An hour passed, and no one came. There was no sound in the house but that

occasional whining and barking from the next room; no sound outside except

when a carriage rolled swiftly by in the road. He saw no person coming. It

was impossible to endure that thirst any longer. He went into the

bathroom, and wet his hands and face, and drank of the tepid water there.

His head reeled at sight of the stairs, and he did not dare to attempt to

descend. Returning to his chamber, he fell on to the sofa, and, for the

first time in his life, fainted; coming back to life again as though

emerging from outer darkness, but not into light—into a sickening half‐

light, rather. So hours passed, and he knew without a doubt that he was

utterly deserted, and that a lonely and terrible death threatened him.

Could he do nothing to avert it? He recollected that Mrs. Clay had a

medicine closet in the bathroom. Possibly, if he could reach it, something

might be found there to relieve, if not to cure, him. What mountains

molehills can change into sometimes! This man, so strong and full of life

but a day before, now lay and gave his whole mind to planning how he

should save himself a few steps in going to the bathroom again, how he

could avoid the stairs, lest he should fall, and whether he could this

time cross the corridor to release that troublesome, whining dog.

Whenever, weary and confused, he lost himself a moment in a half sleep,

that whining and scratching assumed terrible proportions in his

imagination, and became the fierce efforts of wild beasts to reach him. He

started up now and then, with wide‐open eyes, to assure himself that he

was not in a menagerie; to fix in his mind the picture of that airy

chamber, with its clear tints of green and amber, its open windows showing

the long veranda outside, and the bright perspective of foliage and sky.

But when his eyelids drooped again, and he sank back into half sleep and

half fainting, back came the painful phantoms to torment him till they

were once more chased away for a time.

Toward evening he roused himself to make that difficult pilgrimage of

fifty paces in search of healing and refreshment, bathed eagerly his face

and head, and found his cousin’s medicine closet. But when he had reached

that, his strength was nearly exhausted. He had only enough left to take

down the laudanum bottle, and get back to his room with it. Laudanum might

dull this pain, and quiet the excited nerves. Once more John must wait. He

could not stop to release him.

The room in which the dog was confined had a window on the balcony that

ran past Mr. Bently’s room. That window was open, but the blind was shut,

and John, despairing of escape through the door, had turned all his

efforts toward unfastening this blind, and had several times been near

success, when the spring, flying back, had defeated him.

The invalid’s bath of cold water had refreshed him somewhat. He hated to

take the laudanum. He had never been an intemperate man, and had always

shrunk from swallowing anything which could in the least degree isolate

his mind from the control of his will. He would bear the pain a little

longer.

He lay there and thought, and visions of happy homes rose up before him.

At this hour of early twilight, the lamps were being lighted, or people

sat by firelight, and children, grown languid and sleepy with the long

day’s play, leaned silent on their mothers’ laps. At this hour, men of

thought, intellectual workers, laid aside the weightier labors of their

profession to indulge in an exhilarating contention of wits, so much

happier than other workers, in that their recreations do not retard, but

rather accelerate their work. It is but dancing at evening with

Terpsichore, or pacing with Calliope along the margin of the same road

which he had travelled by day in a dusty chariot, or walked encumbered by

his armor. In their lighter intellectual contests, what sparks were

sometimes struck out to live beyond the moment that gave them birth! What

random beams of light shot now and then into seeming nothingness, and

revealed an unsuspected treasure!

All these scenes of social comfort and delight rose before the sufferer’s

mind with tantalizing distinctness, fairer and fuller in the vision than

he had ever known the reality to be. He felt like a houseless wanderer

who, freezing and starving in the street, sees through lighted windows the

warmth and joy of the home circle.

Mr. Bently was not a pious man. He had a deep sentiment of reverence, and

a firm belief that somewhere there is an inflexible truth that deserves an

obedience absolute and unquestioning. But controversy had spoiled him for

religious feeling, which is, perhaps, too delicate for rough handling, and

in the clash of warring creeds some freshness and spontaneity had been

lost to his convictions. Reaching truth, winning battles for truth, he had

been like a traveller at the end of a long journey, when he scarcely cares

in his weariness for the goal attained, but must needs eat and sleep. He

had spent too much time and strength in wiping away the mire flung on the

garments of religion to be any longer quick in enthusiastic homage. “Pity

’tis, ’tis true.” The butterfly you would save from the net loses the down

from its wings with your most careful handling; the friend you defend from

calumny you dethrone even while defending. The feeling that dictated that

brutal egotism, “Cæsar’s wife must not be suspected,” dwells in a less

arrogant form in most human hearts, and rare indeed is that soul which

sets its love as high, after even the most triumphantly refuted

accusation, as it was before.

Desertion and imminent death chilled this man’s heart, and he had no mind

to turn to God, save in a cold recognition of his power and wisdom. Love

entered not into his thoughts, but despair did.

The pain increased, the dizziness came back. He stretched his hand for the

glass and vial of laudanum, and tried with a shaking hand to pour out what

he could guess to be an ordinary potion. There was no reason why he should

suspect that that bottle might have been standing in the house so long as

to have made even the smallest dose of its contents deadly. As he

measured, and tried to recollect how much he should take, pouring out

unknowingly what would have been for him Lethe indeed, a louder rattle and

bang at the blind of the next room proclaimed the success of the four‐

footed prisoner. There was a scampering on the veranda, a dog’s head,

eager and bright‐eyed, was thrust in at the window of the sick‐room, then,

with an almost human cry of joy, John flew at its occupant.

Away went bottle and glass, breaking and spilling—no laudanum for Mr.

Bently that day. Down went Mr. Bently among the sofa pillows, prostrated

by the unexpected onset; and love, and delight, and absolute devotion, in

the form of an uproarious Skye terrier unconscious and uncaring for risks,

nestled in the breast of the deserted man, were all over his face and

neck, and through his hair, and speaking as plainly as though human speech

had been their interpreters.

When the man comprehended, recovering from his first confusion, reason and

endurance stood aside and veiled their faces, and a greater than they took

their place.

Through a gush of tears which were but the spray of a subsiding wave of

bitterness, this soul raised its eyes, and beheld a new light. It lost

sight of the Almighty in a vision of the Heavenly Father.

The flight that followed was painful, but not unsoothed. The dog,

perceiving at once that his friend was ill, became quiet. He lay with head

pressed close to the restless arm, and, if the sick man moaned, he

answered with a pitying whine. Once he left the room, and wandered through

the whole house in search of help, whined and scratched at every closed

door, and, finding no one, came back with an air of distress and

perplexity. Later, when Mr. Bently seemed very ill, John ran out onto the

balcony, and barked loudly, as if calling for relief.

Morning came again, and the sick man’s pain gave place to a deathlike

faintness, resulting from lack of nourishment. For thirty‐six hours

nothing had passed his lips but water, and that no longer ran from the

faucet when he tried it. He crept down‐stairs, stair by stair, holding by

the balusters, like a little child. There was no water to be seen in the

dining‐room, and he did not know where to find any. He reached the parlor,

lay down on the floor, and prayed for death or for life—anything to put an

end to that nightmare of misery. It seemed that death was coming. His

hands and feet grew cold with an unnatural chill, and, though the morning

sunshine poured through the windows, all looked dim to his eyes. His

senses seemed to be slowly receding, without pain, without any power or

wish on his part to recall them. He lay and waited for death.

And while he waited, as one hears sounds in a dream he heard a door open

and shut, then a quick, light step that ran up‐stairs. John, standing over

his friend, left him, and rushed to the parlor door, barking wildly, but

was unable to get out, the door having swung to. In vain he tried it with

his paws, and thrust his small nose into the crack. It was too heavy for

him to move.

Suddenly, while Mr. Bently gazed with languid, half unconscious eyes at

the creature, the door was pushed wide open, and a woman stood on the

threshold. She was neither young nor old, but simply at the age of

perfection, which is a variable age, according to the person. Her face was

a full oval, but white now as hoar‐frost. All its life seemed to centre in

the large hazel eyes that were piercing with a terrified search. She wore

her fair hair like a crown, piled high above the forehead in glossy coils

like sculptured amber. Over one temple a black and gold moth was poised,

as though it had just alighted there, its wings widespread. The long black

folds of a velvet robe fell about her superb form, sweeping far back from

her swift but suddenly arrested step. Scintillating fringes of gold

quivered against the large white arms, edged the short Greek jacket, and

ran in a single flash down either side of the train. A diamond cross lay

like a sunbeam on her bosom, a single diamond twinkled in each small ear.

There was but an instant’s pause, then she crossed the room quickly, and

knelt by him.

“My God! my God!” she murmured, and lifted his head on her arm. “What

fiendish cruelty!”

Her touch and voice recalled him to himself. He tried to put her away.

“Leave me, Marian, I beg of you! Do not endanger yourself for me!”

But even while bidding her go, every nerve in him grew alive with the

joyous conviction that he would not be obeyed, and that, danger or no

danger, she would not desert him. Here were strength, help, and the power

to command. She brought the world with her, this queenly woman, who had

not even snatched the gloves from her hands since last night’s ball, but

had hurried to seek news of him, after the first confused rumor, to call

doctor and nurse, to rush to him herself with all the speed her panting

horses could make.

“Leave you? Never!”

He asked no questions, but resigned himself. How delightful the sickness,

how sweet the pain, that led to this! How thrice blessed the desertion

that gave her to him!

In half an hour, the doctor had come and given his decision. Mr. Bently’s

illness was merely a violent cold with fever, and a few days of careful

nursing would make all right. In another half hour, he was established in

a pleasant chamber in Mr. Willis’ house, with a nurse in close attendance,

the whole family anxiously ministrant, John an immovable fixture in the

sick‐room; and, later, Mrs. Marcia Clay besieging the house for news of

poor dear Cousin Bently, and protesting and explaining to the very coldest

of listeners, declaring that nothing but her duty to her family, etc.; and

what was the meaning of that broken bottle and glass, and ineradicable

laudanum stain on the carpet in her house? Was it possible that Cousin

Bently had thought of taking any of that terrible stuff that she meant to

have thrown away ages before? And would they bring down John? Arthur had

asked for him.

Some one went to Mr. Bently’s room for John, but came back without him.

The invalid was reported to have flown into something like a passion on

learning the messenger’s errand, and to have held the dog firmly in his

arms.

John was his! No one else should have him. Whatever crime it might be

called to refuse to give him up—stealing, embezzling, false

imprisonment—he was ready to be accused and convicted of it, and would go

to jail for it with the dog in his arms.

Mrs. Clay was enchanted to be able to oblige her cousin in such a trifle,

and would he speak freely when he wanted anything? and then went home and

told all her family in confidence that Mr. Bently was a raving maniac.

Reader, according to our promises at the beginning of this history, we

should stop here. The scene has changed, the time already exceeds twenty‐

four hours, and only the characters remain the same. But we have not done.

There is something more which we are pining to tell. Shall we stop, then,

and perish in silence, rather than transgress rules made by a people “dead

and done with this many a year,” whose whole country, with themselves on

it, could have been thrown into one of our inland seas without making it

spill over? No! Perish the unities!

_Scene II._—Large parlor, rosy‐tinted all through with reflections from

sunset, from firelight, and from red draperies. After‐dinner silence

pervading, open folding‐doors giving a view through a suite of rooms, in

the furthest of which an old gentleman sleeps in his arm‐chair. Or,

perhaps, it is a picture of a library, with an old gentleman asleep in it.

The stillness is perfect enough for that. Mr. Bently, convalescent, first

dinner down‐stairs since his illness, stands near a window looking out,

but watchful of the inside of the parlor, and of a lady who sits at an

embroidery‐frame near the same window. The lady is superficially dignified

and tranquil, but there is an unusual color in the cheeks, and a slight

unsteadiness in the fingers, which tell her secret conviction that

something is going to happen. This is the first time the two have met

since Miss Willis found the deserted man lying half senseless on Mrs.

Clay’s parlor floor.

He is thinking of that time now, and that an acknowledgment is due, and

wondering how it is to be made, half a mind to be angry, rather than

grateful, for the service. Such is man. All the bitterness of his lonely

life rises up before him. Gray hairs are on his head, lines of age mark

his face, but his heart protests against being set aside as too old for

anything but dry speculation and love of abstract truth.

“I have been seeking for some proper terms in which to express to you my

grateful sense of your humanity in coming to me when I was left sick and

alone, but I cannot find them,” he said at length, facing her.

“There is no need to say anything about it,” she replied quietly, setting

a careful silken stitch. “I could not have done otherwise.”

Having begun, the gentleman could not stop, or would not.

“I am sure you meant well, but did you do well?” he went on. “Could you

not have been content to send the doctor, without coming yourself? Did you

reflect that you were apparently incurring peril, and that for a man who

had a heart as well as a head, and, worse yet, for a man whose heart had

for years striven vainly to forget you? You have deprived me of the shield

and support of even attempted indifference. I can no longer try to forget

you, or think of you coldly, without the basest ingratitude.”

Will the reader pardon Mr. Bently for expressing himself so grammatically?

It was through the force of a long habit, which even passion could not

break. It is true that, according to Gerald Griffin, Juno herself, when

angry, spoke bad Latin; but then, Juno was a woman.

_Allons, donc._ We are ourselves interested in this conversation, and are

pleased to observe that, though the speaker’s moods and tenses are not

flagrant, his eyes and cheeks are.

The lady glanced up swiftly with that smile, half shy, half mirthful, with

which a woman who knows her power, and means to use it kindly, receives

the acknowledgment of it.

“Why should you think coldly of me, or forget me?” she asked.

Mr. Bently met her glance with stern eyes. “Does a man willingly submit to

slavery?” he demanded. He had not suspected Marian Willis of coquetry.

She looked down at her work again, the smile fading, but the mouth still

sweet, slowly threaded her needle with a rose‐pink floss, and said as

slowly, “I do not wish you to forget me.”

One who has seen the sun strike through a heavy fog, stop a moment, then

fling it asunder, all in silence, without breath of breeze, but making a

bright day of a dark one, knows how Mr. Bently’s clouded face cleared at

those words, and the look of her who spoke them.

No more was said then. Enough is as good as a feast, and both tasted in

that moment the full sweetness of a happiness the more perfect because

apparently incomplete.

On one point our mind is made up—this story shall not end with a marriage.

A marriage there was, at seven o’clock one spring morning, in the little

suburban church, with only three visible witnesses; and the marriage feast

was—be it said with all reverence and adoration—manna from heaven, the

Bread of Angels!

Mrs. Clay was, of course, shocked at this affair. Where was the

_trousseau_, where the fuss, the presents that might have been, the

rehearsal at a fashionable church, the organ music, the crowd of dear

criticising friends, the reception, cake and wine, journey, what not—all

the parade, weariness, and extravagance which have so often changed a

sacrament into a ceremony? Where, indeed? They had no existence outside of

the lady’s disappointed wishes.

She did not even see what she called this “positively shabby affair,” and

we will not dwell on it. Turn we to the final scene.

Does the reader object that John bears too small a part in the story named

for him? On the contrary, the whole story is because of John. You have,

perhaps, seen a painting of the procession at the coronation of George

IV., pages and pages of magnificent persons, names, and costumes, the

brilliant pageant of the long‐extended _queue_, all because of one person

in it. The figure is rather large, apparently, for use in this place, but

only apparently; for John’s record is better than any king’s, in that it

is unstained.

A year has passed. In the midst of a fair area of gardens and trees stands

a pleasant house. Only a window or two are open, for the spring is not yet

far advanced. Underneath a large old pine, tree not far from the porch, a

hole has been dug, and at one side of it stands Mr. Bently, spade in hand,

and at the other his wife. This little pit is lined with green boughs, and

the lady stoops and carefully and soberly adds one more. On the heap of

earth thrown up rests a box.

This much is visible to a young man who comes strolling up the path from

the gate. He pauses, and looks on in astonishment. He recollects of having

heard somewhere that Cousin Bently’s dog John was accidentally shot, and

that Mrs. Bently cried about it. Can it be possible that they are making a

funeral over John? That would be too funny.

Mr. Bently stooped, took the box in his arms, and placed it carefully down

among the green boughs. Standing upright then, he wiped his eyes, and

muttered a trembling, “Poor fellow!”

“Good‐morning!” said a brisk voice at his elbow. “I’m sorry Johnnie met

with a mishap. Are you burying him here?”

The vapid, mean, supercilious face gave them both such a shock that they

reddened and frowned. No one could have been less welcome at that moment

than Arthur Clay.

Mrs. Bently answered his question with a brief, “Yes.”

“Oh! well, there are dogs enough in the world,” said the young man,

meaning to be consoling.

“There are puppies enough!” muttered Mr. Bently, and began shovelling the

earth savagely into the grave.

“Please go into the house, and wait for us, Arthur,” the lady said, with

polite decision. She had no mind to have this last touching rite spoiled

by such an intrusion.

But young Mr. Clay was in an obliging mood. “Thank you; I’d just as lief

stay, and rather. I never attended a canine funeral before.”

There was a momentary silence, then Mrs. Bently spoke again, with still

more decision and far less suavity: “On the whole, you must excuse us from

seeing you any longer this morning. If you had gone to the door, the

servant would have told you that we do not receive any one to‐day.”

The young man gave an angry laugh. “Oh! certainly! I wouldn’t for the

world intrude on your sorrow. Good‐morning! It’s a pity, though, that dogs

are not immortal, isn’t it? You might have John canonized.”

Mr. Bently flashed his eyes round at the speaker. “What!” he thundered,

“_you_ immortal, and _my_ DOG NOT!”

If they had been two Parrott guns, instead of two eyes and a mouth, Mr.

Arthur Clay could not have retreated more precipitantly.

The grave was filled in and covered over with boughs, two sighs were

breathed over it, then the couple walked, arm in arm, slowly toward the

house.

“He was a perfect creature!” Mr. Bently said, after a silence.

“Yes!” assented the wife. “Only he would bounce at one so.”

“Marian,” said her husband solemnly, “if it hadn’t been for John’s habit

of bouncing at his friends, you would have had no husband.”

It was well meant, but unfortunately worded. The lady pouted, being by no

means an ideal, perfect, pattern woman, but only a natural and charming

one, with varying moods and whims playing, spraylike, over the deeps of

principle and religion. “Don’t be too sure of that!” she made answer to

him.

Mr. Bently never bristled with virtues when his wife made such remarks. He

smiled now, full of kindness. “I meant to say that I should have had no

wife,” he corrected himself.

At that, the pout, which was only a rebellious muscle, not a rebellious

heart, disappeared. “It means the same thing, you most patient of men!”

exclaimed his wife fervently.

They reached the porch, and stood there a moment, looking back to the

mound under the pine‐tree.

“It is a comfort to think,” said the wife, “that for one year of his life

we made him such a happy dog.”

Then they went in, and the door closed behind them.

The International Congress Of Prehistoric Anthropology And Archaeology.

From La Revue Generale De Bruxelles.

The International Congress of Prehistoric Anthropology and Archæology held

its sixth meeting at Brussels, in 1872. The idea of this congress

originated in Italy. Some eminent Swiss, Italian, and French naturalists,

assembled at Spezzia in 1865, resolved to hold the first session the

following year at Neufchâtel. This meeting, entirely confined to

explorations, created no sensation out of the scientific world, but it was

agreed there should be another at the time of the International Exposition

at Paris in 1867. The congress, thenceforth established, appointed a

committee to organize the next meeting. More than four hundred savants

responded to the invitation. At Paris it was decided to meet again the

next year at Norwich, at the same time as the British Association for the

Advancement of Science. The programme of questions proposed for discussion

at Norwich presents a striking similarity to that at Paris. The congress

held at Copenhagen in 1869 was distinguished by a more local and practical

character than the preceding. Finally, the Congress of Bologna, in 1871,

enlarged still more the extent of its programme; according, however, the

first place to objects that particularly interested Italy.

The programme of the Congress of Brussels was, so to speak, determined by

M. E. Dupont’s important discoveries in the caverns of the province of

Namur, and the questions were drawn up from the Belgian point of view, in

order to give our savants an opportunity of acquainting foreign scientific

men with the researches and facts relating particularly to our country.

Similar proceedings had taken place at Copenhagen and Bologna. But the

programme of Brussels by no means excluded points of general interest.

Here is the list of those proposed:

I. What discoveries have been made in Belgium to attest the antiquity of

prehistoric man?

II. What were the manners and pursuits of the people who lived in the

caverns of Belgium? Did their manners and pursuits vary during the

quaternary epoch? What analogy is there between their manners and

pursuits, and those of the troglodyte population in other parts of Western

Europe and of the savages of the present day?

III. What were the pursuits of the people who inhabited the plains of

Hainault during the quaternary epoch? Can it be proved they held any

communication with their contemporaries of the caverns of the provinces of

Liége and Namur, or with the quaternary peoples of the valleys of the

Somme and the Thames?

IV. What characterized the age of polished stone in Belgium? What was its

connection with previous ages, and with the age of polished stone in

Western Europe?

V. What were the anatomical and ethnical characteristics of man in Belgium

during the age of stone?

VI. What characterized the age of bronze in Belgium?

VII. What characterized the appearance of iron in Belgium?

Excursions to the caverns of the valleys of the Lesse, the flint‐works of

Spiennes and Mesvin, and the entrenched camp of Hastedon near Namur,

formed a practical demonstration of the problems discussed at the meeting.

Many illustrious co‐workers responded to the invitation of the Committee

of Arrangements. England was represented by Messrs. Prestwich, Owen, the

great palæontologist, Dawkins, Lubbock, Franks, the Director of the

Department of Antiquities and Ethnography at the British Museum, etc.;

France, by her most eminent anthropologists, archæologists, and

geologists, Messrs, Quatrefages, Broca, Belgrand, Hébert, De Mortillet and

Bertrand of the Musée de S. Germain, General Faid’herbe, the Marquis de

Vibraye, Cartaillac, De Linas, Doctors Lagneau et Hamy, one President and

the other Secretary of the Society of Anthropology, Deshayes, Gaudry,

Gervais, the Abbés Bourgeois and Delauny, one Superior and the other

Professor at the College of Pont‐Levoy, Oppert, the celebrated explorer of

Khorsabat, and many others, among whom we must not omit the inevitable

Mlle. Clemence Royer, at least as a curiosity. The northern countries sent

the founders of prehistoric archæology in the North—Messrs. Worsaœ,

Engelhardt, De Wichfeld, Steenstrup, Waldemar‐Schmidt, from Denmark;

Messrs. Hildebrand, Landberg, Lagerberg, Nillson, D’Oliviecrona, from

Sweden; Italy was brilliantly represented by Messrs. Capellini, Fabretti,

Biondelli, Count Conestabile, Gozzadini, etc.; Spain and Portugal by only

a few; Holland by several, among whom was M. Leemans, Director of the

Museum of Leyden; Austria by Count Wurmbrand; Germany by the Baron de

Ducker, Professors Fraas, of Stuttgart, Schafthausen, of Bonn, the

celebrated Virchow, of Berlin, Lindenschmidt, of Mayence; Switzerland by

Desor, one of the founders of prehistoric archæology. Belgian science was

represented in the committee by Messrs. d’Omalius d’Halloy, the venerable

President of the congress, Van Beneden, De Witte, Dupont, with the élite

of our savants, attended by a constellation of archæologists _de

circonstance_ belonging to the various orders of the literary, artistic,

and political world, and even the commercial; for philosophy does not

daunt M. Jourdain in these days. As for the rest, it was a spectacle of no

slight interest to behold the extraordinary concourse of hearers that

thronged the sessions at the ducal palace, attentively listening to

discussions sometimes very abstract, and again participating in the

excursions of the learned assembly with a genuine interest apart from the

mere pleasure of the excursions themselves. In proportion as man adds to

his knowledge of the globe he inhabits, instead of being satisfied, the

greater ardor and interest he manifests to know more. “The surface of both

land and water explored in every sense of the word; mountains measured;

oceans sounded, and their secrets brought to light; inorganic substances

and organized bodies analyzed and described; plants, animals, and the

human races studied under every aspect; historical traditions investigated

and revised; the dead languages brought into use, and the words derived

from them traced back to their original roots—all this is not enough.

Knowing what he is, and with a thousand theories as to his destination,

man wishes to pierce the mystery of his origin; he asks whence he came,

and how he began the career so laboriously pursued, and into which he was

thrust by a destiny of which he had no consciousness.”(219) The truths

that we grasp in our day were perhaps only guessed at by the ancients.

Lucretius has drawn a very correct picture, for those days, of the

wretched condition of the earlier races, their struggles with the

elements, and even the primitive weapons of stone which they wrought

before the age of bronze and iron. But this is only a poetical conception

to which must be attached no more importance than it merits. The science

of prehistoric ages then had no existence. This science, scarcely known

twenty years ago, has now quite a literature of its own, several reviews,

and an annual International Congress (in future it will be biennial),

splendid museums in all our capitals, and a society whose labors have

contributed not a little to so prodigious a result—the Society of

Anthropology.

Some persons are troubled at the discussion of grave and delicate

questions that seem to set revelation and science at variance. As for us,

who can never admit the possibility of a conflict between the Bible and

nature—those two divine revelations—or that they ought ever to be

completely separated, we deeply regret the complete absence of our clergy

at these great sessions, while those of France and Italy were represented

in a brilliant manner.

“I am well aware,” says M. Chabas, in an able preface, “that the

materialistic tendency of savants of very considerable attainments in

anthropology and other branches of prehistoric research, withholds many

men whose concurrence would be of value to science from entering the arena

where such points are discussed.” But timid minds are becoming more

reassured. Therefore, as the Abbé Bourgeois happily remarked at the

Congress of Paris, “We shall perhaps have to add to the antiquity of man,

but we ought also to detract from that of fossils.” Besides, hitherto, in

spite of so much research, man alone has been found intelligent and with a

moral sense of his acts; and in the animal kingdom there is not a single

proof to confirm even remotely Lamarck’s theory of transmutation revived

by Darwin. When so many are appealing to science to the exclusion of God

from the universe, it would be well for others to endeavor to make him

manifest by the aid of science.

“What!” exclaims Mgr. Meignan, in his brilliant work on _The World and

Primitive Man according to the Bible_, “ought the exegete to make no

account of the progress of human knowledge? Can the savant find neither

profit nor light in the wisdom of Holy Writ? We think otherwise. The

theologian who first studies nature will be better enabled to explain

certain passages of the Bible; and the naturalist and archæologist, in

their turn, will find it advantageous to study the real meaning of

Genesis.” The human mind enters upon a course of examination more or less

legitimate in subjecting religion itself to the trial of controversy; it

is almost a duty imposed on the conscience of all who are not vainly

endowed with reason to enable themselves to give a reason for the belief

that is within them. “The task of the apologist,” says the eminent prelate

just quoted, “is never at an end in our restless age.” The disagreement

that some seem to apprehend only exists in superficial or sceptical minds.

If the Bible is not a scientific revelation, neither does it contradict

science, and especially in the bold outlines drawn by Moses. Science, as

it progresses, sets up its landmarks, so to speak, beside the immutable

bounds of faith; it is so with the laws of light, as well as the

fundamental principles of geology. Revelation assigns no limits to the

antiquity of the world, and allows _the beginning_ in which God created it

to recede to as remote a period as is wished, and geology corroborates the

Scripture account of successive creations. Is not the unity of origin of

the human species, distinctly declared in both Testaments, connected with

all the hypotheses that have excited so much opposition in our day? I do

not mean the unity of the human species, a doctrinal question very

different from the other, and not necessarily connected with it. But the

unity of origin of the human race is now taught and demonstrated by the

greater part of those versed in natural history; it is a scientific truth.

As to the existence of man in the tertiary epoch, it is far from certain,

though sustained by many highly respectable men.(220) M. Evans, the

Secretary of the Geological Society of London, whose name is an authority

on things pertaining to anthropology and palæontology, expressed himself

in these terms at a meeting of the British Association at Liverpool last

year [1871]: “We cannot,” said he, “possibly make any prediction as to the

discoveries that still await us in the soil beneath our feet; but we

certainly have no reason to conclude that the most ancient traces of man

on the earth, or even on the soil of Western Europe, have been brought to

light. At the same time, I must confess that the existing evidence of man

in the miocene period, and even in the pliocene, in France (it will be

seen further on that this has since been asserted in Portugal), appears to

me, after the most careful examination on the spot, very far from

convincing.”

Besides, the word _prehistoric_ has only a relative exactness of meaning.

In Belgium, prehistoric man comes down to the century before the Roman

Conquest. A vast number of the monuments and remains so discussed in our

day might be included in the historic period. In most cases, too absolute

a signification is given to the word prehistoric, conveying an idea of

remote antiquity far beyond the bounds of chronology. It is under the

influence of this preconceived opinion that the most distinguished and

independent investigators have allowed themselves to be carried away with

the apparent revelation of an entirely new world. In hearing of the

millions of ages attributed to quaternary man, one feels greatly behind

the times, and asks himself anxiously if there really is a science that

has a good right to make man so old, and that affords means of

ascertaining, as has been stated, what our ancestors were observing in the

heavens on the 29th of January, 11,542 years before Christ. This feeling

of astonishment must be still livelier in those for whom the insoluble

problems of antiquity extend back to less than two thousand years. We do

not know the site of _Alesia_, and we pretend to know the habitat and

manners of villages of more than three hundred thousand years before the

downfall of the Gallic nationality! It should be confessed that the

science which has so recently sprung up, and which has for its object the

study of human labor anterior to the use of metals, is neither so firmly

established nor so positive in its deductions that we should blindly

accept such bold theories. This is one of the reasons that should

encourage more men of serious pursuits to take a part in these debates, as

to which it is allowable to hope that the truth will some day be

discovered at an equal distance from any exaggeration.

We shall have occasion to return to these questions which occupied the

Congress of Brussels. This preamble appeared necessary as a justification

for confining ourselves to a plain, simple analysis of the proceedings of

the congress—others can review them better than we.

We will only add one word more. The field for discussion had been prepared

in a wonderful manner by the recent publication of the excellent work in

which the learned and active director of our Royal Museum of Natural

History has condensed his researches.(221)

The opening session took place the 22d of August. The day was spent in

receptions, speeches of welcome, replies, the installation of the board,

and other official courtesies which we spare the reader. The following

days there were two sessions a day. The morning of the 23d of August was

devoted to the first question in the programme. There was no one better

fitted to develop it than M. Dupont, the Chief Secretary of the congress,

and the most active of its organizers. He had already given a clear

outline of its history in his discourse at the first session of the day

before. It was started in Belgium in 1829, and kept up by the researches

of Schmerling, who may be regarded as the Champollion of prehistoric

anthropology; but our illustrious fellow‐citizen was not encouraged in his

discoveries, and it may be said that he was, to a certain degree, a martyr

to the scientific prejudices of his time. His labors, occurring at a time

when Cuvier’s authority was at its height, could not counterbalance the

influence of that great genius, who declared that man could not be found

among fossils’ bones, and that the vestiges of the human race in the

caverns came under the general rule. No one then could have dreamed of

referring these remains to the epoch of the mammoth, and it was scarcely

admitted, till within a dozen years, that man was contemporary with the

animals of the geological periods which preceded ours. Schmerling, but

little befriended by circumstances, was deceived as to what caused the

introduction of this _débris_ into the caverns. He attributed it to sudden

inundations. Some years later, Mr. Spring opened the way to the true

theory, which allows the reconstruction of the ethnography of geological

epochs; but he could not continue his researches, and it was not till 1861

that Lartet’s report concerning the caverns of Aurillac at length

established a collection of decisive facts. In 1863, M. Dupont was

appointed to explore the caverns of the province of Namur, which gave

promise of discoveries of unusual interest; it was important that our

country, after having taken so large a part in establishing the first

principles of this new science, should not remain inactive in the movement

to which it had led. The immense result of researches continued without

relaxation for seven years, summer and winter, and the valuable remains

thus found, which are the ornament of our principal museum, prove that the

direction of the task could not have been confided to better hands.

M. Dupont, laying aside the arbitrary classifications that had hitherto

been adopted for determining the antiquity of remains found in caverns,

introduced the geologic method in his researches, which is founded upon

principles almost incontestable and evidences of indubitable truth. The

chronological data furnished by this method are generally of mathematical

exactitude. “With this point to start from,” says M. Dupont, “I was sure

of clearly determining the fauna and ethnographical remains of each epoch

to which the objects discovered in the various subterranean explorations

belonged.”(222) In pursuing the application of this method, our young and

already illustrious savant was enabled to show the evolution of physical

and biological phenomena, and to reconstruct the ethnography of the age of

stone. Whatever may be thought of the reality of the facts brought

forward, it must be confessed that no ordinary mind could have formed such

bold conceptions.

After a communication from Dr. Hamy on the flint‐works of France and

England at the time of the mammoth, the Abbé Bourgeois discussed the

question of tertiary man. The learned professor’s clear, fluent language,

the distinction of his manners, and his open, animated countenance so

completely won the goodwill of the audience that thenceforth, whenever he

spoke, his appearance in the tribune was hailed with unanimous applause.

The Abbé Bourgeois and M. de Launay, his colleague, are the true heralds

of tertiary man. The chronological discussion they so boldly excite seems

to embarrass them but little; on the other hand, they almost banish the

hope some still seem to cling to of finding the man‐monkey. In 1866, M.

Bourgeois described and presented to the Academy of Sciences some wrought

flints found in the tertiary deposits in the commune of Thenay near Pont‐

Levoy (Loir‐et‐Cher). M. Desnoyers had already, in 1863, pointed out bones

found in strata incontestably pliocene, on which were striæ, or very

distinct and regularly marked incisions. Worked flints are beginning to be

found, we are assured, in the bottom of the calcareous deposits of Beauce;

that is to say, in chalk. They are identical in form with those found on

the surface; as in other places, there are utensils for cutting, piercing,

scraping, and hammering. Many of these instruments have been injured by

the action of fire. Finally, says the Abbé Bourgeois, “I find in them

almost every proof of man’s agency, to wit: after‐touches, symmetrical

grooves, grooves artificially made to correspond with natural ones, and

especially the multiplied reproduction of certain forms. This is a

peculiar, unheard‐of fact of the highest importance, but, to me, an

indubitable one.” M. Bourgeois exhibited to the competent judges assembled

at Brussels what he considered the proofs of the authenticity of his

discovery. To him they are convincing, but what he seeks, above all, is

truth, and he asked that a special committee be appointed to elucidate the

question. This committee pronounced a verdict two days after, without

deciding the point. Of thirty‐two specimens presented for examination,

some appeared to them evidently wrought, but most of them were unanimously

rejected. There was no difference of opinion as to M. Bourgeois’ sincerity

of belief, but they were divided as to the authenticity of the deposit.

Those who have seen the place had no doubts; the remainder were

incredulous. M. Capellini proposed that a new committee be appointed to

make researches on the spot. The general conclusion was that no solution

is at present possible.

The existence of prehistoric man in Greece next became the subject of

lively discussion, giving rise to the most contradictory opinions. The

conclusion was that there are no decided proofs. The same doubt was

manifested with respect to a skull from California, said to have been

found in tertiary formation. It is not even certain it is a human skull.

The second session of the day opened with an account from M. Rivière of

the discovery of a complete skeleton in a grotto at Menton, found among

the remains of various animals of the quaternary epoch, such as the lion,

bear, rhinoceros, etc. Then M. de Mortillet gave a detailed description of

the fauna, and the utensils, arms, pursuits, manners, and even the first

manifestation of art, of man in the quaternary period, and he proposed a

still further subdivision of the classes than is now admitted. The speaker

mentioned a very singular circumstance calculated to excite reflection—an

inexplicable hiatus between the last period of the age of cut stone and

the age of polished stone, in which new races appeared of greater industry

and more intelligence, agriculture was developed, the industrial pursuits

were extended, and art disappeared. It is the era of lacustrine villages

and of dolmens. M. de Mortillet’s sketch of prehistoric civilization was

picturesque but far from convincing.

The Abbé Bourgeois did not think M. de Mortillet’s classification correct,

because the progress of civilization in France and Belgium was unequal.

“The Belgians,” he said, “were more advanced.” And the orator added with

charming bonhomie: “I cannot say it is otherwise now.”

M. Fraas, professor at Stuttgart, stated that he had made some

explorations in the grotto of Hollenfelz near Ulm, in Würtemberg. The

_Homo unius cavernæ_ was refuted in his conclusions by M. Hébert, the

celebrated professor at the Sorbonne, and by other savants. M. d’Omalius

was of the opinion that two geologists of different countries, desirous of

identifying beds contiguous to their fields of exploration, were never

able to agree. Between two strata there are always deposits that partake

of the distinctive characteristics of both.

We pass from the grave to the entertaining. The following day, at seven

o’clock in the morning, all the learned assembly, glad, it may be

imagined, to get away from the pretentious paintings of the ducal palace,

took flight by steam for the valley of the Lesse. We would be the first to

confess that, if the country excited the sincere admiration of the

excursionists, the latter were equally a delightful source of curiosity to

the native inhabitants. They will not readily forget the picturesque sight

of our long caravan traversing the good town of Dinant all decked out with

flags, parading in elegant equipages lost among the _coucous_, _fiacres_,

and _calèches_ of wondrous construction, or perched on the imperials of

the most extraordinary vehicles, omnibuses, and _pataches_ truly

prehistoric, filing along the banks of the Meuse towards the valleys amid

laughter, jests, joltings, and the vociferations of our _Automedon_.

Charming landscapes, but detestable roads. This region has been so often

described that I need not attempt to depict it; it is with the pencil and

brush it should be undertaken. Sometimes the road winds around with

disagreeable undulations through the deep ravines bordered by apple‐trees

whose fruit‐laden branches sweep the imperials of the carriages,

endangering the silken hat; sometimes rolling over broad grassy roads

walled in by immense cliffs crowned with ruins and verdure, or affording

vistas through the neighboring valleys, lit up by the sun streaming

through the woods with a mild radiance that recalls the Elysian Fields of

mythological memory. At length we come to the Lesse, which bars the way

with its clear, rapid current. The carriages have to ford the capricious

and petulant waters of the little winding torrent. The horses sheer in the

very middle of the stream, causing a deafening noise of laughter, shouts

of alarm, and blows of the whip. All ends by crossing without any great

difficulty, but the same scene is reproduced five or six times with varied

incidents; for there are that number of fords to cross. It was in one of

these places, where we were obliged to cross the river in boats in order

to reach the grottoes, that we saw the overloaded skiff capsized that bore

among others M. d’Omalius and Mlle. Royer. The apostle of woman’s

emancipation clung with shrill screams to the neck of a small gentleman,

her _chevalier servant_ for the time, and, when she found a footing with

the water up to her chin, she contributed somewhat to save her assistant

by keeping his head out of water—a fine opportunity for quoting La

Fontaine, with a kind variation: “That is nothing; it is not a woman that

is drowning.” The nonagenarian president of the congress was taken out

safe and sound, and it was with extreme difficulty he was induced to

change his _chaussures_, but nothing could prevail upon him to accept dry

garments. Happily, the weather was superb, and the shipwrecked travellers

could get dry in the sun.

We returned by way of the plateaux that overlook the valley. Nothing could

be imagined more fantastically beautiful than that immense panorama bathed

in the purple light of the setting sun. The visitors, under the guidance

of M. Dupont, had been through all the principal caverns described in his

book. His learned explanations were greatly relished, and added a keen

interest to an excursion of which the unexpected and the amusing had

heightened the charm. We will not speak of the banquet that crowned so

delightful a day, or of the ovations that were lavished on the savants and

others. For such details, we refer you to the newspapers that published

the reports.

To Be Concluded In Our Next Number.

The See Of Peter.

Not unto hirelings, Prince of Shepherds, leave

This distant flock. The wolf, long kept at bay,

No longer in sheep’s clothing seeks its prey,

Nor prowls at midnight round the fold’s low eave,

Its weak, unwary victim to deceive;

But rampant in the flock at noon of day,

Careering leaps, to scatter, mangle, slay,

While from afar the banished shepherds grieve.

How long must sycophants wax blandly wise,

And meek‐faced aspirants rebuke the cries

Of outraged faith! On Peter, “Feed my sheep,

My young lambs feed,” the charge benignant lies,

And we whose vigils cheat the night of sleep,

On Peter, still, calm eyes expectant keep.

Atlantic Drift—Gathered In The Steerage.

By An Emigrant.

To most of the sons and daughters of Columbia the few days they pass in

returning from the Old Country represent but a period of wearisome

delay—an interval sometimes nauseous and always irksome between the

pleasures of travel and those of their own fireside, passed perhaps in

recollection of the pleasures of Paris, the classic grandeurs of the

Eternal City, or the picturesque beauties of Switzerland and the Rhine;

not unfrequently, perhaps, by our belles, whose elegance and social value

have received their last gilding in the grand tour of Europe, in

anticipation of the effect of their costumes at Newport or Saratoga, or of

their adventures and experiences in the great circle of their country

friends. All that wealth and skill can do is lavished on the

accommodations of ocean steamers, and nothing is spared to make the

traveller independent of the caprice or ill‐temper of the watery god; and

nowadays a passage from the Mersey to our Empire City is to the ordinary

passenger almost as comfortable and quite as devoid of unusual interest as

a sojourn of so many days at the St. Nicholas or the Fifth Avenue. There

is, however, another class of voyagers whose hard‐earned savings form the

staple of the receipts of the owners of these splendid vessels; they

usually belong to a sphere where literature hardly penetrates and whence

come few who wield a ready pen; hence perhaps the general ignorance that

seems to prevail as to their treatment and accommodation. The cabin

passenger sees them only in squalid groups, encumbering the decks of the

great ship, beyond the middle enclosure reserved to the saloon; and if he

dives into the close and half‐lit steerage, a very brief glance round its

dim precincts satisfies his curiosity. Believing, however, that many of

our adopted countrymen will feel some interest in knowing how the great

army of emigrants who flock in hundreds of thousands to our shores fare on

their ocean transit, one of us lifts a voice from the steerage to relate

some of the realities of life in an emigrant ship. Naught have we

extenuated or aught set down in malice, and, such as it is, our little

narrative is a true history of personal and actual experience.

To the reader it matters little what ill‐fortune cast from his quiet

anchorage a London clerk who had already seen three decades, and whose

life had hitherto run in the tranquil groove of uniform official duty,

sufficiently well remunerated to furnish the comforts of a middle‐class

English home. Unable to regain a similar position in his native land, he

goes to seek his fortune in the West, and, thither wending, finds himself

in the steerage of one of our principal ocean steamers. Candor requires

this avowal, for those interested in the great liners think they dispose

of the numerous complaints as to their treatment of their emigrant

passengers, by retorting that they provide for the working‐classes, and

not for clerks out of place or penniless gentlemen. Hence what is here

stated as to their discomfort deals not with the writer’s own feelings,

but speaks of what he saw endured by others, and he gives voice not merely

to his own opinions, but to the sentiments of the mechanics, artisans, and

farm laborers who were his fellow‐voyagers.

Every emigrant has to provide himself with bedding, plate, basin, drinking

and water can, and a knife and fork. Our first experience of emigrant life

consisted in the purchase of these articles at a Liverpool slop‐shop; some

ten shillings covered the entire outlay, except for the blanket, the most

indispensable of all; for this purpose, the dealer persuaded us to buy a

horse‐rug, which he solemnly assured us was worth double the money across

the Atlantic: as a copy of the _Times_ would give about as much warmth and

shelter as the common covering sold with the bed, we invested in it. An

addition to our comfort it certainly has been in the bunk, and in the long

nights in the emigrant trains, and it still remains our property; no

market have we been able to discover for the article, and we conclude that

a certain spice of Americanism had communicated itself to the mercantile

mind of the seller. Many of the inmates of our steerage dispensed with all

or most of these domestic utensils. One gentleman’s luggage, whose world‐

wide travels we may hereafter refer to, consisted of a limited brown‐paper

parcel; in his subsequent oceanic career his Irish suavity usually

procured him the loan of one of the tins of an acquaintance; that failing,

he borrowed any neighboring utensil whose owner was not for the moment at

hand; or, driven to his last resource, abjured coffee or soup and ate his

portion of meat on a piece of brown paper. Some had but one vessel which

served indifferently for a drinking‐can, soup‐basin, plate, tea‐cup, or

wash hand‐basin, while a few comfort‐loving people, more frequently,

however, in the after or family steerage than in our bachelor quarters,

carried heavy loads of comfortable bedding and neatly‐arranged baskets of

table‐ware.

Nearly all this apparatus of bedding and tin‐ware is thrown overboard or

given to the crew when the vessel arrives at its destination; only the

frugal Germans carefully preserve their vessels, and, shaking out its

straw or moss contents, preserve the ticking of the bed either as a

wrapping for their baggage or some ulterior purpose. It certainly seems

strange that an expenditure of from two to three hundred pounds should be

incurred by every ship‐load of emigrants for articles of such brief

utility. Could not this outlay be converted to the benefit of the ship‐

owners by the permanent provision of requisites of this description at a

moderate charge?

The great landing stage at Liverpool on the morning of our embarkation was

crowded with some two thousand persons—the passengers of three mail

steamers, their friends, and the swarm of porters, carters, and pedlers in

attendance on them. Everything was confusion; here mothers seeking a stray

little one, there the husband anxiously gathering together his motley

property of boxes, bedding, cans, baskets, and packages of every

description, as they were roughly tossed out of the cart from some

boarding‐house. The boxes had to be placed in one tender, the passengers

and lighter luggage in another; porters drove greedy bargains with females

helplessly encumbered with immovable boxes. Women with baskets full of

articles for sale—combs and brushes, knives, scissors, and soap—pushed

their way here and there. To single men, careful of small change, it was a

problem how to move the box or trunk in one direction and yet secure the

safety of the other articles while doing so. We despaired of solving the

problem, and trusted to the honesty of a badge porter, who undertook for

sixpence to place our box on the luggage tender; afterwards, nervous as to

the actual presence there of our little all, we spent two weary hours in

watching the baggage discharged into the hold. A thousand trunks and

chests of every conceivable size, shape, color, and dimensions passed down

the hatchway before us—handsome American boxes, ribbed and gay with bright

nails; immense iron‐bound chests of unpainted deal, containing the whole

household goods of some Swedish or Norwegian family, directed in quaint

letters to some far‐off town in Minnesota or Wisconsin; flimsy papered

trunks, with sides already creaking and gaping, threatening to disgorge

their finery before they touch the ground in Castle Garden; and German

packs of strong ticking or canvas about the size of a small haystack—and,

with a sigh of relief, we at last saw our property shot with a crash into

the hold. Nearly two long hours did we spend on the open stage under a

drizzling rain, that soaked the beds and blankets before the tenders

moored alongside; then all made for the gangways, tugging their luggage

with them; produced their tickets as they passed on, and pushed, tumbled,

and scrambled pell‐mell on board; a similar scene was enacted at the

steamer’s side; and when at last we reached her spacious decks we felt

like soldiers passed unscathed through some hard‐fought field; not all

unscathed, however; a considerable number of missing tins, blankets, and

even beds attested the severity of the struggle and gave zest to the

satisfaction of the more fortunate.

Arrived at last on our floating home for the coming fortnight, we pushed

our way into the steerages to find our berths and enter into possession:

and here let us try to describe. The steamer was a magnificent vessel,

advertised to be of 3,700 tons, and celebrated for the luxury of her

saloon accommodation and her almost unrivalled speed—qualities, as

experience taught us, attained somewhat at the expense of the comfort of

her emigrant passengers. Right aft the forecastle or forward part of the

deck was roofed over with what sailors call a whale‐back, to the entrance

of the forward steerage; a small deck house, with doors on each side, and

on one side a small closet with a half door and a few racks for clothes

served as a deck bar; behind it, that is, towards the stern, was the

forward _fresh_ water pump; walking still sternwards, we next encounter

another small house containing the wash‐house for the forward steerage,

entered from below, and two or three cabins for some of the officers or

petty officers opening on the deck; on one side of this was a hot water

tap; a few feet further is the main deck house, extending about half the

length of the ship; in the street‐like passages between its sides and the

bulwarks—open iron railings in our vessel—are the doors to the galleys,

boilers, engine‐rooms, officers’ berths, and saloon, which, unlike most

other steamships, is in this situated amidships; from the saloon a

handsome double staircase led on to the deck above, which, however, like

the tops of all the other deck houses, was tabooed ground to the

emigrants. At the end of the main deck house was the entrance to the

forward or sternmost steerage, and at the side of it the after fresh water

pump; still further aft another deck house contained the wash‐house

belonging to this steerage, and, as in case of the forward steerage,

entered from below, and one or two officers’ berths, and provided outside

with a second hot water tap; still further, the stern deck house contained

the wheel house, with the engine for working the rudder, the butcher’s

shop, ice and meat house, and vegetable storehouse; and between its

semicircular end and the bulwark round the stern ran a low gallery, always

considered among us as the most desirable place to settle for the day. We

were free to ramble or squat ourselves on the deck where we listed, except

the extreme forecastle forward of the entrance to the sailors’ cabin;

there an incautious intruder paid his footing with the penalty of a bottle

or two of beer to the nearest sailor who could catch him. Under the

whaleback, also, either by custom or some rule of the ship, was forbidden

ground to children or the fair sex, and always the chosen resort of old

hands who liked to smoke a quiet pipe sheltered from the wind, chat with

those of the crew who were off duty, and be comfortably near the deck bar.

Enter the forward or bachelors’ steerage—the after one being reserved to

married couples and single women; leaving the bright day, we can hardly

distinguish the objects in the dim light, and feel our way down the first

flight of steps; this brings us on the main deck; here it is not open to

the sides of the ship, along which run the berths of the saloon

passengers. Entered from the saloons at the fore part, where they

terminate by the hospital, two neat rooms, each with three or four bunks

with bedding, wash‐basins, etc., similar to those of a saloon berth, and

in one of which, in the absence of patients, our two stewards sleep; and

at the other or after end a narrow flight of steps leads up to the wash‐

house on deck. The main deck is lighted only by the stairs and the

hatchway; when the wooden grating covering the latter is in its place, it

is dim; when it is covered with tarpaulin to prevent the entrance of the

rain or spray, too dark to see. We have still another flight of steps to

descend to reach the cavernous abyss of the steerage itself, which is

situated between‐decks; when our eyes grow accustomed to the obscurity, we

see a central open space about ten feet wide, running from end to end; in

this are three narrow wooden tables with benches, two lengthwise and one

crosswise, each capable of seating about twenty people; on each side are

the bunks, reaching to the roof, entered by narrow streets or passages

leading off on either hand, and again benches in the central space all

round the outer side of the bunks.

Each street of bunks contained twenty upper and lower rows of five each,

on either hand; the inmates therefore, lay side by side, parallel with the

ship’s length, with their feet to their own street, and their heads

adjoining those of their neighbors in the adjoining street. The bunks

themselves consisted simply of shelves of unpainted boards, with an

opening of about an inch between each, and were about six feet and a half

wide, and divided into the spaces for each bunk, and fenced at the foot by

upright boards about a foot high; in short, an emigrant’s bunk means a

slightly fenced off space of hard board rather more than six feet by two.

The lower row are about two feet from the ground; the upper about three

feet above the lower, and the same distance from the roof. They are not

attached to the side of the ship, but to a framework a few inches from it,

the interstices of which served to stow hats or tins. Inside this

coffinlike area of the bunks you stow bed, bedding, cans, and all smaller

_impedimenta_, while such boxes as found their way down are pushed under

the lower berths, piled in corners of the central space, or serve in the

streets as seats or footsteps to the upper berths. In our steamer the

bunks seemed to have been just put up; they were free from vermin, the

timbers had nothing dirtier about them than sawdust; indeed, as we

believe, the number of steerage passengers who cross eastwards is much

less than in the other direction, the greater part of the boards are often

knocked down on the ship’s arrival in New York, and the steerage filled

with cargo, and then re‐erected when she is again prepared for the

westward trip. The berths next to the central space were the most in

request, on account of their being nearer the fresh air, and the lower

range everywhere objected to; but nearly all the tickets had a number

affixed, and no liberty of choice was permitted. Ours was in the upper

berth in one corner, and consequently very far removed from any

ventilation; as a slight compensation, being next to the side of the ship,

we could look through the little window over the surging water, with which

it was almost level and frequently covered. The gaps between the planks

were very annoying, as small articles readily fell through them, and if

they fell beneath the lower range it was too dark and the space too narrow

to readily recover them. From about nine till twelve every day the

steerage was closed, all the inmates sent on deck, and the floor brushed

and laid down with fresh sawdust; this process, we think, was confined to

the central space and the streets, and did not extend to the spaces

underneath the bunks; and it was daily inspected or supposed to be

inspected by one of the doctors, of whom there were two on board.

The wash‐house to the forward steerage was of decent size, with tiled

floor, and contained eight closet pans, five wash hand‐basins, each with a

tap of cold water and one with a hot water tap, and four sinks, also with

salt water taps: putting aside the absence of any privacy, the

arrangements were suitable, and the fittings generally clean; but, as in

so many other instances, the carelessness or inattention of the crew made

the admirable equipments of the ship almost useless. Except early in the

morning there was rarely any water in the taps, and in the hot water

cistern, which also supplied the hot‐water tap outside, often none for two

or three days: the engineer, the steward told us, would not waste the

steam by putting his cistern into communication with the boilers; and then

often, when turned on, the tap poured out so much more hot steam than

water that one was likely rather to get scalded hands than a full can.

The after‐steerage was similar in character to that of the single men, but

much larger, occupying both the main and between‐decks; the married men

and women slept on one side, the single women on the other; their privacy

being supposed to be secured by a canvas curtain let down at night the

whole length of the cabin. In the other lines, we believe the men and

women, married or single, are quite separated, but ours put it forward as

one of their attractions that husbands and wives are berthed together; as

this simply means that their bunks are allotted side by side, the wife is

really no more berthed with her own husband than with the spouse of her

next neighbor. Many of the more respectable women complained much of being

misled by the announcement, and of their being unable to undress to rest

during the whole of the voyage, as they might have done if a cabin had

been really and exclusively reserved for children and females. To the

after steerage two wash‐houses were attached, one for the women with

closed private closets, and one for the men similar to ours.

The routine of one day’s life may serve for all. As the mornings were

generally damp and chilly, like most in our steerage we slept till towards

eight o’clock, and did not rise till breakfast was announced; as dressing

consisted in knocking off the rugs and donning coat, waistcoat, and boots,

it was not a long process; then we scramble down into our street, seize

our can and wait; in our corner we are too far removed from the

tables—which would not seat half the number the cabin contains—to try to

obtain seats at them; so we sit in the bunks on the chests in our street,

or stand till the steward comes round to the entrance, and sings out, “Who

is for coffee?” Each holds out or passes on his can, and he ladles into it

about a pint of a boiling hot decoction, sweetened but without milk, and

bearing a distant but still recognizable relationship to the article one

had hitherto known under the name. A few minutes afterwards he comes round

with the fresh bread, and over its distribution there were always much

squabbling and bad language, partly because the bakers disliked the

trouble of baking more than the strictly necessary quantity, and were

given to restricting both the number and size of the loaves, and partly

because many could neither eat the waxy potatoes nor hard sea‐biscuits; so

that all sorts of tricks were resorted to to secure additional loaves for

their dinner or tea. Of all the articles of diet the warm fresh bread

every morning was decidedly the favorite, and any shortcoming in its

supply more resented than any other infliction; both in size and quality

the loaves varied very much according to the caprice of the bakers, but

they were generally good. Great pyramids of butter were placed in tins on

the tables; most of the men would not eat it on account of its tallow‐like

flavor; for our own part, on obtaining our coffee and bread, we cut the

latter open, put a lump of butter to melt inside, and pressed it together

to distribute it equally as it melted, and then proceeded on deck, and

under the influence of the keen sea air rarely failed to eat with a good

appetite this not very luxurious fare in some quiet corner out of the

wind. After breakfast, warmed with the steaming coffee, we obtained a can

full of fresh water from the pump, produced the toilet requisites from our

satchel, and in one corner of our street performed our ablutions; we

always took as near an approach to a sponge‐bath as circumstances

permitted, and found the practice more refreshing even than sleep. Though

the steward never interfered with me, it was, however, we believe, against

the rules to wash elsewhere than in the wash‐house, or to use fresh water

for the purpose. The first day or two we had to wash in the wash‐house

before breakfast, but the crowd there for various purposes was so great

and there was so little convenience for putting down the different

articles that we gave it up; and after breakfast there was rarely water

for the purpose.

The decks always presented a more crowded and busy appearance in the

forenoon than in any other period of the day; the steerages were empty,

and all their inmates perforce on deck, huddled here and there, wherever

the deck houses offer shelter from the winds, in compact groups three or

four deep. The German and Scandinavian mothers perform the ablutions of

their numerous families deliberately and in public—an amusing, if to some

disgusting, process; first, the white‐headed urchin is held between his

mother’s or perhaps his eldest sister’s knees, and his poll carefully and

methodically examined with the fingers—not a comb, and any strangers

summarily executed. Then he is taken to the scuppers by the side of the

ship, his head held over a tin of hot water and lathered till he is red in

the face and his eyes full of soap; then washed and taken back again, his

head combed down into smoothness, and released for the day with a weight

off his mind, the process being varied in the case of a little girl by the

plaiting of her long flaxen locks into ribbon‐adorned tails. The majority,

however, treated their abode on shipboard as a time when the ordinary

rules of civilized life were temporarily suspended, and eschewed washing,

shaving, and all the vanities of dress until they again felt themselves on

terra firma.

Dinner took place at twelve; we mustered as for breakfast, but with a more

careful marshalling of cans, for two, if not three, were necessary, and a

sharp watch was requisite to prevent some hungry but tireless prowler from

summarily appropriating the nearest ware; first came the soup, dealt out

as the coffee at breakfast—a hot compound with a faint reminiscence of

gravy and mutton bones, some grains of barley, and fragments of celery and

cabbage; sometimes, instead, a thick mixture of ground peas; such as it

was, with plenty of salt which one of our street usually fetched from the

table for the general benefit, it was the most reliable part of the

dinner; it was always drinkable, and many came down to obtain it who would

taste no other article provided by the ship beyond the soup and bread.

Next came the meat, cut up into chunks in an immense tin, and shovelled

out by the steward with a saucer on to the tin plates. Sometimes it was

eatable; say, perhaps, on five out of the ten days a hungry stomach and a

stern will could manage it; and once or twice we had fresh beef as good,

allowing for the roughness with which it was served, as any one could

desire; the salt junk and salt fish, however—and the latter, in deference

to the feelings of the Catholic passengers, always appeared on Friday—were

vile; the junk could not be cut with a knife, and had to be torn into

shreds along the grain, while the fish in taste and smell was simply

abominable.

The potatoes were one of our standing grievances; as there were but two

stewards to assist some hundred and sixty people, they had to form a

course of themselves, or the meat got cold while waiting for them; and

instead of being boiled, they were steamed by some hasty process into the

taste and consistency of a tallow candle. To the natives of the Emerald

Isle, accustomed to consider their potato the _pièce de resistance_ of

their humble fare, this misusage of their favorite food was particularly

aggravating, and their complaints were loud and endless. Boiled rice was

generally served after the potatoes with coarse sugar or treacle; as long

as the latter lasted it was palatable, but the sweetening generally bore

the same relation to the rice as did Falstaff’s bread to his sack, and our

ingenuity had to be taxed to procure a double or treble allowance of the

sugar by changing places while the serving took place or holding the plate

over the shoulders of the steward who carried it. On Sundays plum duff, a

heavy pudding pretty liberally supplied with raisins, was dealt out, and

to stomachs accustomed to steerage fare seemed something faintly

approaching the luxuries of the table appropriate to the day. The tea,

which took place at five, may be dismissed in two words: taste it had

none, and its smell was beastly; however, it was always boiling hot, and

in the cold, damp evenings anything warming was grateful. With it we had

biscuits and butter.

Without a detailed notice of that indispensable and omnipresent article

the sea‐biscuit, any account of our food would be incomplete; a barrel of

them always stood at the head of the staircase on the main deck, and any

one could help himself as often and as liberally as he thought proper;

they formed our sole fare at tea, and our _dernier ressort_, when the

dinner was, as it usually was every other day, altogether uneatable. More

fortunate than most of our fellow‐passengers, we could combine recreation

and humble fare by gnawing at their hard sides. Of wooden consistency they

certainly were; to make any impression on their hard edges it was

necessary first to break them with a smart blow of the fist, put a piece

between two sound molars, shut your eyes, hold fast to one of the

stanchions of the bulwarks, and bring your jaws together with a determined

and persevering grind! The result, to our taste, was not unsatisfactory;

they were perfectly sweet, and when once pulverized not ill tasted; and on

several occasions, when we found the other provisions inedible, two or

three biscuits, washed down with a bottle of porter, served us for a

tolerable meal. Few, however, shared our liking or would touch them,

except at the last extremity, and by those whose teeth were not in first‐

rate order they were unassailable. As a souvenir, we pocketed a couple on

leaving the ship, and as we munched them on the following night on the

platform of the emigrant car jolting along the side of the broad and mist‐

clad Hudson, hoped that Dame Fortune would never reduce us in the Far West

to more unpalatable fare.

On the whole, it was possible to subsist on the ship’s provisions,

particularly when the transit was regarded in a purgatorial or penitential

sense; and that statement, too, must be qualified by the admission of the

necessity of malt liquor: without two or three bottles of beer or porter a

day, we could not have survived; they served as a tonic, which made greasy

meat digestible, and biscuits possible to swallow; few, however, lived

entirely on the steerage fare, nor must it be supposed that the grumblers

or discontented were generally those who had, as it is termed, seen better

days. Men of that class were slow to complain, because ignorant of what

they ought to tolerate or endure in their altered circumstances. It was

the well‐to‐do artisans or workingmen who showed the greatest disgust and

were the bitterest in their complaints. Many families were provided with

well‐filled baskets of good bread, ham, and bottles of preserves, and had

their own store of tea and sugar, for which they obtained hot water from

the galley; while others bought the whole of their food.

Buying, begging, and stealing food was one of the most interesting and to

some the most engrossing of occupations; it required a little money, a

deal of diplomacy, and very hardened feelings, and was accomplished in

very various ways. At the commencement of the voyage, little cliques were

formed of four or five people, who made up a purse of two or three pounds

for one of the cabin stewards, who in return sold to or stole for them a

regular supply of cabin provisions; we were asked to join a little party

of this sort, but declined; nor did we observe much of their subsequent

fortune, except that they professed to have plenty of good food, and

seemed to spend most of their time in watching for the opportunity when

their steward could safely convey it to them; others peeled potatoes or

apples and carried water for the galleys, and got fed in return; some

reduced it to a system, bought meat from the butchers, and got it cooked

in the galley, or, for a consideration, got liberty to go in at an idle

time and cooked it themselves; the ordinary way, however, was to buy a

bottle of beer at our deck‐bar, hand it in to one of the cooks with a tin,

and ask him to give you something, the best time being immediately after

breakfast, when the hot scouse or Irish stew—far better food than any

provided for us—was served out for the sailors’ breakfast, or after the

saloon dinner; you then slunk about the galley door, cursed for being in

their way by all the cooks except the recipient of the beer, until that

gentleman saw the head cook or chief steward out of the way, filled the

tin with anything at hand—generally scouse in the morning, cold beef and

chicken in the evening—shoved it under your coat, and told you to clear

out instantly. One’s feelings suffered much in this process; but a few

days of steerage fare blunt the sensibilities and whet the animal appetite

to an extent that requires to be experienced to be appreciated.

Another want that is keenly felt in consequence of the salt food and dry

biscuit is that of something green or succulent. One craves an apple or an

orange or lemon; and so well aware were the experienced travellers among

us of this want that fresh fruit generally occupied a large space in their

well‐stuffed baskets. We had only the slender resource of pulling pieces

of celery through the grating of the vegetable store, peeling them and

eating them as an addendum to the coffee and bread of our breakfast.

Unfortunately either the demand for that cool vegetable was unexpectedly

great in the saloon, or we emigrants were too successful in extracting it

through the bars of the always open store; for before the voyage was half

over the supply was exhausted, we then had raw carrots and onions from the

same source, but the result was not satisfactory.

Many of the passengers who had no money suffered much from their inability

to cope with our daily fate. One young man of about twenty‐two or three

years of age particularly attracted our attention. Short and slight, of

perfectly gentlemanly manners and quiet address, he had little of the

typical American about him, though as we afterwards learned from himself

he belonged to a Western family engaged in commerce and of considerable

means. Some strange star must have presided over his birth, for he had the

rarest of all dispositions in the New World, a dislike to traffic and

money‐making, and an unconquerable yearning for a life of literary labor.

He was returning westward after residing in Dresden and Florence, full of

enthusiasm for Goethe and Schiller, Tasso and Dante, and proudly conscious

of a vocation himself as a dramatic poet. He had shot, he said, in the

lakes of Minnesota, hunted in the Adirondacks, become familiar with the

most beautiful and intellectual of the European capitals, and now felt

that his endowment for his career was enriched by the novel experiences of

the steerage of an emigrant ship. Fine conceptions, except perhaps among

saints or hermits, do not thrive on an empty stomach.

Our poet looked daily more pallid and spiritless. He listened

uninterestedly to everything except prospects of better fare or prophecies

of the speedy diminution of the irksome voyage. One night one of the cooks

in the emigrant galley gave us a tin crammed to overflowing with fragments

of meat and fowl, and, additionally armed with a bottle of porter and a

biscuit, we had settled in a quiet leeward corner to make a hearty supper,

when we thought of the famishing poet. We found him tending a little

singing‐bird he was taking out with him, and invited him to share our

meal; and the enjoyment with which he ate the broken meat—a biscuit

serving for a plate, and a clasp‐knife for an instrument—was quite

refreshing. We took alternate pulls at the porter, and felt pleased with

ourselves and the world. His inner man refreshed, our poet became another

person. The charm of his conversation well repaid our little sacrifice,

and we talked art and literature, music and the drama, until the

loneliness of the deck, the chill night breeze, and the bright moon

mounted high in the star‐spangled heaven warned us of the approach of

midnight. A few hours after we had landed in New York, we met our poet in

Broadway, in all the elegance of clean raiment, and happily conscious of a

well‐lined purse. Though our rough garb assorted ill with his gentility,

he insisted on our drinking glasses together to the memory of our meeting.

As we drank, he expatiated on the advantages of a varied experience of the

many‐sided life of our poor humanity. Nevertheless, we opine, to cross the

Atlantic in the steerage of an emigrant ship with an empty pocket, is one

of those phases of existence which he will never voluntarily again

investigate. Another instance of suffering was that of an Englishman—a

quiet‐visaged, silent man, past middle age, whose velveteen coat and

corduroy trowsers bespoke him a ploughman or gamekeeper from some Old

World country neighborhood. He had with him his little daughter, a fair‐

haired, sweet‐faced little girl of about twelve, genteelly dressed.

Neither he nor his child could eat the ship’s food, and the little girl

used to sit all day quietly pining by her father’s side. They met,

however, worse fortune on shore. Bound to some town in Ohio, he was

apparently ignorant that a long journey separated it from their landing‐

place, and landed in Castle Garden penniless. Too shy or too proud to beg,

the man and his little girl starved for a day, until some fellow‐passenger

accidentally found out their condition and supplied them with food.

No account of a sea voyage would be faithful without noticing the dread

malady, the sufferings of which form the traveller’s introduction to the

domain of Neptune; but it is a life over which we must perforce draw a

veil. To the voyager who has a comfortable berth, every convenience that

wealth can produce, attentive stewards, and the command of each luxury

that his fancy or fears can suggest, the horrors of sea‐sickness are

sufficiently nauseous. What they are in the steerage of an emigrant ship,

where your pangs are intensified by the maladies and filth, the groans and

curses, of some scores of other victims, can be better imagined than

described; it is too disgusting. For the first two or three days, to eye,

ear, and nose our steerage was insufferable; there was no remedy but to

avoid it as much as possible, and either abandon the meals altogether, or

rush down, snatch a hasty portion of whatever came nearest to hand, and

beat a hasty retreat to the fresh air of the deck before your rising gorge

added you to the ranks of the inconsolable.

But this rough initiation had its practical advantage. Many of the younger

passengers of the better class at the commencement of their voyage

endeavored to keep up appearances in spite of all difficulties, and to

present themselves on deck fresh from a careful toilette and in all the

neatness of clean linen and well‐arranged dress; but, when they had once

succumbed to the qualms of the malady, their vanity went overboard.

Languid and weary, they crowded on deck, unwashed and uncombed, muffled in

a waterproof, or huddled in twos and threes in a corner in the warm folds

of a blanket or horse‐rug; and as their spirits revived they thought no

more of struggling against adverse circumstances, and were content to “peg

along” (pardon, kind reader, the expression) until their feminine

instincts revived at the welcome sight of the wished‐for land.

To Be Concluded In Our Next Number.

A Daughter Of S. Dominic.

If she had been condemned to have her life written, and been given the

choice of a name under which to appear before the world, this would

probably have been the one she would have taken. But who could have

persuaded the humble child of the grand S. Dominic that such a fate was in

store for her, or induced her humility to accept it? Well, it matters

little to her now whether men speak of her or for her, she is alike beyond

the reach of their hollow praise and their jealous criticism. But to us it

matters much. The teaching of such a life as Amélie Lautard’s is too

precious to be lost; it is a lesson to be sought out and hearkened to, for

it is full of beauty, and light, and encouragement to those whom she has

left behind.

Amélie was born at Marseilles on the 12th of April, 1807. Her father was a

medical man, eminent in his profession, an honorable man, and a good

Christian. She lost her mother at the age of seventeen. Early in life she

met with an accident which injured her spine so seriously as to render her

by degrees quite humpbacked; the progress of the deformity was slow and

very gradual, but even when it had grown to its worst it never looked

grotesque or repulsive, nor did it, strange to say, take away from the

singular dignity of her appearance or from the grace of her movements. In

person she was tall and dark, not handsome, though her features had so

much charm and expression that most people considered her so. Her

intelligence was of a very high order, and pre‐eminently endowed with that

delightful and untranslatable gift called _esprit_. From her earliest

childhood she began to develop an angelic spirit of piety and a

sensitiveness to the sufferings of others that is generally the outgrowth

of maturer years. The sufferings of the poor claimed her pity especially,

but not exclusively. The range of her sympathies was wide enough to

embrace every kind and degree of sorrow that came within her knowledge.

This characteristic of her charity, as rare as it is attractive, may be

considered as the keynote of her life, and explains, humanly speaking, the

extraordinary influence she exercised over all classes indiscriminately.

After her mother’s death Amélie became the chief delight and interest of

her father, and she repaid his tenderness by the most absolute devotion.

Offers of marriage were not wanting for the accomplished and _spirituelle_

young lady, but Amélie turned a deaf ear to them all; filial duty as much

as filial love had wedded her to her father, and she declared her

intention never to separate from him, or let any other love and duty come

between those she had vowed unreservedly to him. It was probably at this

period of her life that she bound herself exclusively to the service of

God by a vow of perpetual virginity.

During many years Dr. Lautard’s health was such as to require constant and

unremitting care. Amélie nursed him with the tenderest affection, never

allowing her devotions or her work amongst the poor to interfere with her

first duty to him. He expired in her arms, blessing her and declaring that

she had been the model of filial piety, the joy and solace of his

widowhood. Amélie generously made the sacrifice of this one great

affection to God, she drank the chalice with a broken heart, but with an

unmurmuring spirit, and entered bravely on the new life that was before

her. Hers was to be the mission of an apostle, and she must go forth to it

unshackled by even the holiest and purest of natural ties. She had long

been a member of the Third Order of S. Dominic, to whom from her childhood

she had had a great devotion. To her previous vow of virginity she now

added a vow of poverty, which, in the midst of abundance, she observed

rigorously to the end of her life. Dr. Lautard, knowing her propensities,

and suspecting rightly that, if her fortune were left completely in her

own power, she would despoil herself of everything and leave herself

without the means of subsistence, tied it up in annuities which could not

be alienated. But while binding herself henceforth to the practice of the

most rigid austerities, Amélie did not break off from her accustomed

intercourse with her friends. She continued to receive them as hitherto in

her father’s house. Dr. Lautard used to say that hospitality was a virtue

which it behooved Christians living in the world to exercise towards each

other, and he imbued Amélie with the same idea. Mindful of his precepts

and example, she went on inviting her friends, and enjoyed having them

with her, and surrounding them with attentions and seeing them well and

hospitably served; at table she endeavored to disguise her own abstinence

under a semblance of eating, or would sometimes apologize on the plea of

her health, which had always been extremely delicate, for not setting them

a good example.

Some rigid persons, unable to reconcile this frank and genial sociability

with the crucifying life of penance and prayer and unremitting service of

the poor and the sick which Amélie led, ventured to remonstrate with her

on the subject. She replied with unruffled humility that it was a pleasure

to her to continue to cultivate the friendships contracted for her and

bequeathed to her by her father, and that she felt satisfied there was

nothing wrong in her doing so, and that it did neither her nor them any

harm; on the contrary, hospitality was often a means to her of doing good;

a worldly man or woman who would fly from her if she approached them with

a sermon, accepted an invitation to dinner without fear or _arrière‐

pensée_, thus enabling her to bring them under desirable influences in a

way that awoke no suspicion and roused no antagonism, and often led to the

most salutary results; a friendly dinner was, moreover, not unfrequently

an opportunity of bringing people together and reconciling those who were

at variance; in fact, Amélie pleaded so convincingly the cause of

Christian hospitality as it was practised in the Rue Grignan, that the

critics withdrew thoroughly converted and rather ashamed of their

censoriousness. This thirst for doing good was, moreover, so unobtrusive

and so free from anything like an assumption of superiority, that it was

impossible to resent it; the tact and simplicity that accompanied all her

efforts to benefit others prevented their ever being looked upon as

indiscreet or meddling. She had a way of rousing your sympathies in a

charitable scheme, or your indignation against some act of injustice or

cruelty, and drawing you into assisting in the one or redressing the other

without your suspecting that she had laid a trap for you; never preaching,

never dictating, she had that rare grace, whose absence so often foils the

most praiseworthy intentions, of doing good without being disagreeable.

Her conversation was so sympathetic, and, owing to her mind being so

abundantly stored by reading under her father’s direction, could be, when

the opportunity occurred, so brilliant, that the most distinguished men

delighted in it, and flocked to the Rue Grignan, counting it a privilege

to be invited to its unpretending hospitalities. Amongst the many

illustrious men who admired Amélie’s _esprit_ and virtues and who courted

her co‐operation in their apostolic labors, one of the most prominent was

the Père Lacordaire. The history of their first work in common deserves

special record, not only because of its being associated with “the cowled

orator of France,” but because it is peculiarly identified with the

history of Provence, that land so dear to us all as the birthplace and

cradle of the devotion to S. Joseph. “Beautiful Provence! It rose up in

the west from your delightful land like the cloud of delicate almond

blossoms that seems to float and shine between heaven and earth over your

fields in spring. It rose from a confraternity in the white city of

Avignon, and was cradled by the swift Rhone, that river of martyr‐

memories, that runs by Lyons, Orange, Vienne, and Arles, and flows into

the same sea that laves the shores of Palestine. The land which the

contemplative Magdalen had consecrated by her hermit life, and where the

songs of Martha’s school of virgins had been heard praising God, and where

Lazarus had worn a mitre instead of a grave‐cloth, it was there that he

who was so marvellously Mary and Martha combined first received the glory

of his devotion.” We all know the passage by heart, but we quote it not so

much for its sweetness as because it so appropriately introduces the story

of the work in question, viz., the restoration of the pilgrimage of Ste.

Baume, a pilgrimage once so celebrated throughout Christendom, but of late

years fallen into neglect and almost total oblivion. Tradition tells us

the story of its origin, its growth, its glories, and its decay. Its

origin dates from a little bark that eighteen centuries ago came floating

down the sunny waters of the Nile and rode into the blue Mediterranean,

freighted with a legacy from Palestine to France, bearing in its frail

embrace none other than the family who had their dwelling on the shores of

the Lake of Galilee, and whose names have come down to us with the halo of

that simple and unrivalled title, “Friends of Jesus of Nazareth.”

Villagers and the simple folk of the place welcomed the exiles more

kindly, let us hope, than Bethlehem had welcomed the Virgin Mother and

reputed father of their Friend some five‐and‐thirty years before; at any

rate, Lazarus and his sisters remained in Provence. The people gathered

round the dead man whom Jesus had wept over and raised to life, and

hearkened to his teaching; he planted the cross upon their soil, and sowed

the seeds of the Gospel in their hearts, and in return they thanked him as

the Jews had thanked his Master, by putting him to death. Lazarus opened

the first page of the martyrology of France. Martha on her side withdrew

to Avignon, where, on the ruins of a pagan temple situated on the Rocher

des Doms, she built a Christian church, and dwelt there in the midst of a

school of virgins, teaching the Gospel. She died at an advanced age,

venerated as a saint, and renowned as much for her sublime gift of

eloquence and her bountiful hospitality as for the austere sanctity of her

life. We are not told how far, if at all, Magdalen shared the apostleship

of her brother in Marseilles; the only trace of her that remains in that

city is an altar in the vaults of the Abbey of S. Victor. These vaults are

like catacombs, and the most ancient monument of Christian faith that

Marseilles possesses. The legend says that Magdalen, immediately on

landing on the shores of Provence, took up her abode upon the rocky

heights of Ste. Baume and lived there for thirty years, her life divided

between agony and ecstasy, between tears that had never ceased to flow

since that day when at Simon’s house she broke the alabaster vase over the

feet of Jesus, and heard from his lips those words that have been the

strength and the hope of sinners ever since: much had been forgiven her

because she had loved much, and kept long vigils that were but a

continuation of her faithful watch under the cross and at the door of the

sepulchre. It seems strange, when we think of it, that she should have

left the country where Jesus had lived and died, the home at Magdala that

he had hallowed so often by his presence, and whose friendly hospitality

had often been a rest and a comfort to him in his weary journeys round

Jerusalem; that she should, above all, have torn herself from the

companionship, or at least the neighborhood, of his Mother and the

disciple whom he loved; for surely the one remaining solace of her

purified passionate heart must have been to speak of her brother’s Friend

and her own dear Saviour with those who had known and loved him best, to

revisit the places he had frequented, the site of his miracles and his

sufferings, and that hill of solemn and stupendous memories where she and

they had stood together in a common agony of woe, hushing their breaths to

catch the last throb of his sacred heart. But perhaps this voluntary exile

from those beloved associations was the last sacrifice, the crowning act

of renunciation, that Jesus asked of her before he bade her farewell?

Perhaps he expressed a wish that she and Lazarus should be in a humble way

to the West what Mary and S. John were to be to the East, and that they

should forsake the land and the friends of their youth and go forth

bearing the good news of his Gospel to France? He had raised her once to

the rank of an apostle that morning after the resurrection, when he gave

her a message to the disciples and bade her go and tell them and Peter

that he was risen, and before ascending to his Father he may have told her

once more to go and be the harbinger of his resurrection to disciples who

knew him not and were yet dwelling in darkness. We shall one day know,

please God, what her motive was, but meantime we may reverently conjecture

that there was some such understanding between Our Lord and Magdalen which

induced her to leave the country that was so full of the fragrance of his

divine humanity, and where his Immaculate Mother still lingered in

childless desolation. Magdalen came to Provence, and withdrew to a wild

and barren spot, upon a mountain called, in memory no doubt of her first

interview with Jesus, Ste. Baume; it rises above a valley that runs

towards the Alps from the busy city of Marseilles. Here she dwelt in

solitude, communing only with her Saviour, and shut away from cruel men

who had crucified him. Many and beautiful are the legends grouped by the

simple piety of the inhabitants around the lonely watcher of Ste. Baume;

they tell you still in reverent and awestricken tones how seven times a

day the saint was rapt into ecstasy, and carried from her cave in the

mountain side to the summit of the mountain, and held there suspended

between heaven and earth by angels, but seeing more of heaven than of

earth, and hearing the music of the angelic choirs. The peasants show you,

even in these unmystical days of ours, the precise spot of an abrupt sally

of the mountain where the angels used to come every day at their appointed

hours to commune with the penitent and lift her off the earth. For thirty

years she lived here in penance and expectation, then the term of her

exile closed, the day came when she was to be set free from the bondage of

the flesh, and admitted once and for ever into the presence of her risen

Lord. Perhaps Jesus himself whispered the glad tidings to her in prayer;

or perhaps it was only the angels who were charged with the message; but

anyhow, tradition tells us—and who dreams of doubting it?—that Magdalen

knew by divine inspiration when the hour of her death was at hand, and

that she was filled with a great longing to receive the body and blood of

her Redeemer before entering his presence as her Judge. S. Maximin, who

had been the companion of Lazarus and shared his labors and his

pilgrimage, dwelt in the narrow plain which forms the base of the three

adjoining mountains, Ste. Baume, St. Aurelian, and Ste. Victoire—Ste.

Victoire under whose shadow Marius fought and defeated the Teutons and the

Cimbrians. The dying penitent was unable to traverse herself the distance

that separated her own wild solitude from the hermitage of S. Maximin, so

the kindly angels came and performed a last office of love for the friend

of their King, and bore her across the hills and the floods and the

valleys to the oratory of the saint: he too had been warned, and was ready

waiting for her. He heard her confession, pronounced again the words of

pardon that had been spoken first to her contrite soul by Jesus himself,

and gave her the holy communion. Then she died, and S. Maximin laid her in

an alabaster tomb that stood ready prepared for her in his oratory. The

piety of the faithful surrounded the tomb with enthusiastic reverence and

devotion; pilgrims flocked from all parts of the world to venerate the

remains of the queen of penitents, and to visit the grotto where she had

lived and the oratory where she died. Cassian, the monk, who was himself a

native of Marseilles, after graduating in the school of the Egyptian

anchorites, returned to his native city, and raised the Abbey of S. Victor

over the crypt where Lazarus slept. Ste. Baume and St. Maximin soon drew

him with irresistible attraction; he founded two noble monasteries there,

and he and his monks kept vigilant guard for a thousand years, from the

IVth to the XIIIth century, over the ground where Magdalen had wept, and

over the tomb where she rested. At the beginning of the VIIIth century,

the Saracens invaded the fair land of Provence, and for nearly three

hundred years it was a prey to their devastating fury. During this long

period of invasion, the Cassianites, terrified lest the precious remains

of Magdalen should be discovered by the enemy and desecrated, thought best

to remove them from the place where they were known to be to one of

greater secrecy and safety. They took the body, therefore, out of its

famous alabaster tomb and laid it in the tomb of S. Sidonius, having

previously translated elsewhere the relics of the holy bishop. With a view

to future verification, the monks placed on the coffin an inscription

testifying to the two translations, and narrating the manner of their

accomplishment and the circumstances which led to it. The entrance to the

crypt itself was then walled up with plaster, and overlaid further with a

quantity of rubbish. But six centuries were to roll over the arid heights

of St. Maximin before the entrance was to be broken open and the written

testimony of the Cassianites invoked. When the wars of the Saracens were

over, and men began to breathe in peace, and turn their thoughts once more

to the worship of God and the veneration of his saints, the fact of the

translation of the body of Magdalen from its original resting‐place to the

sarcophagus of S. Sidonius had faded from their recollection; it was only

repeated in a vague sort of way that the illustrious penitent had been

removed to a place of safety, which was supposed to be at a distance; some

local coincidences pointed to the Abbey of Vezelay as the spot which had

been privileged to receive and shelter her. By degrees this belief took

root in the public mind, and the stream of pilgrims began to flow once

more and with renewed enthusiasm towards the venerable old Abbey of

Burgundy; crusaders met there to invoke before starting for the defence of

the Holy Sepulchre the protection of her whom the evangelists had handed

down to us as the heroine of the Sepulchre; kings and prelates, warriors

and poets, sinners and saints, flocked to the supposed tomb of Magdalen,

“till,” in the words of a chronicler of the time, “it seemed as if all

France were running to Vezelay.” God is slow to tell his secrets. It was

not until the close of the XIIIth century that the illusion, which had

evoked so much piety and so many manifestations of faith from Christendom,

was dispelled, and the truth revealed. This is how it happened. We will

translate from the Père Lacordaire, whose _Sainte Marie Madeleine_ has

supplied us almost exclusively with the foregoing details:

“S. Louis had a nephew born of his brother, Charles of Anjou, King of

Sicily, and Count of Provence. This nephew, who was likewise called

Charles, and who on the death of his father became king of Sicily and the

county of Provence, under the title of Charles II., had for S. Magdalen a

tenderness which he inherited from his race, and which, though common to

all the chivalry of France, attained in him the highest degree of ardor

and sincerity. While he was still Prince of Salerno, God inspired him with

a great desire to solve the mystery which for six centuries had hung over

the grave of her whom he loved for the sake of Jesus Christ. He set out

therefore to St. Maximin without any display, and accompanied only by a

few gentlemen of his suite, and having interrogated the monks and the

elders of the place, he caused the trenches of the old basilica of Cassian

to be opened. On the 9th of December, 1279, after many efforts which up to

that time had been fruitless, he stript himself of his chlamyde, took a

pickaxe, and began to dig vigorously into the ground with the rest of the

workmen. Presently they struck upon a tombstone. It was that of S.

Sidonius, to the right of the crypt. The prince ordered the slab to be

raised, and it was no sooner done than the perfume which exhaled from it

announced to the beholders that the grace of God was nigh. He bent down

for a moment, then caused the sepulchre to be closed, sealed it with his

seal, and at once convoked the bishops of Provence to assist at the public

recognition of the relics. Nine days later, on the 18th of December, in

the presence of the archbishops of Arles and of Aix, and of many other

prelates and gentlemen, the prince broke the seals which he had prefixed

to the sarcophagus. The sarcophagus was opened, and the hand of the

prince, in removing the dust which covered the bones, encountered

something which, as soon as he touched it, broke with age in his fingers.

It was a piece of cork from which fell a leaf of parchment covered with

writing that was still legible. It bore what follows: ‘L’an de la Nativitè

du Seigneur 710, le sixième jour du mois de Décembre, sous le règne

d’Eudes, très pieux Roi des français, au temps des ravages de la perfide

nation des Sarrasins, le corps de la très chère et venerable Marie

Madeleine a été très secrètement et pendant la nuit transféré de son

sépulchre d’albâtre dans celui‐ci, qui est de marbre et d’où l’on a retiré

le corps de Sidoine, afin qu’il y soit plus caché et à l’abri de la dite

perfide nation.’(223) A deed setting forth this inscription and the manner

of its discovery was drawn up by the prince, the archbishops, and bishops

present, and Charles in great joy, after placing his seals again upon the

tomb, summoned for the fifth of May of the following year an assembly of

prelates, counts, barons, knights, and magistrates of Provence and the

neighboring counties to assist at the solemn translation of the relics

which he had been instrumental in raising from the obscurity of a long

series of ages.”

The news of the event was hailed with a shout of joy by all Christendom;

kings and prelates vied with each other in doing honor to the new‐found

treasure; gold and precious stones poured in in quantities to adorn the

shrine which was destined to replace the alabaster tomb of S. Maximin.

“When the appointed day arrived,” continues the Père Lacordaire, “the

Prince of Salerno, in the presence of a vast and illustrious assembly,

opened for the third time the monument which he had sealed, and of which

the seals were certified to be intact. The skull of the saint was whole

except for the lower jaw‐bone, which was wanting;(224) the tongue

subsisted, dried up, but adhering to the palate; the limbs presented only

bones stripped of the flesh; but a sweet perfume exhaled from the remains

that were now restored to light and to the piety of souls.... The fact had

already been made known of a sign altogether divine having been seen upon

the forehead of Magdalen. This was a particle of soft, transparent flesh

on the left temple, to the right, consequently, of the spectator; all

those who beheld it, inspired at the same moment by a unanimous act of

faith, cried out that it was there, on that very spot, that Jesus must

have touched Magdalen when he said to her after the resurrection, _Noli me

tangere!_ There was no proof of the fact, but what else could they think

who beheld on that brow so palpable a trace of life which had triumphantly

resisted thirteen centuries of the grave? Chance has no meaning for the

Christian; and when he beholds Nature superseded in her laws, he ascends

instinctively to the Supreme Cause—the Cause that never acts without a

motive, and whose motives reveal themselves to hearts that do not reject

the light.... Five centuries after this first translation, the _noli me

tangere_, as that instinct of faith had irrevocably named it, subsisted

still in the same place and with the same characters; the fact was

authenticated by a deputation of the Cour des Comptes of Aix. It was not

until the year 1780, on the eve of an epoch that was to spare no memory

and no relic, that the miraculous particle detached itself from the skull;

and even then the medical men who were called in by the highest authority

in the county certified that the _noli me tangere_ had adhered to the

forehead by the force of a vital principle which had survived there.”

The piety of Charles of Anjou raised a stately temple to the penitent of

Bethany on the site of the oratory of S. Maximin. Boniface VIII., who had

beheld with his own eyes the miraculous presence of the _noli me tangere_,

endowed the basilica munificently, and authorized the king to transfer the

custody of the relics from the Order of Cassianites, who had formerly held

it, to that of the Sons of S. Dominic, since become renowned through the

world under the name of _Frères prêcheurs_. A great number of popes

visited the shrine, and every king of France held it a duty and a

privilege to come to S. Maximin and Ste. Baume, and invoke the aid and

protection of the saint; up to Louis XIV., hardly a sovereign neglected

this public tribute of respect and devotion to her; but with the _Grand

Monarque_ the procession of royal pilgrims came to an end. The red tide of

revolution arose, and waged war against men’s faith, and destroyed its

most touching manifestations and its noblest monuments. It broke, however,

harmless, at the foot of S. Maximin. Not a stone of the grand old pile was

touched, not an altar profaned, not even a picture stolen from the mouldy

and unguarded walls; the most precious part of its treasure, the relics of

Magdalen, which had been carefully concealed, were found intact, and duly

authenticated as before. Ste. Baume was less fortunate; the storm that

respected the tomb showed no mercy to the grotto which had witnessed

Magdalen’s ecstatic communings with her Lord; the hospital, the convent,

and the church adjoining it were completely destroyed; nothing remained

but a barren rock and a portion of the neighboring forest. In 1822, a

partial restoration was effected; the vast and massive monastery was

replaced by a temporary building of the lightest and cheapest materials,

little better than a lath and plaster shed, to keep the monks under cover;

the grotto itself, once so sumptuously adorned by the piety of pilgrims,

was left in a state of nakedness and neglect, its costly lamps once

abundantly fed with aromatic oils were gone, their lights extinguished,

like the faith that had kindled them. The church was rebuilt in the same

superficial style as the convent, and solemnly reconsecrated in the

presence of forty thousand souls assembled in the forest and down in the

plain. But the material temple, great or small, is more easily rebuilt

than the spiritual one; the temple of stone was raised up again, but where

was the temple of the spirit which had animated it? Where was the

architect who would rebuild this, who would collect the scattered

fragments, and breathe upon the dead bones, and make them live, and bind

them as of yore into a body of devout and simple‐hearted worshippers?

Many, remembering the bygone glories of Ste. Baume, wished that a prophet

would arise and work this wonder in Provence. Perhaps the wish took the

form of a prayer in some loving hearts, and so brought about its

accomplishment. The valiant‐hearted son of S. Dominic, the Père

Lacordaire, was to be the prophet of their desires. He rose up and

upbraided the people of Provence for their ingratitude to the memory of

their illustrious patroness, and for their decayed faith, and exhorted

them to stir up the dead embers of a devotion that had formerly been the

edification and joy of Christendom to repair and beautify the deserted

grotto of Mary Magdalen, and rekindle its lamps, and restore the

pilgrimage of Ste. Baume in its ancient fervor. The work was one that

appealed strongly to the sympathies of the Marseillese; but this was not

enough to ensure its success. In order to make the sympathy effectual, the

Père Lacordaire needed a helpmate who would go about amongst the people

and put their good‐will into a practical form for him—some one who would

second his exertions by docile and zealous and intelligent co‐operation.

He looked around him, and his choice fell upon Amélie. He knew her, and

thought she was of all others the person best suited to his purpose. It

was no easy or pleasant task the setting on foot of a movement such as

this; the preliminaries were sure to be full of difficulties, often of the

sort that make self‐love wince and smart; there was plenty of ridicule in

store, a goodly harvest of sneers and snubs to be garnered at the outset,

rude opposition to be endured from those who had no faith at all, and

chilling indifference from those who looked upon anything like a return to

the forms and symbols of the middle ages as poetic enthusiasm not

practicable in the XIXth century. It was just the kind of work to put the

daughter of S. Dominic to. She did not disappoint the Père Lacordaire; but

responded as promptly to the call as his own fiery spirit could have

wished. It was in Amélie’s house that the eloquent Dominican inaugurated

the _œuvre_ of S. Baume, and told the story of the great penitent’s life

and death. From the salon in the Rue Grignan the burning words of the

orator went forth to all Provence and stirred many hearts. A committee was

soon formed for raising the necessary funds towards the restoration of the

grotto as a preliminary to the reopening of the pilgrimage. The Père

Lacordaire, as if the more prominently to record the services Amélie had

rendered in the work so far, and to associate her name with its progress,

desired that the meetings should be held at her house; and so they were,

and continued to be regularly until she left Marseilles for Rome. She

lived to see their joint labors crowned with success; the grotto assumed

gradually something of its ancient beauty; an inn was built on the plain

at the foot of the mountain for the accommodation of travellers who came

from a distance, pilgrims were once more seen toiling in great numbers up

the steep paths of the forest leading to the grotto, and filling the glade

with the sound of canticles, and the feast of S. Magdalen, the 22d of

July, was again celebrated with something of the pomp and fervor of olden

times.

But events of this stirring and, so to speak, romantic interest were rare

in Amélie’s life. Her path lay rather along the valleys than upon the

heights above. The doors of the Rue Grignan were often open indeed to the

wise and learned, and occasionally to the great ones of the earth; but the

visits of these were few and far between compared to those of the poor and

humble, who besieged it at all hours of the day and night. The poor looked

upon it as a centre of their own, where they had a right to come at all

times and seasons and make themselves at home. They did this at last so

completely that Amélie was sometimes obliged to slip out by a back door in

order to escape from their precious but pitiless importunity. But no

importuning, however persistent or unseasonable, could ruffle her

unalterable sweetness, or surprise her into a sharp answer or an abrupt

ungraciousness of manner. Hers was the charity that is not easily

provoked: it made her stern to self, but long‐suffering towards others,

slow to see evil, softly forbearing to the weaknesses of all.

This home work was only an episode in her everyday labors. There was not a

mission, or a hospital, or a refuge, or a good work of any sort in the

town, that she had not to do with in one way or another. Just as we often

hear it said of a woman of the world, “She is of every _fête_,” so it used

to be said in Marseilles of Amélie, “She is of every charity.” One of the

most venerable fathers of the Society of Jesus declared that it was

chiefly to her zeal and intelligent exertions that the Jesuits owed the

establishment of their mission at Marseilles. The Père de Magdalon looked

upon her as his right hand; he enlisted her co‐operation in all his

undertakings, and he used to say that it was to her he owed in a great

measure the success of the Maison de Retraite of S. Barthélémy, the last

work of his apostolate, and which he lived to see blessed with such

abundant fruits. The _Filles de la Charité_ were long the special objects

of her liberality and devoted exertions; then came the Sisters of Hope,

whose services to the sick are so praiseworthy, and whose presence amongst

them was hailed so gratefully by the Marseillese. When the _Petites Sœurs

des Pauvres_ were in any difficulty, they looked to Amélie to help them

out of it, and they speak with effusion still of the many proofs of

generosity they received from her, and of her unfailing readiness to

assist them whenever they appealed to her. She seemed to hire herself out

as a beast of burden to do the work and the bidding of every one who

wanted her. When there was a question of establishing the _Frères

Prêcheurs_ at Marseilles, she multiplied herself tenfold. No obstacles

could deter her in the service of the sons of her beloved S. Dominic; she

found a house for them, and paid all the expenses of their installation.

But whatever the work was that came under her hand, she did it, and as

promptly and earnestly as if it were the one of all others she most

delighted in; there was no exclusiveness, no narrowing of her sympathies

to an _idée fixe_ either in piety or in charity; those who had the

privilege of being her fellow‐laborers for many years declare they never

once knew her charity to flag or fail to answer a fresh demand upon it;

the supply was inexhaustible, and seemed to increase in proportion as it

spent itself. Her health was wretched and kept her in almost constant

physical pain; yet her activity was extraordinary, and, considering the

chronic sufferings she had to contend with for the greater part of her

life, the amount of work she contrived to get through may be regarded as

little short of miraculous. She rose habitually at five, spent several

hours in prayer, and assisted at the Holy Sacrifice before beginning the

active duties of the day. These lay wherever there were sick to be tended,

and sorrowing ones to be comforted, and sinners to be converted. She was a

member of the Congregation of S. Elizabeth for visiting the hospitals, and

gave a good deal of time to this work, for which she had a particular

devotion. Her gentleness and singularly attractive manner fitted her

especially for dealing with aching bodies and sorrowing hearts, and it was

not a very rare thing to see Amélie succeed in melting the heart of some

obdurate sinner with whom the entreaties and repeated efforts of the

chaplain and the nuns had failed. The same sympathetic responsiveness that

she threw into so many different good works marked her intercourse with

individuals; those whom she was tending or consoling or advising always

felt that for the time being they were the chief object of interest to her

in life, and that she was giving her whole heart to them. She made this

impression perhaps more especially on the poor, to whom the sympathy of

those above them has such a charm and such a gift of consolation. An

amusing instance of it occurred once in the case of an old woman whom

Amélie had been nursing for some time; she put so much goodwill into all

she did, and performed the offices of a sick‐nurse so affectionately, that

the poor old soul believed she had inspired her with some unaccountable

personal attachment; she returned it enthusiastically, and was never tired

testifying her gratitude and love. One day, however, Amélie arrived in the

poor little garret—tidy and clean, thanks to her—but, instead of being

welcomed with the usual smiles and embraces, the old woman set her face

like a flint, and preserved a sullen silence. For some time she

obstinately refused to say what was amiss with her, but finally, shamed by

the coaxing and evident distress of her nurse, she confessed that the day

before she had had a bitter disappointment. “I thought,” she said, “that

you loved me, but I find I was under a delusion; you don’t care a straw

for me; they tell me you do for every sick body in the town just what you

have been doing for me.” It was with great difficulty that Amélie was able

to console her and obtain her forgiveness for being so universal in her

charity.

But though her creed dealt in no exclusions, there were two classes of her

fellow‐creatures who above the rest had a decided attraction for Amélie:

these were prisoners and soldiers. She yearned towards the former with the

true spirit of him who loved the publicans and sinners, who gave the

first‐fruits of his death to one of them on Calvary, and who prayed for

them all with his last breath, saying: “Father, forgive them, for they

know not what they do!” The wonders that Amélie worked in the gloomy cells

of the Fort St. Nicholas, the sudden and admirable returns to God that she

obtained from the condemned, are not to be counted; not by men, at least.

Day after day she was to be found in the midst of them, teaching old men

their catechism, comforting and exhorting all, preparing them for death,

washing and dressing their sores, combing their hair, performing

cheerfully and affectionately the most disgusting offices. Her labors in

behalf of the troops are perhaps the most remarkable part of her life. She

had for many years been very zealous in her endeavors to promote religious

instruction amongst the soldiers, but her mission in this direction dates

chiefly from the Crimean war. During this brilliant campaign, which

brought so much glory and cost so much blood to the Allied armies, the

thought of the sufferings of the soldiers in the trenches and on the

battle‐fields filled Amélie’s heart to the momentary exclusion of all

other interests and preoccupations. Her whole time was spent working for

them, and begging and praying for them. She inspired all who came near her

with something of her own ardor and tenderness in the cause. She set up

societies among her friends for making clothes and lint for the sufferers,

and for collecting money to procure all that could comfort and alleviate

them. Her efforts were crowned with abundant success. Now, as on many

other occasions, money flowed in to her from all sides, sometimes from

strangers at a distance, for the fame of her charity had spread much

further than the humble daughter of S. Dominic herself suspected, and many

benevolent people who wished to give, and knew not how to apply their

offerings, sent them to her, satisfied that they would be well and wisely

employed. The way in which large sums of money sometimes dropped into her

lap, as it were from the sky, at some opportune moment when she was in

dire want of it for some case of distress, led many of her humble

_protégés_ to believe that it came to her miraculously. But, while mindful

of their bodies, Amélie’s first solicitude was for the souls of the brave

fellows who were going out to face death in the service of their country;

while working so hard to procure all that could heal and solace their

temporal sufferings, she was laboring still more assiduously in behalf of

their spiritual interests. Nor did her efforts confine themselves

exclusively to the soldiers, they extended to the officers as well, and

much more difficult she often found them to manage than the rough‐and‐

ready men under their command. Many a droll story is still told at

Marseilles of the tricks by which they sometimes evaded her attempts to

catch them in her zealous toils and make them remember that they had

another enemy to fight and to conquer besides the soldiers of Holy Russia.

Once two young officers of good family and fortune, whose lives were not

the most edifying to the community, were pointed out to Amélie by one of

their brother officers, a fervent Catholic, as fitting subjects for her

zeal. He undertook to bring them to the Rue Grignan under the pretence of

introducing them to an old and charming friend of his, if Amélie would

promise to try and convert them. She promised of course to _try_, and the

two scapegraces made their appearance, never suspecting that a trap had

been laid for them. The conversation dwelt upon the great topic of the

day, the war, Amélie carefully avoiding the most distant allusion to the

spiritual condition of her visitors. The young men were charmed with her

affability and _esprit_, and, when she asked them to return with their

friend in a few days and dine with her, they accepted her invitation with

delight. During dinner their hostess alluded to the numerous pilgrimages

that were being performed every day to Notre Dame de Garde; few of the

soldiers or sailors started for the Crimea from Marseilles without

climbing up the hill to salute Our Lady and ask her blessing on their

arms. The young men confessed that they had never made the pilgrimage and

evinced little admiration for their more devout comrades; Amélie seemed

surprised, but not at all scandalized, at the frank admission, and

proposed that they should both make the pilgrimage next morning and hear

Mass there with her at eight o’clock. They assented with ready courtesy,

inwardly treating the expedition as a harmless joke, and took leave of

their hostess, very much delighted with her, and not much terrified by the

salutary projects that might be lurking in her breast with regard to the

morrow. They were at the bottom of the hill punctually at half‐past seven,

and toiled up to the church, where they expected to see Amélie already on

the lookout for them. But they looked round the church and saw no sight of

her. Taking for granted that she was not there, and that something had

interfered to prevent her keeping the appointment, they took themselves

off with the comfortable feeling of having done their duty, and behaved

like gentlemen, and come safe out of it. The morning was raw and cold, and

they were both tired after the long pull uphill, so on their way down they

turned into a little dairy where hungry pilgrims were comforting

themselves with cups of coffee. There was a good fire in the place, and

they sat down to enjoy it, and dawdled a good while over their hot coffee,

wondering what kind trick of Fortune had prevented the enemy from

appearing in the field; when lo! looking up suddenly, they beheld the

truant peering in at them through the window. The pair started as if they

had seen a ghost. But Amélie knew human nature too well to press her

advantage at such a moment; she smiled, shook her finger threateningly,

and went her way down the hill, leaving the two young men less triumphant

than she had found them, and very anxious to clear themselves of having

broken their word to a lady, and eager to redeem it a second time if

Amélie desired. She did desire it, and it was not long before one of the

two blessed her for having done so. He was ordered off with his regiment

soon after, and before setting sail ascended once more to the shrine of

Notre Dame de Garde in a different spirit and with a very different

purpose.