always good to him, but that she is gone, since his father’s

death, to live far away. This explains one thing which has puzzled

her—that only his employer and fellow-workmen have come to see him in

the hospital. She has feared every day that some of his family might

come. One thing yet she yearns to know—does he know any thing of

herself, or does he think her dead? She longs and yet dreads to know

this. At last, when it is evident that he will soon be well enough to

leave the hospital, she asks him if he remembers his own mother, or if

he was too young when he “_lost her_.”

“Yes, ma’am; I remember her a very little; but I have got her picture

in my pocket-book.” And he shows it to her.

“This was taken when she was very young, I should think,” says the

nurse.

“Oh! yes; mother said, the day she found it, that she guessed it was a

keepsake of father’s once, but that she thought I had the best right to

it. She told me never to let him see it, or know I had it, and that’s

the reason I got to carrying it around with me. Why, nurse, I think she

had eyes like yours.”

The nurse smiles, and busies herself in such a way that her head is

turned away for some moments.

“Don’t you think she was pretty, nurse? _I_ do?” continued Thorndyke.

Thus challenged, Agnes looks critically at the little picture.

“Yes; she _was_ pretty, I think,” she answers slowly; “but, if she had

lived, she might have been no better-looking than I am now.”

“And that would be nice enough for me; but, nurse, stoop down. I want

to tell you something. She isn’t dead, or wasn’t when my father married

my stepmother. They think that I think so, but a boy told me that she

went away, and was divorced. I didn’t believe it at first, but I found

out that it was true, and I would so much like to find her.”

“Why?”

“Because I believe it was father’s own fault that she went away. It

may be wrong in me to say it, but I know he could be hateful sometimes,

and I think he never liked me so well as he liked my sisters; and I

always thought my stepmother was kinder to me than he was.”

“God bless her for that!”

Thorndyke looks at the nurse, surprised at the earnestness of the words.

“Why, yes,” he says, encouraged in his confidences by her sympathy.

“She was always good to me, but I guess my own mother was superior to

her, and father knew it; but they got along very well together, and she

was good to him when he was sick at last.”

“Did he prosper?”

“Yes, quite well; but what he left wasn’t much, divided among four

of us, and mother’s share out. I’ll have a little to start me with,

though, and I got good schooling.”

“I am glad of that,” says the nurse.

“Why, nurse, what an interest you take in me; I think it very good of

you, indeed. Is it so with all the poor fellows who get shut up here?”

“George Thorndyke, let me tell you something which I _must_ before you

go away and I lose all trace of you. I knew that picture as soon as I

saw it, for I saw it before you were born.”

“Then you knew my mother! Where is she? Say! Is she living?”

“She is here. Can you forgive her and love her?”

They are not alone, so this revelation has to be made with hushed

voices and guarded manner; but George Thorndyke says, grasping her

hands:

“I would rather you were my mother than any woman I have ever met; and

I will work for you all the days of my life.”

“No, George; this is my place, and this is my work.”

“But you must come out of it; you’ll get your death here. Gracious

goodness! I can’t take it all in! Why, what a good thing it was for me

to get that tumble, as it led me to you!”

And then he questions her very much, and many of his questions are hard

to answer. At last he says suddenly:

“But you’re a Catholic, are you not?”

“Yes,” she answers.

“Did that make the trouble, mother?” And he looks as if he thinks he

has guessed it all.

“No, my son; if I had been a Catholic then, it would never have

happened, and I should never have been here, and perhaps not you,

either.”

He refrains from any further questions, but goes on declaring that he

will take her from there, and work for her. It is pleasant to this

lonely woman to feel that here is a manly heart and strength to lean on

which she may honestly claim, but she answers:

“No, George; I cannot allow it; you must work, and take a wife,

by-and-by, to yourself. I have my place and my work here, and there is

another for whom I work too. But I have some money besides. There is no

need for you to work for me, although I am here. Why, I am almost rich.”

“Another?” he says curiously, and scarcely noticing her last words.

“Yes,” she says, and has the pain of blushing before her own son, as

she tells him he has a brother. “There is another George who is as near

to you as those sisters of whom you have told me. I named him George to

fill your place, after the law gave you to your father and not to me.

O my son! I never meant to leave _you_. God knows I did not.”

“I do believe that,” he said; “but keep quiet, or they’ll notice. Where

is—my—brother?” There is a slight hesitation over the last word—ever

so slight—and he puts it bravely, but she feels it. That nice sense of

motherhood has always been so quick with her. In all her vicissitudes,

it has never been blunted. She tells him where George Rodney is, and

asks if he wishes to see him.

“Yes; I do, for your sake; and, besides, he is my namesake, and did

almost crowd me out, which I can’t allow, you know. But—is—is—Mr.

Rodney living?”

Ah! what a keen although unconscious thrust is that!

“Rodney is my maiden name, George, and I have dropped the other. The

Catholic Church does not recognize me as the wife of any other than

your father.”

“Ah! I see,” he says, in evident relief.

She goes bravely on to have it over:

“But little George’s father is gone from us, I do not know where; I

never expect to see him again. Rodney was in your name too, George.”

“I never knew that,” he says.

“Well, let it pass; perhaps your father did well to leave it out, and

your brother keeps it now.”

They are interrupted here, and the nurse leaves her son, to attend

to other duties. He finds enough to think about, and wants no other

company but his own thoughts.

It is not many days after this that George Thorndyke leaves the

hospital; but he never lets a day pass without going to see his mother,

and he meets his brother kindly, if not affectionately. But to all his

entreaties, and for a long time, Agnes refuses to leave her hard life.

She means to “die in the harness” which she has voluntarily assumed.

But at last her health begins to fail with the long strain upon her

endurance, and the doctors say she must rest. F. Francis also counsels

it. Now, and not till now, does she allow her son to make a home for

her. It is a very comfortable one, for, with the money left her by Mrs.

Vanderlyn, added to her long-saved pay as a hospital nurse, and George

Thorndyke’s wages in his trade, they live in quiet refinement, if not

luxury. And Agnes Rodney is a happy mother of two good sons.

A year has passed, and Agnes sits on a ferry-boat, in company with

George Rodney, who is spending a short vacation with her. They sit

near a man who is closely watching them, but whom they do not observe.

This man has a sallow, unhealthy, and dissipated face, but withal a

rather handsome one. The hair is dark, the eyes are gray, but sunken,

and restless in their expression. A very heavy beard covers all the

lower part of his face. A broad-brimmed felt hat shades his forehead

and eyes. He seems very curious about Agnes, and shifts his seat, and

leans nearer to hear her voice every time she answers George’s frequent

questions. As they pass from the boat, he hastens to walk close behind

her. He hears her say to the boy, “Wait, _George_, not so fast,” and

his eye lights up at something in these few words. The mother and son

get into a street-car. The man follows them, but seats himself on the

same side, and at the other end of the seat. He keeps his head turned

the other way whenever Agnes appears likely to look in his direction.

He is at the end of the car where she will not pass him in leaving it.

When Agnes and George get off, he follows quickly, still without their

noticing him. He sees the house they enter, surveys the neighborhood,

repeats the number to himself, and then walks up the street and around

the block, apparently in deep thought. When he comes around to the

house again, he goes slowly up the steps, and reads “Thorndyke” upon

the door. This seems to puzzle him. He looks around the neighborhood

again.

“No; I am right,” he says; “that is the church opposite, and this is

the number, but what does _this_ name mean! John Thorndyke is dead, but

she seems to prefer his name! Well, I’ll just see.” And he rings the

bell.

“Is Mrs. Thorndyke in?” he says to the maid who opens the door.

“There hain’t no Mrs. Thorndyke,” says the girl, taking it as a

personal grievance that he is not aware of this fact.

“Oh! well, the lady of the house—Mrs. Vanderlyn,” he says, not

wishing to appear too ignorant before this austere damsel. Now she is

exasperated.

“There hain’t nobody of _that_ name, neither; but isn’t it Mrs. Rodney

you want?”

The moment he hears this name, he appears satisfied, and, without

noticing the girl’s rudeness, he says:

“That is the lady I mean.”

“Well, she’s in.” And the girl waves her hand to the open parlor door,

as if she disdains further words with him. She suspects he hasn’t known

the name of Rodney at all before she mentioned it. All his offence is

in asking a question which she has been obliged to answer several times

before to pedlars and others of that kind, but she visits upon him the

accumulated vexation caused by his predecessors.

“_What name_ shall _I_ take to her?” she asks, with an unpleasant

emphasis, as if she doubts whether he knows his own name, or has any.

“What name? Ah! yes. Say Mr. _Martin_ would like to see her.”

The girl goes up-stairs, and tells Mrs. Rodney that Mr. _Morton_ is

waiting in the parlor.

After he is left alone, the man looks about the comfortable

appointments of the room with a quick business eye. He seems satisfied,

but has not much time for scrutiny, as he hears a step coming down the

stairs. He rises, and stands ready to meet Agnes as she enters. When

her eye falls on him, she stops at once, and stands looking steadily

at him without speaking, but growing very pale. He comes toward her,

saying, “Agnes!” and holding out both his hands. She does not take

them, nor offer any welcome, but says, in a cold, quiet voice, “What do

you want of me?”

“Are you, then, so unforgiving to me, Agnes? After all my long search

for you, is this all the greeting you can give me?”

“I do not know how long your search may have been, but I am sorry that

you have succeeded in finding me. What is it you want of me?” she says,

in the same cold tone.

“To live with you, as I would have done all these years if you had not

so unaccountably hidden yourself away.” He says this with an air of

boldness, and of assertion of some right which he supposes she must

recognize.

She smiles disdainfully. She divines the selfishness of this move, and

she sees that he is ignorant of the extent of her knowledge concerning

him.

“Where have you been all these years?” he asks, as she continues

silent.

“I am not bound to account for myself to you,” she replies.

“Come, now, Agnes, this is foolish. Why not be friendly? It is best for

you to be so. I have seen you with the boy. He is mine, and I can claim

him, you know.”

“No, sir! you cannot do that.”

“You think I cannot? Pray, why? You are my wife, and he is my son.”

“He is your son, but I am not your wife,” she says, in a firm tone.

“Not my wife! But you were married to me. Oh! shame, Agnes! I did not

expect that _you_, who insisted on the tying of that knot, would be the

one to untie it. In what position does it place you and the boy if you

are not my wife? I suppose you have considered _that_, and you must

have advanced somewhat in your ideas to be so independent now of public

opinion.”

Her face is very pale, and her lips have been firmly set. There is a

cold, stern light in her eyes as she answers: “I was never your wife.

You were not free to marry me, even if I had been free to marry you.

You were never divorced from your wife, so you can have no claim on me.”

He looks astonished, and for a moment cringes just a little as she says

this. But he rallies, and says, “That will not matter now, my wife is

dead; do you know that?”

“Yes.”

“You do? Why, how do _you_ know so much, when I only know that bare

fact? Pray, can you tell me anything more?”

His tone is half satirical, half beseeching. He really wishes to

know more than the meagre information which he has gleaned from the

neighbors of the house where Margaret died—that a Mrs. Vanderlyn was

buried from that house. The landlady has gone they know not where.

They remember the funeral, that is all. He is anxious to know what

has become of Margaret’s money. He thinks the priests have it; but

he is not sure of this, however, for one person has told him that a

relative who was nurse for the Catholic lady at the last inherited all

her money. It has puzzled him very much to guess who this person could

have been. He has not succeeded in finding any record of Margaret’s

will. F. Francis and Mrs. Vanderlyn had thought it wiser not to have

it recorded, considering Agnes’ peculiar relation to Vanderlyn, who

might yet return to dispute the possession of the money with her,

or to trouble her. Now that Agnes seems to know something of his

wife, it occurs to him that she may possibly be that _relative_ who

inherited the money. Knowing the disposition of each of these women

as he does—the one for nursing the sick, the other generous and

forgiving—he sees that, if they met at all, this might have been the

consequence. Remarkable quickness of deduction and conclusion he has

always possessed, and it serves him now, and makes him more determined

in his designs upon Agnes; but he is desirous of playing his game

adroitly. She, on her part, wishes to shorten the interview, and be rid

of him.

“I can tell you,” she says, “that your wife died as she lived, a

saintly woman; that she was the kindest, truest friend to me I ever

had. I knew from her the falsehood you told me when you said you were

divorced from her, and the base deception you practised on me in

pretending to make me your wife.”

“For love of you, Agnes! There was no other way for me. Let my love be

my excuse.”

She disdains any notice of this interruption, and continues:

“It was an infamous falsehood and treachery to me; but let that pass.

I was almost equally to blame, for I had no real right to marry you.”

“How so? You, at least, were free,” he says.

“No; my husband lived. I was still John Thorndyke’s wife in the eyes of

the church.”

“Church!” he repeats scornfully.

“Martin Vanderlyn, I am a Catholic. It may modify your tone and remarks

to be aware of that. I am proud and thankful to be of Margaret’s faith.”

He frowns, but thinks quickly that he may turn this to his advantage.

“Why are you called Rodney, then, and Thorndyke on your door, if you

are Mrs. Thorndyke still?”

“My son’s name is Rodney. He has no other, and I will bear his. I

decline to account to you for the name on my door.”

“You are very proud, Agnes, but I think it is best for you to be

friendly with me, considering all things. I certainly am free to marry

you now, and give the boy and you your right name and place. I should

think you were the very woman to wish that. I happen to know of John

Thorndyke’s death, too, so I think you are as free as I am now, even

on your own ground. Agnes, I never meant to leave you so long. I wrote

to you, and got no answer. I have searched for you in every direction,

and only now I find you. Why are you so unwilling to live as my wife

with me, when you see that it would place you and your son in a more

respectable condition?”

Agnes remembers Margaret’s words: “See to it that he marries you when

I am gone!” Then it had seemed doubtful if he could be persuaded to

do so. And here he is suing for her consent. She remembers his son’s

position, “nobody’s child,” but she remembers also her first-born son.

She remembers the bold, false, bad heart and life of Martin Vanderlyn;

she sees the possible effect of his evil influence on both her sons,

as it formerly blighted her own life, and she shrinks in horror and

disgust at the bare thought of such a stepfather introduced into their

home. She answers his question without hesitation:

“I do not love you. I cannot respect you. You were false to your wife

and false to me. I have been able to live happily without you all these

years, and I shall live apart from you still.”

He keeps down his pride, and appears yet to hope to change her

resolution, thinking it may be only the result of a woman’s pique.

Moreover, he feels almost sure now that the comfortable home around

her is purchased with the money left by Margaret. At all events, he

is determined on getting a home if possible at her expense, and he

does not scruple at any misrepresentation regarding his own means of

support. To her last scornful words, he replies, with an air of kind

consideration:

“But, Agnes, you will not always be able to support yourself as well as

I can support you. I know not how you do it, but I can place you above

the need of any effort on your part. Why can you not be frank with me,

and tell me how you have managed to live? You did not receive all the

money I sent, for some of it came back to me. Tell me, Agnes.”

“Martin Vanderlyn, I will not accept anything for either of us from

you. We can do without you, and we _will_. My decision is final.”

“Do you know the harm I can do you?” he says, in an angry voice, and

with flashing eyes. “I can brand you to the world and to the boy.

Would you rather that than have a husband, and a father for your son?”

She seems to shrivel and whiten at his threat, but she stands firm, and

answers him:

“You committed bigamy when you married me. What will the law do about

_that_? I can prove it, sir! Now, had you not better leave me?”

“No! I swear I will not leave you until you promise to marry me!”

At this moment, a man’s step is heard in the hall. He has entered the

house, quietly opening the door with a key of his own, and, while

taking off his overcoat, has heard the last words of both the speakers.

He steps within the room, and comes to Agnes’ side, passing his arm

around her trembling form. He is a powerful young man, in full and

vigorous health, which contrasts strongly with Vanderlyn’s sallow face

and wasted figure. He looks at Vanderlyn with piercing eyes as he says:

“What do you mean, sir, by speaking to this lady in this manner?

Mother, has he any right here that you acknowledge?”

“None, my son; I wish only to be rid of him.”

“Then, go,” says Thorndyke, “or I will see that you do. And if you

trouble her again, I will see that the law lays its hand on you more

heavily than I will lay mine if you do not leave us at once.”

Vanderlyn has gazed in great astonishment at this unexpected champion

for Agnes. When he hears him call her “mother,” it flashes upon his

quick perception why “Thorndyke” is on the door. He does not forget

that there was a boy left in Agnes’ old home, whom he once promised to

care for as if he were his own. Not much more has he cared for his own;

but this is an opponent he does not like. This is a different kind of

quarrel from the one he supposed he had with a defenceless woman. His

game is lost; he knows it, but he tries to be very brave in his defeat.

He says scornfully:

“Mr. Thorndyke, I do not ask _your_ hospitality. I remember the quality

of the article I had from your father some years ago. Yours seems to

be of the same sort. I will not disturb the _honorable_ repose of

your family, or try to become further acquainted with my son, _your

brother_.”

George raises his clenched hand to fell him to the floor, but Agnes

interposes, and Vanderlyn leaves the house untouched—leaves it, but

reels as he goes down the steps—staggers—falls upon the pavement only

a few paces from the door. A few moments later, George Rodney, coming

in the house, cries:

“A man has fallen dead in the street, just by the corner! I was coming

around the other side, and I almost met him!”

George Thorndyke rushes out, and sees the men carrying Martin

Vanderlyn’s senseless body away.

The next day, Agnes and her sons read in the papers that the man died

of heart disease, which the doctors thought had been aggravated by some

recent excitement. The mother and son are thankful that George’s hand

did not fall upon him; but George Rodney never knows that the man he

“almost met,” and who dropped down before his eyes, was his own father.

THE INDIANS OF YSLETA.

THE rich and thriving Pueblo of the Ysléta Indians is situated on the

western bank of the Rio Grande del Norte, about nine miles below the

little town of Albuquerque in New Mexico.

We strike southward from Albuquerque along the east bank of the

river. Three miles below the town we enter on flat and uninteresting

bottomland. The eye is not relieved by a dwelling, not even by a tree,

for a distance of five miles. We thus come to a rancho, deserted when

we last passed there, but which still gave evidence of former comfort.

The owner had joined the Texan Confederates, and quitted the territory.

Now we begin to cross the Sand Hills—a not unexciting performance.

The road is a narrow and shifting one, growing daily narrower and of

steeper slope, as the winds blow the sand upon it and fill it up. The

wagon moves along slowly at an angle of 45°. The road winds tortuously

along the face of the Sand Hills for about two miles, sometimes making

short and abrupt turns. It is from two to three hundred feet above the

river which washes the base of the hills. I feel an unpleasant tingling

sensation at my elbows, and a great and almost uncontrollable desire

to walk—“to lighten the load,” of course. Once on the road, there is

no going back, and one is entirely at the mercy of one’s mules. You

must let them go their own way. If they should grow restive or become

frightened, a broken neck, a general and irretrievable “smash up,” an

unpleasant and unrecorded grave in the quicksands of the Rio Grande,

would be the result. A six-mule wagon went off at one of the sharp

turns some years ago. Its fate was discovered by persons who travelled

some hours behind it, and who noticed the tracks. The wagon and team

had been engulfed, and had entirely disappeared before they arrived.

From the Sand Hills, we have a beautiful view of the Pueblo of Ysléta

on the opposite side of the river. The spectacle of the Indians fording

the river in certain spots, and driving their _burros_ up the steep

sides of the Sand Hill on which their Pueblo is built, enhances the

picturesqueness of the scene.

We have passed the Sand Hills, and now we cross the river to visit the

Pueblo. We have struck a little above the ford, however; the water is

in the bed of our wagon. We have to stand on the seats in order to keep

dry, and we perceive, not without alarm, that the mules are swimming.

By striking down-stream a little, however, the mules find bottom again,

and pull us out all safe on the western bank.

A steep and narrow path leads up to the summit of the Sand Hill on

which the Pueblo is perched. The Pueblos always have built and still

build their dwellings on the hill-tops: for defensive reasons in the

olden times, for security against inundations in the present. The

houses are built of the customary adobe. They are washed outside with

a whitish wash which resists the action of the weather; the mode of

its preparation is said to be known only to the Pueblos. I have seen

nothing like it in any of the Mexican towns. The houses are generally

two stories high, the lower story projecting considerably beyond the

upper. The entrance is through the roof, to which you climb by a ladder

placed against the outside. This mode of entrance is also a relic of

defensive precaution in past times of hostilities with other tribes of

Indians and with the Spanish invaders. The internal arrangement of the

houses is the reverse of ours. The kitchen is in the upper story, and

the sitting or sleeping room in the lower. You descend into the latter

from the former by an opening in the floor so small that not even the

lightest weight of the Fat Man’s Club could hope to squeeze through.

The Pueblos have no monstrous developments of adipose tissue; the

opening is large enough for them. The lower room is thoroughly secured

even against ventilation. The only window consists of one piece of

glass, without frame, imbedded in the wall.

The earthen vessels for family use are manufactured by the Pueblos

themselves, and are ornamented with fantastic designs of most primitive

execution. Chief among these vessels is the _tinaja_, globular in

shape, with an orifice at the top large enough to permit taking out the

liquid contents with a small dipper. The _tinaja_ is porous, to permit

evaporation through its sides. In hot weather, the _tinajas_ are filled

from the river or spring before sunrise, carefully covered, and set in

the shade. With these precautions, they keep the water almost ice-cold.

They are used in all Mexican _ménages_, as well as in the households of

the Pueblos.

The costume of the Pueblo men is not lacking in picturesqueness, more

particularly when distance lends its proverbial effect. They wear

a short loose sack of white cotton, or manta, ordinarily made of

carefully washed flour-sacks; for your Pueblo Indian is economical,

and, when he has sustained the inward man with the contents of

the flour-sack, he covers the outer man with the sack itself. The

pantaloons are of the same material, loose but short, not usually

reaching below the knee. The enchantment of distance dispelled,

however, traces of the former uses of the material may be discovered

in such inscriptions on the shoulders or the seat as the following:

“Superfine Family,” or “Choice Family Extra.” The Pueblo wears his hair

long, tied behind in a cue, around which is wound a piece of red cloth

or ribbon, according to the financial standing of the wearer, or mayhap

the greatness or solemnity of the occasion. The head gear is generally

a broad-brimmed straw hat. The foot covering is a deer-skin moccasin.

The costume of the gentler sex is eminently ungraceful. The women

wind long strips of buckskin tightly around the leg, in successive

layers, resulting in an enormous bandage from three to four inches

thick reaching from the ankle to above the knee. The _chaussure_ is a

moccasin. The effect produced by this arrangement is that of a feminine

_torso_ set on two huge bolsters. All symmetry of form or grace of gait

is destroyed. The walk is a sort of shuffle. The upper covering of the

figure is a dark woollen stuff, coarse in texture, and of Pueblo woof.

This reaches to the knee, and is composed of two rectangular pieces

joined at the upper edges, which form the shoulders, and leaving a

space for the passage of the head and neck. The pieces hang down before

and behind, and are held together at the waist by a belt or cincture.

The women cut their hair squarely across the forehead, leaving the

side locks and back hair to hang down loosely. Many of the men, too,

besides wearing a cue, cut the hair straight across the forehead, and

wear the pendent side-locks. The women wear their arms bare, save the

ornamentation of from one to a dozen bracelets of thick wire, which

glitters, but is not gold. They wear necklaces of coral, moss-agates,

or common glass beads, according to the wealth or importance of the

wearer. The men also frequently wear similar necklaces.

The portion of the feminine toilet which requires most elaboration is

evidently the leg-bandage. It is taken off to cross the ford on foot,

and its removal seems to be as slow a process as unrolling a mummy. The

object of such a covering for the nether limbs I am unable to imagine.

The Pueblo is a handsome Indian. I have seen very finely cut features

among the men. Many of them have beautifully fresh complexions, on

which a bright apple-rosy tint is gradually shaded into a deep rich

brown. They are generally of medium stature, however. Their feet and

hands are correspondingly small. Their faces have not that animal,

that _wolfish_, expression of the wild Indians of the mountains or the

plains; on the contrary, they beam with good nature, simplicity, and

single-heartedness. They are thrifty and industrious. The men do the

out-door work; the women attend to the household affairs, or, in the

season, peddle the grapes, apricots, peaches, melons, etc., raised in

their Pueblo. Should you meet a Pueblo and his squaw travelling with

the universal _burro_, you will always find the lady mounted on the

animal, while her cavalier, urging on John Burro with his stick, trots

along gaily behind, and smilingly gives you a cheery “_Come te va?_” as

he passes.

The Pueblos do not intermarry with the Mexicans. The women are chaste

in their lives, and domestic in their habits. Vice is almost unknown

among them. I have lived some years in the vicinity of two or three

Indian Pueblos, and have neither known of nor heard of an abandoned

woman among them. I wish I could say the same of other races in the

territory. In this regard, the Pueblos also differ greatly from the

wild Indians whose lives are continued scenes of bestiality.

During my residence in their vicinity, the Pueblos had daily access

to my dwelling. They were our fruit and vegetable purveyors. I have

not known an instance of their stealing a pin’s worth, though they

had ample opportunities to pilfer had they been so inclined. In this

regard, their example might be imitated with profit by people with

greater pretensions to civilization, and in this also they differ

widely from the savage Indians who are, to a man, thieves both by

nature and habit. In fine, the Pueblos are among the most moral,

peaceful, simple, and honest citizens of New Mexico.

The Pueblos are Catholics. Their Catholicity, in its out-door

festivals, has just sufficient tinge of the antique observances of the

Montezumas to throw a romantic glamour around it. They have churches

in all their Pueblos. Some of these—Ysléta among the number—have a

priest regularly stationed in them, and many of the churches are served

by the priests of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction in which they are

situated. The churches are adobe structures, not always cruciform, with

a belfry, and adorned inside with grotesque figures, the product of

their own primitive art.

The weapon of the Pueblos is still the bow and arrow. A few have

old-fashioned muzzle-loading rifles. The Pueblos do not lack the

combative instinct, and are more than a match for the Apaches and

Navajoes, man to man. They have frequently acted in conjunction with

our troops against these tribes; but their co-operation is often

rendered valueless by their custom, most strictly adhered to, of

returning to their village as soon as they have taken a scalp, for the

purpose of having the customary scalp-dance. I regret to say that they

give no quarter, and spare neither age nor sex, except when it suits

them to make _peóns_, or slaves, of the women and children. They say,

in self-justification, that little Indians soon become big Indians if

allowed to grow. The measure they mete is meted again to them by the

hostile tribes.

As in courtesy bound, we direct our steps to the dwelling of the

“governor,” who is known as “Don Ambrosio.” His house is of more modern

construction than the customary Pueblo dwelling. We were admitted

through a _corral_ and a door—not in the roof, but in the side of the

house, after the fashion of “the whites.” The room we were received in

was a long apartment _à la Mexicaine_, with benches around the walls.

Some of the finest Navajo blankets I ever saw were displayed upon the

benches. The walls were hung around with French colored lithographs of

a religious character.

Governor Ambrosio was a dapper little Indian, with long snow-white

hair falling loosely to his shoulders. His complexion was clear

and peach-bloomy. Though full of years and honors, he was full of

life and health. His son, who acted as his lieutenant, was a man

about thirty-odd years, the image of his father, in stature, size,

complexion, and everything except the white hair, the junior’s being

jet-black. The women of the family were pleasingly featured, but their

inartistic dress destroyed the effect of their good looks.

Ambrosio is said to be quite wealthy, with fifty or sixty thousand

dollars in _oro_ and in _plata_; for your Pueblo does not consider

greenbacks good hoarding. Ambrosio, Jr., showed us the fruithouse,

where the senses of sight and smell were regaled with the pleasant

spectacles and odors of heaps of rich, fragrant quinces and apples, the

latter small but rosy as young Ambrosio’s pleasant face.

Ambrosio’s style of farming is more in accordance with modern

progressive ideas than that of some of his neighbors. His mules were

fat, round, and sleek, and in the _corral_ lay an American plough of

modern construction. Many among the middle and lower classes in New

Mexico still plough “with a sharp stick.” The irrigating dikes, or

_acequias_, of the Pueblos are well and carefully attended to; they are

not permitted to overflow in the wrong places and at the wrong times—a

neglect which so frequently causes the traveller from the valley of

the Rio Grande to soar from prosaic observation to the sublimity of

anathema. In their fields, I saw men, only, engaged in agricultural

labors.

S. Augustine is the patron saint of Ysléta. Its great _fiesta_ is

the “San Augustin.” The feast is held about the time when all the

grapes are gathered and some of the new wine already made. It is

essentially a grape and wine feast. But to his other virtues, the

Pueblo adds the great one of temperance. Mass is celebrated in the

morning, and the whole Pueblo is out in its showiest attire. The dance

known as “the Montezuma” is performed by young men selected for the

occasion. Americans and Mexicans are kindly received and hospitably

entreated in the Pueblo on these festival occasions. I have heard of

but one instance in which this kindness and hospitality was abused.

It was by a miserable gambler—a “white man,” and, I regret to say,

an American—who, at the San Augustin of 186-, without the slightest

provocation, shot dead a Pueblo boy. The territory got rid of the

desperado, who had to fly, for his worthless life, from the wrath of

the outraged Indians of Ysléta.

TO A CHILD.

You little madonna, so very demure!

You draw me, yet awe me:

As warning, half scorning,

That kissing a face so religiously pure

Is almost a sacrilege, I may be sure.

Yet, awed as I am, I but love you the more.

You meet me and greet me

Serenely and queenly;

And image so sweetly the one I adore

When She was a child in the ages of yore.

Her name it is Mary Regina—your own.

You share it and wear it

As flower its dower

Of fragrance—predestined hereafter, full-blown,

To reign with the lilies that circle Her throne.

Be fragrant for me, then, O lily! and pray—

Each hour, little flower,

Exhaling availing

Petitions—to Mary the Queen of your May,

To breathe on my Autumn your pureness to-day.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

ELEMENTS OF PHILOSOPHY, COMPRISING LOGIC AND ONTOLOGY, OR GENERAL

METAPHYSICS. By Rev. W. H. Hill, S.J., Professor of Philosophy

in the St. Louis University. Baltimore: J. Murphy & Co. London: R.

Washburne.

We are glad to see this anxiously expected volume. The author proves

himself quite competent to the most important task he has undertaken,

and writes with the ease and precision of a thorough student and

practised teacher of the highest and most necessary but most neglected

and abused of all the rational sciences, philosophy. In his doctrine,

he follows S. Thomas and Suarez, and is therefore necessarily sound in

his principles and method. The most subtile, abstruse, and controverted

points in respect to which there is the most difference among the

votaries of scholastic philosophy, and those topics also where there

is the best opportunity for the author to display special ability in

his explication of doctrines in which all scholastic philosophers

are substantially agreed, are found in the special metaphysics. The

present volume, proceeding no further than general metaphysics, does

not enable us to judge of the way in which the author will treat these

questions. So far as he goes, we are satisfied with his explication

of the grand fundamental principles and truths of philosophy, and

wait with favorable anticipations his second volume. The style is

admirably precise and clear, and as neat and elegant as our imperfect

language will admit in such a treatise. An able correspondent, whose

letter will appear in our next number, has laid down certain rules in

regard to this point, and made some pertinent observations in which we

concur, and we refer our readers to that forthcoming letter. We think

he will find that F. Hill has generally adopted the style which he

recommends. We find, so far as we have had time to examine, only one

word which appears to us open to criticism, “cognoscive,” used in place

of the term cognoscitive, employed by Cudworth and found in Webster’s

_Dictionary_. The term _Idea_ also seems to us to need a more full and

precise explanation, in connection with the terms _species sensibilis_,

_species intelligibilis_, _species impressa_ and _expressa_, and

_verbum mentis_, as used by S. Thomas, which we presume we may expect

to be given in the treatise on psychology. A teacher who has been

thoroughly taught philosophy will find this treatise, we think, well

suited to the purposes of a text-book. The question, how far teachers

who read only English, and are obliged to learn themselves a sound

system before they can teach it to others, or intelligent pupils in

their own private studies, will find the exposition of philosophy in

this volume intelligible and satisfactory, can better be answered

after a fair trial. The logic has been much shortened and simplified,

yet includes, we think, all that is essential for training the class

of pupils who will use the book in the rules of correct reasoning. If

something more is needed for exercise in syllogisms, any of the books

of logical praxis in common use will answer the purpose. We recommend

the adoption of F. Hill’s philosophy as a text-book to all teachers

in Catholic schools, both male and female, where English text-books

are used. It is the only English text-book fit for use in teaching

philosophy. Our impression is—that it will be found on trial to be an

excellent text-book for the higher classes of pupils, and we thank the

author for the great service he has rendered in preparing it, hoping

that he will not delay to finish his work.

IERNE OF ARMORICA. By J. C. Bateman. (Fifth volume of F.

Coleridge’s Quarterly Series.) London: Burns, Oates & Co. (New York:

Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

This is an historical novel after the fashion of _Fabiola_ and

_Callista_. The scene is laid in the time of Chlovis, about the period

of his marriage to Chlotildis. The author has brought extensive and

accurate learning into play in this story, which is thus a picture

of the times it describes. It is also a well-written and interesting

romance. We think he has made Chlotildis, who is exquisite as an

ideal character, somewhat too perfect for the strict historical truth.

Although a saint, she had a little of the barbarian left in her, before

she achieved the full measure of the perfection of Christian meekness,

gentleness, and charity. All readers will be pleased with the perusal

of this book. Our young friends in college and convent, who are always

keen for a new book for wet days, of which we have had so many of late,

will be delighted with this one, and, while they are reading it, will

forget the disappointment they are apt to feel when their favorite

prayer, _Donnez nous un beau jour_, is not granted.

SERMONS FOR ALL SUNDAYS AND FESTIVALS OF THE YEAR. By J. N.

Sweeney, D.D., O.S.B. In two volumes. Vol. I. London: Burns, Oates &

Co. 1873. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

MARY MAGNIFYING GOD—MAY SERMONS. By William Humphrey, of the

Cong. of the Oblates of S. Charles. Same Publishers.

These two volumes of sermons are excellent in regard to matter and

style. F. Humphrey’s little volume is specially marked by a dogmatic

character. Both will be found serviceable to priests in preparing

sermons, and to the faithful for their private reading.

SUEMA; or, The Little African Slave who was Buried Alive. By

Mgr. Gaume, Prothonotary Apostolic. Translated, and with a Preface,

by Lady Herbert. London: Burns, Oates & Co. (New York: Sold by The

Catholic Publication Society.)

The recent mission of Sir Bartle Frere, by the British Government,

to the Sultan of Zanzibar, with a view to the suppression of the

slave-trade in East Africa, has attracted American notice. Now,

although government intervention will be able to put a stop to

the shipping of slaves across the seas, it cannot interfere with

slave-labor in Zanzibar itself and the adjoining towns, or prevent the

atrocities of Portuguese and Arab agents who act as traders on their

own account. Catholic charity, then, has found a way of reaching where

government influence has no bearing. There is a community in Brittany

which devotes itself exclusively to the education of little negresses,

purchased from the slavers in the African marts. And, jointly with this

community, the Fathers of the Congregation of the Holy Ghost and of the

Sacred Heart of Mary, who have founded a mission in Zanzibar, buy up

as many slave children as they can, and educate them in the Catholic

faith. These devoted religious would, of course, be able to do much

more in this way had they the pecuniary means at their command. The

thrilling story of Suema is put forth in order to excite an ardent zeal

in the hearts of Catholic readers for the purchase of slave-children in

East Africa, whereby the curse that has befallen them is turned into a

blessing. The story is perfectly authentic, the substance of it having

been taken down from Suéma’s own lips, translated into French, and sent

home by the superior of the Zanzibar mission.

We are very sure the narrative itself, as also the admirable preface

and introduction which accompany it, cannot fail to awaken the sympathy

of our Catholic readers. When, then, they learn that the sum of fifty

francs, or about ten dollars in currency, will purchase a boy or

girl of seven or eight in the slave-marts, they will not be slow, we

believe, to contribute towards so glorious a work. And the price of a

single slave-child “will be received with the greatest gratitude by the

R. P. Procurator-General of the Congregation of the Holy Ghost and of

the Sacred Heart of Mary (who have charge of the Zanzibar Mission), 30

Rue Thomond, Paris, or by Monseigneur Gaume, 16 Rue de Sèvres, Paris.”

A CATECHISM OF THE HOLY ROSARY. By the Rev. Henry Formby. New

York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1873.

This is a neat little book in catechism form containing about 60 pages

of the most necessary and useful instruction on the fifteen mysteries

of the Holy Rosary. F. Formby is doing a great work. He is the right

man just at the right time, and seems to anticipate the wants of priest

and people. His other books are admirably well calculated to interest

not only the youth for whom they were especially intended, but also

those of riper years. The little book before us ought to be in the

hands of every Catholic, young and old. It is also well calculated

to instruct those who think that our devotion to the Blessed Virgin

excludes God and the Saviour from our prayers. All we have to say

is let any such person read this catechism, and they will be forced

to admit that the Rosary is nothing more or less than an epitome of

the New Testament history of our Lord, and that he is mentioned on

nearly every one of the pages of this beautiful little book, for the

appearance of which we thank the Rev. author most heartily.

THE SIGN OF THE CROSS IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. By Mgr.

Gaume, Prothonotary Apostolic. Translated from the last French edition

by A Daughter of S. Joseph. Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham. 1873.

This work, which might, to a passing glance, appear fanciful and

unimportant, is truly philosophical and of rare interest. It comes to

us not only with the Imprimatur of the Bishop of Philadelphia, but also

with a Brief of His Holiness Pius IX., granting an indulgence of fifty

days to the sign of the cross, in response to the illustrious author’s

petition.

The author is able to say, in his preface to the second edition, that

the book has had a wonderful success: “The first French edition was

sold in a few months. Three translations of it have been made into

different European languages—one in Rome, one in Turin, and one in

Germany. Catholic papers have vied with one another in recommending

its perusal, and many letters have been sent to us bearing the

congratulations of the most respectable men of France and of foreign

countries.” He then, after quoting the Neapolitan review, _Scienza e

Fede_, appends a portion of a letter from the Dean of the Catholic

Chair at Rome, and also a circular from the commission charged with the

care of the regionary schools, to the effect that the book should be

read by the pupils, and distributed as a premium.

The preface to the first edition explains the origin of the

treatise—how a young German of distinction, having come to study

at the College of France, found his companions there laugh at him

for making the sign of the cross before and after meals, and so by

requesting the author’s opinion of the practice, and of the sign in

general, occasioned the twenty letters which form the volume.

These letters exhaust the subject in a masterly way truly French.

Besides proving over again what has been proved so many times before,

the antiquity of the holy sign among Christians, and how the noblest

intellects of primitive times both taught and practised the use of it,

Mgr. Gaume shows that it was made in some way before Christianity, and

from the beginning of the world. “The sign of the cross is so natural

to man that at no epoch, among no nation, and in no form of worship,

did man ever put himself in communication with God by prayer without

making the sign of the cross.” Then he gives the “seven ways of making

it”:

“(1) With the arms extended: man then becomes an entire sign of the

cross. (2) With hands clasped, the fingers interlaced: thus forming

five signs of the cross. (3) The hands joined one against the other,

the thumbs placed one over the other: again the sign of the cross. (4)

The hands crossed on the breast: another form of the sign of the cross.

(5) The arms equally crossed on the breast: fifth way of making it.

(6) The thumb of the right hand passing under the index finger, and

resting on the middle one: a sign of the cross much in use, as we shall

see. (7) And, finally, the right hand passing from the forehead to the

breast, and from the breast to the shoulders: a more explicit form,

which you know.”

“Under one or other of these forms,” he adds, “the sign of the cross

has been practised everywhere and always in solemn circumstances, with

a knowledge more or less clear of its efficacy.”

Accordingly, he proceeds to show, first, how the Jews made it,

instancing Jacob, Moses, Samson, David, Solomon, and others. And here

he only echoes what the Fathers have observed before him. Next, he

tells us how the pagans made it, attaching to it some mysterious value.

Three of the ways of making it were known to them; and these ways,

being universal, were not arbitrary.

Some curious facts of undoubted authenticity are related of the power

of the holy sign when made even by strangers to Christianity. And this

sets off its efficacy as it is made in the church. Now, our author

laments, and, we fear, with good reason, that the sign of the cross is

fast becoming obsolete among a large number of Catholics. Those who

make it at all, too often make it very imperfectly and carelessly.

The object, therefore, of the present work is to revive the ancient

practice of making the sign frequently and making it thoroughly. And

it is with the same intention that the Pope has granted fifty days’

indulgence to it when made reverently and with invocation of the august

Trinity.

THE ILLUSTRATED CATHOLIC SUNDAY-SCHOOL LIBRARY. 6 vols.

18mo, in box. Containing: The Apprentice, and Other Sketches. Mary

Benedicta, and Other Stories. Faith and Loyalty, and The Chip

Gatherers. Agnes, and Other Sketches. Lame Millie. The Chapel of the

Angels. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1873.

Sensible stories with good illustrations are always welcome to

children. This set of books is well calculated to please the eye and

satisfy the tastes of both reader and purchaser. They are excellently

printed, handsomely bound in bright colors, and present a variety

of healthful reading seldom found within the compass of six small

volumes. The cuts, from neat and chaste designs by a skilful artist,

will attract the attention of every child, and lend additional interest

to the tales. In the selection and arrangement of the stories, good

judgment is shown, many of them being now published for the first time.

As premiums, no series of volumes could be more desirable for the

little folk.

THE KING AND THE CLOISTER; OR, LEGENDS OF THE DISSOLUTION. By

the author of Cloister Legends, etc. London: Stewart.

These legends are well suited to readers of a romantic turn of mind and

fond of the marvellous and tragical. Being purely Catholic stories, and

perfectly innocent, our young readers will, we hope, have a good time

over them.

THE BROTHERS OF THE CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS DURING THE WAR OF

1870-71. From the French. With thirty-two Illustrations.

Westchester: Printed at the Catholic Protectory. 1873.

This book exhibits Christianity in action. Plato said, “If virtue

could be seen embodied”—he meant in living form—“all men would love

and adore it.” Plato’s dream was realized when Love became incarnate,

and walked about doing good to the bodies and souls of men; but all

men did not adore it. Virtue, to be adored, must be known. The book

before us makes known the cardinal virtue of Christianity, charity,

by exhibiting her in human form, and telling us, not what she can do

or should do, but what she _did_ do by the hands of the Christian

Brothers during the late memorable war between France and Prussia. Of

the success of this glorious order in doing the work for which it was

started by its venerable founder, it is not our purpose to speak, but

of the book which lies before us, and which tells so graphically the

deeds of charity and heroism of these Brothers during the terrible war

of 1870-71. It is translated from the French of J. D’Arsac.

The mechanical execution of the volume is creditable to the boys at the

Protectory where it has been brought out.

HAWTHORNDEAN; or, Philip Burton’s Family. By Mrs. Clara M.

Thompson. Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham. 1873.

This is a book written by a lady, and it bears in every chapter and

page the impress of a delicate, sensitive, and refined mind. It cannot

be called artistic in the truest sense, for the plot is simple, and

the characters are so natural that we feel in reading it that we are

only renewing our acquaintance with old friends. The scene is laid in

this country, and the actors are Americans, some by birth, others by

adoption, and in this respect it has the advantage over most of the

works of fiction which have issued from the press of late, which, while

treating us, or pretending to treat us, to a view of the inside lives

of Europeans, utterly ignore the fact that at our very door there are

abundant materials for a hundred novels and romances, still unused and

neglected.

ISABELLE DE VERNEUIL; OR, THE CONVENT OF S. MARY’S. By Mrs.

Charles Snell. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co.

This is a story about life in a convent school, written in an

interesting and ladylike style, and with a sufficient number of

exciting incidents to gratify the well-known taste of young ladies of

about the age of Mlle. Isabelle de Verneuil.

LARS: A PASTORAL OF NORWAY. By Bayard Taylor. Boston: James

R. Osgood & Co. (late Ticknor & Fields). 1873.

This poem is dedicated to John Greenleaf Whittier. It is fully worthy

his acceptance. Besides a delicious freshness which pervades the

story, like the air of its rural scene—the leading characters are

strikingly delineated. One sees their very faces; while never was

contrast more perfect than between Per and Lars, Brita and Ruth. The

last, the angel of the piece, is a Quakeress, and the tale seems

written in the interests of that persuasion, yet contains nothing

designedly offensive to a Catholic. The verse, smooth and strong, is

very scholarlike, and wisely modelled on Tennyson.

ESSAYS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS. By Cardinal Wiseman. In six

volumes. Volumes I. and II. New York: P. O’Shea. 1873.

This is, in one respect, the most desirable of Mr. O’Shea’s reprints

of the great Cardinal’s works, inasmuch as it is the only one, of the

_Essays_, that has yet appeared in this country, and the original

edition is out of print. It is needless to say aught in commendation of

these incomparable writings.

MEMORIALS OF A QUIET LIFE. By A. J. C. Hare, author of _Walks

in Rome_, etc. New York: G. Routledge & Sons. 1873.

The life which this book relates was sufficiently quiet, so far as its

immediate subject was concerned, to suggest to other than personal

friends the sense of tame and insipid, were it not for its association

with characters more or less historical. And this reminds us of the

difference between Catholic and Protestant biography: whereas the

latter is restricted in its range to one country or language, the

former embraces within the scope of its interest all nations and races.

The record of the obscurest priest, if true to his vocation, may excite

sympathy in those widely separated from him in time and space: for his

spiritual life is quickened by the same blood which courses through

kindred veins in the highest social walks, and among the rudest tribes

of distant islands; the works of mercy and charity in which he is

engaged also occupy the thoughts and energies of his brethren in every

part of the globe; and the same seal which attests his ministry may be

recognized in theirs also.

The subject of this volume, the widow of Augustus W. Hare, was the

daughter of a clergyman, and in her maiden years was an intimate

friend of Bishop Heber, then rector of Hodnet, England. Her husband,

himself a clergyman, was joint author with his brother Julius W., also

a clergyman, of _Guesses at Truth_. The family trace their descent

from Francis Hare, one of the bishops of George II.’s reign, and boast

of other prelatical and noble connections with the church “as by law

established.”

It might naturally be inferred, therefore, that the author, a nephew of

the subject, would be thoroughly penetrated with Anglican “principles,”

and find all his ideals in the communion to which we are inclined to

attribute the discovery of the “happy medium” between truth and error.

But, alas for the perversity of human nature! he cannot see the schemes

of Victor Emmanuel through a rose-colored lens. He has the temerity to

express sympathy for the august prisoner of the Vatican; his regret

for the dismemberment and spoliation of convents and monasteries—the

dispersion of their libraries, the interruption of the charitable works

in which they were engaged, and the appropriation by the government of

the dowers which these religious brought with them to their respective

houses; the wiping out of many beautiful religious associations, along

with the destruction of the monuments with which they were connected.

He even has the hardihood to doubt whether there is a moral gain in

the freedom now vouchsafed to the vendors of Protestant Bibles and

the flood of _popular_ literature, which has signalized the advent of

the Sardinian usurper, as we glean from an article by the author in a

recent number of _Good Words_.

THE POODLE PRINCE. By Edouard Laboulaye, Member of the

Institute. Translated by W. H. Bishop. Milwaukee: Office of the

_Journal of Commerce_. Pamphlet.

This is a most clever _brochure_, full of wit and humor, which is,

however, only the sparkle of serious thought, for the object of the

author is a serious one. M. Laboulaye is a Protestant and a Liberal,

but he is, we believe, one of the most respectable and moderate writers

of that school, and is certainly one of those who are disposed to be

respectful toward the Catholic Church. Writers of this class, though

they are deficient in respect to their positive political doctrines,

are yet often the most effective and powerful opponents of that

Cæsarism which Catholics have so much reason to detest and oppose. The

present _brochure_, which we regret not to have the pleasure of reading

in its original French, is a satire on Napoleonic Cæsarism, together

with a brilliant fancy sketch of what the author dreams of as a happy

political condition for France. The Poodle Prince is king of the

Fly-catchers, and receives his funny appellation from the circumstance

that his godmother, a fairy, occasionally turns him into a poodle.

She does this whenever he is about to be befooled by his ministers,

or to make a fool of himself. In his character as poodle, he meets

with mishaps and acquires a knowledge of the actual state of things

among his subjects, which are very serviceable to him, and he finishes

by becoming a model of what a wise and patriotic prince ought to be,

and doing what such a prince ought to do, according to the idea of M.

Laboulaye. This idea is simply that the institutions of the Republic

of the United States are those which France ought to copy, with, as

we suppose the author intends, a nominal monarch and a responsible

ministry, in place of an elective chief-magistrate.

We agree with him in respect to the end which he wishes to attain,

viz., the just liberty and prosperity of the mass of the people, by

means of a government which is properly restrained by laws and other

efficacious checks from tyrannizing over the nation. We do not believe,

however, in transplanting our institutions to French soil. They are

the best and the only ones for ourselves, because they have grown here

naturally. But we are convinced that France can only prosper under

a monarchy, and that a real one in which the king rules as well as

reigns. This does not hinder the formation of a constitution and a

mixed government in which the people have a share as voting citizens,

and by which the monarchical power is limited, though not destroyed.

The Napoleon Dynasty is the creation of the Revolution, and therefore

will not do. The Orléans family has compromised with the Revolution,

and therefore will not do, unless it will renounce the maxims of

1789, and return to its proper place under the headship of the Count

de Chambord. The latter, in his avowed principles, gives the best

guarantee France can have for liberty as well as order. The restoration

of her ancient monarchy, with Henry V. for king, and the _fleur de lis_

for her symbol, with the church re-instated in her complete rights

and privileges, and with the modifications of political and social

relations suited to the present time, is, in our view, the only way

of realizing that which F. Ramière, in his able paper published in

our present number, points out as the way of salvation for _la belle

France_ “_Le Drapeau blanc c’est un beau drapeau_,” and we hope to see

it supplant the tricolor, and wave in triumph over regenerated France.

To return to M. Laboulaye. His exquisite satire has been well rendered

into good English by his translator. Whoever reads it, and is able to

appreciate the finest intellectual sword-play, will enjoy a rich and

rare pleasure. Moreover, there is so much truth, and good sense, and

genuine philanthropic sentiment contained under the envelope of fancy

and satire, that we can sincerely and conscientiously commend its

general scope and spirit, and pronounce it a work as well worth reading

for a serious purpose, as it is for amusement.

CONSTANCE AND MARION: OR, THE COUSINS. By M. A. B. Baltimore:

Kelly & Piet. 1873.

The scene of this little story is laid in Ireland. It is one of the

best of the many nice books of the kind which have been recently

published, and may be read with pleasure by adults as well as young

people. The writers of these unpretending, modest little books are

doing more good than they can imagine, and we trust they will keep on

writing.

_The Irish Race in the Past and in the Present._ By the Rev. A. J.

Thebaud, S.J., is announced to be published this month by the Messrs.

Appleton. F. Thebaud’s book has been anxiously expected, as it is

understood to take up a phase of Irish history hitherto neglected—the

_race_ itself rather than the repetition of the sad events which, in

the main, constitute its history, and are only too well known. A book

of this kind is required for Irish history—one that may serve as a

light whereby to see the facts in their true colors, and which must

prove doubly interesting by reason of those facts having been brought

so recently before us.

THE

CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XVII., No. 100.—JULY, 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.

PART SECOND.

“Ye fathers! let your children learn grammar, and keep able men as

teachers who are accomplished, and not players, pay them well, and see

that the schools are no holes and corners. All should practise grammar

in some degree, for it wakens the mind, and helps much. But the poets

should not thereby destroy everything else. There should be a law made

that no bad poet should be read in the schools, such as Ovid, _De Arte

Amandi_, Tibullus and Catullus, of the same sort, Terentius in many

places. Virgil and Cicero I would suffer, Homer in the Greek, and also

some passages from S. Augustine’s work, _De Civitate Dei_, or from

S. Jerome, or something out of the Holy Scriptures. And where your

teachers find in these books Jupiter, Pluto, and the like named, say

then, Children, these are fables, and show them that God alone rules

the world. So would the children be brought up in wisdom and in truth,

and God would be with them.”—_Sermon of Savonarola._

IT was but natural that the striking events of the life of Savonarola,

and the tragic scenes of the close of his career, should have absorbed

the attention of his early biographers to the exclusion of the less

attractive and more difficult duty of appreciating and presenting

the moral and intellectual side of his character. He is constantly

described by those friendly to his memory as a grand pulpit orator and

Heaven-inspired reformer; by others, as the sensational preacher and

extravagant innovator; while little or nothing is said by either of his

literary and philosophical acquirements. By turns, and according to

their several views, they exhibit him to us as fanatic and impostor, as

prophet and martyr, while the figure of the scholar, the philosopher,

and the theologian remains invisible. It is, nevertheless, but fair

to say that this arises partially from the fact that a very important

portion of Savonarola’s literary productions was unknown to his

contemporaries and their immediate successors. Modern research has

brought to light a large number of which they never heard. Another

circumstance has contributed to confirm the mistaken impression

concerning him as a man wanting in literary capacity, namely, the

effort to make of him the enemy of literature by classing him among

the opponents of the so-called revival of letters in Europe.

What is styled the revival of letters in the XVth century really

began in Italy long before, and was prepared, says Hallam, by several

circumstances that lie further back in Italian history. The classic

revelation of the XVth century was indeed a revelation to Germany,

France, and England, but not to Italy. The true restorer of classical

antiquity in Italy, and consequently in Europe, had already appeared

in the XIVth century, and his name was Petrarch (1304-1374). It was

he who first inspired his countrymen with his own admiration of the

classic beauties of Virgil and Cicero. The larger portion of his works

is written in Latin, and he died under the delusion that his _Africa_,

a Latin poem, was his greatest work. A taste for the cultivation of the

Roman classics grew steadily from this period, gaining strength and

ardor every day, until it became the absorbing passion of all ranks

of scholars. Even Poggio Bracciolini, usually assigned exclusively to

the XVth, belongs partially to the XIVth century. So also does Guarino

Guarini, the greatest of the early Hellenists.

PAGANISM IN LITERATURE.

The tide of classical enthusiasm was now swollen by the introduction

of the Greek classics and the emigration to Italy of numerous

distinguished Greek scholars. Historians vie with each other in

describing the enthusiastic ardor of the Italians in the cultivation

of these two great ancient literatures. It amounted to an intoxication

that seized upon young and old, laity and clergy, women as well as men.

The purely literary advantages to be obtained by so general a devotion

to classic lore were of course enormous. But in this world, says a

distinguished English Catholic divine[138] in referring to the period

in question, “evil follows good as its shadow, human nature perverting

and corrupting what is intrinsically innocent or praiseworthy. It was

not Virgil, nor Cicero, nor Tacitus, nor Homer, nor Demosthenes that

was most read and imitated, but Propertius, and Tibullus, and Apuleius.

Pagan ideas colored men’s thoughts; pagan ethics supplanted Christian

morals; pagan theogony was better understood than the Christian

catechism; and their influences spread not only through the schools,

but to the cloister. Men sought in those classics, not poetry, but

pruriency; not finished style, but abandoned vice; not accountability

in a hereafter, but nothingness in the future. The Fathers, many of

whom wrote for the express purpose of denouncing the heathen immorality

of these productions, must not be studied, because, forsooth, of the

uncouthness of their style. Paganism impressed itself on everything,

and men sought to ignore the road to Calvary that they might enter the

flowery path of Olympus.”

Unfortunately, the period was most propitious for the introduction and

spread of this moral poison. For long years, Italy had been demoralized

by violent factions and bloody wars. Society was disorganized. The

removal of the head of the church to Avignon had been fatal to

ecclesiastical discipline. The effects of this laxity produced that

most frightful of scourges—a corrupt clergy; and although scores of

volumes have been written describing with great minuteness all the

details of the rapid march and wide extent of this fatal influence, it

would be difficult to present in any shorter space at this day any

adequate idea of its depth or intensity. Alone and unaided, Savonarola

dared to attack paganism in literature in its stronghold; for Florence

was at that time the centre of the Hellenic and Roman revival, and

filled with its most passionate devotees. He thus arrayed himself

against Italy and the spirit of the age. He denounced pagan literature,

and scouted as absurd the fanaticism for its study. Not the laity

alone, but the clergy and the hierarchy, came in for a share of his

strictures. “In the houses of the great prelates and great doctors,”

he cries out, “nothing is thought of but poetry and rhetoric. Go and

see for yourselves: you will find them with books of polite literature

in their hands—pernicious writings—with Virgil, Horace, and Cicero,

to prepare themselves for the cure of souls withal. Astrologers have

the governance of the church. There is not a prelate, there is not a

great doctor, but is intimate with some astrologer who predicts for him

the hour and the moment for riding out or for whatever else he does.

Our preachers have already given up Holy Scripture, and are given to

philosophy, which they preach from the pulpit, and make it their queen.

As to Holy Scripture, they treat it as the handmaid, because to preach

philosophy looks learned, whereas it should simply be an aid in the

interpretation of the divine Word.”

In another sermon, he says: “They tickle the ears with Aristotle,

Plato, Virgil, and Petrarch, and take no concern in the salvation of

souls. Why do they not, instead of books like these, teach that alone

in which are the law and the spirit of life? The Gospel, my Christian

brethren, must be your constant companion. I speak not of the book, but

its spirit. If ye have not the spirit of grace, although you carry the

whole volume about with you, it will be of no avail. And how much more

foolish are those who go about loaded with briefs and tracts, and look

as if they kept a stall at a fair? Charity does not consist of sheets

of paper. The true books of Christ are the apostles and saints: the

true reading of them is to imitate their lives.”

Because Savonarola thus denounced ancient classic literature, it

must not be supposed that he was either ignorant of it or unable to

recognize what was really valuable in it. On the contrary, he was

as familiar with Greece and Rome as his adversaries, and denounced

only such pagan authors as were dangerous to morality. He might as

consistently have been charged with ignorance of Aristotle, the whole

of whose philosophy and writings he had, as it were, at his fingers’

ends, because, after denouncing from the pulpit the blindness with

which that philosopher was followed, he would ask: “Has your Aristotle

succeeded in proving the immortality of the soul?”

Savonarola’s denunciation of the evil effects of pagan literature is

too often represented as sweeping and indiscriminate, while in point

of fact he falls short in both these respects of a writer of the XIXth

century who counts a certain number of respectable adherents. We refer

to the Abbé Gaume, who, in a remarkable work published in France in

18—, _Le Ver Rongeur des Sociétés Modernes_, maintains that very

many of the evils of society that have their origin in the education

of youth may be traced to the pagan ideas imbibed in the early study

of the Greek and Roman classics.[139] Savonarola’s position on this

subject, in fact, appears to have been substantially the same with that

of Tertullian, S. Basil, and S. Jerome.

Partial justice has been done to Savonarola as a powerful logician

and a learned theologian. His intimate knowledge of the Scriptures

was something exceptional—not a mere rote knowledge, for it is said

he knew them by heart, but a searching and thorough familiarity which

showed a wonderful intellectual and spiritual grasp of their body and

spirit.

HIS PHILOSOPHY.

As a philosopher, he has been credited by all writers with a

familiarity with the systems of Plato and Aristotle, then dominant;

but his latest Italian biographer, Villari, shows satisfactorily that,

in his theological writings, he reasons with so much freedom and

independence that he had practically freed himself from the dominion

of Aristotle.[140] His early biographers made neither attempt nor

pretence to do more than relate the material facts of his career. Later

writers, with more attention to his published works, saw more clearly

his intellectual power, although his philosophical productions were

almost entirely neglected. M. Perrens does indeed direct attention to

them, but merely as “_des catéchismes sans prétention_.” Rudelbach[141]

is so engrossed with his sharp search for Protestant ideas that he

takes no notice of his philosophical writings. Meier[142] perceives

that in philosophy “he shows a judgment and critical power of his

own”; while Poli, in his additions to Tennemann, remarks his order and

clearness. “Not to acknowledge Savonarola as a powerful logician,” says

Rio, in his remarkable work on Christian art, “an accomplished orator,

a profound theologian, a genius comprehensive and bold, a universal

philosopher, or rather, the competent judge of all philosophy, would be

an injustice which history and his contemporaries would not tolerate.”

The same author goes on to give him credit for the possession of

faculties rarely found united with those which make the logician and

the theologian. He says: “One might imagine without doubt that it

would be more just to deny him the possession of that rare gift of an

exquisitely acute and intuitive perception of the beautiful in the

arts of imagination, which is not always the privilege of the greatest

genius, and which supposes a sensibility of soul and a delicacy of

organs too difficult to meet with, either the one or the other, in a

monastic person devoted to the mortifications of the cloister; and yet

it is no exaggeration to say that both are found united in a very high

degree in Savonarola.” The historian Guicciardini, who had made special

study of Savonarola’s works, says: “In philosophy, he was the most

powerful man in Italy, and reasoned on it in so masterly a manner that

it seemed as if he had himself created it.”

Although the mass of published works of Savonarola may be truly called

enormous, very many of his productions never appeared, most of his

manuscripts having been destroyed, or, in a few instances, but lately

brought to light. Among these latter, Villari mentions a compendium of

all the works of Plato and Aristotle, regularly catalogued as in the

library of S. Mark. Some of his smaller treatises also survive, and the

same author recognizes the writer’s originality and the bold hand (_la

mano ardita_) of Savonarola in such passages as these:

“We must, in all cases, proceed from the known to the unknown;

for thus only can we arrive at truth with any degree of facility.

Sensations are nearest and best known to us; they are gathered up in

the memory, where the mind transforms individual sensations into one

general rule or experience; nor does it stop here, but it proceeds

further, and from many united experiences arrives at universal

truths. Therefore, true experience resolves itself into first

principles—primary causations; it is speculative, free, and of the

highest nature.”[143]

Savonarola’s definition of _veracity_, strikingly acute and clear,

is one not likely to have been made by a man at all weak either in

philosophy or moral principle. It is well worth attention: “By veracity

we understand a certain habit by which a man, both in his actions and

in his words, shows himself to be that which he really is, neither more

nor less.” This, though not a legal, is a moral, duty, for it is a debt

which every man in honesty owes to his neighbor, _and the manifestation

of truth is an essential part of justice_. Savonarola was, in fact,

the first to shake off the yoke of ancient authority in philosophy.

He alone, if we except Lorenzo Valla, who spoke more as a grammarian

than a philosopher, dared to declare against it. “Some,” he says, “are

so bigoted, and have so entirely submitted their understandings to

the fetters of the ancients, that not only dare they not say anything

in opposition to them, but abstain from saying anything not already

said by them. What kind of reasoning is this? What additional strength

of argument? The ancients did not reason thus; why, then, should we?

If the ancients failed to perform a praiseworthy action, why should

we also fail?” And this sentiment he constantly presents in various

forms; not in theory alone, moreover, but in practice; not only in the

special discussion of philosophy, but in its practical application. His

_Triumph of the Cross_[144] which is generally accepted as his greatest

work, is an exposition of the whole Christian doctrine by reason alone.

He thus states it in his preface: “As it is our purpose to discuss the

subject of this book solely by the light of reason, we shall not pay

regard to any authority, but will proceed as if there had not existed

in the whole world any man, however wise, on whom to rest our belief,

taking natural reason as our sole guide.” And he adds: “To comprehend

things that are visible, it is not necessary to seek the acquaintance

of things invisible, for all our knowledge of the extrinsic attributes

of corporeal objects is derived from the senses; but our intellect,

by its subtlety, penetrates the substance of natural things, by the

consideration of which we finally arrive at a knowledge of things

invisible.”

We have spoken of the large number of Savonarola’s published works.

There would not be space in an article like this even for a list of

his popular treatises on practical religious duties, of which four

were published in one year alone (1492). These were _On Humility_, _On

Prayer_, _On the Love of Christ_, and _On a Widow’s Life_. With all

their pious fervor, they are marked by strong practical judgment, and

it is but little wonder that the people of Florence should have been

enthusiastic in their admiration of a priest who, in all the various

lines of his duty as teacher, as confessor, and as preacher, was always

equal to his high calling. His harshest critics have said of him that,

so violent was the asceticism he taught and preached, he opposed

matrimony, and would have turned Florence into a convent. They are more

than answered by the following passage from _A Widow’s Life_—_Libro

della Vita Viduale_:

“Widows are like children—under the special protection of the Lord.

The true life for them to lead is to give up all worldly thoughts,

and devote themselves to the service of God; to become like the

turtle-dove, which is a chaste creature; and thus, when it has lost

its companion, no longer takes up with another, but spends the rest

of its life in solitude and lamentation. Nevertheless, if for the

education of her children, or through poverty, or for other good and

sufficient motive, the widow desire to marry again, let her do so by

all means. This would be preferable to being surrounded by admirers,

and so expose herself to the risk of calumnies and to a thousand

dangers. Let the widow who is not inclined to maintain the strict

decorum, the somewhat difficult reserve, becoming her position,

rather return to the dignified life of a married woman; but let those

who feel that they possess strength and temper of mind equal to the

demands of their state become a model to other women. A widow ought

to dress in sober attire, to live retired, to avoid the society of

men, to be gravity itself, and to maintain such severity of demeanor

that none may dare utter by word or show by a smile the least want

of respect. By such a life, she will be a continual lesson to other

women, and will render it unnecessary for a widow to use words of

counsel by which to acquire influence over others. It is unbecoming a

widow to be prying into the lives and failings of other persons; it is

unbecoming for her to be or even appear to be vain, nor ought she, for

the sake of others, to forget what is due to herself.”

SCHOLAR AND POET.

Mention has already been made of Savonarola’s devotion to the task

of teaching the novices of the order, not only by his famous “damask

rose-bush” lectures which all learned Florence crowded to hear, but

his classes of the humanities and physical sciences. Not content with

this, and desiring that the monks of his convent should live by the

fruit of their own labors, he established schools in which they might

learn painting, sculpture, architecture, and the art of copying and

illuminating manuscripts. He also opened a department of oriental

languages, where Greek, Hebrew, Turkish, and Chaldean were taught. In

urging their cultivation, he said he hoped that he and his brethren

would be sent by the Lord to spread the Gospel among the Turks.

When, after the expulsion of the Medici, the Florentine signiory, on

account of the financial embarrassments of the republic, resolved

to sell the Medicean library, there was great danger that this

magnificent accumulation, then the most valuable collection of Greek

and Latin authors known in Europe, and specially rich in the most

precious MSS., would be either scattered or fall into the hands of

strangers. There was no private citizen in Florence wealthy enough to

purchase it. Savonarola, who fully appreciated its value, and who had

already brought up the library of his own convent to a high standard,

making it accessible to all, and the first free library in all Italy,

resolved that these treasures should not leave the city. His first

act of authority as prior had been to enforce the original rule of S.

Dominic as to the poverty of the order. The saint’s last words were:

“Be charitable, preserve humility, practise poverty with cheerfulness:

may my curse and that of God fall upon him who shall bring possessions

into this order!” Nevertheless, under certain so-called reformed rules,

the convent at Florence had adopted the power of holding property, and

its wealth in landed possessions had greatly accumulated. Savonarola’s

first reform was to enforce the practice of poverty in the order,

while the absence of landed income was to be supplied by the labors

of the monks and a yet more rigid economy. It so happened that the

sale of the convent property, in pursuance of this reform, had just

been made, and Savonarola had at his command a sum of two thousand

florins—a large amount for that period. His convent bought the library

for three thousand florins, paying two thousand on account, and

binding themselves to liquidate the balance, which was a claim held

by a French creditor, in eighteen months. This transaction occurred

precisely during the period of the celebrated bonfire of vanities, at

which Savonarola is unjustly charged with having destroyed innumerable

classical manuscripts.

Space fails us to speak of Savonarola as a poet. Like many other boys,

he scribbled verses in his early youth, and wrote a poem, _De Ruina

Mundi_, at the age of twenty. There is something anticipatory of Byron

in the sadness and gloom of its tone:

“Vedendo sotto sopra tutto il mondo,

Ed esser spenta al fondo

Ogni virtute, ed ogni bel costume,

Non trovo un vivo lume,

Né pur chi de’ suoi vizi si vergogni.”[145]

We find in his youthful productions, says Villari, “both vigor and

poetic talent, but united with negligence of form.” Later in life,

he wrote numerous spiritual lauds, composed for the purpose of

counteracting and taking the place of the degrading carnival songs

in vogue under the Medici. As poetry, they possess no special merit.

Villari mentions several of his canzoni, written when he was a young

man, and cites one in praise of S. Catherine of Negri, in three long

stanzas of fifteen lines each, in which he finds great delicacy and

exquisite tenderness of feeling. He also refers to some of his Latin

compositions modelled on the Psalms, which are eminently poetical. In

one of them, he celebrates the praises of God, saying: “I sought thee

everywhere, but found thee not. I asked the earth, Art thou my God? and

I was answered, Thou deceivest thyself: I am not thy God. I asked the

air, and was answered, Ascend still higher. I asked the sky, the sun,

the stars, and they all answered me, He who made me out of nothing,

he is God; he fills the heavens and the earth; he is in thy heart.

I then, O Lord, sought thee far off, and thou wast near. I asked my

eyes if thou hadst entered by them, and they answered, We know colors

only. I asked the ear, and was answered that it knew sound only. The

senses, then, O Lord, knew thee not; thou hast entered into my soul,

thou art in my heart, and thou makest manifest thyself to me when I am

performing works of charity.”

Owing to his terribly earnest denunciation of pagan excesses in poetry

and painting, and his indignation at their imitation by Christians,

Savonarola has been held up as the enemy of both poets and poetry,

and this even in his own day. To this charge he replied in his work

on _The Division and Utility of all the Sciences_, one part of which

treats of poetry. We select a few of its points. He begins:

“It never entered my mind to say a word in condemnation of the art

of poetry. I condemned solely the abuse which many had made of it,

although I have been calumniated on that account by many persons, both

in speaking and writing.... The essence of poetry is to be found in

philosophy. If any one believe that the art of poetry teaches us only

dactyls and spondees, long and short syllables, and the ornaments of

speech, he has certainly fallen into a great mistake.... The object of

poetry is to persuade by means of that syllogism called an example,

expressed with elegance of language, so as to convince and, at the

same time, to delight us. And as our soul has supreme delight in song

and harmony, the ancients contrived the measures of versification,

that, by such means, men might be more readily excited to virtue. But

measure is mere form; and the poet may produce a poem without metre

and without verse. This, in fact, is the case in the Holy Scriptures,

in which our Lord makes true poetry consist in wisdom; true eloquence

in the spirit of truth; hence, our minds are not occupied with the

outward letter, but are filled with the spirit.” ... He then goes on

to denounce “a fallacious race of pretended poets, who know no better

than to tread in the footsteps of the Greeks and Romans; keep to the

same form, the same metre; invoke the same gods, nor venture to use

any other names or words than those they find in the ancients....

This is not only a false poetry, but one most pernicious to youth.

We find the heathens themselves condemning such poets. Did not Plato

himself declare that a law ought to be passed to expel those poets

from the city who, by the allurements of the most corrupting verses,

contaminate everything with vile lusts and moral degradation? What,

then, are our Christian princes about? Why do they not issue a law

to expel from their cities not only these false poets, but their

works also, and all the works of ancient authors who have written on

libidinous subjects and praise false gods? It would be well if all

such works were destroyed, and none were allowed to remain except such

as excite to virtuous conduct.”

It is on such passages as these that Savonarola’s enemies base their

charges of enmity to poetry, etc. The charges are unfounded. His

æsthetic opinions were in harmony with the purest principles of art,

and his sense of the true and the beautiful was always acute. “In what

does beauty consist?” he asks, in one of his sermons. “In colors?

No. In figures? No. Beauty results from harmony in all the parts and

colors. This applies to composite subjects; in simple subjects, beauty

is in light. Look at the sun and the stars—their beauty is in light;

behold the spirits of the blessed—light constitutes their beauty;

raise your thoughts to the Almighty—he is light and is beauty itself.

The beauty of man and woman is greater and more perfect the nearer it

approaches to the primary Beauty. But what, then, is this beauty? It

is a quality resulting from a due proportion and harmony between the

several members and parts of the body. You would never say that a woman

was handsome because she had a fine nose and pretty hands; but when her

features harmonize. Whence comes this beauty? Inquire, and you will

find it is from the soul.”

Addressing himself to women, he said: “Ye women who glory in your

ornaments, in your head-dresses, in your hands, I tell you that you are

all ugly! Would you see true beauty? Observe a devout person, man or

woman, in whom the Spirit dwells—observe such an one, I say, while in

the act of prayer, when the countenance is suffused with divine beauty,

and the prayer is over. You will then see the beauty of God reflected

in that face, and a countenance almost angelic.”

We have thus endeavored, in referring to Savonarola’s acquirements, and

by presenting him to our readers in a variety of mental aspects, to

convey some idea of the moral, intellectual, and æsthetic sides of his

character, in order that, as the story of his life and the account of

the exciting incidents with which it is filled progress in our pages,

they may be the better able to appreciate his action by at least a

partial knowledge of his spiritual constitution and mental resources.

We resume, then, the thread of our narrative.

THE SERMON AT BOLOGNA.