the tree, but the sight of the brave little boy, who looked on with
intense interest, never exhibiting fear or impatience, spurred them on to
fresh efforts; at last the day was won, and the cradle carried back in
triumph to Brussels, the duchesse radiant with joy. To commemorate the
event, the oak‐tree was transplanted to Brussels, placed at the corner of
a street, since then called Rue du Chêne, and the statue erected at its
side; in the course of time, the tree has disappeared, but the statue
remains, the object of undying love and interest. To steal it is
considered an impossibility; in 1585, he was seized and carried off to
Antwerp, but was speedily recaptured and brought home in triumph by a
small party of Bruxellois; again he was taken away in a baggage‐wagon by
the English troops after the battle of Fontenoy, and, on being recovered,
was allowed for a short time to delight by his presence the inhabitants of
Grammont, until he was reclaimed by the Bruxellois. In 1747, he was stolen
by some soldiers of Louis XV., and again a few years later by two English
soldiers, who, however, found him too heavy to carry away; the last time
he was disturbed was in 1817, but the same good fortune attended him, and
he was again recovered, to the great joy of the Bruxellois, who look upon
him as the good genius of the city, and consider his loss a public
calamity.
In the XVIth century, Louvain and Brussels gave him two splendid dresses
for fête‐days; Charles V. presented him with a complete suit, and settled
a pension on him. In 1698, the Elector of Bavaria not only gave him a
uniform, but invested him with a military order, and appointed a valet‐de‐
chambre to wait on him. Peter the Great visited him, and added to his
pension. In 1747, Louis XV. made him a knight, and solemnly decorated him
with the Order of S. Louis, at the same time presenting him with a suit of
gold‐laced uniform, a _chapeau‐bros_, and a sword; and in 1780 he was the
first who wore the national cockade of Brabant, hence his present title,
“Le Premier Bourgeois de Bruxelles.”
On national fêtes, and during the _Kermesse_ in July, he is always dressed
in the uniform of the Garde Civique, which he has worn since 1830, his
numerous orders displayed on his infant breast. In addition to these
gifts, several persons have made him presents, while some have actually
remembered him in their wills. He thus possesses a positive revenue which
is regularly paid, a treasurer who is responsible for his disbursements, a
lawyer, and a valet‐de‐chambre; and let any stranger beware of ever
speaking disrespectfully or slightingly to any Bruxellois of the “Premier
Bourgeois de Bruxelles”!
Brussels abounds in charitable institutions and convents of every order;
some are peculiar to the place. There is but one house in the world of the
“Dames de Berlaimont”—an order of canonesses who follow the rule of S.
Augustine—and it was founded by the Comtesse de Berlaimont, whose husband
was one of the great officers of the court of Charles V. It is eminently
aristocratic in its design. Any number of quarterings was required for the
fair candidates in the palmy days of the old régime, but ideas have been
modified by the wheel of the revolution, and now, if the head and heart
are right, whether the blood is more or less blue is not strictly
considered. The convent is splendid, the canonesses charming, and the
education received by the young ladies under their charge leaves nothing
to be desired.
Convents of Poor Clares are now few and far between; one is still found in
Brussels. The rule is very strict—the strictest, we believe, for women in
the world, not even excepting those of the Trappistines and Carmelites. It
is forbidden to see strangers, but the superioress graciously relented in
our favor, drew aside the heavy serge curtain behind double iron grilles
armed with spikes, and told us we could look at her, but not speak. This
announcement was made before the curtain was drawn. We kept profound
silence, and for a few moments contemplated the figure, that stood
motionless and speechless. What could have carried her there, from family,
from home with all its charms? At the moment of solemn choice, the world
enters but little into the thoughts: it is the strong ties that God and
nature have implanted in the human heart that are the hardest to unloose.
She had left all for the rigid rule, for the self‐denying life, of a Poor
Clare; the happy unbroken sleep of youth for the broken night of prayer
and meditation; and, when sleeping, not even to lie down, but to sit half‐
upright; to go barefooted, never to touch meat, never to speak—only
imagine it, a woman, and never to speak!—never to her fellow‐beings—ever
to God. It was for him she had left home and friends, to find her eternal
home and the never‐failing Friend; to be thirteen hours a day in prayer
and adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, to expiate by her life the
sins of the world around her. It is a wonderful life, a supernatural life;
but, when truly desired, supernatural grace is given to lead it
courageously to the grave.
The oldest church in Brussels is Notre Dame de la Chapelle, in the Rue
Haute, which derives its name from having been at first a simple oratory
in which the great S. Boniface, the apostle of Germany, had said Mass. The
style is Gothic, and recently the choir, which is very fine, has been
restored; it had been disfigured by an atrocious high altar in the style
of the Renaissance; but in this reign of good taste it was decided to
remove it, and in making the changes it was found there was a false wall,
which, on being destroyed, disclosed the beautiful circle of the apse,
which is remarkable for having the presbyterium and the credence‐table cut
in the wall, something that has only been found in two other churches—one
in France, another in Germany.
Notre Dame des Victoires—or Notre Dame du Sablon, as it is more generally
called from its situation on the Place du Petit Sablon—is in the form of a
Latin cross, with a polygonal apse to the choir. The Place du Petit Sablon
during several centuries was the favorite residence of the aristocracy,
and is yet surrounded by the Hôtel de Merode, and the palace of the Duc
d’Aremberg, which was formerly occupied by Comte d’Egmont. Consequently in
this church the monuments are very fine, especially the mortuary chapel of
the Princes of Tour and Taxis, in which is an exquisite statue of S.
Ursula, by Duquesnoy, and the tombs of the De Hornes, d’Egmonts, and De
Chimay.
The beautiful collegiate church of SS. Michel and Gudule is built on a
height formerly called Mont St. Michel, and its great towers dominate the
city, and can be seen from every point. Its plan is cruciform. The choir
is entirely surrounded by chapels, from which it is separated by double
rows of columns; on one side is the Chapel du Saint‐Sacrement de Miracle,
on the other the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin, behind that of S. Mary
Magdalen. It is a magnificent church, one of the richest in Belgium, and
the vestments and appointments are superb. The laces are a treasure in
themselves—laces which now cannot be bought, are used in the sanctuary,
and the vestments and antependiums are of corresponding magnificence. One
antependium, which is the Lamb surrounded by the symbols of the four
evangelists, is considered the finest piece of embroidery in Belgium.
But the glory of S. Gudule is not the gold, and silver, and lace, but the
Très‐Saint‐Sacrement de Miracle, which is there preserved, and which is
the object of the profoundest love and veneration. For it did Charles V.
build the exquisite chapel whose four splendid windows were presents from
his sisters, the Queens of Portugal and Hungary, his brother Ferdinand,
King of the Romans, and Francis I. of France. Sovereigns, princes, nobles,
and people for five hundred years have adored the sacred Body of our Lord,
so cruelly profaned and outraged by the Jews, on Good Friday of 1370, who
on that day, the day of Redemption, assembled in their synagogue, and
stabbed the consecrated hosts stolen from S. Catherine’s, and, when they
stabbed them, the blood which had flowed for them on Calvary, flowed again
beneath their sacrilegious hands.
Day and night reparation is offered; the synagogue is now a _chapelle
expiatoire_, attached to which is a community for perpetual adoration, and
the Confrérie du Très‐Saint‐Sacrement de Miracle, established in S.
Gudule, embraces thousands. The Duc d’Aremberg gave the monstrance, which
is a cross of diamonds, surmounted by a triple crown of diamonds, from
which hangs a little ship of the same precious stones, presented by the
captain and crew of a vessel, in gratitude for delivery from shipwreck.
Marie Antoinette sent her wedding necklace of diamonds to be suspended
around it, and the lamps around the sanctuary are kept burning by the
children of the family d’Aremberg.
The great ornament of the nave is the pulpit, elaborately and exquisitely
carved in oak by Verbruggen in 1699, originally in the church of the
Jesuits, in Louvain, and, on the suppression of the Order, given to S.
Gudule by Maria Theresa, in 1776. The lower part represents the expulsion
of Adam and Eve from Paradise by the angel of the Lord, armed with a
flaming sword. On the left is seen Death gliding around with his dart. The
pulpit itself, in the hollow of the globe, is supported by the tree of
knowledge, crawling up which is the serpent, while on the extreme summit
stands the Blessed Virgin holding her divine Son, whom she is assisting to
bruise the serpent’s head with a large cross. On either side the railing
of the steps is formed by a hedge in which numerous birds are enjoying
themselves; on the side of Adam are the eagle, the jay, and a monkey;
while in the vicinity of Eve are the peacock, the ape, and the parrot.
And why these birds are there is the result of a little domestic
disagreement between the artist Henri Verbruggen and his wife Martha Van
Meeren, whom he married, hoping to find a tenth muse, but who only proved
a prosaic everyday somebody, who fretted herself to death because Henri
loved pleasure even more than art, and, while amusing himself with his
friends, forgot there was no money in the house, nothing in the larder,
nothing wherewith to dress Mme. and Mlle. Verbruggen. Poor Martha, who
loved order, and would have been the treasure of some honest burgher, only
provoked and irritated Henri by her occasional plain statement of facts.
Affairs were in this sad condition when the Jesuits of Louvain, knowing
the splendid talent of Verbruggen, ordered a pulpit for their church. The
artist was enchanted. Here was a field for his genius; he immediately
conceived an admirable work, which should contain, as in a book, the whole
history of the Christian religion.
Said he, “I will make a globe, which will represent the earth, under which
I will place Adam and Eve, the moment after their fatal disobedience,
which entailed on us such misery. This globe will be the pulpit, the
canopy of heaven will cover it, the tree of knowledge will overshadow it,
around which will creep the serpent, and above, Mary, crowned with stars,
the moon at her feet, her infant Son before her, will bruise the serpent’s
head with the cross. By the side of the man I will place the cherubim with
the flaming sword; near the woman, young and beautiful, hideous death—that
will be a contrast!”
The artist commenced his work with ardor. The wood grew animated beneath
his fingers. But pleasure for ever distracted him; the more people
admired, the more he amused himself. Martha was miserable; she could see
no hope of order and plenty. Irritated by the complaints of his wife,
Verbruggen determined to revenge himself in his _chef‐d’œuvre_, and so
perpetuate his vengeance. He was making the stairs of the pulpit. In his
angry malice, Verbruggen thought he would punish Martha by placing
satirical emblems to characterize women. On the staircase, by the side of
Eve, who has just sinned, and who still holds the apple, he placed, as
symbols, a peacock for pride, a squirrel for destructiveness, a cock for
noise, an ape for malice—four defects of which poor Martha was totally
innocent.
Man he made with pleasure. On his side he placed, first, an eagle, to
typify genius—but just then Martha bade adieu to the world and her
troubles, and Verbruggen was a happy widower. Too late, the sculptor
understood his loss; the gentle, patient wife was gone, and now he only
remembered her good qualities; his courage and energy forsook him; he
could not work. Months rolled on; his friends pitied him, and tried to
rouse him from his deep despondency.
“You weep for Martha,” said they; “there are others as good; you are only
thirty‐six—marry Cecile Byns. She is joyous and lively like you. She will
be a mother to your daughter, a charming companion for you.”
Verbruggen listened to the good advice; he asked the hand of Cecile Byns,
who was one of those women that rule while laughing, that carry the point
while appearing to submit. Cecile knew her power over Verbruggen, and made
him obey.
“I love you,” said she, “but I will not marry you until the work which
will make me proud of the name of Verbruggen is finished.”
“Only say the word,” replied Henri, “and I will complete it.”
Accompanied by her mother, she visited his _atelier_. She asked the
explanation of the emblems he had placed on the side of Eve. The sculptor
blushed.
“When I made what astonishes you,” he stammered, “I did not know Cecile
Byns.”
“Very well,” replied the young lady; “but after the symbols of our
defects, which perhaps we have not, how do you intend to designate your
own noble sex?”
“I had just commenced,” he answered, blushing redder than before. “You
already see the eagle, perhaps it typifies vanity.”
“Not at all,” interrupted Cecile. “The eagle is a bird of prey, an emblem
of brutal tyranny. What do you intend adding?”
Verbruggen was silent. Cecile continued: “To be just to men, as you
fancied you were towards us, you will place near the eagle a fox, a symbol
of vain gossip; a monkey eating grapes, for drunkenness; a jay, for
foolish pride. You must avow, my dear Verbruggen, these defects belong to
men as much as the faults you have given to us, and which adorn the other
staircase. And now, when this great work is completed, I will accompany
you to the altar.”
The sculptor did not reply. He obeyed, fulfilled faithfully the orders
given, and received for reward the hand of Cecile Byns; since which happy
event he was never known to offer any further insult to the devout female
sex.
And so the pulpit was finished and placed in the church of the Jesuits in
Louvain, where it was the object of universal admiration, as it still
continues to be in beautiful S. Gudule the pride and joy of Brussels.
Sayings Of S. John Climacus.
It is better to displease our relatives than displease God.
Obedience is simply going about anything without any judgment of our own.
Let your conscience be the mirror in which you behold the nature of your
obedience.
A new wound is easily closed and healed; but the old wounds of the soul
are cured, if ever, with great difficulty.
He is truly virtuous who expects his death every day; but he is a saint
who desires it every hour.
Marriage In The Nineteenth Century.
“Heaven and earth shall pass, but my words shall not pass.”—Matt.
xxiv. 35.
It is only truth that is immutable in this world, and only truth’s
representative that dare speak to‐day the same language it spoke eighteen,
twelve, or three centuries ago.
Truth cannot progress, for it partakes of the nature of God’s perfection;
it is not an ideal of our own evolving, susceptible of improvement as our
knowledge grows wider, but a type towards which we are, on the contrary,
making slow stages of assimilation. Of all individual parts of truth,
hardly one of which remains in our day unassailed, none is so fiercely
attacked as the truth about marriage. And yet, as we have shown in a
previous paper,(232) almost every argument against it has repeatedly been
put forward by barbarians and Romans, Byzantine emperors and feudal
chiefs, and borne out by all the imposing display of military force, legal
servility, and even ecclesiastical truculence. One might almost say of the
agitation against marriage in our day, “What has been will be, and what
will be has been.” If it is no longer in the individual passions of kings
and nobles that the conflict centres, it is still a “sovereign” who plays
the part of Philip Augustus or Henry VIII.—the “sovereign people.” Instead
of one mighty colossus, it is a legion of personally obscure individuals
which the church finds opposed to her; but the principle is the same, the
issue is identical. What councils and embassies did formerly is now done
oftener and in privacy; new agencies have widened the possibilities of
communication, of discussion, and of adjustment, and causes are more
rapidly multiplied, as well as more speedily settled. The press has lent
its power to the altar, and redeemed, in part, its too well‐earned
reputation as a pander and a tempter; and besides these new helps, we
have, as of old, all those oft‐tried resources of personal eloquence,
canonical censures, and grievous penances.
Still the question is exactly the same in the nineteenth as it was in all
preceding centuries: Shall passion or reason rule mankind? Shall the most
sacred of all rights of property be protected and maintained, or shall
communism be allowed gradually to extirpate the human race?
The historian Rohrbacher, whom we have often quoted in the paper referred
to above, specially insists upon the confusion which the legalized
disruption or total disregard of the marriage vow would introduce into
society, and supports his opinion by that of De Maistre. He also adduces
the argument that, since the creation of man in the earthly Paradise was a
perfect and complete act, and only one woman was there joined to one man,
therefore the union of one man and one woman was distinctly God’s type of
what he meant all future unions to be. We might speak of many Scripture
proofs of the original institution of marriage being a state of perpetual
monogamy until death, but such proofs would involve too lengthy a sketch
of _one_ portion of the subject, and this aspect has been so often
discussed that we turn with a feeling of relief to any less hackneyed view
of the question.
Speaking broadly, we may say that the Hebrews were the first, as they were
for a long time the only, people whose laws protected both the honor and
the property of women. Because they did so, they were also most stringent
as regards the tie of marriage. Again, with them ancestry and descent were
of paramount importance, and every family jealously guarded its record and
registers; this also implied a strict protection of marriage, and, in
fact, would have been impossible without it. Even when dispensations were
allowed the Jews “because of the hardness of their hearts,” the son of the
first wife was not to be put aside for the son of the second, if the
latter were more pleasing to her husband than the former, and this because
the sacred rights acquired at her betrothal were absolutely
inalienable.(233) In the marriages mentioned in the Old Testament, the
consent of the woman is always formally asked,(234) and she is considered
competent to inherit property and transfer it to her husband.(235)
Among other nations of antiquity, the more truth was obscured in their
religious forms, the more degraded became their ideal of marriage. This is
patent even among such civilized nations as the Greeks and Romans; the
whole of mythology is a deification of the passion of lust, and a
caricature on marriage. Still, where greater genius abounds, there also we
find glimpses of a higher morality. For instance, in Homer’s magnificent
poems, conjugal love and fidelity stand out nobly as the themes of his
especial admiration. It would require a thorough examination of many of
the passages of the _Iliad_, and greater space than we have now before us
(since this idea can only be used here as a collateral one), to bring out
the full force of this striking fact, and some day perhaps it may be our
good fortune to return to this topic; suffice it to say at present, that
any one who reads Homer attentively will be struck by the majestic
attitude of Juno, the constant protectress of the Greeks, and by the
hearty sympathy shown by the poet in a struggle undertaken purely to
vindicate the dignity of marriage and the rights of hospitality. This is
perhaps even more obvious from the fact that even the good personages of
the poem, the self‐sacrificing and devoted Andromache, the noble Hector,
the infirm and guiltless Priam, are all included in the sweeping
misfortune which is the swift and just retribution of the cowardly rape of
Helen. The vindication of the principle of marriage is evident, while in
the _Odyssey_ its glorification is even more obvious. This illustration,
for which we have to thank a very zealous and learned religious whose
kindness put the suggestion entirely at our own disposal, is one which it
is worth while for thoughtful persons to consider, as it gives a far
greater moral importance, and consequently a more perfect artistic
interest, to one of the few colossi of the intellectual world.
The law of Jesus Christ succeeded the preparatory dispensation of Moses,
and perfected all its enactments, marriage among the rest. It gave the
marriage contract an added dignity by making it the image of the
union—single and indivisible—of Christ and the church, and by elevating it
into a sacrament; in other words, a means of sanctifying and special
grace. In this is certainly the secret of the church’s inflexibility with
regard to marriage. Since by it a distinct and sacramental grace was
vouchsafed, it followed that this grace in itself was sufficient to enable
the contracting parties, provided they faithfully corresponded to it, to
remain holily in the state of matrimony until death; so that, whenever any
serious breach took place between them, the church could reasonably argue
that the fault lay with their dispositions, not with the contract itself.
In the old law, marriage, though holy, was not a sacrament, and was
susceptible of greater relaxations; but in the new law, with a higher
dignity added to it, and more abundant grace attached to it, it is too
strong to need concessions and too noble to wish for them.
The Hebrews also, in propagating their own race, used the only means then
in their power of propagating the knowledge of the true God; but in the
new dispensation we have substituted a generation according to the spirit
for the previous generation according to the flesh. Polygamous marriages
among the Jews were a mysterious channel provisionally used for the
increase and maintenance of God’s worship upon earth; but, since the
coming of Christ, men have been won by the Word of God, the preaching of
his servants, the sufferings of his martyrs, and the learning of his
disciples. Those who are now constantly born into his fold are born “not
of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of
God.”(236) Having said so much upon the historical and Scriptural aspect
of marriage, we leave it to others to dispute the particular meaning of
such and such texts, and the particular inferences to be drawn from the
context, and go back to the church’s firm stand upon this matter.
Not only has she been the foremost champion of the integrity of marriage
in past ages, but she is now almost its only one. No body of such force or
numbers exists in the world, which alone gives her the priority among the
upholders of Christian marriage; and when the tenets of the few other
bodies to whom marriage is sacred are examined, they will be found to be
inspired and created by her principles, so far as they refer to this
matter.
Of the Anglican communion, especially in its more advanced branches, it is
sufficient to say that, having better than any other body preserved the
forms, it has as its reward attained to more of the spirit, of a “church,”
and consequently inculcates a higher morality. But the following
testimony, which, from the name of the sheet furnishing it (the _Reformed
Missionary_), we suppose represents some other Protestant body, is more
interesting because more unexpected. A Catholic paper of Nov. 16, 1872,
the _Standard_, has preserved this testimony for us. Under the title of
“The Divorce Question Again,” it discusses church authority and its
relation to the civil law, and uses the following strong language:
“Spiritual interests and spiritual _discipline_ belong to that
supernatural order of grace which has its home in the bosom of the
Christian church.... There are many things besides loose divorce
legislation which the state either tolerates or legalizes, but which the
church cannot sanction or countenance for a single instant without
committing spiritual suicide. And if the state should expressly dictate to
the church a line of action at variance with the plain teaching of Christ,
then it would be our _solemn duty_ to obey God rather than men.... The
_church must interpret God’s Word_, and exercise spiritual discipline in
accordance therewith, no _matter what course the state may take_ in
disposing of kindred questions. As Dr. Woolsey has expressed it:
‘_Whatever be the attitude_ of the state, the church _must stand_ upon the
principles of the New Testament as she expounds them, and apply them to
all within her reach!’ ”
What is here said of the “state” may be applied to the people, the press,
popular license, and all the modern agencies which the evil one has added
to his former royal and learned tools. But if among earnest though
mistaken Christians we find such auxiliaries as the _Reformed Missionary_
and the eloquent sermons of Anglican divines,(237) we have also to
encounter such authorities as the following on the side of passion and
licentiousness: “Dr. Colenso, embarrassed by the obstinate adherence to
polygamy which he observed among the Kaffirs, came to the resolution,
after conference, it is said, with other Anglican authorities of the
highest rank, to remove the difficulty by a process which, though adopted
in a well‐known case by Luther and Melancthon, had not previously received
the official sanction of Anglican bishops. As polygamy would not yield to
Protestantism, Dr. Colenso agreed to consider polygamy ‘a Scriptural mode
of existence.’ Here are his own words: ‘I must confess that I feel very
strongly that the usual practice of enforcing the separation of wives from
their husbands, upon their conversion to Christianity, is quite
unwarrantable, and _opposed to the plain teaching of our Lord_.’ And then
he proves, of course from the Bible, that polygamy is not inconsistent
with the all‐holy religion of the Gospel. Here is the _proof_: ‘What is
the use,’ he asks, ‘of our reading to them (the heathen) the Bible stories
of Abraham, Israel, and David, with _their_ many wives?’ But Dr. Colenso
was not without support in his view on polygamy. ‘The whole body of
American missionaries in Burmah,’ he observes, ‘_after some difference of
opinion_, came to the unanimous decision to admit in future polygamists of
old standing to communion, but not to offices in the church (as if the
last were a greater privilege than the first!)’ ‘I must say,’ he
continues, ‘that this appears to me the only right and reasonable
course!’ ”
At the beginning of this extract, we read that Dr. Colenso was
_embarrassed by the obstinate adherence to polygamy_ among the Kaffirs.
This means, we infer, that he had originally withstood this heathen
practice. Why had he done so? If he believed it sufficiently immoral to
attack it, he was guilty of violating his conscience in ceasing his
attack; if he had always believed it “Scriptural” or allowable, he was
guilty of hypocrisy in attacking it at all. Then, when he asks, “What is
the use of our reading to them the Bible stories of Abraham, Israel, and
David, with _their_ many wives?” he gives us unconsciously another
advantage by tacitly confessing the necessity of a divinely inspired
interpreter of the Bible. If Dr. Colenso had been a Catholic, the
difficulty would not have existed. Does he suppose that Catholic converts
among savage nations do not hear the same stories? But in their case, a
teaching and speaking church comes to their rescue, and explains what
otherwise would seem dark. It is strange to hear a Protestant Christian,
bred up on the rule of “the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the
Bible,” hesitate as to the effect of certain stories in the Bible. If the
poor Kaffirs were to be evangelized upon the principle that a Bible
precedent was practically a permission for all time, they would soon have
Judiths and Jaels among them, as well as Abrahams, Israels, and Davids.
In the _Times_ (London) of Dec. 20, 1872, on the occasion of a public “Day
of Intercession” for more missionaries, we read the following stringent
criticism upon the body which of all others most nearly approaches the
ideal of a church: “The Church of England,” says the _Times_, “utterly
abandons large regions on the ground that in tropical climes there will be
polygamy or an equivalent disregard of the marriage ties, and that no
preaching can prevail against it”—a confession of powerlessness which
quite coincides with what we have said of Dr. Colenso. Still it is not
fair to class the Anglican communion, despite this weak shrinking from a
difficult task, with the more systematic deserters from the championship
of duty; but, if we are grieved and astonished at her defection under
certain circumstances, what shall we say of the following breach of
ecclesiastical discipline on the part of those whose very names argue in
this case a departure from the path of known duty? In the New York _World_
of the 5th of January, 1873, we read among the announcements of business
transacted in the mayor’s office the previous day this startling
disclosure: “During the day the mayor was waited upon by a wedding‐party,
the principals of which were Michael M’Clannahan and Mary Donovan, who
wished to be united in matrimony without going to the trouble of getting
up a public church celebration. Mr. H—— performed the duty according to
the statute, and the bride and bridegroom went on their way rejoicing.”
It is not for us to judge these persons, nor speculate upon the motives
that led them to take such a step; but the occurrence is nevertheless a
sign of the demoralization which is every day on the increase among our
people.
Polygamy, under the name of Mormonism, is still tolerated and protected in
the United States, and the annals of divorce in the states where Mormonism
is illegal quite make up the deficiency. In Connecticut, according to the
deposition of the Rev. Dr. Woolsey, President of Yale College, made before
the Western Social Science Congress in Chicago, the ratio of divorce is
one in every _eight_ marriages. We were told by a distinguished New
England convert that the Vermont marriage law was practically so lax that
the following “cause” for a divorce was considered legal: A couple, not
very long married, mutually wished for a separation, simply on the score
that they were dissatisfied with their bargain. They went to a lawyer to
ascertain the technicalities of the case, and were told—appearances having
to be saved!—that some specific cause must be alleged. The easiest was
cruelty. But the parties had never been violent; so the lawyer suggested
that the husband should, in his presence, give his wife a “blow.” This was
soon accomplished by a light slap on the cheek of the willing “victim”;
cruelty was pleaded, and the divorce obtained.
In Rhode Island, the proportion of divorces to marriages in 1869 was one
to fourteen, and the law of that state leaves it practically to the
discretion of the courts to annul any ill‐assorted marriage on the ground
of uncongenial temper, desertion, drunkenness, or any sort of bad conduct.
In that year, out of 166 divorces, only 66 were granted on the plea of
adultery, while it must also be borne in mind that this grave charge is
often unjustly and maliciously made to cover some shameful behavior on the
part of the plaintiff, or to gratify his or her revenge. Speaking of a
clergyman who was reported to have married one man successively to five
wives, all of whom were living at the same time, a Protestant paper
comments thus on the story: “It may be true or false. _It is not
altogether improbable._ It suggests very serious reflections, as
indicating what is possible under our laws, and the course things are
taking in American society.” The paper goes on to speak of the clergyman’s
responsibility in such a case, and although advocating the desirability,
“for many reasons,” of the office of solemnizing marriage being “confined
_almost entirely_ to ministers of the Gospel,” does not see that it
stultifies itself directly after by explaining that “the trust is reposed
in them, _not by any right to it on their part, as holding an
ecclesiastical office_, but on account of their position and general
character(!). They are able to guard marriage, and _give it_ a religious
character and sanction. But they act, so far as the law goes, simply as
civil magistrates.”
And let us add that here is precisely the evil, and that as long as
clergymen are lowered to the level of magistrates, loose morals will never
be uprooted.
The _Nation_ of March 2, 1871, has the following:
“We cut from the marriage notices of the _Philadelphia Press_ the
following illustration, omitting names, of the way in which
attempts to reduce human marriages to the level of those of the
lower animals are dressed up in fine language:
“ ‘In Philadelphia, February 23, S—— and S——, the parties
protesting against all marriage laws, whether legal or
conventional, which subject either the wife or the husband to any
control or influence on the part of the other which is not in
accordance with the dictates of pure and mutual love.’
“This is, of course, simple ‘pairing.’ Marriage means the
assumption by a moral agent of an obligation to perform certain
duties, even after they become disagreeable. The arrangement by
which the parties live together as long as they find it thoroughly
pleasant is that common among birds, beasts, and fishes, and has
nothing human about it.”
The _Independent_, a Protestant religious paper, sneers at all barriers to
divorce, Catholic, Protestant, or civil, as “shallow,” and declares that
“no matter with what solemn ceremony the twain may have been made one, yet
when love departs, then _marriage ceases_ and divorce begins.”
A certain unhappy section of those waifs of womanhood, the advocates of
woman’s rights, is known as the champion of “free‐love,” that is, in plain
words, adultery. Mrs. Stanton, one of the leaders, has said somewhere that
“marriage is but a partnership contract terminable at the will of the
parties,” and has advocated marriages for three years.
To this last proposition we have only one objection. Why _three_ years? If
a marriage is based on mere passion, three _months_ or six at the furthest
would be enough to exhaust the cohesive element, for if the adage be true
that “_no man is a hero to his valet_,” it is equally certain that no man
and woman could by any human possibility live together for that time in
the familiar intercourse implied by marriage, without discovering to each
other certain asperities of temper, inequalities of disposition, in short,
all the little meannesses of our poor human nature. This disenchantment,
following the close and daily companionship that is almost inevitable in
married life, is enough to kill passion, though it cannot even daunt
principle. Again, in a marriage based on passion, the satiety that follows
in the train of unlawful love would be reproduced, and would break up the
connection in far less than three years. In fact, when we come to sift the
question, we find that, putting aside the religious spirit presiding over
marriage, that state of life has no appreciable sign to distinguish it
from the score of illicit connections punished by law or branded by
society. We find here almost a parallel to the question lately agitated in
England among Episcopalians, as to the reason why the Church of England
should be called a “church,” and not, like all other independent
Protestant bodies, a “sect.” We ask, What is to distinguish such a
“marriage” as our modern reformers advocate from the “_liaisons_” at which
society pretends to be so virtuously shocked? Where is the intrinsic
difference between a woman who sells her honor to many men at once and one
who surrenders it to a single man at a time for just that period during
which pleasure shall keep her constant to him?
Another form of attack upon the sanctity of marriage is the trade of the
great journals in daily advertisements such as these, which meet our eyes
every morning:
“Absolute divorces legally obtained in different states.
Desertion, etc., sufficient cause. No publicity. No charge until
divorce is obtained. Advice free.
——, _Attorney_, —— Broadway.”
Or, with slight variations, thus:
“Also Commissioner for every State.
——, _Counsellor‐at‐Law_,
—— Broadway.”
Here we see the press and the law conspiring to lend aid—and, more than
that, encouragement—to the loosest and most devastating of passions. Then,
again, the tone of the newspapers with regard to moral irregularities is a
painful sign of the times. Thus we read in a great “daily”:
“Out West they call divorces ‘escapes.’ A speedy and safe ‘escape’
is guaranteed for a very low figure, and, _as usual_, a great many
parties figure for it.”
There is a levity about such remarks that is saddening, when taken in
connection with the future of a great people.
The morbid curiosity of the public is thus excited under the convenient
plea of satisfying it, while, with regard to the institution of marriage
itself, the saying is exemplified, “Give a dog a bad name, and then shoot
him.” Marriage is ridiculed, conjugal affection put down as antiquated,
home‐lovingness pitied as old‐fashioned, family reunions voted dull, and,
as a natural consequence, youth is more or less alienated from the
unfashionable circle. It is easy, then, to turn on marriage as a
principle, remove the stumbling‐block altogether, paint in seductive
colors a substitute for home, and familiarize the public with so‐called
legal but transient unions. Once this principle is established in the
abstract, it will be merely a question of time as to its practical
extension. Granted that a man or woman may change companions as often as
they choose, who is to regulate _how_ often? Like the husband of
Scheherazade in the _Arabian Nights_, every day? Why not? Again, if one
man may have many “wives,” why should not a woman have many “husbands”?
And so on _ad infinitum_ the license might spread unchecked, till there
would be as many conflicting interpretations of marriage as there are
already of the Bible. Absolute communism would be quite a logical
sequence, and, in a society so utterly confused as to parentage, there
could be little question as to inheritance!
Christian marriage, on the contrary, has both a social and a sanitary, as
well as a religious aspect. It creates a strong and healthy race, and at
the very outset of each man’s career gives him a position by investing him
with a responsibility. He feels that the pride which his old father and
mother have in him must not be shamed; that the honor of his family is
bound up in his actions; and that his behavior may influence for good or
for evil both the moral and temporal prospects of his near kindred. A man
so weighted feels a just pride, which, in default of higher motives, may
even yet guide him into greatness; and though such a man may yield to
temptation, fall into vice, and disgrace himself, so much at least of his
early training will survive as to make him feel keenly the shame of his
position. This alone has saved hundreds. It has been the serpent in the
wilderness to many, but it would no longer be an imaginable motive were
the ideal of Christian marriage, with its attendant responsibilities, to
be swept away. There is another aspect under which the frequency of
divorce and the condoned irregularities of intercourse between the sexes
are a constant threat to public security—we mean in provoking murder.
Three parts of the fearful murders committed in New York, and also in many
other parts of the Union, are traceable more or less to ill‐assorted
marriages and a spirit of unchristian rebellion against lawful restraints.
Lately there has been a glaring case in point, the details of which are
fresh in the memory of every one. A man is deliberately shot dead on the
very threshold of what is practically a “Divorce Court”; the murderer is a
brutal husband incensed at the victim’s testimony against himself. In
1872, three of the most famous New York “characters” figured in a terrible
drama ending in death, imprisonment, and disgrace. What was the reason
that set two of the most unscrupulous speculators in the world at deadly
enmity? The disputed favor of a woman who, according to the new code, only
asserts her rights, and claims to change “husbands” as often as she
pleases. God help the age and nation in which such things are daily done,
and where animal passion laughs in the teeth of law! Who does not see how
every right and security hangs by the sanctity of marriage? Marriage, in
the proper sense of the word, implies exclusive and permanent possession,
and represents the first and greatest right of property. If that property
is to be made movable, salable, _takable_, in a word, why not other less
sacred and less valuable property also? “Property is theft,” say the
socialists, and certainly it is, if we can previously agree to consider
marriage so. If all kinds of possessions (life itself included) are to be
thus transferable, every individual will be reduced to protect them
single‐handed against the world, and from this state of things will grow a
monster system of organized murder and legalized rapine. The early
Californian society would be nothing to this imaginary community.
In France, Italy, and Spain, the infamous laws not only encouraging but
actually enforcing _civil_ marriage are sapping the foundations of
society; and in England, a country hitherto held as a model for its
conjugal and homely tendencies, the tenets of “free‐love” are making giant
inroads into social life, and leavening the mass of everyday literature.
Bigamy and divorce are almost worn‐out sensations; they have supplied the
ablest pens with thrilling subjects, and have furnished the best theatres
with the only dramas that really “take.” Something new and more monstrous
yet is needed, and the prurient imagination that shall first succeed in
originating a new version of social sin will become the power of the
moment.
Such is the present situation. We do not know if there ever has been a
worse stage of immorality, except, perhaps, that before the Flood; for at
all times of unparalleled license there have been some extenuating
circumstances, of which we are afraid we must own ourselves bereft. In the
beginning of the Christian era, license was confined to pagans; for in the
tottering Roman Empire the Christians were all soldiers of the cross, and
their watch for the Bridegroom was too eager to allow them time for
temptation; in the transition state that followed, the church’s power
already made itself felt, and though barbarian kings still defied their
pastors, the latter had at hand ecclesiastical terrors that seldom failed
in the end to subdue the half‐converted Goth or Lombard. In the days of
the ill‐starred Renaissance, when a spirit of neo‐classicism threatened
once more to deify sin under the garb of art, the Council of Trent sat in
solemn judgment, and condemned abuses which had unhappily paved an easy
way for heresy: while later on, even in the days of the wicked and
brilliant court of Versailles, there was found a Bourdaloue to rebuke the
public sinners who sat in the high places, and to eulogize Christian
marriage in the midst of a gathering which seemed to have utterly
forgotten its meaning.
Faith still lingered—the faith that made the middle ages what they
were—that faith that condemned public sin to as public a penance, and out
of great excesses drew great examples. Louise de la Vallière was almost
the last representative of this mediæval spirit of generous atonement; and
her heroic words, when told in her cloister of the death of her son, “I
should weep rather for his birth than for his death,” were the genuine
outcome of a faith that could restore a prostitute to innocence, and place
upon a once guilty brow almost a virgin’s crown.
With Voltaire, the work that Luther had begun was perfected, and
henceforth it was not Europe that believed, but only a few scattered
exiles who here and there kept the lamp of the faith dimly alight in the
stifling atmosphere of universal and fashionable doubt. Even among
believers the spirit of ready sympathy, with the slightest indication of
the church’s unspoken meaning was gone, and there remained only the too
self‐conscious effort of unquestioning loyalty. Still, thank God! it did
and does remain, and, though shorn of all poetry, it is none the less
vigorous in self‐defence. But we may now say that indeed the flood has
broken loose, the Philistines are upon us, the whole array of the world’s
newest forces is brought to bear against us, and behind her dismantled
outposts the church retreats to her citadel, the naked Rock of Peter. Men
say that the Council of the Vatican was inopportune, presumptuous, and
imprudent; let the world’s gracefully lapsing course be a living
refutation to such words. Every outward stay is gone; every difficulty in
the way of the reunion of pastors is trebled; every see is hedged about
with physical bars that are insurmountable; nothing remains free but what
cannot be fettered—the tongue. Who can wonder if the church, in this dire
emergency, delegates to one man the power she can no longer collectively
exercise in peace? As in old Flemish cities there sits up in the lonely
belfry of the cathedral a watcher whose duty it is to guard the city
against fire, and to warn the people through a brazen trumpet at which
spot he descries the first appearance of danger, so in the heart of the
City of God there sits now the watchman whose eye and voice are bound to
raise the alarm and direct the remedies through the length and breadth of
listening Christendom.
The Council of the Vatican has made the word of the Pope the brazen
_tocsin_ of the Christian world.
And now, having said so much of the possibilities opened up by the present
lax spirit in morals and equally lax interpretation of what remains in the
shape of legal restraints upon vice, let us speak of what Christian
marriage ought to be. We will be brief, for the position almost defines
itself. Of the indissolubility of marriage under all circumstances, even
in the case of one of the parties breaking the marriage vow, we will not
speak, nor even of the fidelity which marriage requires in every thought
and slightest intention. But we would insist upon that which ensures a
happy and holy union, namely, the preliminary motive. We have seen how bad
marriages and an unworthy idea of this state of life lead to shame, to
socialism, to violence, sometimes to a criminal ending in a common jail;
let us see now what leads to bad marriages themselves. Two motives there
are—one mercenary, and one sensual. We heard a very impressive Jesuit
preacher say a few years ago, in the pulpit of one of the most beautiful
and frequented churches in London, that to make a good marriage _both_
prayer _and_ seemly preparation are necessary. Some parents, he said, in
their pious anxiety to leave all things to Providence, and to avoid that
solicitude for worldly things which the Gospel condemns, neglect to avail
themselves for their children of the allowable means and legitimate
opportunities of social life; but to these he would say, Remember the
words of Christ: “Not every one that saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter
into the kingdom of heaven.”(238) On the other hand, many parents sinned
far more grievously and—he was loth to say it—more frequently by
altogether leaving the Creator out of the question in the serious matter
of their children’s settlement in life. Which of these two extremes is the
prominent one in this country? We need not answer the question. We know
too well how nine‐tenths of those marriages are made which within a few
months or years are broken in the divorce courts, or otherwise dissolved
by a shameful _esclandre_. We know how wealth especially, position,
associations, beauty, and accomplishments all rank before moral worth in
what is called lightly but too truly the “marriage‐market.” We know how
marriage is looked forward to through girlhood, not as the assumption of a
sacred responsibility, but as the preliminary step to emancipation; we
know how it is heartlessly canvassed by men as an expensive but
advantageous luxury, its cost being in proportion to the social figure it
will enable them to make, but its essence of no deeper moral account to
them than the purchase of one trotter or the undertaking of one
speculation more or less. We do not say that there are no exceptions to
this rule—far from it; but that is just the point: however honorable these
cases are, the fact still remains that they _are_ exceptions. Again, where
the motive is not directly mercenary, it is often selfish; old men will
marry for mere comfort, physical luxury, and the regularity of a well‐
appointed home—things which the presence of a handsome, thoughtful, and
tolerably intellectual woman alone can ensure; women no longer young, but
still hungering for the whirl of fashion, will marry unsuitably for the
sake of an assured position and means to continue the frivolous course of
their former lives; in fact, all shallow disguises of selfishness have
their representatives in the “marriage‐market,” from that of the
millionaire who wants a wife to sit at the head of his table and wear his
diamonds, to that of the day‐laborer who wants one to cook his dinner,
mend his clothes, and eke out his week’s earnings by her own hard work.
Marriages made in this spirit are unblest and always end badly: the
millionaire will divorce his wife, and the laborer murder his in a fit of
intoxication; the end is the same, the means differ only according as
natural temperament and habits of education diverge.
How far otherwise with marriage in the true Scriptural, Christian sense of
the word! In poverty or in riches, alike sacred and full of dignity;
always conscious of its sacramental crown; ever mindful of its holy
ministry, the salvation of two souls, the ladder to heaven of two lives
that without it might have made shipwreck of their eternal interests! A
thing apart from the common unions of earth, different from a commercial
partnership, stronger than a political coalition, holier than even a
spontaneous friendship. A thing which, like the riddle of Samson, is
“sweetness out of strength,” and whose grace is so sublime that in heaven
it can only find one transformation worthy of itself. “You err, not
knowing the power of God; for in the resurrection they shall neither marry
nor be married; but shall be as the angels of God in heaven.”(239) We are
not told that the tie will be like brotherhood or like friendship; we are
left to infer that between husband and wife some more peculiar link will
exist hereafter than will be common to us all as children of the same
Father, and it is plainly foretold that this relation will be as that of
the angels towards each other.
We have only to look into the gospels and the teachings of the Apostle of
the Gentiles to see by what means we may in the married state so sanctify
our lives as to deserve this heavenly transformation; we have only to read
the marriage‐service to learn the plain, straightforward, but most solemn
duties, the performance of which will secure us spiritual peace and joy in
this life or the next. To use the sacrament worthily, we must come to it
with worthy preparation and steadfast intention, first as Christians
resolved never to perjure themselves before God, then as rational beings
willing to abide by whatever unforeseen consequences their deliberate vow
may entail in the future. For it is an idle pretext to allege that, if one
party breaks the engagement, the other is _de facto_ absolved from it.
Where in the formula, Catholic or Protestant, is this proviso? The only
qualifying sentence is this, “Until death do us part.” How, then, can any
reasonable person interpret “death” to mean sin, incompatibility, or any
other incidental unpleasantness? We think that those who are so ready to
foist unwarrantable meanings on the plain and naked oath they have sworn
in full possession of their senses at the altar, would hardly be the
persons we should like to trust as men or women of unimpeachable honor in
the ordinary transactions of life.
If mercenary motives are uppermost in the majority of marriages in this
age and in this nation, sensuality is none the less responsible for a
share of the misery attendant upon modern unions. We have already spoken
of the evil of marriages founded on passion, and of the shameful way in
which the colloquial adage, “Marry in haste, and repent at leisure,” is
thus frequently illustrated. To this also the remedy lies in a serious
Christian spirit of preparation for marriage. The root of all evil
developments in the relations between the sexes lies in the early
education of the contracting parties, and it is here that the only radical
cure can be tried. The church bids her children be especially circumspect
at the juncture of marriage, but she also teaches them to reverence the
sacrament from childhood upward as a type of the union between herself and
her divine Spouse. If, as children, marriage appears to us in the shape of
the angel of home, watching over the existence it has created, and
dignifying the parental authority it has built up; if in youth the goal of
marriage is looked forward to as the _toga virilis_ of life, the reward of
a dutiful childhood, the ennobling badge of our enrolment among the
soldiers of the cross, then and only then will our country find in us
efficient citizens, earnest patriots, and reliable defenders. If among men
there is revived the chivalrous spirit of deference and forbearance
towards women which sealed the middle ages as a charmed cycle among all
divisions of time, and among women there is cultivated that generous and
true womanliness which made SS. Monica and Paula, and Blanche of Castille,
the typical heroines of the wedded state, then may we expect to see “a new
heaven and a new earth.” Marriage means reverence for each other on the
part of the persons married, as representing in themselves the sacrament
typical of Christ’s union with the church; it means reverence for the
children who are entrusted to their care by God and their country, and
whom they are bound by the solemn adjuration of Christ not to scandalize;
it means reverence for themselves, as the tabernacles of a special grace
and the progenitors of new worshippers at God’s feet, new subjects of the
kingdom of heaven. It is the woman especially who is bound to feel and
express this reverence, for woman is, as the French poetically say, the
priestess of the ideal. Besides, the highest perfection ever reached in
the married state was reached by a woman, the Blessed Virgin, Mother of
God. Among married saints there have always been more women canonized than
men. The women of a nation form the men; and, if marriage is to be
reformed, it must be done first through the women. We hope and pray that
it may soon be so, but we fear that outside the church, where the reform
is, in the abstract, not needed, there is not sufficient impetus to ensure
its being made. We say in the abstract, because practically there are many
marriages made among Catholics, celebrated in Catholic churches, and
decorously observed through the course of a blameless life, which yet call
loudly for reform, and sadly lack the noble Christian spirit that made
perfect the unions of Delphina and Eleazar, and of S. Louis of France and
Margaret of Provence. But however deficient in some cases our practice may
unhappily be, our doctrine remains ever unchanged, and our laws ever
inflexible. Thanks to the church, marriage is still recognized as an act
not purely animal nor yet purely civil; and, thanks to the infallibility
of the church and her calm expectancy of eternal duration, it will remain
to the end of time an honored institution. If threatened, it will still
live; if derided, it will nevertheless conquer. Christian marriage is the
mould in which God has chosen to throw the lava of natural passion, and
without whose wholesome restraints we should have a shapeless torrent of
licentiousness, scathing mankind with its poisonous breath, carrying away
all landmarks of ancestry, property, and personal safety, and finally
exterminating the human race long before the appointed time for the dread
judgment in the Valley of Josaphat.
A Pearl Ashore.
By The Author Of “The House Of Yorke.”
If one should wish to enjoy perfectly a fugue of Bach’s, this is perhaps
as good a way as any: listen to it on a warm afternoon, in a Gothic
Protestant church, in a quiet city street, with no one present but the
organist and one’s self. If any other enter, let him be velvet‐footed,
incurious, and sympathetic. It would be better if each listener could
suppose himself to be the only listener there.
The wood‐work of the church is dark, glossy, and richly carved. Rose,
purple, and gold‐colored panes strain the light that enters, full and
glowing up in the roof, but dim below. On the walls, tinted with such
colors as come to us from Eastern looms, and on the canvas of the old
painters, are texts in letters of dull gold—those beautiful letters that
break into bud and blossom at every turn, as though alive and rejoicing
over the divine thought they bear. A sunbeam here and there, too slender
to illumine widely, points its finger at a word, touches a dark cushion
and brings out its shadowed crimson, or glimmers across the organ pipes,
binding their silver with gold, as though Light would say to Song, “With
this ring I thee wed!”
Those clustered, silvery pipes are surrounded by a border of dark, lace‐
like carving, and a screen of the same hides the keyboards. Through this
screen shines the lamp on the music‐desk. Some one is stirring there. You
lean back on the cushions, so that the body can take care of itself.
Mentally, you are quiescent with a delightful sense of anticipation. If
the situation should represent itself to you fancifully, you might say
that your soul is somewhat dusty and weary, and has come down to this
beach of silence for a refreshing bath. Knowing what you are to hear,
watery images suggest themselves; for in the world of music it is the
ocean that Bach gives us, as Beethoven gives us the winds, and Handel the
stately‐flowing streams.
We have made a Protestant church our music‐hall, because, though not the
dwelling‐place of God on earth, it is often the temple of religious art,
and, having nothing within it to which we can prostrate ourselves in
adoration, it can yet, by signs and images, excite noble and religious
feeling. Indeed, we would gladly banish to such concert‐rooms all that
music, however beautiful in itself, which intrudes on the exclusive
recollection proper to the house of God.
This, we repeat, is as good a way as any to hear a fugue of John Sebastian
Bach’s. So also thought Miss Rothsay; and she was one who ought to know,
for she was a professional singer, and as sensitive musically as well
could be.
It was an afternoon in early September, and she had only the day before
reached her native city, after a prolonged residence abroad. Hers had been
that happy lot which seems to be the privilege of the artist: her work,
her duty, and her delight were the same. That which she must and ought to
do she would have chosen above all things as her recreation. Now, with a
perfected voice, and a will to use truly and nobly that gracious power,
she had returned to her native land.
Her first contact with the New World had given her a slight jar. Utility
seemed to mean here something rough and harsh, and the utility of beauty
to be almost unrecognized. She had as yet met with only two kinds of
people: those who regarded her talent as beautiful indeed and useful, in
so far as it brought her money, but otherwise superfluous; and that yet
more depressing class who were enthusiastic in hailing a new amusement, a
new sensation, and who valued the singer as a necessity to elegant
dissipation. As yet, she had met with no serious disciple of music.
Yet, when she stepped from her door to walk about, to renew her knowledge
of familiar scenes, and make acquaintance with changed ones, she was
pleased to perceive some of that tranquillity which, in her foreign life,
had been so conducive to a steady growth in art. The fine streets she
traversed were quiet, distant from the business world, and out of its
track. The September air was golden, and the sun so warm as to make the
shade welcome. Here and there, through openings between the houses, or at
the ends of long avenues, were to be seen glimpses of country; and a thin
haze, so exquisite that it might be the cast‐off mantle of Beauty herself,
half veiled, while it embellished, the landscape. It was quite in keeping
to see an open church door. One who loitered on the steps explained that
there was to be an organ recital, but could not say who the organist was
to be.
Miss Rothsay entered, scarcely seeing her way at first, seated herself,
and looked about. The atmosphere of the place suited her taste. None but
noble and sacred images presented themselves. Art was there in its
sublimity, and in its naïve simplicity. Here was a form full of austere
beauty, there one whose grace verged on playfulness. The scene had the
effect of a sacred picture, in the corner of which one can see children
playing or birds on the wing.
Miss Rothsay, without knowing it, made, herself, a lovely picture in the
place. Her oval, pale face was lighted by liquid gray eyes, now lifted,
and drinking in the upper light. On her fair hair was set a foreign‐
looking black hat, turned up over the left temple with an _aigrette_ and
feather. A slight and elegant figure could be perceived beneath the dark‐
blue mantle.
Wondering a little, while she waited, who the organist might be, she ran
over in her mind those she had known before going abroad. From that,
dismissing the present, her thoughts glanced over those she had known
abroad, and at last rested on one she had not seen nor heard of for eight
years. Eight years before, Laurie had gone to Germany to study, and he was
probably there yet. She recollected his face, more youthful than his
years, and full of a dreamy beauty; the figure, tall and graceful, yet
wanting somewhat in manly firmness. She heard again, in fancy, that
changeful voice, so low, eager, and rich‐toned when he was in earnest; she
met again the glance of his sparkling blue eyes, full of frankness and
enthusiasm. Where was he now?
Had he been a common acquaintance, she would have inquired concerning him
freely; but he was a rejected lover, and she would not, by mentioning his
name, remind people of that fact. Why had she rejected him? Simply because
he had seemed to her not to reach her ideal. It had occurred to her since
that time that possibly his manner and not his character had been at
fault. At twenty years of age, she had been more mature than he at twenty‐
five. She liked an appearance of dignity and firmness, and had made the
mistake often made by those older and wiser than herself, of thinking that
dignity of soul must always be accompanied by a grave manner, and that an
air occasionally or habitually demonstrative and variable, which is merely
temperament, indicates a fickle or superficial mind. Sometimes, indeed,
the strongest and most profound feelings, in reserved and sensitive
persons, seek to veil themselves under an affectation of lightness or
caprice, and the soul looks forth with a sad scorn through that flimsy
mask on the hasty and egotistical judge who pronounces sentence against
it.
“And you must love him, ere to you
He will seem worthy of your love,”
is true of some of the finest natures.
Miss Rothsay, during these eight years of her separation from Laurie, had
more than once felt a misgiving on his account, lest she had done him
injustice. Observing and studying the manners of those she met, she saw
that what passed for dignity was sometimes only the distrustfulness of the
suspicious, the caution of the worldly‐wise, the unsympathizing coldness
of the selfish, or the vanity of the conceited. She had lost not only her
admiration, but her respect for that unchangeable loftiness which chills
and awes the demonstrative into silence; and she had remembered, with a
growing regret, Laurie’s cordial ways, that seemed to expect friendliness
and sympathy from all, and to appreciate the purity of his soul, that
never looked for evil, and turned away from it when it intruded itself,
and thus seemed scarcely aware that evil existed. Still she had been too
deeply engrossed in her studies to give him much thought, and it was only
now that she became conscious of regret.
Meantime, the organist had taken his place, and was arranging his music.
The light of the lamp shone on a face wherein were exquisitely blended
strength and refinement. One could see there passion purified by prayer,
and enthusiasm too deep for trivial excitement. The face showed, too, when
studied, that tranquil reserve, not without sadness, which is learned by
those who have too often cast their pearls before swine, yet who do not
despair of finding sympathy.
He placed the music, sat an instant in fixed recollection, as though he
prayed, then lifted his tapering hands, so nervous, light, and powerful,
and let them fall on the keys. To the listener beyond the screen, it was
as though her reverie had been broken by a burst of thunder. Then the sea
rolled in its waves of sound, strong, steady, a long, overlapping rhythm.
What did it mean, that fugue? Did it symbolize the swift‐coming assaults
of evil that seek to drag the race of man downward, as the persistent sea
eats away, grain by grain, the continents? Was it, perhaps, the ceaseless
endeavor of the faithful will that, baffled once, returns ever to the
charge, and dies triumphantly struggling? Did it indicate the generations
of men flowing on in waves for ever, to break at the feet of God; or the
hurrying centuries, cut short, at last, by eternity? However it might be
interpreted, the music lifted and bore the listener on, and the silence
that followed found her otherwhere than the last silence had left her. She
was the same in nature, but her mood was higher; for music does not change
the listener, it merely intensifies what is positive in his nature,
whether it be good or bad, to its superlative degree.
Vibrating and breathless still with the emotion caused by that grand
composition so grandly rendered, Miss Rothsay perceived a slip of paper on
the cushion, and reached her hand for it. It proved to be a programme of
the Recital. She glanced along the list, and read the name of the organist
at the end—it was Duncan Laurie!
She heard, as in a dream, the soft‐toned Vorspiele that followed, and only
came back to music when the third number, a toccata, began. But the music
had now to her a new meaning. It seemed to triumph over and scorn her. She
heard through that melodious thunder the voice of Nemesis.
But when the closing piece, a noble concerto by Handel, sang out, it
reproved that fancy of hers. There was no spirit of revenge nor mean
triumph in Laurie’s nature.
The audience, small and select, went out quietly. The organist closed the
instrument, and prepared to follow, yet waited a moment to recover full
consciousness of the everyday world he was going to meet. The air seemed
to pulse about him still, and wings of flying melodies to brush his face.
Never had he felt less inclined to meet idle compliment or talk
commonplace. “I hope no one will wait for me,” he muttered, going out into
the vestibule.
But some one was waiting, a pale‐faced, lovely woman, who looked at him,
but spoke not a word. The look, too, was short; for when he exclaimed and
reddened up to the eyes, and held out a trembling hand, her eyes dropped.
There is a commonplace which is but the veil to glory or delight, like
Minerva in her russet gown. The conventional questions that Laurie
properly asked of the lady, as they walked on together, were of this sort.
When did she come home? was as one should say, When did Joy arrive? When
do the stars come? And the steamer that brought her could be as worthy of
poetical contemplation as the cloud that wrapped a descending Juno, or the
eagle that bore away a Ganymede.
Not long after, when some one asked them who was their favorite composer,
each answered “Bach!” and, when alone together, each asked the other the
reason for that answer.
“Because,” said the lady, blushing, “it was on the waves of one of Bach’s
fugues that I reached the Happy Islands.”
“And because,” returned the lover, “when some of Bach’s music had rolled
back into the ocean, it left a pearl ashore for me.”
The Benefits Of Italian Unity.
From The Etudes Religieuses.
Revolution is a dangerous syren. The nations of the earth have yielded to
her seductions, but the day is coming when with one voice they will curse
the great enchantress who has lured them on to apostasy. For a century she
has not ceased to announce an era of prosperity to the rising generation,
but at length we see her promises are as deceptive as her principles are
corrupt. From the heart of all nations rise up groans and maledictions
against her teachings, and against her agents who have betrayed the hopes
of their partisans, brought death instead of life, ruin instead of
prosperity, and dishonor instead of glory. In a word, revolution is in a
state of bankruptcy. This is not acknowledged by the politicians of the
_tiers‐parti_ and their followers. They still continue to proclaim the
sovereignty of the “immortal principles,” declare revolution a success,
celebrate its material and moral benefits, and boast that “real social
justice was _for the first time_ rendered in 1789”—after eighteen
centuries of Christianity! But people are ceasing to be duped by any such
political sophisms; they are beginning to regret profoundly the peace,
order, and security, and all the benefits assured to the world by the
supremacy of religion, and lost through social apostasy. The wisest of
politicians are tired of revolutions. People who have lost their sacred
heritage, and find themselves deprived of the highest blessings of life,
are beginning to remember their baptismal engagements, and to feel the
necessity of putting an end to revolution, and returning to the social
order established of God. The prodigal son, famished with hunger, makes an
energetic resolution: _Surgam et ibo ad patrem!_ Hesitation is no longer
possible. Weary of your modern theories, we will return to our Father’s
house—to Christ and his church!
The man who comprehended most thoroughly the Satanic nature of the
revolutionary spirit—Count Joseph de Maistre—had an intuitive assurance of
the calamities that would avenge the disregard of the laws of order, and
lead future generations back to the sacred principles of their ancestors.
The foresight and warnings of this eminent writer are well known.
Addressing the French, he says: “Undeceive yourselves, at length, as to
the lamentable theories that have disgraced our age. You have already
found out what the promulgators of these deplorable dogmas are, but the
impression they have left is not yet effaced. In all your plans of
creation and restoration you only leave out God, from whom they have
alienated you.... How has God punished this execrable delirium? He has
punished it as he created light—by a single word—_Fiat!_—and the political
world has crumbled to atoms.... If any one wishes to know the probable
result of the revolution, they need only examine the point whereon all its
factions are united. They all desire the degradation, yea, the utter
subversion, not only of the monarchy, but of Christianity; _whence it
follows_ that all their efforts must finally end in the triumph of
Christianity as well as the monarchy.”(240) In these few words the great
philosopher gives us a complete history of the era of revolution in the
past as well as the future. He declares it a widespread overturning of
order, necessarily followed by terrible misfortunes, till a counter‐stroke
turns the nations back to the way appointed by God.(241)
While M. de Maistre was regarding the progress of events from the heights
of his genius, he gave the most minute attention to the ravages of the
revolutionary spirit in every department. In the _Mélanges Inédits_, for
which we are indebted to Count Joseph’s grandson, and which appeared on
the very eve of our great disasters (1870), we find more than a hundred
pages devoted to reviewing the _benefits_ of the French Revolution. They
contain an inventory drawn up by the aid of the republican papers of the
time, in which the moral and material results of revolutionary barbarism
are attested by the avowal of the barbarians themselves. A certain
historian of the Revolution would have done well to examine this catalogue
before officially undertaking, in the presence of the National Assembly,
the awkward apology so generally known. And what if he had continued to
verify the benefits of the revolutionary syren, still beloved of certain
politicians, till the end of the year 1872? How glorious would be the
balance‐sheet of the “immortal principles” in the eighty‐fourth year of
their reign! Every Frenchman knows what it has cost to be the eldest son
of the Revolution!—As statistics are held in such high honor in our day,
why not draw up the accounts of ’89, and establish clearly the active and
passive of the revolutionary spirit now spreading throughout the world?
We lay before our readers some notes that may be of service in this vast
liquidation, taken from two valuable works that have been kindly brought
to our notice.(242) We do not feel at liberty to designate the eminent
person who wrote these _Notes_, which, if we are rightly informed, were
first published in the _Messager Russe_. All we feel permitted to state is
that we can place full confidence in the probity of this traveller. He
belongs to the diplomatic corps, but unfortunately is not of the Catholic
religion. We will let him testify for himself. It will at once be seen by
the frequent quotations we shall make that he is a man of superior mind,
decision and honesty of character, and of an upright and incorruptible
conscience.
“Eleven years ago, I witnessed the foundation of the kingdom of Italy. I
have just seen the work completed—the edifice crowned—Rome made the
capital.—My observations have been made in person, and are impartial, as I
had no preconceived opinions. My numerous quotations are taken in a great
measure from Italian sources, nay, even _the most Italian_. My position as
an independent observer, unbiassed by any feeling of responsibility,
enables me to judge events in a cooler manner than might be done by an
opponent of the various publicists that have treated of the successive
phases of the great Italian drama.”(243)
Here, then, is contemporaneous Italy studied by an observer of
incontestable impartiality—studied on the spot, and from authentic
sources. It is by no means uncommon to hear the correspondents of Catholic
journals accused of exaggeration. Certain newspapers under party
influence, like the _Journal des Débats_ and the _Indépendance Belge_, are
paid to divert public attention from facts that cannot be denied. We are
sure the Italo‐Parisian and the Italo‐Belgian press will not say a single
word about the _Etudes sur l’Italie contemporaine_.(244)
I.
How shall we characterize the Italian crisis as a whole? Is it merely one
of those accidental revolutions which history is full of, or is it a
genuine revolution with its systematic hatred of Christian society? Our
readers must not be astonished at such a question. I know some Catholics—a
little too liberal, it is true—who have not thereon, even in these times,
perfectly correct notions. We remember certain unfortunate expressions
respecting the governments of the _ancien régime_ which committed the
unpardonable fault of injuring Italian liberty, and even respecting that
venerable Christian administration that has been dragged through blood and
fire. Did not the honorable M. Dulaurier recently confess in an ingenuous
manner the illusions he was under before he set foot on Italian soil, and
how he believed in the possibility of a reconciliation between the Pope
and the excommunicated king? He says he heard on all sides a sentiment to
which he gave credence without much reflection: “Why interpose between the
two parties contending for Rome? Pius IX. and Victor Emmanuel are both
Italians: they will end by settling the difficulty, and we shall trouble
ourselves for nothing.” The reality, the sad reality, forces us to a
different opinion.
It was a beautiful illusion—once greatly dwelt upon in official papers—to
think Piedmont sincerely and uniquely preoccupied about the freedom of
Italy; to believe in the Subalpine posture of disinterested chivalry, and
in Napoleon III. going to war in a great cause merely for the glory of
being a liberator. Doubtless there was, for some time, a liberal party in
Italy dreaming at once of a confederacy and of national independence. But
Mazzinism and its ideas of unity prevailed, and it was manifest to those
whose eyes were not blinded that the Piedmontese government superseded
_Giovane Italia_ by taking advantage of the _naïveté_ of honest
liberals.(245) All sincere and upright minds must free themselves from so
illusive a deception. The mask has fallen off, so must the scales from
their eyes. The Italian movement is essentially revolutionary—or Satanic.
It is not one of those transformations so frequent in the political life
of a nation: it is a work of subversion, a war on the church, a religious
persecution, and “pure impurity,” to use Joseph de Maistre’s words.
It has been demonstrated quite recently in this magazine that the whole
tendency of the Italian Peninsula, and its providential destiny, are
opposed to unity; that the Revolution has done violence to nature and
religion, to the institutions and traditions of the past, and to the faith
and morals of the people weighed down by the yoke of unity; and that it
has lied to history, to the world, and to God. _Les Etudes sur l’Italie
contemporaine_ takes a similar view of the case:
“The unity of Italy was not a national necessity; ... the movement
was not spontaneous, but forced.... The Piedmontese government has
shown some shrewdness (unscrupulous shrewdness) in borrowing its
programme from Mazzini. The campaign of 1859 led the way to this
political intrigue. As to the nation, it imagined the promised
regeneration would produce a new era of happiness when the
foreigner was once got rid of. The masses have given in to the
ambition of the minority.
“In the transformation of Italy, we see action precede reflection;
we see what Frederick the Great said of Joseph II.—the second step
taken before the first.... It must be remembered that the
geography of Italy was one of the causes of its division, the
length being so disproportionate to its width, which prevented a
common centre, and led to separate developments and outlets....
Even if railways are now a means of greatly shortening distances,
the union of the remote parts ought to be the result of a natural
and progressive tendency—not revolutionary.
“The first idea of Rome as the capital sprang from the classics.
It was a rhetorical expression (according to Senator Stefano
Jacini).... If official Italy had need of Rome, Rome by no means
had need of Italy.... And what do they wish to do with Rome? The
unionists in favor of a monarchy wish to transform it into a
modern capital that it may become the centre of the general action
and influence which united Italy is ambitious of exercising in the
world. The Mazzinians, the socialist republicans, and the free‐
thinkers wish to make it the centre of the doctrines they are
desirous of substituting for Christianity. These new apostles are
not agreed among themselves, but they are all fighting in the
breach against the Catholic organization, and their real object is
the destruction of Christian principles.”(246)
To effect the unification of Italy, it was therefore necessary to conspire
against the natural inclinations of the inhabitants, against the rights of
local principalities, and against the real interests of the nation, to
conspire not only against the temporal, but the spiritual power of the
papacy. Where they do not find the normal conditions of assimilation, they
do not hesitate to resort to deeds worthy of brigands. Conspirators, alas!
have never been wanting in the country of Machiavelli. In the present age
they superabound. “It has been the misfortune of Italy—its robe of
Nessus—that for twelve years all who have succeeded to power, even the
best, have been conspirators.”(247) Yes; and foremost among them is the
_great_ and _good_ Cavour, whom a French diplomatist—an honest man,
however—has lately depicted, with an enthusiasm that has hardly died away,
as struggling to promote the greatness of his country.(248) We do not
dispute Cavour’s ability, or his perseverance in striving after a certain
end, or his subtleness and patience in the execution of his designs, or
his skill in availing himself of the very passions he pretended to yield
to. He succeeded—is it not a glorious title to fame?—in keeping Napoleon
III. in leading‐strings till a Prussian Cavour is found to continue the
_rôle_ and lead the emperor on to Sedan. But herein Cavour showed himself
crafty, deceitful, and—why should we not say it?—criminal. Has not M.
Guizot called a certain writer a “_malfaiteur de la pensée_?” Besides,
Cavour spoke of himself to his friends somewhat as we do. Our French
diplomatist, M. Henry d’Ideville, in a curious page of his _Notes
Intimes_, lets us into the secrets of the game and those who took part in
it.
“You see, my dear d’Ideville (it is Cavour who is speaking), your
emperor will never change. His fault is a disposition to be for
ever plotting.... With a country as powerful as yours, a large
army, and Europe at peace, what is he afraid of? Why is he for
ever disguising his intentions, going to the right when he means
to turn to the left, and _vice versa_? Ah! what a wonderful
conspirator he makes!”
M. d’Ideville is a man of wit. With all possible courtesy, he replied:
“But, M. le Comte, have you not been a daring conspirator also?”
“I? Certainly,” replied M. de Cavour. “I have conspired, and how
could I do otherwise at such a time?... We had to keep Austria in
the dark, whereas, your emperor, you may be sure, will remain for
ever incorrigible. I have known him a long time! To plot, for ever
plot, is the characteristic of his nature. It is the occupation he
prefers, and he pursues it like an artist—like a _dilettante_. In
this _rôle_ he will always be the foremost and most capable of us
all.”(249)
US ALL! Yes, there it is ably expressed in a word: all conspirators and
accomplices, not to speak of the dupes. On the 24th of March, 1860, M. de
Cavour, after signing the treaty that ceded Nice and Savoy to France,
approached M. de Talleyrand, and, rubbing his hands, whispered in his ear:
“We are accomplices now, baron, are we not?”(250) Alas! wrongfully
acquired, and never any benefit, we now see why we have lost Alsace and
Lorraine!
The entire route from Turin to Rome is marked by the deeds of these
conspirators, by their tricks and intrigues, and by their crimes and
double‐dealings, which have resulted in the profit of Piedmont and
Prussia, and the disgrace of our poor France. M. d’Ideville’s conscience
evidently reproached him at last for having liked Cavour so well, and for
imprudently interesting himself in the Italian scheme. The other
diplomatist, who has anonymously given his _Etudes sur l’Italie_ to the
public, seems never to have had the least sympathy with the iniquitous and
sacrilegious ambition of the Sardinian government. It is true he does not
belong to the French diplomacy infatuated with the ideas of ’89!(251) He
finds nothing seductive in the policy of the conspirators. The fiction
disguised under the attractive title of national rights, the age of
annexations, the trick of the plebiscites, the system of moral agency, the
so‐called exigencies of civilization and progress, and the revolutionary
messianism which constitutes the foundation of the Napoleonic ideas, have
no attraction for him. His style is tolerably forcible when he speaks of
all these stratagems: “Such tactics are nothing new. They have always been
resorted to in order to palliate schemes of ambition and hypocrisy.”(252)
II.
A government given to conspiracy condemns the nation that supports it, as
well as itself, to degradation—to moral and material ruin. If for a while
it flatters itself with the hope of systematizing the revolution and
directing its energies, it soon becomes its slave and finally its victim.
When the hand is caught in machinery, the whole body is soon drawn after
it, the head as well as the rest.
Our diplomatic traveller states some aphorisms in connection with this
subject that are full of significance, and reveal the genuine statesman.
“A government that owes its existence to a revolution is not
viable in the long run unless it has the power and wisdom to
sunder all the ties that connect it with the party to which it
owes its origin.
“Every government that has a similar origin to the Napoleonic
Empire, and, still more, one which owes its existence thereto,
will find itself in danger when traditionary principles once more
assert themselves for the safety of society.
“Governments of a revolutionary origin have been known to become
conservative and renounce their former principles of action. The
Italian government may likewise wish to do this, but it cannot.
“All who have risen to power in Italy have had some connection
with the revolutionary party, and are obliged to favor it. In
particular instances, they have sometimes manifested a certain
firmness towards its factions, but in essentials they have yielded
to the inevitable pressure.
“Revolution leads to disorder, and, when it triumphs, the destiny
of the country is thrown into the hands of its adherents.
Political bias must take the place of capacity and often of honor
itself.”(253)
One of the first material disasters produced by a triumphant conspiracy is
the squandering of the finances. There is an immediate necessity of
enriching itself, repairing all deficiencies, paying traitors, buying
consciences and votes, keeping a secret reserve of ready money to reward
the zeal of journalists, and stimulate or lull the passions according to
the exigencies of the moment. The wretched state of the budgets in United
Italy will become as proverbial as the _marchés_ of the 4th of September
in France. With all the domains Piedmont has received from the annexed
states, it ought to be rich—rich enough to pay the debt its accomplice,
the Empire, has bequeathed to us. The finances of the different states,
especially of Rome, were in perfect order, and, with the exception of the
kingdom of Sardinia, the receipts surpassed the expenses. Now the credit
of Italy is destroyed, and nothing is heard of but duties and taxes, such
as were unknown throughout the Peninsula in 1859, more particularly at
Rome. Figures are eloquent—we must refer to them:
“Previous to 1860, there were seven states in Italy, each with its
court, ministers, administration, and diplomatic corps. All these
governments expended about five hundred millions of francs a year,
and the imposts amounted to nearly the same sum. These seven
states had a debt of about two milliards and a half. At the
present time, without reckoning the interest on the floating debt
to the National Bank, Italy annually pays about three hundred
millions of interest, corresponding to a debt of seven milliards,
and all this notwithstanding the sale of domanial property
amounting to six hundred and fifty millions, notwithstanding the
alienation of the railways of the state and the manufacture of
tobacco, and notwithstanding the seizure of ecclesiastical
property, all of which have amounted _in nine years_ to nine
milliards three hundred and sixteen millions of francs received at
the state treasury. Nevertheless, the public debt amounts to the
aforesaid sum of seven milliards. And yet the army is badly
maintained, the navy poorly organized, and the administration in a
state of chaos and unparalleled demoralization.”(254)
And here is M. Quintino Sella, who has just made known the projected
budget for 1873; he acknowledges a deficit of sixty millions, as had been
anticipated, while the ordinary receipts amount to eight hundred and five
millions. If the kingdom of Italy were administered as economically as in
the time of the seven sovereigns, a budget of eight hundred and five
millions would leave a surplus of three hundred millions. And yet one of
the pretexts of unification was that it would save the expense of so many
courts, which bore hard on the people! Poor people! they know now what to
think of cheap governments, and will soon see that the ministration of the
imposts is leading to bankruptcy, in spite of the fresh confiscations and
appropriation of conventual property about to be made at Rome.(255)
And it must be remembered that, in spite of these great budgets, the army
is badly maintained and the navy poorly organized. Custozza and Lissa had
previously convinced us of this. Austria was well aware of it, and even
the France of M. Thiers suspects that, in spite of the valor of the old
Piedmontese soldiery, and the discipline of the Neapolitan army; in spite
of the aptitude of the Genoese and Venetian sailors, the military forces
of Italy are a mere illusion, particularly on account of the inefficiency
of the leaders of the army and navy. Since the time of M. de Cavour, whose
ability is by no means beyond doubt, there have been only second‐rate men
beyond the Alps—not a statesman, not an orator, not a minister, not a
financier, not a genuine soldier—everywhere and in everything there is the
same disgraceful deficiency. _Facundum sed male forte genus._
“I knew well the men of 1848, some of whom are still remaining,
but they must have degenerated through ambition and the necessity
of sustaining their position, for even in the revolutionary ranks
there was more elevation in 1848 than at the present time.
“Previous to 1860, the armies of the different states, including,
of course, the Piedmontese army, constituted a more powerful and
better organized force than is now under arms. ‘Our army,’ says
General La Marmora, ‘has the traditional reputation of being
disciplined, but it is demoralized by a want of stability in its
organization, and a lack of moral influences.’ La Marmora opposes
among other things the exclusion of chaplains and of the religious
element among the troops.
“The Sardinian and Neapolitan navies greatly surpassed the
Italian. The men were better drilled, and the shipping in better
order. Such is the opinion recently expressed by the English naval
officers in port at Naples who were at the exposition of the
present year.”(256)
And yet the military forces are the only remaining bulwark of order in
Italy—I mean material order, for moral order no longer exists anywhere.
The so‐called conservative party, that is to say, the moderate
revolutionists, rely on the army. But the ultra revolutionary element is
also to be found there, and some day the advanced party will, for its own
designs, entice away the officers that followed the hero of Caprera in his
campaigns. It will not be sufficient to name Cialdini, Cadorna, or even La
Marmora, to counteract the fatal consequences of Castelfidardo and the
Porta Pia. By excluding religious influences from the army, and giving it
a false idea of patriotism, the source of courage and energy is dried up.
After all, revolution will never be friendly to the army, and the genuine
soldier will always execrate revolution, whether instigated by princes,
citizens, or the mob. A soldier who entered Rome through the breach,
lately wrote to the _Libertà_: “The day the King of Italy is satisfied
with mere volunteers, as the Pope was, we shall see whether it is the Pope
or the king that is loved and esteemed the most by the Italian people.”
In opposing the system of territorial divisions on account of the army,
which he considers unsuited to the Peninsula, General La Marmora’s opinion
is founded on a proof that has the misfortune to prove too much. “If there
were small territorial armies,” says he, “in addition to separate
administrations in the various regions of Italy, the unity for which we
have done so much, and Providence still more than we, would incur great
danger.”(257) Why not boldly declare, general, that there are two
Italys—the _Reale_ and the _Legale_, one of which has a tendency to revolt
against the other? And, above all, why utter a blasphemy against the
sovereign providence of God?(258) _Italia legale_ labors in vain; the
revolutionary impulse given to it by Cavour is an accelerated movement; it
will never reascend the declivity that leads _al fondo_. It will always
have against it not only the betrayed interests and the revolted
conscience of _Italia reale_, but, above all, Divine Providence, who will
one day show that the favors and proofs of protection accorded to the
“regenerators” were merely for them, as for Napoleon III., the snares of
avenging justice. _In insidiis suis capientur iniqui._
“As to greatness and political importance, admitting even the
possibility of indefatigable and intelligent effort, Italy will
never equal the glorious traditions of its past history. Italian
glory is the glory of the different states of the Peninsula.... To
acquire fresh glory, there must be, besides unity, a strength of
organization it does not possess, and cannot, because it is a
mirage and not a reality.
“The North invades the South: this cannot be called community of
interests. It is an attempt at absorption on the part of the
North, and at the expense of the South.
“Once at Rome, the programme was to have ended. A new life was to
commence; fresh energy was to be the signal of an era of grandeur
and prosperity; interiorly, there was to be a more perfect
administration; exteriorly, a prudent _national_ policy, that is
to say, the Napoleonic idea of the Latin races that Italy was to
revive. Rome was to be the great centre of liberal influences....
All this had been announced and promised. As for me, I see no
choice between a blind alley and a _politique d’aventure_.
“It seems to me the union, at a critical moment, should find
protection in the wishes of the inhabitants. I can testify that if
the former sovereigns of Naples, Florence, Parma, and Modena could
return, the day would be hailed by a majority of the inhabitants
as one of deliverance. In Lombardy it is different, I acknowledge.
The _noblesse_ say, as I myself heard a personage of great note:
We are badly governed, but at least it is no longer by foreigners.
The middle classes are republicans, and in the country the
Austrian rule is regretted. The people of Venice either aspire to
a republic or regret the unfortunate Archduke Maximilian, whom
they would have liked as an independent sovereign. In the old
pontifical provinces called the Legations, they would not care to
return to the former condition of things as they were, but some
would be satisfied with the Pope and a local autonomy; the
remainder form a sufficiently numerous republican party.”
“In a word, THERE IS EVERYWHERE DISSATISFACTION AS WELL AS
DISAPPOINTMENT, AFTER TWELVE YEARS OF EXPERIENCE.”(259)
It is not astonishing, therefore, that at an audience on the 18th of last
Nov., the Grand Duke Nicholas, nephew of the Emperor of Russia, said to
Pius IX., with all a young man’s frankness: “Most holy Father, since I
have been in Italy, everywhere I go, I hear nothing but evil of King
Victor Emmanuel and his government.”(260)
We need only open our eyes to see the interior condition of united Italy
as soon as there was any question, no longer of conspiring and declaiming,
but of organizing and governing. And its exterior political relations
compare quite as unfavorably with the programme of emancipation. By a kind
of divine irony, Italy has become a mere humble vassal of Germany—of the
Holy Protestant Empire of Berlin—and the future King of Rome was only
acting his part when he proclaimed himself the King of Prussia’s
hussar.(261) It is well known at the Quirinal that, though influenced for
the moment by the dominant party, the authorities may some day return,
even through interest, to traditional principles and the old political
code which does not recognize the revolutionary schemes of nations or
parties. Besides, the Italian princes, who represent the law, are still
living. Francis II. may be found to be a genuine Neapolitan, Ferdinand IV.
a very good Tuscan, Robert I. an excellent Parmesan, and Francis V. the
best of Modenais. And, lastly, is not Pius IX. more of an Italian than the
Savoyard who styles himself the King of Italy?... And if the French, whose
connivance can no longer be expected, even under M. Thiers, should favor
the restoration of the throne to a prince, “_qui a la justice dans le sang
et dans l’âme_,” and would at need have it in his hand, the Italian
framework, which merely stands through toleration, would be threatened
with sudden and ignominious ruin. It is all this that recently induced the
_prince‐héritier_ to mount like a Hungarian foot‐soldier behind the
triumphal chariot of the German Cæsar.
Another evil: the Prussians are not the most scrupulous people in the
world about other people’s property, and their investigations in the
Peninsula have excited suspicions as to the object of their cupidity. Let
M. de Bismarck, more audacious and grasping than the late M. de Cavour,
once succeed in driving the Hapsburgs from Germany, will it not occur to
him to take advantage of the title of the Lombardo‐Venetian kingdom for
the benefit of the Cæsar of Berlin? For it is skilfully demonstrated in
Germany that the Germanic race has the power, and, therefore, the right,
to a powerful navy, and, for the benefit of this navy, an outlet on the
Adriatic. And there is no other possible ally but Prussia to protect what
calls itself the kingdom of Italy!
“Alliances are beneficial when the parties unite their influence
for a common end. (Allies, in our day, no longer seek to know each
other’s principles or origin.) But when they are not formed _inter
pares_, or nearly so, and especially when they are intended to
guarantee the very existence—the vital principle—of the weaker
ally, then the alliance loses its true character, and soon ends in
subjection on the ground of politics or economy, and sometimes
both.”(262)
Such are the glories of Italy _free from the Alps to the Adriatic_! If, in
spite of her presumptuous _farà da se_, she was obliged to have recourse
to a foreign hand in order to rise, and still needs a foreign arm to stand
erect, she will, according to appearances, have need of no one to aid her
in falling: she will topple over of herself. The so‐called free country is
only an enslaved kingdom—a vassal, a satellite without strength and
without prestige.
III.
Of all the Italian formulas that have served to mislead the liberal mind,
there is not one more odiously false and deceptive than the too famous
expression, _A free church in a free country_. History has already
interpreted it, A persecuted church in an enslaved country. The
revolutionary factions that have assumed the authority have imposed
thereon the complete execution of their plan, and we know that the Masonic
lodges, though they denounce Mazzinian deism, have fallen into the atheism
of Renan, _al fondo_!
The sacrilegious frenzy of the Revolution, and the madness of those that
encouraged it, have been stigmatized in forcible terms by the august
prisoner of the Vatican:
“Unbelief assumes an air of authority, and proudly stalks
throughout the length and breadth of the earth, doubtless
imagining it is to triumph for ever.... Woe to those who are
linked with the impious, and dally with the Revolution under the
pretence of directing it! Sooner or later they will be drawn into
the abyss. The recent disasters at Naples may be adduced as an
example. A great number of curious people, heedless and devoid of
all prudence, hastened to get a nearer view of the devouring
flames issuing from the fearful mouth of Vesuvius, and many of
them became victims of mistaken curiosity. So it is with those who
covenant with the Revolution and the revolutionists, hoping to
overrule the former and keep down the latter. Rash people! they
will all become a prey to the flames that surround them on every
side.”(263)
The revolutionary lava floods the streets of Rome and covers the whole
Peninsula. It began in the cities, spread into the country, and will end
by swallowing up the army. The universities and common schools are
invaded, the torrent engulfs the workshops and stalls, and undermines the
walls of palaces. Princes even have opened their gates at its approach. In
vain the Holy Father sounds the cry of alarm; in vain his prime minister
publicly denounces the progress of the deadly current—party spirit seems
to have paralyzed all in authority.
We will not describe the exploits of this new Islamism against the papal
power. The history of its ambuscades and pillages is sufficiently well
known. There never was a richer treasure of dishonor for revolution to
endow a people with. “The title of liberators was all the same retained.”
Yes, all the same!
Joseph de Maistre somewhere refers to an English functionary as saying
that every man who spoke of taking an inch of land from the Pope ought to
be hung. “As for me,” adds the witty writer, “I cheerfully consent, in
order to avoid carnage, that _hung_ should be changed to _hissed_.”(264)
Let us wait. An avenging God will do both: _subsannabit_, _conquassabit_.
Had the plots of the unionists merely aimed at the temporal power, perhaps
divine justice would have been satisfied with a hiss at the hour of some
Italian Sedan, but the gibbet—it is a law of history—is reserved for
persecutors and apostates.
When the Sardinian government knocked at one of the gates of Rome, as it
awaited a propitious moment for battering it down, it bound itself before
all Europe to solve the problem of the separation of church and state
which had puzzled all the doctors of liberalism, and of which it pretended
to have found the key. It was said the Roman question and the Italian
question were to cease to be antagonistic, or, at least, they were to
resemble those rivers that, while mingling their waters, preserve their
own colors, as we see in the Rhône and the Saône. It was promised a
channel should be made wide enough for this double current of opinions.
Hence the origin of the famous law of the Guarantees. This scheme of
conciliation is properly appreciated in the _Etudes sur l’Italie
Contemporaine_:
“How many times I have heard it said that the Papacy and the
Italian government, even though they never came to an agreement,
might at least be like two parallel lines indefinitely and
pacifically prolonged! This is a mistake arising from a judgment
founded on impressions—and when I say impressions, I mean
appearances.
“From the beginning, this law of Guarantees was a one‐sided and
fruitless attempt.... The government and the Chambers never had
any doubt as to the refusal of the Pope. This law was like an
olive branch presented at the point of the sword as a suitable
corrective to palliate the violent occupation of Rome.... I do not
think a single statesman could really have believed in the success
of this law, otherwise than as the decree of the conqueror.
“Besides the moral, juridical, and historic reasons to hinder an
understanding between the Pope and a sovereign master of Rome,
there was also the impossibility of coexisting with a power that
rests on an unstable foundation.
“Even from the point of view of modern but not subversive ideas, A
SEPARATION MORE IMPORTANT THAN THAT OF STATE AND CHURCH IS THE
SEPARATION OF STATE AND REVOLUTION.”(265)
These are golden words. But our diplomatic traveller is forced to
acknowledge that the Italian government cannot break its iniquitous bonds,
that it lacks honesty and force, and that all the factions seek their own
good first and then the evil of others. Our author, though, unfortunately,
too indifferent a spectator to Italian persecution, at least has the
advantage of being an unexceptionable witness.
“Practically, it is not the state, it is society, that modern
Italy separates from the church.... One of the greatest mistakes
the unionists have made since the beginning of the Revolution has
been the war declared against the clergy and the church. It is at
once a political and historical error, and the greater for being
committed at Rome.
“Tolerance (practised from time to time according to orders) has
its reaction, and of the deepest die, in a recrudescence of
insults, sequestrations and confiscations imposed on the ministers
of the sanctuary and even the sanctuaries themselves.
“Anti‐Christianity has established itself with a bold front at
Rome—with its schools of free‐thinkers, speeches in which atheism
is proclaimed without the least reticence, burial without any
religious ceremony, and irreligious books sold at low prices.
“In everything relating to teaching, the choice generally falls on
the unbeliever.
“Materialism is taught _ex cathedra_ in all the universities.
“They have not yet touched on the most vital question—the
suppression of the convents (at Rome) and the incameration of the
property of the clergy. But they will come to that, and
speedily.... The attempt at what is called a conciliation must
sooner or later end in an outbreak.”(266)
They did come to it—to that shameful encroachment of the government on the
religious corporations. The party demanded it, M. de Bismarck advised it,
and the diplomatic corps tolerated it. What will not diplomacy tolerate?
It was, however, clearly demonstrated to the representatives of different
governments the urgent necessity there was of taking under their united
protection the independence of the Sovereign Pontiff so poorly guaranteed
by the usurper, of declaring the inviolability of church property, the
possession of which—and it is a wholly legitimate one—is a _sine qua non_
condition of pontifical independence, without considering that most of
these establishments have a double claim as to their origin and
destination, to be regarded as international property.(267) Nothing was
done. The tolerance of official Europe towards the Piedmontese
filibustering has been unlimited, though unrestricted usurpation has been
followed by open persecution. Pius IX. had good reason to severely allude
to “the so‐called governments” that find amusement in the Revolution.
Europe seems to have sent its diplomatists to the court of the usurper in
the capital of the Christian world, that they might close their eyes to
all the schemes of Freemasonry, and the numberless vexations and
spoliations, that they might play the _rôle_ of stage‐dancers in the
sacrilegious comedy! Such base complacency justifies the expression of a
Catholic writer: “Europe is in a state of mortal sin!”
I am almost ashamed to be obliged to refer to the authority of a
diplomatist who belongs neither to our nation nor our religion. I wish I
could quote some official report of a minister from France! Might not M.
Fournier have employed his time better than in figuring at banquets
offered to a renegade, and in listening to heretical and atrocious
speeches from the professors of the Romano‐Piedmontese university? I will
console myself in transcribing a page from M. Dulaurier, the honorable
member of the Institute, likewise an ocular witness, and a witness worthy
of credit, even from a subscriber to the _Débats_:
“These grievances and many others are aggravated by the excesses to which
the press—the illustrated press, above all—has given itself up, and by the
incessant war it wages against religion. Ignoble caricatures are daily
exposed for sale in the sight of the police, and to their knowledge, in
all the Kiosques and newspaper shops, and on the walls, or are hawked
around by miserable creatures in rags. The _Don Pirloncino_, a humorous
paper, obsequious to the government, diffuses three times a week its
abominations on the most august mysteries of the Christian faith and the
ministers who dispense them. The cross itself—the cross before which
Christians of all communions bow with respect—not only Catholics, but
schismatics, Greeks, and Orientals, and even Protestants—is not safe from
its insults. My heart swells with horror when I recall one of these
pictures—a caricature of the Crucifixion. In the place of the God‐Man is
Dr. Lanza, Minister of the Interior. The words put in his mouth, and on
the lips of his murderers, are untranslatable. Under his feet, at the
lower extremity of the tree of the cross, is fastened transversely an
instrument that I dare not designate otherwise than by saying it is made a
burlesque use of at the end of the first act of _M. de Pourceaugnac_. Our
French revolutionists, in their senseless fury, have broken the cross in
pieces, but it never occurred to them to defile it in such a manner. So
revolting an idea could only spring from imaginations the country of
Aretino alone is capable of producing.
“In the presence of these abominations echoed by the political press
devoted to the advancement of free‐thinking, the Sovereign Pontiff, the
clergy, and the Roman people who are fundamentally religious, can only
veil their faces, resign themselves, and have recourse to prayer. And
prayer rises unceasingly to heaven in expiation of so many horrors. It is
the only consolation left to all these afflicted souls. There is a
constant succession of triduos, announced by blank notices, headed _Invito
sacro_, and signed by Mgr. Patrizi, the Cardinal Vicar. One of these
notices, which I saw affixed to the columns at the entrance to his
eminence’s palace near the Church of Sant’ Agostino, gives an idea, in the
very first line, of the indignation that is fermenting in every Catholic
breast: ‘The earth is full of the most horrible blasphemies. _La terra è
piena della più orrende bestemmie._’ ”
IV.
We will not deny one benefit—and this time a real one!—that has sprung
from the Italian Revolution: it has served to revive the fidelity and
fervor of all true Italians. It can be rightly said of it, as M. Guizot
says of the Reformation of the sixteenth century, It has awakened, even
among its adversaries [we must correct this Protestant writer’s mistake—he
should have said among its adversaries alone], religious faith and civil
courage. Some natures that were formerly nonchalantes, timid, and
delicate, are no longer satisfied with groaning over the evil, but take a
bold stand against the inroads of impiety. Italy, somewhat inclined to the
_far niente_, might of itself have yielded; sustained by the hand of a
great Pope, she is roused to withstand the unloosed tempest. She no longer
falters before the responsibility of a religious manifestation or an anti‐
revolutionary vote. No longer afraid of the threats of the poniard, or of
conciliating, through culpable prudence, her temporary masters, she at
last ventures to show herself openly, as she really is—the cherished and
faithful daughter of the Church of Rome. Roused by provocations and
blasphemies, her filial piety towards the Papacy has become more lively
and aggressive. She protests solemnly against the schemes of the
adventurers who have trampled under foot their faith, honesty, morality,
and honor. At the sight of these sublime outbursts of a spirit at once
Catholic and Roman, the church is consoled, and observant Christendom
begins to hope the reaction will be the more salutary from the extreme
violence of the crisis.
One of our co‐laborers has expressed all this much better than we can:
“If there is a country we have reason to conceive such consoling
hopes of, assuredly it is Italy, in spite of all the scandals and
all the infamy that now degrade it. All who have had a favorable
opportunity of observing the moral condition of the country agree
in declaring the greater part of the inhabitants faithful to their
belief. It is merely the froth and pestilential impurities that
are seething on the surface. Some day it will doubtless be with
this impure froth as with the stagnant waters for which Pius IX.
some years ago made an opening to the sea, giving fresh fecundity
to the old Italian soil. Purified by trials, as by a new baptism,
this nation, in many respects so highly gifted, will once more
have acquired a beneficial discipline of mind and character, the
advantages of a robust and manly training, the practice of
energetic individual action, and especially of great combined
efforts which she is beginning to give us the consoling spectacle
of in the recently formed Catholic associations.”(268)
In France we think lightly, or rather we have an incorrect idea, of what
our brethren in Italy are effecting. The very people among us who only
talk of harmony and compromise reproach the Catholics of the Peninsula for
being inactive and inefficient. They even make them partly responsible for
the national misfortunes and the decay of moral principle beyond the Alps.
We protest against such superficial judgments. We know Italy too well not
to have a right to speak in favor of those who are so unjustly accused.
Catholics in Italy decline public offices, _ne eletti, ne elettori_; and
they do well, because the Sardinian government imposes an oath after the
style of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth. Tell us if it is proper for a Catholic
to take a seat in a parliament established at Rome between the Vatican
where the Pope is imprisoned, and the Quirinal where the Piedmontese has
established himself by the aid of a false key. Does the military career
offer much attraction when he might be ordered to assassinate the
pontifical zouaves, open a breach in the walls of Rome, bombard Ancona or
even the quarter of the Vatican? He might without any great difficulty
present himself at the municipal and provincial ballot‐boxes. The faithful
Neapolitans, at the invitation of their archbishop, formed a majority
there, and this is not an isolated case. But do you, who are the safety of
France, set the example of hastening to the polls?—No; good Christians in
Italy are far from being inert, nor do the clergy inculcate inertness.
Abstaining is quite a different thing from inaction. Is the public aware
that the Catholic press is one of the glories of the Peninsula? There are
a hundred journals and reviews on the other side of the Alps consecrated
to the service of the truth, and some of these publications are of
unequalled merit. It is sufficient to name the _Civiltà Cattolica_, the
_Unità Cattolica_, and the _Voce della Verità_. We confess our admiration
for the courageous journalists who keep their own course in spite of
arrests, law‐suits, fines, imprisonment, and threats of _coltellate_. And
the tone of these papers, with some insignificant exceptions, is healthier
than with us, the union of sentiment stronger, and their adhesion to the
apostolic constitutions more sincere and open. Associations have spread
from one end of the Peninsula to the other, and everywhere produce the
most beneficial results. I need only mention the Society of Catholic Youth
at Bologna, celebrated on account of the generous filial stand it has
taken from the first in favor of Pius IX., and the Roman Society for the
promotion of Catholic interests, which, by its branches and parish
committees, exercises so prodigious an influence over the city of Rome as
to excite the anxiety of those in authority.
But let us once more listen to our unexceptionable witness, whom I think
every one will feel indebted to us for quoting so much at length:
_testimonium animæ naturaliter Christianæ_.
“The religious reaction is more and more decided, even in the
middle and lower classes, owing to the zealous associations that
have assumed the direction. This movement is worthy of study....
At Rome, and throughout Italy, this reaction has given rise to
societies composed for the most part of men still young, whose
object is to oppose all pernicious doctrines. These societies are
to be found at Rome, Florence, Venice, Milan, Naples, Turin,
Verona, Genoa, Lucca, Padua, Pisa, and Bologna.
“In January, 1871, the following statement was made in the
_Riforma_, the organ of Rattazzi: ‘The clerical party is being
more and more reinforced at Rome; the clerical press every day
acquires more strength, its organs increase in number and
boldness.’... The clerical press is really well sustained, and, in
spite of the persecutions and ill‐treatment of all kinds the
editors of these journals have to undergo, they do not cease their
energetic efforts.