“The administering of the oath has caused wholesale resignations

in all the _dicastères_ (at Rome). Many of these functionaries are

left without any means of subsistence.... As early as the year

1871, there were more than four thousand resignations.

“Thousands of Romans go to the Vatican to give their plebiscites,

and to the basilica of St. Peter to offer solemn prayers for

hastening THE DAY OF DELIVERANCE.”(269)

The day of deliverance will arrive, and, in spite of the sneers about our

wailing over disappointed hopes, it will come soon! But how will this

deliverance be effected? United Italy has against it the upper and nether

fires—the Catholic reaction that will never stoop to parley, and the

exertions of the demagogues, which are continually increasing. At present

the nether fires seem like the prelude of the Internationale.

The intermediate party, which would like to consolidate _le fait

accompli_, and which recruits adepts from the very opposers of the _mezzi

morali_, is not sufficiently free from all alloy of party spirit to

constitute a government capable of resistance and of exacting respect from

the league of destruction.

Unhappy but beloved Italy! Great and holy city of Rome! shall we have the

sorrow of seeing the enemy _flamber_ your palaces, your museums, your

churches?

Not long since we were asked at Florence to read the prophecy of Joel, so

applicable to the future of Italy: “Hear this, ... tell ye of this to your

children, and let your children tell their children, and their children to

another generation. That which the palmer worm hath left, the locust hath

eaten; and that which the locust hath left, the bruchus hath eaten; and

that which the bruchus hath left, the mildew hath destroyed. Awake, ye

that are drunk, and weep, and mourn, all ye that take delight in drinking

sweet wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.”—Joel. i. 2‐5.

It is true too large a part of the Italian nation have grown giddy from

the intoxicating draught of liberalism, and it is to be feared they may be

condemned to drink the bitter cup of expiation to the dregs. The

international “locusts” will devour that which the Sub‐Alpine “palmerworm”

hath left. To‐day, the taxes of Sella; to‐morrow, the communism of

Castellani: yesterday, a political revolution; to‐morrow, a radical

revolution: yesterday and to‐day, the hypocrisy of the tribune; to‐morrow,

the bloody scenes of the national Comitia. After the physicians and

lawyers, after the members of the Consorteria and the friends of Rattazzi,

the lowest grade of society—the “bruchus” and the “mildew”—like a

barbarous horde, will overturn, and destroy, and deluge with petroleum.

Italy, more than France or Spain, has abused the divine gift. She has “the

light of Rome and the sun,” but has been ungrateful, proud, impious,

shameless, and reckless. The whole land is now a mere haunt for banditti,

traitors, and buffoons.

Alas! it is so: but Pius IX. still prays for his beloved Italy! Following

the example of its lawful ruler, the nation—at least, the better portion

of the nation—have multiplied their holy prayers, which daily grow more

frequent from the delay of the benefit and the example of France. It has a

clearer sense of equity and justice; it already feels disposed to renew

its former covenant with God, return to the path of order, and take up its

national traditions of glory. It is awakening from its dreams of moral and

social primacy. It will be satisfied with, and glory in, being the _patrie

environnante_ of the Vicar of Christ. Would that France, once more

regenerated, might speedily aid her in breaking loose from the tyranny of

lodges, and shaking off the Prussian suzerainty!

In 1860, the unhappy King of Sardinia said to M. de la Tour d’Auvergne,

the French minister at Turin: “I do not wish you to leave me under false

impressions. I feel sure you regard me as impious—as an infidel, as people

persist in saying. You are wrong.—If I number kings among my ancestry,

there are likewise saints. Here, look around.—Well, do you think that in

yonder world all these sainted relatives of mine have any other occupation

than to pray for me?”(270)

Our Saviour prayed for those who knew not what they did! _Pater dimitte

illis._ May all the saints in heaven and on earth pray for poor Italy! It

has need of it.

Sonnet.

FROM THE ITALIAN OF GIOVANNI BATTISTA ZAPPI, UPON THE MOSES OF MICHAEL

ANGELO IN THE CHURCH OF SAN PIETRO IN VINCOLI, AT ROME.

Whose form there, sculptured in such mass of stone,

Sits like a giant, carrying art so far

Beyond all works most beautiful and known?

On those quick lips life’s very accents are!

That man is Moses: on the awful front

The double ray,(271) the glory of his beard,

Reveal as much: ’tis Moses from the Mount

When much of Deity in his face appeared!

So looked he once when he the vasty fount

Of sounding waters with his one word stayed.

Such was his aspect when the sea obeyed

And swallowed Egypt. O ye tribes that bent

Before the calf! had you an image made

Like this to worship, less were to repent.

Recollections Of Père Hermann.

France has a strange, magnetic power of attracting to herself, and

absorbing into her mould, all the great talent of the world. How many men

there are in Paris, who, from the ends of the earth, come together to lose

their nationality in her appreciative bosom, and to gain there instead a

reflected light of popularity ensured by her endorsement alone! All

countries have adopted citizens, it is true, some by social, some by

artistic, some by political adoption, but no country has a larger share of

adopted intellect than France.

To all intents and purposes, the famous artist‐convert and artist‐monk,

Père Hermann, was a Frenchman, though he was born a German Jew, in the

free city of Hamburg. His biographers have told us all the striking

incidents of his life; they have dwelt on his intoxicating success during

youth, his mad extravagance of opinion, of expenditure, and of depravity,

and, lastly, on his almost miraculous conversion and religious vocation.

His death, which was a fitting crown to his life, and can be dignified by

no lesser title than martyrdom, has endeared his memory still more to all

those who knew him personally and had many secret reasons to admire his

sanctity and feel grateful for his spiritual direction. His was a figure

not easily forgotten, and perhaps a few touches of personal reminiscences

will not be unacceptable to our readers, since all that links us to the

saints, and brings the shadow of their sanctity nearer to our littleness,

can hardly fail to be of interest.

The first time we were brought in contact with him was in the summer of

1862, when he came by special invitation to spend a few days with us in

the country. The house itself had a monastic appearance and origin. It had

been, so said tradition, a rural dependency, half farm, half infirmary, of

a great Franciscan convent. It had been restored in 1849 and 1850, or

thereabouts, and thanks to the good taste of the owner and the talent of

the architects employed, had developed into a gem of Elizabethan Gothic

and of domestic comfort. The little market‐town adjoining, once a centre

of wealthy wool‐merchants and a great mediæval mart, contained several

XIVth century buildings in a state of entire preservation, besides the

later pile of the almshouses (XVIIth century), which, both as a building

and an institution, was the pride of the surrounding country. Twelve old

and destitute people, six men and six women, invariably widows or

widowers, are generously supported on the fund left in perpetuity for this

purpose by Joanna, Lady C——, wife of the great loyalist Baptist, Viscount

C——, who burnt down his manor‐house (opposite the almshouses), rather than

let it fall, with its treasures of plate and furniture, into the hands of

Cromwell’s Roundheads.

It was the yearly custom to feast these good people at the manor, the

restored Franciscan dependency, and thither they were conveyed one day

during the summer in question, in a large covered cart provided with seats

like a French _char‐à‐banc_. Père Hermann had been in the house since the

previous evening, and had stipulated with his cordial host and hostess

that he should wear his Carmelite habit while within the limits of the

private grounds. The sight of this alone had in it something homely; it

was a rest to the eye to see the cowled figure pacing the terrace in the

early morning, Breviary in hand, and to lapse into beautiful day‐dreams of

what might have been had England kept true to the faith. The Carmelite was

delighted at the prospect of seeing this annual feast given to the

almshouse people, and no sooner had they all assembled round the ample

board spread for them on a shady part of the terrace at the back of the

house, than he made his way towards them, and, saluting them, showed how

much he sympathized in their enjoyment. His English was, of course, very

imperfect; indeed, he never grew to any proficiency in speaking that

language, but his interest in the scene was none the less vividly

expressed. The old people still wear the costume appointed by the

foundress of the institution: for the men, gaiters and a long coat of

rough black cloth, with a silver badge or medal; for the women, a narrow,

old‐fashioned dress of the same material, and a similar badge. These

badges, we believe, have never been renewed since the original endowment,

and are handed down from one bedesman to his successor, and so on; the

clothes are renewed every two years. If we mistake not, Père Hermann said

grace for these poor people, who, though all Protestants, seemed not at

all shocked at the “popish” apparition. Indeed, he gained the hearts of

all who ever saw him, his gentleness and recollection inspiring a respect

for his person which was little short of veneration. He seemed as though

he were walking with angels and listening to heavenly converse even while

charitably lending his time and his bodily presence to earth. When he had

enjoyed, with the simplicity of a child, the sight of the innocent sports

and merriment of the old people, he left us for the chapel, where he spent

a great part of his time. We cannot help adverting to a little occurrence

which took place at one of these almshouse feasts (we believe this very

one), and which was certainly very pathetic. A monk might well take

pleasure in such unaffected simplicity and gentleness among those whose

ancestors had been so intimately linked of old with monastic patrons. One

of the old women, speaking to one of her host’s daughters of her little

grandchild, a baby girl who was just dead, said, in the broad dialect of

the county of Gloucester (which, however, we dare not imitate in print):

“When the child was born, my daughter made me notice how long the

little thing’s fingers were, and said, ’Bless its little heart!

they are long enough for the baby to be a waiting‐maid on the

queen.’ And we agreed, laughing‐like, that a waiting‐maid the

child would surely be. But when it died, I said to my daughter,

said I, ‘Jane, we were mistaken about the baby’s fingers, you see.

I tell you the Lord gave her those beautiful long fingers, not to

attend on any great lady or queen on earth, but to play on the

golden harps in his kingdom of heaven.’ ”

No truer nor more reverent poetry can be found anywhere than that simple

utterance of an unlettered old woman who had not even that instinctive

education which belongs to all those who learn the Catholic catechism.

Such women and such poetry used to abound in the England of historic

times, but error and materialism have but too well succeeded during the

last three centuries in making the type rare and not easily discoverable,

save in some forgotten nook of the rural districts.

Père Hermann that evening allowed us to enjoy _our_ treat, after giving

him his among the bedesmen, by playing a little on a cottage piano‐forte

in what we called the oak drawing‐room. The servants were all collected in

the next room (the library), and this seemed to give him particular

satisfaction, as he was ever most fastidiously thoughtful of the comforts

and pleasures of those in inferior station. His playing, though not

comparable to his triumphant successes as an artist nearly twenty years

before, was still admirable, and, above all, so _sympathetic_. He played,

among other things, the “Prayer of Moses” with great solemnity and

expression, and also some of his own _Cantiques_, which for blending

passion with religious earnestness are something unique. He never played

anywhere save in private, and then only to small audiences in an informal

manner, and never touched the organ save by obedience in his own church,

or for the Forty Hours’ Exposition, saying that he wished to have his art

ever sanctified by a religious inspiration. The fascination and temptation

of artistic triumphs must still have been appreciable stumbling‐blocks in

his spiritual career. Therefore, to hear him play at all was no slight

favor, and, while on this visit, he repeated this favor more than once. On

the last day, he said Mass in the domestic chapel, and distributed the

Scapular to the household, enrolling nearly every member in the

Confraternity. He gave a short address on the origin and meaning of this

devotion, the distinctive one of his Order, and which was further made

interesting on this occasion by the fact of the host’s having in former

years rescued a picture of S. Simon Stock in the act of receiving the

first miraculous Scapular. The figures were life‐size, and the painting

after the manner of the later Italian school; the canvas was found riddled

with holes, having been used as a target by ignorant or fanatical

possessors. The restored picture was hung in the drawing‐room, where it

became a great source of interest to the zealous convert Carmelite, our

dear guest. During this visit was laid the foundation of a spiritual

friendship between him and the writer—a friendship which proved a great

benefit and guidance in our after‐life.

Meeting him again in London a few months later, we learnt a singular

occurrence connected with his influence over souls. A young girl, not much

over seventeen, and of a wilful and rebellious nature, who was under Père

Hermann’s spiritual direction, happening to come up to town for a few

days, experienced a strange phase of religious excitement. Careless as she

was about all serious matters regarding the future state, she was

nevertheless seized with a strong feeling of inadequacy in her religious

efforts. She rose suddenly (it was a bright moonlight night), and went to

the window, where the chastened beauty of the moon made even the

monotonous landscape of London roofs and chimneys shine with a weird charm

and take on suggestive shapes of startling vividness. Something—the grace

of God, we ought no doubt reverently to say—seemed to take hold of her

heart and shake her whole being. It was not the fear of punishment, the

blank of unsated frivolity, that moved her; only one cry burst from her

heart—“I have never loved God enough—I have never loved him at all.” If

any but the saints ever feel perfect contrition, she did at that moment;

for in that one sin she saw all others contained. Sobs came from the

depths of her heart; she paced her room with naked feet, unmindful of

discomfort, unheeding the autumn chill that is never long absent from

London atmosphere, repeating again and again, like a dirge, those words,

“I have never loved God enough—I have never loved him at all.” Then came a

wondering feeling as to what this awakening meant; was it conversion, or

the beginning of a vocation, or a sign that some special self‐devotedness

would be required of her through life? She said to herself, “I will see

Père Hermann, and tell him; I wonder if this will last!”

Strange to say, the blessed excitement passed away, and the next morning,

though she tried to revive it, it was impossible. Not a trace of emotion

was left, although the mind recalled distinctly what an ecstasy of sorrow

it had been, and how it had shaken the soul to its very centre. The young

girl, however, saw Père Hermann, and told him of it, and in the parlor of

the nuns of the Assumption, Kensington Square, he gave her the advice of a

father and a saint. She is still living, and none can tell if that

prophetic call may not yet have unexpected fulfilment through the prayers

of one who is now a saint in heaven. This occurrence led to a very

interesting and intimate correspondence, which we have examined ourselves,

and of which we would gladly give some extracts were the letters not

unfortunately beyond our reach at the present moment.

Père Hermann was peculiarly fond of children, as indeed all saints are.

Going one day to the Brompton Oratory, which the finest organ in London

and a very perfect and numerous surpliced choir contribute to make one of

the leading Catholic churches of the English capital, he was prevailed

upon to play a voluntary after the Offertory. There sat a child in that

choir, only a little chorus singer, but whose early dream it had ever been

to become a musician and play upon an organ such as that majestic,

imperial instrument which he listened to with vague awe every Sunday. He

knew the story of the great artist who now sat at the organ in his

Carmelite habit, and he drank in eagerly the grand strains he could but

dimly understand, yet admired so intensively. Things which he never knew

technically till many years after, yet seemed not unknown to his

sympathetic ear, and, if he understood but little of the science that

created those rolling chords and modulations, he could worship the beauty

they expressed.

A few days later, the little chorister, with six or seven companions from

the Oratory School, was taken to the temporary Carmelite chapel in

Kensington. It was all very poor and unpretending, but the spirit of

recollection and peace made an Eden of the temporary refuge of these

“knights of poverty,” and the children were very much impressed. Père

Hermann came to the parlor to see them, and inquired severally after each

one from the Oratorian Father in whose special charge they were. Our

little chorister was dumb with awe and delight, expecting the holy

Carmelite to notice him particularly; but when the Oratorian was

questioned about this boy, he answered laughingly:

“Oh! this fellow is going to be a tinker.”

Père Hermann looked amused but incredulous, and the child grew hot and

uncomfortable under the laughing gaze of his companions. He had long made

up his mind as to what he would like to be, and the tinker suggestion was

peculiarly hateful to him, because systematically used by his wise

instructor to “break his pride.” But the gentle monk saw the boy’s

discomfiture, and came skilfully to the rescue.

“And will you really be a tinker, my little man?” he said, smiling.

“No, father,” readily answered the little one. “A musician.”

“You mean a tinker, Peter,” teasingly suggested the Oratorian, and the boy

blushed with annoyance.

“No, no,” said Père Hermann; “he will be a musician, as he says, and a

good one. And now,” he continued, “it is nearly time for Benediction, and

I am going to play the harmonium; would you like to stay for that?”

The child was speechless with delight, and then the holy monk added:

“You shall pull out the stops for me, Peter,” which was done, and, though

it seemed the acme of happiness to Peter, it probably did not improve the

music.

After the service, the father called one of the lay brothers, and

entrusted the children to his care, saying, with simple glee, and in the

broken accent which all who knew him remember as a characteristic of his

otherwise terse and appropriate language:

“Now, brother, go and feed these little ones, and mind you give them

plenty of good things.”

The order was well obeyed, for the tradition of ample and eager

hospitality has never been lost among religious orders, be they poor and

struggling and even proscribed, or rich, powerful, and influential. Rich

plum‐cake and good wine, with candies of every sort, were set before the

little musician and his friends, but the child was even then thinking

exultingly that Père Hermann had really said he should be an artist. In

later years, when studying his art in Flanders, or earning his bread by it

in England, this saying, that from such holy lips seemed a prophetic

blessing and an earnest of success, often and often recurred to his mind,

and encouraged him in the many dark days through which he had to pass.

To all those who learned to love Père Hermann from personal intercourse

with him, every remembrance of his words, however trifling, is now doubly

treasured; his death, uniting as it did in itself the heroism of

philanthropy, of patriotism, and of divine charity, has already

practically canonized him in the eyes of his friends and spiritual

children; and as we lay this slender wreath of praise among the more

important tributes that literature, art, and religion have heaped around

his memory, we are fain to exclaim, with the wise man of Israel, “Blessed

are they that saw thee, and were honored with thy friendship.”(272)

A Daughter Of S. Dominic.

Concluded.

It was a singular proof, not only of respect for her character, but of

confidence in her judgment and discretion, on the part of the government,

to have entrusted her with this right of mercy; knowing, as no one who

knew anything about her could fail to know, her extraordinary tenderness

of heart and compassion for suffering, especially in the case of the

soldiers. It seemed a risk to invest her with a sort of judicial right to

interfere in their behalf at the hands of law and justice; but they never

had reason to regret it. She showed herself to the last worthy of the

trust reposed in her. In the exercise of a privilege whose application was

one of the keenest joys of her life, Amélie evinced a mind singularly well

balanced, a judgment always clear, and a prudence ever on the alert to

guide and control the impulses of her heart. But when her judgment

approved the promptings of charity, no consideration could deter her from

obeying them. She was by nature very timid, and of late years, owing to

her having quite broken off intercourse with the world, properly speaking,

this timidity had grown to a painful shyness. Whenever there was a

necessity, however, she could brave it, and face a gay crowd or a doughty

magnate with as much ease and cheerfulness as if the act demanded no

effort or sacrifice of natural inclination. Such sacrifices were

frequently required of her. Her name had a prestige that gained entrance

through doors closed to persons of infinitely higher social position and

importance; and when a community, or a hospital, or a family wanted a

mediator in high quarters, they turned quite naturally to Amélie. On one

occasion her courage and good‐nature were put to a rather severe test. It

was in the case of a poor man who had been condemned to a long term of

punishment for some fraudulent act. The circumstances of the case, the

hitherto excellent character of the man, the fierce pressure of want under

which the fraud was committed, and certain points which threw doubts on

the extent to which he had been consciously guilty, along with the misery

his condemnation must entail on a wife and young family, roused strong

sympathy for him, and a general impulse seized the townspeople to appeal

to the emperor for his pardon. But how to do it so as to make the appeal

efficacious—who to entrust with the delicate mission? Every heart turned

instinctively to Amélie. Her name rose to every tongue. The most

influential of the petitioners went to her, and besought her to go to

Paris and obtain an audience of the emperor, and implore of his clemency a

free pardon for the convict. Her first impulse was to draw back in dismay

at the mere contemplation of such a feat; but the petitioners brought out

an array of arguments that it was not in Amélie’s nature to resist. She

called up her courage, recommended the success of her mission to the

prayers of the Marseillese and the protection of N. Dame de Garde, and

started off to Paris. Thanks to her previous relations with the

ministerial world, she was able to obtain, after some delay, an audience

of the emperor. He received her with the most flattering marks of personal

consideration, and granted her at once the pardon she sued for. Amélie

telegraphed the good news to Marseilles on leaving his majesty’s presence,

and was met on her arrival there the following day by her protégé and his

family in tears of joy and gratitude.

On another occasion, she was applied to for a rather large sum of money

for a very pressing charity. She happened for the moment to have exhausted

all her own and her friends’ resources, and knew not where to turn for the

necessary sum. Some enterprising person proposed that she should go and

beg it at the house of a banker who was giving a grand ball that night,

and at which all the wealthy notabilities of the town were to be present.

It was quite an unprecedented proceeding, and one that it required the

humility and the courage of Amélie to undertake. She hesitated as usual at

first, and as usual, seeing that the thing had to be done, and that no one

else would do it, she consented. A preliminary step was to obtain the

host’s permission. This he at first emphatically refused; and, seeing that

it required nearly as much courage on his part to allow his guests to be

waylaid as for Amélie to waylay them, it is not much to be wondered at.

Courage, however, is catching. Amélie pleaded, and the banker gave way. He

opened her list of contributions by a handsome sum, and consented that she

should come the same evening and beg the rest at his house. It was a

strange episode in the brilliant scene—the pale, dark‐eyed woman, in her

homely black gown and neat little black net cap, standing at the door of

the ball‐room; and stretching out her little bag to the votaries of

pleasure as they passed her: “_Pour les pauvres, mesdames! Pour les

pauvres, messieurs!_” The words must have struck in oddly enough through

the clanging of the orchestra, and the rustling of silken robes, and the

hum of laughter as the merrymakers swept round in the mazes of the dance.

But the low, sweet voice of the beggar rose above the music and the din

loud enough to reach many hearts that night; no one turned a deaf ear to

the suppliant; the gentlemen gave money, or pledged themselves to give it;

the women dropped rings and bracelets into the velvet bag that soon

overflowed with its own riches; and when all the guests had arrived, and

the festivity was at its height, Amélie, after admiring, as she was always

ready to do, everything bright and beautiful that was not sinful—the

brilliancy of the scene, the bright jewels and the pretty toilets, and the

artistic decoration of the rooms—bade good‐night to it all and to her

host, and went home with her heart full of love and gratitude towards her

kindly fellow‐creatures.

But we should never end if we were to narrate all the acts of charity and

zeal that she was never tired of performing. The following, however, are

too characteristic to be omitted:

Late one evening, in her rounds through one of those dark centres of

misery and crime that are to be found in all big cities, Amélie heard that

a mountebank was dying in a neighboring cellar, all alone and in great

pain. She made her way to the place at once. The dying man was lying on a

heap of a straw, but he was not alone; a bear and a monkey shared his

wretched abode; they had enabled the poor mountebank to live, and now they

stood by while he was dying, watching his death‐throes in dumb sympathy.

Nothing scared by the presence of his strange company, Amélie went up to

the man and spoke to him gently of his soul. If he had ever heard of such

a thing as an essential part of himself, he seemed to have altogether

forgotten it, but he did not repulse her; he let her sit down beside him

on the live, fetid straw and try to soothe him in his pains, and instruct

him in the intervals, and prepare him to make his peace with God. By the

time her part of the task was done, the night was far spent, but there was

no time to lose. Amélie went straight to the priest’s house and woke him

up. On the road, she told him what he would find on arriving.

The two went in together. Amélie knelt down in the furthest corner of the

place and prayed, and the bear and the monkey looked on while the sweet

and wondrous mystery between Jesus and the good thief was renewed before

their blank, unintelligent eyes. The mountebank made a general confession

of his whole life, and received the last sacraments. Then the priest went

home, and Amélie remained alone with the dying man, who expired a few

hours later with his head resting on her shoulder.

On another occasion, she heard that a woman whose life had been a public

scandal in the town was at the point of death. She rose at once to go to

her, and, in spite of the remonstrances of those present, she did go. The

character of the woman and her associates, and the place where she lived,

were indeed enough to deter a less daring spirit than Amélie, but whenever

an objection was raised on prudential grounds to her visiting here or

there, she would playfully point to her hump, and say:

“With a protector like that, a woman may go anywhere.”

The woman at first repulsed her fiercely and bade her begone, and refused

to hear the name of God mentioned; but Amélie held her ground, pleading

with all the eloquence at her command—and those who have heard it in

moments when her soul was stirred by any great emotion declare that it was

little less than sublime. She caressed the wretched creature, calling her

by the most endearing names, till at last the obdurate heart was softened,

she let Amélie stay and speak to her, and even asked her to come back the

next day. “But,” she added, “you’ll find a _monsieur_ at the door, and

he’s capable of beating you if you try to come in against his will.”

But Amélie was not likely to be deterred by this. She came the following

morning, and found the _monsieur_. He met her with insulting defiance, and

dared her to enter, and, on her attempting to do so, he raised his hand

and clenched it, with a savage oath threatening to strike her.

“Hit here!” said Amélie, coolly turning her hump to him.

Confounded by the words and the action, the man let his arm drop. Before

he had recovered from his surprise, she had passed into the sick room, and

he stood silently looking on and listening in wonder to what was going on

before him. Amélie left the house unmolested, and returned a few hours

later with a priest. The unhappy woman had been a Christian in her youth.

She made a general confession in the midst of abundant tears, and died the

next day in admirable sentiments of contrition and hope. The example was

not lost on her companion; he made a sudden and generous renunciation of

his sinful life, and Amélie had to rejoice over the return of two souls

instead of one.

As we have said before, her charity was essentially catholic, universal in

every sense. She was ready to pity everybody’s troubles, and, with Amélie,

to pity meant to help. The poor widow toiling broken‐hearted for her

children in the courts and alleys of the big town; the father struggling

with adversity in another sphere, trying to educate his sons and marry his

daughters and pay the inexorable debt of decency that society exacts from

a gentleman; the poor, lone girl battling with poverty, or perhaps

writhing in agonized shame at having fallen in the battle; the rich mother

weeping over the wanderings of a son; the poor orphan without bread or

friends; the rich orphan pursued by designing relations, or in danger of

falling into the hands of a worthless husband; high and low, rich and poor

alike, all came to Amélie for sympathy and counsel, and no one was ever

repulsed. Even those difficulties which are the result of culpable

weakness, and which meet generally with small mercy, not to say

indulgence, from pious people, found Amélie full of indulgent pity and a

ready will to help. An officer on one occasion was drawn inadvertently

into contracting a debt of honor which he had no means of paying. In his

despair he thought of Amélie, and, half maddened with shame and remorse,

he came to her to ask for pity and advice. The sum in question was two

thousand francs. Amélie happened to have it at the moment, and, touched by

the distress of the man of the world, she gave it to him at once. There

was no spirit of criticism, no censoriousness in her piety, no fastidious

condemnation of things innocent in themselves, however apt to be dangerous

in their abuse. She loved to see young people happy and amused, and would

listen with real interest and pleasure to an account of some fête where

they had enjoyed themselves after the manner of their age. This simplicity

and liberty of spirit enabled her often to take advantage of opportunities

for doing good that never would occur to a person whose piety turned in a

narrower groove; she was wont to exclaim regretfully against good people

for being so overnice in the choice of opportunities, and thus cramping

their own power and means of usefulness. With regard to the choice of

tools in the same way, she would often deprecate the fastidiousness of

certain pious people, urging that, when there was a work to do, an aim to

accomplish, an obstacle to overcome, we should take up whatever tools

Providence put in our way, not quarrelling with their shape or quality,

but doing the best we can with them, profiting by a knave’s villany or a

fool’s folly to further a just purpose, or a noble scheme, or a kind

action, making, as far as honesty and truth can do it, evil accomplish the

work of good.

Faithfully bearing in mind that we may do no evil that good may come of

it, Amélie had withal an ingenious gift of turning to good account the

evil that was done by others; but she was slow to see the evil, and, when

it was forced upon her, she had always more pity than censure for it. Her

lamp was always lighted, and she was ever ready to help the foolish ones

who go about this world of ours crying out to the wise ones: “Give me of

your oil!” For it is not only when the Bridegroom comes that we need to

have our lamp lighted, we want it all along the road, for others as well

as for ourselves; we must even adapt it to the necessities of the road by

changing the color of its light. This we can do by changing the oil. We

must use the oil of faith when we want a strong, bright blaze to keep our

feet straight amidst the ruts and snares and pools of muddy water that

abound at every step; we must burn the oil of hope to frighten away

despondency and cheer us when our hearts are heavy and our courage ebbing;

but we must be chiefly prodigal of the rich and salutary oil of charity,

for the flame it sends out is often more helpful to others than to

ourselves. Sometimes, when our lamp is so low that it hardly shows the

ground clear under our own feet, it is shedding—thanks to this marvellous

oil of charity—a heavenly radiance on the path of those journeying behind

us; its flame is luminous as a star and soft as moonlight; people on whom

we turn its roseate glow rejoice in it as in sunshine: it softens them, it

heals them, it takes the sting out of their worst wounds. The lamp fed

with this incomparable oil is, moreover, often brightest when we ourselves

are sick at heart, and when it costs us an effort to pour in the oil and

set the wick in order. We do not realize it, but we can believe it by

recalling the effect of kindness on our own souls in some well‐remembered

hour, when it came from one in great sorrow, and who we knew was setting

aside her own grief to enter into ours. Let us be brave, then, to hold up

our lamp arm‐high to the pilgrims who are toiling foot‐sore and faint up

the steep and rugged path of life along with us; its flame soars on to

heaven, and shines more brightly before God than the fairest and loveliest

of his stars.

We mentioned already that Amélie, on her father’s death, made a vow of

personal poverty. She observed this vow with the utmost rigor as far as

was consistent with decorum and the absence of anything approaching to a

display of holiness—a thing of which she was almost morbidly afraid. Her

usual dress was a black woollen gown and a shawl of the same material; her

appearance in the street was that of a respectable housekeeper, but no one

who saw the outward decency of her attire suspected the sordid poverty

that often lay beneath it. She limited herself to a pittance for her

clothes, and she would submit to the most painful inconvenience rather

than exceed it. Once she gave away her strong boots and a warm winter

petticoat to a poor person at the beginning of the winter, and, though the

cold set in suddenly with great severity, she bore it rather than replace

either of them till her allowance fell due. How her health bore the amount

of labor and austerities that she underwent it is difficult to explain

without using the word miraculous.

When, under the pious auspices of Monseigneur de Mazenod, the devotion of

the Perpetual Adoration was established at Marseilles, Amélie at once had

herself enrolled in the confraternity; unable to spare time from her

multiform works of mercy during the day, she entrenched upon her nights,

and used to spend hours in adoration before the Tabernacle. Fatigue and

bodily suffering were no obstacle to the ardor of her soul; her spirit

seemed to thrive in proportion as her body wasted. After a day of arduous

labor, constantly on her feet, going and coming amongst the poor and the

sick, breathing the foul air of hospital wards, and dingy cellars, and

garrets, fasting as rigorously as any Carmelite, and grudging her body all

but the bare necessaries of life, she was able to pass an entire night on

her knees before the Blessed Sacrament, and be apparently none the worse

for it. Such wonderful things are those who love God strengthened to do

for him. Yet this woman was made of the same flesh and blood as ourselves;

she had the same natural shrinkings and antipathies; her body was not made

of different clay from ours, or supernaturally fashioned to defy the

attacks of the devil and the repugnances of nature, to endure hunger, and

pain, and fatigue without feeling them; she had the same temptations to

fight against, the same corrupt inclinations to overcome, and the same

weapons of defence against her enemies that we have—faith and prayer and

the sacraments. What, then, is the difference between us? Only this, she

was generous and brave, and we are mean and cowardly. We bargain and hang

back, whereas she made no reserves, but strove to serve God with all her

heart and all her strength, and he did the rest. He always does it for

those who trust him and hearken unconditionally to that hard saying: “Take

up thy cross and follow me!” For them he changes all bitter things into

sweet, all weakness into strength; for the old Adam that they cast aside

he clothes them with the new, thus rendering them invincible against their

enemies, and repaying a hundred‐fold, even in this life, the miserable

rags that we call sacrifices; he fills the hungry with good things, and in

exchange for creatures and the perishable delights which they have

renounced for his sake he gives them himself and a foretaste of the bliss

of Paradise.

During her solitary vigils before the altar, the thought of the

ingratitude of men and their cruel neglect of our Saviour in his

Eucharistic prison sank deeply into Amélie’s heart, and filled it with

grief and an ardent desire to make some reparation to his outraged love.

We have all read the wonderful chapter on Thanksgiving in that wonderful

book, _All for Jesus_. Most of us have felt our hearts stirred to

sorrowful indignation at the sad picture it reveals of our own unkindness

to God, and the tender sensitiveness of the Sacred Heart to our

ingratitude, and his meek acceptance of any crumb of thanksgiving that we

deign once in a way to throw to him; we have felt our tepid pulses quicken

to a momentary impulse of generosity and passionate desire to call after

the nine ungrateful lepers, and constrain them to return and thank him; we

watch them going their way unmindful, and we cast ourselves in spirit at

the feet of Jesus, gazing after them in sad surprise, and we pour out our

souls in apologies—so bold does the passing touch of love make the meanest

of us in consolations to him for the unkindness of his creatures. Alas!

with most of us it ends there. Next time he tries us we follow the nine

selfish lepers, and leave him wondering and sorrowing again over our

ingratitude. But with Amélie it was different. No inspiration of divine

grace ever found her deaf to its voice; her love knew no such things as

barren sighs and idle mystic sentimentalities. Her whole heart was stirred

by that touching and powerful appeal of Father Faber’s, and she began to

consider at once what she could do to respond to it. The idea occurred to

her of instituting a community, to be called _Sœurs Réparatrices_, whose

mission should be to give thanks and to console our divine Lord for the

ingratitude of the world by perpetual adoration before the Tabernacle, and

at the same time of getting up a regular service of thanksgiving among the

faithful at large, to have short prayers appointed and recommended by the

church to their constant use, for the sole and express purpose of thanking

God for his countless mercies to us all, but more especially to those

among us who never thank him on their own account. Both suggestions were

warmly approved of by many pious souls to whom she mentioned them.

In order, however, to carry them out effectively, it was deemed advisable

that Amélie should go to Rome and obtain the authorization and blessing of

the Holy Father. She had never been to Rome, but it was the desire of her

life to go there; it drew her as the magnet draws the needle; Rome, to her

filial Catholic heart, was the outer gate of heaven; it held the Father of

Christendom, the Vicar of Christ; it held the tombs of the martyrs, its

soil was saturated with their blood, all things within its walls were

stamped with the seal of Christianity, and told of the wonders that it had

wrought. Amélie, glad of the necessity which compelled her to fulfil her

long‐cherished desire, set out for the Eternal City. She received the most

affectionate welcome from the Holy Father, who had been long acquainted

with her by name, and knew the apostolic manner of life she led. With

regard to the community which she desired to found, and of which she was

to become a member, but not superioress, His Holiness approved of it, but

beyond this, of what passed between him and Amélie on the subject, no

details have transpired. She said that the Holy Father encouraged her to

carry out the design and gave her his blessing on it, and promised her his

fatherly countenance and protection; but whether she submitted any rule to

him at this period we have not been able to ascertain. As to the scheme of

general thanksgiving that she proposed to inaugurate, he gave her abundant

blessings on it, and indulgenced several prayers that she submitted to his

inspection. Unfortunately, we have not been able to procure a copy of the

little book which contained them all; this is the more to be regretted,

that some of them were drawn up by Amélie herself and full of the spirit

of her own tender piety; they were also preceded by a preface in which she

appealed very lovingly to the children of Mary and the members of the

Confraternity of the Sacred Heart, and begged their zealous co‐operation

in the service of thanksgiving. We may mention, however, that she was in

the habit, during the few remaining years of her life, of constantly

recommending to her friends the use of the _Gloria Patri_ and the

ejaculation _Deo Gratias!_ as having been particularly commended to her

devotion by the Holy Father himself.

An incident occurred to Amélie during her stay in Rome which she often

narrated as a proof of the extreme need we have of a service of

thanksgiving. She went one morning to an audience at the house of a

cardinal, and while she was waiting for her turn she got into conversation

with the Superior of the Redemptorist Fathers in France. Always on the

watch to gain an ally to the cause, she told him the motive of her journey

to Rome, and begged that he would use his influence in his own wide sphere

to forward its success amongst souls.

“Ah! madame!” exclaimed the Redemptorist, “it was a good thought to try

and stir up men’s hearts to a spirit of thanksgiving, for there is nothing

more wanted in the world. The story of the nine lepers is going on just

the same these eighteen hundred years. I have been forty years a priest,

and during that time I have been asked to say Masses for every sort of

intention, _but only once_ have I been asked _to say a Mass of

thanksgiving_!”

Yes, truly the story of the nine lepers is being enacted now as in the old

days when Jesus exclaimed sorrowfully, “Is there no one but this stranger

found to return and give thanks?”

But for all her clear‐sighted sensitiveness to the sins and shortcomings

of her day, Amélie was full of hope in it; nothing annoyed her more than

to see good people lapse into that lugubrious way so common to them of

always crying anathema on their age and despairing of it; she used to say

that she mistrusted the love and the logic of such; that those who love

God and their fellow‐creatures for his sake never despair of them, but

work for them, trusting in God’s help and in the ultimate triumph of good

over evil; that despair was a sign of stupidity and cowardice. And was she

not right? Surely every age has in its ugliness some counterbalancing

beauty, some redeeming grace of comeliness, in the tattered raiment that

hangs about its ulcers and its nakedness. God never leaves himself at any

time without witnesses on the earth, and it is our fault, not his, if we

do not see them. There are always bright spots in humanity, and those who

cannot discern them should blame their own dull vision, not their fellow‐

men. As poets who have the mystic eye see beauties of hue and color in the

material world where common men see nothing but ruin and decay, so do the

saints and the saint‐like, with the keen vision of faith and hope, alone

penetrate the external darkness and decay of humanity, and discover in the

midst of gloom and evil much that is promising and fair; they see

elemental wines boiling up in the cauldron of travail and suffering, and

they know that their bitterness is salutary and their fire invigorating

unto life.

Amélie returned to Marseilles well satisfied with her visit to the Holy

City, and resumed her labors with renewed zest. But she had left her heart

behind her, and from the day she left Rome she had but one desire, and

that was to return and end her days there. Her health had of late grown so

feeble that it was more and more a subject of wonder to those who

witnessed it how she was able to continue her life of superhuman activity

without flagging for a day. Amélie felt, however, that it could not last

much longer now. She had frequently expressed in the midst of her busy,

active life a longing for a life of contemplation, and in proportion as

the end drew near, the yearning for an interval of silence and solitude

increased. She was often heard to say to her fellow‐laborers:

“It is time I left off looking after other people’s souls, and attended a

little to my own; I feel the want of more prayer, of more time before the

Blessed Sacrament; really, I must begin to get ready.”

In the year 1869, she determined to carry this desire into execution, and

begin to get ready, as she said, by withdrawing into a more solitary life.

Her love for the church had taken a new impetus from her intercourse with

the Holy Father; from the first the Denier de S. Pierre counted her among

its most zealous promoters, but more so than ever now. An abundant

collection which she made just at this time offered a plausible pretext to

her for going to Rome, in order to lay it at the feet of Pius IX. So after

putting her affairs in order, and bidding good‐by to only her immediate

and intimate friends, so as to avoid anything like resistance or a

demonstration on the part of the multitude of people to whom she knew her

departure would be painful, Amélie took leave of the hospitable old home

in the Rue Grignan, and set her face once more toward the Eternal City.

But she had a last work to do for her native town on the road. The

splendid military hospital of Marseilles, in which she had taken so deep

and active an interest, was served by lay nurses, and both the soldiers

and the civil authorities were anxious to have these replaced by Sisters

of Charity. Easy as the thing seemed, up to the present all endeavors to

effect the substitution had failed. It rested with the government to make

the appointment and to grant a certain sum for the maintenance of the

community when attached to the hospital, but, owing either to the case not

being properly represented, or to the ill‐will of certain officials who

put obstacles in the way, every application on the subject had been met by

a refusal. The authorities, seeing all else fail them, turned to Amélie.

They remembered her success on a former occasion, and requested her to

take the affair in hand on arriving in Paris, and get from the minister

the desired concession. The mission was repugnant to her, because she

foresaw it would involve her having to come forward and put herself in the

way of notabilities and magnates; but, as there seemed just a chance of

being able to perform a last service to the soldiers, she accepted, and

promised to do her best.

She had a military friend in Paris, who, though a practical Catholic,

occupied a distinguished position in the service, and was on good terms

with its chiefs. This gentleman procured an audience for her of Marshal

——, who was then in the ministry, and the person to whom she was directed

to apply in the first instance.

The marshal, who had been made aware of the subject of her visit, received

her, according to his custom, in shirt‐sleeves and a towering rage, asked

her a dozen questions, one on top of another, without giving her time to

edge in a word of protest, wondered very much what she or anybody else

meant by interfering with soldiers and their hospitals and the supreme

wisdom of the government, of dictating to them what they ought to do; but

that was the way with women; women were always meddling with what didn’t

concern them; they were the most difficult subjects to govern; for

himself, he would rather have the management of ten armies than a village

full of women, etc. In fact, his excellency bullied his visitor after the

usual manner of his peculiar courtesy, and Amélie was obliged to take her

leave after a very brief audience, during which she had been rated like a

naughty schoolboy and not allowed to say three sentences in self‐defence.

Clearly there was not much to be done in that quarter. Her friend then

proposed getting her without further preamble an audience of the emperor.

Amélie preserved a grateful recollection of the reception she had met with

from his majesty some years before, and the idea of entering his presence

again inspired her with less terror than the prospect of a second edition

of the marshal; she thought, moreover, that there might be a speedier and

better chance of success by applying directly to the emperor than by

beating about the bush with his ministers, admitting even that they were

not all of the same type as the one she had tried. Amélie accepted the

offer, therefore, and, after a shorter delay than any one but a cabinet

minister might have been obliged to undergo, she received a letter from

the Lord Chamberlain notifying the day and hour when she was to present

herself at the Tuileries.

She was shown into the antechamber, where generals, dignitaries of the

state, bishops, and other important personages were waiting their turn to

enter the imperial presence. His majesty was giving audience to an

ambassador when Amélie arrived, and there was rather a long delay before

the door opened. When it did, it was not his chamberlain, but the emperor

himself who appeared on the threshold; he stood for a moment, and looked

deliberately round the room, where he recognized many noble and

influential personages, and then, perceiving an elderly lady in a rusty

black gown sitting at the furthest end of it, he walked straight up to

her, and held out both his hands. “Mademoiselle Lautard,” said his

majesty, “I thank you for the honor you do me by this visit; I am sure I

have only to mention your name for every one present to admit your right

to pass before them.”

There was a general murmur of assent, though it must have puzzled most if

not all of the spectators of this strange scene who this poverty‐stricken,

humpbacked elderly lady was to be thus greeted by Napoleon III., and

handed over their heads to the presence‐chamber. As soon as they were

alone, the emperor drew a chair close to his own, and, inviting his

visitor to sit down, he said:

“Now, tell me if, over and above the pleasure of seeing you, I am to have

that of doing something that can give you pleasure?”

Amélie, in relating the interview to her friend, said that, when she saw

his majesty bearing down upon her before the assembled multitude in the

antechamber, she felt ready to sink into the ground, and wished herself at

Hongkong; but the moment he spoke her terrors vanished, and she had not

been two minutes with him before she felt perfectly at her ease, and

talked on as fearlessly as if he had been an old friend. She told him her

wishes about the hospital, and he promised unconditionally that they

should be carried out. For certain formalities, however, it was necessary

to refer her to his minister.

“You will call on Marshal ——,” said his majesty; “he is the person to do

it.”

“Sire!” exclaimed Amélie, throwing up her hands in dismay, “anything but

that; your majesty must really manage it without sending me again to

Marshal ——.”

“Ah! you have been to him already,” said the emperor, with a quiet smile;

“well, try him again, and this time I warrant you a better reception; he

is _bon enfant au fond_, but you must not let him think that you’re afraid

of him.”

Thus warned and encouraged, Amélie promised to take her courage in both

hands, as the emperor said, and beard the lion once more in his den.

Before letting her go, his majesty questioned her minutely about the

condition of the hospitals and other charitable institutions at

Marseilles, concerning all of which he appeared to be singularly well

informed.

The next day, she presented herself at the _ministère_, and was ushered

into the marshal’s presence. He had his coat on this time; whether the

fact was due to accident, or to a desire to propitiate the lady who had

complained of him to his master, history does not say; but, as soon as

Amélie entered, his excellency accosted her with: “Well, so you were

affronted with me, it seems! What did you say about me to the emperor?”

“Excellency,” replied Amélie, “I told his majesty that I had expected to

find a minister of France, but I found instead a man in a passion.”

The marshal grunted a laugh, and told her to sit down and explain her

business. She did so, this time with perfect satisfaction to both parties,

and they parted the best friends in the world.

This closed her career of usefulness in France; she waited to make the

needful arrangements for the departure of the nuns, their reception at

Marseilles, etc., and then she started for Rome.

On setting out for the Eternal City, Amélie seemed to have had the

presentiment that she had entered on the last stage of her pilgrimage. The

sense of her approaching end, which betrayed itself, perhaps

unconsciously, in conversing both by word and letter with her most

intimate friends, was accompanied by an increase of fervor and a serenity

which struck every one who approached her as something almost divine. The

project which she had formed of founding and entering a community of

_Sœurs Réparatrices_ was still unrealized, but she hoped now to carry it

into effect, to make the remainder of her life a perpetual _Deo Gratias_!

and to die in the outward livery of the religious state whose spirit her

whole life had so faithfully embodied. But God had other designs upon her.

Meantime, in the twilight interval of comparative leisure that she had

looked forward to so long and enjoyed so thankfully, Amélie did not give

up all active work; she prayed more, and lived in greater retirement; but

she still gave a fair proportion of each day to her accustomed service of

the poor and the sick.

These were troubled days that she had fallen upon in Rome. The

sacrilegious hand of parricides had robbed the church of her possessions,

and reduced Pius IX. to the nominal sovereignty of the capital of

Christendom, as a prelude to making it, what it is now, his prison.

Catholic hearts were sad; but, amongst all his children, the Vicar of

Christ had no more faithfully sorrowing heart than Amélie’s, none who

entered more keenly into his griefs or responded with more filial alacrity

to their claim on her sympathy and participation and righteous anger. She

beheld the persecutions of God’s church, the hatred and malice of its

enemies, the cowardice of those who called themselves its friends, but

stood by passive and cold while the crime perpetrated outside Jerusalem

eighteen hundred years ago was renewed before their eyes on the body of

that church which Christ had died to found; she saw pride and materialism

everywhere at work striving to undo his work, to prevent the coming of his

kingdom, and to establish the kingdom of sin upon earth; and the sight of

all this filled her heart with grief, but not with despair. It was indeed

an hour of unexampled grief for Christendom, but it was also an hour for

activity, and zeal, and renewed courage; it was a time for each individual

member to prove himself, for all to put their hand to the plough that was

furrowing the bosom of the church, and to water the travailed soil with

fertilizing tears, and, if need be, blood, thus preparing it for the

future harvest that was inevitable. For even as God’s enemies of old had

stood at the foot of Calvary, and shook their heads at the bleeding victim

of their own hate and envy, and bade him come down from the cross, knowing

not the dawn of the Resurrection was nigh, when the victim would arise

triumphant over death, and compel his murderers to acknowledge that this

man must indeed have been the Son of God—so now the enemies of his church

had their hour of triumph, and clapped their hands for joy to see the

church that he had built upon the Rock, and promised that the gates of

hell should not prevail against, tottering and crumbling under the blows

of progress and an enlightened civilization and the force of arms. But

their triumph was but the hour of the powers of darkness that was not to

endure, but would perish at the appointed time before the manifestation of

the Sun of Justice.

Still, even faithful hearts quailed before the storm, and were scandalized

at the way in which God seemed to forsake his own, not recognizing in this

mysterious abandonment another trait of resemblance between his Vicar and

the divine Model, who cried out in his dereliction, “Why hast thou

forsaken me?”

Amélie was forced to hear and see much that was unutterably painful to

hear as a true child of the church; many who called themselves such, and

who were glad enough to draw upon her magnificent sacramental treasury,

and to praise and serve her in the days of peace, were not stout‐hearted

enough to share her tribulations or even to understand them, and stood

aloof when they ought to have acted, or remained dumb when they ought to

have spoken, or spoke what they had better have left unsaid. But alongside

of this indifference or treachery she witnessed a great deal that was

beautiful and consoling. Pilgrims were flocking from the four quarters of

the globe to lay at the feet of Pius IX. the tribute of their fidelity and

abundant offerings, often collected in perilous journeys at great risk and

sacrifice. Then there were the Zouaves, _nos chers Zouaves_, as Amélie

always called them, presenting a noble example to us all by their heroic

devotion to the cause of God, their spirit of immolation, their chivalrous

valor in action, and the marvellous purity of their lives. These modern

crusaders replaced the suffering soldiers of Marseilles in Amélie’s

solicitude during her stay in Rome. She tended them and worked for them

indefatigably, and dwelt continually in letters home on the consolation

the spectacle of their childlike piety afforded her.

Early in December she wrote to a friend at Marseilles: “Our dear Zouaves

have made their entry into Rome. They passed under my windows. They are

the flower of the French nation. They are full of that energy which

nothing but the spirit of the faith gives. It is beautiful to see them

receive Holy Communion before arming themselves. This morning eighteen

hundred of them, bent on shedding their blood in the cause of God, marched

proudly into the Eternal City with the band playing and colors flying;

they reminded one of the Theban legion. I witnessed a touching sight. The

Holy Father met them on their way, and they fell on their knees like one

man to get his blessing. He blessed them with visible emotion. How could a

father not be moved at seeing the devotion of his children? The Flemish

and the Bretons are particularly conspicuous; ancient traditions have been

preserved amongst them, and have come down from the fathers to the sons.

This evening they accompanied His Holiness to the Vatican, where they

cheered him with the enthusiasm of Christian hearts. It was impossible to

withhold one’s tears as one beheld the venerable Pontiff rest his loving

and gentle gaze on all this youth, so devoted to him, and burning to prove

their fidelity. In these days, the position of the Zouaves amongst

Christian soldiers is a noble one. Oh! if the idle youth of France knew

what a happiness it is to serve God, how many families would be happy and

blest even in this world as well as the next! I see here numbers of young

men who had strayed away from the right path for a time, but who had the

grace to return to it, and are now as happy as children, pure as angels,

attached to the church and the Vicar of Christ. Their sole ambition is

martyrdom; their joy is to look forward to it. Oh! I see here admirable

things. Adieu, dear friend. Let us pray always.”

Sinister reports and wild alarms, sometimes the result of malice,

sometimes of fear, were constantly starting up in Rome, terrifying the

weak, and stimulating the brave to greater vigilance and courage, but

keeping every one on the _qui vive_ from day to day. In the midst of the

general excitement of expectation or terror, the serene confidence of Pius

IX. remained unshaken, like the rock on which it rested. Amélie, who was

admitted frequently to the honor and happiness of speaking to the Holy

Father, was lost in wonder at it—at the unearthly peace that was visible

in his countenance and pervaded every word of his conversation. Shortly

before the date of the foregoing letter, she wrote to the same friend:

“The most contradictory stories are current here, but the peace, the calm,

the _abandon_ of the Holy Father are indescribable, and go further to

inspire confidence than the most sinister conjectures to create terrors.

The daughters of Jerusalem followed our Redeemer to Calvary: a sort of

filial sentiment holds me in Rome. I cannot go away.... Let us pray! The

power of prayer obtains all things.”

Let us pray! This had been the lifelong burthen of her song, and the cry

grew louder and more intense as she drew near the close. It was not the

shrill cry of those who say, Lord! Lord! but the irrepressible voice of a

soul whom the spirit of prayer possessed in the fulness of its availing

power, and side by side with whose growth grew the spirit of sacrifice,

the thirst for self‐immolation. She clung firmly to hope as the anchor of

courage and resignation in the present trials of the church, but the sense

of the outrages that God’s glory was enduring in the person of His Vicar

increased in her soul to positive anguish. The consideration of her own

nothingness and utter inability to lighten the cross that was pressing on

the saintly Pontiff, pursued her day and night with the mysterious pain

that is born of the love of God.

What a wonderful thing the soul of a saint or even a saintlike human being

must be! How one longs to go within the veil and get a glimpse of the life

that is lived there! It is so strange to us to see a creature take God’s

cause to heart, and pine and suffer about it as we do about our personal

cares and sorrows. It sets us wondering what sort of inner life theirs can

be, and through what process of grace and correspondence and mysterious

training they have grown to that state of mind when the things of God and

his eternity are poignant realities, and the things of earth hollow

phantoms that have lost the power to charm, or terrify, or touch. We see

them hungering after justice as we hunger after bread, pining actually for

the accomplishment of God’s will as eagerly as we pine for the success of

our puny enterprises and the triumph of our small ambitions; and we are

astonished, as it behoves our stupidity and hardness of heart to be, at

the incomprehensible character of their faith and love. When life presses

heavily upon us, and the cross is bruising our shoulders, and all things

are dark and dreary, we catch ourselves occasionally sighing for death.

This is about our nearest approach to that homesick yearning expressed in

the words of the apostle: “I long to die, to be dissolved, and to be with

Christ!” What an altogether different feeling it must be with these

saintlike souls when they long for death! They are not impatient of life,

or, like tired travellers, angry with the dust and sun of the road, and

disgusted with the uncomfortable wayside inn where they put up; they are

impatient of heaven and of the vision that makes the bliss and the glory

of heaven. Too jealous of their Creator’s rights to rob him even in desire

of one year, or day, or hour of their poor service while he sees good to

employ them, they are willing to go on toiling through eternity if he

wishes it; but they are homesick, they long to see him, they yearn after

his possession with a sacred unrest that we who have but little kinship

with their spirit cannot understand. They are saddened by their exile and

by the sight of sin and of the small harvest their Lord’s glory reaps

amidst the great harvest of iniquity that overruns the world. They watch

the sea of humanity rolling its waves along time, moaning with conscious

agonies of sin, storm‐lashed and terrible, breaking in billows of impotent

rage against the Rock of redemption, and dashing headlong past it into the

gulf, where it is sucked down into everlasting darkness; and seeing these

things as God sees them, and as they affect his interests, they are filled

with sorrow, and call out for the end, that this mighty torrent may be

stayed. They call out to the stars to rise on the far‐off heights, that

loom dim and gloomy through the swirl and vapor of the storm. They would

fain hush the winds and the waves, and hasten the advent of the Judge

before whose splendor the dark horizon will vanish, and whose glory will

outshine the sunrise and fill the universe with joy. It is not their own

selfish deliverance or the world’s annihilation that they long for, but

its consummation in man’s happiness and the Creator’s glory.

Amélie longed with all the strength of her generous heart to do something

for her Lord, to help ever so little towards hastening the coming of his

kingdom before he called her away. One morning, after communion, as she

was praying very fervently for the Holy Father, whose health just then was

a source of great anxiety amongst the faithful, this longing came upon her

with an intensity that she had never felt before; she was seized with a

sudden impulse to make the sacrifice of her life in exchange for his, and

to offer herself as a victim that he might be spared yet awhile to guide

and sustain the church through the trials and temptations that were

afflicting her. The impulse was so vehement that it was with difficulty

she restrained herself from obeying it on the spot; the desire, however,

to obtain the blessing of obedience in her sacrifice enabled her to do so.

She quietly continued her thanksgiving, and, on leaving the church, went

straight to the Vatican. There, kneeling at the feet of the suffering

Vicar of Christ, she told him of the desire that had come to her, and

begged him to bless it, and to permit her to offer herself up next day at

Holy Communion as a victim in his place if it should please God to accept

her.

Pius IX. was silent for some moments, while Amélie, with uplifted face and

clasped hands, awaited his reply. Then, as if obeying a voice that had

spoken to him in the silence, he laid his hand upon her head, and said,

with great solemnity: “Go, my daughter, and do as the Spirit of God has

prompted you.” He blessed her with emotion, and Amélie left his presence

filled with gladness and renewed fervor. She spent the greater part of the

day in prayer. In the afternoon she wrote two letters: one of them, of too

private a character to be given at length, contained the foregoing account

of the morning’s occurrences; the other we transcribe. It is a revelation

beyond all comment of the state of her soul as it stood on what she

believed to be the threshold of eternity.

SATURDAY, Dec. 15—ROME.

“We still continue in the greatest calm. _Nos chers Zouaves_ have

the courage of lions; they draw their strength from the blood of

the martyrs. Generally speaking, they are pious as angels. You see

them constantly during their free hours slipping off their

knapsack and their arms to go and kneel at the feet of the priest

in the confessional, or to pray at the shrine of the queen of

martyrs; they are truly the children of the church, and—”

Here the letter broke off.

The next morning was Sunday. Amélie repaired, as usual, to early Mass at

S. Peter’s. She received Holy Communion, and then, with the Eucharistic

Presence warm upon her heart, she offered up her life to him who had been

its first and last and only love. The words were hardly cold upon her

lips, when she was seized with sudden and violent pain, and fell with a

cry to the ground. She was surrounded immediately, and carried home.

Priests and religious of both sexes who were in S. Peter’s at the moment,

and knew her, filled with alarm and distress, accompanied her to the

Strada Ripresa dei Barberi. Medical aid was sent for, but it was soon

evident that her illness was beyond the reach of human skill. All that day

and the next she continued in agonizing pain, unable to speak or to thank

those about her except by a smile or a pressure of the hand. Early on the

following morning, Wednesday, she grew calmer, the pain subsided, and

Amélie asked for the last sacraments. She received them with sentiments of

ecstatic devotion, and for some time remained absorbed in prayer. Her

thanksgiving terminated, she took leave tenderly of those friends who

surrounded her, and then begged they would begin the prayers for the

dying; they did so, and she joined in the responses with a fervor that

went to every heart. When they came to those grand and solemn words with

which the church speeds her children into the presence of their merciful

Judge, “Depart, Christian soul, in the name of the Father who created

thee, in the name of the Son who redeemed thee, in the name of the Holy

Ghost who sanctified thee,” Amélie bowed her head and died.

The news was conveyed at once to the Vatican. When Pius IX. heard it, he

evinced no sudden surprise, but raised his eyes to heaven, and murmured

with a smile:

“_Si tosto accetato!_”(273)

The announcement of Amélie’s death was received with universal expressions

of dismay and sorrow. It was not only the poor, who had been her chief and

most intimate associates in Rome, that mourned her, all classes of society

joined in a chorus of heartfelt regret, and proved how well they had

appreciated the gentle French sister who had dwelt humbly amongst them

doing good. The house where she lay in her beautiful and heroic death‐

sleep was besieged by people from every part of the city; all were anxious

to gaze once more upon her face, to touch her hands with crosses and

rosaries, to kneel in prayer beside the victim who had offered herself for

the sins of the people, and been accepted by him who delighteth not in

burnt‐offerings, but in the sacrifice of a contrite heart. To her truly it

had been answered: “O woman, great is thy faith: be it done unto thee

according to thy word!”

The miraculous circumstances of her death were soon proclaimed. In the

minds of those who had known her well they excited no surprise. From all

they called out sentiments of admiration and praise. Tears flowed

uninterruptedly round the austere court where the virgin tabernacle rested

from its labors, but they were tears sweeter than the smiles and laughter

of earth; prayers for the dead were suspended by common impulse, and the

spectators, exchanging the _De Profundis_ for the _Te Deum_ and the

_Magnificat_, broke out into canticles of triumph and hymns of rejoicing.

The Zouaves, her beloved Zouaves, hurried in consternation to the house as

soon is the news reached them that the gentle, devoted friend of the

soldier was no more; and it was a beautiful and stirring sight to see them

sobbing like children beside her, touching her hands with their sword‐

hilts and their rosaries, and swelling in broken but enthusiastic voices

the hymns of thanksgiving.

The Holy Father, wishing to pay his tribute to the general testimony of

love and admiration, commanded that the child of S. Dominic should be

carried to her grave with a pomp and splendor befitting the holiness of

her life and the heroic character of her death. The remains were conveyed

accordingly first to the Basilica of the Apostles in solemn state,

escorted by a vast concourse of people, priests and religious, and exposed

there throughout the morning to public veneration; a requiem Mass and the

office of the dead were chanted; in the afternoon, the body, followed by

all that Rome held of greatest and best, was transported to the Church of

Santa Maria in Ara Cœli. The Zouaves claimed the privilege of bearing the

precious remains upon their shoulders, and it was granted them. By special

permission of His Holiness, Amélie was interred in Santa Maria; but her

death was no sooner known at Marseilles than the townspeople spontaneously

demanded that the body should be returned to them. But Pius IX. replied

that Rome had now a prior claim to its guardianship; Amélie had made the

sacrifice of her life at Rome and for Rome; it was fitting that the ashes

should remain where the holocaust had been offered and consumed.

Marseilles yielded to the decision of the Sovereign Pontiff, and the

daughter of S. Dominic was left to sleep on under the august dome of the

Ara Cœli, there to await the angel of the resurrection, whose trumpet

shall awake the dead and bid them come forth and clothe themselves with

immortality.

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

The following is the authentic record of this miraculous death, as copied

from the original, legalized by Cardinal Patrizi, Vicar of His Holiness:

“Je soussigné, curé de la trèssainte basilique constantinienne des douze

saints apôtres de Rome, certifie que dans le registre XII. des défunts,

lettre N, page 283, se trouve l’acte dont l’extrait mot à mot suit:

“Le vingt‐deux décembre mil‐huit cent soixante six.—Mademoiselle Claire‐

Françoise‐Amélie Lautard de Marseille, fille de M. Jean Baptiste Lautard,

vierge très pieuse, pendant quelle offrait Dimanche dernier à Dieu sa

propre vie pour le salut du souverain Pontife, Pie IX. de Rome et de la

sainte église, a été saisie sur le champ par la maladie, et ayant reçu

très pieusement les sacraments de l’église, jouissant de la plenitude de

ses facultés, en prière, entourée de plusieurs prêtres et vierges, a rendu

son âme a Jésus Christ son époux, avec la plus grande sérénité, le

Mercredi dix‐neuf à neuf heures et demie du matin dans la maison Rue

Ripresa dei Barberi 175, l’âge de cinquante neuf ans; son corps, le

lendemain vingt, après le completuum a été conduit accompagné par un grand

nombre de religieuse en cette basilique et y a été exposé pendant la

matinée suivant l’usage des nobles, l’office et la Messe ont été dit, dans

l’après‐midi le corps a été transporté à l’église de Sainte Marie in Ara‐

Cœli, òu il a été enseveli dans le tombeau des Sœurs de St. Joseph de

l’Apparition.

“Donné à Rome,” etc.(274)

The International Congress Of Prehistoric Anthropology And Archæology.

From La Revue Generale De Bruxelles

Concluded.

The sessions of August 25 began with fresh discussions concerning the

troglodytes of Menton and the so‐called tertiary skull from California

already spoken of. M. Desor entered into extensive details concerning the

hatchets of nephrite and jade found in the Alps, and apparently of

Oriental origin. “I do not believe,” said he, as he ended, “that these

hatchets were utensils, but merely objects of display, like the

dolmens(!)—precious memorials and relics of the first ages of humanity.”

M. de Quatrefages thought these hatchets a proof of ancient commercial

relations with the East. A great deal was said in this discussion of the

use of stone knives by the Egyptians in embalming the dead, and among the

Jews for circumcising. Only one thing was forgotten—neither the Egyptians

nor the Jews ever attached any religious importance to the use of stone,

and they likewise made use of bronze and iron knives in these operations.

The instrument of circumcision at the present day is a steel blade.(275)

M. Leemans, director of the museum at Leyden, thought these hatchets came

from Java. He reminded us that there has always been constant intercourse

between Switzerland and that island, and that the majority of the soldiers

of the East India Company were traditionally recruited in Switzerland. The

Abbé Delaunay refuted M. Desor’s opinion by merely referring to the

collection at Pont‐Levoy, where there are fourteen hatchets of jade found

in that vicinity. It was thought desirable to ascertain the as yet unknown

source of jade. They now returned to the _hiatus_ mentioned by M. de

Mortillet at the previous session, in order to oppose it by bringing

forward an intermediary race, for whom M. Broca was the sponsor, though

without flattering it much. He engaged in a long, subtile argument on the

way tertiary flints were introduced into the valleys and caverns. They

were not agreed on this question, which is one we can only regard with

speculative interest.

The excursions to the _ateliers_ of Spiennes and Mesvin were not as

pleasant as the one to the Lesse. For that, the country around Mons should

be as charming as that of the Meuse—and the people likewise. There is a

very complete work by M. Dupont concerning these excavations, in which

have been found millions of rough flints, to which he does not hesitate to

assign a quaternary origin of the mammoth period. When one has a taste of

the mammoth, he cannot get too much of it. I know of sceptics and

controversialists who through speculations of another kind are plunged

into foolish incredulity. Here is an instance: from time immemorial our

forefathers made use of flints for striking fire, and many of us can still

remember the custom, which may not have wholly disappeared. For centuries,

households had to be supplied with flints for the tinder‐box, and in

abundance, for this stone is soon worn out by iron; it becomes furred and

smooth, and is soon unfit for use. If we compare the considerable traffic

in flints that must have been carried on with the enormous consumption

that supports the fabrication of chemical matches, we can easily see that

the sites of the workshops where flints for striking fire were cut must

have been heaped with millions of rough ones—nodules, chips, and _débris_

of all kinds; that excavations must have been made by pits, which

necessarily extended to considerable depth, and crossed very old geologic

strata, for silex is found imbedded in chalk at a depth of thirty or forty

metres in some places; that to argue from the stratification of

surrounding formations, in order to decide on the synchronism of the

excavations, would expose us to conclude _post hoc, ergo propter hoc_. And

I have not mentioned all the common uses made of flints in a household.

For many years they were used for firearms, and silex is still used in

ceramic manufactures, the origin of which is lost in the darkness of ages.

A great many of the flints that appear cut are only fragments that may

have been owing to spontaneous fracture. Now, whence came all the flints

used for striking fire during the historic periods that go back from our

time to the middle ages and to antiquity? Has it been proved that these

remains, so‐called prehistoric, do not come within the domain of history;

nay, even of modern history? At all events, the age of the quaternary

deposits is by no means established, and it is on the mere presence of

human remains, or of the productions of human labor among these deposits,

that certain anthropologists found the millions of ages they attribute to

our species. These remains do not indicate the site of ancient

settlements; they have been washed away from those settlements by currents

of water, and the question is, What epoch produced these changes?—a

question not solved, and perhaps never will be.

Besides, the primary defect of the whole prehistoric system is the

indissolubly confounding of two orders of very evident facts, but which

may by no means have any correlation as to time. Wrought flints show

evident traces of human labor, and there is no unprejudiced person who

cherishes the least doubt about it. The evidence of design shown by the

examination of two or three specimens is in itself a proof of some value,

but this proof makes an irresistible impression on the mind when, in

addition, we see an accumulation of specimens. It is, then, no longer

possible to attribute the uniform shape of the flints to a mere accident.

But were they fashioned at the time of the formation of the _terrains_ in

which they are embedded? That is another problem, the solution of which is

liable to controversy. Mr. Taylor, who is very respectable authority in

such matters, declares, after much conscientious research, that the

gravel‐beds of St. Acheul were deposited in the earlier part of the

Christian era. People of the historic period, such as the first

inhabitants of Umbria and the Egyptians, made flints precisely like those

of St. Acheul. The prodigious antiquity of man must be greatly shaken by

these observations. At Sinai, flint has been used to effect immense

excavations in the rock; it is again utilized under the form of hammers

and chisels in the ancient copper mines of the Aztecs, in Canada, Spain,

Wady‐Maghara, and Bethlehem, as well as on Lake Superior, in Tuscany, and

in Brittany. The Bedouins of Africa and the Indians of Texas still make

use of them; and M. Reboux, who gave the Congress a practical

demonstration of the mounting and use of the utensils of the stone age,

received his inspiration from those savages. They make the handles out of

the sinews of the bison, covered with a wide strip of the animal’s skin

recently taken off. This band is wound around grooves made in the middle

of the hammer. The skin, as it dries, contracts, and the stone, the

extremities of which alone are uncovered, is enclosed in a sheath so tight

that it cannot be drawn out.(276) It must be acknowledged, then, that the

authenticity of these beds at Spiennes, as prehistoric _ateliers_, appears

exceedingly doubtful, and there is a tinge of similar incredulity in the

behavior of the people around the _Camp des Cayaux_: “Countrymen, and even

little peasant girls,” says a reporter of one of our principal journals,

“were selling the finest stones to the travellers, making superhuman

efforts to repress smiles that threatened to explode into loud laughter. A

singularly ironic expression was legible in the large eyes of these

_fillettes_ and broke through their pretended seriousness. It was very

evident that the benighted villagers in the vicinity of Mons were not

sufficiently initiated into the new gospel of science, and by no means had

implicit faith in it. The irreverence of the population was still more

evident at the entrance of the hamlet, where a group of young women

manifested quite an uncivil merriment at the sight of some of the princes

of science who were toiling along under the heavy burden of quaternary

flint.” As an example of moral contrasts, I will merely allude to Hennuyer

and the peasant of Furfooz, one sceptical and contemptuous of everything,

and the other with genuine respect for the traditions of his beloved

valleys.

The morning of the twenty‐seventh was mostly taken up with a report from

General Faid’herbe on the dolmens of Algeria. A burst of applause greeted

the illustrious and genial hero of Lille. Popular sentiment seemed an

embodiment of the

“_Placuit victrix causa diis, sed victa Catoni_”

in the very teeth of the Borussians.(277)

General Faid’herbe assigned a historic epoch to the origin of the dolmens.

These monuments, which are tombs, were the work of one race found on every

shore from Pomerania to Tunis, and which, according to him, proceeded from

the north to the south. The dolmens of Africa are like those of Europe.

But what race was this? A blonde race from the shores of the Baltic, as

the speaker proved by three facts: 1. Blondes are still to be found in

Barbary. 2. Ancient historians speak of the blonde people who lived there

before the Christian era. 3. Fifteen centuries before Christ the blonde

inhabitants of that country attacked Lower Egypt. M. Faid’herbe stated

that when he lived in Senegal there were two powerful negro tribes in the

countries on the upper Niger having a political organization of relative

advancement. The complexion of the royal family was somewhat clear, and

they prided themselves on their descent from white ancestors. Etymological

indices lead us to believe that this dynasty descended from the blonde

race of the dolmens.

M. Worsaae opposed the general’s opinion, and maintained that the builders

of the dolmens, on the contrary, proceeded from the south to the north,

where they attained the height of their civilization. M. Cartailhac,

however, stated an important fact that weakens this objection: the dolmens

of the South of France contain metallic objects whose place of fabrication

could not have been far off; those of the interior and the North only

contained articles of polished stone.

A small man now sprang into the tribune, fierce as Orestes tormented by

the Eumenides, with black eyes, long streaming hair, and a person of

incessant mobility. It is one of the princes of oriental philology—M.

Oppert, who began a demonstration of the chronology of remote historical

times, which he continued in the afternoon session. He assured us, as he

began, that he did not intend to offend any one’s religious convictions,

or to discuss the chronology of the Bible, which, in his eyes, is

eminently respectable. In his opinion, the difference of the dates pointed

out in different chronological tables can be explained without any

difficulty. M. Oppert showed us how the chronologies of Egypt and Chaldea,

which were calculated by cycles of unequal length, begin with the same

date—the 19th of January, Gregorian (the 27th of April, Julian), of the

year 11542 B.C.!

He therefore concluded that the people of those regions must have observed

the important astronomical phenomena of that time, the risings of Sirius

perhaps, which would indicate a degree of civilization somewhat advanced

for a period _still ante‐historic_. I like to recall the very words he

used; they are full of meaning.

M. Ribeiro had made researches in Portugal that appeared to him conclusive

as to the existence of pliocene man, and he produced tertiary flints which

he believed to be cut. The Abbé Bourgeois, who could not remain

indifferent to any proof of tertiary man, allowed an unexpected

declaration to escape his lips. “I should like,” said he, “to consider

these fragments as authentic proofs of the truth of my theory, but the

truth obliges me to declare that I cannot discover any evidence of human

labor in them.” M. Ribeiro sank into his seat under this _coup de hache‐

polie_, and tertiary man was properly buried, after a later correction

from M. Bourgeois, who admitted that one of M. Ribeiro’s flints bore marks

of human labor, but he had doubts as to its bed.

Anthropology and ethnography had the honors during the greater part of

this session.

M. Lagneau said the researches made in Belgium showed there were three

perfectly distinct species of men in this country, and he opposed M.

Dupont’s opinion that the skulls of Furfooz belong to the Mongoloid race.

M. Hamy demonstrated anatomically that a particular race, the Australioid,

is spread throughout Europe. The jaw from Naulette appears to belong to

this race; the skull from Engis belongs to another. M. Hamy thought he

discovered some of the characteristics of the Australioid race in certain

inferior types in Belgium and France. These primitive races are not

extinct. They still peep out in isolated cases of atavism, and he

exhibited a curious instance—the hideous portrait of a boat‐woman of the

neighborhood of Mons, with all the characteristics of the Australioid race

of the mammoth period. In this selection of a Montois type there was a

spice of revenge evident to every one. M. Virchow found a manifest

difference between the skulls at the British Museum and those of criminals

in the collection at the university. The Flemish skulls present the same

prognathism as those of Furfooz, and certain types have characteristics

that might cause them to be classed with the Mongoloid race.

As to the size of the skull, it is not owing to the development of the

psychical faculties, and we should be cautious about drawing premature

conclusions concerning the primitive races of this country. M. Virchow

cited the example of the two skulls found in a Greek tomb of the

Macedonian epoch, the form and size of which induced him to class them

unhesitatingly with the Mongoloids of the caverns of the Lesse. Now, one

of these skulls was that of a Greek woman of great distinction, both as to

her social condition and intellectual culture. The learned professor from

Berlin expressed a doubt as to the Germanic origin of the Flemings. M.

Lagneau also thought we should not decide too hastily about the races that

first inhabited Belgium. He could not see why the Flemings and Germans

should have the same origin. In Germany, Belgium, and France the races are

excessively mixed up. Germany was repeatedly invaded by people from Gaul.

Prognathism alone is not typical any more than the temperament, color of

the hair, etc.

M. Vanderkindere thought the Flemish of Germanic origin, and the Walloon

of Celtic. Blondes do not belong to the Aryan races. Prognathism is more

common in them than in the dark people of the country, in which the

speaker finds Ligurian traces, as in the basin of the Loire (Liger‐

Liguria). Now, the blonde race, has always thought itself superior, and

this belief was so strong in Flanders in the heart of the middle ages that

the mother of Berthulphe de Ghistelles, displeased at the alliance her son

had contracted with the beautiful Godelive, a native of Boulonnais, whom

her contemporaries reproached solely on account of her black hair and

eyebrows, expressed her contempt in these significant terms: “_Cur,

inquit, cornicem de terra aliena eduxisti?_” She thought it disgraceful to

defile the pure blood of her antique Germanic race (_alti tui sanguinis_)

by such an alliance.

In a subsequent session, this question of races came on the carpet again.

M. Dupont, combining the observations made in the three excursions (that

to Namur had taken place the day before), established a filiation between

the different peoples who inhabited Belgium in different periods of the

stone age. The people of Mesvin, the Somme, the Tamise, and the Seine were

contemporaries. The race of Mesvin inhabited Hainault at the same time as

the troglodytes, whom they did not know. It might have been the people of

Mesvin and the Somme, who, gradually attaining to polished stone, invaded

the country occupied by the less advanced people of the caverns. M.

Virchow could not recommend too much prudence to those who are

investigating the science of anthropology. In prehistoric times, as in our

day, there were variations of the same race, but that is not accounted for

by atavism. It must be concluded that men were simultaneously created or

born in several places, and different types sprang from the commingling of

the actual races. We take pleasure in collecting these indirect

acknowledgments from the lips that dared say, “There is no place in the

universe for a God, nor in man for a soul.” M. de Quatrefages thought,

like M. Virchow, that all the various races cannot be owing to atavism.

Crossing has a good deal to do with it. It is allowable to refer the

variety of types to the more or less commingling of the ancient races, as

they are everywhere mingled now. We can hardly deny, however, that the

present population partly descended from the troglodytes. The people of

Furfooz must still have some representatives in Belgium, especially among

the women. Science proves that woman retains the type of the race to which

she belongs longer than man. At a later day we shall doubtless succeed in

deciphering the origin of the human races. In these researches we must

also consider the action of _les milieux_. Mlle. Royer expressed a

disbelief in the unity of the human species. Unfortunately, the inevitable

crossing is always obstructing her observations. She absolutely refuses to

admit that the white man is Aryan, or at least Asiatic. She hopes,

however, some day to obtain a solution of these great problems. How far,

madame, your knowledge extends, and how astonishingly you have retained

the persistent type of _madame la guenon_ from whom you flatter yourself

to have descended! After other discussions concerning the bronze utensils

found in various parts of Europe, and the influence of Etruscan art, which

extended even to the North, M. Baudre undertook the demonstration of a

point singular enough. Primitive man, he said, doubtless possessed the

musical faculty, and it is impossible with his knowledge of the flint he

daily used that it should not have occurred to him to apply the

sonorousness of that stone to some practical use. No one can positively

declare this was so, but who can deny it? M. Baudre has constructed an

instrument composed of accordant flints—a prehistoric piano—on which he

executed a _brabançonne_ that would have excited the envy of the

_Moncrabeaux_. It is neither more nor less insupportable than the modern

instrument of torture of which some unideal creature, with bent body and a

prey to convulsive jerks, strikes the senseless ivory with his skinny

phalanges till it shrieks under the touch.

Of the excursion to Namur we will only allude to what bore on the

scientific labors of the Congress; that is, the visit to the Camp of

Hastedon. The delightful, cordial reception given us in that pleasant

town, the banquet and concert which followed, will not soon be effaced

from the memory of the excursionists. The plateau of Hastedon, close to

Namur, rests on a solid mass of dolomite, and is surrounded by a bastion

composed of fagots calcined—it is not known how, huge boulders, and a

thick layer of earth and stones. The Romans occupied it for a certain

time, but the parapets that surround it are much more ancient. It is an

immense plain, eleven hectares in extent, strewed with flints, both

wrought and polished, that came from Spiennes, while those of the caverns

of the Lesse came from Champagne. The troglodytes of the Lesse and the

people of Spiennes were contemporaries in the age of cut stone, but there

was no intercourse between them. During the age of polished stone, on the

contrary, the importation of flints from Champagne ceased in the region of

the caverns, and the flint of Spiennes was diffused among the plateaux of

upper Belgium. The inhabitants of Spiennes extended their former bounds,

penetrated to that region, and fortified it. According to M. Dupont, the

Camp of Hastedon must have been one of their fortresses.

The final _séance_ of the Congress opened with a very interesting and

animated discussion as to the first use of bronze and iron. Where did the

bronze come from? M. Oppert thought it of European origin. The Phœnicians

went to England for tin rather than to the East. M. Worsaae was convinced

it came from Asia, and that a bronze age will be discovered in Egypt. M.

Leemans was of the opinion that the iron age preceded the bronze in India

and Ceylon. M. Conestabile was inclined to think the Phœnicians obtained

their tin from the Caucasus rather than England. M. Franks said they might

have found it in Spain and Portugal, and M. Waldemar‐Schmidt thought the

Egyptians obtained theirs from Africa.

M. de Quatrefages afterwards summed up the character of the Congress of

Brussels: it appears from scientific evidence in every direction that

certain existing types have an incontestable resemblance to the people of

the quaternary period. In the second place, it now seems established that

man of the stone age travelled much more than has been supposed.

The close of the session was marked by two occurrences that produced a

strong impression on the assembly. The two workmen who so ably assisted M.

Dupont in the exploration of the caverns had, at the solicitation of the

committee, the _décoration ouvrière_ conferred on them by Messrs. de

Quatrefages and Capellini. Then a letter from M. G. Geefs was read,

stating that he had made a bust of M. d’Omalius unbeknown to the latter,

which he offered as a mark of homage to the Congress. This bust, concealed

at the end of the apartment, was uncovered and presented to the venerable

president, old in years but youthful in feeling, whose fine noble career

M. de Quatrefages retraced in an address sparkling with wit. Then, after

some isolated communications, the Congress passed a resolution to hold its

seventh meeting at Stockholm, in 1874, under the effective presidency of

Prince Oscar of Sweden, and the Congress was declared adjourned.

We cannot better end this report, which I should have liked to make more

complete, than by quoting M. Dupont’s _résumé_ (a little indefinite, in my

opinion) of the labor of the Sixth International Congress of Prehistoric

Anthropology and Archæology:

“After the weighty discussions that have taken place at the Congress of

Brussels,” says M. le Secrétaire Général, “it is proper to lay before the

public the chief problems discussed by the learned assembly. These

problems have not all been definitely solved. That was not to be expected,

for the result of such scientific meetings is seldom the decision of

questions, but rather stating them with clearness and precision. The

discussions at such meetings lead to the opening of new paths, and

preparing the way, by throwing new light on it, for calm and persevering

labor in the study. There alone is it possible to weigh the value of

arguments, elucidate obscure points, and arrive at conclusions. In this

spirit six principal points have been drawn up:

“1. Did man really exist in the middle of the tertiary period? Several of

the specialists present at the Congress declared in the affirmative. But

it appeared, especially from the flints discovered by the Abbé Bourgeois,

that further researches should be undertaken before science can decide on

a point so important in the history of mankind. The bed of the flints in

question was ultimately regarded as incontestable.

“2. The formation of the valleys and the filling of the caverns were

regarded as the result of fluvial action. The study of these phenomena may

be considered as the fundamental point of research respecting man of the

quaternary epoch.

“3. The bones of goats, sheep, and oxen, discovered in the deposits of the

mammoth age in the Belgian caverns, were acknowledged to be similar to our

goats, sheep, and certain species of our domestic cattle. An opinion was

advanced that perhaps they originated these domestic species, whose origin

has often been sought in vain.

“4. Communications between different tribes of the stone age in Western

Europe were for the first time distinctly stated. The people of the

quaternary epoch were divided into two classes, one of which, by the

regular development of its industrial pursuits, arrived at such a degree

of progress that it was thought they must have invaded the region of the

Belgian caverns in the age of polished stone, and subjugated our

troglodytes.

“5. The discovery at Eygenbilsen gave occasion for recognizing the

Etruscan influence in our region previous to the Roman conquest. There was

a disposition to admit that the intercourse between Italy and the

Scandinavian countries must have been much later.

“6. The opinion that the anthropological types of the quaternary epoch

have survived, and constitute an essential element of existing European

nations, was admitted in principle by all the anthropologists who

expressed any opinion on the subject. The problem of the origin of

European races is thus placed in an entirely new light.”

Atlantic Drift—Gathered In The Steerage.

By An Emigrant.

Concluded.

The generally fortunate voyage of our vessel was varied by two or three

days of very rough weather, and the miseries of our first night at sea

were intensified by a violent gale. The fast steamer, built with lines

calculated for excessive speed, cut through rather than breasted the

waves. Tons of clear water washed over the whaleback, knocking over one or

two hapless wights, and drenching many others. Her wind‐ward side was

incessantly swept by blinding showers of heavy spray. To pass from the

shelter of the main deck to the entrance of our steerage was a veritable

running the gauntlet. You watched till the ship rose, and then ran at full

speed for the shelter of the whaleback, happy if you reached it without

being rolled by a sudden lurch into the scuppers, or losing your balance

and clinging to the nearest rope or stanchion, being soused by the spray

from the next wave that struck her.

The storm raged more fiercely as the evening advanced, and from timid lips

came stories of the lost _City of Boston_ and the hapless _London_, while

more experienced hands regretted their precipitancy in selecting a vessel

of a line in which every other quality was said to have been sacrificed to

that of excessive speed, and indulged in uncomfortable surmises as to the

consequences of the shaft snapping or the engines breaking down. When the

damp and chill of the advancing night drove us to our bunks, we clambered

down‐stairs, and, staggering away into our respective streets, crawled in.

To realize my first impression of the steerage of our vessel at night,

when its cavernous space was lit, or rather its grim darkness made

visible, by a single lantern, would require the pen of Dickens or the

graphic pencil of Gustave Doré. Crouching between those bunks and the roof

grotesque forms, dimly seen in the obscure light, threw weird shadows on

the cabin sides. Here one busily engaged, under innumerable difficulties,

in making up a neat bed of sheets and blankets, into which he afterwards

burrows by an ingenious backward movement, like a shore crab hiding

himself in the sand left uncovered by the receding tide; while his next

neighbor retires to rest by the simple process of kicking off his boots,

pulling his battered night‐cap over his eyes, and stretching himself on

the bare boards, with a muttered string of curses on the ship, the

weather, and the world in general, for his evening orisons. At a corner of

one of the tables appear a group of players poring over their cards in a

_chiaro‐oscuro_ that recalls a scene of Teniers or Van Ostade, while at

another a group are gathered round a young vocalist who quavers out in a

dull monotone a curious medley of sentimental ditties and music‐hall

vulgarities. Gradually all drop away into their bunks, and everything is

still, save the deep breathing of some hundred souls, and the groans of

the sufferers from the malady of the sea. Occasionally the heavy plunge of

the ship, as she dashes into some mountainous wave, extinguishes the lamp

with the shock, and buries the little windows under water, leaving the

cabin for a few seconds in profound darkness. In the gale during the first

night of our voyage, one tremendous billow struck the ship, burying us in

black night, and rolling trunks, tins, and clothes cluttering to leeward

with the lurch of the vessel, and awakening all in a moment from their

slumbers. A general consternation prevailed, and while some called in

angry tones for the lamp to be relighted, others could be heard muttering

the unfamiliar words of a half‐forgotten prayer. As the great ship shook

in her conflict with the raging sea, and we heard overhead the rush of

many feet and the swash on deck of a heavy mass of water, I felt nervous

enough till she rose again and, creeping to the little window, I could see

the cold moon throwing a silvery track across the waste of raging, wind‐

lashed surges.

I thought of the great ships that had gone down, crowded with hundreds of

unprepared and unthinking souls, into the cruel bosom of the great ocean;

perhaps their unknown fate was to sink in the darkness of the night,

crushed in a moment by an iceberg, or, maimed and helpless, battered to

pieces and submerged by the angry waves. What a horrible death‐agony must

be that of the doomed, who, after the sudden crash of a collision, or

battened down in their dark prison in a raging storm, heard the cataract

of water roar down the hatchway, greedy to engulf them! For a few moments

what fearful struggles would take place in the crowded cabin to mount the

bunks and gain the last mouthful of the retiring air, until the flood

buried all in the bosom of the deep, in a silence to be broken only by the

trumpet of the Judgment Day! Should I, I pondered, in such a dark hour,

have the strength of mind or grace of God to lie still on my bed and let

the rising water cut short the prayer on my lips, or, hoping against hope,

with angrily raging heart die fighting to breathe a few seconds longer the

vital air? Of a truth, to die suffocated in the darkness, without a last

look at the great vault of heaven, a last breath of the pure air, seemed

to me to be to doubly die.

If I suffered some discomfort and perhaps a little anxiety from the

occasional anger of the mighty main, it was far more than compensated for

by its aspect in its calmer and more peaceful moods. I cannot understand

how in a few days voyagers can learn to complain of the monotony of the

sea; to me, its different moods in calm and storm, the snowy crests of the

dancing waves, the foaming and often phosphorescent wake of the great

steamer, and the ever‐changing aspects of the cloud‐laden heavens, were

objects of untiring interest. If I had the magic pen of the author of the

_Queen of the Air_, I would write a book on the cloud‐scenery of the

Atlantic. Never, even in the purest Italian sky or the cloudless heavens

above the vast expanse of a Western prairie, have I seen Diana so purely

fair, Lucifer so bright, or Aurora clad in such varied garments of purple

and rose; such a wonderful vault lined with innumerable flakes of spotless

wool left by the dying wind; such masses of cumulus, sometimes as solidly

white as Alpine summits, sometimes before the rain‐storm luridly gray‐

black with the gathered water, like the massive bulk of Snowdon seen

through a driving rain; and, once or twice, the pall of the thunder‐storm

rising over the leeward heaven and advancing towards us, its ragged edge

momentarily lit up with the blazing tongues of the lightning, until it

rolled over, deafening with its dread artillery and hiding all around in

mist and blinding rain. The grandeur of sunset and of sunrise, when not

obscured by the mistiness of a moist atmosphere, was indescribable. Every

night, with renewed pleasure, we watched the god of day sink beneath the

western horizon. Turner, in his wildest dreams of those gorgeous heaven‐

pictures that he had not seen on earth but felt that he would love to see,

imagined no greater luxury of gold, carmine, purple, crimson, rose, and

rose‐tinged snow, than was afforded by some of the spectacles of the

setting sun. One evening still holds my memory entranced: the heavy

curtain of dull gray mist that all day had lain low over the sea rolled

eastward before the evening breeze; the emerging sun, low on the horizon,

dyed the receding masses of cloud with a thousand shades of livid purple;

the peaks and shoulders of the eastern range of mountains of dark vapor

caught the light, while between them sank valleys and depths more sombre

by the contrast. Westward, below the rosy, almost blood‐red sun, ran two

long narrow filaments of purple cloud, dark across the glow of the

heavens, like bars across a furnace. A few moments, and the shining orb

sinks beneath them, fringing their edges with refulgent gold, then falls

into a sea of liquid fire. A little longer the crimson hues linger on the

eastern curtain of clouds, then grow fainter and fainter, and die away

into the gray hues of a moonless night.

Among the five hundred emigrants our good ship carried there were, it is

needless to say, many men of different speech, and almost every diversity

of occupation and character. Besides the four nations of Great Britain, we

had Germans, Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians in considerable numbers, a few

French, Poles, and Russians, a Levantine Jewess and her children, and a

solitary American. With the Teutons my ignorance of their language

prevented me holding further converse than to learn their nationality and

their destination—generally Illinois, Minnesota, or Wisconsin. Unlike the

Irish, with whom New York seemed to fulfil all their notions of America,

the Germans and Scandinavians appeared all westward bound, in large

parties, organized for agricultural life; and while they were in a

considerable minority on the vessel, they formed much the larger

proportion of the passengers in the emigrant cars. The amount of their

baggage was something prodigious. Nearly all apparently peasants in their

native land, they seemed on leaving it to transport everything they

possessed except the roof over their heads to their adopted country. What

would not break they enclosed in immense bags of ticking and rough canvas,

and the residue of their property in arklike chests, the immense weight

and sharp iron‐bound corners of which moved the sailors to multiform

blasphemy. For my part, I had read so much of the contented prosperity of

the peasantry in Norway and Sweden that I speculated not a little as to

what cause could lead them to make the long and expensive migration from

Christiania or Gottenburg to the so far off shores of the Mississippi.

With the Germans, who came principally from the neighborhood of Mannheim,

the case was different. Several of them could speak a little French, nor

were they reticent as to the principal cause that led them to desert their

fatherland: it was the man tax, levied by the empire of blood and iron on

their youth and manhood, that drove them from their farms in the sweet

Rhine valley to seek abodes in the new and freer world. Several of them

had followed the Bavarian standard under Von Tannen through the hardships

and carnage of the Franco‐German war; but to the shrewd sense of the

peasant the halo of military glory and the pomp of wide empire meant but

conscription and taxation, fields untilled, and wife and children

starving, while the blood of father and son was poured out to indite a new

page in the gory annals of warlike fame.

By the way, one of them assured us that never in the fiercest time of that

deadly strife, even when, in long forced marches, driving Bourbaki’s

broken bands through the snows of Jura, had they fared so badly as he did

then, to which I may add the experience of an Englishman—whose sinister

countenance and shabby attire gave increased weight to his testimony—who

averred that we fared little better than in a workhouse and worse than in

a jail.

Amongst us there were many mechanics, principally Irish, who were

returning from visits to their friends; nor can I omit to chronicle their

uniform and emphatic testimony as to the benefit they had received from

their emigration. In New York, Philadelphia, Boston, or Chicago, they were

sure of work, could live and dress comfortably, and lay by a large

proportion of their earnings, while in England, and still more in Ireland,

they were happy when their earnings kept them in lodging, food, and

clothing, and saving was neither thought of nor possible. From what I

could learn, the position of the unskilled laborer appeared by no means so

bright. The different system of hiring in America made the nominally

higher wages more precarious than in the old country; and I suspect that

everywhere the untaught man, who, ignorant of any distinct branch of

industry, brings only his thews and sinews to market, is, and will ever

be, but “a hewer of wood and drawer of water”—an ill‐paid and little

valued drudge.

For one class of the Irish emigrants, of whom we had a certain number on

board, their countrymen entertained a profound and not unfounded contempt.

Youths from Cork or Dublin shops or offices, whom dissipation or

misconduct had thrown out of place, or the desire of novelty or adventure

had attracted to the New World—unfit for manual labor, and without any

special qualification for commerce—their heads were turned with tales of

the giddy whirl of New York life, in their notions of which gallantry,

whiskey, politics, calico balls, and rowdy patriotism made a curious

medley. Their general ambition was to be bar‐tenders, and with some

exceptions their usual behavior showed them to be little fitted for any

better avocation.

One of the characters that most attracted my attention, though I elicited

but little response to my advances from his taciturn nature, was a miner

from Montana—a man of short stature but powerful build, with, a

determined, weather‐beaten face, and a decidedly sinister squint, who had

rambled over the greater part of California, Nevada, Utah, Washington, and

Montana, and apparently returned no richer from his wanderings. Having

been a seaman before he took to a mountain life, his gait had acquired an

indescribably curious mixture of the out‐kneed walk of a man constantly on

horseback with the roll of a sailor, while he had, too, a curious habit of

involuntarily working the fingers of his right hand as if they held a six‐

shooter. He usually restricted himself to the bachelor society under the

whaleback, and, chary of his words, amused himself with an amateur

surveillance of the operations of the men, or occasionally exchanged

reminiscences in brief sentences with two or three other returned

Californians: how he and his mates had killed a grizzly at the foot of

Mount Helena; how he had made £1,200 in eight months from a claim in

Siskiyou County, and lost it all in working another in El Dorado County,

at which he persevered fruitlessly for three years, while the claims on

each side brought heavy piles to their workers; how he had seen twenty‐six

“road agents” hanged together in Montana; and other tales of far West

mining, murder, and debauchery. Once only his hard face relaxed into a

laugh at a story he told of two men who quarrelled in a California saloon,

and, dodging round the table, while the rest of the company made for the

door or skulked behind the beer barrels, emptied their revolvers at each

other with no worse effect than one slight scratch. That twelve barrels

should go off and no one be killed seemed to be too ridiculous, and his

risible faculties overcame him accordingly. Strangely enough, while he

spoke with the most hearty enthusiasm as to the pleasures of a

mountaineering life, which he declared, with a good horse, a trusty rifle,

and staunch mates, was the finest in the world, and to judge from

appearances had certainly not made his pile, he never intended to return

westward, but was bound for some city of the South. Possibly some episodes

in his checkered existence had caused him to bear in mind the shortened

career of the twenty‐six road agents with a distinctness that determined

his preference for this side of the Rocky Mountains.

The most lively time of the day was the evening after the five o’clock

tea; the sailors during the dog‐watches—from four to eight—do not turn in,

but remain on deck, and they amused or persecuted the female passengers

with a coarse gallantry that generally made the more modest women remain

below; the cooks, engineers, and firemen stood at their doors in the deck‐

house and greeted with horse‐banter the passers‐by; while on the open

space before the wheel‐house a few couples danced to the music of an

accordion, or tried to tire each other out to the whistled tune of an

Irish jig. A pair of professional singers, husband and wife, to whose

retinue I usually attached myself, used to sit at the door of the saloon

and favor us with selections from their repertory, often with a success

that brought metallic appreciation from the gentlemen in the neighboring

smoking‐room; till after sunset—generally interpreted with extreme

liberality—one of the stewards of the after‐steerage literally hunted the

women down‐stairs; and then often on fine nights the sailors would cluster

round the open hatchway and sing for or banter with their favorites below.

The behavior of the sailors towards the women was the subject of constant

complaint by the more respectable of the passengers throughout the voyage;

in the evening, no woman without her husband was safe from their

persecution, and not always with him at her side; as they stood by each

other, and always had the sheath‐knife at their side, the men were not

very ready to commence a quarrel with them; if their advances were

resented, they were apt to change from coarse good‐humor to the most

revolting and obscene abuse. Hence, as I have mentioned, many of the women

would not return to the deck after the evening meal. In short, if other

steamers are like the one in which we made the passage, no young woman

could cross in the steerage without her modesty being daily shocked, and,

if she was unprotected, running great risk of actual insult. I have

mentioned that the deck bar was at the head of our staircase and

consequently near the sailors’ cabin; one night it was broken open and

cleared of its contents; whether the culprits were either sought for or

detected, I never heard; but certainly the seamen next day were in a state

of extreme conviviality: and, under the emboldening influence of liquor,

one lively young mariner put his arm round the waist of a very handsome

young Englishwoman, whose ladylike dress and appearance had so far

prevented her from being molested in this way. A fight between her husband

and the delinquent was with difficulty prevented by the bystanders, and

the former went to complain to the chief officer; he mustered the watch

and read them a lecture on their not interfering with the female

passengers, and told the culprit he would hand him over to the authorities

at Castle Garden on his arrival at New York, who would certainly send him

for six months to prison. The latter did not seem much discomposed at the

intimation, and the day I landed in the Empire City he appeared at our

boardinghouse on Washington Street in a state of great hilarity and beer,

and informed us with much blasphemy that he had cut his connection with

the ship.

The emigrant passengers on board our ship suffered much annoyance and

discomfort; but I do not hesitate to say that most of our troubles arose

from the crew and attendants rather than the arrangements of the ship

itself. Much of the accommodation provided—for instance, in the case of

the wash‐houses and fresh‐water pumps—was made useless by the negligence

or surliness of the men by whom they were controlled; the victuals seemed

generally to be of good quality, and, except in the case of the fresh

bread and sugar, were provided with lavish if not wasteful abundance, but

they were usually carelessly cooked, if not actually uneatable, and served

in the roughest and most heedless manner. The crew were a most disorderly

set—quarrels were of constant occurrence. I saw two fights—one between the

interpreter attached to the after‐steerage and one of the stewards; and

another, which took place between the head‐cook and the butcher in the

saloon galley; and I heard of several others. The cooks and bakers in the

steerage galley were changed once or twice during the voyage, but no

change for the better resulted. I attribute this want of anything like

discipline or attentiveness to their duties to the constant change of the

men on board these steamers; they only sign articles for the run out and

home, rarely remaining more than one or two voyages in the ship, and many

go the westward voyage merely to get to New York and desert the ship the

moment they arrive there. I was told the chief officer called the _milors_

together and promised them, as the ship was short‐handed (she had seven

less than her complement of 28 seamen), they should receive £5 10_s._ per

month instead of the £4 10_s._ for which they had shipped; but in spite of

this, nearly half of them would desert when the ship came to her moorings.

The cooks, bakers, and stewards are engaged in the same way, and the

consequence is, before they can all be got to understand their positions

and work well together, they are paid off and a new set come on board. If

the companies could form a permanent staff for their vessels, and go to

the same care and expense over their organization as they give to the

material equipment of their splendid vessels, an immense change for the

better would be effected in the comfort and convenience of the emigrant.

As to the distribution of provisions, the passengers might be arranged in

messes of ten or twenty, some of whose number would fetch their food from

the galley for allotment among themselves, and thus give them an

opportunity of eating their meals at table in a more Christianlike and

less piggish manner than the majority are at present compelled to do. Nor

do I see any great difficulty or additional expense in a different

arrangement of the bunks, by which, at the sacrifice of the wide space in

the middle of the steerage, they could be grouped on each side of a

central table, so that each twenty or thereabouts would form a partially

separated room, with its own table and its own mess.

At last, early on the second Sunday morning, the thunderlike roll of the

cable paid out over our heads awoke us as the ship came to anchor off

Staten Island, and later in the day she moored alongside the company’s

wharf in New Jersey. In sight of the promised land, the fatigue and

annoyance of the voyage were soon forgotten. A liberal meal of fresh and

unusually well‐cooked beef and plum‐duff, eaten undisturbed by the

vessel’s motion, made the memory of the disgusting messes we had endured

or revolted at less poignant. The entire passengers went on shore in the

forenoon, but none of the emigrants were allowed to leave, or any one to

come on board the ship. Boatfuls of friends of the passengers came

alongside, and the word passed along the deck that Mrs. Brady’s husband or

Mary Cahill’s brother was seeking her. Numberless inquiries were shouted

as to Mike, or Mary, or the children, until the gray twilight hid the

spires and streets of the great city across the river. The chief officer

came round early with a lantern, and summarily dismissed all the women

below, and all went quietly to rest. Often, I believe, the last night on

board the emigrant ship is a scene of wild revelry, if not actual

debauchery; but the want of liquor—none was sold after the vessel came to

her moorings—and the absence of the fairer sex, effectually quenched any

convivial tendencies.