Among what might be termed the curiosities of the year figured the Boston

Jubilee; an assembling together of European bands and singers, with a

native chorus of 20,000. It was called music. A second curiosity was the

epidemic which recently broke out among the horses, and brought life in

New York to a standstill, or at least to a walking pace, for several days.

It is to be hoped that means of transit may be devised to prevent the

effects of such a casualty in future. A third curiosity was an assembly of

recreant priests and others to the number of 400 at Cologne in order to do

something. What the something was never appeared. They dined, quarrelled,

and separated; while the world was agape to see something arise which

should crush God’s Church. Other curiosities were the great trials, civil

and military, which took place during the year. Among the former class

that of the man known as the “Tichborne Claimant” stands pre‐eminent. The

story is too well known to be commented on here; the “claimant’s” case

broke down; he was committed to Newgate prison, bailed out, and is now

“starring” the country to procure funds for a new trial. The case was

remarkable for the strangest and oddest disclosures of character and

hidden life from the highest almost to the lowest classes, not only in

England, but in many other countries. The trial of Marshal Bazaine for the

surrender of Metz, which is still pending, stands foremost in the rank of

military trials. _Væ victis!_ Many of Bazaine’s comrades were condemned

for premature surrender by the Committee of Inquiry; we shall see whether

the once great marshal will be able to come off with a clear escutcheon.

Other trials were those of the Communists and the murderers of the

Archbishop of Paris and the clergy. As a rule, a more villanous set never

stood face to face with justice. They have had full, fair, and exhaustive

trials; such as could offer any excuse for their crimes escaped; the

others were shot.

Death has been mowing right and left among us with indiscriminating

scythe. In Persia he grew weary of his own grim harvest. Eastern Europe

was threatened with cholera, but escaped. Some tall heads have fallen

among the mean; many whose names are memorable for evil as well as good;

many others whose places it would seem hard to fill. The Catholic Church

has lost Archbishop Spalding, Bishops McGill and O’Connor in America,

Morris and Goss in England, Cardinal Amat in Italy. Their names will live

in the church and in her prayers. Anderson and Meade have gone, Seward and

Morse, and Bennett, the founder of the _New York Herald_, and Greeley, the

founder of the _Tribune_. Persigny, and Conti, and Mazzini, each memorable

in his way, dropped out during the year. Lever, one of the most genial of

Irish novelists, is dead, and his much‐lamented countryman, Maguire, of

Cork. The only surviving son of the Duc d’Aumale, a promising young man,

was snatched away—an important event, as the claims of this branch of the

family to the French throne fall now to the Count de Chambord. Bernadotte,

Charles XV. of Sweden, has gone, and was succeeded on the throne by his

brother Oscar.

And now, passing from the old, we look to the new, not without anxiety.

The war against the church, in reality against the rights of man, the

freedom of conscience, commenced in Germany, has spread thence to Italy,

Switzerland, and Spain, and, under the form of the educational question,

wider and further still. If Catholics would save the souls of their

children, and of their children’s children, from the infidelity and the

moral decay which we see around us, even in this free breathing

atmosphere, they must be firm and united in their resistance to the

encroachment of the state, where states possess no rights—over the

dictates of conscience. The uprise of labor against capital, which was the

real cause of the first French Revolution and its mad excesses, we have

already touched upon. It should be a deep source of anxiety and care to

true statesmen. War looms on the European horizon, gathers in silent

thunder‐clouds all around. A flash is enough to kindle the combustion and

make the thunder speak. Who shall say when or whence it comes? Europe is

arming, and we have good authority for saying that “the next war will rage

over half a century”—Bismarck himself. For the church we foresee an

increase of bitter and severe trials. We can only appeal to that

enlightenment which the age vaunts; to its common sense and common

fairness to allow us the freedom in our own worship which they, if they

possess any, claim for themselves. Public opinion is, to a great extent,

the lever of the age. We must work at that until we shame it into powerful

and persistent action to remove and overthrow the mountain of intolerance,

bigotry, and opposition, which rulers, who are neither Protestant nor

Catholic, are raising up in order to overwhelm all religion, all right,

all freedom.

New Publications.

MY CLERICAL FRIENDS. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.

1873.

We need not say more than that the above is by the author of that

production of exquisite humor and satire, _The Comedy of Convocation_, to

awaken a profound interest in its appearance. This new book from his pen

is somewhat similar. It is a choice compound of argument, history, and

wit. Its object is to represent the English clerical body as it is, with a

special intention of showing the ridiculousness of the claim made by some

of its members to the character of Catholic priesthood. The author is the

son of a clergyman, and was himself a clergyman, and is at home in his

subject. We promise our readers a rare treat in this new and spicy volume.

CONVERSION OF THE TEUTONIC RACE. CONVERSION OF THE FRANKS AND

ENGLISH.

SEQUEL TO THE SAME. S. BONIFACE AND THE CONVERSION OF GERMANY. By

Mrs. Hope. Edited by the Rev. J. B. Dalgairns, of the Oratory.

London: Washbourne. 1872. 2 vols. crown 8vo. (New York: Sold by

The Catholic Publication Society.)

Few readers of English books know much of those most splendid and

important chapters of history, of which these two volumes contain a

summary within a moderate compass. The lady who has written them is a very

competent and graceful narrator of historical scenes and events. She has

given us the cream of authentic and truly scientific historical works with

care and skill, and at the same time she has clothed her narrative with a

flowing and agreeable diction. There are scarcely two volumes to be found

in the whole mass of recent English literature better worth reading than

these. We are delighted, also, to meet again, in the preface of the second

volume, with F. Dalgairns, from whose pen nothing ever comes which is not

choice both in matter and style. His editorship adds a most satisfactory

sanction to the historical and critical accuracy of these volumes, over

which he has exercised a supervision, and some pages of which have been

written by himself. These volumes which have gained great repute and favor

in England will, we trust, have also a wide circulation in this country,

and help to diffuse sound historical knowledge, which, as F. Dalgairns

remarks, is such a powerful auxiliary to religious truth.

LIFE AND TIMES OF SIXTUS THE FIFTH. From the French of Baron

Hübner. By James F. Meline. New York: The Catholic Publication

Society. 1873.

The dying Gregory XIII., worn out with the difficulties and

responsibilities of his position, raised his weary hands to heaven, and

exclaimed: “Thou wilt arise, O Lord, and have mercy on Zion”; prophetic

words that were realized in the election of Pope Sixtus V., who, as Ranke

justly observes, possessed in the highest perfection the moral and

intellectual qualities demanded for the suppression of the prevalent

disorders of the times. Perhaps there is no other pope whose life is of

more universal interest. His striking individuality of character appeals

to the popular mind, and has given rise to a variety of fables respecting

him which fasten themselves on the memory and, though not literally true,

yet embody a certain truth of their own.

His rise from obscurity to become a link of that august dynasty beside

which “the proudest royal houses are but of yesterday,” his ability to

cope with all the difficulties of his position at a critical period in the

political and religious world, his astuteness in dealing with the most

wily diplomatists, his clear notions as to the necessity of balance of

power among different nations, his financial ability and genius for

statesmanship, have all commanded the very admiration of the enemies of

the papacy. “A grand old man,” the _British Quarterly_ styles him, and

with reason. “A great pope, to whom posterity owes a debt of gratitude in

consideration of the whole results of his pontificate,” says the

_Edinburgh Review_.

The extraordinary events of the life of Sixtus V. were the result of his

wonderful energy and persistency. People like decision of character—a man

with a purpose, and the ability of putting it into execution. This is why

all admirers of “self‐made” men like to retrace the upward steps of the

life of this eminent pope, from the rustic boyhood of Felice Peretti on

the shores of the Adriatic; his thirst for knowledge that impelled him to

study by the lamp of the sanctuary; his girding himself with the cord of

the humble Francis while yet a mere boy; his career as a young friar‐

preacher, drawing crowded Roman audiences to listen to his fervid

eloquence, among them such men as S. Ignatius de Loyola and S. Philip

Neri; his promotion to a cardinalship by a sainted pope who was his

benefactor, and whose last moments he had the happiness of witnessing; his

temporary retirement to his villa, where he gave himself up to quiet

observation of the needs of the times, especially of his own country, the

study of architecture and the improvements needed in Rome, and all those

pursuits which tended to fit him for his subsequent elevation to the

papacy. Sixtus V. did not look upon his success in life as solely due to

his own merit. He recognized the finger of Divine Providence, and chose as

his motto: “Thou, O God, hast been my defender, even from my mother’s

womb.”

_The Life of Sixtus V._ by Baron Hübner, though written from a Catholic

point of view, is acknowledged by the _Edinburgh Review_ to be one of the

most valuable contributions to the literature of the age, so rich in

historical biography. Its superiority to the previous lives of that pope

is partly due to his access to the archives of Simancas, not open to

research at the time of Ranke. Though the pontificate of Sixtus V. was

only about five years long, it embraced a rapid succession of

extraordinary and tragical events, as is evident when we remember he was

contemporary with Queen Elizabeth of England, Mary Queen of Scots, Philip

II. of Spain, and Henry of Navarre, whose names recall the persecution of

the Church in England, the execution of Mary Stuart, the Armada, the

overthrow of the League, and the accession of Henri Quatre to the throne

of France, and show us what a weight of responsibility rested upon the

Head of the Church. No wonder he was soon worn out by the pressure. The

tiara is but a thorny crown at the best, as befits him who stands in

Christ’s stead. The very condition of the Pontifical States was an affair

of no slight difficulty. Only a man of extraordinary energy and decision

of character could have surmounted it. Sixtus V. has been called pitiless

from the terrible punishments he inflicted for apparently trivial

offences, but he was personally humane, for at the murder of his nephew he

was the first to entreat the pope (Sixtus being at that time Cardinal

Montalto) to drop his investigations, and when he had cleared the Roman

States of brigandage, he endeavored to conciliate the nobles. His

inflexible severity seemed imperiously demanded. Twenty‐seven thousand

brigands ravaged his dominions; the castles of noblemen were their

strongholds; they were protected by neighboring princes; and the very

streets of Rome often witnessed the attacks of peaceful citizens by armed

bands. Sixtus himself when a cardinal had nearly lost his life in

encountering a band of lawless young nobles as he was going home one

night. He saw the absolute necessity of putting an end to such disorders

and the terror of the inhabitants. Accordingly, one of his first acts

after his election was to forbid the carrying of fire‐arms in the streets,

and, when he found his order disobeyed by four young men, he had them hung

the very next morning.

But he was strictly impartial in administering justice. No clerical

offender was screened by the sacredness of his garments. The friar who

imposed on the piety of the faithful was scourged from one end of the

Corso to the other; the cardinal who was desirous of protecting a guilty

servant was threatened with the Castle of St. Angelo; the traitor‐priest

who gave Queen Elizabeth information of what was occurring at Rome was

executed in such a manner as to strike terror into every treacherous

breast. No wonder Sixtus became a terror to evil doers, and his very name

sufficed to put an end to the brawls in the streets. The time arrived when

he could say with grim humor: “_Fugit impius nemine persequente_”—“The

wicked flee when no man pursueth.”

Sixtus V. left proofs of his genius and energy all over Rome. He kept

thousands of men constantly employed. The dome of S. Peter’s was completed

in twenty‐two months, though the architect said it would require ten

years. He restored a colossal aqueduct that had fallen to ruin, and

brought the Acqua Felice into Rome from a distance of about twenty miles.

He opened great thoroughfares all through the city, built the Lateran

Palace, erected monuments, undertook to drain the Pontine Marshes,

encouraged agriculture and the manufacture of silk, established the

Congregation of Rites and several others, limited the number of cardinals

to seventy, and partly revised the Vulgate with his own hand. His

practical nature by no means made him insensible to softer influences. His

soul was so alive to music that at the exciting time of his election he

lent an ear to Palestrina’s music hastily composed for the occasion, and

remarked that Pierluigi had forgotten Pope Marcello’s Mass—a criticism

that mortified the great composer, but which has since been acknowledged

to be true.

He won the gratitude of the Israelites by his favor. Amazed Rome saw a

Gentile actually scourged on the Corso for insulting a member of that

ancient race. To another Israelite was granted special privileges for his

success in increasing the production of silk.

Col. Meline’s book is not a literal translation of Baron Hübner’s _Life of

Sixtus V._: it is rather a _résumé_, as the preface explains. It consists

of three parts: the first reviews the life of that pope, giving such

details as are of interest to the general reader; the second portrays the

experience of a Transalpine traveller to Rome three centuries ago; and the

third is a vivid picture of Rome at that time: the whole being an improved

edition of three essays already given to the public.

The readers of THE CATHOLIC WORLD are already too familiar with Mr.

Meline’s felicitous style and his power of analysis to require any

commendation on our part. And to the public at large he has recommended

himself by his chivalrous defence of Mary, Queen of Scots. The strong

lance he has wielded in the defence of her fair name against that doughty

writer of fiction, Mr. James Anthony Froude, has been too universally

applauded not to secure a general welcome to whatever comes from his able

pen.

THE HEART OF MYRRHA LAKE; or, Into the Light of Catholicity. By

Minnie Mary Lee. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1872.

The enthusiastic author of this charming little story has succeeded in

presenting much logic which is usually dull, in very attractive attire.

The arguments and conclusions are so wonderfully clear, that it is to be

hoped the book will fall frequently into the hands of the class most in

need of it, but, alas! least likely to read it. There is in it much of

quiet humor which is irresistible and very “telling”; as, for instance,

when to the question, “What Catholic books have you read, sir?” the sturdy

Methodist, Abner White, replies: “_Fox’s Book of Martyrs_, _Maria Monk_,

_Six Months in a Convent_, _Romanism at Home_, _Priest and Nun_, etc.” And

again, in the interview between Aunt Ruth and the committee of Methodist

ladies who had come to wait upon her after her husband’s conversion, human

nature, and especially Methodist nature, is painted with a very clever

pen. Who has not known just such spinsters as Miss Nancy and Miss Sarah?

And what a keen dash is this:

“ ‘Then we shall report that you choose to follow your husband, rather

than the goodly rules of our Methodist discipline?’

“ ‘I shall go with my husband certainly,’ was the firm, respectful answer.

“ ‘And may God have mercy on your soul,’ solemnly added the spinster, as

if addressing a person about to be hanged.

“ ‘Thank you!’ absently and innocently responded the quiet Quakeress.

“ ‘I suppose, then, _we need not even pray for you_?’ said one.

“ ‘You always _was_ a little queer, Sister White, you and Brother White,

too, now that we come to think it over,’ said another.

“ ‘Extremely odd it is for one to lose all sense of propriety, and assume

the responsibility of such a fearful step,’ rapidly spoke little Sarah.

“ ‘We pity you, and _would_ help you, but you won’t let us,’ was Mrs.

Sand’s trembling good‐by.

“ ‘We wash our hands of all sin in this matter. It lies at your own door,’

were the last consolatory words of Miss Nancy.”

Many another reader might say with Myrrha, “When I took up that small book

called _A General Catechism of the __ Christian Doctrine_, I little

dreamed upon what a study I had entered. Again, after reading it through,

I as little dreamed upon what a sea of speculation I had launched.” May

the result of such reading prove as fruitful of good to all readers as to

Myrrha! But such results seem to happen oftener in books than in real,

selfish life. The best of this story is its ending, which, this time, is

neither marriage nor death for the lovers.

FLEURANGE. By Mme. Augustus Craven. Translated by M. P. T. New

York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1872.

Rarely, indeed, have we met a work whose author exhibits so many of the

qualities indespensable in a good novelist, as the one under

consideration. Artistic in conception, pure and elevated in style, it is

withal faultless in tone and sentiment.

It is not our purpose to give an outline of the plot of this tale, or to

enlarge on the actors through whom it is evolved, but we shall confine

ourselves to some observations on certain characteristics of the writer as

developed in her work.

The author manifests a high degree of insight and the æsthetic sense, an

intimate knowledge of feminine nature, and more of that of the opposite

sex than its members may dream of—in acquiring which the delicate

intuitions of her own sex doubtless serve a better purpose than the mere

logic and learning of ours. Although the story introduces the reader into

the highest social circles, and its incidents are of the most absorbing

interest, there is no sacrifice of the dramatic unities, or any departure

from the essential simplicity of the narrative. This severity of style, we

may say, is at once the most winning quality of a work of genius, and the

best test of its success; making the latter dependent on inherent

excellence, rather than adventitious aids. In works of this character, art

in letters reaches its highest development—that in which it becomes the

most natural.

A noticeable feature is the epigrammatic conciseness with which a

sentiment or description is finished. The reader is never wearied with

platitudes or over‐minuteness of limning. Whatever idea occurs to the

writer which she is willing to share with the reader is expressed in the

fewest possible words. Is a scene to be presented to the mind’s eye?—a few

touches of the artist’s pencil bring it vividly before us. The reader

finds himself moved alternately to mirthfulness, or tears, or

astonishment, as he encounters an unexpected bit of humor, and exquisite

burst of pathos, or some reflection almost startling in depth or

suggestiveness. Some passages are open to obvious inference, while others

constitute studies if we would probe their philosophy. It was a question

with those who watched the serial progress of the story, how the author

could bring order and harmony out of the complications in which she had

involved her principal characters; and the way this has been accomplished

will be acknowledged as not the least of her achievements. No characters

are interchanged or lose their identity. Each acts his part as naturally,

and retains his individuality, as in real life; so that, when the

_dramatis personæ_ are at length summoned to the footlights for a final

adieu, we feel inclined to protest, in the name of all the delighted

auditors, against the call, as a premature termination of a very pleasant

intercourse.

The reception _Fleurange_ has met with thus far is very flattering. It has

commended itself to the favorable judgment of the London _Saturday

Review_, and other authorities of like critical acumen; has been _crowned_

by the French Academy; and received the general approval of the press and

public, so far as we have learned, while passing through the pages of _Le

Correspondant_ and THE CATHOLIC WORLD. We know of no recent imaginative

work of which we could speak in terms of more unqualified approbation, or

better deserving a permanent place in our literature, both as a work of

art and for the sound principles by which it is pervaded and informed.

On the translation, we do not know that we could bestow higher praise than

to say that it reads like an original work of the first order; while we

are convinced that it is a faithful and conscientious rendering from the

French text.

LEGENDS OF ST. PATRICK By Aubrey De Vere. Dublin: McGlashan &

Gill. London: Henry S. King & Co. 1872. (New York: Sold by The

Catholic Publication Society.)

“If the Ireland of early times is ever understood, it will not be till

after thoughtful men have deemed her legends worthy of their serious

attention.” This remark Mr. De Vere makes in his preface, and not until we

had read through his _Legends_ did we fully realize its truth. It is a

most certain fact that the twilight of Irish history can be changed into

day only by the profound study of its legendary lore. We have read several

lives of S. Patrick, and more than one history of Ireland have we studied,

but from none of them did we get so clear an insight into the character of

the saint and the genius of his people as from Mr. De Vere’s _Legends_,

few and short though they be.

The subjects are beautiful and poetic, and the author’s conception of them

lofty and spiritual. There is indeed a sacred melody about early Irish

song which only a spiritual bard can evoke. Chords there are in Erin’s

ancient harp which a hand of mere flesh and blood may not touch. Mr. De

Vere has sung those songs; he has touched these chords, and they have

given forth their true melody. It is not to his beautiful diction and

varying metres, it is not to his wonderful descriptive powers and high

poetic gifts, that we attribute this success, but it is to those two

passions of his soul which impress themselves on all that he writes—love

of God and love of Ireland. And here an opportunity is afforded us of

speaking of Mr. De Vere as the poet of Ireland. That he is far superior to

any Irish poet of the present day is beyond all question, and that his

equal, in everything save popularity, to any English poet of the day is a

verdict competent judges have not hesitated to give.

We often ask ourselves, How is it, then, he is so little known and read by

his countrymen in America? For twenty years he has scorned “the siren’s

tinsel lure,” and devoted all his talents to sounding the praises of

Ireland and of Ireland’s Catholicity. His sole aim through life has been

to enshrine Ireland’s faith and Ireland’s song in the temple of fame.

Patriotism is his only incentive to labor; he seems indifferent to

popularity, and perhaps this is one reason why he enjoys so little. But

there are other reasons, we think, and they also are in his favor. Mr. De

Vere is too polished, too thoughtful, and too spiritual to be a popular

poet.

If he would descend from his high poetic ideal to sing love songs, he

would soon be popular; but he will never prove a recreant bard. Those for

whom he has so long and so faithfully labored must disenthrall themselves

from the spirit of the age, and ascend to his level; then will they find

in him all they can desire, and proclaim him their laureate. They will not

find in him, it is true, the inimitable sweetness of Moore or the poetic

fire of Davis, but they will find in him the patriotism of both, a polish

superior to either, and, over all and above all, they will find a muse

ennobled by the highest sentiments of religion and morality.

THE TRUTH. By Field Marshal the Duke of Saldanha. Translated from

the Portuguese, by William John Charles Henry. London: Burns,

Oates & Co. 1872. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication

Society.)

This little volume will be found to contain not only some of the most

forcible arguments for Christianity that have ever been advanced, but

particularly a collection (in the first chapter) of testimonials from

ancient heathendom to what is only realized in Christ and his religion.

Nothing can be more interesting, surely, than the study of the great

tradition of expectation which fulfilled the prophecy of the dying Israel:

“And He shall be the expectation of the nations” (Gen. xlix. 10). Our

noble author opens his first chapter with this sentence: “From the east to

the west, from the north to the south, in every language, in the

literature of all nations, with a voice spontaneous, universal, and

unanimous, the entire human race cried aloud for the coming of a Divine

Teacher.” And when we have delightedly perused this first chapter, we as

heartily endorse its concluding sentence: “This we believe to have most

clearly demonstrated that, ... with one voice, unanimous, spontaneous, and

universal, the human race cried out for the coming of a God of

revelation.”

The work is designed for a defence of Christianity against the infidelity

of the day. And we think it a most able and a singularly attractive one.

Let our young men especially read it. It will make them a match for any

sceptical show of learning.

CATHOLIC WORSHIP. A Manual of Popular Instruction on the

Ceremonies and Devotions of the Church. By Frederick Canon

Oakeley. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1872.

Recent converts and inquirers after religious truth frequently experience

some difficulty in understanding the ceremonies of the church and the

various devotional practices of Catholics. We know of no more suitable

book to place in the hands of such persons than this little treatise of

Canon Oakeley. It is concise, clear, and methodical. Nothing is left

unexplained, from the practice of taking holy water upon entering the

church to the consecration of a bishop. This book will be found to be of

great use not only to converts, but to Catholics in general, containing as

it does a thoroughly reliable explanation of everything connected with our

worship. This second edition is an evidence of the favor with which it has

been received by the Catholic public.

THE SHADOW OF THE OBELISK, and Other Poems. By Thomas William

Parsons. London: Hatchards, Piccadilly. 1872.

This modest volume is from the author whose translations from Dante, that

have appeared in our magazine, are attracting deserved attention.

Mr. Parsons’ powers as a lyric poet are considerable. His verse has, for

the most part, the easy and often careless diction of a school which many

think gone out, but which we believe destined to revive. Yet here and

there we see the influence of Tennyson. The lines, “To Henry Wadsworth

Longfellow,” are in the latter style. For strength his sonnets are his

best efforts. We wish he had favored us with more of them.

There is ample variety in the pieces collected. The poet has travelled

much. “The Shadow of the Obelisk” sets us musing in Rome. “The Birthplace

of Robert Burns” takes us to “bonnie Scotland.” “St. James’ Park” tells us

the writer has philosophized in London. While the “Willey House,” “On the

Death of Daniel Webster,” and “Hudson River” are themes from his native

America. The lines, “On a Magnolia Flower,” are fragrant with the

South—the pale, sad South—and one of the gems of the book.

Mr. Parsons is a Unitarian, as he takes care to indicate; but, like

Longfellow, he has Catholic sympathies. However, there is one short

translation from Dante, entitled “A Lesson for Easter,” the last two lines

of which _seem_ to talk Protestantism:

“Ye have the Testament, the Old and New,

And this for your salvation is enough.”

But the preceding lines should throw light on the Catholic poet’s meaning:

“Christians, be staid: walk wisely and serene:

Be grave, and shun the flippant speech of those

Who think that _every_ wave will wash them clean—

That _any_ field will serve them for repose.

Be not a feather to each wind that blows:

There is a _Shepherd_ and a _Fold_ for you:

Ye have a _Leader_ when your way is rough.”

All this is unmistakable orthodoxy; and, therefore, the two lines quoted,

which come next, speak of the evidence of the Old and the New Testament

for the “one Fold and one Shepherd” and the infallible “Leader.”

We conclude by hoping that Mr. Parsons will vouchsafe us another volume of

minor poems, and especially of sonnets.

THE LIFE OF FATHER MATHEW, THE PEOPLE’S SOGGARTH AROON. By Sister

Mary Francis Clare, Author of _The Illustrated History of

Ireland_, _Advice to Irish Girls in America_, _Hornehurst

Rectory_, etc.

The indefatigable Nun of Kenmare could not have employed her pen on a

worthier subject than the life and labors of the Apostle of Temperance.

She will have accomplished a great end if this work serves to keep green

in the hearts of her countrymen and of all Catholics the memory of one who

accomplished more good than many who possessed more brilliant abilities,

yet who neglected to employ their talents in that usurious activity which

wins a blessing.

DAILY STEPS TO HEAVEN. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1872.

This, as well as the preceding work, belongs to a series of publications

by the same author, embracing religious, historical, and miscellaneous

books, which have attained an extraordinary popularity in the old country

and in the United States.

A BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY. By Rev. Reuben Parsons, D.D. New York:

D. & J. Sadlier & Co.

This work has been compiled “for the use of colleges, schools, and

families.” It contains short biographical sketches of the principal

characters of history, together with chronological tables. The subjects

are for the most part well selected, and, as far as we have read, are well

and correctly treated. The style of the author is terse and vigorous, and

well adapted to this kind of composition.

The printing is excellent, the binding neat, but the figure in the

frontispiece has suffered not a little at the hands of the artist—an

accident which mars somewhat the general appearance of the book.

THE NEW GOD. Translated from the German of Conrad von Bolanden, by

Very Rev. Theodore Noethen, V.G. Albany: M. O’Sullivan. 1872.

Our readers have already had a sufficient taste of this author’s quality

in “The Progressionists,” now going through our pages, to desire the

further treat to be found in the new products of his pen. We do not recall

any series of fictitious writings, designed to combat vicious principles

and actions, more admirable as specimens of vigorous and effective

composition. The most obtuse progressionist could scarcely fail to

comprehend the drift of the underlying argument, while the more fastidious

reader will be carried along by the interest of the tale through which it

is conveyed. Father Noethen is performing an acceptable service in making

these works known to the English reader.

Bolanden’s works fairly palpitate with the gravity of themes of living

interest. The new German Government, the burthen of the present tale, has

given evidence of their telling effect by ordering their suppression.

GERALDINE: A TALE OF CONSCIENCE. By E. C. A. New York: P. O’Shea.

_Geraldine_ was one of the first successful religious novels which

followed the revival of Catholic doctrine in England, and bids fair to

hold its own for many a year to come. It enjoys a wider reputation than

either of Miss Agnew’s other works, one of which, _Rome and the Abbey_,

forms a sequel to this.

Mr. O’Shea also issues a reprint of Cardinal Wiseman’s _Lectures on the

Connection between Science and Revealed Religion_; intended, apparently,

as the commencement of an uniform series of the great author’s works.

It is to be regretted that this work had not undergone a thorough revision

by some competent hand before its reappearance, in order to adapt it to

the present state of scientific investigation. Although true science can

never be out of harmony with revelation, its successive developments may

enable us to see the conditions of that harmony and relation in a clearer

light than when the _Lectures_ were originally published.

THE HISTORY OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY. Translated from the French

of the Abbé Orsini, by the Very Rev. F. C. Husenbeth, D.D., V.G.

Boston: Patrick Donahoe. 1872.

This work is already known to many readers in the presentation edition

issued by the Messrs. Sadlier some years since, and the recent English

edition of which the above is a _fac‐simile_. We are glad to see an

edition like this made accessible to the great body of readers, though the

fire in which the publisher was involved, will interfere for a time with

that consummation. It has a number of pictorial illustrations, and there

are appended the letters apostolic concerning the dogmatic definition of

the Immaculate Conception.

LIZA. By Ivan S. Turgenieff. New York: Holt & Williams. 1872.

_Liza_ is another work from the pen of M. Turgenieff, the distinguished

Russian novelist, several of whose works are already familiar to us. His

quiet sarcasm in depicting the Russian of the old school, who needs no

scratching to reveal the genuine Tartar—crafty and brutal, but with a

kindly streak withal—and the Russian of the present generation who has

imbibed foreign habits and theories by no means elevating, is admirably

calculated to correct the evils of a transition state of society. The

former affords us two affecting pictures in this book of women of

repressed lives, who humbly kiss with their dying lips the hand that has

crushed them. One of them leaves a young son, Fedor Lavretsky, who never

forgets his pale and gentle mother, who in turn hardly dared caress him

for fear of the sharp eyes and cutting tongue of her sister‐in‐law,

Glafira, who had taken charge of the child. He is brought up under a

system of repression, and, when his father dies, he goes to Moscow

determined to repair the defects of his education. There he falls in love

with the face of a beautiful girl who regards him as a _schöne Partie_ and

marries him. He gives himself up to the happiness of his new life, and is

induced by his wife to leave his estate, and, after various changes, to go

to Paris, where admiration seems to have intoxicated her. Fedor, becoming

aware of her real character, settles an annuity on her, leaves her, and

returns to his native land. He cannot bear, however, to go to his own seat

where he passed the first happy days of his married life, but betakes

himself to his aunt’s place—the stern Glafira, who had died during his

absence. The desolate house is once more opened, and he stands alone in

the room where she breathed her last, and looks with softened heart on the

sacred icons in their gilded frames in the corner, and the worn carpet,

covered with drippings from the wax candles she had burned before them,

and on which she had knelt to pray. His old servant waits on him, he

drinks tea out of the great cup he had used in his boyhood, looks over the

large book full of mysterious pictures which he had found so wondrous in

childish days. Everything recalls the earlier remembrances of his life.

“On a woman’s love my best years have been wasted,” thought he.

Going to pay his respects to his great‐aunt, who is admirably drawn with a

few vivid touches, he meets with Liza, whom he left a child, but is now

nineteen years of age. There is a natural grace about her person; her face

is pale, but fresh; her eyes lustrous and thoughtful, her smile

fascinating, but grave, and she has a frank, innocent way of looking you

directly in the face. Lavretsky is instantly struck with her appearance,

and the impression is deepened the oftener he sees her. Liza’s mother is

one of those women, _qui n’a pas inventé la poudre, la bonne daìne_, as

one of her visitors ungratefully remarks. Her daughter owes the elevation

and purify of her character to the nurse of her childhood, who gave

herself up to penitential observances. Instead of nursery tales, she told

Liza of the Blessed Virgin, the holy hermits who had been fed in their

caves by the birds, and the female martyrs from whose blood sprang up

sweet flowers. She used to speak of these things seriously and humbly, as

if unworthy to utter such high and holy names, and Liza sat at her feet

with reverent awe drinking in the holy influences of her words. Aglafia

also taught her to pray, and took her at early dawn to the matin service.

Liza grew up thoroughly penetrated with a sense of duty, loving everybody,

but loving God supremely and with tender enthusiasm. Till Lavretsky came,

no one had troubled the calmness of her inner life.

After some time, learning through a newspaper that his wife is dead, he

confesses his love to Liza. She feels drawn towards him, her heart seems

to respond to his love, but it is hardly with genuine passion; it is

rather the agitation of a lily too rudely stirred by the breeze. Not that

she has no depth of feeling; but, as she afterwards acknowledges, when she

did indulge in hopes of happiness, her heart shuddered within her. Love

seemed almost a profanation, as if a stranger had entered her pure maiden

chamber.

Suddenly, the wife, supposed to be dead, reappears. It is all a mistake.

Her husband is stunned. He feels he can never give back his love to one

who has no longer his respect. And Liza is lost to him. After several

attempts, he sees her again. Her eyes have grown dimmer and sunken, her

face is pale, and her lips have lost their color. She implores him to be

reconciled to his wife, and they part without her allowing her hand to

meet his.

Six months later, Liza takes the veil in a remote convent in Russia. The

Greek as well as the Latin convent seems to be the ideal refuge of

startled innocence and purity. Once Lavretsky goes there, hoping to catch

a glimpse of her. He sees her as she is leaving the choir. She passes

close by him with the quick, noiseless step of a nun, but keeps steadily

on without looking at him. But he sees the almost imperceptible tremor of

her eye; she bends her emaciated face still lower, and the hands that hold

the rosary are clasped more tightly together.

But the chief value of M. Turgenieff’s novels to a Catholic lies not in

the stories themselves certainly, but in the delightful pictures of

Russian life and manners they present, and the influence they have had in

softening the rugged manners of the north and changing the condition of

the serfs.

WONDERS OF THE MOON. Translated from the French of Amédée

Guillemin, by Miss M. G. Mead. Edited, with additions, by Maria

Mitchell, of Vassar College. Illustrated with forty‐three

engravings. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1873.

This little book contains a tolerably full account of all that is known

about the moon, and that is of interest to the general reader. Our

knowledge of our satellite is in some respects hardly equal to that which

we have recently acquired of the much more distant sun; though so near,

comparatively, to us, it is still too far away for the telescope ever to

give us as clear a view of it as we need; and the spectroscope is of

little use in its examination. We shall never know much about it, and

especially about its other side, unless we go to see it; and a trip to the

moon, chimerical as it may seem, may not always remain an impossibility

for some adventurous person who is willing to run his chance of finding in

the apparently uncomfortable little place the necessary conditions for

human life. However, not a few of us will be content with the information

given in this book, which is vastly greater than what most persons would

probably acquire by examining the moon with the finest telescope; for a

telescope is of little service to one unaccustomed to use it, and few

things are more provoking to an experienced moon‐gazer than evident

failure of others to see what seems to him so plain. To those, then, who

really wish to get a good idea of the moon, and especially of its physical

constitution and probable scenery, in really the most satisfactory way,

this little volume, notwithstanding a few slight inaccuracies (such as the

placing of Petit’s bolide at 9,000,000 miles from the earth), will be

quite interesting and valuable. These inaccuracies, if in the original,

should have been corrected in the translation.

THE GREAT PROBLEM: The Higher Ministry of Nature viewed in the

Light of Modern Science, and as an aid to advanced Christian

Philosophy. By John R. Leifchild, A.M., author of _Our Coal Fields

and our Coal Pits_; _Cornwall: Its Mines and Miners_, etc., etc.

With an introduction by Howard Crosby, D.D., LL.D., Chancellor of

the University of New York. New York: G. P. Putnam & Son. 1872.

Dr. Crosby introduces this really able and valuable essay with a just and

manly rebuke of the unparalleled absurdity and impudence of our modern

materialistic scientists; and it is high time for him, considering what

balderdash he is obliged to listen to from his chancellor’s chair. The

essay of Mr. Leifchild is a series of arguments on the topics of natural

theology, in which some of the principal manifestations of the power and

wisdom of God in the physical world are pointed out and referred to their

true cause and end. The author most absurdly saws off the limb of the tree

on which grows all the fruit he admires so much and gathers so carefully,

by denying the value of metaphysics. But, in spite of that, his sound mind

holds implicitly the very metaphysics he ignorantly despises, and he is

therefore able to reason very well and conclusively. Most persons who read

books of this kind are more ready to listen to a geologist teaching

theology than to a professed theologian, and they prefer the roundabout

method of coming to a point by induction to the straight road of logical

deduction. This book is likely to be useful, therefore, and is, besides,

printed in very clear, legible type, which makes it a pleasant book to

read, though laboring under the sad inconvenience of having neither index

nor table of contents. There are a good many interesting facts and

statements about eminent writers interspersed, e.g., Spinoza and Leibnitz;

but the author is seriously mistaken in ascribing any pantheistic

doctrines or tendencies to Henry Suso and Tauler. We are happy to welcome

such books from English writers who are adepts in the physical sciences.

For these sciences, and the men who are really masters of them, we have a

great respect in their own sphere. And we consider it a very praiseworthy

and useful task for men of this kind, to undertake to show the conformity

of these sciences with the queen over all the scientific realm—Christian

philosophy.

THE MINNESINGER OF GERMANY. By A. E. Kroeger. New York: Hurd &

Houghton. 1872.

In this little book we have a very charming, as also very learned,

exposition of mediæval art. The Minnesinger or minstrel‐knights of the

latter half of the XIIth and earlier half of the XIIIth centuries are but

little known outside of Germany. In this book we are introduced to the

principal masters of this beautiful and ephemeral school of song,

Gottfried von Strassburg, Walter von der Vogelweide, Ulrich von

Lichtenstein, Hartmann von der Aue, Regenbogen, Conrad von Würzburg, and

Henrich von Meissen, known as “_Frauenlob_,” or “ladies’ praise.” These

poets sang chiefly of religion and love. But foremost among all women, the

great Mother of God chiefly claimed their enthusiastic homage, as we see

by the long extracts given by Mr. Kroeger of some of their glorious “Hymns

to the Virgin.” Here is an example, from “The Divine Minnesong,”

attributed sometimes to Gottfried of Strassburg:

“Thou art the blooming heaven‐branch,

Which blooming, blooms in many a grange;

Great care and strange

God lavished, Maid, on thee.”

We have, unfortunately, no space for a selection of the beauties collected

for us in this book, and can only recommend our readers to procure it for

themselves. It is full of gems, and is especially welcome to us as

evidence of the high degree to which the burning faith of those days had

led and guided lyrical art. Hartmann von der Aue’s “Poor Henry” is, so we

are told, “the original of that sweet story of self‐sacrifice which

Longfellow has made universally known as the ‘Golden Legend,’ (p. 190).”

The same hymn we have already quoted has this allusion to the “living wine

of true remorse” and the following words:

“He whom God’s love has never found

Is like a shadow on the ground,

And does confound

Life, wisdom, sense, and reason.”

Conrad von Würzburg, in his “Golden Smithy,” represents himself as a gold‐

smith working an ornament for the Queen of Heaven, and says, “If in the

depth of the smithy of my heart I could melt a poem out of gold, and could

enamel the gold with the glowing ruby of pure devotion, I would forge a

transparent shining and sparkling praise of thy work, thou glorious

Empress of Heaven.” Walter von der Vogelweide sings these grand words:

“Who slays the lion? Who slays the giant?

Who masters them all, however defiant?

He does it who himself controlleth;

And every nerve of his body enrolleth,

_Freed from passion, under strict subjection_.”

Mr. Kroeger has done a service to art, to history, and to religion in

opening thus before our eyes a few of the treasures of the _so‐called_

dark ages.

COLLEGE JOURNAL. Georgetown College: Dec., 1872, Vol. I., No. 1.

This is as elegant a little paper in outward appearance as we remember to

have seen. The articles are written with taste and correctness, and we

offer a hearty welcome to the young gentlemen of classic Georgetown on

their editorial _début_. We have only one piece of advice to give them,

which is, to be careful that their wit and humor be as classic and

scholarly as their serious pieces. Most papers, especially juvenile ones,

break down on this point. We wish our young friends honor and success in

their enterprise.

The Catholic Publication Society will publish in a few days Wild Times, a

story by Miss Caddell.

Books And Pamphlets Received.

From C. DAREAU, Quebec: Francis Parkman. Par L’Abbé H. R. Casgrain. 18mo,

paper, pp. 89.

From A. WILLIAMS & CO., Boston: The Blazing Star; with an appendix

treating of the Jewish Kabbala. 12mo, pp. 180.

From JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO., Boston: The Masque of the Gods. By Bayard

Taylor. 12mo, pp. 48.

From LEE & SHEPARD, Boston: Humanity Immortal. By L. P. Hickok, D.D.,

LL.D. 8vo, pp. 362.—God‐Man. By L. T. Townsend, D.D. 12mo, pp.

446.—Autobiography of Amos Kendall. Edited by his Son‐in‐law, Wm.

Stickney. 1872.

From ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston: Paul of Tarsus: An Inquiry into the Times

and the Gospel of the Apostle of the Gentiles. By A Graduate, 12mo, pp.

401.

From D. VAN NOSTRAND, New York: A Treatise on Acoustics in Connection with

Ventilation. By Alexander Saeltzer. 12mo, pp. 102.

From J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., Philadelphia: Thoughts on Paper Currency,

etc. By Wm. Brown. 18mo, pp. 240.—Black Robes; or, Sketches of Missions

and Ministers in the Wilderness and on the Border. By Robert P. Nevin.

12mo, pp. 366.

From A. D. F. RANDOLPH & CO., New York: The Scripture Doctrine in

Reference to the Seat of Sin in the Regenerate Man. 18mo, pp. 125.

From DESFORGES & LAWRENCE, Milwaukee: A Religion of Evolution: Letters of

“Internationalist” Reviewing the Sermons of J. L. Dudley, Pastor of

Plymouth Congregationalist Church, Milwaukee, 8vo, pp. 42.

From C. C. CHATFIELD & CO., New Haven: Hints to Young Editors. 12mo, pp.

31.

From CARROLL, Wheeling: Pastoral Letter of the Rt. Rev. Richard Vincent

Whelan, Bishop of Wheeling, to the Clergy and Laity of the Diocese. 8vo,

pp. 12.

Ninth Annual Report of the New York Catholic Protectory. Paper, 8vo, pp.

66.

Constitution and By‐Laws of the Catholic Total Abstinence Union of

America, with the Journal of Proceedings and Address of the First General

Convention held at Baltimore, Md., Feb. 22, 23, 1872. 8vo, pp. 57.

Library Work in the Army. United States Military Post Library Association.

Annual Report, 1871‐2. Paper, 12mo, pp. 57.

The English Inquisition worse than the Spanish. By an English Priest.

Montreal. 18mo, pp. 34.

From Hon. EUGENE CASSERLY: Papers relating to the Foreign Relations of the

U. S. transmitted to Congress with the Annual Message of the President,

Dec. 4, 1871.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD. VOL. XVI., NO. 95.—FEBRUARY, 1873.

Who Made Our Laws?

It is a characteristic of every succeeding century to consider itself much

wiser than any or all that have preceded it. In this respect our beloved

NINETEENTH is no exception; in fact, with a vanity that may be palliated,

if not excused, it considers that, comparatively speaking, the world has

hitherto been in its schoolboy days, and only attained its majority on the

first day of January, 1800. It is true that the great advances made in the

physical sciences, in chemistry, astronomy, and geology, and in the

application of steam and electricity, have marked our age as one of true

progress in a certain direction, and are substantial subjects of self‐

congratulation; but it must also be remembered that very little of the

genuine happiness of mankind in general depends upon any or all of these

discoveries and appliances. Man, being an intellectual as well as an

animal being, must look to spiritual discoveries and mental agencies for

his chief sources of enjoyment; and, as the soul controls the body, as his

main duty in this life is to qualify that soul for an eternity of bliss,

as the unlimited future is superior to the limited present, it follows

that the things merely of this world play a small and insignificant part

in the real drama of the life of a human being. The sad misconception of

this solution of the problem of man’s destiny has been the principal

mistake of materialists, and their consequent punishment here below has

been so marked that the criticism of the charitable is considerately

withheld.

Fortunately for us Catholics, the great desideratum—the law that includes

all laws—is immovably fixed, and no new discoveries, no alleged progress,

no experiment, can disturb it. Immutable as the eternal hills, it stands

to‐day as when promulgated in Judæa over eighteen hundred years ago by its

Divine Founder, and though the heavens and earth may pass away, we have

the assurance that it shall not. But there have sprung out of the

operation of this great law other laws which may be called secondary or

subsidiary, which have long affected the welfare of Christendom, and upon

the observance or rejection of which much of the welfare or misery of

nations has depended and must for ever depend. Political justice, social

order, art, science, and literature, everything which relates to the

relations of man with his fellows, and brightens and beautifies life, have

a great deal more to do with forming the character and insuring the purity

of a people, as well as the regulation of their actions justly, than

railroads, telegraphs, and anæsthetic agents. Respect for the memory of

the dead and charity for the living prevent us from pointing out

individual instances where men, remarkable for their skill and

perseverance in forwarding the latter projects, have neither been

distinguished for their truthfulness, liberality, nor for any moral

quality typical of intelligent Christians. The best of these men are

simply clever mechanists, increasing, it is true, our sum of knowledge of

the effect of certain forces in nature, yet without being able to reveal

the nature of the forces themselves, which seems impossible; but whoever

teaches us true ideas regarding the active agencies that govern ordinary

life is the true benefactor of his species, and is the governor of his

audience or race. Have our discoveries in this science of making mankind

more moral, humane, and refined kept pace with our more intimate

acquaintance with the secrets of nature and the laws of mechanism, or have

we to look back to the despised past for all our ideas of rectitude in

legislation, honesty in the administration of government, and truthfulness

in the plastic arts? We fear that a candid answer to this question would

involve some loss of our self‐esteem. While, like the degenerate Hebrews,

we have been worshipping graven images, the work of men’s hands, we have

been neglecting the Tables of the Law.

All national governments reflect more or less correctly the ideas of the

people governed. The absolutism of Russia is as much the reflex of the

mental status of the inhabitants of that vast and semi‐civilized empire as

that of the United States is of our busy, hasty, and heterogeneous

population. The first is a necessity growing out of a peculiar order of

things, wherein many tribes and barbarous races are to be found struggling

towards light and civilization; the other is the creation of the matured

minds of experienced and profound statesmen, acting as the delegates of a

self‐reliant and self‐sustaining people. Still, though the framework of

the government is _unique_, the ideas of justice and equality which

underlie it are old. In one sense they are not American, but European, for

it cannot be denied that the principles of our constitutions, state and

national, the laws accepted or enacted in harmony therewith, and the modes

of their interpretation and administration, are taken from the civil

polity of the nations of the Old World, as those again have been the

direct and palpable result of the teachings of the Catholic Church. Russia

to‐day is mainly barbarous, and subject to the unfettered will of one man,

because centuries ago the East broke away from the centre of Catholic

unity, and, in losing the Apostolic authority, lost all its vivifying

power, and the ministers of the so‐called Greek Church their capacity and

efficiency as civilizers and law‐givers.

The West was more loyal, and consequently more fortunate. If we consider

for a moment the chaotic condition of the greater part of Europe when the

church commenced to spread far and wide the teachings of the Gospel,

slowly but steadily pursuing her holy mission, we may be able to

appreciate the herculean task before her. Then, in every part of Europe,

from the pole to the Mediterranean, from the Carpathians to the Atlantic,

disorder, ignorance, and rapine prevailed. Wave after wave of Northern and

Eastern hordes had swept over the continent and most of the islands,

submerging the effete nations of the South, and carrying destruction and

death wherever they surged. The old Roman civilization, such as it was,

was entirely obliterated, all municipal law was abolished, the conquered

masses were reduced to the condition of serfs, and, as each successive

leader of a tribe rested from his bloody labors and built a stronghold for

his occupancy, he reserved to himself the exclusive monopoly of plunder

and spoliation in his own particular neighborhood. This of course led to

rivalry and unceasing warfare between rival marauders, and the incessant

slaughter and oppression of their retainers and tenants.

It was with these fierce and lawless _nobles_, as they loved to style

themselves, that the church for centuries waged most persistent and

uncompromising warfare, and against them she hurled her most terrible

anathemas. It was she who taught the sanguinary barons and chieftains that

there was a moral power greater than armed force and stronger than moated

and castellated tower, who took by the hand the downtrodden, impoverished

serf, freed him from his earthly bonds, taught him the knowledge of God’s

law, the principles of eternal justice and the rights of humanity, and

instilled into his heart those ideas of human liberty which have since

fructified and now permeate every free or partially free government in

both hemispheres. Those great results were achieved in many ways, as local

circumstances required; by teaching and exhorting, by persuasion or

threats, by taking the serf into the ministry of the church and thereby

making him the superior of his former master, by introducing gradually

just and equitable laws, and when necessary forcing their adoption on

unwilling sovereigns and reluctant nobles, and, perhaps, most potently by

the example of her own organization, which permitted the humblest of her

children to be crowned by a free election with the tiara of the successors

of S. Peter.

The influence of the church in secular affairs was particularly remarkable

in England, from which we have drawn so many of our political opinions and

principles. The early missionaries to the Britons and Saxons were

doubtless men of high intelligence as well as sanctity; but the Norman and

Anglo‐Norman ecclesiastics who came into the country with William the

Conqueror and clustered around his sons and successors were still more

remarkable for astuteness and breadth of view. For many generations after

the Conquest they may be said to have governed England in so far as they

framed her laws, conducted her ordinary jurisprudence, and mainly directed

her foreign and domestic policy. The most interesting, though by no means

the most impartial, chapters in Hallam and Blackstone are those devoted to

the struggles between the lay lawyers supported or subsidized by the

nobility, and the clerical jurists who defended the privileges of their

order and the natural rights of the oppressed masses. The Great Charter,

of which we hear so much from persons who very probably never read it, was

undoubtedly the work of the latter, though signed by all the barons with

their seal or mark; trial by jury, the germs of which may be traced into

remote antiquity, was systematized and as far as possible perfected under

their auspices; courts of equity, for the rectification of “injustice

which the law from its generality worketh to individuals,” were their

creation, and even until comparatively late years were presided over by

them; and representative or parliamentary government may justly be said to

have been the fruit of their fertile and ever‐active brains. Its founder,

in England at least, was de Montfort, who, though not in orders, was the

follower, if not the pupil, of the great S. Bernard.

It is thus that we, the ungrateful or forgetful eulogists of the XIXth

century, while laying the flattering unction to our souls that we have

done more than put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes, ignore the

long, painful, and continuous efforts of our spiritual forefathers to

christianize, civilize, and make free our ancestors in the order of nature

whom pagan despotism and barbaric cupidity sought to degrade and

brutalize. In our self‐glorification we forget that all we have in

legislation, of which we are naturally so proud and for which we never can

be too thankful, is the product of long years of toil and reflection of

humble priests and learned prelates, whose names are now scarcely

remembered. The ideas of justice and clemency generated in the minds of

those men of the past by the spirit of Catholicity are the same which

govern our daily actions, and regulate the most important affairs of our

lives and of those most dear to us, though we are so occupied or so

ungrateful that we fail to acknowledge the sources from whence they arose.

For instance, the possession of real estate forms one of the principal

attractions for the ambition of industrious Americans, yet how few of them

ever think that the laws regulating its disposition, acquisition, and

inheritance are the very enactments framed by monks, hundreds of years

ago, and recognized by armed laymen after long and at times doubtful

contests with the advocates of the arbitrary feudal system. Personal

liberty, speedy trial by our peers, were first secured in an incontestable

form by an archbishop of the church which some of our so‐called and

“loudly called” preachers are never tired of denouncing as tyrannical.

That the right of the people governed, to elect representatives to make

laws affecting their “lives, liberty, and pursuit of happiness,” was

obtained and carried into practical effect by a Catholic statesman many

centuries before Thomas Jefferson or Benjamin Franklin were born, seems to

have been forgotten by our pseudo‐liberals; while the grand principle of

political equality which lies at the foundation of our republic, instead

of being less than a hundred years old, is coeval with Christianity

itself, and in its operation within the church is more expansive and less

discriminating as regards social rank and condition.

But though, in this inconsiderate age, we fail to acknowledge the deep

debt of gratitude we owe to the workers and thinkers of the past for our

laws, civilization, and correct ideas of government, we cannot if we would

deny that we are still ruled by those very ideas, and that none of our

boasted, and in their way valuable, discoveries have had the effect to

give us a new or a better scheme of jurisprudence, whereby mankind can be

made better, wiser, or happier.

The people of the United States are not generally considered a profoundly

reflective people; we are too much engaged with the present to care much

about either the past or future; but we respectfully suggest that, while

we may be justly proud of our laws and system of government, it is hardly

fair or generous to assume to ourselves all the credit for their formation

and existence. We have done enough to secure the liberty of our fellow‐

men, and maintain our authority in the family of nations, not to be able

to be just, if not generous, to the memory of the men who have bequeathed

to us so invaluable a legacy; and let us therefore accord to our Catholic

ancestors due credit for the conception and transmission of the laws under

which we all so happily live. After all, their ideas rule more than our

own, whether we will or not.

Dante’s Purgatorio. Canto Sixth.

When from the game of hazard men depart,

The loser stays, and, casting o’er his throws,

Learns a hard lesson with a heavy heart;

While with the winner all the assembly goes:

One runs before, one plucks his robe behind,

But he delays not, though beside his way

Another comrade calls himself to mind;

And every one perceives that he would say:

“_Press me no more!_” to whom he lifts his hand,

And by so doing keeps the crowd at bay;

Such I was, freeing me from that dense band,

To this and that one bending my survey,

And promising to answer each demand.

Here was that Aretine whose lethal wound

The savage hands of Ghin’ di Tacco made;

Also that knight who in pursuit was drowned.

Here with stretched palms Frederic Novello prayed,

The Pisan, too, at whose defeat his sire,

Good old Marzucco, showed a strength sublime.

I saw Count Orso, and that soul whom dire

Envy and spite, but no committed crime

Tore from his mortal frame, as he declared;

Pierre de la Brosse I mean: so, while she may,

Be that bad woman of Brabant prepared

Lest she go join a far worse flock than they.

When I had freed me from the gathering press

Of shadows praying still that others’ prayers

Might hasten forward their own blessedness,

I thus began: “Thy page, my Light! declares

Expressly, in one text, that Heaven’s decree

To no beseeching bendeth.(214) Yet this race

Prays with such purpose: will their praying be

Without avail? or have I in that place

Misread thy word?” He answered: “It is gross

And plain to reason: no fallacious hope

Is theirs, if thy sound mind consider close;

The topmost height of judgment doth not slope,

Because love’s fire may instantly complete

The penance due from one of these: but where

I closed that point with words which you repeat,

A gulf betwixt the Most High was and prayer:

No praying there could cover past defect.

Yet verily, in so profound a doubt

Rest not, till she who, ’twixt thine intellect

And truth, shall be thy light, herself speak out.

Dost understand me? Beatrice I mean:

Thou shalt behold her in a loftier place,

This mountain summit, smiling and serene.”

“Good Guide,” said I, “then let us mend our pace,

I feel no more my weariness: o’er us

The mountain shadow grows and hides mine own.”

“We will go forward”—he gave answer thus—

“Far as we can, ere this day’s light be gone;

But thy thought wanders from the fact. That height

Ere thou canst gain, thou shalt behold the day’s

Returning orb, who now so hides his light

Behind the hill that thou break’st not his rays.

But yonder look! one spirit, all alone,

By itself stationed, bends toward us his gaze:

The readiest passage will by him be shown”

Sordello.

We came up tow’rds it: O proud Lombard soul!

How thou didst wait, in thy disdain unstirred,

And thy majestic eyes didst slowly roll!

Meanwhile to us it never uttered word,

But let us move, just giving us a glance,

Like as a lion looks in his repose.

Then Virgil, making a more near advance,

Prayed him to show us where the mountain rose

With easier slope, and still that soul replied

Nothing to his demand; but question made

About life, and our country. My sweet Guide

Began to answer: “Mantua”—and the shade

From where it had been, separate from his band,

All rapt in self, sprang up towards him in haste,

Saying: “O Mantuan, I am of thy land,

I am Sordello.” And the twain embraced.

Ah slavish Italy! thou common inn

For woe to lodge at! without pilot, thou

Ship in great tempest! not what thou hast been,

Lady of provinces, but brothel now!

That gentle soul so quickly, at the dear

Sound that recalled his country, forward came

To grace his townsman with a greeting here;

And now thy living children, to their shame,

Are all at war, and they who dwell most near

Prey, each on each, with moat and wall the same!

Search, wretched! search all round thine either coast,

And then look inland, in thy bosom, see

If peace in any part of thee thou know’st!

What though Justinian made new reins for thee,

What boots it if the saddle remain void?

Without his mending thy disgrace were less.

And O ye tribe that ought to be employed

In your devotions, and let Cæsar press

The seat of Cæsar if God’s word you heed,

See, since your hand hath on the bridle been,

How wanton grown and wicked is the steed,

Through want from you of the spur’s discipline.

O German Albert! who abandonest

Her now run wild, unchecked by curb of thine,

When thou shouldst ride her with thy heels hard‐pressed;

May heaven’s just judgment light upon thy line,

And be it something strange, and manifest,

To make him tremble that comes after thee,

Because, for lust of barren fiefs out there,(215)

Thou and thy Father have not shamed to see

The empire’s garden desolate and bare.

Come see the Capulets and Montagues,

Monaldi and Filippeschi, O thou being

Without concern! these wan with fears, and those

Already crushed: come sate thyself with seeing,

Thou cruel man, the outrage that is done

To thy best blood, and make their bruises well!

And thou shalt see too, thou cold looker‐on,

Santafiore’s lords how safe they dwell.

Come see thy Rome that mourning all alone

Weepeth, a widow, calling day and night,

Why, O my Cæsar, dost thou leave thine own?

Come see what love there—how all hearts unite!

And if no pity move thee at our moan

Blush for thy fame beholding such a sight.

And, lawful if I speak, O most high Jove

Who wast for _our_ sakes crucified on earth,

Are thy just eyes who watchest men above

Turned elsewhere?—Or is this before the birth

Of some great good a preparation hid

From us in the abyss of thy intent,

That all the Italian towns are tyrant‐rid,

And every clown that comes on faction bent

Makes as much clamor as Marcellus did?

My Florence! well may’st thou remain content

At this digression; it concerns not thee,

Thanks to thy people, great in argument!

Many with justice in their hearts there be

Who stay the shaft lest, coming to the bow

Without discretion, it might err; but they

On their lips wear it. Many men are slow

To serve the state, and turn from place away;

Thy people do not—every one bends low,

Crying before he’s called for: “I obey.”

Now make thee joyful, who may’st triumph well;

Thou who art rich—so wise! and so at peace!

If I speak true in this—let the truth tell.

Athens and Sparta, that raised civil Greece

To such a height, and framed the ancient laws,

Towards the well‐ordered life made small beginning

Compared with thee, whose legislation draws

Threads out so fine that thy October spinning

Comes before mid‐November to a pause.

How many times hast thou renewed thy men,

Yea, within days that in thy memory dwell,

And changed thy laws and offices, and then

Customs and coins! if thou remember well

Thou wilt behold thyself, unless quite blind,

Like a sick woman, restless, that in vain

Seeks on her pillow some repose to find,

And turns and turns as ’twere to parry pain.

The Church The Champion Of Marriage.

“There is nothing new under the sun,” least of all the continued crusade

the church has headed and now heads against the enemies of Christian

marriage. What marriage is, what duties it involves, what holiness it

requires, what grace it confers, we leave to other pens more learned or

more eloquent to define. What are the Scripture authorities and allowable

inferences concerning the married state, its indissolubility and its

future transformation in heaven, we leave to theologians to state. Those

who may feel curious as to that part of the question, or as to the local

and civil enactments concerning marriage and divorce, we refer to two able

articles published in THE CATHOLIC WORLD of October, 1866, and July,

1867.(216)

But as witnesses are multiplied when a strong case has to be made out in

favor of some important issue, let us turn to the tribunal of history, and

look over the record of the church’s battles. Witnesses without number

rise in silent power to show on which side the weight of church influence

has ever been thrown—the side of the oppressed and weakly. Every liberty,

from ecclesiastical immunities to constitutional rights, she has upheld

and enforced, and it would be impossible that she, the knight‐errant of

the moral world, should have failed to break a lance, through every

succeeding century, for the integrity of the marriage bond.

Take, for instance, the history of the new Frankish kingdom in the VIth

century, at the time when the church was laboriously moulding pagan hordes

into Christian and civilized nations. The times were wild and unsettled,

the very laws hardly established, heathen license barely reined in by the

threatening barrier of solemn excommunication. They were times of great

heroism, it is true, but none the less of great abuses and of startling

crimes. The bishops of the Christian church stood alone in the midst of

the universal depravity, like mighty colossi, defying the civil power and

rebuking royal license. S. Nicetus, the Bishop of Trèves, was one of

these. The young King of the Franks, Theodebert, who was betrothed to

Wisigardis, the daughter of the Lombard king Wakon, had, during a war

against the Goths, taken a beautiful captive named Denteria. He made her

his mistress, and, forgetful of his solemn betrothal, lived with her for

seven years. The bishop never ceased boldly to admonish him and warn him,

but to no purpose. After a while, his powers of persuasion failing to

effect his charitable design, he resorted to the penalties of the church,

and excommunicated him. But, instead of suspending his evil career, the

king persuaded many of his courtiers to follow his example. The holy

bishop excommunicated them all with calm impartiality. Despite the

censures under which they lay, they insolently attempted to assist at High

Mass one Sunday in the bishop’s presence. S. Nicetus turned to meet the

sacrilegious throng, and undauntedly announced that, unless those who were

excommunicated left the church, the Mass would not be celebrated. The king

publicly demurred to this, but a young man in the crowd, possessed by the

devil, suddenly started up, and in impassioned language gave testimony to

the holiness of the bishop and the vicious and debased character of the

king himself. Four or five stalwart men got up to hold him, but were

unable to do so; his strength defied their utmost efforts, and burning

words of condemnation continued to fall from his lips. The king, abashed,

was forced to leave the church, while S. Nicetus caused the young man to

be brought to him. The touch of the holy bishop’s hand, and his

efficacious prayer breathed over him, cured him at once of the grievous

affliction which had beset him for ten years. Finally, the displeasure of

the Franks at the insult offered to the King of the Lombards and his

daughter grew so serious that, with S. Nicetus at their head, they called

a general meeting to denounce his conduct. He listened to their

reproaches, and at last agreed to dismiss his mistress and fulfil his

contract with the Lombard princess.(217)

An eminent French writer, De Maistre, says of the part played by the popes

in the middle ages: “Never have the popes and the church rendered a more

signal service to the world than they did in repressing by the authority

of ecclesiastical censures the transports of a passion, dangerous enough

in mild and orderly characters, but which, when indulged in by violent and

fierce natures, will make havoc of the holiest laws of marriage.... The

sanctity of marriage, the sacred foundation of the peace and welfare of

nations, is, above all, of the highest importance in royal families, where

excesses and disorders are apt to breed consequences whose gravity in the

future none can calculate.”

In the early part of the VIIth century, S. Columbanus, the great Irish

monk who founded the powerful monastery of Luxeuil in Burgundy, began that

opposition to royal license which finally cost him his exalted position,

and made him an exile and wanderer from his chosen abode. Queen Brunehault

was practically reigning in Burgundy under the name of her grandson

Theodoric. She connived at the young sovereign’s precocious depravity, and

herself furnished him with attractive mistresses, thereby preventing his

marriage with a suitable princess, for fear of losing her own influence

over him in public affairs. One day, as S. Columbanus, whose monastery the

king had munificently enriched, came to see Theodoric on matters of

importance, the queen rashly presented the king’s illegitimate children to

the saint, and begged him to bless them. Columbanus refused, turning away

his eyes and saying sternly, “These children are the offspring of guilt,

and they will never sit upon their father’s throne.” Another time, after

many vain threats and remonstrances, the saint again visited Theodoric,

but, instead of accepting the hospitality of his palace, took up his

quarters in a neighboring house. Brunehault and her grandson, keenly alive

to the implied rebuke, and resenting the public slight thus put upon them

before their court and subjects, sent some officers of their household

with costly vases and golden dishes, full of delicacies from the royal

table, to Columbanus, at the same time entreating him to come to them. The

saint made the sign of the cross, and spoke thus to the messengers: “Tell

the king that the Most High spurns the gifts of the unjust; heaven is not

to be propitiated by precious offerings, but by conversion and

repentance.” And as he spoke the vases fell to the earth and broke,

scattering the food and wine that had been brought to bribe the servant of

God. The king, afraid of the divine judgments, promised to amend, but did

not fail to relapse into sin, upon which Columbanus wrote to him again,

and finally excommunicated him. Theodoric then visited the monastery of

Luxeuil, and in retaliation publicly accused the saint of violating his

rule. Columbanus answered, “If you are come here to disturb the servants

of God, and stir up confusion among them, we will relinquish all your aid,

countenance, and presents, O Theodoric; but know that you and all your

race shall perish.” The king retired, awed for this time into silence;

but, being further incensed against Columbanus by his grandmother

Brunehault, he had him exiled to Besançon. The saint’s reputation was such

that no one would venture to guard him, and he of his own accord soon

returned to Luxeuil. Theodoric, growing more obstinate the firmer he saw

his judge become, again ordered him to leave, even threatening force.

Columbanus defied him, and announced that physical violence alone could

drive him from his post; but, upon the persecution of the monastery

continuing unabated, he judged it more perfect and charitable to exile

himself for the peace of his community. Three years after, Theodoric and

his children were all killed, and Clotaire, his relative and ruler of a

neighboring kingdom, reigned in Burgundy in his stead.

The Byzantine Empire also was constantly torn by schisms and dissensions

originating in the unbridled passions of its ignoble sovereigns. In the

VIIIth century, Constantine VI., surnamed Porphyrogenitus, the son of the

Empress Irene, married at his mother’s instigation an Armenian woman of

low birth but irreproachable morals, named Mary. It was not long, however,

before he became enamored of one of his wife’s attendants, Theodota,

whereupon he proceeded to divorce the Empress Mary and force her to take

the veil. The Patriarch of Constantinople, Tarasius, refused to dissolve

the first marriage and perform the second, as required by the dissolute

emperor, who then attempted to blind him by alleging that his wife had

conspired to poison him. This the patriarch firmly refused to believe,

and, moreover, represented to the emperor the scandal of his conduct, the

infamy that would attach to his name in consequence, and especially the

incalculable evil his bad example would cause among his not too chaste

courtiers and people. Constantine lost his temper, and violently replied

that he would close the Christian churches, and reopen the temples of the

heathen gods. The patriarch threatened to refuse him the right of entering

the sanctuary, and of assisting at the sacred mysteries; but when an

unworthy priest, Joseph, the treasurer of the church of Constantinople,

was found willing to celebrate between the emperor and Theodota an invalid

“marriage” in one of the halls of the palace of S. Maurice, Tarasius

hesitated to pronounce the excommunication. At this distance of time, it

is not easy to point out the reasons and excuses which the unsettled state

of things in the Byzantine Empire may have furnished for this act of

seeming compromise; much less should we rashly condemn a holy and zealous

bishop; but it is noticeable that such instances have never been repeated

when it was the popes themselves who were directly appealed to.

As the patriarch had foretold, evil results followed the sovereign’s

licentious example, a frightful laxity of morals prevailed, and

insubordination to the church went hand in hand with the violation of the

marriage bond. Tarasius excommunicated the priest Joseph two years after,

but, although he had refrained from directly and publicly censuring the

principal culprit, he was none the less persecuted by him.

In the following century, a still worse case of the kind took place, the

chief actors in it being Bardas, the ambitious uncle of the wretched

Emperor Michael the Drunkard, and the Patriarch of Constantinople, S.

Ignatius. The former, who had the practical control of the state, and had

induced his sottish nephew to give him the title of “Cæsar” of the

Byzantine Empire, deliberately left his lawful wife, and lived in publicly

incestuous union with the wife of his own son. S. Ignatius indignantly

reproved him, and when the prince, braving his censures, presented himself

in church on the Feast of the Epiphany, the patriarch publicly refused to

admit him to the Holy Communion. Bardas furiously threatened him before

the faithful, but the holy prelate boldly presented his breast to the

blows he seemed about to receive, and in a few solemn words invoked the

wrath of God on the sacrilegious “Cæsar.” He was promptly exiled to the

Island of Teberinthia, where Bardas, partly by threats and partly by

hypocritical promises, induced all his suffragans to repair in a body, and

entreat him to resign the patriarchate. With holy firmness he resisted the

treacherous appeal, whereupon Bardas had him put in irons, deposed, and

replaced on the patriarchal chair by Photius, a creature of his own and a

layman. The famous schism of Photius thus sprang from the same cause as

later heresies, and everywhere we see contumacy to ecclesiastical

authority making common cause with abandoned passion and shameless

license.

The Photian schism was abetted in the West by another rebellious son of

the church, Lothair, King of Lorraine, who was anxious to get rid of his

wife Thietberga. This was one of the most famous cases of the sort during

the middle ages, and was prolonged over many years, breeding not only the

utmost moral disorder, but threatening also to bring about even political

convulsions. Lothair had conceived a criminal passion for one of his

wife’s maids, Waldrade, and to marry her his first endeavor was to prove

the queen guilty of incest before her marriage with him. For this purpose

he summoned his bishops three times at Aix‐la‐Chapelle, in 860, and had

Thietberga condemned to the public penance usually inflicted in those days

on a fallen woman. The time‐serving prelates, after a superficial

examination of the evidence, allowed the divorce on the plea that “it is

better to marry than to burn”; thus giving an early historical proof of

the old saying about a certain person “quoting Scripture.” Widalon, Bishop

of Vienne, who had not concurred in this iniquitous decree, wrote to the

pope for guidance. The pope, Nicholas I., firmly standing by the tradition

of the church, and vindicating the fundamental dogma of the sanctity of

marriage, replied uncompromisingly that the divorce was null and void, the

bishops blamable for their servility, and that even were it proved beyond

doubt that Thietberga had been guilty of incest or any other sinful

intercourse before marriage, yet the marriage itself could never on that

account be legally dissolved. The queen herself then appealed to the pope,

who appointed two legates to inquire into the matter. Baffled in his first

attempt, Lothair now trumped up a second pretext, and pretended that he

had been previously married to Waldrade, and that the queen had therefore

never been his lawful wife. The pope replied that, until this matter was

disposed of, the queen should be sent with all honor to her father, and

suitably provided for from the royal treasury. Thietberga was now

arraigned before a packed and bribed tribunal, and forced to acknowledge

herself an interloper, but found secret means of sending word to the pope

that she had acted under compulsion. Nicholas then wrote an indignant

letter to the king and bishops, annulled all previous decisions, and

commanded a new and _fair_ trial of the case to be held. He then wrote to

the Emperor of Germany, Louis II., and the King of France, Charles the

Bald, as well as to all the bishops of the four kingdoms, Lorraine,

France, Germany, and Provence, whom he ordered to repair to a council at

Metz, where his legates would meet them. He charged them to have more

regard to the laws of God than the will of men, and to protect the weak

and innocent with all the dignity of their influence. Lothair, however,

succeeded in corrupting the legates themselves, and the council merely met

to confirm the previous infamous decrees and condemnations. Two of the

prelates were chosen to report to the pope and bear hypocritical and

falsified messages to him, but in vain. Nicholas, secretly advised of this

treachery, and no doubt also divinely inspired, detected the imposition,

abrogated the decrees of the false council, and canonically deposed the

two guilty prelates from all their functions and dignities. They

immediately took refuge at Benevento with the Emperor Louis II., who,

hotly espousing their cause, marched with his army against Rome, and

surprised the clergy and people in the act of singing the litanies and

taking part in a penitential procession at S. Peter’s. His soldiers

dispersed the people by force of arms, and blockaded the pope in his

palace. Nicholas escaped in disguise, and for two days lay concealed in a

boat on the Tiber, with neither covering for the night nor scarcely food

enough to sustain nature. Thus the conflict between a sovereign’s

unbridled passions and the calm and immutable principles of the Gospel was

carried so far as to entail actual persecution on the sacred and

representative person of the pontiff. The emperor, repenting of his hasty

attack, sent his wife to the pope to negotiate a reconciliation. The two

insubordinate bishops at the same time sent an embassy to Photius, the

sacrilegious successor of S. Ignatius in the See of Constantinople, to

demand his support and countenance. “And thus,” says Rohrbacher, to whom

we are indebted for these graphic pictures of the early struggles of the

church, “did the schism born of the adultery of Lothair in the West join

hands with that born of the incest of Bardas in the East.” Lothair and the

rebellious bishops now quarrelled among themselves, and one of the deposed

prelates, the Archbishop of Cologne, repaired in haste to Rome to reveal

the duplicity, the plotting, and insincerity that had characterized the

whole of the proceedings.

The king himself, however, showed a disposition to submit, most of the

bishops begged the pope’s forgiveness, and the former legate, Rodoaldus,

having been excommunicated for his collusion with the king, a new one,

Arsenius, Bishop of Orta, was appointed. The conditions he was charged to

demand were explicit—either Waldrade must be dismissed, or the

excommunication until now delayed in mercy would be pronounced. Unwilling

to submit entirely, yet dreading the consequences if he did not, Lothair

actually recalled Thietberga to her lawful position, and allowed Waldrade

to accompany the legate to Rome, as a public token of her repentance and

obedience. But although his royal word was plighted, he soon found his

blind appetites too much for his reason and his faith, and, sending

messengers to bring back his mistress, relapsed into his former sins.

Waldrade herself was now publicly excommunicated.

In the meantime, Pope Nicholas died, and was succeeded by Adrian II., who

proved himself no less strenuous an opponent of royal license than his

holy predecessor had been. Lothair, naturally inclined to temporize,

offered to go to Rome and plead his own cause with the new pontiff. In a

preliminary interview held at Monte‐Casino, the pope reiterated his firm

intention of coming to no understanding before the king had made his peace

with Thietberga and finally dissolved his criminal union with Waldrade.

The next day was Sunday, and the king hoped to hear Mass before he left

for Rome, but he could find no priest willing to celebrate it for him, and

was forced to take his departure in diminished state for Rome, where no

public reception awaited him, so that he had to enter the Holy City almost

as a pilgrim and a penitent. In those days of princely hospitality and

profuse pageantry, such an occurrence was rare, and, therefore, all the

more significant of the majestic and practical power of the church.

Lothair, now thoroughly sensible of his sin, and warned by the terrible

dissensions of the past of what further misery to his country and people

his prolonged obstinacy might involve, signified his intention to submit

unconditionally to the pope’s decree. High Mass was then celebrated in his

presence and that of all his noble followers by the pope in person, and

when at the moment of communion the king approached the altar, Adrian

impressively addressed to him the following unexpected adjuration:

“I charge thee, O King of Lorraine, if thou hast any concealed intention

of renewing thy shameless intercourse with thy concubine Waldrade, not to

dare approach this altar and sacrilegiously receive thy Lord in this

tremendous sacrament; but if with true repentance and sincere purpose of

amendment thou dost approach, then receive him without fear.”

The king, evidently moved by this solemn address, knelt down and

communicated, and his retainers and courtiers took their places at the

sacred board. That no pretext might remain for further equivocation, the

holy pontiff warned them also, before administering the Blessed Sacrament

to them, saying:

“If any among you have wilfully aided and abetted the king, and are ready

wilfully to aid and abet him again in his wicked intercourse with

Waldrade, let him not presume to receive sacrilegiously the body of the

Lord; but you that have not abetted him, or that have sincerely repented

of having done so, and are resolved to do so no more, approach and receive

without fear.” A few of them shrank back at these awful words, but the

greater part, whether in sincerity or in contempt, followed the king’s

example and received.

After this, which did not take place till 869, we hear no more of

Lothair’s passion for Waldrade.

Germany, too, had her Lothair, and, in the XIth century, King Henry IV.,

one of the most abandoned sovereigns that ever reigned, brought upon

himself not only the papal anathema, but the displeasure of his electors

and confederated vassals themselves by his shameless trifling with his

marriage vows. His wife Bertha, a beautiful and virtuous woman, the

daughter of Otho, Marquis of Italy, never found favor in his sight; and,

in concert with some of his simoniacal bishops, Siegfried, the Archbishop

of Mayence at their head, Henry held a diet at Worms in 1069 to procure a

divorce from her. Siegfried, however, feeling uneasy at the part allotted

him, sent to the Pope Alexander II. for advice, and received from him a

severe reprimand for having countenanced the dissolute king. The papal

legate, an austere and holy man, Peter Damian, arrived during the session

of a diet at Frankfort, where the king’s cause was to be finally judged.

Despite Henry’s protestations that his divorce would enable him, as he

hypocritically said, to marry lawfully a wife that would please him, and

to abandon his numerous harem of favorites, whom he would have no excuse

any longer to retain, the stern sentence of Rome was passed against

him—either excommunication or reconciliation with his wife. He reluctantly

submitted, but only in appearance, for he refused even to see Bertha, and

soon gave himself up to his former illicit pleasures. His brutal treatment

of his second wife, Praxedes of Lorraine, whom he married according to his

own choice after the death of Bertha, drew upon him further ecclesiastical

censures, and he left a memory justly branded by all historians as more

infamous still than that of the notorious Henry VIII. of England.

At the same time that his passions were revolutionizing the German Empire,

Philip I. of France was showing an equally deplorable example to his

vassals and subjects. He was married to Bertha, daughter of Hugh, Count of

Frisia, by whom he already had two children, one of whom, Louis le Gros,

succeeded him; but, blinded by a sinful affection, he carried off, in

1092, Bertrade, the wife of Fulk, Count of Anjou, and lived with her in a

doubly adulterous union.

Hugh of Flavigny, a contemporary historian, says of this occurrence: “Even

if our book were silent, all France would cry out, nay, the whole of the

Western church would re‐echo like thunder in horror of this crime. It is

truly monstrous that an anointed king, who should have defended even with

the sword the indissolubility of marriage, should on the contrary _wallow

shamelessly_ for years in _intolerable disorder_.” The Blessed Yves,

Bishop of Chartres, immediately lifted his voice against the enormity of

the crime; but though his fervent reproaches fell upon a deadened

conscience, and his letter to the king was in vain, still among the

bishops of France none could be found, at least for a long time, to

perform a scandalous “marriage” between the king and his mistress. At last

the Archbishop of Rouen allowed himself to be blinded, and consented to

unite them, but a prompt and sharp interference on the part of Rome

punished him by a deposition from all his ecclesiastical dignities, which

lasted for several years. The whole of the controversy had now come

clearly to the knowledge of the Pope Urban II.

The Count of Anjou had declared war against the ravisher, and the king had

put the B. Yves in irons under the guard of the Viscount of Chartres. In

the meanwhile, the pope wrote a scathing letter to the metropolitan of

Rheims and the episcopate of France. “You,” he says, “who should have

stood as a wall against the inroads of public immorality, you have been

silent and allowed this great crime; for not to oppose is to consent. Go

now, speak to the king, reproach him, warn him, threaten him, and, if

necessary, resort boldly to the last measures.” From 1092 to 1094 the pope

never ceased publicly and privately to oppose Philip’s unlawful passion,

and, sending as his legate Hugh, Archbishop of Lyons, convoked an assembly

at Autun for the 15th of October, 1094, to decide the matter. The king

insolently attempted to forestall the papal decision by calling a council

for the 10th of September previous, which accordingly took place, and in

which a few contumacious bishops confirmed the king in his obstinate

resistance to the head of the church. As the queen had died a short time

before, Philip presumptuously began to hope that his marriage with

Bertrade would now be legalized; but, since she herself was the wedded

wife of the Count of Anjou, it will be easy to see how vain were his

expectations. The Council of Autun met, and, finding the king determined

to continue in sin, solemnly excommunicated him. Philip then wrote a

threatening letter to the pope, declaring that, if he did not absolve him

from the church’s censures, he would go over to the anti‐pope Guibert,

styled Clement III. Philip now attempted to secure immunity for himself in

another way: he promised all sorts of reforms, both ecclesiastical and

moral, if he could only obtain permission to indulge his guilty passion

undisturbed. To this proposal the B. Yves replied, like S. Columbanus to

Theodoric, that it was impossible to compound for sin by costly gifts,

that God desires ourselves, not our treasures, and that heaven is won by

penance and not by gold.

At length, in 1095, the Council of Placentia was held. Philip pleaded for

a delay, which was granted him, but at the following council, that of

Clermont, he and his concubine were at last rigorously excommunicated. And

here Rohrbacher takes occasion to remark, _à propos_ to the crusade which

was then occupying Christendom: “Indeed, of what use would a crusade

against the Turks have proved if the popes had not, at the same time,

resolutely opposed the introduction of Turkish disorders into Christian

society?”

In 1096, Philip consented to submit, and went in state to the Council of

Nismes to meet the pope, and be absolved from the excommunication, which,

as he found, weighed very heavily on his conscience. Throughout the middle

ages this one trait, a lively faith, proved, indeed, the only barrier

against excesses which, had they been unrestrained by the fear of

ecclesiastical censures, would have simply produced a state of license

worse than that of the latter days of the Roman Empire. But Philip’s

repentance was short‐lived; he recalled Bertrade, and even gave away

benefices and church dignities to her favorites, seculars, and persons of

questionable morality. Urban II. died, and was succeeded by Paschal II.,

who again sent his legates to the king, and, at the Council of Poictiers,

excommunicated the guilty pair a second time. At this council a strange

scene took place. A layman threw a stone at one of the legates, and,

though it missed him, it split open the head of another bishop who was

standing near. This was the signal for a violent attack on the prelates;

the unruly crowd outside the church battered down the doors, and rushed

in, throwing stones and missiles of all kinds among the deliberating

bishops. Of these a very few, seized with panic, hastily made their

escape, but the greater part stood like heroes at their post, and even

took off their mitres that their heads might present a better mark to the

infuriated and partisan mob. Nor was this the only act of violence

perpetrated in the name of Philip and Bertrade. Shortly after this scene,

while staying at Sens, they remained a fortnight without hearing Mass,

which so incensed Bertrade that she sent her servants to break open the

doors of the church, and caused one of her priests, a tool of her own, to

celebrate the Holy Sacrifice in her presence. Philip now noisily

proclaimed that he was going to Rome to receive absolution, but Yves of

Chartres warned the Pope of the king’s insincerity, and the pontiff

remained conscientiously cold to all his advances until he had wrested

from him a solemn oath not only to cease his criminal intercourse with

Bertrade, but also to abstain from seeing her or speaking to her unless in

the presence of a third person. Nevertheless, the solemn absolution was

not pronounced in his favor before the Council of Beaugency, assembled in

1104, _twelve_ years after his first sin in carrying off the lawful wife

of his own vassal and kinsman.

The XIIth century, so stormily begun, was disturbed later on by yet

another controversy of the same kind. It has been noticed by Protestant

writers, says De Maistre, that it was almost invariably marriage, its

indissolubility and the irregularities against its integrity, that have

provoked the “scandal” of excommunication. In this admission, made rather

to criminate than to honor the church, made indeed to throw the obloquy of

schism upon the popes themselves, is there not an unwilling testimony to

the Papacy’s unflinching championship of virtue?

In 1140, Louis VII. of France, surnamed _Le Jeune_, refused to sanction

the canonical nomination of Peter, Archbishop of Bourges, whom Thibault,

Count of Champagne, valiantly defended and upheld. At the same time,

Raoul, Count of Vermandois, a man advanced in years, who had long been

married to Thibault’s niece, wished to dissolve his marriage in order to

contract another with Petronilla, the sister of the Queen of France,

Louis’ wife, Eleanor of Antioch. He succeeded in persuading a few bishops

to grant him this permission on the plea of relationship between him and

his first wife, which, if true, would have made that union illegal from

the first. S. Bernard, in a fervid letter to Pope Innocent II., denounces

his vile conduct, giving a most lamentable picture of the state of the

kingdom of France. “_That which is most sacred in the church_,” he says,

“is trodden underfoot.” The pope, through his legate, Cardinal Yves,

excommunicated the Count of Vermandois, and laid his whole territory under

an interdict. Mass could no longer be said, the sacraments were not

administered, the churches were closed, the bells silent. The king

revenged himself by declaring war on the Count of Champagne, who had given

shelter to the archbishop, and appealed to Rome against the Count of

Vermandois. He devastated Thibault’s territory with fire and sword, and

behaved, says Rohrbacher, rather like a Vandal chief than a Christian

king. In 1142, he arrived before the town of Vitry, sacked it, and set

fire to its church and castle. In the former were no less than 1300

persons, men, women, and children, who had sought safety in the sanctuary.

He ruthlessly closed all avenues to the church, and burnt the miserable

inhabitants as they vainly strove to escape. The town was hereafter called

_Vitry le Brûle_. The Count of Champagne, weakened by this terrible onset,

sued for peace, and promised to exert his influence to have both

excommunication and interdict taken off the person and fiefs of Raoul de

Vermandois. It was, in fact, provisionally suspended, but, as the culprit

still refused to dissolve his criminal union, he was excommunicated for

the second time. S. Bernard was a prominent actor in this controversy, and

powerfully worked for the preservation of peace.

But greater troubles were yet in store for France and the church. In 1193,

Philip Augustus lost his first wife, Isabella of Hainault, and soon

afterwards sent the Bishop of Noyon, Stephen, with great pomp to the King

of Denmark, Canute III., to ask the hand of his sister Ingeburga in

marriage. The request was joyfully granted, and the queen‐elect brought

back to France with all possible honor. The marriage took place at once,

and the king confessed himself much pleased with his new consort. The next

day he caused her to be solemnly crowned, a ceremony to which great

importance was attached in those days; but, strange to say, during the

service itself he was seen to turn pale as if with horror, and to cast

sudden looks of aversion towards the queen. He, however, retired with her

to Meaux, and lived with her a short time, still unable to conquer his

dislike, which many did not fail to attribute to witchcraft, for Ingeburga

was both comely, virtuous, and accomplished. The king now called together

his parliament at Compiègne, his uncle, the Archbishop of Rheims and

legate of the Holy See, presiding. The queen, who did not understand

French, and whose Danish attendants had all been sent away, was present at

the deliberation. Unheard, therefore, and even unchallenged, she was

speedily declared too closely related to the king through his former wife

Isabella to be united to him in lawful marriage. This seems to have been

the favorite pretext for dissolving inconvenient marriages in those times,

as it was also later in the too famous case of Henry VIII. of England and

Catharine of Aragon, but even in this we see the spirit of subordination

to the general authority of the church still underlying the partial

revolts of her unruly sons. When Queen Ingeburga was made acquainted by an

interpreter with the sentence rendered against her, she was painfully

astonished, and, bursting into tears, cried out in her broken French,

_Male France! Male France!_ Some pitying hearts there must have been in

that assembly of lords spiritual and temporal, some remorseful consciences

among that gathering of Frenchmen, who, as Rohrbacher quaintly says,

“forgot even to be courteous to a stranger and a woman.” Ingeburga,

rising, then added, “Rome! Rome!”—sublime appeal of oppressed innocence to

the fountain‐head of justice and honor! Philip had her immured in the

Abbey of Cisoing. Pope Celestine III. sent legates to inquire into the

rights of the case, but the king succeeded in intimidating them, and no

conclusion was arrived at in the council held at Paris. The pope then

wrote an energetic letter to the bishops, concluding by a decision to this

effect, that, having carefully examined the genealogy upon which turned

the question of the alleged close relationship between the king’s first

and second wives, he solemnly annuls the unlawful act of divorce passed at

the Parliament of Compiègne, and decrees that, if the king should attempt

to marry any other woman during Ingeburga’s lifetime, he should be

proceeded against as an adulterer.

This speedily came to pass. Not content with repudiating his wife, he

attempted, in 1196, to marry another, Agnes of Merania (Tyrol). Ingeburga

instantly appealed to the pope, saying that for this outrage her husband

“allegeth no cause, but of his will maketh an order, of his obstinacy a

law, and of his passion _une fureur_,” as Rohrbacher rather untranslatably

puts it.

The Protestant historian Hurter says: “In this instance, the pope stands

face to face, not with the king, but with the Christian. Innocent III. (he

had succeeded Celestine) would not sacrifice the moral importance of his

office even to procure help for the Crusade or to prepare for himself an

ally in his dissensions with the German emperors.”

Pope Innocent remonstrated with the king first through the Bishop of

Paris, Eudes de Sully, then personally by letter, and threatened him with

the last and most awful punishment, excommunication. The king temporized,

and would give no satisfactory answer, until in 1198 the papal legate,

Peter of Capua, was directed to give him his choice between submission

within one month or the imposition of an interdict upon the whole kingdom.

This appalling measure had never before been so sweepingly resorted to,

and the preparations for it were as solemnly magnificent as if they had

portended the funeral of a nation. The council met at Dijon in 1199, and,

during its seven days’ session, once more invited the king to attend and

avert the doom his sin had well‐nigh brought upon the realm. But Philip

remained inflexible, despite the last and urgent letters of the pope, and

the interdict was accordingly pronounced.

Four archbishops, eighteen bishops, and a great number of abbots composed

the august assembly, and on the seventh day of the council a strange and

impressive scene closed the unavailing deliberations. At midnight the

great bell of the cathedral tolled out the knell of a parting soul, the

prelates repaired in silent and lugubrious procession to the high altar,

now divested of all its ornaments, the lights were extinguished and

removed, the figure of Christ on the great rood was veiled in penitential

guise, the relics of the patron saints were removed into the crypt below,

and the consecrated hosts yet unconsumed were destroyed by fire. The

legate, clothed in purple, advanced to the foot of the denuded altar, and

promulgated the awful sentence that was to deprive a whole Christian

kingdom of the consolations of religion. The assembled people answered

with a great groan, and, says a historian of the times, it seemed as if

the Last Judgment had suddenly come upon men. A respite of twenty days was

allowed before the interdict was publicly announced, but after Candlemas

Day, 1200, it was not only announced, but rigorously enforced. The effect

was terrible; thousands flocked to Normandy and other provinces belonging

to the King of England, to receive the sacraments and perform their usual

devotions; the king’s own sister, on the occasion of her marriage with the

Count of Ponthien, had to remove to Rouen to have the ceremony canonically

performed. The king, meanwhile, vented his fury on the bishops, imprisoned

some, confiscated the temporalities of others, and caused many to be even

personally maltreated. Queen Ingeburga was dragged from her convent, and

barbarously imprisoned in the Castle of Etampes, near Paris. Philip’s

wrath extended to all classes; the nobles he oppressed, the burghers he

taxed beyond their means, until his very servants left him as a God‐

forsaken man. The pressure at last became so terrible that he was heard to

exclaim in a transport of rage, “I shall end by becoming a Mussulman!

Fortunate Saladin! he at least had no pope over him!” At a meeting of the

lords and prelates of the kingdom, at which Agnes of Merania assisted,

Philip moodily asked, in the midst of an ominous silence, what he was to

do. “Obey the pope,” was the instant and uncompromising reply of the

assembly; and, when the king further obtained a confession from his uncle

the Archbishop of Rheims that the decree of divorce passed by him had been

invalid from the first, he exclaimed in ill‐concealed anger, “You were a

fool to give it, then!”

At this juncture, both Agnes and the king sent ambassadors to Rome to ask

for a suspension at least of the interdict, but the pope was inflexible,

and would hear of no negotiation before an unconditional submission. This

Philip reluctantly promised; the interdict had now lasted seven months,

and he could no longer withstand the dangerous and threatening attitude of

his dissatisfied subjects. In the summer of the year 1200, Cardinal John

Colonna, Cardinal Octavian, of Ostia, and several others repaired first to

Vezelay, then to Compiègne, where they met the king and received his

overtures. On the eve of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, the assembly

of lords spiritual and temporal met at the Castle of S. Léger, where the

legate insisted on the deliberations being held in public. The anxious

people crowded round the doors of the great hall, eager to watch every

fluctuation in the proceedings. At last, on the legate’s urgent advice,

and in his presence, Philip consented to visit Queen Ingeburga in state.

She had been sent for to be present, but had not yet seen her husband. It

was their first meeting since their separation six years before. At sight

of her, the king recoiled, crying out, “The pope is forcing me to this.”

“Nay, my lord,” replied the injured wife, calmly and meekly, “he seeks but

justice.”

Philip soon afterwards swore by proxy to receive the queen as his only and

lawful wife, and to render her all the honors due to her rank. As soon as

this was done, the bells rang out a joyous peal, and the people knew that

peace had been made. The sacred images were again uncovered, the church

doors were opened, and Mass was everywhere celebrated with great pomp. The

people were frantic with joy, but the king, though he had bent under the

weight of influence that had been brought to bear upon him, still

persisted in asking for a divorce from his wife on the before‐mentioned

plea of relationship. The pope delayed an answer, and, the better to

satisfy the reason of the refractory king, appointed another meeting to be

held at Soissons, six months after the date of the recent one at S. Léger.

To this meeting Canute III. of Denmark sent bishops and learned doctors to

plead his sister’s cause, but, as on the king’s side was arrayed the

best—though servile—talent of France, the case seemed not very hopeful,

until an unknown and obscure ecclesiastic arose, and, towards the end of

the council, which had already lasted a fortnight, modestly asked leave of

the august judges to speak in favor of Queen Ingeburga. His address

startled and moved all who listened, and they agreed with one voice that

this sudden and almost inspired burst of eloquence was surely a sign of

the will of God directly urging the queen’s rights. Philip, anticipating

the papal decision, determined to surprise the assembly by forestalling

it. He accordingly appeared on horseback very early one morning at the

gate of the palace of Notre Dame, the queen’s residence, and in public—and

shall we not say primitive?—token of reconciliation took Ingeburga away

with him, making her sit on a pillion behind him. They rode away quietly

and almost unattended, but soon after it became known that he had again

imprisoned her in an old castle, and that, having thus broken up the

council before a public decision had been rendered, he still considered

himself free to seek the divorce. Soon after the difficulty was lessened

by the death of the unfortunate Agnes of Merania, whose health had been

shattered by the terrible and infamous publicity necessarily brought upon

her during her recent pregnancy. It was not, however, for many years after

her death, not until 1213, that Philip was sincerely and permanently

reconciled to Ingeburga, whom he calls in his will his _dear wife_, and to

whom he left a suitable provision as queen‐dowager.

Hurter and Schlegel both give witness to the admirable conduct of the

mediæval popes in these and kindred struggles. The former says: “If

Christianity was not reduced to a vain formula like the religion of the

Hindoos, or relegated to one corner of the globe like a common sect, or

sunk altogether in the mire of oriental voluptuousness, it was entirely

owing to the vigilance and constant efforts of the popes.” And Schlegel,

in his _Concordia_, speaks thus: “We hardly dare to liken the Guelphs,

with the popes at their head, to anything approaching _liberalism_, so

degraded has the term become in connection with _modern liberals_; yet

they alone, because they had religion and the church on their side, were

the _true liberals_ of the middle ages. Indeed, if we look at the position

of the popes in its highest type, we shall find that they were always

either gentle peace‐makers and arbiters in times of unnecessary and

foolish wars, or stern champions of the oppressed, and austere censors of

morals.”

We pass over a few other less important cases, and come at once to the

last and most fatal, those connected with the Protestant Reformation. In

the XVIth century, the old story of Bardas and Photius was lamentably

repeated in England. Germany was in open revolt; Philip, Landgrave of

Hesse, was extorting shameful permissions for polygamy from the married

monk Luther; religious were trampling their vows underfoot; Wittenberg,

according to the Lutheran chronicler Illyricus, was no better than a den

of prostitution; troops of “apostate nuns,” as Luther himself called them,

were constantly arriving, begging, says Rohrbacher, for _food, clothing,

and husbands_; Luther, their prophet, was hawking his mistress, Catharine

Boris, about among his disciples, offering her as a wife first to one,

then to the other, till he was at last forced to take her himself, to the

no small disgust of his best friends, who remonstrated in the following

graphic words: “If any, at least not _this_ one.” The Germanic world was

crazy with a new revolution, and henceforth the struggle was no longer to

be a partial one, a revolt of the flesh, but a radical onset upon

everything divine, upon revelation and faith, as well as upon moral

restraints and social decencies. Philip of Hesse, petitioning in 1539 for

permission to marry a second wife while the first was living, says that

“necessities of body and of conscience obliged him thereto”; that “he sees

no remedy save that allowed of old to the chosen people” (polygamy); that

“he begs this dispensation in order that he may live more entirely for the

glory of God, and lie more ready to do him earthly services; that he is

ready to do anything that may be required of him in reason (as an

equivalent), whether concerning the property of convents or anything

else.” He also hints that he will seek this permission from the emperor,

“no matter at what _pecuniary cost_,” if it be denied him by the

Wittenberg divines, and alleges as a sufficient reason that it is too

costly for him to take his wife to diets of the empire, with all the

honors due to her rank, and equally too hard for him to live without

female society during such times of gaiety. The permission was granted at

last, reluctantly, it must be admitted, for even the first Reformers, lax

as they were, were not Mormons. Melancthon drew it up, and eight divines,

including Bucer and Luther, signed it, but made secrecy a condition. The

shameful “marriage” was performed on the 4th of March, 1540, between the

landgrave and Marguerite de Saal, and perhaps the most revolting feature

of the proceeding was the consent of Philip’s lawful wife, the Duchess

Christina.