Prayers for the dead were in use among the primitive Christians, and in

one of the inscriptions mentioned by Cardinal Wiseman the following

reference to these prayers is found: “Christ God Almighty refresh thy

spirit in Christ.” That this hallowed custom is akin to the natural

feelings of a loving heart is self‐evident; the coldness of an “age of

philosophy” alone could doubt it. Well might it be called the age of

disorganization and not of philosophy (which is “love of wisdom”), for the

wisdom that seeks to pull down instead of building up is but questionable.

The disorganization of political society which we see at work through the

International and the Commune; the disorganization of moral society which

we behold every day increasing through the ease with which the marriage‐

tie is dissolved, and the hold the state is claiming on children and even

infants; the disorganization of religious society which we find in the

ever‐multiplying feuds of sects, like gangrene gradually eating away an

unsound body; these are all fitting companions to that most ruthless

severing of this world from the next which pretends to isolate the dead

from the spiritual help and sympathy of the living, and to dwarf in the

souls of men what even human laws commanded, or at least protected,

concerning their bodies. The want of our age is a want of heart;

heartlessness and callousness to the most sacred, the most _natural_

feelings, is shown to a fearful extent among our modern mind‐emancipators

and reformers. On the one hand, nature is held up as a god to which all

moral laws are to be subject, or, rather, before whose _fiat_ they are to

cease to exist, while, on the other, nature (in everything lawful,

touching, noble, generous) is told that she is a fool, and must learn to

subdue “childish” aspirations and outgrow “childish” beliefs!

But the belief of a communication between the living and the departed is

not only a _natural_ one; it is also Biblical. S. Matthew speaks of the

middle state of souls when he mentions the strict account that will have

to be rendered of “every idle word.”(121) S. Paul says that “every man’s

work ... shall be tried in _fire_: and the fire shall try every man’s work

_of what sort it is_. If any man’s work burn, he shall suffer loss, but he

himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.”(122) S. Peter makes mention of

“the spirits in prison,”(123) and S. John, in the Apocalypse, implies a

state of probation when he says that “there shall not enter into it [the

New Jerusalem] anything defiled or that worketh abomination, or maketh a

lie.”(124) In the Second Book of Machabees, one of the most national of

the Jewish records, and the most favorite and consolatory of the religious

books held by the Jews as infallible oracles, the whole doctrine of

purgatory and prayers for the departed is most plainly adverted to.

After a great battle and victory, Judas Machabeus searches the bodies of

his slain warriors, and finds that some of them had appropriated heathen

votive offerings made to the idols whose temples they had burnt at Jamnia

a short time before. Upon this discovery, according to the sacred text,

which is here too precious a testimony to be condensed, he, “making a

gathering, sent twelve thousand drachms of silver to Jerusalem for

sacrifice to be offered for the sins of the dead, thinking well and

religiously concerning the resurrection. (For if he had not hoped that

they that were slain should rise again, it would have seemed superfluous

and vain to pray for the dead.) And because he considered that they who

had fallen asleep with godliness, had great grace laid up for them. It is

therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may

be loosed from their sins.”(125)

It may not perhaps be generally known that, among the Jews, the custom of

praying for the dead exists, and has always existed uninterruptedly. Some

of the supplications are very beautiful, and we do not hesitate to give

them here, as an interesting corroboration of the assertions we have made

throughout.

The chief prayers for the dead are contained in the “Kaddisch” for

mourners, which forms part of the evening as well as the morning service

for the Jewish Sabbath. Although the dead are not mentioned by name, it is

to them alone that the prayers apply, as we understand from persons of

that persuasion. The text is the following:

“May our prayers be accepted with mercy and kindness; may the prayers and

supplications of the whole house of Israel be accepted in the presence of

their Father who is in heaven, and say ye Amen. [The congregation here

answer Amen.] May the fulness of peace from heaven with life be granted

unto us and to all Israel, and say ye Amen.” “My help is from the Lord,

who made heaven and earth. May he who maketh peace in his high heavens

bestow peace on us and on all Israel. And say ye Amen.”

During these prayers, the mourners stand up and answer. Other invocations

mention “the soul of my father” or “mother,” etc., as the case may be. In

the service for the dead read over the corpse, these words occur: “O Lord

our God, cause us to lie down in peace, and raise us up, O our King, to a

happy life. I laid me down fearless and slept; I awoke, for the Lord

sustained me.” All through the Old Testament we constantly find “sleep”

used as a synonym for death. Scattered through the morning and evening

services of the Hebrew liturgy there are invocations, frequently repeated,

referring to the dead, such as these: “Thou, O Lord, art for ever

powerful; thou restorest life to the dead, and art mighty to save. Thou

art also faithful to revive the dead: blessed art thou, O Lord, who

revivest the dead.” God is also said “to hold in his hands the souls of

the living and the dead,” thus giving at least equal prominence to the

departed and those they have left in their place. The Jews believe and

hope that their prayers on earth benefit and refresh their lost brethren,

and pray daily for them. The bodies of the departed are plainly dressed in

a linen shroud without superfluous ornamentation, but many of the old

ceremonies and purifications enjoined in the old law are now dispensed

with. The old manner of burial was in a cave or spacious sepulchre in a

field or garden, and the body was wrapped in spices, which were often

burnt around it. The double cave of Mambre, bought for Sarah by Abraham,

stood at the end of a field, and the sepulchres of the kings were also in

a field. The garden where Our Lord was laid is another instance of the

universality of this custom. In the Second Book of Chronicles(126) we read

of King Asa that “they buried him in his own sepulchre which he had made

for himself in the city of David: and they laid him on his bed full of

spices and odoriferous ointments, which were made by the art of the

perfumers, and they burnt them over him with great pomp.” This burning (of

spices) is often mentioned throughout Holy Writ. Rachel, says the Book of

Genesis,(127) was buried “in the highway” that led to Bethlehem, and Jacob

erected a pillar over her sepulchre; Samuel, “in his own house at

Ramatha”; and Saul, beneath an oak near the city of Jabes Galaad, the

inhabitants of which place provided for his burial, and fasted seven days

in sign of mourning for their sovereign. Joram, king of Juda, was punished

for his misdeeds by exclusion from the sepulchre of his fathers, “and the

people did not make a funeral for him according to the manner of burning

[spices], as they had done for his ancestors.”(128) Ozias, being a leper,

a disease which came upon him in punishment for having usurped sacerdotal

functions, was buried “in the field” only “of the royal sepulchre.” Thus

we see the immense importance attached to the place of burial under the

old Jewish dispensation, and how it was an eternal disgrace to be expelled

in death from the neighborhood of one’s family and their hereditary place

of entombment. This feeling has continued very strong in most civilized

and in all savage races; the graves of their forefathers are even more

symbolical of home and fatherland to the wandering desert tribes of

different nations, than what we should call their hearths and firesides.

In later times, how often have we not seen gorgeous and imposing

buildings, especially cathedrals and abbeys, built over the shrine of a

dead king or bishop, canonized by that popular veneration whose last

expression was the public honor decreed them by the Roman Pontiff? In

places where these monuments are not dedicated to the sainted dead whose

shrines they guard, we often find them burdened with the condition of

Masses being perpetually offered within their walls for the soul of the

dead founder; others are memorial churches to friends or relations of the

founder. Public charities, doles of bread and money, annual distributions

of clothing, hospitals, schools, or municipal institutions, etc., spring

chiefly from the desire of the survivors to have their loved ones

remembered to all future ages, while sometimes a generous testator himself

will take this simple and practical means of recommending himself to the

prayers of unborn generations. Family names are perpetuated in remembrance

of the departed; family records are valuable only in proportion as they

embody a proof of longer or shorter descent from the distinguished dead.

There is no test of success or popularity so sure as that of death, and no

one can tell which of our living friends will be known to and loved by

future nations, and which other will be passed by in obscurity and

silence, until long after our exit and their own from this present life‐

scene. _Real_ life is centred in the dead, it revolves around them, it

depends on them. They are the root of which we are the leaves and flowers.

The life of fame is theirs, while only the life of struggle is ours; they

are victors calmly bearing their palms, umpires gently encouraging their

successors, but we are only striving competitors, who know not and never

will know our fate till we have gone with them beyond the veil.

Germany is, above all, the home of these beautiful traditions of an

unbroken communion between the souls who have left earth and those who

remain behind. _There_ are the churchyards most loved, and the

anniversaries of deaths most remembered, even among Protestants. It is a

custom in Germany to wear black and to keep the day holy every recurring

anniversary, were it twenty, forty, fifty years after the death of a

relative or beloved friend. The cemeteries are always blooming with every

flower of the season, the crosses or headstones always hung with wreaths

of immortelles. In Catholic German countries, such as Bavaria, the

festival of All Souls’ is one of the most interesting, because the most

individual of the ecclesiastical year. We happened to be in Munich on one

of these occasions, and had been there for a week previous, visiting the

galleries and inspecting the art‐manufactures for which that city is

world‐famous. But rich as it is in such treasures, the hand of its old

King Louis—the grandfather of the present sovereign, and whom in his

retirement we have met at Nice some few years before his death—has effaced

much of its mediæval stamp, and attempted to varnish it over with a

Renaissance coating very uncongenial to the northern character of its

people and the northern mistiness of its atmosphere. Here we have again

the wretched imitation in plaster of the marble Parthenon and Acropolis;

the cold stuccoed pillars looming like huge bleached skeletons through a

November fog, and yet supposed to represent the sun‐tinted columns of

exquisite workmanship that rear themselves against the purple sky of

Greece; the vast desert‐looking streets which, bordered by “Haussmann”

palaces, seem intended for _future_ rather than present habitation, and

each of which, if cut into a dozen equal parts, would furnish any capital

with twelve good‐sized public squares; above all, a stuccoed church,

dazzlingly, painfully white, the _Theatiner‐Kirche_, a sort of S. Paul’s

(London) without the smoky coat thrown over it by the chimneys of the busy

city. Then, turning with relief to the little that is left of the old

town, we find a few quaint streets leading to the cathedral, a plain but

grand building, very fairly “restored” and adorned with the distinctive

Munich statues of angels and saints, which are now sold all over the

world, as the worthy substitutes of plaster‐of‐Paris images of the Bernini

type of sculpture. A very interesting old triptych stands over the altar,

with its strange medley of figures forming a striking and novel reredos. A

procession was slowing winding its way down the aisles as we entered the

cathedral one afternoon, and though the congregation was not numerous it

was very devout. A few comfortable‐looking old houses and quiet streets

surround the cathedral, and form quite an oasis in the midst of the

modernized city. Indeed, the monotonous stretch of apparently uninhabited

mansions was really wearying to look at, and we began to think that King

Louis had built his town as if he expected its population to increase at a

_Chicagoan_ rate! It is true the season of fêtes had not come, and,

according to the recognized phrase, “all the world” had left Munich for

the country villas and hunting‐boxes in its neighborhood, but on the day

of All Saints, the vigil of All Souls, how magically the scene changed!

After Mass in the Royal Chapel, which, by the way, is beautifully

decorated with frescoes of mediæval saints on a gilt background, we

started for the great “Gottes‐Acker” (churchyard.) We had been told that

this was worth seeing, and so it proved. The desert seemed to have

blossomed like the rose. The road leading to the cemetery was crowded with

carriages, carts, horsemen, and foot passengers. Every one, especially

those on foot, carried wreaths of immortelles and small lanterns. The

carriages were mostly laden with wreaths. Every one looked cheerful, but

great quiet prevailed throughout the crowd. It seemed to us that until the

dead called for a visit, the living in Munich must have been well hidden,

so great were now the numbers that incumbered the hitherto lonely road.

All were going in the same direction, and once there the scene was almost

festive. Military bands (the best, we believe, next to the Austrian) were

stationed near the cemetery gates. The “Gottes‐Acker” itself is an immense

square, the length being about twice the breadth of the inclosure. Round

the four sides runs a covered cloister, under which are all the graves,

monuments, and vaults of the more wealthy part of the Munich population.

Each of these was a perfect forest of evergreens and hot‐house plants,

artistically heaped up around a vessel of holy water, from which any pious

passer‐by was free to sprinkle the grave while repeating a prayer for its

occupant. The large square in the centre was crossed and recrossed by

narrow paths between the serried files of graves. Nearly all were

distinguished by a cross, of stone, marble, wood, or metal. To these the

wreaths and lamps were hung, and here and there a kneeling figure might be

seen. Within the covered cloister a dense crowd promenaded slowly, while

the bands played unceasingly, not always, however, appropriately. It was a

striking scene, the like of which we do not remember to have ever

witnessed elsewhere. At Innsbruck, in the Tyrol, the cemetery is similar

to this in construction and arrangement, though it is, of course, smaller

in size. Night fell gradually as we were admiring this peculiar expression

of national idiosyncrasy, but the crowd did not seem to grow less dense.

It was a remembrance worth carrying away from that old Munich whose

spirit, though outwardly imprisoned in a pseudo‐classic shape, lives yet

in the simple Christian instincts of its laboring classes. At this time,

when it threatens to become another Wittenberg, have we not also seen the

unconscious and magnificent protest of its inveterately Catholic feelings

in the unique Passion Play, that worthily kept relic of the heroic ages of

faith and chivalry? Kings and philosophers cannot change the world as long

as peasants like those of Ammergau, and artisans such as work in the

Munich manufactories—that should not be degraded to comparison with the

materialistic establishments of Manchester or Sheffield—are yet to be

found bearing through the present times the banner of their forefathers’

undying traditions. There is more simple faith among the German people,

including also the Slavic and Hungarian races, than among some other

modern Christian nations, and no doubt there must be a hidden law of

gracious compensation in this fact, since the same country has been the

cradle and the teacher of almost every modern heresy and philosophical

(_sic_) aberration. No doubt the faith of the masses is intimately

connected with their wonderful love of home and fatherland, their domestic

instincts, their love of quiet family gatherings. All this easily leads to

great love and tenderness for the departed, and it reads almost more like

a German than a French saying, that “the dead are not the forgotten, but

only the absent.”(129) Love for the dead and a reverent, prayerful

remembrance of them are as much bulwarks to the morality of the living, as

they are spiritual boons to the departed themselves. We would not speak

ill of an absent friend, or break our word with one who had gone on a long

journey; even a short earthly distance seems to make a pledge more sacred.

How much more when the distance is the immeasurable breadth of the valley

of the shadow of death! We all of us remember promises once made to those

who have fallen asleep in Christ: those promises will be guardian angels

to us, if we keep them; they will be so many drops of refreshing dew to

those who are perhaps suffering at this moment for the unfulfilled

promises once made by them in life. Shall we whose faith includes the

communion of saints as a vital dogma, and whose humble hope it must ever

be to become one of the church suffering after having done our weak share

in the cause of the church militant—shall we be no better for this belief

than are those who have it not? Let the dead be guides to us, while we are

helps to them; let us each remember that besides the angel we have at our

side, there is another spirit who rejoices or grieves for and with us—a

company of spirits perhaps, but seldom less than one.

Mother or father, sister, brother, husband, wife, or child, that spirit

from its prison looks sadly and lovingly earthward, marking our every step

from its own patient haven of suffering sinlessness. No longer racked by

the personal fear of falling away, no longer haunted by the possibility of

temptation, it concentrates its loving anxiety on the soul whom it will

perchance precede to heaven, but on whom it is yet dependent; let us not

grieve it, let us not willingly or knowingly wound it, but rather let us

take heed that we fit ourselves to go and bear it company in the new and

glorious God’s‐Acre to which we hope to be called when that “which was

sown in mortality shall be raised in immortality, and that which was sown

in dishonor and weakness shall be raised in glory and in power.”

Personal Recollections Of The Late President Juarez Of Mexico.

I. The President In The Reception‐Room.

We saw President Juarez for the first time in the fall of 1865. He was

then temporarily established with his government in the town of El Paso,

on the northern frontier of Chihuahua, and within almost a stone’s throw

of American soil. Fort Bliss, Texas, then recently reoccupied by the Union

troops, was not more than ten minutes’ distance from the Plaza of El Paso.

The prospects of the Mexican Republic were not then very bright; the

treasury was almost exhausted, the government was barely on Mexican soil,

and on the American side of the Rio Grande it was generally looked upon as

a question of time when President Juarez would have to seek safety on our

own side of the boundary. It is needless to say that he would have been

received by the Americans of that region with right royal hospitality.

American sympathy and material aid were looked for, and Americans were

very popular with all the followers of the Mexican president.

Shortly after the arrival of President Juarez and his cabinet in El Paso,

we joined a party of American gentlemen who paid him a visit. The party

comprised, we think, nearly all the Americans of any standing about El

Paso. There were the American consul, the collector of customs, three or

four army officers from Fort Bliss, some local civil officials, and one or

two leading business men.

President Juarez and his cabinet occupied a house on the Plaza—a large

building constructed in the usual Mexican fashion. On announcing ourselves

as a party of American citizens desirous of paying their respects to the

chief of a sister republic, we were immediately ushered into a room where

we found President Juarez with most of the members of his cabinet—notably

his successor Señor Lerdo de Tejada, then Secretary of State, and Señor

Yglésias, Secretary of the Treasury—now also named for the

presidency—rather a sinecure office at the time.

We were presented in turn to the president by Señor Yglésias, the only

person present attached to the president who spoke English. President

Juarez spoke neither English nor French. He shook hands cordially with

each of us, and expressed through Señor Yglésias the very great pleasure

it gave him to receive our visit. We were sufficiently familiar with the

Pueblo type to recognize Juarez immediately on entering.

President Juarez was low in stature, rather stout, but dignified, and at

the same time easy in his manners. The Pueblo Indian was marked in every

lineament of his face—the aquiline nose, the small bright black eyes, the

straight cut mouth showing no trace of redness in the lips, the coal‐black

hair, the swarthy complexion. Yet he was, as it were, an Indian idealized;

his forehead was high, capacious, and the light of intellectual

cultivation illuminated his face. He was dressed in plain black.

The secretary of state, Señor Lerdo de Tejada, is evidently, judged merely

from externals, a man of great intellectual ability. His skin is as white

as that of the fairest daughter of the Anglo‐Saxon. A forehead, so high as

to seem almost a monstrosity, and of a marble whiteness, towered above a

face that gleamed with the glance of the eagle.

Señor Yglésias was of a darker complexion than his colleague in the

cabinet. He seemed to be in rather indifferent health. The expression of

his face was remarkably gentle and pleasing. We have already said that he

acted as interpreter. He spoke English with a very marked accent, but with

great care and correctness. We happened to be seated next him on a sofa,

President Juarez being on his right. He told us that he learned to speak

English in the city of Chihuahua, and that he had never been a day in an

English‐speaking country.

Notwithstanding that President Juarez did not speak English, and the

necessity of an interpreter naturally causes some embarrassment, yet his

manners were so pleasant and affable that he placed us at our ease at

once. He spoke about our war, and asked with much interest about our great

military leaders, Generals Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan. He seemed to feel

some sympathy with Gen. McClellan. A very pleasant half‐hour was spent in

conversation on these and kindred subjects. It was at length interrupted

by the entrance of a _péon_ bearing a tray with quite a generous number of

bottles of champagne on it.

We were invited to partake of the Green Seal. We stood around the table,

President Juarez standing at the head. Toasts were drunk to the lasting

friendship of the two North American republics, to the independence of

Mexico, etc. The péon, who was not a very bright specimen of his tribe,

exerted himself to his utmost to open the bottles sufficiently fast. In

his tremulous hurry he got within point‐blank range of the president, and

a peculiarly excited bottle going off prematurely, discharged about half

its contents into the president’s shirt‐bosom. Juarez looked at the poor

_péon_—whose swarthy face grew sickly pale, and who seemed about to sink

to the ground with terror and confusion—neither in sorrow nor in anger. He

took no notice whatever of the incident, but went on talking cheerfully as

before. Such an accident happening to most men would have been laughable

in the extreme. It did not seem to us to place Juarez in a ludicrous

position at all, his self‐command was so perfect, his dignity so

thoroughly preserved.

After all the patriotic toasts proper to the occasion had been drunk, we

took our leave. The president again shook hands with us, again expressed,

through Señor Yglésias, his gratification at meeting American citizens and

officers, and hoped that he should receive further visits from us.

We departed very greatly prepossessed in favor of the Mexican president.

We agreed in thinking that there was a simplicity and honesty of purpose

about him which made him the best man for the difficult position of chief

magistrate of the struggling republic in her great hour of trial.

II. The President In The Ball‐Room.

Some time after the visit just described, President Juarez gave a ball in

honor of the anniversary of Mexican independence. We had the honor, in

common with some other Americans, of receiving an invitation to the ball,

which, of course, we accepted.

There were four American ladies in our party—two the wives of infantry

officers stationed at Fort Bliss, the post surgeon’s wife, and the wife of

one of the leading citizens of Franklin. We were all invited to pass the

night—or such portion of it as would remain after the close of the ball—at

the mansion of a lady, a native of El Paso, of American descent.

We were bestowed in three or four vehicles, and forded the Rio Grande

successfully a little before dark. We found El Paso in festal array. The

cathedral was covered with shining lamps from foundation to steeple. The

Plaza was brilliantly illuminated, and crowds of both sexes were already

assembling for the grand open‐air _baile_ of the _profanum vulgus_. Class

lines of demarcation are very sharply drawn in El Paso, and the _gente

fina_ alone were admissible to the president’s ball.

We dined at the Señora L——’s, where we had the pleasure of meeting several

Mexican officers of high rank. Among them were General Ruiz, the

Postmaster‐General (another sinecurist just then), and other staff

officers, whose names we have forgotten. A little son of one of the

officers at Fort Bliss—a child of five or six, who spoke Spanish very

well, having passed nearly all his little life in New Mexico, only

remaining sufficiently long in New York to set all doubts at rest as to

his being born in the Empire State—became a very great favorite with the

Mexican officers.

Between ten and eleven P.M. our vehicles were again in requisition, and

away we went to the ball. It was given in the spacious house of a wealthy

citizen, the front of which was brilliantly illuminated. A guard of

Mexican soldiers was posted in front of the house, and lined the long hall

leading to the ball‐room. Their pieces were at order, and they saluted the

chief officers by striking the butt of their muskets against the ground.

They were dressed in gray jackets, like the undress of the New York

National Guard, white cross belts, white trousers, and a leather cap,

somewhat Hussar shape.

We had the honor of giving an arm to one of the four American ladies on

entering. Arrived at the door of the ball‐room, four white‐vested and kid‐

gloved Mexican gentlemen offered an arm each to the four American ladies,

bowing at and smiling most sweetly on us the while. At first, we were

disposed to resist “the deep damnation of this taking off.” The ladies

hesitated and drew back. The situation would have become remarkably comic;

but Don Juan Z——, well‐known to all Americans who visit El Paso, seeing

the critical state of affairs, came to us and whispered that it was the

_costumbre del pais_—the custom of the country. We submitted, but, we

fear, not with a good grace. By the way, we only saw our American ladies

at a distance for the rest of the evening. The Mexican gentlemen took

entire charge of them. Don Juan informed us that we were expected to take

our revenge among the señoras and señoritas.

The ball‐room was very tastefully arranged. The _placeta_, or open square

in the centre of all Mexican houses, on which all the rooms in the

building open, was roofed and floored for the ball‐room. The window‐

curtains were hung outside the window of the house; mirrors, paintings,

etc., were hung on the outer walls, making the illusion that you were

inside the house instead of outside of it, complete. American and Mexican

flags were festooned around the walls. The music, softly and sweetly

played, was placed in a side room, entirely out of sight. No braying

cornet flayed your ears, and no howling fiddler, calling out the figures

from a position dominating everything and everybody, gave you an _attaque

de nerfs_. The fiddlers would be heard, not seen. The waltz, the national

dance of Mexico, was, of course, the terpsichorean _pièce de résistance_;

but a fair number of quadrilles were sprinkled through the programme, in

compliment to the Americans.

We have seen many balls in the Empire City—some given under “most

fashionable auspices”—but we must in justice declare that we have seen

none which surpassed the Mexican President’s ball. There may have been

more glare, more glitter, more diamonds, if you will, but there certainly

was not more good taste, more elegance and refinement, more genuine good‐

breeding and gentlemanly and ladylike good‐humor. There was no rushing,

steam‐engine fashion, the length of the ball‐room; knocking couples to the

right and left, and tearing dresses, without even an apology. The ladies

were richly but not gaudily dressed, and made no barbaric display of

golden ornaments, as their New Mexican sisters are wont to do on _bailé_

occasions. The gentlemen—except the army officers—wore the traditional

black dress‐coat and pantaloons, with white vest and gloves, clothes and

gloves fitting admirably, for the _gente fina_ of El Paso got both from

Paris. The army officers were, of course, in full uniform, the American

uniform looking rather sombre compared with the red‐leg top trousers, with

broad gold or silver stripes, and the magnificent gold‐embroidered sashes

of the Mexican general and field officers. By the way, the lowest officer

in rank of the Mexicans in the ball‐room was a colonel. The only captains

and lieutenants admitted were the Americans. Juarez’ son—“the image of his

father”—though somewhat shorter in stature, in the undress uniform of a

second lieutenant of artillery was in the vestibule with the guard.

The president, with his cabinet and staff, was already in the ball‐room

when we arrived. After being dispossessed of our fair companions, we were

ushered to the portion of the room in which the president sat. We paid our

respects in turn, and were kindly and cordially welcomed. Juarez was

dressed in plain black, except his gloves, which, of course, were white.

The male portion of the American party then broke ranks, and spread

themselves through the ball‐room, enjoying themselves each after his

fashion; some in the fascinating “see‐saw” of the Spanish dance, others in

the apartments off the ball‐room where exhilaration of a different kind

was provided.

We passed a very agreeable hour with Signor Prieto, a Mexican poet and

orator of distinction. Signor Prieto was then known as the “Henry Clay” of

Mexico. He spoke French very well. He told us with just pride that he

considered the highest recognition his efforts had received was the

translation of one of his poetical pieces by our American patriarch‐poet,

William Cullen Bryant.

Just before supper‐time, an official came with President Juarez’

compliments, to say that President Juarez and the members of his cabinet

would take the American ladies in to supper, and requesting the American

gentlemen to take in Mexican ladies. We immediately sought our friend Don

Juan T——, and begged him to find us some Mexican lady who could talk

either English or French. He found compliance with our request impossible,

but gave into our charge the Señora S——, a magnificent beauty of the

Spanish type, with coal‐black hair and large lustrous black Juno‐like

eyes—_fendus en amande_. The other gentlemen of the American party were

soon provided with supper partners, and we began our march for the supper‐

table, President Juarez taking in Mrs. Capt. O——; the secretary of state,

Señor Lerdo de Tejada, Mrs. Capt. B——; the secretary of the treasury, Mrs.

Dr. S——; and the secretary of war, Mrs. W——, of Texas. The first table was

for the president and cabinet, with the American party. The supper was

rather a solemn affair. It consisted of nine courses, though the courses

seemed as like each other as railway stations on the plains. All seemed to

be desiccated, and reminded us somewhat of what we had read about Chinese

feasts. When a course was served to every guest, the President looked down

the table to his right and bowed; he then looked to his left and bowed.

Then, and not before, knives and forks were observed, and the guests

attacked the viands. This repeated nine times was not calculated to impart

gaiety to the repast. It was slow, but ended at last, and we retired in

the same order in which we entered, making way for the ladies and

gentlemen of the second table.

After the supper, President Juarez sat for over an hour with the American

ladies, chatting pleasantly with them in the simplest Spanish phrases he

could devise. Seeing him chatting away and laughing gaily, no one could

have imagined that he had the cares of a tottering government with an

empty treasury upon his shoulders.

Capt. O—— asked us to go out with him and have a look at the great

_bronco_, the public fandango, on the Plaza. As we passed out through the

hall, the Mexican guard—now lying on their arms—jumped up and brought

their muskets to the ground with a crash to salute our companion, much to

his discomposure, as he wished to go out without attracting attention.

The great fandango was a sight worth seeing. A leviathan Spanish dance

wound its way around and through the Plaza, filling to overflowing the

market‐place, the sidewalks, and the arcades. Swarthy Mexicans with

immense sombreros, with cigarettes of corn‐husks in their mouths,

abandoned themselves to the swaying movements of the slow waltz, their

dark‐eyed partners—often partners in the cigarette as well as the

dance—now moving with a graceful languor, now dashing out with wild and

unrepressed vigor to the clattering of a thousand castanets.

Unusual gambling facilities were to be found everywhere, of course. Cake

merchants, fried hot cakes in the open air, lemonade, _vino del pais_,

fresh _queso_, fruits, _puros_, were to be had for the paying.

Having seen sufficient of the great unwashed fandango, we returned to the

ball‐room. Our companion was again the object of another demonstration of

respect on the part of the guard. “I wish,” said he, “those fellows would

go to sleep; this begins to be unpleasant.”

A waltz was in full gyration when we returned to the ball‐room. We took

chairs and sat near the door chatting. Suddenly we became aware that some

one stood behind us, placing a hand on either chair. Looking round, we saw

that it was President Juarez. We immediately arose, but he insisted on our

being seated, and resumed his former attitude. He talked with us for half

an hour, in Spanish well adapted to our limited knowledge of the language,

and which we had no difficulty in understanding.

During the evening, from time to time, we had received invitations from

the president to drink wine with him—invitations which, of course, we did

not refuse. Many patriotic toasts and sentiments were offered on both

sides. It must have been in one of those festive moments that an

enthusiastic gentleman of our party slapped the president on the back,

called him “Ben” (Juarez’ Christian name was Benito), said he was “a

brick,” and bade him “never say die” till he was dead! We were not a

witness to this scene. It was described to us by members of our party.

Between two and three P.M. the president’s party left the ball‐room.

Shortly after, the American clans were gathered, we got our fair ones back

again, and set out for the hospitable dwelling of the Señora L——.

There was plenty of bustle and activity there. It seemed to us that half

the people at the ball must have been guests of this house. All the rooms

opening on the large _placeta_ were turned into lodging‐rooms. There was

hurrying to and fro with lights in hand, putting every one in his place.

Some people put themselves in other people’s places. Notably our

enthusiastic friend, who had taken up his quarters in a room intended for

F—— and his new Spanish bride. He was found by the happy pair, just as

happy as they were, sleeping the sleep of the just. In the meantime, the

partner of his joys and sorrows sat solitary and alone in the room

intended for her and her spouse, on the other side of the _placeta_,

wondering at his absence and anxiously awaiting his return. This

complication, however, was settled by transferring the lady to the room in

which lay her sleeping lord, and bestowing the F——s in the room she had

occupied.

After a good breakfast, we set out on our return to the Land of the Free,

forded the Rio Grande at about noon, under a September sun—no contemptible

luminary about latitude 32°, let us assure the reader. We sought our

_casas_, darkened up our respective rooms, and shut the venetian blinds to

keep out the flies, and having turned night into day, proceeded to turn

day into night.

New Publications.

ELEMENTS OF LOGIC. Designed as a Manual of Instruction. By Henry

Coppée, LL.D., President of the Lehigh University. Revised

edition. Philadelphia: E. H. Butler & Co. 1872.

President Coppée has carefully excluded from this edition of his Logic

everything which could give offence to a Catholic. The main part of the

work, treating of formal logic, is of course substantially the same with

other treatises of this kind, and is written in a clear, simple style,

well adapted to an elementary text‐book. But here our approbation must

cease. The history of logic is altogether defective. The author advocates

the doctrine derived by Hamilton from Kant, that our rational knowledge is

merely “conditioned,” which is pure scepticism, and confounds Christian

philosophy with theology, which is effectually to subvert both sciences.

Teachers may find some useful assistance from this book in explaining the

laws of thought; but it is altogether unfit to be placed in the hands of

Catholic pupils. We reiterate the desire we have so often expressed, that

some competent person would translate one of our standard Latin text‐books

of logic, for the use of pupils and teachers who cannot read them in the

original language.

THE POCKET PRAYER‐BOOK. Compiled from approved sources. New York:

The Catholic Publication Society. 1872.

This is certainly the most complete little manual we have seen, and,

although it contains 650 pages, is small enough for the pocket; and gives,

among other things, the three indulgenced litanies, the entire Mass in

Latin and English, Vespers, and the Epistles and Gospels for the Sundays

throughout the year. The type, moreover, is singularly large and good.

Thus the book supplies a long‐felt want; and ought to become very popular

amongst Catholic men, for whose especial benefit it was compiled. There is

another edition without the Epistles and Gospels, which fits the vest

pocket, and can therefore be made emphatically a daily companion.

ENGLAND AND ROME. By the Rev. W. Waterworth, S.J. London: Burns &

Lambert. 1854. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication

Society.)

A COMMENTARY BY WRITERS OF THE FIRST FIVE CENTURIES ON THE PLACE

OF S. PETER IN THE NEW TESTAMENT, AND THAT OF S. PETER’S

SUCCESSORS IN THE CHURCH. By the Very Rev. J. Waterworth, D.D.,

Provost of Nottingham. London: Richardson. 1871. (New York: Sold

by The Catholic Publication Society.)

The reader will perceive, if he takes notice of the titles of these two

books, that they are by two different authors, both bearing the name of

Waterworth. They are brothers, and one of the two is a Jesuit, the other

being a dignitary of the Catholic Church in England. The work whose title

stands first in order at the head of this notice, is not a recent

publication, having been issued as long ago as 1854. We think it, however,

not unsuitable to recall attention to it as a work specially useful at the

present time. About one‐third of the volume is taken up with a very solid

and scholarly disquisition on the general topic of the Papal supremacy.

Its principal and special topic is, however, the relation of the church in

England to the Holy See from the year 179 to the epoch of the schism of

Henry VIII. It is handled with great learning and ability, and the

sophisms and perversions of those disingenuous or ill‐informed

controversialists who pretend to establish the original independence of

the British Church are scattered to the winds.

The work of Dr. Waterworth, the Provost of Nottingham, was published last

year. This learned divine is the author of the celebrated treatise

entitled _The Faith of Catholics_, and is well known as a most profound

and accurate patristic scholar. The present volume was prepared by him for

the press before the publication of the Decrees of the Vatican Council;

but its issue having been delayed by an accident, the author took the

opportunity of making a re‐examination of its contents, with special

reference to the objections raised by Dr. Döllinger, and of adding some

new prefatory remarks. The result of his revision did not suggest to him

the necessity of any alteration whatever, or show anything in the cavils

of the petulant old gentleman, who has so completely stultified himself by

retracting the deliberate convictions of his better days, worthy of any

special refutation.

As for Dr. Waterworth’s work itself, it is quite unique in English

Catholic literature, and different from the other works on the Papal

supremacy, able and learned as these are, which we have hitherto

possessed. It is literally an exhaustive collection of all the sayings of

fathers and councils on the two topics discussed, during the first five

centuries of the Christian era, by one who has mastered the whole of this

vast body of literature. One hundred and seven fathers and councils are

quoted, and copious tables at the end of the volume place the whole array

of authorities in a convenient order for reference under the eye of the

reader. It is needless for us to expatiate on the value of such a work, or

to say anything more to recommend it to the attention of all who wish to

study this great subject of the Papal supremacy.

THE TROUBLES OF OUR CATHOLIC FOREFATHERS, RELATED BY THEMSELVES.

First Series. Edited by John Morris, Priest of the Society of

Jesus. London: Burns & Oates. 1872. (New York: Sold by The

Catholic Publication Society.)

One of the outward and by no means the least significant signs of the

revival of religion in England is the appearance in rapid succession of a

most useful class of books, having for their main object the vindication

of the character and constancy of the Catholics of that country during and

subsequent to the so‐called Reformation. We have had occasion elsewhere to

refer to Father Morris’ work on the _Condition of Catholics under James

I._ The book before us may be considered a continuation of that

exceedingly interesting contribution to history, and, as it is the first

of a series, we may expect at an early day others equally valuable from

the same painstaking and indefatigable student.

Until lately, with very few exceptions, historical works relating to Great

Britain have been the composition of prejudiced, anti‐Catholic writers,

each in his turn guilty of the same omissions while servilely copying the

misrepresentations of his predecessors; so that the public mind has at

length become impressed with the conviction that, when the tocsin of

rebellion against God’s law was sounded by Henry Tudor, the people of the

whole of his dominions arose in hostile opposition to the authority of the

church. None but a critical few, familiar with foreign contemporary

authorities, were aware that, while the nobles who hungered for the spoils

of convents and monasteries, and the suppliant courtiers, lay and

ecclesiastical, whose fortunes depended upon the smiles of the sovereign,

basely bowed down before the brutal passions of Henry and Elizabeth, the

mass of the people, particularly the educated and moral middle class, held

firmly to the faith, braving persecution, poverty, imprisonment, and even

death, in defence of Catholicity. England, in fact, can count her

thousands of uncanonized martyrs, priests and laity, men and women, who,

in common with their co‐religionists of the Continent, fell victims to the

lust, cupidity, and inhumanity of the “Reformers.” Some of their most

glorious achievements will probably never be recorded in this world, but

there is every hope that, through the exertions of such conscientious

searchers as this learned Jesuit, a flood of light will be thrown ere long

on the darkest, but not least edifying, days of the Christian Church in

England. Heretofore this noble work has been delayed for various reasons.

Contemporary documents were either in the hands of the Government, or were

scattered among many convents and private libraries, and from long neglect

had become almost forgotten; and it required so much industry as well as

knowledge to search for and utilize them, that until lately no one was

found equal to the task. Besides, the English Catholics of the last

generation were so few and so lukewarm that it was difficult to find a

publisher willing to risk his money and his reputation in bringing out

books that were considered neither profitable nor politic. A change has

come over the spirit of their dream, as the appearance of late of so many

Catholic works, well printed and handsomely bound, from some of the first

publishing houses in Europe, amply testifies; and the ancient faith is

fast regaining its power in what, for three centuries, has been considered

the stronghold of dissent. While of primary interest to English readers,

works of this character will also have peculiar attractions for Americans,

many of whom by blood and affinity are as much heirs to the virtues and

courage of the British Catholics of the XVIth and XVIIth centuries as

those born on that soil. No historical library in our language would be

complete without such works as those of F. Morris, containing as they do

original, authentic documents which hitherto have never appeared in print,

in whole or in part. Such documents, carefully annotated, and modernized

only as regards their obsolete orthography, are the true materials of

history, worth an infinity of commentaries and second and third hand

statements filtrated through the minds of ignorant or partial writers.

The present volume contains the memoirs of Mother Margaret Clement; a

sketch of the history of the Monasteries of SS. Ursula and Monica at

Louvain; an account of the dissolution of the Carthusian Monastery of the

Charter House, London, and the execution of several of its monks, in the

reign of Henry VIII.; a detailed narrative of the imprisonment of Francis

Tregian for sixteen years; some additional particulars relating to the

missions of Fathers Tesimond and Blount; the trial of the Rev. Cuthbert

Clapton, chaplain to the Venetian ambassador, as related by himself, and

the correspondence of that official with his government from A.D. 1638 to

1643; with several interesting details of the sufferings and persecution

of some noble Catholic families. These documents were procured in various

places—in the Public Record Office; S. Mary’s College, Ascott; Stonyhurst;

the Archives de l’Etat, Brussels; S. Augustine’s Priory, Abbotsleigh;

Archives of the Archbishop of Westminster, and in numerous private MS.

collections; each original being preceded by a short but comprehensive

introduction from the pen of the learned editor.

PETERS’ CATHOLIC CLASS BOOK: A Collection of copyright Songs,

Duets, Trios, and Choruses, etc., etc. Compiled and arranged by

William Dressler. New York: J. L. Peters.

The first half of this work is a reproduction of ballads of sentiment of

no special merit, issued, as the foot‐notes ingeniously advertise to the

purchaser, “in sheet‐music form, with lithograph title‐page,” by the

publisher. The latter half is chiefly a reprint of so‐called religious

songs which persistently return to us under one or another guise in

publications of this class, like poor relations, and with as hearty a

welcome as such visitors proverbially receive.

THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION SOCIETY has fixed upon the 5th of November as the

publication day of _The Illustrated Catholic Family Almanac_ for 1873:

over 35,000 copies have already been ordered by the different booksellers.

The Society has just published an edition of _The Little Manual of

Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and Spiritual Bouquet_, formerly

published by John P. Walsh, of Cincinnati; and will soon issue in book‐

form _Fleurange_, by Mrs. Craven; Col. Meline’s translation of _Hubner’s

Life of Sixtus V.; Myrrha Lake, or Into the Light of Catholicity. All‐

Hallow Eve and Unconvicted_ will appear early in November. Canon Oakeley’s

work on _Catholic Worship_ is in press, and will be published uniform with

his excellent treatise on _The Mass_.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD. VOL. XVI., NO. 93.—DECEMBER, 1872.

The Spirit Of Protestantism.

Recent events in Europe, particularly in Prussia and Italy, have done much

to awaken the attention of thinking men in this country to the true spirit

of what is known as Protestantism. While they have once more presented to

our view humiliating spectacles of human weakness, injustice and downright

tyranny under the guise and in the sacred names of religion and liberty,

they have confirmed with remarkable force all that has been alleged

against the spirit that actuates and has always governed the enemies of

the Catholic Church.

When the revolt against Catholic doctrine and the spiritual authority of

the See of Rome was first inaugurated in the XVIth century under the

banner of liberty of conscience and freedom of thought, it was asserted by

those who then upheld the ancient faith that these were specious pretexts

invented to cover ulterior designs, which, by giving full scope to the

worst passions of our nature, would inevitably fix in the minds and in the

hearts of mankind a moral slavery more debasing, and a servitude more

irradicable, than even the most astute pagans of ancient times ever

dreamed of; that dissent from the dogmas and discipline of the universal

church did not in itself constitute a creed, but simply the negation of

all Christian truth, and that the right of private judgment in matters of

faith meant in reality the right, when seconded by the power, to pull down

and destroy, to persecute and proscribe, to desecrate and desolate the

Christian temples and charitable institutions which pious hands had reared

and richly endowed throughout Europe. How sadly prophetic were the

sagacious champions of true liberty and divine authority, the history of

the last three centuries fully attests.

Whoever has studied the career of modern civilization, either in the

detached records of nations and dynasties, or by following the course of

the church herself from her foundation to the present day, cannot fail to

discover that the advance of Europe from the epoch of the disruption of

the Roman Empire until the commencement of the XVIth century was a steady,

constant, and rapid march towards true civil polity and enlightenment;

frequently checked, it is true, by wars and local schisms, but ever

flowing onward in an irresistible and majestic flood.

From the barbarism and chaos incident to the disappearance of the central

authority of the empire, Europe emerged into the preparatory condition of

feudalism, at that time another name for order; and, through this state of

order, the first necessity of freedom, she was fast acquiring that second

essential element of political excellence—liberty. Already the humble

peasants of Helvetia were as free as the air of their romantic mountains;

Italy was dotted with republics; the Spanish peninsula was ruled more by

its cortes than by its sovereigns; France had her several “estates”;

Poland her elective monarchy; and Germany and the North were fast becoming

imbued with liberal and constitutional ideas; England, the last to adopt

the feudal system, had by degrees abrogated its slavish restraints and

commercial restrictions, and, with justice, boasted of her great charters

and independent parliaments; while over all a species of international law

was established, the chief executive of which sat in the chair of S.

Peter, before whose moral power warriors sheathed their swords and crowned

kings bowed their heads in submission. Municipalities, the germs of which

had first clustered around the monasteries, had become numerous and

powerful enough to defy and, on occasion, to curb the power of the feudal

nobles, and, under the protection of the guilds, the mechanical arts had

acquired a degree of perfection fully equal if not superior to that of our

own time. Those workers in wool, cotton, and silk, stone, metal, and wood,

have left us lasting monuments of their skill not only in the productions

of the looms of Flanders and Italy, and the forges of Spain and England,

but, better still, in the multiplicity of magnificent cathedrals and

basilicas, in the contemplation of which the artisan of this generation,

with all his supposed advantages, is lost in silent admiration. Poetry,

painting, architecture, and sculpture, the four highest developments of

creative genius, may be said to have reached, at the period immediately

anterior to the Reformation, the acme of glory and greatness, never before

nor since excelled or even equalled by man; while the discovery of the art

of printing had given a new impetus to literature, and commerce spread her

white wings in the Indian Ocean and along the shores of the New World.

Now, all these beneficent results were directly and indirectly the work of

the Catholic Church. From the details of ordinary life to the more

profound schemes of state policy, her animating presence was felt, and her

influence cheerfully recognized and obeyed, for it was always exercised

for the benefit of humanity and the greater glory of God. From the forging

of the Toledo blade that flashed in the dazzled eyes of the Saracen, to

the rearing aloft of that wonder of the Christian and pagan world, S.

Peter’s; from the humble Mechlin girl meshing a robe for a statue of the

Virgin, to Columbus exploring unknown seas in search of treasure to ransom

the holy shrines; from the poor friar teaching the child of the degraded

_villein_, to Archbishop Langdon framing _Magna Charta_; from the

enfranchisement of a serf, to the organization of the crusades, there was

no step in human progress that was not inspired and directed by the church

for the wisest and most exalted purposes. Guided by the spirit of

religion, the amount of solid happiness, simple virtue, and rational

liberty enjoyed by the people of Europe at the opening of the XVIth

century was greater, far greater, than their descendants possess at the

present time, after nearly four hundred years’ experience, and countless

attempts at religious, social, and political revolutions.

Yet, under the name of Reformation and greater liberty, this grand march

towards human perfection and eternal bliss was to be stayed, and even for

a time turned backwards, so that morally and politically Christendom has

not yet, nor is it likely for a long time, to recover from the shock which

it experienced at the hands of the Protestant reformers, their aiders and

abettors. The motives which actuated these reactionists were neither new

nor doubtful. Under various names and pretences, bodies of fanatics or

knaves swayed by the same inducements had appeared from time to time in

different parts of the world, generally causing much local disturbance,

but always suppressed by the authority of the church or the strong arm of

the state. They were simply detached efforts on the part of the worst

portion of the population to throw off all spiritual restraint as well as

temporal authority, and, by being thus freed both from moral and civil

law, to give full scope to their passions, undeterred by either religious

or social considerations. The history of fanaticism, of the Albigenses,

the Fratricelli, and the Lollards, proves that the leaders in such

movements were invariably the enemies of existing civil authority, and

that profligacy and plunder were the lures by which they drew around them

their deluded followers. The “Reformation,” as the last and greatest

rebellion is called, forms no exception to the rule.

In the early part of the XVIth century it broke out in Germany under the

auspices of three or four Saxon ecclesiastics, principal among whom were

Luther and Melanchthon. The former schismatic, who was a preacher of some

eminence, commenced by inveighing against the abuse of indulgences, and by

rapid transitions ended by totally denying the authority of the church in

every point of doctrine and discipline. He bases man’s salvation on faith

alone regardless of works, proclaimed the right of every individual to

make his own religion according as it seemed best to himself, and boldly

advocated the massacre of priests and bishops and the pillage of churches

and religious homes—the existence of all of which he declared to be

contrary to Holy Writ. “Now is the time,” he wrote, at the commencement of

his crusade, “to destroy convents, abbeys, priories, and monasteries”; to

which advice he added a little later, “These priests, these Mass‐mumblers,

deserve death as truly as a blasphemer who should curse God and his saints

in the public streets.” A system of belief at once so convenient and so

conformable with the greatest license, so free from all moral

responsibility and so suggestive of rapine and spoliation, could not but

attract followers, and Luther became so popular with the more debased of

his countrymen and with the rapacious among the nobles, that rivals soon

sprang up, who, accepting his premises, quickly outstripped him in the

race of fanaticism. The Anabaptists under Münzer, thinking that they also

had a right to private judgment, declared against infant baptism, demanded

a reorganization of society on what would now be called a socialistic

basis, and proceeded to put the heresiarch’s theory into practice by

overrunning the fairest provinces of Germany with fire and sword,

destroying alike feudal castles and Catholic churches, and slaughtering

with unheard‐of barbarity every one who opposed them, whether layman or

cleric.

This practical commentary on the new doctrine affrighted even its founder,

so he hastened to implore the interposition of his friends among the

German nobility. Accordingly, Philip of Hesse, in 1625, marched an army

against them, and, meeting their main body under Münzer, a quondam friend

and pupil of Luther, at Mülhausen, cut them to pieces and subsequently

hanged their leader. About thirty thousand peasants are stated to have

been slaughtered on this occasion, when the new Reformation may be said to

have been baptized, and the right of private judgment according to Luther

fully vindicated. Nearly at the same time another scene of even greater

barbarity was enacted at the other extremity of the Continent. Attracted

by reports of rich spoil to be obtained in Italy during the wars of the

emperor and the French king for the possession of that lovely but

unfortunate country, sixteen thousand German Lutheran mercenaries crossed

the Alps and joined the forces of Constable de Bourbon, himself a traitor

in arms against his country. Under the command of that gifted apostate,

they marched on Rome, and, though their leader fell in the attack, the

city was captured. Had he survived, the fate of the Eternal City might

have been sad enough, but, unrestrained by superior authority, the conduct

of the victors was simply diabolical. For weeks and months the city was

given over to plunder, and the inhabitants to every species of outrage by

those wretches, who, true to their master and his teachings, even went to

the extent, in mockery of the church, to formally suspend Clement VII.,

and elect in his stead their new apostle. How Luther must have chuckled at

the news!

“Never perhaps, in the history of the world,” says a distinguished

historian, “had a greater capital been given up to a more

atrocious abuse of victory; never had a powerful army been made up

of more barbarous elements; never had the restraints of discipline

been more fearfully cast aside. It was not enough for these

rapacious plunderers to seize upon the rich stores of sacred and

profane wealth which the piety or industry of the people had

gathered into the capital of the Christian world; the wretched

inhabitants themselves became the victims of the fierce and brutal

soldiery; those who were suspected of having hidden their wealth

were put to the torture. Some were forced by these tortures to

sign promissory notes, and to drain the purses of their friends in

other countries. A great number of prelates fell under these

sufferings. Many others, having paid their ransom, and while

rejoicing to think themselves free from further attacks, were

obliged to redeem themselves again and died from grief or terror

caused by these acts of violence. The German troops were seen,

drunk at once with wine and blood, leading about bishops in full

pontifical attire, seated upon mules, or dragging cardinals

through the streets, loading them with blows and outrages. In

their eagerness for plunder, they broke in the doors of the

tabernacles and destroyed masterpieces of art. The Vatican library

was sacked; the public squares and churches of Rome were converted

into market‐places, where the conquerors sold, as promiscuous

booty, the Roman ladies and horses; and these brutal excesses were

committed even in the basilicas of S. Peter and S. Paul, held by

Alaric as sacred asylums; the pillage which, under Genseric, had

lasted fourteen days, lasted now two months without

interruption.”(130)

Having disposed of his rivals the Anabaptists and set afloat his anathemas

against the church, Luther proceeded systematically to disorganize society

and obstruct the efforts of the sovereign pontiff and the Catholic princes

to save Europe from the horrors of a Mahometan invasion, at that time most

imminent. He formed a league among the semi‐independent German princes

favorable to his views, particularly on the matter of confiscation, and

the power he had denied to the pope and bishops of the church he assumed

to himself by forthwith creating a number of evangelical ministers to

preach the new gospel. In 1529, the members of this league, with other

nobles of the empire, were summoned by the Emperor Charles V. to a diet at

Spires to concert means for the general defence of Christendom against the

Turks, then threatening it by the way of Hungary. The Lutherans, taking

advantage of the critical condition of affairs, and not being particularly

adverse to the success of any movement that would destroy Christianity,

demanded the most unreasonable terms as the price of their active co‐

operation. On the part of the emperor, it was proposed that all questions

of a religious nature should remain _in statu quo_ pending the struggle

against the infidels, and be submitted as soon as practicable thereafter

to a general or œcumenical council of the church, at which all parties

were to be represented. “The edict of Worms,” they proposed, “shall be

observed in the states in which it has already been received. The others

shall be free to continue in the new doctrines until the meeting of the

next general council. However, to prevent all domestic troubles, no one

shall preach against the sacrament of the altar; the Mass shall not be

abolished; and no one shall be hindered from celebrating or hearing it.”

But these concessions to heresy for the general good, this weak

recognition of an unlawful assumption of ecclesiastical and political

authority, were not what the reformers desired. Not even toleration or

equality would satisfy them. They wanted the right to persecute, to

eradicate by forcible means and as far as their power extended, every

vestige of Catholicity. They declared that in their opinion “the Mass is

an act of idolatry, condemned by a thousand passages of Sacred Scripture.

It is our duty and our right to overthrow the altars of Baal.” Thus

_protesting_ their duty and right to persecute, they retired from the

diet, left the Mahometans, as far as they were concerned, free scope to

destroy Christianity wherever they pleased, and Lutheranism, or rebellion,

was henceforth known by the generic title of Protestantism.

So far from Protestantism being, as popularly represented, the assertion

of liberty of conscience in religion, it originated in the denial of that

liberty, by asserting the right to persecute those who differed from them

in religion.

From this time the Reformation under its new and more comprehensive name

made vast strides on the Continent, its path being everywhere marked by

the same spirit of fanaticism, sacrilege, and destruction of property

devoted to religion, learning, and charity; the insane dissensions of the

Catholic rulers granting it immunity, if not positive encouragement.

Geneva and part of Switzerland first embraced the gloomy doctrines of

Calvin, and made active war on the church; spreading into France, the

Netherlands, and the northern countries, their adoption by the ignorant

and venal was invariably followed by the greatest atrocities and the

wildest anarchy. Europe was shaken to its centre, and wars, the worst of

wars, because waged in the name of religion, desolated the entire

Continent for over a century with but pause enough to enable the

combatants to rest and recruit their strength. The destruction of life

during this period must have been immense, morals degenerated, industry

languished, and the principles of rational freedom, which had been

steadily gaining ground, were lost sight of in the clash of arms and the

angry conflict of contending systems. From this epoch we may date the rise

of modern Cæsarism and revolutionary ferocity which at the present moment

are contending for supremacy in the Old World.

But it was not continental nations alone that suffered from the blight of

this stupendous curse. Great Britain and Ireland soon experienced its

baleful influence. Henry VIII., in order to be able to divorce his lawful

wife and marry a mistress, cut himself loose from the See of Rome, and

became, by act of parliament, head of the church in his own dominions.

Henry was no mean reformer, as the record of his life testifies. He

married in succession six wives, two of whom he repudiated, two beheaded,

and his sudden demise alone prevented the execution of his surviving

consort, whose death‐warrant had been signed by his royal and loving hand.

“For the glory of Almighty God and the honor of the realm,” he seized upon

all the churches in England, as well as nearly four hundred religious

houses, and confiscated their property “for the benefit of the crown”—that

is, for his own use and that of his facile courtiers and parliament. With

the same pious purpose, we suppose, he ordered for execution, at different

times, besides his wives, a cardinal, two archbishops, eighteen bishops,

thirteen abbots, five hundred priors and monks, thirty‐eight doctors,

twelve dukes and counts, one hundred and sixty‐four noblemen of various

ranks, one hundred and twenty‐four private citizens, and one hundred and

ten females. If all of those did not suffer the fate of the Charter‐house

monks, Sir Thomas More, Bishop Fisher, and the Countess of Salisbury, it

was not his fault, but theirs who were ungrateful enough to fly their

country and perish in poverty and exile, thus robbing the Reformation in

England of half its glory.

Under his daughter Elizabeth, nearly two hundred ecclesiastics are known

to have suffered for their faith on the scaffold, besides laymen, and the

multitude who died in prison: and if her successor, James I., does not

present as striking a record of his zeal, it was because there were very

few priests left to be hunted down, and very little Catholic property to

be confiscated. To do that light of the Reformation justice, wherever he

could catch a priest he hanged him, and, with a keenness eminently

national, wherever a penny could be squeezed out of a recusant Papist he

or his friends were sure to have it. Still he was only a gleaner in the

field so cleanly reaped by his predecessors; for even in unhappy Ireland

Elizabeth’s captains had done their work so thoroughly that he had nothing

to seize upon or give away but the uninhabited and desolated lands.

However, lest the traditions of the early fathers of his church—Luther,

Calvin, and the royal Henry—should be forgotten, and having no longer any

Catholics to persecute, he turned his attention to the Presbyterians,

Covenanters, and Puritans with some effect. The humanizing custom of

cropping the ears and slitting the noses of those dissenters became

greatly the fashion in this reign; for, though James acknowledged the

right of private judgment in the abstract, the exercise of the right was

found by his subjects to be a very dangerous pastime. The Puritans, who

also based their religion on the same right, improved on the lessons thus

taught; for, when in the next reign it became their turn to persecute and

punish, instead of cutting off the ears or the nose of his son and

successor, they took off the entire head, and gave to the English Church

its first and only martyr. Oliver Cromwell and the Long Parliament

interpreted “King James’ Version” too literally, and of course, believing

in freedom of conscience, swept away episcopacy, kings, bishops, and all.

After the Restoration, the English Church was again in the ascendant. Then

they dug up the bones of the Puritan regicides, scattered them to the

winds, and ever since the followers of John Knox and the believers in the

_Westminster Catechism_ have held a very subordinate place under the feet

of “the church as by law established.”

If the fell spirit of Protestantism, which, as we have seen, was bloody

and cruel in its inception and growth, had been confined to the eastern

hemisphere, we, as Americans, feeling grateful to Providence for the

exemption, might have less cause of complaint against it. But

unfortunately it was not so. The virgin soil of the New World, from the

first consecrated to freedom, we are often told, was destined to be

polluted by the evil genius evoked by the apostate monk of Wittenberg.

Every breeze from the east that wafted hither an immigrant‐ship bore on

its wings the deadly moral pestilence of intolerance and persecution. It

accompanied the Huguenots to the Carolinas, landed at Jamestown with the

royalists, went up the Delaware with the Swedes and Quakers, up the Hudson

with the Hollanders, and pervaded the hold of the _Mayflower_ from stem to

stern. Whatever physical, mental, and moral qualities those early

adventurers, of many lands and divers creeds, may have possessed,

Christian charity was certainly not of the number, and though they each

and all proclaimed the right of every one to be his own judge in matters

of religion—and most of them claimed to have suffered for conscience’s

sake—not one had the consistency or the courage to tolerate, much less

protect, the expression of an opinion or the observance of a form of

worship differing from his own. So completely had the rancor of the

founders of Protestantism eaten up whatever of Christianity it retained of

the church’s teaching, that each of the sects, having no common enemy to

prey upon, turned round, and, like hungry wolves, were ready to tear and

rend each other. With the exception of one small settlement, there were no

Catholics in the early colonies; but still, the Puritan found it as unsafe

to live in Virginia as the Episcopalian did in New England, while the non‐

combatant Friend dared not risk his life in either locality. There was one

little bright spot in the darkened firmament that hung over the infant

settlements, and that was near the mouth of the St. Mary’s, on the

Potomac. Here Lord Baltimore had planted a colony of Catholics which soon

showed signs of life and vigor, worshipping according to the old faith,

and proclaiming the doctrine of charity and religious toleration to all

Christians. But it was not long allowed to enjoy its honors in peace. Its

very existence was a reproach to its bigoted neighbors. Taking advantage

of its humane and equitable laws, Protestants of the various

denominations, persecuted in the other colonies, flocked to it as to a

city of refuge, abused its hospitality, when strong enough in numbers

changed its statutes, and actually commenced to persecute the very people

who had sheltered them.

As the colonies grew in population and extent, we do not find that they

increased in equity or liberality. Many of them were even at the pains of

passing laws prohibiting the settlement of Catholics within their limits;

and now and then we hear of some solitary priest being executed or a group

of humble Catholics driven into further exile. The dawn of our Revolution

created some change in religious sentiment, but it was more on the surface

than in the heart. England, the oppressor, was the champion of

Protestantism; France, the ally, was as essentially Catholic; so it was

not considered politic to manifest too openly that bigotry of soul which

pervaded all classes of society in those days, though even in the

continental congress there were found some candid enough to object to

asking the assistance of Catholic Frenchmen to help them to wrest their

liberties from their Protestant enemy. These patriots preferred the

Hessians and their Lutheranism to Lafayette and Rochambaud.

Our independence once gained by the efficient aid of the troops of the

eldest son of the church, a pause appears to have occurred in the

persecuting progress of the sects. Common decency required as much, but

commercial interest demanded it. Our finances were in a ruinous condition,

and it was only among the Catholic nations of Europe that we could look

for sympathy and support. Then the new states very generally repealed the

colonial penal laws, and finally the amended constitution prohibited the

interference of the general government in matters of religion. Still,

though we owe much to French sympathy and influence in placing us, as

Catholics, free and equal before the law, we owe more to those of our own

countrymen who actually had no religion at all. We would rather, for the

honor of human nature, that the benefits thus received had been derived

from another source; but it is an historical fact that the minds of many

of the leaders of the Revolution, before and during that struggle, had

become deeply imbued with the false philosophy then prevalent among the

intellectual classes in Europe, and, believing in no particular

revelation, dogma, or religion, they could see no reason why one party

calling itself Christian should ostracise another claiming the same

distinction. To their credit, be it said, our countrymen never carried

their theories to the same extent as their fellow‐philosophers across the

Atlantic, and their impartiality, which we would fain hope to have been

sincere, took a direction in accord with the spirit of justice and

impartial legislation.

If, then, our young Republic has not been disgraced by such penal

enactments against Catholics as have long disfigured the statute‐books of

England, and which are yet in force in Holland, Denmark, Sweden, and

Norway, the Protestant sects, as such, deserve neither credit nor

gratitude. The active Protestants of that day—the ministers, deacons, and

politicians—were just as narrow‐minded and as bigoted as were their

ancestors, and as would be their descendants if it were not for certain

good reasons best known to themselves. Witness the periodical outbursts of

Nativism or Know‐Nothingism which have from time to time disgraced our

national character. These have been directed invariably against

Catholics—not against foreigners as such, for with a Protestant or even

infidel foreigner their promoters have never professed to find fault. The

occasional destruction of a convent, the burning of a church—and we have

had many so dealt with—or the mobbing of a priest may only show that

depravity exists in certain sections of the country, but the news of such

atrocities has been received with such ill‐concealed

satisfaction—certainly with nothing like hearty condemnation—by the

clerical demagogues and the so‐called religious press, that we are forced

into the conviction that to the absence of opportunity and power on their

part we alone owe our exemption from such villanies on a larger and better

organized system.

We are told, in a tone of patronage, if not menace, that we ought to be

content as long as the Catholics of America are free and enjoy equality

under the law. We grant the freedom and equality, but only so far as the

letter, not the spirit, of the law is concerned. Let any one look at the

way our Catholic missions in the far West have been defrauded for the

benefit of Methodist and Baptist preachers of the Word and cheaters of the

Indians, and tell us are they free and equal? How many Catholic chaplains

are there in the army and navy, the bone and sinew of which are mainly

Catholics? For how many foreign consuls are we paying merely to act as

agents for the Board of Foreign Missions, Bible Societies, and Book

Concerns? How are our numerous state institutions—penitentiary,

reformatory, and eleemosynary—attended to in the interests of their

Catholic inmates? When these questions are satisfactorily answered, we

will be able to estimate the extent of the legal equality we possess. For

so much of freedom and equality as we actually enjoy, we are thankful.

Grateful not, however, to the Protestant sects, but to a benevolent

Providence who has vouchsafed it to us; and, under him, to our Catholic

predecessors who helped to found, and our co‐religionists who have bravely

defended, our institutions, and who now stand ready to oppose with might

and main any attempt to infringe upon our liberties.

But even as to the letter of the law we are not without just cause of

complaint. For instance, we object most emphatically to the present school

law of this state as unjust and inequitable in its provisions and method

of administration. The state has no right to prescribe how or what our

children shall be taught, and then make us pay for its so doing. We

Catholics are unanimously in favor of educating our own offspring

according to our conception of the demands of religion and morality, and,

as the artificial body called the state is a judge of neither, it is

manifestly incompetent to direct the training of our children. We are also

willing to pay, and are actually expending, large sums of money in this

good work; and while we are doing so, we hold it not just to tax us for

the support of schools we do not require. Our duty to the state and

society is performed when we teach our children to obey the laws of one

and respect the usages of the other, and, if parents and the ministers of

religion are unable to do this, mere officials and strangers certainly

cannot. However, if the state will insist on levying a school‐tax, let it

in justice give us a pro rata share of the money, and let the Evangelical

Alliance of the sects take theirs and bring up their children in their own

way. We ask nothing for ourselves that we would not willingly see granted

to others, but, until one or other of these measures be adopted, we

maintain that a large class of the citizens of the United States is

deprived of one of its most vital and dearest religious rights.

Then, again, look at the treatment meted out by the legislative

authorities to Catholic institutions, to our hospitals, foundling‐asylums,

reformatories, and orphanages, which save annually to the state hundreds

of thousands of dollars, and are daily conferring on society incalculable

advantages. What begging, petitioning, and beseeching must we not resort

to, to get the least legislative favor for them, even to a bare act of

incorporation! For a quarter of a century or more, irresponsible bodies

under the names of the sects, or even in no names but their own, have been

fattening on the public money, our money, and no word of remonstrance has

been uttered; but, as soon as anything is asked for our institutions, the

cry of “sectarian appropriations” and “Romish designs” is immediately

raised and repeated along the line. Every petty bigot who misuses a pen

gets up a howl about the “Papists,” and “Romanism the Rock Ahead,” etc.;

the pigeon‐holes of the _religious_ newspaper offices, and of newspapers

the contrary of religious, are ransacked for stale calumnies against the

church, and slanders over and over refuted are launched at the most gifted

and reputable of our citizens. This must all be changed before we can

consider that, as Catholics, we stand on an equality with non‐Catholic

Americans, and before we are prepared to admit that Protestantism,

mollified by time and distance, has lost any of its pristine love of

persecution and proscription. We would prefer to live at peace with every

shade of Christians, but, if they will not let us, they must take the

responsibility.

In stating our grievance in this manner, we do not address ourselves

specially to the sense of justice or fair play of the leaders of

Protestant opinion, but rather to the manhood and intelligence of our co‐

religionists who, by a more determined effort, might easily remove the

evils of which we complain. We are more confirmed in this view by a recent

event which happened at the national capital. The force of well‐regulated

public opinion will always be very powerful in this Republic, and we are

satisfied that the opposition very generally expressed by the Catholics of

the country to the scheme of compulsory education by the general

government, some time ago introduced into Congress by some distinguished

members, had a powerful effect in defeating, for a time at least, a

measure fraught with the greatest danger to our rights, and to the general

liberties of all the states.(131)

We expect little from the Protestant press or pulpits. The manner in which

the revival of religious persecutions in Europe has been looked upon by

them precludes the faintest hope that they will listen to the appeals of

humanity or justice where their passions, prejudices, or interests are

concerned. Not very long since, the schismatic king of Sardinia wantonly

levied war on the most defenceless and venerable sovereign in the world,

and despoiled him of the larger half of his small dominions; yet there was

not a single Protestant voice heard among us in reprobation of the foul

act. Two years ago the same royal _filibustero_, with, if possible, less

pretence, and without any warning, stealthily advanced his army on the

Eternal City, took possession of its churches and their sacred furniture;

its convents, and turned them into barracks and stables; its treasures of

art and literature, and sold them to the highest bidder; its colleges and

schools, and drove out the students and poor children to wander on the

face of the earth. Then the Protestant churches and meeting‐houses rang

with acclamations; and public assemblies were held by freedom‐loving

American citizens to congratulate the modern vandal on his “victory”

over—justice, religion, and civilization.

Rome has again been sacked, this time not by the rude Lutheran

_Landsknechte_, but by a more ruthless and more insidious foe, the

Garibaldini, the enemies of all forms of revealed religion, the men who

swear on the dagger and the bowl because they have no God to swear by. The

sovereign pontiff is virtually a prisoner in his Vatican; monks and

priests, passing along the streets to comfort the afflicted or administer

the sacraments to the dying, are set upon and slain at noon‐day; weak and

delicately nurtured ladies are turned out of their peaceful retreats into

the highways, to be insulted and derided by a crowd of vagabonds gathered

from every quarter of Europe; the libraries, statuary, paintings,

castings, and all the treasures which made Rome the centre of Christian

art, and the depository of the world’s store of classic literature, lie at

the mercy of a horde of ruffians, the very offscourings of Italian

society, called together to that devoted city by the hope of plunder and

the certainty of immunity for their crimes. All this and more is matter of

public notoriety, yet no word of execration, no wail of sorrow, at this

worse than vandalism rises up from a country that boasts its love of

civilization, its chivalry to women, its respect for sacred things, and

its patronage of the arts and letters. Why? They are only priests that are

assassinated, only helpless nuns that are jeered at, only Catholic

treasures that are stolen, shattered, or destroyed; right, justice,

liberty, and even ordinary humanity, can afford to suffer and be

forgotten, so that Catholicity be thereby weakened and checked in its

onward course. The force of bigotry can go no further.

Late European mails bring us an account of a general election throughout

“United Italy” on the universal suffrage plan—that supposed panacea for

all political ills. The Catholics in certain portions of the country, it

seems, who had hitherto abstained from voting, resolved this time to take

part in the contest. As soon as this became known to the ministry, a

circular was sent to even the local government officials, mayors of

cities, magistrates, police captains, poll‐clerks, returning officers,

etc., warning them of the danger, and threatening the severest penalties

if steps were not immediately taken to prevent the Catholics from electing

their candidates. The result was what might have been expected. The

officials have done their duty to the government, and now feel secure in

their places. The Catholics of one city, and that the largest, Naples,

did, however, despite of all official precautions to the contrary, carry

their election by an overwhelming majority; but, being only Catholic

voters, the election has been set aside without even the mockery of an

investigation or the least show of reason. Now, if such a thing had

occurred in France, or any other country governed under Catholic auspices,

we would be treated by nine‐tenths of the press of this country to a

dissertation on the inability of the Latin nations to understand free

institutions, and the folly of expecting an ignorant and slavish multitude

to be able to appreciate the right of suffrage; but, as this gigantic

fraud was perpetrated by a government in direct hostility to the head of

the church, it is passed over in dignified silence. Not a syllable of

remonstrance is uttered by our freedom‐shrieking friends—our Beechers,

Fultons, and Bellowses—who are so fond of interlarding their sermons with

political appeals against ballot‐stuffing and intimidation at the polls.

Let us turn for a moment to the present sad condition of Germany, the

cradle and the victim of religious dissent and doubt. Prussia emerged from

the late war not only the victor of France, but the conqueror of the

several independent states and cities of the late Germanic Confederation.

Her capacious maw has engulfed them all. Prince Bismarck, whose absolutist

tendencies have long been recognized, not content with his success in

creating an empire one and indivisible, desires to found a German church,

to be conducted on strictly military and autocratic principles. Having

disposed of a good many of the bodies, and taken possession of a large

share of the property of the subjects of the new empire, he is now anxious

to take care of their souls, and, whether they will or not, guide them in

the way of salvation and the Gospel—according to Bismarck. Obedience to

the central civil head in Berlin is to be the leading feature in his new

religious system, and the emperor, like his brother of Russia and the

Grand Lama, is to unite in himself absolute political and spiritual power,

tempered by Bismarck.

A large portion of the Germans, having great doubts as to whether or not

they have such things as souls to be saved, feel philosophically

indifferent; the sects, being weak and without popular support, can make

little resistance to the encroachments of the state; but the Catholic

body, powerful not less from its intelligence and independence than from

its numbers, utterly refuses to recognize the right or the authority of

the chancellor to interfere in their spiritual affairs. That astute

statesman first tried to frighten them by abolishing the denominational

schools, then by patronizing a few dissatisfied professors who call

themselves “Old Catholics,” but without avail; and now, like a genuine

follower of the teachings of Luther, he is resorting to expatriation and

persecution. He has already attacked the religious orders, and, as is

generally known, has procured a law to be passed expelling the Jesuits and

all religious in affiliation with them from the empire. It is not

pretended that the members of that illustrious body, individually or

collectively, have committed any offence against the state, nor is it even

proposed that a semblance of a trial should be granted them before

condemnation; but they have been guilty of opposing the designs of a

confirmed despot, and their removal from home, country, and the sphere of

their duties is forthwith decreed, and effected with all that mean

malignity which subordinates who hope for future favor so well know how to

exercise towards the victims of official oppression. The summary expulsion

of so many learned and studious men from their schools and colleges has

filled Europe with disgust and amazement; and even the more enlightened

class of German non‐Catholics, who at least know the value of their

acquirements and wonderful skill in training youth, have denounced, in the

most forcible terms, an act so detrimental to the true interests of their

country.

In England, a meeting of prominent Catholics was lately held, to protest,

in the name of religion and learning, against this exhibition of high‐

handed authority; but Protestantism, true to its instincts, took the

alarm, and, lest the Prussian Government might in the slightest degree be

influenced, hastened to send an address to Berlin to assure Bismarck of

English sympathy and support. This precious document was signed by fifty‐

seven persons, including the Marquis of Cholmondeley, the Bishops of

Worcester and Ripon, Lord Lawrence, Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Arthur Kinnaird,

the Archbishop of Armagh, the Moderators of the Established Church of

Scotland, of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, of the English

and Irish Presbyterian Churches, and the President and Secretary of the

Wesleyan Conference. The reply of Bismarck, who is not remarkable for his

“religiosity,” is full of sanctimonious cant and what, under the

circumstances, seems to us very like grim irony:

“Most warmly do I thank you and the gentlemen who were co‐

signatories of the address you were good enough to present to me

for this encouraging mark of approval. Your communication, sir,

possesses a greater value, coming as it does from a _country which

Europe has learnt for centuries to regard as the bulwark of civil

and religious liberty_. Rightly does the address estimate the

difficulties of the struggle which has been forced upon us

contrary both to the desire and expectation of the German

governments. It would be no light task for the state to preserve

religious peace and freedom of conscience, even were it not made

more difficult by the misuse of legitimate authority and by the

artificial disturbance of the minds of believers. I rejoice that I

agree with you on the fundamental principle that in a well‐ordered

community every person and every creed should enjoy that measure

of liberty which is compatible both with the freedom of the

remainder, and also with the independence and safety of the

country. God will protect the German Empire in the struggle for

this principle, even against those enemies who falsely use his

holy name as a pretext for their hostility against our internal

peace; but it will be a source of rejoicing to every one of my

countrymen that in this contest Germany has met with the approval

of so numerous and influential a body of Englishmen.”

Now, all this simply means that the man who controls the affairs of

Germany for the present is determined to destroy or to subject the

spiritual order to the state; to enforce compulsory education, and

prescribe forms of faith according to his ideas of what the “independence

and safety of the country” demand; the penalty of resistance, as in the

case of the Jesuits, being banishment, persecution, and perhaps worse,

should the necessities of the case, in his individual judgment, require

it. In this as in every other respect his word is all‐powerful in the

empire. Still, we have yet to learn that one advocate of the higher law in

America, one enemy of the union of church and state, one stickler for the

rights of conscience, one believer in private judgment and religious

freedom, has raised his voice against this violation of every right said

to be so dear to the Protestants of the United States. Not one Protestant

has _protested_ against this assumption of absolute power over the minds

and consciences of forty millions of people. Why? The answer is simple:

the blow, in this instance, is aimed at Catholicity. Yes, the Republic is

silent when even monarchical England feels herself constrained to speak.

In a late number of the _Manchester Examiner_, a paper, we believe,

anything but favorable to Catholics on general grounds, we noticed a very

pertinent article on the address alluded to, of which the following is an

extract, and we recommend it to the serious consideration of the

conductors of the sectarian newspapers:

“We cannot understand why bishops and deans of the English Church

should go into ecstasies over a united Germany, or why it should

furnish a theme for the pious applause of Wesleyan presidents and

Presbyterian moderators. Political changes concern politicians and

political societies. When the kingdoms of this world adopt a

different principle of grouping, all who take an interest in the

political concerns of mankind may find in the altered arrangements

abundant reason for gratulation or for dismay, but theological

creeds and spiritual interests have no direct concern in the

matter. If the unity of Germany were likely to give a great

impetus to Roman Catholic doctrine, and aid the extension of Papal

authority, Mr. Kinnaird would hardly have found in it a subject of

thanksgiving, though, as a political change, it might have been

equally desirable. Is it Prince Bismarck’s assumed hostility to

the dogma of papal infallibility, and the trenchant steps he has

taken with the Jesuits, that constitute the real merit of his

policy in Protestant eyes? Well, then, to begin with, it is not at

all clear that Prince Bismarck has any absolute aversion either to

papal infallibility or to the Jesuits. If the pope had only thrown

his influence into the scale of German unity, and employed it to

further the new political policy in Fatherland, he might have made

himself as infallible as he pleased without provoking any

hostility from Prince Bismarck. If the Jesuits, instead of

fighting against him, had fought for him, he would have made them

welcome to as much power as they liked to grasp. At present, he

finds them in his way, and he sends them off about their business;

but our Protestant friends must not make too sure of him. He has

fourteen millions of Catholics to govern, and he has no wish

whatever to be at variance with the Pope. Besides, the necessity

for getting rid of the Jesuits by depriving them of their civil

rights is a thing to be deplored; since, so far as it does not

spring from political considerations, the acts to which it leads

are acts of persecution, and entitled to our regret, if not to our

reprehension. We like the Jesuits just as little as the Germans

do, but we allow them to settle amongst us, feeling sure that the

law is strong enough to keep them in order. The thing really to be

deplored is that Germany cannot afford to do the same, and it is a

proper subject for commiseration rather than for eulogy.”

We have said more than enough to convince the most supine Catholic that

Protestantism in this country has lost little if any of its anti‐Christian

renown, and, if it cannot persecute here, it is in full sympathy with

those in Europe who can; that, while it has lost much of its capacity, it

has given up none of its desire for proscription. Split, as it is, into so

many antagonistic sects, and constantly losing large numbers who are

following out its teachings logically and gliding into indifferentism and

infidelity, it is comparatively powerless to work us new injuries; but it

is for us, by continued harmony, labor, and self‐sacrifice, to put beyond

peradventure the question of our right to full and unqualified religious

liberty and perfect impartiality in the administration of the laws.

Fleurange.

By Mrs. Craven, Author Of “A Sister’s Story.”

Translated From The French, With Permission.

Part Third. The Banks Of The Neckar.

XLV.

Fleurange, as we have said, generally returned to Rosenheim in the

evening, but that day she left the princess several hours earlier than

usual, and it was not yet night when Clement, who was alone in a room on

the ground floor, absorbed in a large volume open before him, saw her

suddenly appear at an hour when he expected her the least. Perhaps,

instead of reading, he had really been dreaming over his cousin’s gayety

which made him so sad the night before. At all events, when she appeared

so suddenly before him at this unusual hour, the same sensation contracted

his heart. There was, however, nothing in her appearance to justify his

presentiment. He feared in seeing Fleurange again he might behold traces

of the tears on her face which had probably succeeded her feverish and

causeless gayety. But now, if not smiling and gay as the evening before,

if, on the contrary, she looked serious and grave, her brow nevertheless

was radiant, and in her brilliant eyes it was easy to read an expression

of almost triumphant joy. All this by no means resembled the dejection

that usually follows a fit of factitious gayety.

“You are alone!” said she immediately. “So much the better, Clement. I

have something to tell you—you first, before any one else. You will see,”

she continued, throwing off her cloak, “that I am faithful to my promise.

I come to you now as to my brother and my best friend.”

As Clement looked at her and listened to this preamble, his heart

instinctively warned him more and more strongly a great trial was at hand

and he must prepare to suffer. But when, without much circumlocution, she

came to the point; when she clearly laid before him her design; when, with

a simplicity fearful from the strength of affection and devotedness it

revealed, she unfolded the plan of her projected immolation—an immolation

longed for, embraced, and decided upon—Clement literally felt his hair

stand on end and it seemed to him as if his reason was deserting him.

What! lose one so dear, so precious, so adored!—lose her forever!—and in

what way?—To see her voluntarily embrace a destiny too horrible for the

imagination to contemplate. And wherefore?—wherefore?—Ah! the cry of

Othello now resounded in Clement’s soul: “The cause—the cause!” Yes, the

cause of this sacrifice was what added so much bitterness to his pain—and

stung him so sharply, so cruelly, so intolerably, that, overpowered by the

unexpected disclosure, overcome by an emotion impossible to master,

Clement for a moment lost all control over himself. A smothered cry

escaped him, and, leaning his head on his clasped hands, the tears he

could not repress fell on the floor at his feet.

Clement’s firmness was so habitual that Fleurange was surprised at its

failing him now, and perhaps at the moment the hidden cause of this fit of

despair came over her like a momentary flash! But it was no time to dwell

on such a thought, and, besides, Clement did not give her the opportunity.

He rose and walked around the room in silence. His manly and courageous

heart sought to regain self‐control, by an interior appeal to Him who

alone could save it from bursting and renew its failing strength. He soon

approached her, having triumphed over his emotion, and his first words

gave an explanation quiet natural.

“Pardon me, Gabrielle,” said he, “I beg you, for my inconceivable

weakness. But I could not indeed have any—any friendship whatever for you,

to consider calmly the frightful perspective you so abruptly unfolded to

me! You understand that, I imagine?”

“Yes, I expected to see all the rest greatly terrified. But you, Clement—I

thought you capable of listening coolly to anything?”

“Well, my dear cousin, you had, you see, too high an opinion of my

courage. However, I will endeavor to behave better in the future. Do not

deprive me of your confidence, that is all I ask.”

“Oh! no, far from that, for it is on you I rely to inform the rest of the

family of my resolution, and especially, and before any one else, your

mother. You may imagine, Clement, that I must have her consent, and her

blessing likewise. And you will plead my cause with her.”

Clement was silent for some moments. He was trying to command his voice,

but it still trembled as he said: “And when do you think of starting?”

“In a week, if I can.”

“In a week!—That will be before the end of January! And have you thought

of the means of making such a journey at this season?”

Fleurange hesitated. “I am quite well aware,” said she, “that it will be

difficult for me to go alone.”

Clement hastily interrupted her in a terrified tone: “Alone!—I declare,

Gabrielle, it is impossible to listen to you coolly, though I know your

rash words must be taken seriously.”

“You must, however, take them so,” said she, in the same tone of energetic

tenderness which had struck the Princess Catherine. “You must resign

yourself to see me set out alone, if there is no other means of joining

him.”

Oh! how willingly Clement would that moment have changed places with the

prisoner! He was looking at Fleurange with sorrowful admiration when she

resumed: “I thought it would not be difficult to find some one travelling

to Russia with whom I could make the journey.”

“Go with strangers on so long and tedious a journey! That is impossible,

Gabrielle, more impossible than the rest.”

“Ah!” cried Fleurange then, “with what confidence I would have had

recourse to the kind friend Heaven once sent me. I feel his loss more now

than ever.”

“You mean Doctor Leblanc?—Yes, I render justice to his memory. I am sure

his devotedness would not have failed you under these circumstances. But

you try my patience indeed, Gabrielle; you are too cruel.”

“Clement!—”

“What! you need a friend who has the unpretending merit of being faithful,

devoted, capable of protecting you in so difficult a journey, and ready to

remain with you till—till he can follow you no longer! And at such a time

you do not deign even to remember you have a brother! And do you not see

that, in thinking of others, you overlook what is at once his privilege

and his duty?”

“Clement! my dear Clement!” said Fleurange, with tearful surprise, “what

do you say? and what answer can I make? Assuredly I relied, and do rely,

on you as a brother, and yet I confess I should not have ventured to ask

you to make such a journey with me.”

Clement smiled bitterly. He could not help comparing what she was ready to

do for another with what she thought him incapable of doing for her.

“Well, my cousin,” said he coldly, “you were wrong; it seems to me it was

the very time to remember the promise you made me. As to me, I am merely

faithful to the engagement I made the same day, that is all.”

“God bless you, Clement!—bless and reward you!” said she, much affected.

“Yes, I acknowledge I was wrong. I should have known there was no kindness

on earth equal to yours.”

She held out her hand. He pressed it in his without saying a word, and

without looking at her; then they separated. Fleurange longed to be alone.

Clement went to fulfil her commission to his mother.

XLVI.

It was the professor’s regular hour of repose in the latter part of the

morning. Everything was quiet around him. His wife was seated at her wheel

in the next room ready to answer the slightest call; for Madame Dornthal

knew how to handle the spindle, and, in accordance with a custom kept up

longer in Germany than anywhere else, had spun with her own hands the two

finest pieces of linen for her daughter’s trousseau. She looked up as her

son entered, and saw by his face that something agitated him. She gave him

an inquiring look.

“I wish to speak to you, mother,” said he, in a low tone. “Let us go where

we can talk freely.”

Madame Dornthal stopped spinning, immediately rose, and, ordering a young

servant to take her place and call her if needed, she followed her son,

softly closing the door behind her.

The opposite door, on the same corridor, opened into Clement’s chamber.

They went there. Clement began to relate the conversation he had just had.

His first words were met by an exclamation of surprise, after which Madame

Dornthal listened without interrupting him. Her face by turns expressed

interest, pity, and admiration, as he spoke; and it was with tearful eyes

and a faltering voice she finally replied:

“My consent and blessing, do you say? You ask them for her? Poor child!

how can I refuse my blessing to such devotedness! But my consent,” she

continued gravely—“I cannot give that unconditionally.”

“What! mother,” said Clement earnestly, “can you think of refusing to let

her go?”

“No, dear Clement; but I can refuse to let you accompany her.”

Clement started. “Mother!” cried he with surprise.

Madame Dornthal brushed back Clement’s hair with her hand, and looked him

in the face, as we know she loved to do when moved to unusual tenderness

towards him, then slowly said:

“Alone to St. Petersburg with Gabrielle! Have you reflected on this,

Clement?”

Clement’s face slightly flushed, but his eyes met his mother’s with a

beautiful expression of candor and purity. “Mother,” said he, “Gabrielle

looks upon me as a brother. As for me”—he hesitated a moment and turned

pale, but continued in a firm tone—“as for me, I regard her now as the

wife of another. I hope you do not think it possible I can ever forget

it!”

Madame Dornthal’s eyes filled with tears, and for a moment she looked at

her son silently. Never had she loved him so much! Never had she so fully

comprehended how worthy of affection he was! But the hour had come—perhaps

the only period in life when the most passionate maternal love is

powerless, and can do nothing, absolutely nothing, to comfort her

suffering child!

She realized this; she felt she must respect her son’s secret sorrow, and

repress the impulse of her own affection. Neither compassion nor sympathy

could be of any avail at such a time. She therefore refrained with the

sure instinct of a responsive heart, and Clement’s agitation soon

subsided. He resumed in a calm tone: