There were many of those whom I have called representatives, and each bore

some strange emblem, which I understood to be the badge of the nation over

which he was set. Around each stood a host similarly distinguished, the

guardian angels of each individual soul composing the nation. There was an

awful stillness on this the last night of the year, as the conclave of

angels sat brooding over the events of the immediate past. A few, more

prominent among their brethren, presently stood forward, while a figure of

marvellous beauty, but calm austerity of aspect, presented a book to them,

which it supported as a deacon against its head. The book was closely

written on one side, while the opposite page was blank.

An angel, crowned with an iron crown, and robed in a wonderful garment of

deep azure,(198) curiously wrought in gold with stars and signs of lore

and art, such as only one land in Europe can boast of being able to

interpret, taking a pen in his hand, spoke to the assembled multitude.

“Brethren,” he said, in a deep, musical voice whose tones indicated both

gravity and conscious strength, “before I write my brief record of the

year we have now added to our experience, let me speak to you, as fellow‐

watchers over our God’s earthly treasures. My trust has been a bitter and

a heavy one, yet withal a glorious vindication of faith and truth. We have

risen among nations like a comet that for a moment eclipses the steadier

and more lasting glory of the older planets, but in our course there were

obstacles which have now become almost the monument of martyrs. Unmindful

of the lion‐hearted men to whom Wilfrid, and Boniface, and Lioba preached,

and of whom the strongest bulwark of intellectual faith was built by their

later and more national saints, our new rulers have sought to renew the

persecutions of the XVIth century, and the absolutism of a State Church.

But our God, the ‘dear God’(199) of our people, knew how to raise up

defenders for himself in the fearless pastors of his flock; knew how to

inspire them with a bravery that scorned imprisonment and laughed at

death, that made them raise their voices against presumptuous and

intrusive authority on the one hand, and barefaced heresy on the other. We

have triumphed in persecution; we have re‐echoed the _non possumus_ of our

earthly father and Pontiff; we have shown to our God the will of martyrs

after having displayed before our sovereign the deeds of patriots. He

thought to weld a mighty nation into one empire; he has riven it in twain

in his unblest attempt, and has called up against his puny military power

the anger of that God who, on the shores of the Red Sea, did punish

Pharaoh and his host. ‘Who is like to thee, among the strong, O Lord? Who

is like to thee, glorious in holiness, terrible and worthy of praise,

doing wonders?’ ”(200)

Those that wore robes like that of the mighty angel who had spoken took up

his last triumphant words, and chanted them forth in two alternate choirs,

and the voice that came from this host of choristers seemed like the voice

of the sea thundering amid caves and rocks. It surged up and died away in

long reverberating echoes, a hymn of strength and defiance, a prophecy of

a magnificent and almost endless future.

Then the angel who had spoken wrote a few words in the book, and, turning,

presented the pen to one who stood close beside him, tall, stately, and

calm, in white raiment, with the historical _fleur‐de‐lis_ broidered

thickly over his robe. On his brows shone the same emblem, wrought in gold

and pearls, while in his left hand he held a flame‐colored standard, the

oriflamme of the Crusades.

“My brethren,” he began, “this year has been a silent one compared with

its last two predecessors; but none the less a year of sacrifice, of

heroic expiation, of patient humility of spirit. We have lived amid perils

as deep as religious persecutions; amid the perils of a civilization that

is unchristian, and of refinements worse than heathen. The worship of the

false gods has come back, and we are surrounded with a corruption as

terrible as that of imperial Rome or effeminate Byzantium. Our name is no

longer supreme, our escutcheon no longer unstained, our sword is broken in

the hands of others, our missions are unprotected, and our influence no

longer paramount among barbarians and plunderers, and still our corruption

flourishes as unblushingly and undauntedly as ever, and our rivals, nay,

our very captors, come to learn it at our feet. This is now our shameful

supremacy; but, in the midst of these Capuan revels, is there still a hope

for the nation? Yes, my brethren, the same hope that our glorious iron‐

crowned compeer has told us was his hope—the church, the faith, the truth.

If our rulers, like those of our whilom foes, forget the Christian heroes

whom we call our forefathers, the men who at the field of Tolbiac vowed

our nation to the God of armies, and in a thousand fields in Palestine,

Syria, and Egypt redeemed that holy vow, _we_ do not and cannot forget it.

Sons and daughters of the Crusaders, heirs and heiresses of the Kings of

Jerusalem and the Knights of Rhodes and Malta, many of our nation are now

in the holier army, the holier knighthood of religion; their habit is

their coat of mail, their swift prayers and their swifter sacrifices are

their battle‐axes, their spears, their maces; in every land they are

fighting the battle of their own, in every breach defending the honor of

their fallen country. All eyes are still upon their acts; their land, like

a magnet, compels the glance of Europe and the world. The saviours who are

working hiddenly at the regeneration of ‘the eldest daughter of the

church’ are of no party, own no secret master, work for no wages, and seek

no reward; they are soldiers of the cross, children of God, who, in the

hospitals, the prisons, the galleys, the schools, the Chinese stations,

the Canadian missions, the cloistered monasteries, under the names of

Sisters of Charity, Order of Preachers, _Missions Etrangères_, Christian

Brothers, Benedictines of Solesmes, Jesuits, and _Sulpiciens_, work for

God, in God, with God. ‘Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and

his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you.’ ”(201)

The choir of white‐robed angels that clustered round the one who had

ceased speaking took up the grave refrain, and chanted it as their

brethren had done before, and the song swelled majestically as it seemed

to reach the uttermost bounds of the living barrier of angel faces round

the central groups. Ere yet it had subsided, the last of the heavenly

speakers wrote his record in the book, and gave the pen into the hand of a

third angel who stood in grave expectancy by his side.

This one was tall and stalwart‐looking, a warrior‐angel, one would

involuntarily be sure to think, yet his long trailing robe of crimson was

woven not with dragons or golden leopards, but with miniature cathedrals,

abbeys, and priories. The heaviness of this golden embroidery seemed to

drag the garment into yet more statuesque folds, as the mighty wearer drew

himself slowly up and took the pen, letting go, as he did so, his hold

upon a silver shield bearing a blood‐red cross. His fair waving locks were

uncrowned, and he bent his head towards the two who had spoken before.

“My brethren,” he began, and his voice sounded clear and clarionlike, “you

have each of you sought in the continuation of the traditions of the past

a pledge of the regeneration and safety of the future. I, too, looked to

the early past for the golden age I would fain see revived among us, but,

unlike you, it is neither persecution nor bloodshed that I have to record.

Our nation is not eclipsed in power or in influence; and although our

rulers are hardly worthy of their chivalric forerunners, yet there are yet

among them some who are heirs to their fathers’ greatness of soul, though

not to the integrity of their faith. Still, our race has kept more

unblemished than others that reverence for authority without which no

faith is sure, no empire stable. Our life flows more calmly on in our

island‐home than does the troubled stream of our brethren’s days beyond

the sea. Still, amid benefits without number, amid the march of science

and the progress of art, things that in exchange for the ancient gift of

faith our second fatherland every day gives us in return, we have one

fruitful source of dread and danger—the sordid love of gain which makes

our people restless during life, and leaves them hopeless in death. To

strive against this demon of the air—for we seem to breathe his spirit in

the very atmosphere—is the constant endeavor of my being. To knit art to

God as it was joined to him in the olden days, to put honor before wealth,

and conscience before success, to raise principle triumphant over

interest, is my daily, necessary, but most wearisome task. Many voices

erstwhile charmed our nation—that of the warrior, the bard, the monk; the

voice of glory, the voice of learning, the voice of holy love. Now one cry

alone harshly calls our children together—the cry of gain. Our country has

forgotten its ancient fanes of learning, its island monasteries, its

townlike abbeys, its glorious cathedrals, colleges, libraries, and halls,

it has forgotten its tournaments of science, its chants, its liturgies,

even its earthly pageants, and has run after the abject golden calf of

these latter days. Not the poor alone, but the noble and great have with

less excuse come down into the new arena, and lowered themselves to the

level of money‐seekers, till the chivalry of our race has become a

forgotten dream, a talisman that has lost its charm, a thing as out of

date as a crowded abbey with its holy pomps of daily service would be

among the darkened, busy streets of a modern gold‐coining city. And yet in

many a nook, in many an obscure street of a little town, in many a shady,

peaceful country home, are rising the fair progeny of our statelier fanes

of old, and beneath groined roofs and before carved altars rise prayers as

beautiful and as divers as the trefoils and roses on capital and pillar.

In prayer, whether petrified into fair churches standing for ever, or

moulded into golden altar‐plate rich with chasing and with gems, or flying

straight to God’s feet in ardent, winged words of love, we place our last

hope, the hope of the only true conversion our land can ever know; for

‘there is a success in evil things to a man without discipline, and there

is a finding that turneth to loss.’ ”(202)

Here a countless host of angels, as gravely radiant, yet with the same

solemn shade of sadness in their aspect, as the last speaker, took up his

parting words, and chanted them slowly. I thought they caught

unconsciously the ring of the holy words chanted so often through the ages

of faith, in that land of cathedrals and cloisters. Indeed, the angel

choir and their stately leader seemed none other than monastic champions

turned into bright heavenly spirits, so akin is everything in that isle to

the claustral ideal from which sprang its life—civil, collegiate,

ecclesiastical, feudal, and social.

As the chanted dirge grew less and less distinct, another angel advanced

to take the pen his predecessor had just laid in the folds of the book,

after having written his year’s record within. This one had stood so far

in the background as to have escaped my awed notice until now. He wore a

long, loosely‐falling robe of black, and bowed his head as if in grief;

his hands were clasped, and a golden and a silver key were held between

his fingers; in his step there was no elasticity, and in his eye no

gladness. All those who followed him seemed equally sorrowful, but soon I

heard why it was, and no longer marvelled at it.

“Brethren,” he said, in mournful tones, “brethren of all climes, who once

envied me my proud position of warden over the land which holds the father

of all Christians, envy me no longer the sad honors I must yet bear. When

I look at my nation, I can see nothing through my tears. Once I saw

treasures of art and beauty; I can take pride in them no longer. I saw

fair landscapes, the envy of the world, the garden of Europe, the

beautiful God’s‐acre of a past of heroic deeds, buried in honorable

oblivion as the seedlings of a more glorious crop of Christian heroism—I

can take pleasure in these no more. I saw a people mild, inoffensive,

believing, loving; now I see them corrupted, deluded, led away, and turned

into furies. I saw churches gorgeous with the many gifts of fervent piety

and grateful wealth; I see ruins now, sacrilegiously used for godless

purposes, in derision and contempt of their lofty dedication. I saw one

city, the jewel of the universe, the city of sanctuary and refuge, where

faith reigned, and grief was comforted, and weakness was made strength; a

‘city of the soul,’ where God held court mid thousands of earthly angels,

and where he found again the mingled worship of the mysterious Hebrew

temple and of the holy, silent house of Nazareth. But now, brethren, rude

men have scattered our treasures, profaned our churches, seized our

cloisters, driven away learning and charity to put lewdness and brutality

in their place, and have renewed, with far more blasphemous intention, the

horrors of the barbaric invasions. I see the father of the faithful with

the crown of martyrdom surmounting his tiara, waiting, like the _Ecce

Homo_ eighteen hundred years ago, the final verdict of an infuriate mob,

while other nations, Pilate‐like, wash their hands of the sacred, helpless

charge it were their first duty to defend. My brethren, weep with me, weep

for me, and yet rejoice; ‘for the Lord will not cast off for ever.’(203)

‘And in that day the deaf shall hear the words of the book, and out of

darkness and obscurity the eyes of the blind shall see.’ ”(204)

Many were the eager voices that took up the words of hope and sang them

with a fervor which only guardian spirits can know. As the strain swelled

and spread, then fell into a gentle murmur, as if the singers were loth to

leave off the prayer of faith and hope, the angel had written his short

record for the passing year, and looked around to welcome his next

successor. There was a pause, and among the angelic conclave a swaying to

and fro denoted that some suppressed feeling was at work. Those who had

spoken stood apart in a conspicuous group, conferring among themselves;

but I looked with awe and interest at those who had hitherto been silent.

The old year’s span was very short now. On earth the snow was falling,

preparing a fitting shroud for the departing guest, and a fitting cradle

for the coming stranger; there were revellers in many houses, heedless

sleepers in more, and watchers in only a few; there were monastic choirs

filing into silent churches for the coming office of matins; and there

were also miserable outcasts, some voluntary slaves of the world, others

unwilling watchers, poverty‐stricken, hunger‐smitten, desperately tempted

creatures who might murmur at and even curse their fate, yet would not

begin the year by breaking God’s commandments; there were many sinners

doing penance, many happy death‐beds, many freed souls rushing on the

wings of long‐repressed desire towards the goal that weary years of

purgatory had hardly hidden from their longing gaze; and well might the

angelic host thrill with holy delight as all these sights and sounds

struck upon their consciousness. The good surely outweighed the bad!

Just then an angel stepped from among the hitherto silent throng—an angel

with a face full of suffering, sweetness, and patience, yet withal a look

of something deeper and stronger than mere patience; and his black robe

was sown with silver stars, while a star glittered also on his forehead.

In quick accents, full of strength, he addressed his companions, holding

the pen in his hand.

“Brethren!” he said, “the march of events, as the world calls it, has

passed over and by our nation, but in God’s eyes we are not so soon

forgotten. The civilizer of Eastern Europe, the bulwark of Christianity

against the Moslem faith, we have nevertheless suffered by the hands of

Christian princess and been annihilated in the name of civilization. A

martyr‐nation, a victim to false diplomacy, we stand in Europe with the

chains still about our feet, while empires change hands and dynasties come

and go; exiled and dispersed like the Hebrews of old, we are known, like

them, by our indomitable faith and ever hopeful patriotism. Within this

year, a gigantic empire has manacled us more cruelly, gagged us more

closely, than before, but we are steadfast yet, for ‘blessed are they that

suffer persecution for justice’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of

heaven.’ ”(205)

The words were caught up and re‐echoed by the angel throng around their

star‐crowned leader, while he wrote the brief record of another year’s

bitter wrongs still so heroically and silently borne. He passed the pen to

another clothed in purple, who looked at him with angelic sympathy before

he spoke. His voice was still and low, but clear as a silver bell.

“My brethren,” he said, “my task is hard and dreary; a mist of prejudice

hangs over those vast steppes which form my dominions; a false

civilization educates our nobles to a pitch of unnatural and seeming

polish in which all truth is killed, and all natural kindness crushed;

like the apples of the Dead Sea, our country is fair to the eye of the

world, but ashes to the taste of God. We have all to hope, it is true, but

much to fear; and, while the desolate semblance of the true faith spreads

its outward and deceptive gorgeousness before the barren and fettered

nation, the souls of our brethren perish of thirst, as it were, within

sight of the Fountain of Life. Brethren, pray for my unhappy charge, and

thou, O God! enlighten my people! ‘How incomprehensible are thy judgments,

and how unsearchable thy ways!’ ”(206)

The purple‐robed choir around him took up the angel’s last words, and

slowly chanted them, as if in awe and expectation, while their leader

wrote a few brief words in the book.

Another came forward, gathering his golden robe together, the hem of which

was broidered with figures of ships and charts, somewhat faded now, but

this was redeemed by the effulgent brightness of the scroll he held on his

outstretched hand a scroll bearing the divine motto, _Ad majorem Dei

gloriam_. Looking swiftly around, he began thus:

“My brethren, my provinces are narrowed and my nation lessened since her

ships explored the ocean, her fleet sent forth armadas, and her leaders

conquered new continents, but the spirit of the missionary and the martyr

has not followed that of the less successful and less lasting

investigator. Chivalry still lives in the land of the Cid, and fires the

hearts in whose veins flows the blood of the Crusaders of Granada. Saints

took up the warrior’s shield, and won their spurs in distant, dangerous

services, till the names of Xavier, Loyola, Gaudia, and Teresa became the

household words of a whole universe. Unbelief has poisoned our present

position, and for our sins we have suffered dire misfortune and perennial

disturbance. Still, our people are unchanged; faithfully the sons of the

Visigoth martyrs keep the trust of their fathers, and, secure amid their

mountain fastnesses, within the last year have raised the standard of the

cross wreathed with the golden lilies of a national and well‐beloved

dynasty. We have had triumphs of the soul and heroic deeds of patriotic

daring mingled together in the annals of our peasant soldiers; the spirit

of another Vendée has spoken to our nation; and God has rejoiced to find

at last a human bulwark against human unbelief. ‘Judge me, O God, and

distinguish my cause from the nation that is not holy; deliver me from the

unjust and deceitful man.’ ”(207)

And while the angel wrote his record in the book, his followers echoed his

last words in tones of mingled triumph and supplication, chanting them, as

all the others had done before them, in two alternate choirs. And now

there was again a pause, while the first groups of angels who had spoken

drew closer to the book, and gazed at the last records written in it. One

more representative came forward, an angel robed in softest green, and

bearing a harp in his hand. Turning to the west, he spoke in a voice full

of deep emotion: “My brethren, I look towards the sea, and gaze at the

land of the setting sun. I see my people spreading over the earth, so that

I have more children in far‐away lands than on my own soil. I see them,

the pioneer nation of whom Brendan was the first leader, planting the

cross and the shamrock in unfailing union, wherever they go. Long ages of

suffering have not reft them of the gift of faith, the treasure of art, or

the strength of enterprise; their arm hath upreared every throne and

stayed every altar; their women make a Nazareth of every home and a

tabernacle of every hovel; their race links two worlds, that of the past

and that of the future, that of culture and civilization, to that of

enterprise and freedom. I look with pride on the ocean darkened by the

barks of my people, and forget, as I look, to sigh over the ruined fanes

and dismantled castles of old. Children of impulse, they carry their home

in their hearts, and make another Erin round every cross they plant. Sea

kings, but Christians, they take from the Norsemen their daring, and from

their own isle its poetry, and, blending the two, bear the highest gifts

of the Old World to be the heirlooms of the New. To my nation may it well

and fittingly be said, ‘They went out from thee on foot, and were led by

the enemies: but the Lord will bring them to thee exalted with honor as

children of the kingdom.’ ”(208)

These prophetic words were caught up by the numerous followers of the

green‐robed angel, and rang now in grand and now in softened cadence

through the boundless field of space that encircled the heavenly throng.

As the tones died away, the angel wrote his record in the book, and the

bells of earth sounded faintly in the still air.

The old year was passing away, and the angels in silence gathered round

the book. As the last stroke of midnight was heard, the bearer of it

turned the leaf, presenting a surface fair and smooth as the petal of a

lily, and the whole company of blessed spirits intoned the _Veni Creator_.

I heard as it were in a dream, and saw forms of light and beauty disperse

like the fleecy clouds of morning, till the singing died away in faraway

corners of our old, prosaic, yet blessed earth. The songs of heaven were

carried into the uttermost recesses where earthly misery was keenest and

earthly revelry loudest on that fateful night; and, as its echoes passed

over them, the misery grew strangely bearable, the revelry was

unaccountably hushed. Everywhere the new‐born year came in with a blessing

and a promise, reverently gathering its predecessor’s lessons even while

mourning its inevitable shortcomings; and so once more, according to the

patience of God, his ministers went forth to clear for every man a new

field where, past errors being forgotten, he might renew his struggle in

the battle of life, and retrieve himself in the eyes of infinite purity

and infinite justice.

Such was the beautiful death of the old year 1872.

The Nativity Of Christe.

Behould the Father is His daughter’s Sonne,

The bird that built the nest is hatched therein,

The Old of Yeares an hower hath not outrunne,

Eternall life to live doth now beginnn,

The Word is dumm, the Mirth of heaven doth weepe,

Mighte feeble is, and Force doth fayntely creepe.

O dyinge soules! behould your living Spring!

O dazeled eyes! behould your Sunne of grace!

Dull eares, attend what word this Word doth bringe!

Upp, heavy hartes, with joye your joy embrace!

From death, from darke, from deaphnesse, from despayres,

This Life, this Light, this Worde, this Joy repaires.

Gift better than Himself God doth not knowe,

Gift better than his God no man can see;

This gift doth here the giver given bestowe,

Gift to this gift lett ech receiver bee:

God is my gift, Himself He freely gave me,

God’s gift am I, and none but God shall have me.

Man altred was by synne from man to best;

Beste’s food is haye, haye is all mortal fleshe;

Now God is fleshe, and lyes in maunger prest,

As haye the brutest synner to refreshe:

O happy fielde wherein this foder grewe,

Whose taste doth us from beastes to men renewe!

SOUTHWELL.

The Progressionists.

From The German Of Conrad Von Bolanden.

Chapter VIII. Continued.

Once more the bell of the chairman was heard amid the tumult.

“Mr. Seicht, officer of the crown, will now address the meeting,” Schwefel

announced.

The audience were seized with amazement, and not without a cause. A

dignitary of a higher order, a member of the administration, ascended the

pulpit for the purpose of making an assault upon Christian education. He

was about to make war upon morals and faith, the true supports of every

solid government, the sources of the moral sentiment and of the prosperity

of human society. A remnant of honesty and a lingering sense of justice

may have raised a protest in Seicht’s mind against his undertaking; for

his bearing was anything but self‐possessed, and he had the appearance of

a wretch that was being goaded on by an evil spirit. Besides, he had the

habit peculiar to bureaucrats of speaking in harsh, snarling tones. Seicht

was conscious of these peculiarities of his bureaucratic nature, and

labored to overcome them. The effort imparted to his delivery an air of

constraint and a sickening sweetness which were climaxed by the fearfully

involved style in which his speech was clothed.

“Gentlemen,” said Seicht, “in view of present circumstances, and in

consideration of the requirements of culture whose spirit is incompatible

with antiquated conditions, popular education, which in connection with

domestic training is the foundation of the future citizen, must also

undergo such changes as will bring it into harmony with modern enlightened

sentiment; and this is the more necessary as the provisions of the law,

which progress in its enlightenment and clearness of perception cannot

refuse to recognize as a fit model for the imitation of a party dangerous

to the state—I mean the party of Jesuitism and ultramontanism—allow

untrammelled scope for the reformation of the school system, provided the

proper clauses of the law and the ordinances relating to this matter are

not left out of consideration. Accordingly, it is my duty to refer this

honorable meeting especially to the ministerial decree referring to common

schools, in accordance with which said common schools may be established,

after a vote of the citizens entitled to the elective franchise, as soon

as the need of this is felt; which in the present instance cannot be

contested, since public opinion has taken a decided stand against

denominational schools, in which youth is trained after unbending forms of

religion, and in doctrines that evidently conflict with the triumph of the

present, and with those exact sciences which make up the only true

gospel—the gospel of progress, which scarcely in any respect resembles the

narrow gospel of dubious dogmas—dubious for the reason that they lack the

spirit of advancement, and are prejudicial to the investigation of the

problems of a God, of material nature, and of man.”

Here leader Sand thrust his fingers in his ears.

“Thunder and lightning!” exclaimed he wrathfully, “what a shallow babbler!

What is he driving at? His periods are a yard long; and when he has done,

a man is no wiser than when he began. Gospel—gospel of

progress—fool—numskull—down! down!”

“Quite a remarkable instance, this!” said Gerlach to the banker.

“Evidently this man is trying might and main to please, yet he only

succeeds in torturing his hearers.”

“I will explain this man to you,” replied the banker. “Heretofore Mr.

Seicht has been a most complete exemplar of absolute bureaucracy. The only

divinity he knew were the statutes, the only heaven the bureau, and the

only safe way of reaching supreme felicity was, in his opinion, to render

unquestioning obedience to ministerial rescripts. Suddenly Mr. Seicht

heard the card‐house of bureaucracy start in all its joints. His divinity

lost its worshippers, and his heaven lost all charms for those who were

seeking salvation. He felt the ground moving under him, he realized the

colossal might of progress, and hastened to commend himself to this party

by adopting liberal ideas. He is now aiming to secure a seat in the house

of delegates, which is subsequently to serve him as a stepping‐stone to a

place in the cabinet. Just listen how the man is agonizing! He is wasting

his strength, however, and the attitude of the audience is beginning to

get alarming.”

For some time past, the chieftains in the chancel had been shaking their

heads at the efforts of this official advocate of progress. To avoid being

tortured by hearing, they had engaged in conversation. The auditors in the

nave of the church were also growing restive. The speaker, however,

continued blind to every hint and insinuation. At last a tall fellow in

the crowd swung his hat and cried, “Three cheers for Mr. Seicht!” The

whole nave joined in a deafening cheer. Seicht, imagining the cheering to

be a tribute to the excellence of his effort, stopped for a moment to

permit the uproar to subside, intending then to go on with his speech; but

no sooner had he resumed than the cheering burst forth anew, and was so

vigorously sustained that the man, at length perceiving the meaning of the

audience, came down amid peals of derisive laughter.

“Serves the gabbler right!” said Sand. “He’s a precious kind of a fellow!

The booby thinks he can hoist himself into the chamber of deputies by

means of the shoulders of progress, and thence to climb up higher. But it

happens that we know whom we have to deal with, and we are not going to

serve as stirrups for a turn‐coat official.”

The chairman wound up with a speech in which he announced that the vote on

the question of common schools would soon come off, and then adjourned the

meeting.

The millionaires drew back to allow the crowd to disperse. Near them stood

Mr. Seicht, alone and dejected. The countenances of the chieftains had

yielded him no evidence on which to base a hope that his speech had told,

and that he might expect to occupy a seat in the assembly. Moreover, Sand

had rudely insulted the ambitious official to his face. This he took

exceedingly hard. All of a sudden, he spied the banker in the chancel, and

went over to greet him. Greifmann introduced Gerlach.

“I am proud,” Mr. Seicht asseverated, “of the acquaintance of the

wealthiest proprietor of the country.”

“Pardon the correction, sir; my father is the proprietor.”

“No matter, you are his only son,” rejoined Seicht. “Your presence proves

that you take an interest in the great questions of the day. This is very

laudable.”

“My presence, however, by no means proves that I concur in the object of

this meeting. Curiosity has led me hither.”

The official directed a look of inquiry at the banker.

“Sheer curiosity,” repeated this gentleman coldly.

“Can you not, then, become reconciled to the spirit of progress?” asked

Seicht, with a smile revealing astonishment.

“The value of my convictions consists in this, that I worship genuine

progress,” replied the millionaire gravely. “The progress of this

community, in particular, looks to me like retrogression.”

“I am astonished at what you say,” returned the official; “for surely

Shund’s masterly speech has demonstrated that we are keeping pace with the

age.”

“I cannot see, sir, how fiendish hatred of religion can be taken for

progress. This horrible, bloodthirsty monster existed even in the days of

Nero and Tiberius, as we all know. Can the resurrection of it, now that it

has been mouldering for centuries, be seriously looked upon as a step in

advance? Rather a step backward, I should think, of eighteen hundred

years. Especially horrible and revolting is this latest instance of

tyranny, forcing parents who entertain religious sentiments to send their

children to irreligious schools. Not even Nero and Tiberius went so far.

On this point, I agree, there has been progress, but it consists in

putting a most unnatural constraint upon conscience.”

Gerlach’s language aroused the official. He was face to face with an

ultramontane. The mere sight of such an one caused a nervous twitching in

his person. He resorted at once to bureaucratic weapons in making his

onslaught.

“You are mistaken, my dear sir—you are very much mistaken. The spirit of

the modern state demands that the schools of the multitude, particularly

public institutions, should be accessible to the children of every class

of citizens, without distinction of religious profession. Consequently,

the schools must be taken from under the authority, direction, and

influence of the church, and put entirely under civil and political

control. Such, too, is now the mind of our rulers, besides that public

sentiment calls for the change.”

“But, Mr. Seicht, in making such a change, the state despotically

infringes on the province of religion.”

“Not despotically, Mr. Gerlach, but legally; for the state is the

fountain‐head of all right, and consequently possessed of unlimited

right.”

“You enunciate principles, sir, which differ vastly from what morality and

religion teach.”

“What signify morals—what signifies religion? Mere antiquated forms, sir,

with no living significance,” explained Seicht, lavishly displaying the

treasures of the storehouse of progressionist wisdom. “The past submitted

quietly to the authority of religion, because there existed then a low

degree of intellectual culture. At present there is only one authority—it

is the preponderance of numbers and of material forces. Consequently, the

only real authority is the majority in power. On the other hand,

authorities based upon the supposed existence of a supersensible world

have lost their cause of being, for the reason that exact science plainly

demonstrates the nonexistence of an immaterial world. _Cessante causa,

cessat effectus_, the supersensible world, the basis of religious

authority, being gone, it logically results that religious authority

itself is gone. Hence the only real authority existing in a state is the

majority, and to this every citizen is obliged to submit. You marvel, Mr.

Gerlach. What I have said is not my own personal view, but the expression

of the principles which alone pass current at the present day.”

“I agree in what you say,” said the banker. “You have spoken from the

standpoint of the times. The controlling power is the majority.”

“Shund, then, accurately summed up the creed of the present age when he

said, ‘Progress conquers death, destroys hell, rejects heaven, and finds

its god in the sweet enjoyment of life.’ It is to be hoped that all‐

powerful progress will next decree that there are no death and no

suffering upon earth, that all the hostile forces of nature have ceased,

that want and misery are no more, and that earth is a paradise of sweet

enjoyment for all.”

Mr. Seicht was rather taken aback by this satire.

“Besides, gentlemen,” proceeded Gerlach, “you will please observe that the

doctrine of state supremacy is a step backward of nearly two thousand

years. In Nero’s day, but one source of right, namely, the state, was

recognized. In the head of the state, the emperor, were centred all power,

all authority, and all right. In his person, the state was exalted into a

divinity. Temples and altars were reared to the emperor; sacrifices were

offered to him; he was worshipped as a deity. Even human sacrifices were

not denied him if the imperial divinity thought proper to demand them.

And, now, to what condition did these monstrous errors bring the world of

that period? It became one vast theatre of crime, immorality, and

despotism. Slavery coiled itself about men and things, and strangled their

liberty. Matrimonial life sank into the most loathsome corruption.

Infanticide was permitted to pass unpunished. The licentiousness of women

was even greater than that of men. Life and property became mere

playthings for the whims of the emperor and of his courtiers. Did the

divine Caesar wish to amuse his deeply sunken subjects, he had only to

order the gladiators to butcher one another, or some prisoners or slaves

or Christians to be thrown to tigers and panthers; this made a Roman

holiday. Such, gentlemen, was human society when it recognized no

supersensible world, no God above, no moral law. If our own progress

proceeds much further in the path on which it is marching, it will soon

reach a similar fearful stage. We already see in our midst the

commencement of social corruption. We have the only source of right

proclaimed to be the divine state. Conscience is being tyrannized over by

a majority that rejects God and denies future rewards and punishments. All

the rest, even to the divine despot, has already followed, or inevitably

will follow. Therefore, Mr. Seicht, the progress you so loudly boast of is

mere stupid retrogression, blind superstition, which falls prostrate

before the majority of a mob, and worships the omnipotence of the state.”

“Don’t you think my friend has been uttering some very bitter truths?”

asked the banker, with a smile.

“Pretty nearly so,” replied the official demurely. “However, one can

detect the design, and cannot help getting out of humor.”

“What design?” asked Seraphin.

“Of creating alarm against progress.”

“Indeed, sir, you are mistaken. I, too, am enthusiastic about progress,

but genuine progress. And because I am an advocate of real progress I

cannot help detesting the monstrosity which the age would wish to palm off

on men instead.”

The church was now cleared. Greifmann’s carriage was at the door. The

millionaires drove off.

“Pity for this Gerlach!” thought the official, as he strode through the

street. “He is lost to progress, for he is too solidly rooted in

superstition to be reclaimed. War against nature’s claims; deny healthy

physical nature its rights; re‐establish the reign of terror of the seven

capital sins; permit the priesthood to tyrannize over conscience; restore

the worship of an unmathematical triune God—no! no!” cried he fiercely,

“sooner shall all go to the devil!”

A carriage whirled past him. He cast a glance into the vehicle, and raised

his hat to Mr. Hans Shund.

The chief magistrate was on his way home from the town‐hall. He could not

rest under the weight of his laurels; the inebriation of his triumph drove

him into the room where sat his lonely and careworn wife.

“My election to the assembly is assured, wife.” And he went on with a

minute account of the proceedings of the day.

The pale, emaciated lady sat bowed in silence over her work, and did not

look up.

“Well, wife, don’t you take any interest in the honors won by your

husband? I should think you ought to feel pleased.”

“All my joys are swallowed up in an abyss of unutterable wretchedness,”

replied she. “And my husband is daily deepening the gulf. Yesterday you

were again at a disreputable house. Your abominable deeds are heaped

mountain high—and am I to rejoice?”

“A thousand demons, wife, I’m beginning to believe you have spies on

foot!”

“I have not. But you are at the head of this city—your steps cannot

possibly remain unobserved.”

“Very well!” cried he, “it shall be my effort in the assembly to bring

about such a change that there shall no longer be any houses of disrepute.

Narrow‐minded moralists shall not be allowed to howl any longer. The time

is at hand, old lady—so‐called disreputable houses are to become places of

amusement authorized by law.”

He spoke and disappeared.

Chapter IX. Progress Grows Jolly.

The agitators of progress were again hurrying through the streets and

alleys of the town. They knocked at every door and entered every house to

solicit votes in favor of common schools. Thanks to the overwhelming might

of the party in power, they again carried their measure. Dependent,

utterly enslaved, many yielded up their votes without opposition. It is

true conscience tortured many a parent for voting against his convictions,

for sacrificing his children to a system with which he could not

sympathize; but not a man in a dependent position had the courage to

vindicate for his child the religious training which was being so

ruthlessly swept away. Even men in high office gave way before the

encroaching despotism, for in the very uppermost ranks of society also

progress domineered.

One man only, fearless and firm, dared to put himself in the path of the

dominant power—the Rev. F. Morgenroth. From the pulpit, he unmasked and

scathed the unchristian design of debarring youth from religious

instruction, and of rearing a generation ignorant of God and of his

commandments. He warned parents against the evil, entreated them to stand

up conscientiously for the spiritual welfare of their children, to reject

the common schools, and to rescue the little ones for the maternal

guardianship of the church.

His sermon roused the entire progressionist camp. The local press fiercely

assailed the intrepid clergyman. Lies, calumnies, and scurrility were

vomited against him and his profession. Hans Shund seized the pen, and

indited newspaper articles of such a character as one would naturally look

for from a thief, usurer, and debauchee. Morgenroth paid no attention to

their disgraceful clamor, but continued his opposition undismayed. By

means of placards, he invited the Catholic citizens to assemble at his own

residence, for the purpose of consulting about the best mode of thwarting

the designs of the liberals. This unexpected fearlessness put the men of

culture, humanity, and freedom beside themselves with rage. They at once

decided upon making a public demonstration. The chieftains issued orders

to their bands, and these at the hour appointed for the meeting mustered

before the residence of the priest. A noisy multitude, uttering threats,

took possession of the churchyard. If a citizen attempted to make his way

through the mob to the house, he was loaded with vile epithets, at times

even with kicks and blows. But a small number had gathered around the

priest, and these showed much alarm; for outside the billows of progress

were surging and every moment rising higher. Stones were thrown at the

house, and the windows were broken. Parteiling, the commissary of police,

came to remonstrate with the clergyman.

“Dismiss the meeting,” said he. “The excitement is assuming alarming

proportions.”

“Commissary, we are under the protection of the law and of civil rule,”

replied Morgenroth. “We are not slaves and helots of progress. Are we to

be denied the liberty of discussing subjects of great importance in our

own houses?”

A boulder coming through the window crushed the inkstand on the table, and

rolled on over the floor. The men pressed to one side in terror.

“Your calling upon the law to protect you is utterly unreasonable under

present circumstances,” said Parteiling. “Listen to the howling. Do you

want your house demolished? Do you wish to be maltreated? Will you have

open revolution? This all will surely follow if you persist in refusing to

dismiss the meeting. I will not answer for results.”

Stones began to rain more densely, and the howling grew louder and more

menacing.

“Gentlemen,” said Morgenroth to the men assembled, “since we are not

permitted to proceed with our deliberations, we will separate, with a

protest against this brutal terrorism.”

“But, commissary,” said a much frightened man, “how are we to get away?

These people are infuriated; they will tear us in pieces.”

“Fear nothing, gentlemen; follow me,” spoke the commissary, leading the

way.

The ultramontanes were hailed with a loud burst of scornful laughter. The

commissary, advancing to the gate, beckoned silence.

“In the name of the law, clear the place!” cried he.

The mob scoffed and yelled.

“Fetch out the slaves of the priest—make them run the gauntlet—down with

the Jesuits!”

At this moment, a man was noticed elbowing his way through the crowd;

presently Hans Shund stepped before the embarrassed guardian of public

order.

“Three cheers for the magistrate!” vociferated the mob.

Shund made a signal. Profound silence followed.

“Gentlemen,” spoke the chief magistrate, in a tone of entreaty, “have the

goodness to disperse.”

Repeated cheers were raised, then the accumulation of corrupt elements

began to dissolve and flow off in every direction.

“I deeply regret this commotion of which I but a moment ago received

intelligence,” said Shund. “The excitement of the people is attributable

solely to the imprudent conduct of Morgenroth.”

“To be sure—to be sure!” assented Parteiling.

The place was cleared. The Catholics hurried home pursued and hooted by

straggling groups of rioters.

The signs of the approaching celebration began to be noticeable on the

town‐common. Booths were being erected, tables were being disposed in rows

which reached further than the eye could see, wagon‐loads of chairs and

benches were being brought from all parts of town, men were busy sinking

holes for climbing‐poles and treacherous turnstiles; but the most

attractive feature of all the festival was yet invisible—free beer and

sausages furnished at public cost. The rumor alone, however, of such cheer

gladdened the heart of every thirsty voter, and contributed greatly to the

establishment of the system of common schools. Bands of music paraded the

town, gathered up voters, and escorted them to the polls. As often as they

passed before the residence of a progressionist chieftain, the bands

struck up an air, and the crowd cheered lustily. They halted in front of

the priest’s residence also. The band played, “To‐day we’ll taste the

parson’s cheer,” the mob roaring the words, and then winding up with

whistling and guffaws of laughter. This sort of disorderly work was kept

up during three days. Then was announced in the papers in huge type: “An

overwhelming majority of the enlightened citizens of this city have

decided in favor of common schools. Herewith the existence of these

schools is secured and legalized.”

On the fourth day, the celebration came off. The same morning Gerlach

senior arrived at the Palais Greifmann on his way home from the

Exposition.

“I am so glad!” cried Louise. “I was beginning to fear you would not come,

and getting provoked at your indifference to the interests of our people.

We have been having stirring times, but we have come off victorious. The

narrow‐minded enemies of enlightenment are defeated. Modern views now

prevail, and education is to be remodelled and put in harmony with the

wants of our century.”

“Times must have been stirring, for you seem almost frenzied, Louise,”

said Conrad.

“Had you witnessed the struggle and read the newspapers, you, too, would

have grown enthusiastic,” declared the young lady.

“Even quotations advanced,” said the banker. “It astonished me, and I can

account for it only by assuming that the triumph of the common‐school

system is of general significance and an imperative desideratum of the

times.”

“How can you have any doubt about it?” cried his sister. “Our town has

pioneered the way: the rest of Germany will soon adopt the same system.”

Seraphin greeted his father.

“Well, my son, you very likely have heard nothing whatever of this hubbub

about schools?”

“Indeed, I have, father. Carl and I were in the midst of the commotion at

the desecrated church of S. Peter. We saw and heard what it would have

been difficult to imagine.” He then proceeded to give his father a minute

account of the meeting. His powerful memory enabled him to repeat Shund’s

speech almost verbatim. The father listened attentively, and occasionally

directed a glance of observation at the young lady. When Shund’s coarse

ridicule of Christian morals and dogmas was rehearsed, Mr. Conrad lowered

his eyes, and a frown flitted over his brow. For the rest, his countenance

was, as usual, cold and stern.

“This Mr. Shund made quite a strong speech,” said he, in a nonchalant way.

“He rather intensified the colors of truth, ’tis true,” remarked Louise.

“The masses, however, like high coloring and vigorous language.”

A servant brought the banker a note.

“Good! Shund is elected to the assembly! The span of bays belongs to me,”

exulted Carl Greifmann.

“Your bays Seraphin?” inquired the father. “How is this?”

Mr. Conrad had twice been informed of the wager; he had learned it first

from Seraphin’s own lips, then also he had read of it in his diary; still

he asked again, and his son detailed the story a third time.

“I should sooner have expected to see the heavens fall than to lose that

bet,” added Seraphin.

“When a notorious thief and usurer is elected to the chief magistracy and

to the legislative assembly, the victory gained is hardly a creditable one

to the spirit of progress, my dear Carl. Don’t you think so, Louise?” said

the landholder.

“You mustn’t be too rigorous,” replied the lady, with composure. “Rumor

whispers many a bit of scandal respecting Shund which does, indeed, offend

one’s sense of propriety; for all that, however, Shund will play his part

brilliantly both in the assembly and in the town council. The greatest of

statesmen have had their foibles, as everybody knows.”

“Very true,” said Gerlach dryly. “Viewed from the standpoint of very

humane tolerance, Shund’s disgusting habits may be considered

justifiable.”

Seraphin left the parlor, and retired to his room. Here he wrestled with

violent feelings. His father’s conduct was a mystery to him. Opinions

which conflicted with his own most sacred convictions, and principles

which brought an indignant flush to his cheek, were listened to and

apparently acquiesced in by his father. Shund’s abominable diatribe had

not roused the old gentleman’s anger; Louise’s avowed concurrence with the

irreligious principles of the chieftain had not even provoked his

disapprobation.

“My God, my God! can it be possible?” cried he in an agony of despair.

“Has the love of gain so utterly blinded my father? Can he have sunk so

low as to be willing to immolate me, his only child, to a base

speculation? Can he be willing for the sake of a million florins to bind

me for life to this erring creature, this infidel Louise? Can a paltry

million tempt him to be so reckless and cruel? No! no! a thousand times

no!” exclaimed he. “I never will be the husband of this woman, never—I

swear it by the great God of heaven! Get angry with me, father, banish me

from your sight—it would be more tolerable than the consciousness of being

the husband of a woman who believes not in the Redeemer of the world. I

have sworn—the matter is for ever settled.” He threw himself into an arm‐

chair, and moodily stared at the opposite wall. By degrees, his excitement

subsided, and he became quiet.

In fancy, he beheld beside Louise’s form another lovely one rise up—that

of the girl with the golden hair, the bright eyes, and the winning smile.

She had stood before him on this very floor, in her neat and simple

country garb, radiant with innocence and purity, adorned with innate grace

and uncommon beauty. And the lapse of days, far from weakening, had

deepened the impression of her first apparition. The storm that had been

raging in his interior was allayed by the recollection of Mechtild, as the

fury of the great deep subsides upon the reappearance of the sun. Scarcely

an hour had passed during which he had not thought of the girl, rehearsed

every word she had uttered, and viewed the basket of grapes she had

brought him. Again he pulled out the drawer, and looked upon the gift with

a friendly smile; then, locking up the precious treasure, he returned to

the parlor.

He found the company on the balcony. The sound of trumpets and drums came

from a distance, and presently a motley procession was seen coming up the

nearest street.

“You have just arrived in time to see the procession,” cried Louise to

him. “It is going to defile past here, so we will be able to have a good

look at it.”

A dusky swarm of boys and half‐grown youths came winding round the nearest

street‐corner, followed immediately by the head of a mock procession. In

the lead marched a fellow dressed in a brown cloak, the hood of which was

drawn over his head. His waist was encircled with a girdle from which

dangled a string of pebbles representing a rosary. To complete the

caricature of a Capuchin, his feet were bare, excepting a pair of soles

which were strapped to them with thongs of leather. In his hands he bore a

tall cross rudely contrived with a couple of sticks. The image of the

cross was represented by a broken mineral‐water bottle. Behind the cross‐

bearer followed the procession in a double line, consisting of boys, young

men, factory‐hands, drunken mechanics, and such other begrimed and

besotted beings as progress alone can count in its ranks. The members of

the procession were chanting a litany; at the same time they folded their

hands, made grimaces, turned their eyes upwards, or played unseemly pranks

with genuine rosary beads.

Next in the procession came a low car drawn by a watery‐eyed mare which a

lad bedizened like a clown was leading by the bridle. In the car sat a fat

fellow whose face was painted red, and eyebrows dyed, and who wore a long

artificial beard. Over a prodigious paunch, also artificial, he had drawn

a long white gown, over which again he wore a many‐colored rag shaped like

a cope. On his head he wore a high paper cap, brimless; around the cap

were three crowns of gilt paper to represent the tiara of the pope. A

sorry‐looking donkey walked after the car, to which it was attached by a

rope. It was the _rôle_ of the fellow in the car to address the donkey,

make a sign of blessing over it, and occasionally reach it straw drawn

from his artificial paunch. As often as he went through this manœuvre, the

crowd set up a tremendous roar of laughter. The fat man in the car

represented the pope, and the donkey was intended to symbolize the

credulity of the faithful.

This mock pope was not a suggestion of Shund’s or of any other inventive

progressionist. The whole idea was copied from a caricature which had

appeared in a widely circulating pictorial whose only aim and pleasure it

has been for years to destroy the innate religious nobleness of the German

people by means of shallow wit and vulgar caricatures. And this very

sheet, leagued with a daily organ equally degraded, can boast of no

inconsiderable success. The rude and vulgar applaud its witticisms, the

low and infamous regale themselves with its pictures, and its demoralizing

influence is infecting the land.

The principal feature of the procession was a wagon, hung with garlands

and bestuck with small flags, drawn by six splendid horses. In it sat a

youthful woman, plump and bold. Her shoulders were bare, the dress being

an exaggerated sample of the style _décolleté_; above her head was a

wreath of oak leaves. She was attended by a number of young men in masks.

They carried drinking‐horns, which they filled from time to time from a

barrel, and presented to the _bacchante_, who sipped from them; then these

gentlemen in waiting drank themselves, and poured what was left upon the

crowd. A band of music, walking in front of this triumphal car, played

airs and marches. Not even the mock pope was as great an object of

admiration as this shameless woman. Old and young thronged about the

wagon, feasting their lascivious eyes on this beastly spectacle which

represented that most disgusting of all abominable achievements of

progress—the emancipated woman. And perhaps not even progress could have

dared, in less excited times, so grossly to insult the chaste spirit of

the German people; but the social atmosphere had been made so foul by the

abominations of the election, and the spirits of impurity had reigned so

absolutely during the canvass in behalf of common schools, that this

immoral show was suffered to parade without opposition.

The very commencement of this sacrilegious mockery of religion had roused

Seraphin’s indignation, and he had retired from the balcony. His father,

however, had remained, coolly watching the procession as it passed, and

carefully noting Louise’s remarks and behavior.

“What does that woman represent?” he asked. “A goddess of liberty, I

suppose?”

“Only in one sense, I think,” replied the progressionist young lady. “The

woman wearing the crown symbolizes, to my mind, the enjoyment of life. She

typifies heaven upon earth, now that exact science has done away with the

heaven of the next world.”

“I should think yon creature rather reminds one of hell,” said Mr. Conrad.

“Of hell!” exclaimed Louise, in alarm. “You are jesting, sir, are you

not?”

“Never more serious in my life, Louise. Notice the shameless effrontery,

the baseness and infamy of the creature, and you will be forced to form

conclusions which, far from justifying the expectation of peace and

happiness in the family circle, the true sphere of woman, will suggest

only wrangling, discord, and hell upon earth.”

The young lady did not venture to reply. A gentleman made his way through

the crowd, and waved his hat to the company on the balcony. The banker

returned the salutation.

“Official Seicht,” said he.

“What! an officer of the government in this disreputable crowd!” exclaimed

Gerlach, with surprise.

“He is on hand to maintain order,” explained Greifmann. “You see some

policemen, too. Mr. Seicht sympathizes with progress. At the last meeting,

he made a speech in favor of common schools; he sounded the praises of the

gospel of progress, gave a toast at the banquet to the gospel of progress,

and has won for himself the title of evangelist of progress. He once

declared, too, that the very sight of a priest rouses his blood, and they

now pleasantly call him the parson‐eater. He is very popular.”

“I am amazed!” said Gerlach. “Mr. Seicht dishonors his office. He

advocates common schools, insults all the believing citizens of his

district, and runs with mock processions—a happy state of things, indeed!”

“His conduct is the result of careful calculation,” returned Greifmann.

“By showing hostility to ultramontanism, he commends himself to progress,

which is in power.”

“But the government should not tolerate such disgraceful behavior on the

part of one of its officials,” said Gerlach. “The entire official corps is

disgraced so long as this shallow evangelist of progress is permitted to

continue wearing the uniform.”

“You should not be so exacting,” cried Louise. “Why will you not allow

officials also to float along with the current of progress until they will

have reached the Eldorado of the position to which they are aspiring?”

“The corruption of the state must be fearful indeed, when such deportment

in an officer is regarded as a recommendation,” rejoined Mr. Conrad

curtly.

A servant appeared to call them to table.

“Would you not like to see the celebration?” inquired Louise.

“By all means,” answered Gerlach. “The excitement is of so unusual a

character that it claims attention. You will have to accompany us,

Louise.”

“I shall do so with pleasure. When sound popular sentiment thus proclaims

itself, I cannot but feel a strong desire to be present.”

The procession had turned the corner of a street where stood Holt and two

more countrymen looking on. The religious sentiment of these honest men

was deeply wounded by the profanation of the cross; and when, besides,

they heard the singing of the mock litany, their anger kindled, their eyes

gleamed, and they mingled fierce maledictions with the tumult of the mob.

Next appeared the mock pope, dispensing blessings with his right hand,

reaching straw to the donkey with his left, and distorting his painted

face into all sorts of farcical grimaces.

The peasants at once caught the significance of this burlesque. Their

countenances glowed with indignation. Avenging spirits took possession of

Mechtild’s father; his strong, stalwart frame seemed suddenly to have

become herculean. His fist of iron doubled itself; there was lightning in

his eyes; like an infuriated lion, he burst into the crowd, broke the line

of the procession, and, directing a tremendous blow at the head of the

mock pope, precipitated him from the car. The paper cap flew far away

under the feet of the bystanders, and the false beard got into the

donkey’s mouth. When the mock pope was down, Holt’s comrades immediately

set upon him, and tore the many‐colored rag from his shoulders. Then

commenced a great tumult. A host of furious progressionists surrounded the

sturdy countrymen, brandishing their fists and filling the air with mad

imprecations.

“Kill the dogs! Down with the accursed ultramontanes!”

Some of the policemen hurried up to prevent bloodshed. Mr. Seicht also

hurried to the scene of action, and his shrill voice could be heard high

above the noise and confusion.

“Gentlemen, I implore you, let the law have its course, gentlemen!” cried

he. “Gentlemen, friends, do not, I beg you, violate the law! Trust me,

fellow‐citizens—I shall see that the impertinence of these ultramontanes

is duly punished.”

They understood his meaning. Sticks and fists were immediately lowered.

“Brigadier Forchhaem,” cried Mr. Seicht, in a tone of command—“Forchhaem,

hither! Put handcuffs on these ultramontanes, these disturbers of the

peace—put irons on these revolutionists.”

Handcuffs were forthwith produced by the policemen. The towering, broad‐

shouldered Holt stood quiet as a lamb, looked with an air of astonishment

at the confusion, and suffered himself to be handcuffed. His comrades,

however, behaved like anything but lambs. They laid about them with hands

and feet, knocking down the policemen, and giving bloody mouths and noses

to all who came within their reach.

“Handcuff us!” they screamed, grinding their teeth, bleeding and cursing.

“Are we cutthroats?” The bystanders drew back in apprehension. The

confusion seemed to be past remedying. A thousand voices were screaming,

bawling, and crying at the same time; the circle around the struggling

countrymen was getting wider and wider; and when finally they attempted to

break through, the crowd took to flight, as if a couple of tigers were

after them.

Many of the spectators found a pleasurable excitement in watching the

battle between the policemen and the peasants; but they would not move a

finger to aid the officers of the law in arresting the culprits. They

admired the agility and strength of the countrymen, and the more fierce

the struggle became, the greater grew their delight, and the louder their

merriment.

Holt had been carried on with the motion of the crowd. When he dealt the

blow to the fellow in the car, he was beside himself with rage. The

genuine _furor teutonicus_ had taken possession of him so irresistibly and

so bewilderingly as to leave him utterly without any of the calm judgment

necessary to measure the situation. After his first adventure, he had

submitted to be handcuffed, and had watched the struggle between Forchhaem

and his own comrades in a sort of absence of mind. He had stood perfectly

quiet, his face had become pale, and his eyes looked about strangely. The

excitement of passion was now beginning to wear off. He felt the cold iron

of the manacles around his wrists, his eyes glared, his face became

crimson, the sinews of his powerful arm stiffened, and with one great

muscular convulsion he wrenched off the handcuffs. Nobody had observed

this sudden action, all eyes being directed to the combatants. Shoving the

part of the handcuff which still hung to his wrist under the sleeve of his

jacket, Holt disappeared through the crowd.

The resistance of the peasants was gradually becoming fainter. At length

they succumbed to overpowering force, and were handcuffed.

“Where is the third one?” cried Seicht. “There were three of them.”

“Where is the third one? There were three of them,” was echoed on every

hand, and all eyes sought for the missing one in the crowd.

“The third one has run away, sir,” reported Forchhaem.

“What’s his name?” asked Seicht.

Nobody knew.

A street boy, looking up at the official, ingenuously cried, “’Twas a

Tartar.”

Seicht looked down upon the obstreperous little informant.

“A Tartar—do you know him?”

“No; but these here know him,” pointing to the captives.

“What is the name of your comrade?”

“We don’t know him,” was the surly reply.

“Never mind, he will become known in the judicial examination. Off to jail

with these rebellious ultramontanes,” the official commanded.

Bound in chains, and guarded by a posse of police, these honest men, whose

religious sense had been so wantonly outraged as to have occasioned an

outburst of noble indignation, were marched through the streets of the

town and imprisoned. They were treated as criminals for a crime, however,

the guilt of which was justly chargeable to those very rioters who were

enjoying official protection.

The procession moved on to the ground selected for the barbecue. A motley

mass, especially of factory‐men, were hard at work upon the scene. The

booths, spread far and wide over the common, were thrown open, and around

them moved a swarm of thirsty beings drawing rations of beer and sausages,

with which, when they had received them, they staggered away to the

tables. Degraded‐looking women were also to be seen moving about

unsteadily with brimming mugs of beer in their hands. There were several

bands of music stationed at different points around the place.

The chieftains of progress, perambulating the ground with an air of

triumph, bestowed friendly nods of recognition on all sides, and

condescendingly engaged in conversation with some of the rank and file.

Hans Shund approached the awning where the woman with the bare shoulders

and indecent costume had taken a seat. She had captivated the gallant

chief magistrate, who hovered about her as a raven hovers over a dead

carcass. Moving off, he halted within hearing distance, and, casting

frequent glances back, addressed immodest jokes to those who occupied the

other side of the table, at which they laughed and applauded immoderately.

The men whom Seraphin had met in the subterranean den, on the memorable

night before the election, were also present: Flachsen, Graeulich, Koenig,

and a host of others. They were regaling themselves with sausages which

omitted an unmistakable odor of garlic, and were of a very dubious

appearance; interrupting the process of eating with frequent and copious

draughts from their beer‐mugs.

“Drink, old woman!” cried Graeulich to his wife. “Drink, I tell you! It

doesn’t cost us anything to‐day.”

The woman put the jug to her lips and drained it manfully. Other women who

were present screamed in chorus, and the men laughed boisterously.

“Your old woman does that handsomely,” applauded Koth. “Hell and thunder!

But she must be a real spitfire.”

Again they laughed uproariously.

“I wish there were an election every day, what a jolly life this would

be!” said Koenig. “Nothing to do, eating and drinking gratis—what more

would you wish?”

“That’s the way the bigbugs live all the year round. They may eat and

drink what they like best, and needn’t do a hand’s turn. Isn’t it glorious

to be rich?” cried Graeulich.

“So drink, boys, drink till you can’t stand! We are all of us bigbugs to‐

day.”

“And if things were regulated as they should be,” said Koth, “there would

come a day when we poor devils would also see glorious times. We have been

torturing ourselves about long enough for the sake of others. I maintain

that things will have to be differently regulated.”

“What game is that you are wishing to come at? Show your hand, old

fellow!” cried several voices.

“Here’s what I mean: Coffers which are full will have to pour some of

their superfluity into coffers which are empty. You take me, don’t you?”

“’Pon my soul, I can’t make you out. You are talking conundrums,” declared

Koenig.

“You blockhead, I mean there will soon have to be a partition. They who

have plenty will have to give some to those who have nothing.”

“Bravo! Long live Koth!”

“That sort of doctrine is dangerous to the state,” said Flachsen. “Such

principles bring about revolutions, and corrupt society.”

“What of society! You’re an ass, Flachsen! Koth is right—partition,

partition!” was the cry all round the table.

“As you will! I have nothing against it if only it were practicable,”

expostulated Flachsen; “for I, too, am a radical.”

“It is practicable! All things are practicable,” exclaimed Koth. “Our age

can do anything, and so can we. Haven’t we driven religion out of the

schools? Haven’t we elected Shund for mayor? It is the majority who rule;

and, were we to vote in favor of partition to‐morrow, partition would have

to take place. Any measure can be carried by a majority, and, since we

poor devils are in the majority, as soon as we will have voted for

partition it will come without fail.”

“That’s sensible!” agreed they all. “But then, such a thing has never yet

been done. Do you think it possible?”

“Anything is possible,” maintained Koth. “Didn’t Shund preach that there

isn’t any God, or hell, or devil? Was that ever taught before? If the God

of old has to submit to being deposed, the rich will have to submit to it.

I tell you, the majority will settle the business for the rich. And if

there’s no God, no devil, and no life beyond, well then, you see, I’m

capable of laying my hand to anything. If voting won’t do, violence will.

Do you understand?”

“Bravo! Hurrah for Koth!”

“There must be progress,” cried Graeulich, “among us as well as others. We

are not going to continue all our lives in wretchedness. We must advance

from labor to comfort without labor, from poverty to wealth, from want to

abundance. Three cheers for progress—hurrah! hurrah!” And the whole

company joined in frantically.

“There comes Evangelist Seicht,” cried Koenig. “Though I didn’t understand

one word of his speech, I believe he meant well. Although he is an officer

of the government, he cordially hates priests. A man may say what he

pleases against religion, and the church, and the Pope, and the Jesuits,

it rather pleases Seicht. He is a free and enlightened man, is he. Up with

your glasses, boys; if he comes near, let’s give him three rousing

cheers.”

They did as directed. Men and women cheered lustily. Seicht very

condescendingly raised his hat and smiled as he passed the table. The

ovation put him in fine humor. Though he had failed in securing a place in

the assembly, perhaps the slight would be repaired in the future. Such was

the tenor of his thoughts whilst he advanced to the climbing‐pole, around

which was assembled a crowd of boys. Quite a variety of prizes, especially

tobacco‐pipes, was hanging from the cross‐pieces at the top of the mast.

The pole was so smooth that more than ordinary strength and activity were

required to get to the top. The greater number of those who attempted the

feat gave out and slid back without having gained a prize. There were also

grown persons standing around watching the efforts of the boys and young

men.

“It’s my turn now,” cried the fellow who had carried the cross in the

procession.

“But, first, let me have one more drink—it’ll improve the sliding.” He

swallowed the drink hastily, then swaying about as he looked and pointed

upward, “Do you see that pipe with tassels to it?” he said. “That’s the

one I’m going after.”

Throwing aside his mantle, he began to climb.

“He’ll not get up, he’s drunk,” cried a lad among the bystanders.

“Belladonna has given him two pints of double beer for carrying the cross

in the procession—that’s what ails him.”

“Wait till I come down, I’ll slap your jaws,” cried the climber.

The spectators were watching him with interest. He was obliged to pause

frequently to rest himself, which he did by winding his legs tightly round

the pole. At last he reached the top. Extending his arm to take the pipe,

it was too short. Climbing still higher, he stretched his body to its

greatest length, lost his hold, and fell to the ground. The bystanders

raised a great cry. The unfortunate youth’s head had embedded itself in

the earth, streams of blood gushed from his mouth and nostrils—he was

lifeless.

“He’s dead! It’s all over with him,” was whispered around.

“Carry him off,” commanded Seicht, and then walked on.

One of the bystanders loosed the cross‐piece of the mock crucifix; the

corpse was then stretched across the two pieces of wood and carried off

the scene. As the body was carried past, the noise and revelry everywhere

ceased.

“Wasn’t that the one who carried the cross?” was asked. “Is he dead? Did

he fall from the pole? How terrible!”

Even the progressionist revellers were struck thoughtful, so deeply is the

sense of religion rooted in the heart of man. Many a one among them,

seeing the pale, rigid face of the dead man, understood his fate to be a

solemn warning, and fled from the scene in terror.

The progressionist element of the town was much flattered by the presence

at its orgies of the wealthiest property owner of the country.

The women had already made the discovery that the millionaire’s only son,

Mr. Seraphin Gerlach, was on the eve of marrying a member of the highly

respectable house of Greifmann, bankers. But it occasioned them no small

amount of surprise that the young gentleman was not in attendance on the

beautiful lady at the celebration. Louise’s radiant countenance gave no

indication, however, that any untoward occurrence had caused the absence

of her prospective husband. The wives and daughters of the chieftains were

sitting under an awning sipping coffee and eating cake. When Louise

approached leaning on her brother’s arm, they welcomed her to a place in

the circle of loveliness with many courtesies and marks of respect.

Mr. Conrad strolled about the place, studying the spirit which animated

the gathering.

To Be Continued.

ὙΠΝΟΣ

Not now for sleep, O slumber‐god! we sue;

Hypnus! not sleep, but give our souls repose!

Of the day’s music such a mellowing close

As might have rested Shakespeare from his art,

Or soothed the spirit of the Tuscan strong

Who best read life, its passions and its woes,

And wrought of sorrow earth’s divinest song.

Bring us a mood that might have lulled Mozart,

Not stupor, not forgetfulness, not dreams,

But vivid sense of what is best and rarest,

And sweet remembrance of the blessed few;

In the real presence of this fair world’s fairest:

A spell of peace—as ’twere by those dear streams(209)

Boccaccio wrote of, when romance was new.

A Legend Of Saint Ottilia.

Attich, Duke of Alsace, had a lovely wife, with whom he lived in great

happiness, desiring but one thing more than he possessed—this was the

blessing of children. His prayers, however, remained unanswered until he

vowed that, if the Lord would grant his ardent wish, he would dedicate the

child entirely to his service. At length a daughter was born to him, but

the parents’ first joy was turned into sadness, for the child was blind.

Ottilia (thus was she named) grew up a lovely maiden, with rare goodness

and virtues, showing, from her earliest youth, singular piety and

devoutness of character. One of her daily prayers was that God might

bestow on her the gift of sight. By‐and‐by, to the great astonishment of

all, this prayer was answered. Beautiful before, the new expression of her

eyes so enhanced her charms that, whereas previously she had no lack of

suitors, now she was wooed by many and most noble youths. These dazzling

prospects affected the mind of her father, and led him to repent the vow

he had made to give his sweet child to God. Then Count Adelhart, a brave

man, and one who had performed great services for Attich, claimed the hand

of Ottilia, and the duke resolved that his daughter should become his

wife. Ottilia heard this with terror; she told her father how wrong she

believed it to be, and how she feared the vengeance of heaven if they thus

disregarded his vow. Seeing, however, that her entreaties were of no

avail, and that they meant to marry her by compulsion, she fled she knew

not whither. Then Attich called out his servants to pursue her, he

himself, in company with Ottilia’s suitor, taking the lead. They took the

road to Freiburg, in Breisgau.

The day began to decline, and their efforts to find her had been in vain,

when, on riding up a hill from whose top they could overlook the country,

they heard a cry; turning their eyes toward the place from whence the

sound came, they saw her whom they were seeking standing on the summit.

They urged their steeds onward, rejoicing in the certainty of capturing

the fugitive. Then Ottilia threw herself upon her knees, and prayed to

heaven for assistance. The rock opened beneath her feet, and, in the sight

of all, she sank into the yawning depth. The rock closed again, and, from

the spot where it had been reft in twain, a clear well flowed, taking its

course downward into the forest below.

The mourning father returned to his now desolate home. Never again did he

behold Ottilia.

The wonderful tale soon spread far and near. The fountain became a place

of pilgrimage. People drank from its waters, to which a wonderful healing

influence for weak eyes was attributed. A hermit built his hut in its

neighborhood, and “The Well of S. Ottilia” was and is much frequented by

old and young. The mountain itself bears the name of “Ottilia‐Berg.”

Thus runs the simple legend which, even after the lapse of centuries,

brings people to visit this famous spring, partly drawn thither by

religious faith in the curative power of its waters, and partly attracted

by the renowned beauty of the scenery which surrounds the spot where

heaven‐trusting Ottilia had thrown herself upon the intervention of

Providence.

The Year Of Our Lord 1872.

There lurks a grim sarcasm in our title for those who, as the years grow

and die out one after the other, ask each in turn: What have you brought

us? what growth of good and lessening of evil? what new bond to link the

scattered and divided masses of a humanity which should be common—but is

not—more closely and firmly together? Have you brought us a step nearer

heaven, that is, nearer the destiny which God marked out in the beginning

for his creation, or thrown us backward? Years are the days of the world,

of national life; and as each closes, even the superior minds which will

not deign to believe in such old‐fashioned words as a God, a heaven, or a

hell, cannot fail to ask themselves the question, What has the world

gained or lost in this its latest day?

We know that we shall be greeted at the outset by the old cry:—Catholics

behind the age again: it is plain their religion was not made for the

XIXth century; they will drift backward and sigh for the days that were,

the gloom and the mist and the superstition of the “ages of faith”: they

refuse to recognize the century, to understand it and its glorious

enlightenment: they decline to march hand in hand with the great leaders,

the apostles of the day, in politics, science, and religion—the Bismarcks,

the Lanzas, the Mills, the Fawcetts, the Bradlaughs, the Döllingers, the

Beechers, the Huxleys, the Buckles, the Darwins, the novelists, and the

newspapers; the “enlightened” ideas of the age on marriage, education,

civil government, and the rest. We humbly plead guilty to the greater

portion of this charge. Modern enlightenment, as preached by the apostles

above enumerated, and others such, possesses still too few charms to win

us from our benighted ignorance. To us Utopia appears as far off to‐day as

when it grew upon the mind of Sir Thomas More in the shape of a dream too

splendid to be realized; as far off as the fairyland which presented

itself to our youthful imagination, where everybody was goody‐goody, where

all were kings and queens with crowns and sceptres, or lovely princesses

and amiable princes, who loved each other with the most ardent nursery

love, and with only one crabbed old fairy to spoil the scene, whose

witcheries caused the amiable princes to undergo a certain amount of mild

misfortunes, creating a corresponding amount of misery in the bosoms of

the lovely princesses, till at length the old harridan was overridden to

her shame and confusion, truth and virtue triumphed, everybody married

everybody else, and there was peace and joy for ever after. To drop fancy:

the story of the year would not seem to bring happier tidings of the great

joy which was announced at the coming of Christ: of “peace on earth to men

of good‐will.” “Civilized” governments still hold fast by the good old

rule,

That he may take who has the power,

And he may keep who can.

We purpose passing in review a few of the chief events which have moved

the world during the past year and made its annals memorable in all time.

Our review must necessarily be a rapid one, a mere glance in fact, at the

multitude of events which confront us, some like ghosts which we have

summoned from their graves in the buried year, others which accompany us

into the new and the unknown to ripen or wither with us into their measure

of good or of evil.

As the year opened, the eyes of the world were fixed upon the sick‐bed of

the Prince of Wales, stricken down by fever apparently beyond hope of

recovery. The whole thing is long forgotten; but the anxiety which his

illness caused—in view of the possible political complications which might

have resulted from the death of the heir to the English throne—and the

enthusiasm which his recovery evoked from end to end of the land, makes

the event worthy of mention in the record of the year as significant of

the innate as well as outspoken loyalty of the English nation for their

crown and institution—a national trait which it is becoming fashionable to

question.

Our own year opened tragically with the murder of Fisk by Stokes, his boon

companion. The man’s end was in keeping with his life, and his name should

not have sullied our pages, but for the consequent collapse of the long

triumphant Erie Ring. The era of blood thus commenced has flourished

bravely. _Quid novi? quid novi?_ was the daily cry at Athens when S. Paul

entered it. We would not demean the commercial metropolis of the New World

and of the new age by comparing it with the intellectual metropolis of

paganism; but as the cry of the Athenians was each day: What new system,

doctrine, or philosophy is there? the question of our more enlightened and

Christian capital might well be: What new thing in the way of murder?

Scarcely a day passes but some fresh horror greets our eyes in the

morning. Nor is it left to the hand of man alone to take life as he

pleases; the privilege has passed to women, and they make right good use

of this latest form of their “rights.” We read till our blood curdles of

the political poisonings of the XVIth century in Italy; of their secrecy

and the safety of their carrying out. We are a more honest race than the

Italians; we enshroud our deeds of blood in no false Machiavellian veil;

we kill in open day. The lady or gentleman who has just taken away a life

politely hands the pistol to the officer, who escorts him or her with the

utmost courtesy to the police station, where a cell is luxuriously fitted

up according to the exigencies of the case; the murderer stands up in open

court, with the ablest champions to defend him; he calls upon the law to

save him, and the “law” does. In the meantime obtuse people are beginning

to inquire if there be such a thing as law in New York, and in America

generally, and if the present administration of justice be not very

closely allied to administering injustice.

We have felt compelled to touch on this point at some length; for murder,

cool, deliberate, wilful murder, has marked our year with a red stain

which was never dry; the murderers have either escaped or are living at

ease and being “lionized” by the press in their prisons; justice is not

administered among us. So true is this, that outraged public feeling,

which requires a very heavy force to set its inertia in motion, has at

length found it necessary to begin to weed the judiciary. Until it does so

thoroughly, the law of New York is the law of the bullet and the knife.

If we were not above taking a lesson from people for whom we entertain, of

course, a sovereign contempt, we might find something commendable in the

action of the populace in Lima, Peru, on the occasion of the murder of

Colonel Balta, the president, by Guttierez, the minister of war; who, in

order to attain supreme power, caused Balta to be assassinated, having

previously gained over the garrison of Lima, and had himself proclaimed

dictator. The people, finding reason to object to this summary mode of

settling questions, refused to accept this dictatorship; rose in revolt,

overpowered the garrison, hanged the dictator and his brother to lamp‐

posts in the public square, and burned their bodies. We, are far from

advocating the cause of “Judge Lynch”; but a slight touch of the sensible

spirit displayed by the inhabitants of Lima has a wonderfully wholesome

effect on evil doers in power.

Our political life for the past year has been absorbed in the presidential

election and the settlement of the Alabama claims. This latter very vexed

question has come at last to a final, peaceful, and satisfactory solution.

Our claim for “indirect damages” against England was ruled out of court.

An adequate propitiation was made in the final decision, given in our

favor: England was compelled to pay us £3,000,000; she is supposed to have

lost very much in prestige in consequence; particularly as the San Juan

boundary question was also decided in our favor; the whole thing was

settled by peaceful arbitration, and, therefore, no matter which party

lost in prestige, or diplomacy, or pocket, both have good reason to

congratulate themselves on getting out of sight, let us ardently hope, for

ever, a very ugly question which was fast becoming a gangrene, corroding

and eating out all good feeling between the two nations. It is one of the

things which we sincerely trust may be buried with the dead year; and the

two rival claimants we hope to see enter on a new lease of friendship and

good‐will.

General Grant was re‐elected; the opposition arrayed against him under Mr.

Greeley as candidate for the presidency, and such very able secessionists

from the republican ranks as Messrs. Sumner, Schurz, and others, and the

attempted coalescing of Democrats with dissatisfied Republicans, who would

not coalesce, utterly broke down. General Grant’s is undoubtedly a

national election: we trust, therefore, that his future term may

correspond with the confidence placed in his rule by the nation; may be

productive of all the good which we expect of it for the nation at large;

may heal up old wounds still sore, and may lead the country wisely into a

new era of prosperity and peace: the more so that the outer world is fast

pouring in on us the most skilled artisans and law‐abiding, intelligent

citizens of every European race.

Having said so much for ourselves, we turn to the workings of events in

Europe during the past year, which indeed have occupied our attention

more, almost, than our home questions. Our gaze has been riveted with an

interest of almost painful intensity on the two contestants during the

late dread struggle, and the actions and bearing of each have brought out

the inner character of the two nations in such strong relief that we can

think of Germany and France as two individualities. On the one side, we

behold United Germany, the victor in the fight, like a strong athlete

glorying in his great strength, setting on his own brow the laurels which

he plucked from that of his fallen foe; not resting on his honors, and

satiated for the time being with his glory, but anxious, careful, trying

his strength, not letting his arms rust for want of practice, preparing

himself for new glories and new contests to come as though they were to

come to‐morrow, and as a matter of course. On the other, we have France

wounded and bleeding at every pore. We thought its life had ebbed out,

stricken first by the terrible blows of a merciless conqueror, after by a

delirious contest with itself. And what do we behold? No longer a weak

convalescent, sick, sore, and spiritless, but a great nation, infused with

a new life; strong and gaining in strength every day; cautious indeed and

still uncertain, but these are not bad signs in a nation which is

recovering at however rapid strides, and which fell from its overweening

confidence. It has almost exhausted its terrible debt to Germany, and rid

the soil of the foot of the foe. Its loans were eagerly taken up and

covered four times over: its exports for the first six months of the year

were in advance of those for the corresponding six months, esteemed a

period of great prosperity, prior to the war; its army is again on a firm

and sound footing; its children are peaceful, calm and obedient to the law

in the face of the tyranny and unnecessarily harsh measures and dictation

of the conqueror and the rash declamations of Gambetta, biding their time

with a calm good sense which we scarcely expected in the French people. Of

course the nation is taxed and heavily; but the wonder is that a nation

can endure such blows and live; can not only live, but present to the

admiration and astonished gaze of the world, a year after what we

considered its death and burial, so glorious a resurrection into a

powerful and wealthy country. As these two nations have been the centre of

attraction to the whole world during the year, we feel called upon to

touch upon each in a more special manner than on other nations.

On April 7th, the Emperor William delivered a speech from the throne, from

which we cull the following extract:

“Honored Gentlemen: You will share the satisfaction with which the

Confederate Governments look back on the events of the first year of the

newly founded German Empire, and the joyful confidence with which they

look forward to the further national and state development of our internal

institutions. With equal satisfaction you will hail the assurance that the

policy of his majesty, the emperor and king, has succeeded in retaining

and strengthening the confidence of all foreign states; that the power

acquired by Germany through becoming united in one Empire is not only a

safe bulwark for the fatherland, but likewise affords a strong guarantee

for the peace of Europe.”

Now, that sounds so well, at least it did in April last, that it is almost

a pity to spoil it by the inevitable comments which cannot fail to present

themselves to the minds of its readers in December, in the face of one or

two little events which have occurred since April. But before commenting

on it, we must add a further exquisite little piece of irony from the same

speech of Bismarck’s—we mean of the Emperor William: Prince Bismarck only

read it:

“The new administration in, and the consolidation of the affairs of,

Alsace and Lorraine make satisfactory progress. The damage done by the war

is gradually disappearing with the aid of the subvention given in

conformity with the law, dated June 15, 1871.”

As it is not the purport of this article to go extensively into the

various subjects which come under our notice, we think that the best mode

of dealing with the German question will be to read the above speech by

the December light:

Honored Gentlemen: You will share the satisfaction with which the

Confederate Governments look back on the events of the intervening nine

months since his majesty, the emperor and king, first found reason to

congratulate you on the consolidation of the newly founded empire. Those

events are, in brief, as follows:

1. As we consider national education to be the first means in making good,

sound, and efficient citizens of the Empire, and as we consider it,

moreover, to be the great moralizer of the masses in these days, we have

found it necessary to take this education from the hands in which it has

rested for so long, “which the Prussia of the past encouraged, and indeed

enforced; which have had the honor to receive the zealous support of two

deceased monarchs, the father and brother of the present sovereign; which

have received for the last two generations the approbation of all sorts of

thinkers—who believed that the Prussian state could only subsist by a

strict military and religious organization, that a definite church system

must be chosen by the state, and the people drilled in it as they were

drilled for his majesty’s armies.”(210) Notwithstanding the very solid

proofs which our success in the late war gave us of the efficiency of this

system, when our soldiers went to battle under the double panoply of

intelligence and faith in God, we have since found it fit to divorce

religion from education, and place this moralizer of the masses in the

hands of those to whom morality is a thing unknown, or, if it mean

anything, means blind obedience to the state in all things.

2. Holding as we do that marriage is another powerful moralizer of the

masses, and the strongest bond for the welfare, happiness, and power of a

nation, we have thought fit to divorce it also from religion, to strip it

of the sacred character with which Jesus Christ invested it, and which,

even were it false, has been the chief means of restoring woman to her

fitting station in life, of civilizing man, and substituting love and

purity for sensuality and animal passion: being perfectly alive to all

this, we have still seen fit to hand the power of the binding and the

loosing of marriage into the hands of the magistracy, to be dealt with for

the future as a civil contract, thus reducing it to the far more

convenient form of a mere matter of buying and selling at will.

3. Having already testified in the most direct and special manner our

gratitude for the great services rendered us by the Society of Jesus and

kindred orders recently on the fields of France, and in the more lasting

and beneficial fields of intellectual and religious culture under the

educational system which obtained so long and with such profit to us, but

which we have since seen fit to put an end to, we think it fit to prove

their devotion still further to us by banishing them the Empire, breaking

up their communities, closing their churches, appropriating their property

to our own use and imprisoning them if we find them within our territory.

We mercifully spare them the further trial of immediate martyrdom.

4. Having been compelled to meet the demands of two powerful bodies of our

subjects whose interests on religious questions sometimes clash, we have

very wisely, and very satisfactorily to both bodies, met those demands by

special articles in our legislative code which have hitherto answered

their purpose so well that both bodies have been enabled to work

harmoniously though in friendly rivalry together as common children of

fatherland. We have seen fit to erase those laws, at least in the case of

the Catholics. We cannot allow their bishops to excommunicate our

subjects, though we have hitherto allowed it, and though we still allow it

to the Protestants.(211)

Honored Gentlemen: Having thus succeeded in creating a profound and

widespread agitation by outraging the feelings and the conscience of

14,000,000 of our most faithful subjects, an agitation which has spread

from these 14,000,000 to hundreds of millions of their co‐religionists

outside the Empire, and indeed of large bodies and powerful secular organs

opposed to them in faith, the confederate governments, the most powerful

of which is Catholic, may look forward with joyful confidence to the

further national and state development of our institutions. With equal

satisfaction you will hail the assurance that the policy of his majesty,

the emperor and king, has succeeded in retaining and strengthening the

confidence of all foreign states,(212) that the power acquired by Germany

is not only a safe bulwark for the fatherland,(213) but likewise affords a

strong guarantee for the peace of Europe.

The new administration in, and the consolidation of affairs in, Alsace and

Lorraine, have made most satisfactory progress. By careful and well‐

devised management we have succeeded in driving out the population of

these two provinces, two of the wealthiest in the world, in rendering

their cities desolate and their smiling country a desert: in gaining for

ourselves a new legacy of hatred, and arousing the disgust and, what

politically is worse, the suspicion of all governments outside our own.

As a further comment on this speech we must add the dangerous symptoms of

revolt exhibited by the Upper House in the Prussian diet, and the

dubiously constitutional mode adopted of bringing it to submission. The

influx of French gold would seem to have created a South Sea Bubble

commotion in financial circles. Rent in the chief cities and towns has

increased twofold; the cost of living has risen with it. This falls

heaviest, of course, on the middle and lower classes, so that we are not

surprised to hear, that the rate of living having increased 60 or 70 per

cent. for the poorer classes during the last six or seven years, and the

French gold never having filtered down to their pockets, the poor have

been unable to meet their new expenses, and “ever since the conclusion of

peace with France,” to quote the special correspondent of the London

_Times_, April 11th, “the German workmen have been at war with their

‘masters.’ ” As a last comment we see the German people fleeing from this

glorious consolidation of confederate governments in such numbers that the

central government is compelled to call into practice measures as harsh on

the one side to restrain their own people from running away as they used

to force out the inhabitants of Alsace and Lorraine. We believe we have

said enough of German “Unity” on its first two years of lease to show that

its workings, whether internal or external, have been anything but

satisfactory so far, and far from hopeful to the world at large.

The strikes which were successful in Germany were not restricted to that

locality. They spread through the greater part of Europe, and reached out

here to us, with varied success. New York was in many departments of

business at a standstill in what is generally esteemed as the busiest

portion of the year. Fortunately with us and for the greater part

elsewhere, the “strikes” passed off peaceably, and the masters and workmen

succeeded in coming to a compromise at least for the time being. This

uprising of labor against capital formed one of the most significant, we

fear most threatening, aspects of the year. There was a union and a

combination among the working classes of European nations and our own,

which enabled them to offer a persistent, solid, and bold front to their

employers. Funds and a more perfect organization, neither of which seem to

us impossible, would convert trades‐unions into the most formidable power

in the world. Christian education can alone hope to convert this into a

legal power. At present it wavers between the dictates of good sense and

fair demands and the wild and impossible, but, to half‐educated men, very

fascinating, dreams of the Communists. Labor is beginning at last to feel

its power, its numbers, its irresistible force; that the world cannot get

on without it, as little as it can get on without the co‐operation of the

rest of the world. Let the laboring classes receive an education worthy of

the name, plant religion in their hearts while at school, and, when they

come to face the hard problem, the division of wealth, they will be led

away by no fallacious teachings that what is and always must be a

necessity is a wrong done to humanity; but divorce the schools, as

governments seem now resolved to do, from religion, and labor will merge

into Communism.

France has borne her terrible trials with a calmness, a magnanimity, and a

self‐dependence which have regained for her in the eyes of the world more

than she ever lost at Sedan. We speak here of the nation, not of its

haphazard government. Thiers is at present a necessity; and by the aid of

the bogy “resignation” which he has conjured up so often, and whereby he

frightens the still cautious Assembly into submission, he has managed to

hold the dangerous elements in such a state of order that the nation has

been able so far to regain public confidence that its loans were caught up

with avidity; it has almost freed itself from the foot of the foe; it has

frowned down the folly of Gambetta; restored its army to a sound footing,

and won the admiration and good‐will of all by its truly patriotic bearing

in the face of a rapacious, dictatorial, and merciless conqueror. But

Thiers cannot last, and what is to follow? The country would not bear the

rule of “the man of Sedan,” though, undoubtedly, his twenty years of firm

government wrought it up to the pitch of material prosperity which even

its terrible losses have been unable to destroy. The speech of the Duc

d’Audiffret Pasquier on the army contracts, showing a system of finance in

the army somewhat similar to that which has recently greeted our eyes in

the city government, has killed Napoleonism for the nonce. We can only

hope for the best in France from some other and nobler sprout of former

dynasties; we cannot foresee it. We must not forget that the nation has

been kneeling at its altars and shrines. Of course superior people and

“witty” writers have laughed at and insulted a nation for being foolish

enough and so far behind the age as to believe in the assistance of a God

whom they could not contain in their capacious intellects. France has

survived the laughter and disregarded the laughers; but her sons have been

none the less obedient to the laws and constitution established, and thus

restored confidence in their country, by acknowledging the efficacy of

divine worship, and the intercession of the blessed Mother with her divine

Son.

The year has, happily, borne no war stain on its record; for we cannot

dignify the English expedition against the Looshais in India by that

title. Revolts among the natives have of late been cropping up again in

British India, while the silent but steady march of Russia, with all her

vast forces, nearer and nearer to the outline of the British possessions,

threatens at no distant date an inevitable collision between the two

powers, which, in the not very doubtful event of Russia’s victory, would

avenge Sebastopol, and, at the same time more than counterbalance the

present supremacy of Germany in Europe.

While England was all aglow with the gorgeous story of pomp and pageantry

coming from the far East, of reviews of armies, of gallant processions

from end to end of the land, of displays of splendor, and more than royal

magnificence flashing on the bewildered gaze of the Easterns; outshining

in dazzling brilliancy their own “barbaric pearl and gold”—wrought up to

win over their allegiance by giving them some idea of the vast power of

that empire far away, whose representative could muster such a show of

majesty—came a cruel little flash across the world telling us that the

show was ended by the death of the chief performer at the hands of an

obscure assassin. A few feet in advance of his party, in the gloom of

evening, as he is about to step from the pier into his boat, the stroke of

a knife from a hidden assailant, and—Lord Mayo, the great Viceroy, is

slain. England viewed his death as a national calamity. Following close on

the heels of the murder of Mr. Justice Norman by another native, of the

outbreaks of the Kookas and the Looshais, it had a significance which the

nation took to heart.

From a further corner of the East still comes a dread story of famine

devouring 3,000,000 of people in Persia. Small succor was offered them by

their Christian brethren: and such as was sent seems to have reached them

with the greatest difficulty. Horrible tales are told of hunger overcoming

all the ties of nature, and mothers, in their madness, devouring even

their own offspring. The harvest for this season was a very excellent one;

but its effects cannot be felt till the coming year.

The East has not exhausted its romance yet, though this time it wears a

less grim visage. We refer to the discovery of Dr. Livingstone by Mr.

Stanley, a reporter of the _New York Herald_. Everybody believed Dr.

Livingstone dead: Mr. Bennett believed him living: he despatched Mr.

Stanley to interview him somewhere in the middle of Africa, and Mr.

Stanley obeyed as successfully as though he had only been despatched to

one of our hotels to “interview” a political man. Of course nobody

believed either Stanley or the _Herald_; and of course there has been much

consequent laughing at the “easy‐chair geographers,” when white, after

all, turned out to be white and not black, as the learned gentlemen thus

designated demonstrated to a nicety. But we should imagine that the

persistent doubts of these gentlemen were the highest compliment which

could be paid, either to Mr. Stanley or Mr. Bennett, as indicating the

almost utter impossibility of their stupendous and brilliant enterprise.

To the world at large, the finding of a man, whom, with all due respect,

we cannot but look upon as self‐lost, is the least part of the

undertaking. Mr. Stanley’s expedition and disclosures of the horrors of

the slave trade have awakened a new interest in that horrible traffic, and

promises to enlist the sympathies of nations in unison against it.

After a sleep of centuries Japan has reopened her gates to Christian

influences and civilization—gates closed since the work so gloriously

commenced by S. Francis Xavier was marred by the narrowness and

selfishness and unchristian spirit of European traders. The Mikado

despatched an embassy under the leadership of one of his chief statesmen,

Iwakura, in order to study this boasted civilization and see what it was

like. In the meantime, Christians are still suffering persecution and even

death in Japan. But why should Iwakura interfere to stop it when he finds

“civilized” governments, such as Germany and Italy, setting Japan a

brilliant example in the same line of policy?

Correspondents give us reason to dread a fresh outbreak in China similar

to the Tientsin massacre. We trust that the representatives of the

European powers and our own will be alive to this. Nothing of great import

has occurred in the empire beyond the marriage of his Celestial Majesty.

Going back to Europe, we find Spain in much the same state as the opening

year found her; restless, dissatisfied, and disunited. A Carlist rising

was effected in the spring, which at one time threatened to be formidable;

but, after showing itself in fitful bursts at different points, it finally

died out, for the time being at least, with a greater loss of gunpowder

than of life. It was mismanaged. There were and still are a variety of

little eruptions here, there, and everywhere. An attempt on the life of

King Amadeo was got up for the purpose of arousing some loyalty in his

favor. It created a little sensation at first; but people speedily

suspected something, and the subject dropped. All parties in Spain are

still at daggers drawn. Even if Amadeo could, by his influence, which we

very much doubt after his sufficient trial, conciliate them, they would

not be conciliated. We do not expect to find Amadeo’s name at the head of

the Spanish government this day twelvemonth. A good regent, not

Montpensier, might bring about the restoration of Don Alfonso; but where

is such a regent? Don Carlos possesses the greatest amount of genuine

loyalty to his name and cause, and he would be the winning man, could he

only manage his rising in a more efficient manner. Even the _Saturday

Review_, the other day, almost lamented the loss of Queen Isabella.

The state of Italy is perhaps on a par with that of Spain, with the

advantage of the utter lawlessness touched upon in our last number. We are

now informed that a bill for the suppression of religious orders is

introduced. Of course it will pass. A government which shakes hands with

the _Garibaldini_, which is hand and glove with the murderer and assassin

whom it fears, is strong when it comes to the spoliation of religious

houses and the persecution of Christian men who it knows will not resist.

We cannot pass Italy by—alas! what an Italy it has become!—without one

word of admiration for the Holy Father. Men, journalists, all sorts of

people, would have driven Pius IX. from Rome long ago. But the pilot is

still at the helm of the barque of Peter, though pirates tread the decks.

And never during the successive storms which have made his long reign so

dark with trial has our great pontiff presented to the angry world a more

forcible spectacle of a man utterly above all the pettiness, all the

trials, all the misery, which human malice can inflict upon humanity, than

at this moment in his own person; looking afar over the troubled waters

for the calm which shall come from heaven, and bring men back from their

insane mood at the old whisper, “Peace, be still!” He stands there the

truest and purest living protest of justice shackled by injustice, and

around that prisoned throne range the hearts of all true Catholics and all

true men in the world.

In England, the Gladstone Ministry after many threatenings has managed to

hold its own, in consequence probably of the successful termination of the

Alabama claims. The Ballot Bill has at length passed, and in future we

hope to be spared the degrading scenes which were wont to accompany

English elections. The Irish Church Establishment has falsified Mr.

Gladstone’s high hopes of new life, vigor, efficiency, and so forth, on

being deprived of its “temporalities,” which came into act this year. It

has come to a miserable collapse, and is now a pauper asking alms to live.

The agitation for the disestablishment of the English Church is gaining

ground, as is also the Home‐Rule movement in Ireland, which undoubtedly

received a fresh impetus from the attack made by a renegade Catholic judge

on the Irish clergy and on one of their leaders, Archbishop McHale, whose

name is venerated wherever his fame is known. There has been a cry of a

coal failure, and a much more serious one, because better founded and more

immediate, of a potato failure in Ireland as well as England, which,

coupled with the strike of the agricultural laborers and the coming

winter, threatens an ugly season. Serious riots incurring a lamentable

loss of life and property occurred in Belfast on the repeal of the Parties

Processions Act. The rioters held the city in a state of terrorism for

days. “Of course the Orangemen began it,” commented the London

_Spectator_; “the worst murder committed, that of Constable Morton, was

the murder of a Protestant by Protestants, because he upheld the law.”

In Mexico, the death of President Juarez, the murderer of the unhappy

Maximilian, as well as of countless others, whom “people who ought to

know” were never tired of calling the saviour of his country, the true

patriot, and the like, oddly enough put an end to the internecine strife

which was ravaging the country, and everybody suddenly collapsed into

peace: “Yet Juarez was an honorable man.”

In the natural order, there have been terrible convulsions, followed, in

the closing year, by a succession of tempests on sea and land, productive

of dismal disasters. In the spring, an earthquake shook Antioch, and half

the city was gone, with a loss of 1,500 inhabitants. In the same month,

Vesuvius belched forth torrents of burning lava for days, causing a vast

destruction of property and loss of life to a few overcurious sight‐seers.

Later on came the inundations of the Po, accompanied by losses more

grievous still. Then storms swept the country, and, indeed, all Europe,

strewing the shores with wrecked vessels and their crews. Fire touched and

marred, but, fortunately, did not succeed in destroying, two of the

grandest monuments of European art—the Escurial of Philip II. in Spain,

and the Cathedral of Canterbury in England, doubly consecrated—the second

time by the blood of the martyred S. Thomas. It was more successful among

ourselves; and a few hours’ blaze in the month of November destroyed the

finest portion of our most ancient city, Boston.