Baldwin, finding his secret discovered, fled to a distant and more

inaccessible part of the forest; he was tracked thither, and again fled;

but the pursuers finally got possession of him, and dragged him by main

force into the neighboring town; the people flocked eagerly to see him,

and with one voice they proclaimed him their long‐lost Baldwin, welcoming

him with joyful acclamations as a father returned from the dead. Whether

this popular welcome merely emboldened the real Baldwin to confess his

identity and, as a necessary consequence, claim his rights, or whether it

suggested to the false one the idea of simulating the person whom he

resembled and was taken for, it is impossible to say, but at any rate from

this period we no longer see him dragged, but marching forth, of his own

free‐will, from town to town, and surrounded by all the paraphernalia of

an injured claimant. His march was not, however, one of unbroken triumph;

the town of Flanders refused to believe in him, and indignantly scouted

himself and his followers as a band of impostors. The daughters of the

dead man, Jeanne and Marguerite, refused to believe in him, and denounced

him as a malefactor whose aim was to stir up disorder in the state for his

own ambitious purposes. But Jeanne’s government was odious to the people;

to escape from her harsh and cruel rule they would have willingly adopted

any claimant who came with a fair show of right to enlist their credulity.

Jeanne knew this, and at once took strong measures to put down the

movement. It proved more difficult than she anticipated. Before many

months the country was in a blaze, divided into two camps, one of

believers, the other disbelievers, but both ready to devour each other to

prove and disprove their special theories. A witness whose testimony went

hard against the claimant was that of the old bailiff of Quesnoy; he had

known Baldwin from a child, and mourned over him like a father, and, when

he now appeared at the castle gates and demanded admittance, the old man

refused to open to him, and vowed solemnly that he was not his master, but

a base impostor. The conduct of this stubborn sceptic drew forth a

pathetic appeal from the claimant. “I find,” he says, “more cruel enemies

in my own house than in the land of strangers. Flanders, my mother, dost

thou repulse thy son whom Greece and Macedonia received with open arms! I

escaped from Adrianople through the carelessness of my guards; I fell into

the hands of barbarians, who dragged me to the distant plains of Asia;

there, like a vile slave, I, who had wielded the sceptre, was condemned to

dig the earth; I dug until some German merchants, to whom I confided my

story, ransomed me, and sent me back to my country, and lo! I arrive and

show myself, and you repulse me! My daughter Jeanne refuses to own me in

order not to resign her rank and subside into the subject of a court!”

Unmoved by this touching denunciation, Jeanne persisted in disowning him,

but, failing to prove her case, she referred it to Louis VII. of France.

Louis, much interested in the extraordinary story, willingly undertook the

arbitration. The claimant, on his side, testified great satisfaction on

hearing that his fate was placed in the hands of a wise and powerful

monarch, who was sure to prove a just and discerning judge; he set out in

high spirits to Compiègne, where the king was then residing. Attired in

the violet robes of a hermit, and bearing a white wand in his hand, he

entered the august assembly with a countenance full of unblushing

assurance, saluted the King of France with an air of proud equality, and

noticed the barons and knights by a courtly inclination of the head.

Louis, who had carefully studied the case, conducted the examination

himself; he put many subtle and perplexing questions to the supposed

Baldwin concerning events which had passed in his youth, and which it was

thought impossible he could have learned from any one he had seen since

his return, and the claimant answered accurately with an assurance that

carried conviction with it. The examination lasted several hours, and, the

closer it pressed him, the more triumphantly it established his identity.

The witnesses who boasted of being able to confound the imposture in the

twinkling of an eye were themselves confounded; they withdrew covered with

confusion, and vowing inwardly that “this man was sold to the devil,” as

only the father of lies could have told him so many hidden things, and

borne him to success through such a quagmire of difficulties. There was,

indeed, much conflicting evidence forthcoming. Henri, his brother, was

dead, but the Dukes of Brabant and Limbourg, cousins and contemporaries of

Baldwin’s, swore that the claimant was the real man; on the other hand,

sixteen knights of unimpeachable honor swore to having seen the real man

dead on the field of Adrianople. The king, after hearing with great

patience, and weighing most impartially what was said on both sides,

declared in favor of the claimant. The excitement was indescribable when

he rose to pronounce the verdict; but at this point the Bishop of Beauvais

stepped from his seat, and, holding up his right hand, adjured Louis to

suspend for one moment the final words while he put a few short questions

to the hermit. The king consented; a deathlike silence fell upon the

assembly, and the bishop, going close up to the hermit, who was seated on

a chair in the centre of the great hall, addressed him thus in a loud

voice:

“Answer me three questions: 1st, In what place did you render homage to

King Philip Augustus? 2d, By whom were you invested with the order of

knighthood? 3d, Where did you marry Marie de Champagne?”

The claimant stammered, grew pale, and, after a vain attempt to fence with

the questions, broke down. Extraordinary as it may seem, he had never

given a thought to these prominent events in the life of Baldwin of

Constantinople, or foreseen that he would be questioned concerning them.

The enthusiastic sympathy of the court was changed in an instant to rage

and scorn. Sentence of death was pronounced on the hermit of Glaucon on a

charge of high treason, conspiring, fraud, perjury, and the long list of

iniquities that make up the sum of a claimant’s budget. But having thus

far acquitted himself of his office, the king handed over the criminal to

Jeanne to be dealt with as she thought fit. In those rough and ready days

there were no back‐stairs for a plucky claimant to escape by, no counsel

to save him with a nonsuit, or such like modern convenience; the make‐

believe Baldwin was without more ado hung up between two dogs on the

market‐place of Flanders. Some chroniclers throw uncomfortable doubts on

the justice of the execution; a few maintain that this was the true man,

and anathematize Jeanne as a parricide who sacrificed her own father to

the love of power. Père Cahour, who is certainly a conscientious writer,

speaks of her, on the other hand, as a just and upright woman, utterly

incapable of so diabolical a crime, and stoutly vindicates the evidence of

the sixteen knights, though how he adapts it to the belief in Baldwin’s

capture by Joanice, which appears to have been general after the battle of

Adrianople, it is difficult to see. The _Chronique de Meyer_, again,

denounces Jeanne as an execrable monster, and declares that the man who

was hanged was the real Baldwin. Clearly claimants have been always a

troublesome race to deal with; even hanging does not seem to make an end

of them, for their claims outlive them, and leave to historians a legacy

of doubt and discord that is exceedingly difficult to settle.

The passage of S. Louis at Compiègne is marked by an event characteristic

of him and of his time. He had ransomed from the Venetians at at an

enormous price the crown of thorns of our Saviour. To do it public honor

he carried it bare‐headed and bare‐footed from the wood of Vincennes to

the Cathedral of Notre Dame, and thence to the Sainte Chapelle, that

gemlike little shrine which had been raised expressly to receive the

priceless relic, and whose beauty is invested with a fresh interest since

it escaped the fire of the Communists; the Conciergerie and the Palais de

Justice were burning so close to it that the flames might have licked its

walls, yet not even one of its wonderful stained‐glass windows was

injured.

Other monuments S. Louis left behind him, not built of stone or precious

metals, but which have nevertheless endured and come down to us unimpaired

by the lapse of ages, while houses and castles of stony granite have

crumbled away, leaving no record on the hearts of men. Compiègne in the

days of the saintly king was the refuge of God’s poor, of the sick and the

sorrowing; S. Louis gave up to them all the rooms he could spare from his

household, and devoted to tending and serving them with his own hands what

time he could steal from the affairs of state.

To Be Continued.

The Russian Clergy.

We have heard nothing new of late about the project of certain zealous

Anglicans and members of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United

States to establish communion between their churches and the schismatic

Oriental Christians in the empire of Russia. It seemed fitting enough at

first glance that the special variety of Christianity introduced by Henry

VIII. should agree with the methods of ecclesiastical discipline

prescribed by an equally autocratic sovereign at the opposite extremity of

Europe; and there were, of course, abundant reasons why the Anglicans and

their American descendants should covet a recognition from a branch of the

church which, whatever its corruptions and irregularities, can at least

make good its connection with the parent stem. Our readers have not

forgotten, however, how coldly the overtures of these ambitious

Protestants were received. The Russian clergy ridiculed the hierarchical

pretensions of their English and American friends. They denied their

apostolical succession. They questioned their right to call themselves

churchmen at all; and, in short, looked upon them as no better than

heretics, and not very consistent heretics either. The movement for union

was a foolish one, begun in utter misconception of the radical differences

between the two parties, and sure from the first to end in discomfiture

and irritation.

Indeed, it was even more foolish than most of us still suppose. Not only

was it impossible for the Russian Church to make the concessions required

of it, but there is no reason to believe that the Episcopalians would have

been very well satisfied with their new brethren had the alliance been

effected. The Russian Church is an organization which stands far apart

from every other in the world, presenting some monstrous features which

even Protestantism cannot parallel. The Jesuit Father Gagarin has

published a very curious work on the condition and prospects of the

Russian clergy,(185) which would perhaps have modified the zeal of the

English and American petitioners for union and recognition if they could

have read it before making their recent overtures. We see here the

rottenness and uselessness into which a national church falls when it is

cut off from the centre of Christian unity and the source of Christian

life.

The Russian priests are divided into two classes, the white and the black

clergy, or seculars and monks. The great difference between them is, the

white clergy are married, and the black are celibates. Whatever learning

there is in the ecclesiastical order is found among the monks. The bishops

are always chosen from the monastic class; and the two classes hate each

other with remarkable heartiness. The marriage of priests is an old custom

in the East, which antedates the organization of the Russian schism. It

prevails in some of the united Oriental churches to this day. But in

Russia it exists in a peculiarly aggravated form. Peter I. and his

successors, by a multitude of despotic ukases, succeeded in erecting the

white clergy into a strict caste, making the clerical profession

practically hereditary, and marriage a necessary condition of the secular

clerical state. The candidate for orders has his choice between matrimony

and the monastery; one of the two he must embrace before he can be

ordained.

The rule seems to have originated in an attempt to improve the education

of the white clergy. The deplorable ignorance of the order led the

government to establish ecclesiastical schools. But the schools remained

deserted. The clergy were then _ordered_ to send their children to them,

and sometimes the pupils were arrested by the police and taken to school

in chains. The Czar Alexander I. ordered, in 1808 and 1814, that all

clerks’ children between six and eight years of age should be at the

disposal of the ecclesiastical schools; and, that there might be no lack

of children, the candidate for the priesthood was compelled to take a wife

before he could take orders. Once in the seminary, the scholar has no

prospect before him except an ecclesiastical life. He cannot embrace any

other career without special permission, which is almost invariably

refused. At the same time, the seminaries are closed against all except

the sons of the clergy. The son of a nobleman, a merchant, a citizen, a

peasant, who wanted to enter, would meet with insurmountable obstacles,

unless he chose to become a monk.

Thus the paternal government of the czar secures first an unfailing supply

of pastors for the Russian Church, which otherwise might be insufficiently

served; and, secondly, a career for the children of the clergy, free from

the competition of outside candidates. And, indeed, the priests might very

well say: Since you compel us to marry, you are bound, at least, to

furnish a support for our offspring. But the system does not stop here.

What shall be done with the priests’ daughters? In the degraded condition

of the Russian Church, where the white clergy or popes are popularly

ranked lower in the social scale than petty shopkeepers or noblemen’s

servants, these young women could not expect to find husbands except among

the peasantry, and they might not readily find them there. The obvious

course is to make them marry in their own order. The seminarian,

therefore, by a further regulation of the paternal government, is not only

obliged to marry, whether he will or no, but he must marry a priest’s

daughter, and some bishops are so careful of the welfare of their subjects

that they will not suffer a clerk to marry out of his own diocese. Special

schools are established for these daughters of the church; and we could

imagine a curious course of instruction at such institutions, if the

Russian ecclesiastical schools really attempted to fit their pupils for

the life before them; but, as we shall see further on, they do nothing of

the kind.

Sometimes it happens that a priest has built a house on land belonging to

the church. He dies, leaving a son or a daughter. His successor in the

parish has a right to the use of the land, but what shall be done with the

house? The law solves this difficulty by providing that the living shall

either be saved for the son (who may be a babe in arms), or given to any

young Levite who will marry the daughter. Thus the clerical caste is made

in every way as compact and comfortable as possible, and, for a man of

mean extraction, moderate ambition, and small learning, becomes a

tolerable, if not a brilliant career.

The clergy of a fully supplied parish consists of a priest, a deacon, and

two clerics, who perform the duties of lector, sacristan, beadle, bell‐

ringer, etc. The deacon has little to do, except to share on Sunday in the

recitation of the liturgy, which, being inordinately long, is sometimes

divided into sections and read or chanted by several persons concurrently,

each going at the top of his speed. The clerks of the lower ranks,

however, may pursue a trade, but they are all enrolled in the same caste,

out of which they must not marry. The number of parish priests in Russia

is about 36,000; of deacons, 12,444; of inferior clerics, 63,421. One‐half

the revenue of the parish belongs to the priest, one‐quarter to the

deacon, and one‐eighth to each of the two clerics. The prizes of the

profession are the chaplaincies to schools, colleges, prisons, hospitals,

in the army, in the navy, about the court, etc., most of which are

liberally paid. The parochial clergy are supported by: 1. Property

belonging to the parish, chiefly in the towns, yielding about $500,000 per

annum; 2. A government allowance of $3,000,000 per annum; 3. About

$20,000,000 per annum contributed by parishioners; 4. Perpetual

foundations, with obligation to pray for the departed, invested in

government funds at four per cent., say $1,075,000. The average income of

a priest is thus about $341. In addition to this, however, each parish has

a glebe, of which the usufruct belongs to the clergy. The minimum extent

of this church domain is about eighty acres, and it is divided after the

same rule as the revenues, namely, one‐half to the priest, one‐quarter to

the deacon, and the remainder to the inferior clerks. When there is no

deacon, the priest’s share is, of course, proportionately larger. In many

parishes, the glebe is much more extensive than eighty acres. In Central

Russia, it amounts sometimes to 250, 500, even 2,500 acres; and, in those

fertile provinces known as the Black Lands, the share of the priest alone

is sometimes as much as 150 acres. At St. Petersburg, the church provides

the parish priest a comfortable and elegant home. “The furniture is from

the first shops in Petersburg. Rich carpets cover the floors of the

drawing‐room, study, and chamber; the windows display fine hangings; the

walls, valuable pictures. Footmen in livery are not rarely seen in the

anteroom. The dinners given by these curés are highly appreciated by the

most delicate epicures. Occasionally their salons are open for a soirée or

a ball; ordinarily it is on the occasion of a wedding, or the birthday of

the curé, or on the patron saint’s day. The apartments are then

magnificently lighted up; the toilettes of the ladies dazzling; the

dancing is to the music of an orchestra of from seven to ten musicians. At

supper the table is spread with delicacies, and champagne flows in

streams. A Petersburg curé, recently deceased, loved to relate that at his

daughter’s nuptials champagne was drunk to the value of 300 roubles

(£48).”

Considering the education and social standing of a Russian priest, this is

not bad. In the rural districts there is much less clerical luxury; there

is even a great deal of poverty and hardship. But we must not forget that

the rustic clergy is but a little higher in culture than the rudest of the

peasantry, and a life which would seem intolerable to an American laborer

is elysium to a Russian hind. Most, even of country priests, have

comfortable houses, well furnished with mahogany and walnut; and, though

they do not eat meat every day that the church allows it, they have their

balls and dancing parties, at which their daughters dance with the young

men from the neighboring theological seminaries. The wives and daughters

of the reverend gentlemen, to be sure, have to labor sometimes in the

fields; but “they are dressed by the milliner of the place; you will

always see them attired with elegance; they do not discard crinoline, and

never go out without a parasol”—except, of course, when they are going to

hoe corn and dig potatoes.

The voluntary contributions of the parishioners are collected, or

enforced, in a variety of ways, and paid in a variety of forms. Towards

the feast of S. Peter each house gives from three to five eggs and a

little milk. After the harvest, each house gives a certain quantity of

wheat. When a child is born, the priest is called in to say a few prayers

over the mother, and give a name to the baby; the fee for this is a loaf

and from 4 to 8 cents. Baptism brings from 8 to 24 cents more. For a

second visitation and prayers at the end of six weeks there is a fee of a

dozen eggs. At betrothals the priest gets a loaf, some brandy, and

sometimes a goose or a sucking‐pig. For a marriage he is paid from $1 60

to $3 20; for a burial, from 80 cents to $1 60; for a Mass for the dead,

from 28 to 64 cents; for prayers for the dead, which are often repeated, 4

or 8 cents each time; for prayers read at the cemetery on certain days

every year, some rice, a cake, or some pastry. The peasants often have a

Te Deum chanted either on birthday or name‐day, or to obtain some special

favor; the fee for that is from 8 to 16 cents. The penitent always pays

something when he receives absolution; but as confession is not frequent

in the Russian Church, the income from this source must be small. In the

towns the fee is often as high as $1, $2, $4, and even more. Among the

peasantry it sometimes does not exceed a kopec (one cent); but if the

penitent wishes to receive communion, he must renew his offering several

times. At Easter, Christmas, the Epiphany, the beginning and end of Lent,

and on the patron saint’s day, which sometimes occurs two or three times a

year, it is customary to have prayers chanted in every house in the

parish, for which the charge varies in the rural districts from 4 cents to

60 cents each visit, according to the importance of the occasion. In the

large cities the fees are much more considerable. Father Gagarin cites the

case of a parishioner in St. Petersburg to whom the clergy presented

themselves in this manner twenty‐seven times in a single year, and at each

call he had to give them something. This, however, was an exception.

Generally the visits are only fifteen a year. “Sometimes it happens,”

continues our author, “that the peasant cannot or will not give what the

priest asks. Hence arise angry disputes. One priest—so runs the

story—unable to overcome the obstinacy of a peasant refusing to pay for

the prayers read in his house, declared that he would reverse them. He had

just before chanted, ‘_Benedictus Deus noster_’; he now intoned, ‘NON

_Benedictus_, NON _Deus_, NON _noster_’ thus intercalating a _non_ before

each word. The affrighted peasant, the chronicle says, instantly complied.

Often enough, too, in spite of all the prohibitions of the synod, the

wives and children of the priests, deacons, and clerks accompany their

husbands and fathers, and stretch out _their_ hands also. The worst of all

this is that the Russian peasant, while long disputing merely about a few

centimes, will think himself insulted unless the priest accept a glass of

brandy. And when the circuit of all the houses in the village has to be

made, though he stay only a few minutes in each, this last gift is not

without its inconveniences.” It must be an edifying round certainly. But

then the reverend gentleman has a wife to help him home.

The black clergy is not in a much better condition than the white. All the

monasteries are supposed to be under the rule of S. Basil; but they are

not united in congregations, each establishment being independent of all

the rest. Most of them do not observe the great religious rule of poverty

and community of goods, but each monk has own purse, and the superiors are

often wealthy. One hundred years ago, the number of convents, not

reckoning those in Little and White Russia, was 954. The ukase of

Catharine II., which confiscated the property of the clergy, suppressed

all but 400. Since then the number has increased.

The great increase in the number of monks between 1836 and 1838 is

accounted for by the forcible incorporation of the United Greeks. This was

not formally effected until 1839, but the United Greeks were reckoned as

part of the Russian Church in 1838, and many of their monks were

transferred from their own to the non‐united monasteries earlier than

that. It will be seen, however, that the increase thus obtained was not

permanent.

The curious discrepancy between the number of monks and the number of nuns

has an equally curious explanation. Women are forbidden, by a decree of

Peter the Great, to take the vows under forty years of age. Hence the

convents are crowded with postulants who must wait sometimes twenty years

before they can take the veil. Some persevere, some return to the world,

and many continue to live in the convent without becoming professed. If we

reckon the whole population of the convents—monks, nuns, novices, and

aspirants—we shall find the number of the two sexes more nearly agree.

It is interesting to see from which classes of society these monks and

nuns are drawn. F. Gagarin distinguishes five classes: I. The clergy,

including priests, deacons, and clerks, with their wives and children; II.

The nobility, embracing not only the titled nobility, but government

functionaries and members of the learned professions; III. The urban

population, comprising merchants, artisans, citizens, etc.; IV. The rural

population, consisting of peasants of all conditions; V. The military. The

monks are recruited from these five classes in the following ratio:

Clergy: 54.3 per cent.

Urban population: 22.3 "

Rural population: 16.3 "

Military: 3.4 "

Nobility: 3 "

The immense preponderance of the clerical element is owing primarily, of

course, to the regulation of caste, which virtually compels the children

of the clergy to follow the profession of their fathers. For the

ambitious, the monastery alone offers an alluring prospect, since it is

from the black clergy that the bishops are taken. The religious calling,

therefore, in Russia is not so much a vocation as a career. If there were

really an unselfish devout tendency towards the monastic life among the

children of the clergy, we should expect to find it stronger with the

daughters than with the sons. But the case is far otherwise. There are no

bishoprics for the women; their career is to marry priests, go with them

from house to house collecting alms, and help them home when they have

taken too much brandy. Hence we find the following ratio among the

population of the nunneries:

Urban population: 38.8 per cent.

Rural population: 31 "

Clergy: 13 "

Nobility: 12 "

Military: 4 "

The number of recruits supplied to monasteries by the clerical profession

averages 140 a year. These comprise a curious variety of persons. First,

there are priests or deacons who have committed grave crimes; they are

sentenced to the convent, as lay convicts are sentenced to the galleys.

Next there are seminarists who have failed in their studies; if they quit

the ranks of the clergy altogether, they are forced into the army; if they

remain among the white clergy, they have no prospect of becoming anything

better than sacristans or beadles; by entering a convent they will at

least live more comfortably and may aspire to become deacons or priests.

Then there are deacons and priests who have lost their wives; they cannot

marry again; the Russian government hesitates to entrust a parish to a

wifeless priest; the wife indeed, as we have just seen, has some very

important functions to perform in the administration of parochial rites;

so the unfortunate widower is not only advised but sometimes compelled to

go to a convent. Again, there are seminarists who after completing their

studies act as professors for some time before they are ordained. Suppose

such a man has been married and his wife dies. He cannot be ordained if he

marry again. He cannot be ordained a secular priest without a wife. He

must either go to the convent or seek some career outside the clerical

profession, and that, as we have seen, it is almost impossible to find.

Ambition draws many to the monastery. A student of any one of the four

great academies of St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kasan, and Kieff, who embraces

the monastic life during his academical course, is morally certain on

quitting the academy of being named inspector or prefect of studies in a

seminary; at the end of a few years he becomes rector; and if he do not

impede his own advancement he can hardly fail to be a bishop after a

while. Still there is difficulty in obtaining from the academies a

sufficient number of educated monks, and according to F. Gagarin some

extraordinary devices are resorted to in order to supply the demand. When

persuasion has failed, the student whom the convent wishes to capture is

invited to pass the evening with one of the monks. Brandy is produced and

it is not difficult to make the young man drunk. While he is insensible

the ceremony of taking the habit and receiving the tonsure is performed on

him, and he is then put to bed. When he awakes, he finds by his side,

instead of the lay garments he wore the night before, a monastic gown. All

resistance is useless. He is told that what is done cannot be undone, and

after a while he submits angrily to his fate. This at any rate was the

method of impressment into the religious state adopted fifty years ago.

Now, says our author, it is unnecessary, inasmuch as a shorter way has

been found of reaching the same result. The students of the academies

(these are students of theology, be it remembered—equivalent to our

seminarians) are in the habit of frequenting public‐houses and getting

drunk. They are carried home on hand‐barrows, and this proceeding is known

as the “Translation of the Relics.” When a young man has been fixed upon

as a desirable recruit for the monastery, the superior has only to watch

until he is brought home on a barrow; the next morning, while his head and

his stomach are rebuking him, he is informed that he has been expelled for

his disgraceful conduct; but, if he will give a proof of his sincere

repentance by making a written request to be received as a monk, he may be

forgiven.

There is no novitiate in the Russian convents. The neophyte makes his vows

at once—provided he has reached the age prescribed by the law—and

instances are not wanting of monks who have even attained the episcopate

without ever having lived in a convent. According to the Russian law,

academy pupils may make the religious profession at 25; other men at 30.

It often happens that a youth has finished his studies before reaching 25;

in that case, instead of applying for a dispensation, he makes a false

statement of his age. Others who fail at their books wait for their

thirtieth year, and are placed meanwhile each one under the care of some

monk, who is supposed to form him for the monastic state. But he receives

no religious training. He does not learn to pray, to meditate, to examine

his conscience. He waits upon his master; he joins in the long service in

the church; and the rest of the time he spends in amusement within or

without the convent. His pleasures are not always of the most edifying

character, and his excursions are not confined to the day.

What sort of monks can be formed by such training? The asceticism

prescribed by S. Basil is rarely observed. Meat is forbidden, but it is a

common dish on the convent tables. Drunkenness is so prevalent that it

hardly causes surprise. “After that,” says our author, “one can imagine

what becomes of the vow of chastity.” There is, as we have already said,

no pretence of observing holy poverty. Every monk has a certain share of

the convent revenues, proportioned to his rank, and this share is

sometimes large. The average income of the black clergy is not easily

ascertained. There are two sorts of convents—those which receive aid from

the state, as compensation for confiscated estates, and those which depend

entirely upon private resources. Those of the first kind are divided into

monasteries of the first, second, and third classes, receiving from the

government respectively 2,000, 1,600, and 670 roubles a year ($1,680,

$1,344, $563). There are 278 of these convents, receiving 259,200 roubles,

or about $217,728 from this source. In former years, each convent was

entitled to the compulsory services of a certain number of peasants. Since

the emancipation of the serfs the government has commuted this privilege

by paying an annual sum of 307,850 silver roubles, or $258,594. Endowments

with an obligation to pray for the departed yield in addition $2,150,400

to white and black clergy together. Let us suppose that the monks get one‐

half; that would be $1,075,200 per annum. Then the convents possess large

properties in arable lands, woodlands, meadows, fisheries, mills, etc. One

convent is mentioned which has derived an income of $10,000 merely from

the resin collected in its forests. The greater part of the revenues,

however, are derived from the voluntary contributions of the people. These

seem to be enormous. Russians prefer to be buried within the precincts of

the monasteries, and the monks not only ask an exorbitant price for the

grave, but make the deceased a permanent source of profit by charging for

prayers over his remains. Images famous for miracles, churches enriched

with the relics of saints, have multitudes of visitors who never come

empty‐handed. How much can be made from this concourse of the faithful may

be imagined when it is remembered that a single laura, that of S. Sergius

at Moscow, is visited every year by a million pilgrims. Begging brothers

traverse all Russia, gathering alms. A very pretty trade is driven in wax

tapers. The various arts resorted to by the white clergy to collect money

are well known to the monks also. The Laura of S. Sergius is said to have

a revenue all told of at least 2,000,000 roubles ($1,680,000), and a

single chapel in Moscow yields to the convent to which it is attached an

annual income of about $80,000. These princely revenues are not devoted to

learning, education, charity, religion. A large part is misappropriated by

the persons appointed to gather them. A third is the property of the

superiors. The rest is divided among the monks. The annual income of the

superior of one of the great lauras is from $33,600 to $50,400; of the

superior of a monastery of the first class, from $8,400 to $25,200; second

class, $4,200 to $8,400; third class, $840 to $4,200. All this is for

their personal use; the monastery gives them lodging, food, and fuel, and

they have to buy nothing but their clothing.

The seminaries, governed by the state, teach successfully neither piety

nor learning. The tendency of the courses of instruction is to become

secular rather than ecclesiastical. A proposal has recently been made that

each bishop shall choose for his diocesan seminary a learned and pious

priest to hear the confessions of the pupils, and excite them to devout

practices; but it is objected that no secular priest can be found who is

fit to discharge such important functions, while those monks who are fit

are already employed in more important duties; besides, if one could

discover among the white clergy the right sort of man, so much virtue

would come very expensive, and the bishops could not or would not pay the

salary he would be in a condition to demand. The seminarians are required

to confess twice a year, namely, during the first week of Lent and during

Holy Week. In reality, most of them omit the second confession; they go

home to their families at Holy Week, and rarely approach the sacraments,

though they always bring back a certificate from the parish priest that

they have done so. A new regulation prescribes two additional confessions

and communions, namely, at Christmas and the Assumption, and attempts

another reform by ordaining that seminarians shall say their prayers

morning and evening, and grace before and after meat.

The bishops are appointed by the czar, and transferred, promoted,

degraded, imprisoned, knouted, or put to death at the imperial pleasure.

Until very recently, no bishop could leave his diocese without the

permission of the synod, so that consultations among the episcopacy were,

of course, impossible. Now, however, a bishop may absent himself for eight

days, on giving notice to the synod. It is the synod at St. Petersburg

that exercises, under the czar, the whole ecclesiastical authority of the

empire. The bishop has no power, and nothing to do but to sign reports.

All the business of his diocese is really transacted by a lay secretary,

appointed not by the bishop, but by the synod. Under the secretary is a

chancery of six or seven chief clerks, with assistant clerks and writers.

This office superintends all the affairs of the clergy, and transacts no

business without drink‐money. It is the most venal and rapacious of all

Russian bureaus, and such a mine of wealth to the officials that recently,

when the chancery of a certain town was abolished on account of the

destruction of its buildings by fire, the employees petitioned to be

allowed to restore them at their own expense. The secretary is the one

all‐powerful person of the diocese. From 12,000 to 15,000 files of

documents are referred to the chancery every year for decision, and it is

he who passes upon them, asking nothing of the bishop except his

signature. He is almost invariably corrupt, and as he possesses, through

his relations with the synod, the power to ruin the bishop if he chooses,

there is no one to interfere with him.

The synod consists of the metropolitan of St. Petersburg and a number of

other bishops chosen by the czar and changed every now and then, and of

two or three secular priests, one of whom is the czar’s chaplain, and

another the chief chaplain of the army and navy. But in reality, the whole

power of the synod is held by an imperial procurator, who sits in the

assembly, watches all its proceedings, stops deliberations whenever he

sees fit, is the intermediary between the church and the state, and

formulates decisions for the signature of the synod. Most of these

decisions are signed without reading, and sometimes they are made to

express the direct contrary of the sense of the assembly. The procurator,

in a word, is to the synod what the secretary is to the bishop—the

representative of the civil power ruling the enslaved and submissive

church. The czar speaks through the procurator, the procurator speaks

through the lay secretaries of the bishop, and so the church is governed

practically without troubling the clergy at all.

The “Old Catholics” of Germany, and the new and improved Catholics who are

(perhaps) going to be made under the patent of Father Hyacinthe and wife,

are understood to be looking eagerly for connections in various parts of

the world. Let them by all means go to Russia. They will see there how

much liberty a church gains when it cuts itself off from its obedience to

the See of Peter, and what kind of a clergy is constructed when men try to

improve upon the models of Almighty God.

The Cross Through Love, And Love Through The Cross.

Maheleth Cristalar was the daughter of a Spanish Jew. Her father had once

been very wealthy, and indeed until the age of sixteen she had lived in

princely splendor. The beauties of her Spanish home were very dear to her;

she had many friends, and as much time as she chose to spend in study.

But one day, her mother, a stately, handsome matron, came into her little

sitting‐room, looking pale and worn.

“Maheleth, my child,” she began, in faltering tones, “we have had some bad

news this morning. I am afraid we are in danger of being totally ruined.”

The young girl looked up; she was very beautiful, and the spiritual

expression on her face intensified and heightened her beauty in a singular

degree.

“Ruined, dear mother? Is my father very unhappy about it?”

“He is more angry than unhappy; it has happened through the dishonesty of

persons he trusted.”

“Shall we have to leave home?” asked Maheleth.

“I fear we shall; it is a heavy trial.”

“It will be for our good in the end, mother darling. I am so sorry for you

and my father, because you have always been used to riches.”

“So have you, my poor child.”

“But not for so long a time; and it is easier to root up a sapling than a

full‐grown tree.”

“Ah! you hardly know what may be before you, Maheleth; your sisters are

mere children; we have but few relations; with fortune, so also friends

will forsake us; the shock will be very sudden, and we shall have to bear

it alone.”

“You forget our God,” said the girl gently.

A shade of impatience passed over the elder woman’s face.

“We do not hope for miracles now, child,” she answered; “your father has

worked hard for his wealth, but God will not treat him as he treated Job.”

“Depend upon it, if he does not, mother mine, it is because he knows what

is best for us. You would not have us lose our hopes of the hereafter for

the sake of more or less comfort in the earthly present?”

“My child, you should have been a boy; such sayings would tell well in a

sermon, but in practical business matters they are but cold comfort.”

“Oh! they _are_ comfort sufficient, believe me; besides, they do not debar

us from prudent measures and precautions in a temporal point of view.”

“Well, child, you are a visionary, I always knew that; it remains to be

seen if you can be a stoic.”

“What need of that, dear mother? Stoicism is not obedience nor

resignation.”

Here a light step was heard, and the half‐open door was pushed quickly

back. A little girl, about nine years old, ran in with flushed face, and,

holding in her hands a velvet casket, cried out in gleeful voice:

“O mother! sister! see! I got leave to bring this in myself. It has just

come from the jeweller’s, just as my father ordered it!”

And she opened the casket, displaying a wonderful _parure_ of opals and

diamonds, exquisitely and artistically wrought. Señora Cristalar turned

away impatiently, saying to the child:

“Thamar, I am engaged; don’t come fooling here about these jewels; put

them down, and go into the next room.”

The child, hurt and astonished, looked blankly at her sister. Maheleth

reached out her hand for the casket, and half rose from her seat.

“I will come to you presently, little sister, if you wait in there; never

mind the pretty gems just now.”

And so saying, she kissed the little eyes that were ready to overflow with

childish tears, and, setting the jewels on a table out of sight of her

mother, resumed her seat.

“There are the first‐fruits of our circumstances,” said the mother

bitterly. “The man expects to be paid for those to‐day, and I shall have

to tell him to take them back!”

“Come! if there were nothing worse than that! Now, mother, we will both go

to my father, and pray together, and then consult among ourselves.”

Maheleth’s father was very fond and very proud of his eldest daughter, and

this indeed was his best trait. Shrewd and clever in worldly affairs, yet

strictly honest in his dealings, he was not devoid of that hardness that

too often accompanies mercantile success, and as often turns to weakness

when that success disappears.

One thing seemed to sustain him, but it was only a hollow prop after

all—his pride of race. For generations his family had been well known and

honored: he could trace his ancestry back in an unbroken line of descent

from one of the exiles from devastated Jerusalem. Rabbis and learned men

had borne his name, and though in later times no opening save that of

trade and banking had been available to those of his race, yet his blood

yielded it in nothing to that of the proverbially haughty nobles of Spain.

It mattered little that by some he was shunned as of an inferior

extraction or lower social status; his own wealth, his wife’s beauty, his

lavish hospitality, his daughter’s charms, were strong enough, he knew, to

break the barriers of prejudice, at least as far as appearances went. As

to marriages, he did not covet for his children the alliance of a poor

foreigner, and poor most of the proud families were whom he daily

entertained at his splendid house—poor in brains, poor in beauty, poor in

energy and strong will.

And yet, though he almost despised his neighbors, this shock was very

galling to him. _They_ now would turn from him, would forget his open‐

handedness, and remember only his race and creed; would pity him perhaps,

but with the pity that is almost contempt. And this seemed to paralyze

him, for all his fiercely expressed consciousness of superiority to his

friends.

Maheleth tried to persuade him to take the trial calmly; for even in a

temporal aspect calmness would sooner show him how to retrieve his

fortunes.

“For,” she said, “you know that, with your abilities, you can, if you

will, gain enough for my little sisters’ dowry by the time they will be

grown up; and that is the first thing to be considered, and after that we

shall even have enough to live in comfort.”

“And what is to become of you, Maheleth?” asked her father fondly.

“Oh! you and I will be co‐workers. I will look after those two until you

can marry them well, and so we will both have a definite object in life.

We can keep my mother in some degree of comfort from the very beginning,

if we only look things in the face.”

The opals and diamonds had to be returned to the jeweller’s; the pleasant

home was broken up, and what with the sale of his property, and various

other legal arrangements, Ephraim Cristaler was able to pay all his

creditors, with a few trifling exceptions, for which he bound himself by

solemn promise to provide shortly.

Then the banker and merchant disappeared, and the nine days’ wonder was

forgotten by his former circle of acquaintances.

One day, a young Englishman, travelling or rather sauntering about Europe

in a way unlike the usual useless rush of tourists from one point to

another of Murray’s _Guide‐Book_, arrived at Frankfort and settled

there—for how long, he, least of all, could have told.

At the hotel, nothing was known of him but his name, Henry Holcombe, and

that he had come with a black portmanteau containing a number of books. He

went slowly to see the sights, one by one, as if he had plenty of leisure

and wanted to enjoy it; and, when he _did_ go, he never measured the

length and breadth of saloons, the height of towers, the number of statues

in the cathedral‐niches; nor did he ever disgrace his name by carving it

side by side with the ambitious Joneses or the heaven‐soaring Smiths on

the pinnacle of a temple, or the bark supports of a summer‐house; when he

went out with a book in his hand, it was neither the obtrusive _Murray_

nor the ostentatious _Byron_; and, in fact, he departed altogether from

the standard of the regulation British tourist.

He was walking one day down the _Juden‐Strasse_, the picturesqueness of

whose mediæval‐looking houses had a special attraction for him, when it

came on to rain very suddenly, and the sky seemed to threaten a storm in

good earnest; the street was soon deserted, and the narrow roadway became

a miniature stream. Presently he heard a step behind him, and a slight

figure, half‐hidden by a large umbrella, pressed quickly past him. It was

a woman, and, he thought, a very young one, but more than that he could

not tell, because she was veiled and muffled, and held the dripping

umbrella very close down upon her head. She had not gone a dozen paces

beyond him before she dropped something white like a roll of music, and

stooped slowly to pick it up. The cloak and long skirt she was holding

fast to keep them from the mud embarrassed her, and the young Englishman

had time to spring forward and restore the white roll of paper to her hand

before she had grasped it.

“Oh! thank you, _mein Herr_!” said a low, rich voice, in very soft German.

And, as Henry took off his hat in silence, the girl made a pretty sweeping

inclination, and left him, walking as quickly as before.

But he had seen more this time, and he knew she was beautiful, and had a

dainty, graceful hand. Curious and interested, he watched the dark‐clad

figure down the street, quickened his own steps as it hastened on,

slackened them as it paused to clear a crossing without splashing the long

and rather inconvenient garments. He saw it stop at last, and ring a bell

at an old forlorn‐looking door, where he might have expected to see the

face of a gnome appear, as guardian of unsuspected treasures within.

He was dreadfully romantic, this young Englishman, but in a subdued, quiet

way that seldom showed itself in words, and was specially repelled by the

_gushing_ style too much followed just then by some of his fair

countrywomen.

The door was opened and shut, and, except through his notice of the number

over it, 25, his relation with the beautiful stranger was cut off.

He thought of it day after day, got a directory, and found out that in the

house No. 25 there lived three families of the names of Zimmermann,

Krummacher, and Löwenberg. The occupations of the heads of the families

were given thus: “money‐lender,” “banking‐clerk,” and “lace‐merchant,”

respectively; no clue whatsoever, of course; and, unless in a regular and

received manner, Mr. Holcombe could not think of entering the house.

Still, the face he had seen veiled under the prosaic tent of a wet

umbrella kept between him and his thoughts, and would not be driven away.

Then, too, what business was it of his to go and throw himself in the way

of a girl who most likely was a Jewess? Yet, reason as he might, the

mysterious face _would_ visit him, and it seemed to him as the face of an

angel. Very often he passed the house, and once or twice even made a

pretence of sketching it; but he never saw the figure again. Once a young

face looked out over the flowers in the window of the ground‐floor room, a

merry face full of health and mischief—not _his_ dream. The blinds were

always drawn on the first floor, even when the windows were open, and he

began to fancy _she_ must be hidden behind those discreet shrouders of

privacy. A friend of his met him at his hotel one day when he came home

from the _Juden‐Strasse_, and surprised him by telling him he was going

home in a fortnight to get married.

“I’ve been half over the world, my dear fellow,” he said, “and enjoyed

myself immensely. And I’ve got such a pile of things going home to my

_fiancée_, for our house. She _will_ be delighted, she is so fond of

queer, foreign things, not like what other people have, you know. I’ll

show you some, but most are gone in packing cases through agents from the

different parts of the world I’ve been in.”

And the two young men went upstairs to examine the bridal gifts.

“Look here,” said Ellice to his quieter friend, “it was a pasha’s wife

sent me these,” dragging out a handful of Eastern jewelry, golden fillets,

and embroidered jackets and slippers. “A cousin of mine is the wife of the

consul at Smyrna, and she got them for me, for of course I was not allowed

to go near the Eastern lady! And look here, these are carved shells, and

mother‐of‐pearl crucifixes from Jerusalem, and boxes made from Olivet

trees and cedars of Lebanon; you should value those.”

“I hope your future wife will,” gravely said young Holcombe; “the wood of

the olives of Gethsemani is almost a relic in itself.”

“Oh! Miss Kenneth will appreciate them just as much as you do, Holcombe,

she is very reverential. See, here is some alabaster, Naples coral, and

Byzantine manuscripts, and marble ornaments from the Parthenon. Ah! here

is the filigree silver of Genoa; that is one of my last purchases, except

these pictures on china from Geneva; see the frames, too, they are Swiss.”

Then he turned out a huge tiger‐skin, and said: “All my Indian things

except this were sent from Bombay, and a year ago I sent home all kinds of

jolly things from North America—furs and skins, antlers, and other

curiosities. By the bye, I have some old _point_ from Venice, but some

people had been there before me and cleaned the shop out pretty nearly, so

I shall have to get some more. Belgium is a good place, isn’t it?”

Holcombe looked thoughtful; his truant mind was at No. 25 again, and he

did not answer. His friend went on:

“I’ll just ask the landlady, she’ll be likely to know if there is any

place here, just for a souvenir of Frankfort.”

“Yes,” said Holcombe, “I suppose she knows.” And, as he spoke, the phantom

face was directly in his mind’s eye, and he could not drive the vision

away.

“And now, old fellow, suppose you show me the lions here,” said Ellice;

“you have been here longer than I have.”

So they walked out, and of course in due time came to the high, irregular

houses bordering the curious _Juden‐Strasse_. It was Friday evening, and

the street was full of people hurrying to one spot; the air was balmy, and

told of summer; the scene was very striking. The stream of people

disappeared under the archway of a splendid Moorish‐looking building, with

Hebrew characters carved above the portal. It was the new synagogue. The

two friends followed the men; the women were lost to view in the stair‐

cases leading to the galleries. A gorgeous lattice‐work defended these

galleries, and the assemblage in the main part of the temple were men with

their hats on and light veils or shawls across their shoulders.

The service began; low, plaintive chants resounded through the building;

sometimes the congregation joined. It was very solemn, and Henry Holcombe

seemed fascinated. Some one passed him a book and found the place for him.

And now came the prayer for the mourners, the mourner’s _Kaddisch_, as he

saw it printed before his eyes. There was a stir among the people, and he

could hear the women’s clothes rustling in the gallery. Those who had

recently lost friends and relations stood up during the intercession, and

then another prayer was offered up in German. Holcombe thought the sound

of the old Hebrew was like the passing of water through a narrow rocky

channel; it was soothing and flowing, sad and majestic, and he wondered if

the girl he had seen once thought and felt about it as he did.

When the crowd dispersed, he tried to linger at the entrance, watching the

women as they passed out. His friend was hardly so patient, and reminded

him of the _table d’hôte_ they had most likely already missed.

“I am afraid,” he said, “your people would scarcely approve your

admiration of the pretty Jewesses.”

Holcombe blushed and moved away, and, just as he came out on the sidewalk,

a girl in black passed him slowly, with an anxious, absent look.

“By jove! that _is_ a pretty face!” exclaimed Ellice; but the other said

nothing. For the second time, he had seen the face he was always dreaming

of, “She looks like an angel,” he thought, “and yet she is not even a

Christian.”

“I never saw a German Jewess like that,” his friend went on to say. “She

looks like a Spaniard.”

The next day, Ellice had got an address written down, and said to

Holcombe:

“If you care to go with me, we will go and look after this lace‐merchant

this morning.”

Holcombe’s heart gave a great throb as he asked carelessly to see the

address: “Jacob Zimmermann, 25 _Juden‐Strasse_.”

“I don’t know much about laces,” he answered, “but I will go with

pleasure.”

“It feels like going on an adventure, like something you read of in a

book,” said Ellice, “this penetrating into the privacy of those tumble‐

down dens of the _Juden‐Strasse_.”

“Well,” returned Holcombe quietly, “it does give one the idea.”

They rang at the door No. 25, and the merry, mischievous face he had seen

once at the window greeted Henry as he entered. They inquired for Herr

Zimmermann.

“Oh!” said the girl, laughing and looking astonished, “he is up on the

third floor. Shall I show you the way? But he is ill, and, as he lives all

alone, he has got into very queer ways.”

They went up, guided by the laughing girl, who rattled on as she preceded

them.

“Gentlemen like you most often inquire for _us_, for my father, I mean,

and no one ever comes to see old Zimmermann except some wrinkled old

ladies, and heaven knows how they find him out; and as to Herr Löwenberg,

he is a stranger and has no friends.”

The two young men then knew that she was the money‐lender’s daughter, and

Holcombe thought his dream companion must bear the name of Löwenberg.

“But is not Zimmermann a rich old merchant, and is he not well‐known in

the town?” asked Ellice. “My landlady named him at once when I asked for

laces.”

“Oh! yes; _rich_ he is; so rich he won’t sell generally; but then an

Englishman is another thing! He lives like a rat in a hole, and starves

himself.”

By this time, they had reached the door of the miser’s room; a low,

subdued voice was heard within reading.

Their knock was answered by a noise of light footsteps, and the door was

drawn ajar by some one inside.

“Rachel, what is it? You know Herr Zimmermann is ill.”

Holcombe knew that voice _must_ belong to the girl he had never forgotten.

Just then the light from the door fell upon the men in the darkened,

narrow passage, and the slight figure drew back a little.

“They are English gentlemen,” said Rachel. “They want to buy.”

“_To‐day_, Rachel? It is the Sabbath.”

Rachel shrugged her shoulders, and Ellice stepped forward.

“I beg your pardon. I forgot that. But since we are here, perhaps you will

let us _see_ the laces, and we can come back and choose on Monday.”

The girl looked uneasily back into the room, and then said, in a very low

voice:

“No; please do not ask to come in to‐day; he is hardly conscious, and he

might forget it was the Sabbath in his excitement.”

“Very well,” said Ellice politely, and Holcombe whispered to him: “Come

away; don’t you understand?”

The door was closed gently, and Henry said:

“She was afraid he could not resist the temptation of a good offer, if it

were made to him, and she wanted to prevent his doing anything wrong.”

“How stupid I am!” said Ellice. “Of course that’s it. But, I say, is she

not pretty?”

“Beautiful!” answered Holcombe very quietly.

“Is that Fraulein Zimmermann?” asked Ellice of Rachel.

“No; Fraulein Löwenberg,” said the girl. “She is very kind to the old man.

Her own father is ill and can’t work, and she is very good to him. She

reads to old Zimmermann, and looks after him, too, when he is ill. She has

two little sisters also.”

“And how do they live?” asked Ellice.

“_She_ keeps them, I think. The father used to be clerk in Hauptmann’s

bank; but he has been laid up six months now, and the mother died two

months after they came here.”

“Are they Germans?” said Ellice, really interested.

“Their name is, but I fancy they are foreigners. Maheleth speaks like a

foreigner.”

“Maheleth! A curious name.”

“Yes, an unusual one; so is her sister’s—Thamar.”

They were at the street‐door now, and Ellice bade the girl good‐morning,

saying they would come again on Monday.

“What a curious chance!” he went on. “It is the same girl we saw coming

out of the synagogue last night. Did you notice?”

“Yes,” said Holcombe.

“You don’t seem very much interested, anyhow.”

“My dear fellow, I never could get up an ecstasy!”

“Still waters run deep, Holcombe. I suspect that is the case with you, you

sly fellow.”

Monday came, and the two friends were again at No. 25. Rachel admitted

them as before, and showed them into the old lace‐merchant’s den. He was

alone, and looked very eager; but his wasted, wrinkled hands and dried‐up

face spoke his miserly character, and froze the sympathy he so little

cared to receive. He laid out his precious wares with trembling fingers,

and it was curious to see these cobweb treasures drawn from common drawers

and boxes, and heaped on a rickety deal table near the stove that was just

lighted, because he was still so ill. Everything about the room looked

cold and hungry; the floor was bare; the paint on the walls dirty and

discolored; and an untidy assortment of tin pans and cheap crockery

littered the neighborhood of the stove. The window looked into a back‐

yard, and what panes were not broken were obscured by dirt. In strange

contrast to all this was a bouquet of fresh flowers on a chair.

While Ellice and the old man were bargaining, Holcombe fastened his eye on

the flowers, conjecturing well whose present they were.

The old Jew asked enormous prices for his laces, and gave marvellous

accounts of the difficulties he had sustained in procuring them as an

excuse for his exorbitant demands. So the time seemed long to Henry, who

knew little or nothing about such things, when suddenly Rachel appeared at

the door with a basin of soup. “Fraulein Löwenberg sent you this,” she

said to the old man, and then to the strangers: “You must excuse us; he is

too weak to do without this at the accustomed time, and the fraulein is

gone out.”

“Gone out!” querulously said the miser. “Gone out without coming to see

me!”

“She knew you were engaged,” retorted Rachel. “You will see her again to‐

night.” She spoke as to a spoiled child.

“Well, well, business must be first, and she has business as well as I

have.” And he went on with his flourishing declamations over his lovely

laces.

Holcombe understood why she had omitted her morning’s visit to her old

_protégé_, and, indeed, it would have been unlike his ideal of her had she

acted otherwise.

“Have you nearly done, Ellice?” he said, coming up to the table.

“Yes; all right. See, I have chosen the nicest things I could find, as far

as I know; but the fellow asks such confounded prices.”

“Well, you had only that to expect,” was the smiling answer, and then the

young man turned to the lace‐merchant.

“Have you been ill long?”

“Only a month, and I should be dead if it were not for Maheleth. I cannot

do without her.”

“But she is poor herself; she cannot bring you what you want, can she?”

“No, she cannot; she is poor, and her father is poor, and so am I. I sell

nothing now; I have no customers.”

Holcombe smiled slightly, but he went on:

“Are you fond of flowers?”

“Yes, but I cannot afford them.”

“Then it would be cruel of me to ask a violet hearts‐ease of you; but, if

you would give me that, I will send you more flowers, and bring you

something you will like to‐morrow.”

“Yes, you may take one; but, if you want flowers, Maheleth can give you

some; she has some growing in her room.”

“No, this one is enough. Good‐by, and I will try and see you again.”

As they left the house, Ellice said to his friend:

“Well, Holcombe, you _are_ green! You don’t mean to say you believe he is

poor?”

“No, I don’t believe it; but he will be none the worse off for a few

flowers and some good food, if he won’t get them for himself.”

“I suppose you remember that there is another invalid in the house, and

the same person nurses both?”

“I know what you mean, Ellice, and I wish you wouldn’t joke; it is not

fair.”

“Very well, old fellow; but, if you were anybody but yourself, I should

say ‘take care.’ You always were the steadiest old chap going.”

A day or two afterwards, Holcombe was left alone again; he had sent things

to Zimmermann as he had promised; but as yet he had not revisited the

_Juden‐Strasse_. On Friday, there was a special service at the Catholic

cathedral, at eight o’clock, and the young man, hardly knowing why,

determined to go.

The church was only partially lighted, except the chancel, which was

dazzling. The music was good, the congregation devout, and the German

sermon as interesting as could be expected. The whole effect was very

beautiful, and seemed to Henry a peace‐giving and heart‐soothing one. A

rush of voices came breaking in upon his reverie at the _Tantum Ergo_, and

the surging sound was like a mighty utterance of his own feelings. As the

priest raised the Host, he bowed his head low, and prayed for peace and

guidance; and when he lifted it again the first object his eye fixed on

was a slight, dark‐robed figure, standing aside in the aisle, drooping her

head against one of the columns. He knew the figure well; but, with a

strange thrill, he asked himself why was she here? For the music? For the

beauty of the sight? For love of a creed she was half ashamed to embrace?

Or from the curiosity of a chance passer‐by?

He watched her as she moved behind the shadow of the pillar, and waited

till she was enticed from her hiding‐place by the quick desertion of the

once crowded church. Now the light from a lamp streamed down on her; the

face was anxious and troubled, as if weary with thought.

“Friday, too!” he said to himself. “And she has come here on the very

Sabbath. Perhaps she has been to her own service first. But what can it

mean, if she only were what this would point to?”

To Be Continued.

Odd Stories. IV. The White Shah.

If thou wouldst hear a choice history of princes, go into the garden of

the shah’s pleasure‐house, and hearken to what the humming‐birds tell thee

in sleep. How else could thy servant have learned the memory of Shah

Mizfiz, the forgotten? Was it not he who built the palace of a hundred

towers in the valley of groves? Beautiful beyond compare was that valley’s

lake which presented itself like a mirror before the pavilion of the shah;

and magnificent as a house in the sky were the hundred delicate towers

that rose one above the other, amid gardens and fountains, and half lost

in groves of venerable height and shade. High hills whose sides were

covered with woods and flowers, and watered with streams and fountains,

shut out the valley from the world save where it was entered through a

great gate crowned with towers; and a long colonnade of loftiest trees

pranked with beds of tulips, hyacinths, and roses, and intertwined with

flowering vines that here and there made curious arbors. From the windows,

or from the balconies, or from the pavilions of his palace, the shah could

see the lords and ladies who, dressed in gold‐broidered silks of all

colors, shook their plumes as they rode up to his gate, or, listening to

the song of minstrels, sailed upon the bosom of the lake.

Naught now could the shah do but dream. Surrounded by hills that fenced

him from mankind, by waters that mirrored the skies or leaped into the

sunlight, by flowers whose odors inspired the sense, by trees which

everywhere made repose for him, and by towers, the intricacies and

ingenuities of which rendered his palace ever new to him, he forgot all

common things. The cares of state he left to his ministers at the gate of

the valley; while in one or other of the innumerable courts of his palace,

or among its unknown and invisible gardens, he retired from the intrusion

of mortals. “I went to seek the rose‐king,” said or sang a poet of the

court; “so I stripped a great rose of all its leaves, one by one, and in

its heart of hearts I found the Shah Mizfiz.” Now, having captured the

tenth of a number of white elephants, the like of which was never seen,

except in the woods and by the lake of the imperial valley, where they

roamed in romantic innocence and tameness, the Shah Mizfiz betook himself

to his dreams as others do to their books.

At times, seated high on his favorite white elephant, the old shah rode in

state through his grounds. Thence it came to pass that, seeing his beard

like almond‐blossoms, and the milky color of his throne‐bearer, they who

visited the gardens of the lake remembered him as the White Shah. Leaning

on the cushions of his vine‐encircled pavilion, his silken beard and

silvery locks floating in the breath of the zephyr, how often have the

minstrels passed by beneath him over the mirror of the lake, singing under

their gorgeous sails or to the time‐beat of their oars those songs which,

with a tinkling and rippling melody, lingered in his ear. Less was it

known how looked and fared the shah when he retired to the inmost bowers

of the interior gardens of the hundred towers. But what wonder if in one

of those fine day‐dreams so celebrated by the poet Bulghasel the flower‐

fairies themselves did him veritable honor, and, circling gardens of

roses, tulips, and lilies, danced at his feet and round about him, an

illusion of humor and beauty?

Ah! the deep‐eyed, far‐gazing White Shah! What dreams he dreamed of green

ages in the youth of the world, of far‐off golden centuries to come, of

ships navigating the air of sunset, of adventures in the stars, and of

nights with the great moon‐shah! They were not to be told or counted; the

number and wonder of them would have tasked a hundred scribes, and put as

many dreamers to sleep. Howbeit, the shah’s visions persuaded him to

become an oracle for all his empire. Statesmen consulted his dreams, and

poets made themes of them, and doubtless the humane spirit of his visions

found its way into the laws. Thanks to them, the people had abundant

feast‐days, and, if a mine of precious stones were discovered, or the

caravans were richer than usual, or the lords were moved to more than

wonted bounty, or new fountains were built on the dry roads, or new

temples set up here and there, the shah’s dreams were praised. When he had

completed the thousandth of a line of dreams, the smallest of which would

have made a paradise on earth again, he dreamed that his people were

prosperous like none other under the sun; for his prime minister had

artfully omitted to report that his eastern provinces were suffering the

horrors of a famine, and those of the west were threatened by war. But on

neither of these facts did the White Shah lay the blame for that final

eclipse which ruined his dreams. In a fatal hour, having too long slept

among the poppies, and drunk too much wine and coffee, he dreamt that the

demon Sakreh had caught him up in a storm on the desert of Lop, out of

which he let him drop into the Lake of Limbo, whence, fishing him up by

the hair of his head, he banged him against the Caucasus and set him down

to cool on the Himalaya, ere, taking him to the topmost height of the

palace of the hundred towers, he allowed him to fall through the many‐

colored glasses of the dome of delights. His displeasure with the effects

of this dream was heightened and consummated when the poet Bulghasel, in a

moment of malediction, trod on his particular corn. From that moment,

peace forsook the couch of the White Shah, and dreams of glory visited not

his slumbers.

Henceforward what had been dreamland to the too happy shah became the

saddest reality. In a white age he had lost his visions as old men lose

their teeth. He wandered about the valley—no longer seated high on the

pride of his white elephant, but crownless and on foot—murmuring from hour

to hour: “I have lost my dream—I have lost my dream.” One day, leaving

palace and throne, he passed out of his gate liked one crazed, to seek, as

he said, his dream. Far away among the Parsees the poet Bulghasel found

him after many pilgrimages: “And O my white‐haired sire,” cried the

affectionate poet, “hast thou found the object of thy search?” “Yea, son,”

rejoiced the White Shah, “I have found that which I never lost, but would

that I had possessed; for then my dream was a fiction, and now truth is a

sufficient dream for me. If the new shah would sleep well, let him have

this dream.”

Signs Of The Times.

In Europe, of late, meetings have been the order of the day. There have

been meetings of emperors and Internationalists; of “Old Catholics” and

Catholics; of church congresses and congresses to disestablish the church;

of “Home‐Rulers” and Dilkites. The voluntary expatriation of the Alsace‐

Lorraine population has followed close on the heels of the violent

expulsion of the Jesuits, both influenced by the same motive power;

trades‐unions have called together a society of German professors, who, by

dint of powerful speeches of an explosive nature, succeeded finally in

showing, in a very conclusive manner, that they knew little or nothing of

what they were talking about. Gambetta has found his voice again; Russia

has mildly but decidedly objected to its inflammable utterances, and in

the midst of all the hubbub the eyes of the world have been attracted to

the strange spectacle in these days of a nation, by a sudden and

spontaneous movement, turning its steps to an humble shrine of the Blessed

Virgin.

As for the meeting of the emperors, we were _not_ present at the council,

and had no secret emissary concealed in the cup‐board. What was effected,

or what was intended to be effected, is an utter mystery to us. We very

much doubt if anything were effected at all; that is, anything real,

lasting, and permanent. The composing elements were in themselves as

incapable of mingling as oil and water. If people looked to permanent

peace or peace for any length of time from it, we fear they will be sadly

mistaken in view of what we have since seen. The effective forces of

Austria are fixed at 800,000 men. The government, actuated doubtless by

peaceful motives; finds it necessary to keep on hand a peace effective of

250,000; and, that this force may be in fighting order at any moment, the

recruits must be kept for three years under colors. To supply this

contingency, 30,000 more men are required, which draws a sum of $1,850,000

out of the national chest, a chest neither very deep nor very safe. The

measure was objected to, whereupon Count Andrássy spurred them up by

informing the astonished members that, notwithstanding the imperial

exhibition of brotherly love at Berlin, the speeches, manœuvrings,

fireworks, and the rest, he would not venture to answer for the

continuance of peace even to the end of the present year. As an echo of

the truth of this, Prussia has just given an order for 3,000,000 rifles of

a new pattern, on the strength, doubtless, of the discharge of the French

debt. Russia is increasing her already vast army steadily and surely,

while France hopes by her new scheme of raising forces to show at the end

of five years an active army of 715,000, and a territorial force of

720,000 men. So much for the effects of the imperial conference as regards

peace.

The _Internationale_, true to the discordant elements of which it was

composed, adjourned without effecting anything or coming to any

conclusion. This was only to be expected; but we should not judge from

this that it is dead, as has been too hastily done by many journals. Its

life is disorder, and, if it can catch the trades‐unions, its influence

would be paramount.

As for the meeting of the “Old Catholics”—we presume they call themselves

“Old” Catholics as the Greeks called the furies _Eumenides_—it will soon

have passed out of memory. We rejoice that it did occur, in order to show

the “movement” in its true light. Luther himself had not half the chance

which Döllinger and the rest enjoyed. The strongest of governments at

their back, the whole anti‐Catholic world looking with eager eyes on this

mountain in travail—_parturiet_; and not even the _ridiculus mus_ is born

in recompense for all this labor, storm, fuss, and anxiety. We forget;

there issued a long string of resolutions, which one or two newspapers

published, the generality very sensibly finding them of too great length

and of too little importance to burden their leaders with them. The whole

affair was utterly ridiculous even to the _ménu_, which, as became a solid

dinner, composed for the most part of German professors with a few

Episcopal waifs and strays from England and America, was in Latin, and

commenced thus:

Symposium. _Gustatio_: Pisciculi oleo perfusi et salmones fumo siccati ad

cibi appetentiam excitandam. Mensa prima, etc.

And this is the way in which the “Old Catholics” meet to found or reform a

church! The effect of it all is shown in the comments of the secular

press. The cleverest journals in England and America, those who expected

much from it, generally express themselves to the effect that, though far

from saying that the meeting was without significance, it did not succeed

in erecting a platform whereon a body could stand. The fact is this: We

are far from denying to the majority of the men there assembled abundance

of intellect and that sort of talent that can make a fine speech or

perhaps compose a readable book, but the world, if it must be changed,

wants something more solid than this.

Prince Bismarck’s measures are what Strafford would call “thorough”; and

he is carrying out this “thorough” policy with far greater effect than the

vacillating Stuart. The latter lost his head for too much heart; the

German chancellor is not likely to imitate him in that. The Jesuits had

small respite. We presume they are all out of Germany by this time. How

much the country at large will gain in peace, solidity, and security by

their expulsion it is impossible for us to say. Oddly enough, in Prince

Bismarck’s stronghold, Prussia itself, we find that the new order is not

destined to run quite smoothly. The diet is dissolved because the Upper

House refused to pass the country reform bill in the face of the emperor

and an official intimation from the minister of the interior that if the

measure were defeated the government would dissolve the diet and convoke a

new one. Whether the members of the Upper House will continue the fight,

and come into direct collision with the power which they so helped to make

supreme, we do not know yet, but we expect not.

Meanwhile, the Jesuits have not gone out of their fatherland alone. The

sympathy of the whole Catholic world has gone out with them, and its

expression is gaining volume daily. Addresses of condolence and

protestations against the legal violence which expelled them are rising up

day after day from the hearth‐stones of the land they have quitted, as

well as from lands and multitudes to whom they as individuals are utterly

unknown. Perhaps the most noticeable of the many which are continually

appearing in their own land is that of the society of German Catholics

recently assembled at Cologne, which passed a series of resolutions

protesting strongly:

1. Against the assertion that the Catholic population is indifferent to

the interests of fatherland, and hostile to the empire. 2. Against the

laic laws which would control the affairs of the churches. 3. Against the

state direction of the schools. 4. Against the expulsion of the Jesuits.

5. Against the encroachment of the state on the jurisdiction of the

bishops. 6. Against the suppression of the temporal power of the Pope.

Such is the Catholic voice all the world over. If rulers can respect this

voice, they will have no more faithful, earnest, or devoted children than

the children of the Catholic Church. If they cannot respect it, they have

only to expect an unfailing legal opposition until they are compelled to

respect it, as Ireland, speaking in O’Connell, compelled England to do; as

Germany, by lawful agitation and peaceful though unceasing and determined

protest, will compel Prince Bismarck to do, until we see again restored to

the country which they love and which loves them the sons who, by peaceful

counsel and wise guidance, and religious instruction, will bring more

glory, solid prosperity, enlightenment, and peace to the nation than a

cycle of Bismarcks.

The Bishop of Ermeland still survives the terrible threats of the

chancellor which have been gathering over his head in deepening thunder

this long while for excommunicating heretic priests; the bolt has not yet

fallen. Perhaps Jove finds himself a little puzzled how to fulminate it to

a nicety. To show the justice of the Bismarck government, and how equally

it deals with all classes, the Consistory of Magdeburg has quite recently

decreed the excommunication of all Protestants who by mixed marriages

shall educate their children as Catholics; the decree has been carried

into execution at Lippspring; the case brought before the civil courts,

and of course the pastor, one Schneider, who wrought the excommunication

publicly and openly in the church, was supported by the just weight of the

law. Now, excommunication is excommunication whether you call it Catholic

or Protestant. Why, then, threaten with impeachment? Why stop the salary

which the government for the country bestows in the one case, and let the

other go entirely free? And yet this is all according to law!

Another anomaly according to law is displayed in the seizing of the

schools by the government. We have not space here to go into the whole

question, instructive though it would be, as showing the determination of

this government to uproot the Catholic faith by every means in its power.

But we will mention one instance. A ministerial circular accompanied the

notice of the new arrangements, informing the teachers that it was

desirable that their scholars should belong to no religious

confraternities—of the Rosary, Blessed Virgin, and such like—and that if

they persisted in belonging to them they should be dismissed. We find it

necessary to endorse this statement by informing our readers that it is

plain, unvarnished fact. Civil marriage is now in full sway; that is to

say, it is no longer a sacrament according to law. What wonder that the

German bishops assembled at Fulda gave utterance to their solemn protest,

an extract of which we cull? It reads as though it had been penned in the

days of Diocletian, or Julian the Apostate, or Henry VIII. But in these

days, when mere human society has come to know its power, and dream that

it possesses freedom, the protest jars on our ears as something out of

tune, out of time, out of date altogether:

“We demand, as a right which no one can dispute to us, that the bishops,

the parish priests of the cathedral churches, and the directors of souls,

be only appointed in accordance with the laws of the church and the

agreement existing between the church and state.

“In accordance with these laws and agreements, the Catholic people and

ourselves cannot consider as legal a director of souls or a teacher of

religion one who has not been so named by his bishop; and we, the Catholic

people and ourselves, cannot consider as legally recognized a bishop who

has not been named by the Pope.

“We claim equally for ourselves and for all Catholics the right of

professing throughout Germany our holy Catholic faith in all its

integrity, at all times and in all freedom, and to rest upon the principle

that we are in no wise constrained to suffer within the bosom of our

religious community those who do not profess the Catholic faith, and who

do not submit entirely to the authority of the church.

“We consider as a violation of our church and of the rights which are

guaranteed to it every attack made against the liberty of religious

orders. We regard and vindicate, also, as an essential and inalienable

right of the Catholic Church, the full and entire liberty which it

possesses of elevating its servants in accordance with ecclesiastical

laws, and we demand not only that the church exercise over the Catholic

schools (primary, secondary, and higher) the influence which alone can

guarantee to the Catholic people that its children shall receive in the

schools a Catholic education and instruction, but we claim also for the

church the freedom to found and direct in an independent manner, certain

private establishments ordained for the teaching of the sciences in

accordance with Catholic principles. In fine, we maintain and defend the

sacred character of Christian marriage as that of a sacrament of the

Catholic Church, as well as the right which the divine will has given to

the church in connection with this sacrament.”

The signatures of the bishops are affixed to this document, which is

addressed to all the German governments, and produced a commotion and

irritation among all the national liberal journals which were unexampled.

We have given this extract here in order to bring home to the minds of our

readers how hard the church is driven in Germany. When the bishops and the

laity combined feel themselves called upon to protest in this style, the

government which for no reason whatever can give rise to such a

protest—signed by the saintly chiefs of a body of 14,000,000, and endorsed

in meeting after meeting by those 14,000,000 and the countless numbers of

their co‐religionists outside of Germany scattered through the broad

world—must be one which does not govern, but tyrannizes.

The same “thorough” policy prevailed in Alsace and Lorraine. On the very

day, October 1, when the option of declaring for France or Germany

arrived, all the men who remained in the countries named were enrolled in

the Prussian service from that date. This, beyond what Mr. Disraeli would

call a “sentimental grievance,” drove them from the country, as it must

have been intended to do. Service under the power that annexed them, which

they but yesterday fought against, and a service the most rigorous and

exacting that exists, as it must be in order to retain its supremacy, was

something that seems to have been ingeniously invented in order to drive

the people out. The provinces are more than decimated; the Prussian army,

if increased at all, is increased in the event of a renewed war by

untrustworthy men, and a new drop of gall is thrown into the already

overbitter cup which France is compelled to swallow. And yet the

_Provinzial Correspondenz_ (official) of Berlin, in view of October 1,

said: “The government has not hesitated an instant in calling without

delay on the inhabitants of Alsace and Lorraine to serve in the German

army, as the best and surest means to evoke and develop speedily among the

population newly reunited to Germany the sentiment of an intimate

community with the German people.”

This smacks of excess of credibility. If Bismarck wanted really to annex

the provinces in heart and soul, he adopted the very surest means of

emptying them in the speediest manner, and letting in the Germans, who

now, sick of war and of the rumors of war, wish to emigrate in such

formidable numbers. Probably the chancellor proposes using the deserted

provinces as a safety‐valve for these recreant spirits. One of the most

significant signs of the instability of the new empire is the desire of so

many earnest workers to leave it just when it has been established in all

its glory and power. But glory and power do not last long in the eyes of

men who look to a peaceful life and to which side, in a popular phrase,

their bread is buttered. Instead of peace, they find the service more

rigorous than ever; the money which was won by the blood of their kin and

countrymen going to the pockets of the generals, to carry out emperors’

fêtes, and purchase millions of rifles of a new pattern. Evidently _the_

business of the German Empire wears a very martial look. But the artisan

and clerk have fought well, and find no returns. Your German is of a

logical bent, so he determines on going elsewhere, where he may live at

peace, and let Bismarck look after his own empire.

In France, we have had and are having the pilgrimages to Lourdes. Not

alone to Lourdes, and not alone in France, but in Belgium and Germany also

there have been numerous pilgrimages to various shrines. Of course the

wits of the secular journals, with a few honorable exceptions, have had a

fine time of it, and have twisted the stories of the miracles of Lourdes

and La Salette into every possible shape in which they might squeeze a

laugh out of it. They are at great pains to show what we were long ago

convinced of—that they do not know what faith means.

Mgr. Mermillod, after a residence of seven years in full enjoyment and

exercise of his ecclesiastical functions, has suddenly come to be non‐

recognized by the Swiss government, or, more properly, by the Grand

Council of Geneva, and his pension stopped. The Grand Council of Geneva

had already expelled the Sisters of Charity and the Christian Brothers. It

essays the rôle of Bismarck, and where it purposes stopping we do not yet

see. But as the population of Geneva is composed of 47,000 Catholics

against 43,000 Protestants, we may presume that the Grand Council of

Geneva will very speedily be brought to its senses. Its miserable pension

of 10,000 francs was raised to 23,000 in two days by a voluntary

contribution set on foot by M. Veuillot of the _Univers_. The Grand

Council has incurred the contempt of all rational minds, while Mgr.

Mermillod is supported in his action by all his fellow‐bishops, by his

Holiness, and by the Catholic world. It may be as well to remember that

the Protestant party in the Swiss cantons voted, but were happily

outvoted, for union with Prussia. It is not difficult to see whence the

persecution of Mgr. Mermillod starts.

Gentlemen who have visited the Alhambra in London, or any one almost of

the Parisian theatres, or Niblo’s in New York, are not apt to be squeamish

on the score of the decent and moral in theatrical representations. Things

must therefore be at a very bad pass when we find the correspondents of

the London _Times_ and the other English newspapers, in common with those

of our own and the Parisian press, uniting in condemning in the most

unsparing terms the pieces which are now in vogue on the boards of the

Roman theatres. Cardinal Patrizi addressed an official letter to Minister

Lanza on the subject. That gentleman, who is extremely active in

suppressing a Catholic paper which dares to caricature his majesty’s

government, sends back an answer which, divested of its diplomatic wool,

is cowardly, stupid, and insulting. We have been astonished to find

“religious” newspapers in this city gleeful over these representations

which the good sense, if nothing more, of the secular correspondents of

all journals in all countries condemns as odious, detestable, and utterly

unfit to be presented in any civilized, or for that matter uncivilized,

community. These journals which are religious see in them “a new means of

evangelizing Italy.” Another feature in “united Italy” is the utter

insecurity of life and property in Rome, Naples, and Ravenna principally,

though, in fact, through the length and breadth of the land. Victor

Emanuel has held the country long enough now to give some account of his

stewardship. The government of the Pope and of the Bourbons, we were told,

favored brigandage and every other atrocity; yet the correspondents of the

London _Times_, the London _Spectator_, and by this time most of the other

anti‐Catholic journals, are furnishing articles which must rather astonish

the upholders of the blessings which were to flow from “Italy united.”

They picture scenes of rapine and blood before which the graphic Arkansas

letters of the _Herald_ pale, while the doers of these deeds, the thieves

and murderers, are “well known to the police,” in fact, on excellent terms

with them, and walk about in the open day with any man’s life in their

hands who dares frown on them. The government is simply afraid of them,

afraid to use the only remedy now in its hands by proclaiming martial law,

a proceeding which the English journals strongly advise. If such a state

of things continues much longer, we fear the inevitable verdict must come

to Victor Emanuel, “Now thou shalt be steward no longer.” Of his ill‐

gotten power, indeed, it may be said, “blood hath bought blood, and blows

have answered blows.” People are apt to be logical; if a government robs

and kills and calls it law, why should not they do the same? Italy will

continue in a state of chronic anarchy until religion is restored to it;

then order will follow as it is following in France to‐day.

In England, though Parliament has not been sitting, questions of moment

have been rife. Mr. Miall has again raised the war‐cry against the

Established Church, ably seconded by Mr. Jacob Bright. The _Times_ and

_Saturday Review_ and other journals affect to laugh at Mr. Miall, as they

and such as they laughed at the Reform Bill, the Act of Catholic

Emancipation, and the disestablishment of the Irish Church. We believe Mr.

Miall’s measure to be the logical sequence of the last of these measures,

a fact which Mr. Disraeli in opposing it foretold. It is an anomaly—a

church supported by a majority which does not believe in it. Mr. Miall’s

measure is only a growth of time; in fact, it only requires the conversion

of such organs as the _Times_ and _Saturday Review_ to bring it to pass

to‐day.

As a corollary to Mr. Miall’s movement comes the annual Church Congress

held this year at Leeds under the presidency of the Bishop of Ripon. This

annual congress is a curious thing; it is a meeting of everybody, high and

low, church and lay, to compare notes and see how the church is getting

on—a very useful proceeding, no doubt, if there were only something

faintly approaching unanimity among its members. As it happened, unanimity

was the one thing wanting, and certain stages of the proceedings were as

warm as those of the “Old Catholics” at Cologne. In fact, the account of

the whole proceedings reads like an extract from _The Comedy of

Convocation_.

New Publications.

THE HISTORY OF THE SACRED PASSION. From the Spanish of Father Luis

de la Palma, of the Society of Jesus. The Translation revised and

edited by Henry James Coleridge, of the same Society. London:

Burns & Oates. 1872. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication

Society.)

This is the third volume of the Quarterly Series which the Jesuit Fathers

are bringing out in London. The series is beautifully got up, and we wish

it every success.

The present work on the Passion has a prologue by the author, in which he

sets forth the end he has had in view. The prologue is followed by a brief

treatise on the method of meditation on the Passion, together with four

sections suggestive of aids to the memory, the understanding, the will,

and the colloquy. The whole is prefaced by the editor, from whose remarks

we transcribe the following: “That he (the author) was a man of sound and

deep theological learning is sufficiently proved by the work which is now

presented to the English reader.... Everything he has written is of the

most sterling value, and has always been very highly esteemed, especially

by those who have labored in illustrating and explaining the _Spiritual

Exercises of S. Ignatius_.... He tells us (in the prologue) that the book

is designed both for simple reading and also for the purpose of furnishing

matter to those who are in the habit of practising meditation and of

preparing their meditation for themselves. Those who use the book for the

first‐named purpose will hardly discover that it is intended also to serve

the other; while those who practise meditation, and refer to these pages

for matter pregnant with such considerations and suggestive of copious

affections and practical resolutions, will not find it easy to exhaust the

stores which are here so unostentatiously collected. It may be worth while

to point out that the design of the author, that his book should thus

serve the purpose of a storehouse for meditation on the Passion, accounts

for the only kind of amplification which he has allowed himself. This is

the paraphrastic commentary which he generally substitutes for or subjoins

to the words of our blessed Lord in the various scenes of the Passion. The

meaning of these sacred words is often very fully and lovingly brought

out, although the narrative form in which the whole work is cast might

less naturally suggest this method of treatment, so valuable to those who

desire to feed on the sayings of our blessed Saviour in all their rich

fertility and meaning.”

The editor expresses a fear “that the translation will be found to be, at

least in parts, rugged and unpolished”; but says he has “tried, on the

other hand, to make it as faithful as possible; and to that object has

been well content to sacrifice smoothness of style, though the original

deserves the most careful rendering in matter and in form.” “Palma

belongs,” he adds, “to what I believe is the best age of Spanish religious

literature—the age of Louis of Grenada, John of Avila, Louis of Leon, S.

Teresa; S. John of the Cross, Louis da Ponte, and other famous writers. In

point of style he is, perhaps, not equal to them; but he shares with many

of these writers the characteristic of masculine common sense, theological

culture alike exquisite and solid, and the tenderest and simplest piety.

Happily, these are qualities which do not easily evaporate in a

translation.”

He then goes on to say that he has “thought it better not to attempt in

any way to edit Father Palma as to points on which he would perhaps write

differently were he living in the present century.” We quite agree with

his decision; and shall here close our notice of the book, since, after

what we have borrowed from the preface, any comments of our own would be

superfluous.

ALL‐HALLOW EVE; OR, THE TEST OF FUTURITY, AND OTHER STORIES. New

York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1872.

This book, containing three tales, _All‐Hallow Eve_, _Unconvicted_, and

_Jenifer’s Prayer_, while it will doubtless afford much amusement to many

readers during the long winter evenings, will, we trust, have other and

more decided effects. By contrast, it shows that fiction of the very

highest order may be successfully written without the extraneous aid of

bad taste and more than doubtful morality, and by example it will

encourage our aspiring writers who, now overawed by the shadow of departed

genius, are unwilling or afraid to risk their reputations in endeavoring

to rival the efforts of those who formerly delighted and instructed us by

their compositions. When the Star of the North, Scott, set, it was feared

that this species of literature had suffered an irreparable loss; but soon

a host of writers sprang up in England, Ireland, and, we may say, America,

who not only compensated for the loss, but more than repaid us for the

decadence of the historico‐romantic school. When those in turn

disappeared, it was confidently predicted that the present generation,

barren of imagination and powers of observation and description, could not

produce anything equal to what adorned the pages of men like Griffin,

Dickens, and Hawthorne. Daily experience teaches us that this was a

fallacy. New buds of promise are constantly springing up around us which

need but the encouraging voice of the press and the smiles of a

discriminating public patronage to warm into full‐blown vigor and

loveliness.

The three tales before us are an earnest of this. The story entitled _All‐

Hallow Eve_, the first in this collection, as it is, we think, the first

in merit, is a tale of singular beauty, power and truthfulness. In

construction artistic without the appearance of art, in verisimilitude it

is all that would be required by the most orthodox French dramatist. The

characters are few and clearly defined, the plot simple, the scene

scarcely changes, the time from beginning to end is short, and the

_dénoûment_, though tragic, offends neither our sensibilities nor our

sense of justice. Ned Cavana and Michael Murdock are two aged well‐to‐do

Ulster farmers whose lands lie contiguous. The former has a daughter

Winifred or Winny, and the latter a son Thomas; and the natural desire of

the fond parents is to form a matrimonial alliance between their children,

and thus unite the families and the farms. Tom Murdock is handsome,

attractive, cunning, mercenary, and unscrupulous, while Winny, who is

limned with more than a painter’s art, adds to her natural graces a noble

heart and keen perception. Edmond Lennon, a young peasant rich in

everything but money, falls in love with her, and, besides encountering

the secret or open hostility of the Murdocks, he finds an almost

insurmountable barrier in the caste pride of the father of his lady‐love.

Aided, however, by the gentle and astute Winny, he partially succeeds in

overcoming this difficulty, when the machinations of his rival are

employed against him, and the result is—but we will not destroy the

pleasure of our fair and necessarily curious readers by unfolding the

catastrophe. The contrasts of character of the two old men, each in his

way aiming at the best, and also between the suitors, are excellently

drawn; the interludes, such as the All‐Hallow Eve festival and the

“hurling” match, are accurate and lifelike, and the bits of pathos which

here and there dot the course of the story are so touching in their very

simplicity that we venture to say many an eye unused to the melting mood

will be none the less moistened on their perusal. The style adopted by the

author is easy and familiar, a little too much so, we imagine, to suit the

tastes of the more exacting reader; and herein lies the only defect, if it

can be called one, that we can perceive in this story.

_Unconvicted; or, Old Thorneley’s Heirs_, is a tale of an altogether

different character, illustrating what may be called a more advanced state

of civilization. The scene is laid in London, and the principal personages

occupy a high social position. It is a story of suffering and affection,

of deep, dark, and unruly passion, and undying love and friendship. It

would be vain to attempt to epitomize the plot, which is woven so closely

and so dexterously that our interest in the actors is kept constantly on

the _qui vive_, and it is only at the very last chapter that we are

relieved from all anxiety on their account. The tale opens with the death

of old Gilbert Thorneley, it is supposed by poison, and the discovery of

his murderer forms the principal theme of the entire narrative. This

involves a great deal of legal discussion and analysis, and, for the first

time in the history of fiction, as far as our knowledge goes, we have a

clear and accurate description of the niceties, quibbles, and profundity

of English law. Though more curious and instructive than amusing, this

does not, however detract from the interest of the novel as such, but

rather acts as an offset to the numerous scenes of connubial and filial

affection with which it is replete. The moral is of course unexceptionable

and easily drawn.

_Jennifer’s Prayer_, a shorter but no less meritorious story of English

life, completes the volume, which, appearing at this season when good

books become more a necessity than a luxury in the household, will no

doubt be warmly welcomed by those who, from taste or inclination, prefer

the attractions of the novel to the more serious study of science and

history.

THE ILLUSTRATED CATHOLIC FAMILY ALMANAC FOR THE UNITED STATES, FOR

THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1873, calculated for different parallels of

latitude, and adapted for use throughout the country. New York:

The Catholic Publication Society.

There are something over five million Catholics in the United States,

representing over five hundred thousand families. This little Catholic

Family Almanac, then, should have a circulation of five hundred thousand.

If it has not, the fault is not with the Publication Society, but in the

Catholics themselves neglecting to diffuse it each in his own circle. A

few years ago such a little annual would have been regarded as an

impossibility. Beautiful in typography, with woodcut illustrations which

in design and execution rival those of any work issued in the country, it

is something that a Catholic can view with pride, and can never blush to

open before any one. This is merely taking it at its mechanical value. Its

scope is to give the yearly calendar of the church with what is locally

interesting to us as Catholics in America, or associated with the trials

and triumphs of the church in that Old World to which by some degrees more

or less we must all trace our origin.

In this year’s little volume, we find portraits of various ages, with

original sketches, telling us of great prelates among ourselves,

Archbishop Spalding and Bishop McGill, representative men who knew the

necessity of diffusing information among our people; bishops of the last

generation like Milner, whose works are familiar to all, yet whose

counterfeit presentment few have ever met; or Bishop Doyle, J.K.L., whom

Ireland can never forget; or like De Haro, who extended his kindness to

American Catholics in their early struggles; or like the illustrious

Hughes, whose large mind gave us a national life and position. The

Venerable Gregory Lopez will be new to many, great as was his fame in

Mexico. Crespel represents the French pioneer clergy at the frontiers in

colonial times—a man who saw rough life by sea and land in his missionary

career. Father Mathew needs no comment. The likeness is speaking and fine.

What part Catholics bore in the days of the Revolution we see in the

sketch of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, illustrated with a portrait and a

view of the old mansion. With his cousin, a priest, he was laboring to

make our cause continental before the Declaration of Independence was

debated in Congress.

Mrs. Seton, as the lady of wealth and influence in New York society, while

Washington as President resided there, shows the wonderful hand of

Providence. Who that saw that young wife then could have said that she

would be the foundress of a Catholic sisterhood, and not be deemed insane?

Mother Julia, foundress of the Sisters of Notre Dame, whom some people may

have heard of, and whose schools in this country alone contain sixty

thousand pupils.

Next comes the Venerable de la Salle, founder of the Christian Brothers,

whose pupils in our land, one might say, “no man can number for

multitude.” The portrait and sketch of this servant of God will be read in

thousands of American families which owe the Christian training of their

boys to his devoted community of Brothers; and, happily in the same work,

we have a portrait and sketch of the brilliant Gerald Griffin, who closed

his days as a Christian Brother.

The view of old S. Mary’s, the cradle of Maryland, the Catholic settlement

founded by the Ark and Dove, is alone worth all the _Almanac_ costs. And

this is but a portion of its contents. We have a stirring incident of the

early missions, the Rock of Cashel, the Church of Icolmkill, the

Cathedrals of Sienna and Chartres.

Every Catholic of means should feel it a bounden duty to order a number of

copies of this _Almanac_, and distribute them among the families less

likely to hear of its merits. In this way much is yet to be done in the

diffusion of popular Catholic literature. Our laity have to feel that

there is an apostolate incumbent upon them. _Fas est et ab hoste doceri._

TRADITION. Principally with reference to Mythology and the Law of

Nations. By Lord Arundell of Wardour. London: Burns, Oates & Co.

(New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

This is a work in which the chronologies, mythologies, and fragmentary

traditions of many nations are gathered together and made to do service in

the cause of Revelation.

The opponents of revealed truth not unfrequently assume this department of

knowledge to be their exclusive possession—they have been foremost in

working this mine, all it contains is theirs, and must be made to sustain

their theories. Lord Arundell’s book shows how utterly groundless is this

assumption. Here we have facts and figures, arguments and inferences,

taken from their own writings, which go to establish the truthfulness of

the sacred Scriptures from the very standpoint whence it has been sought

to convict them of falsehood. The first chapter in Genesis is a key to

every cosmogony. The rudest code of barbaric laws bears some impress of

the Almighty Finger of Sinai. Traditions, however distant and vague, point

in one general direction. These facts have long since been established.

Lord Arundell proves them anew, and brings forth much new matter in his

proofs. Indeed, while in many books we often have occasion to note the

absence of data and ideas, this, we may say, is crowded with both.

We doubt not that this book will forward greatly the interests of truth,

and thus the zeal and devotion of its noble author will be fully requited.

GOD AND MAN. Conferences delivered at Notre Dame in Paris. By the

Rev. Père Lacordaire, of the Order of Friar‐Preachers. Translated

from the French by a Tertiary of the same Order. London:

Rivingtons. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

The translator has already given us two volumes of the great Dominican’s

Conferences, and promises more in the same readable form. Persons as yet

unacquainted with Lacordaire will find his papers kindle their enthusiasm

beyond, perhaps, those of any other author—that is, if they can at all

appreciate the originality of his argument, together with his giant grasp

of thought and diction. And especially do we commend these conferences to

earnest thinkers outside the church, with whom the supernatural is the

question of questions.

Indebted as we are to the translator, he must not think us hypercritical

if we complain of bad punctuation, a comma being sometimes found where a

colon or even a full stop ought to be; or if we take leave to remind him

that, to render French idiomatically, it will not do to preserve the

sudden changes of tense which are forcible in that language, as in Latin,

but sound very strangely in English.

THE HYMNARY, WITH TUNES: A Collection of Music for Sunday‐Schools.

By S. Lasar. New York and Chicago: Biglow & Main.

We could recommend this hymn‐book to Catholic schools, and, on account of

its intrinsic worth, would have been glad to do so, if the compiler had

excluded the few hymns, of no special merit in themselves or in the tunes

adapted to them, which are anti‐Catholic in doctrine. Poison is dangerous,

and we cannot offer it even in the smallest quantities to our children.

THE ISSUES OF AMERICAN POLITICS. By Orrin Skinner, Philadelphia:

J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1873.

Attracted by the title of this book, the fact of its dedication to a

distinguished citizen of New York, and by its comprehensive table of

contents, we took it up and read it from cover to cover. In all candor, we

must say a more confused, ungrammatical, and shallower book it has seldom

fallen to our lot to peruse; and why any respectable publishing house

should have been induced to bring it out in such good style, or in any

form at all, passes our comprehension. To grapple with the great issues of

our American politics, to state each leading question clearly and fairly,

and to draw deductions therefrom that will stand the test of justice and

reason is a task requiring infinitely more experience, judicial ability,

and knowledge of our language than the author displays or evidently ever

will possess. Judging from this production, Mr. Skinner has not the

faintest conception of the principles upon which rests the framework of

our government. Though a lawyer, he is sadly ignorant of law as a science;

and, though ambitious of authorship, he seems unable to write a paragraph

intelligibly. For instance, take the following, snatched at random:

“The deduction from this criticism constitutes, of course, an advocacy of

intelligent suffrage. The plea is here urged that an unrestricted suffrage

is its own incentive to the education of those who exercise it. The

assertion betrays an unpardonable ignorance of one of the most prominent

characteristics of human nature. Frail humanity is so constituted that,

when it has presented to it two ways of effecting its purposes, one with

effort and the other without, it invariably chooses the latter. Equality

as a fundamental element of republican institutions is also urged, Let

such a sciolist read his conviction in the quotations from Burke already

cited.”

It were, however, useless to further attempt to criticise this most

pretentious and least readable of books, and the best wish we can afford

the author, and one that we have no doubt will be gratified, is that it

will be read by few and soon forgotten.

A MANUAL OF AMERICAN LITERATURE: A Text‐Book for Schools and

Colleges. By John S. Hart, LL.D. Philadelphia: Eldridge & Bro.

1873.

Mr. Hart has gathered considerable fresh material on American literature

in this volume. There is still much which he has omitted. With the same

industry and care which he has already bestowed on this manual, he may

render it complete. There is a personality in some of his remarks which is

uncalled for. In spite of these defects, this is the best work of the kind

with which we are acquainted.

THE MARBLE PROPHECY, AND OTHER POEMS. By J. G. Holland. New York:

Scribner, Armstrong & Co.

When our holy church, with its venerated head, its divine sacraments and

sacred ceremonies, is chosen by a writer of merit as the object upon which

he feels himself moved to pour forth his scathing abuse or stinging

ridicule, we bear his ponderous strokes or parry his keen thrusts as best

we may, confessing to the pardonable weakness of feeling complimented at

being called to the lists by an adversary of some strength of arm or

sharpness of weapon; but, when one from the common crowd of chance‐

assembled knights, like our quondam _Timothy Titcomb_, presumes

unchallenged to invite the attention of that respectable audience—the

American public—to _his_ little tilt against the giant of centuries, and,

in his overeagerness to take a share in the fray, disports himself upon

such a sorry steed as the “Marble Prophecy,” laden with “other poems” as a

makeweight, we at once look about us to see if we have not a serviceable

cane at hand for the use of the same discriminating public, _et voila!_

ROUNDABOUT RAMBLES IN LANDS OF FACT AND FANCY. By Frank R.

Stockton. 1 vol. small 4to. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co.

This is an instructive work, compiled with much judgment and good taste

from various authors, and is beautifully illustrated, making it a very

desirable holiday present for the young folk.

NIAGARA: Its History and Geology, Incidents and Poetry. With

illustrations. By George W. Holley. New York: Sheldon & Co. 1872.

This is something more than a mere _Murray_, or guide‐book, at the same

time that it serves as a valuable reference to the intelligent tourist.

Besides some historical and topographical descriptions, for which he draws

on the works of Shea, Parkman, Marshall, the Relations of the Early Jesuit

Missionaries, and State Documents, in addition to his own observations, he

indulges in some geological speculations which will attract the attention

of scientific readers. The whole is interspersed with anecdotes,

incidents, and poetical scraps which will serve to relieve the tedium of

travel, and hotel life.

A HIDDEN LIFE, AND OTHER POEMS. By George Macdonald, LL.D., Author

of “Within and Without,” “Wilfred Cumbermede,” etc. New York:

Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1872.

There is true poetry in this volume. The author possesses, in our

judgment, powers of a high order. His mind, too, is of a deeply religious

cast; and we wonder how he can remain a Protestant after his struggles

with doubt on the one hand, as shown in the poem of “The Disciple,” and

his attractions to Catholicity on the other, as evinced especially in his

poem on “The Gospel Woman,” and most in the opening one, “The Mother

Mary.” But then he has a laudatory sonnet “To Garibaldi.”

The “Catholic Publication Society” has in press, and will publish

simultaneously with its appearance in England, from advance sheets

furnished by the author, a new work, entitled, _My Clerical Friends_, by

the author of _The Comedy of Convocation_. This will be the only

authorized edition published in this country.

Books and Pamphlets Received.

From KREUZER BROTHERS, Baltimore: The Catholic Priest. By Michael Müller,

C.SS.R. 18mo, pp. 163.—The “Our Father.” By the same. 18mo, pp. 221.

From J. A. MCGEE, New York: Sister Mary Francis’ (the Nun of Kenmare)

Advice to Irish Girls in America. 12mo, pp. 201.

From BURNS, OATES & CO., London: Reflections and Prayers for Holy

Communion. From the French. With a preface by Archbishop Manning. (New

York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.) 18mo, pp. xii., 498.

From R. WASHBURNE, London: A Dogmatic Catechism. From the Italian of

Frassinetti. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.) 18mo,

pp. xix., 244.

From JAMES DUFFY, Dublin: Sermons on Ecclesiastical Subjects. By Henry

Edward Manning, D.D. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

pp. viii., 456.

From GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, New York: The Moral of Accidents, and other

Discourses. By the late Thomas T. Lynch. 12mo, pp. xviii., 415.

From T. & T. CLARK, Edinburgh, and SCRIBNER, WELFORD & ARMSTRONG, New

York: Biblical Commentary on the Books of the Kings. By C. F. Keil. 8vo,

pp. viii., 523—Sermons from 1828 to 1860. By the late Wm. Cunningham, D.D.

8vo, pp. xxxvi, 416.—The Old Catholic Church. By W. D. Killen, D.D. 8vo,

pp. xx., 411.—Biblical Commentary on the Book of Psalms. By F. Deleutzsch,

D.D. Vol. III. 8vo, pp. 420.