The summer assizes were over, and the briefless ones flitted hither and

thither for the long vacation: some to Switzerland, with Mont Blanc in

the distance—very much in the distance—others the passes of the Tyrol,

sunny Spain, byways in Brittany, or the Highlands of Scotland. Connemara

found its true believers, and Killarney its pious pilgrims. As for

myself, I was perforce compelled to substitute the Dodder for the Rhine,

the Dublin mountains for the Alps, and Sackville Street for the

Boulevard des Italiens. My aunt had contributed the ten-pound note upon

which I had hung in fond anticipation towards the building of Father

Donnelly’s new church at Shinanshone, and the letter which conveyed this

intelligence concluded with the following: “I don’t see your name

figuring in any of the trials, good, bad, or indifferent. It’s all

Macdonogh and Armstrong. What are you about, at all at all? At this rate

of going you’ll never see a silk gown, let alone the bench. You might as

well be on the Hill of Howth as in the Four Courts, if you don’t stir

yourself. Let me see you cheek by jowl with Macdonogh and Armstrong

during the coming winter, or I’ll know the reason why, and make my

financial arrangements accordingly.”

I was seated one lovely morning in autumn gazing gloomily into the

street, which was as empty as my own exchequer. Dreamy visions of the

golden glory of ripening corn, of blood-red poppies, of fern-shaded

dells, of limpid pools and purple-clad mountains mocked my aching heart.

I sighed the sigh of impecuniosity, and railed at the inconsistency of a

fortune which gave little Bangs, who hadn’t one idea to rub against

another, a thousand per annum, a vulgar cad like Hopkins a bagful of

briefs, and which left me high and dry in a front garret in Eccles

Street, without a red cent to come into collision with a battered

sixpence in my somewhat cavernous pockets. Heigh-ho!

An outside car, driven at a frosty pace, smote upon the drowsy stillness

of the street, and my gloom was somewhat speedily dispelled by the sight

of my friend Tom Whiffler’s honest and beaming face, and his expressive

and expansive signals while yet a considerable distance from the house.

Tom is always full of money, full of health, and full of the most

boisterous and explosive spirits.

“Aha! you old cat on the tiles,” he shouted, “come down from your coign

of vantage. I was afraid you were out of town. Somebody said you were on

Circuit.” And standing upon the foot-board of the car, he burst forth

with—

“Hail to our barrister back from the Circuit!

Honor and wealth to the curls of his wig!

Long may he live o’er his forehead to jerk it,

Long at a witness look burly and big!”

“Come up, for gracious sake!” I cried, as I perceived heads peeping from

behind the partly-closed shutters of an opposite house, inhabited by a

genteel family, who wished their little world to imagine them in Italy,

France, Spain—anywhere but in Dublin—during the dog-days.

In a few seconds Tom bounded into the apartment. “This is a slice of

luck to get you, old man. Come, now, pack up your traps, and we’ll have

four days in the County Wicklow. I shall have the car in any case, and

our hotel bills will be mere bagatelles which we’ll square up at Tib’s

Eve. Lend me a couple of shirts and things; you can bring the baggage—a

change for two—and I’ll do the rest. We’ve twenty-five minutes to catch

the train.”

Five minutes found Tom upon one side of the car, myself upon the other,

and, calmly reposing in the well between us, the neat little portmanteau

of the fair unknown. I was compelled to make use of it, as Whiffler had

no “leathern conveniency,” and my travelling-valise had been lent to one

of “ours,” and was possibly at that particular moment strapped upon the

murderous mound of luggage which encumbers the groaning roof of the

Alpine diligence, or snugly ensconced on the grape-strewn deck of a

Rhine or a Moselle steamer. It gave me more than a pang to remove it

from its well-known corner. A chord had been touched which set all my

memories vibrating, and I handled it with as much care and anxiety as

though it were a new-born infant or a rickety case containing rack-rent

or nitro-glycerine.

A glorious moonlight found us driving through the Vale of Clara _en

route_ to Glendalough—the sad, stricken valley of the Seven Churches.

The hills, quietly entranced, lay gazing upwards at the gentle moon, who

enfolded them in her pellucid beams as with a soft, sheeny mantle of

light. The Avonmore far, far down in the valley musically murmured while

she glided onwards to join the Avonbeg, who joyously awaited her coming

in the sweet Vale of Avoca. The honest watch-dog’s bark bayed up the

valley, and the perfume-laden air in its holy calm was as sweet as an

angel’s whisper.

After “a square meal” of rasher and eggs which would have put the most

elaborate _chef-d’œuvre_ of the _cuisine_ out of count, we strutted

forth from the hostelry in the direction of St. Kevin’s Bed, and heard

the oft-repeated legend of poor Kathleen’s fate from the lips of a very

ragged but very amusing guide, whose services we were desirous of

engaging for the morrow.

“Troth, thin, but it’s me father’s son that’s sorry not to be wud yez;

but shure”—and here he lowered his voice—“it’s in regard to me bein’ in

a hobble that I’m out in the moonlight.”

“What scrape have you got yourself into?” asked Tom Whiffler. “Whiskey?”

“Musha, thin, it wasn’t a dhrop o’ sperrits that done it _this_ offer.”

“A _colleen_?

“Sorra a fear av all the colleens from this to Wicklow Head.”

“Mistaking another man’s sheep for your own?” laughed Tom.

“If ye wor spaikin’ airnest I’d make ye sorry for them words,” said the

man in an angry tone; but brightening up, he added: “Av yez wor guessin’

from this to Candlemas ye’d be out every offer. I got into thrubble be

raison av a saint, an’ I’ll tell yez how: A lot av ignoraamusses av

English comes here in the summer saison, an’ nothin’s too holy but

they’ll make a joke on it; but the divvle will have his own wan av these

days. Well, sir, last Monday I was engaged for to divart a cupple of

English, as bowld as brass, an’ that vulgar that the very cows turned

their tails to thim as we thravelled through the fields—sorra a lie in

it. I done me best for to earn an honest shillin’, but, on my word, wan

av thim, a stout lump av a man, gev me all soarts av impidince, an’ whin

I come for to narrate about St. Kavin he up’s an’ insults the holy saint

to me very face.

“'There never was no sich man,’ sez he.

“'There was, sir,’ sez I.

“'It’s all humbug,’ sez he; 'an’ as for Kathleen,’ sez he, 'she was no

betther nor—'

'“Ye’d betther stop, sir,’ sez I, intherruptin’ him; 'for St. Kavin was

a holy man, an’ never done nothin’ but what was good an’ saintly.’ Well,

sir, he up’s an’ calls the blessed saint a bad name, so I hot him betune

th’ eyes an’ rowled him on the grass, an’ I planted his comrade beside

him. An’ now I’m the worst in the world below at the hotel for bating

two blackguards that done nothin’ but insult me an’ me holy religion;

an’ that’s why I can’t go wud yez to-morrow.”

It was far into the “wee sma’ hours” when we parted with Myles O’Byrne

and gained sanctuary in the double-bedded room which had been told off

to us. The pale and gentle Luna was surrendering her charge to the pink

and rosy Aurora, and we sought our couches in beautiful budding

daylight.

“Where’s your portmanteau, Dawkins?” asked Tom Whiffler. “I want to get

at my things.”

To my utter dismay, the portmanteau was not in the apartment. To ring

the bell at this unseemly hour was but to alarm the entire hotel; so,

slipping off my shoes, I descended to the hall in the hope of

discovering it in a heap of luggage which lay piled in graceful

profusion near the entrance. My search was vain, and, with secret

forebodings of another mischance in connection with this unhappy valise,

I returned to the room and retired to bed.

“I seen it in yer hand, sir,” observed the waiter the next morning whom

I interrogated about the missing article—“a thick lump of a solid

leather portmantle. I can take the buke on it, if necessary, sir. Here’s

the boots; mebbe he can tell us something. Jim, did ye see a thick lump

av a solid leather portmantle lyin’ about?”

“I did,” replied the boots, who was a man of much _physique_ and very

few words.

“Ye did?”

“Yis.”

“Where is it, thin?”

“Where it ought to be.”

“Where’s that?”

“Wud th’ owner.”

“It was not left in my room,” I exclaimed.

“It was left in number five.”

“Shure, number five’s gone,” cried the waiter.

“It’s news yer tellin’ us,” observed the boots with a surly grin.

“An’ is the portmantle tuk be number five?”

“Yis.”

“Phew!” whistled the waiter. “Be the mortial the fat’s in the fire now,

anyhow.”

Here was a situation! My misgivings realized. My portmanteau gone,

perhaps never to return. How could I face the owner? I never gave up the

hope of meeting her and of restoring the property.

“Who slept in number five?” I asked.

“Number five is two faymales.”

“When did they leave?”

“They left for Father Rooney’s first Mass beyant at Annamoe.”

“Where were they going to?”

“To Lake Dan and Luggelaw.”

I proceeded to hold a council of war—consisting of the landlord, the

waiter, the boots, two or three stable-boys, and the surplus population

of the village—when it was determined to send a boy on a fast-trotting

pony in pursuit of the fugitive luggage.

I was two inches on a mild Havana after such a breakfast as the tourist

alone can dispose of, when the waiter burst into the summer-house

situated over the lake, whither we had repaired to enjoy the “witching

weed.”

“The portmantle is safe, sir, an’ number five is here with it an’ wants

for to see ye, sir.”

“Well, I do not want to see number five, waiter, so just say—”

“I dar’n’t say nothin’, sir; she slipped a half a crown into the heel of

me fist an’ towld me to hurry you up,” burst in the waiter, now in a

white perspiration.

“I’ll not stir till I finish this cigar, at all events, and there is a

good hour’s pull in it yet.”

“Och! murther, an’ she’s in such a hurry—such a dainty little craythur;

an’ it was _so_ dacent of her for to journey back the road with it.”

This last thrust failed to pierce my armor. The waiter was

conscientiously working out his half-crown.

“She’s quite convaynient in the coffee-room, sir. I’ll show ye a short

cut across the bog.”

I listened and puffed, puffed and listened.

“I must get back, sir. May I tell her ye’ll be over in five minutes,

sir?”

“Tell her anything _you_ like, my friend, but out of this till I finish

my cigar I’ll not stir.”

Why I acted in this manner I was at a loss to determine. My anxiety for

the valise almost amounted to pain; and yet here was the cause for worry

removed, and I would not even trouble myself to walk a few hundred yards

to the hotel to thank the lady for returning with it, which, as a

gentleman, I was bound to do at any cost as to personal discomfort.

“Some frouzy old maid,” suggested Whiffler.

“Probably; or a strong-minded female doing Wicklow on a geological

survey,” I added.

When I got back to the hotel, which might have been an hour or so

subsequently, I found my portmanteau safely deposited in my room.

“Where is this lady, until I—”

“She’s gone, sir,” interrupted the waiter in a reproachful tone, “but

she towld me for to give you this bit av’ a note,” handing me a piece of

paper folded cocked-hat fashion.

I opened it.

“I have two regrets,” it said—the geologist’s handwriting was

exquisitely feminine—“one, that I was inadvertently the cause of

inconvenience; and the other, that I was denied the opportunity of

claiming the portmanteau, as I imagine that I recognize in it one which

I lost about eight months ago during a railway journey to the north.”

I was literally stunned. I gazed from the letter to the now astonished

waiter, and back from his vacant countenance to the three-cornered

billet, which, alas! told so much and yet so little. It bore no name, no

initial, no monogram, no clue.

“Describe this lady’s appearance!” I shouted, clutching the waiter by

his greasy collar, and imparting to him no very delicate shake.

“I never seen her; her veil was foreninst her nose the whole time she

was spakin’ to me. The boy that attindid her is gone to the fair at

Knockatemple.”

“Who saw her?”

“Barrin’ the masther, dickins a wan; for Mary, the chambermaid, started

this mornin’ for Fogarty’s, of Glinmaloure. She an’ the misthress had a

few words in regard to—but here’s the masther.”

The burly host presented himself; he had not encountered my enslaver,

for the bill had been paid by the other lady.

“The red wan,” interposed the waiter.

“Just so, Mick,” said his master approvingly, and turning to me: “They

have gone on to Luggelaw, sir, and intend to sleep at Enniskerry

to-night.”

I unbosomed myself to Tom Whiffler, who immediately entered into the

affair _con amore_. “We’ll hunt them,” he said; “we must catch them at

Latouche’s Cottage. There is no exit from Luggelaw except the one.”

The road from the Seven Churches to Luggelaw is exquisitely picturesque.

Behind lies that lake whose gloomy shore skylark never warbles o’er,

with Lugnacullagh frowning sternly over its gloomy waters, and the round

tower standing like a grim sentinel ready to challenge the approach

alike of friend and foe. In front is the little village of Lara, with

Castle Kevin perched upon a ledge of rock like an aerie’s nest, and

stretching away in the distance the silvern beech-woods of Annamoe,

while to the left the purple-crowned crags of Slonaveena seem almost to

topple into the placid bosom of Lough Dan. It was a lovely summer

day—one of those days that recall past joys, and in which the present is

but a voluptuous dream.

At Roundwood we gained intelligence of the objects of our pursuit. The

car had passed through about half an hour previously; the ladies had

stopped at the hotel while the horse was being baited, and had indulged

in that inevitable cup of tea which is at once the dissipation and the

solace of the sex. The road to the first gate at Luggelaw is an ascent

of three miles, which must of necessity be traversed upon “shanks’

mare,” and it is a blisterer. Not a vestige of tree, and with scarcely

as much pasture as will satisfy the cravings of a few stunted sheep, the

sun smiles grimly upon the entire roadway and scorches the luckless

traveller whom destiny leads to the little lodge perched on the summit

of the mountain. We were not spared, and coats, waistcoats, and neckties

were cast upon the car, while we retained our pocket-handkerchiefs to

mop our glowing faces, which resembled two very full and exceedingly

dissipated-looking rosy moons.

Puffing, panting, blowing, mopping, by one supreme effort we gained the

table-land which crowns the ascent, and, plunging towards an adjacent

thicket of pines, took tremendous headers into the middle of it, where

we lay gasping like a pair of stranded fish.

“Blow _me_,” exclaimed Tom Whiffler, “if I’ll ever climb Luggelaw Hill

widow-hunting in July again. I wish you and your portmanteau and widow

at Timbuctoo!”

A low, musical laugh quite near us; a rustle of female garments—my heart

gave one mighty throb; for right in front of us, not two yards distant,

with her large, lustrous gray eyes bent searchingly upon me, stood the

owner of the peripatetic portmanteau.

To spring to my feet, to apologize for our _déshabille_—the car was as

yet half a mile down the hill—to mumble some horrible incoherencies, was

the impulse and action of half a minute.

She seemed puzzled to know how to act, but her friend, the “red wan,”

cut the Gordian knot of the present embarrassment by a fit of loud,

hearty, ringing laughter, which, maelstrom-like, sucked us one after

another into it, and whirled us into an ocean of mirth before we knew

where we were exactly, or what it was all about. There are some

contagious laughs in the world, and she of the ruby locks was the

fortunate possessor of one.

Two things establish instantaneous and easy communication with

strangers—with women a baby, with men a cigar. Throw in a laugh, and, if

the situation be a comical one, the laugh beats infant and tobacco. In

this case it proved a talisman, and a very few words found us at our

ease while I unfolded my tale.

I was i’ the vein and told my story well.

“Why did you not send it after me?” she asked.

“I had no clue,” I replied.

“I flung my card to the porter at the station.”

“It must have gone down the line; for the only reply I could awake in

that self-same porter was, 'Sorra a know I know.’” And I devoutly dwelt

upon all the bitter anxiety the hopeless efforts at restoration had cost

me, to all of which I found a deeply-interested listener.

Before the sun had set on Luggelaw’s deep-wooded vale I learned much

that satisfied me as to the past, and a something—inferentially

only—that caused the white wings of Hope to flutter against my heart.

Lucy Donaldson had been married to Captain George Middlecomb, of the

Sixth Dragoon Guards, if not against her will, at least under the

pressure of being talked into it. Captain Middlecomb had died within a

year of their marriage of _delirium tremens_.

Need I say that we travelled up to Dublin as a party; that I became a

constant visitor at Mrs. Middlecomb’s beautiful residence—Arcachon Villa

at Killiney; that—

I suppose I should not divulge it, but, as I have written so far, I may

as well finish the chapter. After all, I won’t. Those who have been

interested, however, in the portmanteau may be pleased to know that it

is now the common property of Lucy and the writer.

THE BRIDES OF CHRIST.

I.

ST. DOROTHEA.

The little martyr-maid of Cæsarea—

I do not a more lovely legend know.

Said young Theophilus, mocking: “Dost thou go

To join thy Spouse? If more than fond idea,

Send me, I pray thee, pretty Dorothea,

Of flowers and fruits that in his garden grow!”

The maiden meekly bowed her head; and so

She passed to death along the Roman Via.

A blooming boy, with hair like odorous flame,

Out-dazed the sword that slew her; the next morn

A blooming boy to young Theophilus came,

With three fresh roses and three apples: scorn

Melted in bliss. By crown and palm! we claim

To guess that fragrance, and are less forlorn!

II.

ST. CECILIA.

Two visions of divine Cecilia,

Born of Italian art, possess my mind.

One in the marble, at her tomb enshrined,

Reveals her as in catacomb she lay.

The budding maiden in her chaste array—

Ah! closely let that awful necklace bind

Clipt flower to stem!—to that cold sleep declined,

Was in warm marriage-bed a bud alway.

Her heart’s dear love starved for a Mystic Spouse;

She was not chary of sweet music’s gift

I see the listening rapture of her brows:

I hear her organ yearn, exult, and lift

Humanity to God! The heavens arouse,

And storms and seraphs o’er the white keys drift.

III.

ST. AGNES.

I was God’s maid, less woman than a child;

And yet they threw me in the common stews

Naked as I was born, for men to use.

The dear Lord saved his vessel, though reviled,

From outrage of a look: the Mother smiled—

Over my hot shame all my hair shook loose;

And, lo! it swept my feet in lengths profuse,

A bower of blinding awe to ruffians wild!

My life’s green branch they lopped with cruel sword;

But He hath kissed my hurts, and they are well;

And, walking in the meads of asphodel,

I kiss the scarred feet of my gracious Lord:

I lead his lambkins by my lily bell,

Where the pomegranates shade the softest sward.

SHAKSPERE, FROM AN AMERICAN POINT OF VIEW.[71]

Footnote 71:

_Shakspere, from an American Point of View: including an Inquiry as to

his Religious Faith and his Knowledge of Law; with the Baconian Theory

considered._ By George Wilkes. London: Sampson, Low, Marston, Searle &

Rivington. 1877. 8vo, pp. ix. 471.

This elegantly-printed volume, published in England, though by an

American author, has for its subject four distinct lines of inquiry; two

of these—the validity of a theory which originated in this country a few

years ago, that Bacon, Lord Verulam, really wrote the plays known as

Shakspere’s; and, secondly, the extent of Shakspere’s legal

knowledge—though carried through the work, are subordinate to the other

two—the anti-democratic tone of the dramatist and the fact that he was a

Catholic. These are the real issues of the book. Mr. Wilkes holds that

Shakspere should not exert the influence in this country that he does in

England, and he arraigns him at the bar of American public opinion to

answer the indictment that he is always a strenuous upholder of royal

authority, an advocate of the privileges of the nobility, regarding them

as far removed above the _ignobile vulgus_, for whom on all occasions

the poet manifests the utmost contempt. That a work teeming with

constant lessons of this character is no fit guide for Americans he

makes the real argument of his book. The second count is apparently

intended to be no less damaging. Shakspere was a Catholic, and as such

should exercise no influence on a Protestant community. His influence in

England for three hundred years has not apparently won that country back

to Catholicity, and the United States are probably as safe. Still, it

may serve for a new agitation to get up a cry: “No Shakspere in the

public schools!”

That Mr. Wilkes considers it a danger is seen by the fact that he uses

toward Catholics every vile nickname drawn from the slums by religious

hate to degrade us in the eyes of our fellow-men. Yet surely a

Shaksperean scholar should not need reminding that to rob one of his

good name is worse than stealing his purse, oft-times as bad as taking

his life. Not only this, but he more than once represents the Catholic

Church as actuated by a hatred of intense fury against the Jews, as an

earnest upholder of the unlawful claims of aristocracy, as an enemy of

popular rights, and as an excuser of perjury. While thus under a strong

anti-Catholic bias or prejudice—stronger even than he at all

conceives—he has attempted to understand Catholic terms and usages, and

to enter into that world which to Protestants seems so strange and

inconceivable—the world of Catholic thought.

The question as to the religious convictions of Shakspere is not a new

one. No Catholic has ever read the great dramatist without feeling that

he was strangely lacking in the usual anti-Catholic element, even if he

did not impress him as often Catholic in thought.

Catholic writers in English periodicals, such as the _Rambler_ and

others, had already claimed Shakspere as a Catholic. All evidence,

extrinsic and intrinsic, seems to sustain the position. His family

belonged to the gentry on the father’s and mother’s side, and on both

sides had adhered to Catholicity after the change of religion in

England. The will of his maternal grandfather, Robert Arden, who died in

1556, is distinctly Catholic: “I bequeath my soul to Almighty God, and

to our Blessed Lady St. Mary, and to all the holy company of heaven.” Of

his father there is still extant a _Testament of the Soul_—not, as Mr.

Wilkes supposes, a form drawn up by some chaplain of the family, but

that _Testamentum Animæ Christianæ_ which, in Latin and the vernacular,

has for centuries been found in Catholic devotional manuals, and the

copying of which, as a kind of formal act, has been maintained in many

families—certainly was in the family of the present writer down to the

nineteenth century. Shakspere’s father, too, was fined for

non-attendance at the established church. So far as the families of his

parents were concerned, he was evidently Catholic, and must in childhood

have been familiar with the thoughts and language of English Catholics.

How far in mature age he retained the impressions of youth, or how

faithful he may have been to the teachings of his religion, we have no

means of judging. The lightness with which moral obligations lay on him,

his career as a wild but gifted man, give little ground for supposing

him to have practised the religion he may still have professed.

In his dramas Shakspere constantly uses Catholic terms, speaks of

Catholic clergy, religious of both sexes, rites and ceremonies with

respect, and in many cases turns his ridicule upon the new order of

clergy in England. The Shaksperes and Ardens had both held office under

the Tudor kings, and the dramatist shows the utmost zeal for royal power

as against the Pope. To a Catholic, now, this gives his position at

once. His life was not a regular one; and he could scarcely, in those

days of persecution, have been a firm, consistent, practical Catholic,

although he clung to the faith, never abjured it, and had no liking for

any of the new forms. His Bible reading was in the Protestant versions

of the day, not in the Rheims and Douay, of which no influence has ever

been detected in his plays. That he died a good Catholic needs proof;

but Mr. Wilkes’ ideas of the meaning of the term are vague, since he

tells us that Henry VIII. died a good Catholic.

The fact that Shakspere makes his characters—most of whom are Catholics

in time or country—speak as Catholics is really no proof of his own

Catholicity, any more than Longfellow’s almost constant correctness in

his use of Catholic terms and familiarity with Catholic thought is proof

that he is a Catholic. The fact is, we admit, suspicious; for during

centuries Protestant writers seem to have made it a point to display the

most intense ignorance of Catholic terms, usages, rites, and ceremonies,

and equally a point to insist on talking about what they vaunt their

ignorance of. But, going back to Shakspere’s time, we must bear in mind

that the new religion had not yet taken any hold on the people at large;

that the only religious terms and expressions that conveyed any definite

ideas to their minds were those of the old faith sanctioned by the usage

of centuries, and that the terms introduced by the various classes of

reformers were diverse, new, strange, and, to the people, a mere

ridiculous jargon. The coinage of a new religious vocabulary took time

and skill. It was no easy task to shape Bible translation so as to avoid

old ideas and thoughts. This new jargon rose to be a language when the

King James Bible was imposed on the people after the Restoration. Though

long vaunted as a well of English undefiled, philologists now admit that

it is the language of no period of English history, of no district of

English soil; it was a hash made to meet the pressing want, with

obsolete words, terms drawn from every county of England, and new-coined

expressions, all forced into the service so as to supply the English

people with a new vocabulary of religious thought.

To convey religious ideas in Shakspere’s time, the readiest words were

those familiar to the people. The dramatist employs them with no regard

to the country or time. The pagan Hamlet refers to the Blessed

Sacrament, Extreme Unction, the Mass, and Office for the Dead; they talk

of confession and beads in the _Comedy of Errors_; of indulgences in the

_Tempest_, and even in _Troilus and Cressida_; of fasting days in

_Pericles_ and _Coriolanus_; and christening is spoken of in _Titus

Andronicus_. The anachronisms were apparently not noticed in his time,

nor taken into account.

The system had not been adopted of entirely ignoring Catholic terms;

there were no others, and Shakspere used what he had. One word seems to

be avoided. The Mass is introduced only like Moore’s “neat little

Testament, just kept to swear by.” It occurs only in the form of an

oath, except in one instance, to which Mr. Wilkes devotes a chapter.

Juliet, going to her confessor, asks:

“Are you at leisure, holy father, now,

Or shall I come to you at evening Mass?”

Mr. Wilkes goes into a lengthened argument to show that it was the

custom at that time in England to celebrate Mass at night. He says: “I

have found many illustrations from Catholic reviews and other reliable

authorities of the practices of the hedge-priests, as they were called,

in times of Catholic persecution, whose business it was to go in the

darkness of the evening to the houses of the faithful to celebrate a

nocturnal Mass.” We should be much pleased to see any such authorities.

He cites only an article in the _Manhattan Monthly_ last year, where a

writer speaks of priests in Ireland “who often at dead of night fled to

the mountain cave, the wooded glen, and wild rath to celebrate Mass for

the faithful”; but travelling by night is one thing, and saying Mass at

night is another. Again, there were no priests in England answering to

the Irish hedge-priests. The priests in England found shelter in the

houses of Catholic gentry; they had not a mass of poor and oppressed

faithful among whom they lived. But neither in Ireland nor in England is

there a single example that the writer has ever found of a Mass said in

what may be called the evening—that is, between sunset and midnight—much

less of its being so frequent an occurrence as to make Shakspere refer

to evening Mass as an ordinary matter. Dodd’s _History of the Church_,

Challoner’s _Missionary Priests_, the works of Father Parsons, Campion,

and other Catholic writers of the time, never allude to any single case

where such a Mass was said. Nor is there in any liturgical work

reference to any such custom ever having obtained in England.

Mr. Wilkes seems to feel that the theory is not very solid. He next

refers to the custom in some parts of saying a Low Mass immediately

after the Sunday High Mass. “Shakspere may have considered the last or

one o’clock Mass an evening Mass.” The play itself makes this untenable.

It was late in the afternoon when Juliet went to the friar. When she

comes back the nurse says:

“See where she comes from shrift with merry look”—

not half as charmingly as Longfellow describes Evangeline as most

beautiful

“When, after confession,

Homeward serenely she walks with God’s benediction upon her.”

Then, a few lines lower down, Lady Capulet, in the same scene, says:

“’Tis now near night.”

This fixes the time too clearly to allow that any reference is made to a

Mass about mid-day. “Evening Mass” is simply nonsense; but the phrase

has charmed later writers, and several poets introduce the expression,

just as poets and prose writers have all copied the Protestant Bible

misprint, “Strain _at_ a gnat,” instead of “Strain out a gnat.”

But the word Mass here is against all Catholic custom and reason. Juliet

wishes to go to confession. She politely asks her confessor whether he

is at leisure or whether she shall come again at a later hour. Would any

one, under the same circumstances, propose to come to confession to the

priest when he was saying Mass? It would be just the time when he could

not possibly hear confessions. If he expected to say Mass soon, he would

hear her then, and neither he nor she would think of putting it off till

he had begun his Mass. Shakspere critics have boggled and blundered over

this without seeing this incongruity, which to a Catholic is as patent

as the day. What, then, does it mean? Juliet can ask only whether he

will hear her then or whether she shall come later. Now, if we consider

Shakspere to have written:

“Are you at leisure, holy father, now,

Or shall I come to you as evening wanes?”

the whole thing is as natural, consistent, and usual to Catholic ideas

as can be. Then there is no such absurdity as evening Mass, or going to

confession to a priest who is saying Mass. The dense ignorance of later

times on every Catholic matter will easily account for the neglect to

correct the palpable error in the actual text.

The fact that, while Shakspere speaks of religion as the monastic state,

religious, monks, nuns, convents, monasteries, beads, penance, month’s

mind, dirge, requiem, purgatory, indulgences, relics, shrines, the

housel (Eucharist), christening or baptism, aneling (anointing), the

cross, altar, holy-water, he nowhere in any of his plays speaks of the

Mass (except in the oath “By the Mass”), is a strong argument against

its use here. Convents and monasteries were abolished; relics and

shrines were gone; no dirges or requiems resounded in the old church

walls; allusions to them were simply allusions to something deemed past

and gone; but there were nearly a thousand Mass-priests in England—men

who carried their lives in their hands, over whom the severest edicts of

the law were hanging like the sword of Damocles. To talk of the Mass as

a service with respect was verging on high treason. Having avoided it

everywhere else, he would scarcely introduce it here absurdly—no less

absurdly to him than to us.

At that time, though the government was anti-Catholic, the state church

was a mere matter of office. There was little zeal in its members—little

more than conformity to law. The Puritans were active and zealous in

spreading their doctrines; but the people were to a great extent still

Catholic, and, with many nobles and gentlemen as leaders, and a greater

number of priests than during the next two centuries, formed a power

which was finally crushed by the Civil War. With this body Shakspere

sympathized. He was not of the stuff to make a martyr. Ben Jonson and

Massinger were, we know, Catholics, but not a single act of Shakspere’s

is recorded that stamps him as a Catholic. He was not fined as a

recusant, had no intercourse with known Catholics, in all arrests under

the penal laws there is no allusion to him, even as using his undoubted

influence with the great to shield some poor victim. With the mass of

the people, at court and not at court, he ridiculed the new Gospellers,

as we do Millerites or any other oddities. Against royal supremacy or

the religion established by law, the Common Prayer, or the bishops who

had been intruded into the old Catholic sees, Shakspere says nothing.

His ridicule is never launched at them. His wit is turned, as was that

of the court circle, at the Puritan element. The state church was

respectable, but lacked earnestness, piety, and zeal: it was simply a

state affair. Those whose minds and imaginations tended to effusive

piety found themselves repulsed. Gradually they camped apart and formed

new organizations. In Shakspere’s time the government and the government

church laughed at them, when they should have used them to build up the

Church of England. Just so in the following century they repulsed

Wesley. Shakspere takes not a Catholic but the court-prelatic side; and

there were no prophets on that side to see that James’ son was to die on

the block and the Church of England be abolished by these very Puritans.

That he had any direct idea of attacking Protestantism as a system, or

making his dramas—with their coarse and often impure speech, such as

then found favor with Elizabeth and her court—an arm against the

Reformation, is absurd, and Mr. Wilkes, in going through play after play

to note every praise of convents or religious practices as done with a

direct view to elevate the Catholic Church, is extravagant. We have but

to remember that Protestantism had then no institutions, no religious

rites or practices, nothing absolutely for a poet or dramatist to employ

as illustrations. Protestant poets and artists feel the poverty to this

day, and in despair turn from cold, set formalism to Catholic themes,

where poetry finds so many a subject.

Our American critic has endeavored to follow out Catholic thoughts, but

not always successfully. Thus, in _Richard III._ Elizabeth addressing

her murdered children:

“If yet your gentle souls fly in the air,”

and Buckingham:

“If that your moody discontented souls

Do through the clouds behold this present hour,”

are gravely put down as evidences of Shakspere’s recognition of the

doctrine of purgatory, as though every believer in ghosts must be a

believer in purgatory. There are some comical remarks about Shakspere’s

familiarity with “the intricacies of the Roman Catholic faith,” because

in _Henry VI._ we find:

“Although by sight his sin be multiplied,”

when surely the Scriptural injunction to pluck out an eye that leads one

to sin might explain it without his getting tangled in intricacies. His

knowledge of the marriage service also seems peculiar; the rituals we

know are hardly the origin of Shakspere’s marriage form.

Mr. Wilkes is evidently led away by his theory in his forced Catholic

interpretation of many passages of the dramatist; and his desire to show

that the whole series of dramas was a device of the Catholic Church to

attack Protestantism in England induces him to strain much to support

his view, and often to jump at unwarranted conclusions, as in making

Hartley, in the strange Girachy case, to have been a priest. A man might

be hanged as a Catholic priest—as Ury was a century ago within sight of

the spot where Mr. Wilkes’ office now stands—and yet not have been even

a Catholic. There is no Catholic record of priest or layman suffering in

connection with this affair.

Hence, while we admit Mr. Wilkes’ diligence and ability in studying

Shakspere, we must regret that his judgment, like that of too many, has

been warped by the old anti-Catholic feeling, to the extent of giving

the plays a character which neither friend nor foe of Catholicity at the

time dreamed of ascribing to them.

In treating the question of Shakspere’s legal knowledge, he is free from

bias, and hence easily perceives and often exposes the exaggeration

which induces learned men of the law to interpret much that any

attendant at courts, whether as witness or juror, might easily acquire

as proof of serious legal study. The length to which the legal argument

has been pushed has led to similar claims by other professions; but a

young man of such Catholic stock as Shakspere undoubtedly was could

scarcely have attempted to obtain admission to the bar in those days.

Certainly, as Mr. Wilkes well maintains, the amount of legal knowledge

and the use of legal terms manifested in the plays are not of the

character that we should expect from one who had held such eminent legal

and judicial positions as Lord Bacon. Nor is this, as he shows, the only

difficulty. The style of the dramas and that of Bacon’s acknowledged

writings are utterly different; the conception of thoughts and their

clothing in language are both distinct. The ear attuned to Shakspere

finds in Bacon a measure, an adaptation of words, a symmetry of his own,

utterly at variance with the dramatist. Wilkes’ euphonic test has great

weight; and he well and aptly cites Bacon to show that the chancellor

made style a test of disputed authorship. If the Baconian theory is but

“a bubble which has never floated among the public with any amount of

success,” it has doubtless found some advocates, and Mr. Wilkes has

strengthened the arguments against it.

His argument against Shakspere as one who worships a lord and despises

the middle and lower classes has but the one fault: that it takes our

modern American theories as the test—our theories, and not our practice;

for after all personal liberty has, in a certain sense, steadily

declined in America during the last century, and many of the rights

possessed by individuals in Shakspere’s time, and enjoyed by our

ancestors down to the Revolution, have been swept away in the name of

liberty, while general and local taxation has reached a point that often

amounts practically to confiscation of all revenue, and sometimes of the

whole estate. In point of fact, the lower classes among us are more

oppressed in person and property by official power, and less able to

obtain legal redress, than they were in England in Shakspere’s time. The

distinction of rank was then as absolute almost as that of the Hindoo

castes, and the contemptuous style of the day in which the aristocratic

portion treated their inferiors was caught up too readily by Shakspere.

Mr. Wilkes develops this element steadily through the work, and makes

it, as we have seen, the basis of one of his heaviest charges against

the dramatist. He treats the point skilfully, and the subject affords a

fine scope for discussion. For our own part, we think that he carries

his theory too far, and that Shakspere may find an advocate who will

relieve him from much of the obloquy and secure his claim to respect in

America.

Shakspere literature is now a field so vast, and has won contributions

from so many able minds and eloquent pens, that it requires some courage

to produce a new work on the topic at large; yet Mr. Wilkes has

certainly produced a volume that will take a prominent place among the

Shaksperiana. It gives utterance to many new views; the whole treatment,

being thoroughly American, is fresh and free from much of the

conventional bias that is almost inevitable in England; while solid

German learning, by its very seriousness and profundity, seems often to

miss the point and _finesse_ of the dramatist.

The Catholic part is so prominent that we could not but treat it plainly

and frankly, addressing as we do more exclusively a circle of Catholic

readers. We do so with no wish to be merely censorious, and with our

recognition of the author’s evidently careful study and desire to treat

the question fairly.

“He presents the volume,” he avows, “rather as a series of inquiries

than as dogmatic doctrine, and strives,” he says, “to support them only

by such an amount of controversy as is legitimately due from one who

invites the public to a new discussion.”

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

ESSAYS AND REVIEWS By Rt. Rev. J. L. Spalding, D.D. 1 vol. 12mo, pp.

355. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1877.

The author of these essays has been recently raised to the dignity of

the episcopate and appointed to the newly-created see of Peoria, Ill.

His name and fame as an author, preacher, and orator are already widely

known in this country. His _Life of Archbishop Spalding_, his

illustrious uncle, will remain one of the landmarks of Catholic history

and biography in the United States. By this important and valuable work

the name of the learned and distinguished author is at present best

known outside of the immediate circle with whom friendship and the round

of daily life connect him. He has done, however, much more than this. He

has used his great gifts incessantly and in whatever way they could

prove of service to the cause which every word he utters and every line

he writes proclaim he has alone at heart—the growth and strengthening of

Christ’s church, the defence of Catholic faith and doctrine, and the

spread of Christ’s kingdom on earth. With this view he has even gone

down to that lowly, much neglected, yet most important field of editing

a series of Catholic school-books—that issued by the Catholic

Publication Society.

He has been a constant and most valued contributor to the pages of this

magazine, and a selection of his articles—which, had he chosen, might

have been much larger—goes to form the present volume of _Essays and

Reviews_. As they come before us now in book-form we are glad to have

this opportunity of saying publicly what we have always felt, not only

in regard to these but also all other contributions from the same pen:

that they are of the very best kind of that peculiarly modern,

peculiarly favorite, and peculiarly difficult form of literature—the

magazine article. Dr. Brownson used to say that there were not half a

dozen men in this country who could write a really good review article.

Whether that be so or not, we are sure that the veteran reviewer would

not have excluded these essays from his category. And what we here state

regarding them is only an echo of the general opinion, so far as it

reaches us through the medium of the public press and the private

verdict of excellent judges. The style is fascinating, glowing,

brilliant. There are here and there passages of extreme beauty and

eloquence. There is nothing like mere verbiage or redundance. There is

_a man_ behind it all—a man of knowledge, of wide yet careful culture,

writing in dead earnest, observing the march of events while the history

of the past is ever present to him, with power and courage to say what

he means in a manner that all will understand. Not one of these articles

fell dead. The leading one, “The Catholic Church in the United States,

1776-1876,” excited universal interest and attention not alone in this

country but abroad, and a distinguished writer in the _Correspondant_

made it the chief text of an important article on the United States. No

history or historical sketch that we have seen gives so complete and

profound a view of the history, the trials, and struggles of the

Catholic Church in this country within the century as that article. The

other essays are of a piece with it. Their very titles speak their

timeliness: “The Persecution of the Church in the German Empire,”

“Prussia and the Church” (three essays), “German Journalism,” etc.

Perhaps the most valuable of all, however, are the three essays on the

“Comparative Influence of Catholicism and Protestantism on National

Prosperity,” for which M. de Laveleye’s well-known pamphlet furnished a

text. They are eminently characteristic of the writer. He faces

everything, shirks nothing. He takes up the subjects of “Wealth,”

“Education,” and “Morality”—just the very points on which Protestant

writers are in the habit of claiming superiority for Protestant over

Catholic nations—and how he treats them we leave to the reader’s

enjoyment.

We are often asked the kind of article needed for THE CATHOLIC WORLD. We

can recommend no better text-book to such applicants than this volume of

_Essays and Reviews;_ nor can we recommend anything fresher, better, or

more interesting to Catholics generally who are anxious to defend their

faith on points where it is often believed to be most assailable.

MAGISTER CHORALIS: a Theoretical and Practical Manual of Gregorian

Chant for the use of the clergy, seminarists, organists,

choir-masters, choristers, etc. By Rev. Francis Xavier Haberl,

cathedral choir-master, Ratisbon. Translated and enlarged (from the

fourth German edition) by Rev. N. Donnelly, Cathedral Church of the

Immaculate Conception, Dublin. Ratisbon, New York, and Cincinnati:

Frederick Pustet.

This excellent and most timely work is one we have long desired to see.

Many pastors of churches and their organists have been willing to do

something towards the introduction of the holy chant in the divine

offices, but the means of instruction have been almost wholly wanting.

Very few organists and choir-directors in the United States have made

any study whatever of the chant, and the greater number are not able to

read even its notation. We have felt and lamented the difficulties in

the way of those who, convinced of the claims of Gregorian chant, and

wearied and disgusted with the wretched cheap concert performances they

have been forced to endure at Holy Mass and Vespers, have longed to rid

themselves of the “church music” nuisance and again hear the true song

of the church resounding in the sanctuary. Even with ample pecuniary

resources it would not have been enough to issue an order to the

choir-director to organize a Gregorian choir, or even to sing some

portions of the chant from the organ gallery. The work before us solves

almost all these difficulties. Of course the organist will need to study

the character of the chant in other works, that he may be able to

appreciate its tonality and style, and to give it its true

accompaniment, without which he would be more likely to produce poor

_music_ than good _chant_, or a detestable mixture of both, such as one

commonly finds published in various Catholic “choir-books” and books of

so-called “Services of the Catholic Church.”

We recommend to Gregorian organists the careful study of the harmonies

of John Lambert in his harmonized Gradual and Vesperal, the _Organum

Comitans by Dr. Witt, and the Accompagnment d’Orgue pour le Graduel et

Antiphonarium de Rheims et Cambrai_, by Messrs. Dietsch and Tessier.

The only faults we have to find with Father Haberl’s work are, first,

the rules as given for the Italian pronunciation of Latin, especially

for the pronunciation of the word _excelsis_, which is directed to be

pronounced egg-shell-sis! and, second, the rule on page 66 directing the

elision of the last vowel of a word when followed by another vowel in

the next word, in the verses of hymns; and we regret to see this rule

carried out in the new Vesperal as published by Mr. Pustet. This rule

may do for _reading_ classic poetry, but, if we mistake not, such

elision is absolutely forbidden in the _recitation_ of the divine

Office, whether read or sung. In all former editions of the Vesperal we

have found an extra note provided for the superfluous syllable.

We cannot bring ourselves to sing or say

Sit laus Patr-ac Paraclito,

or

Quænam lingua tib-o Lancea, debitas

Grates pro merit-est apta rependere?

Christi vivificum namqu-aperis latus

Und-Ecclesia nascitur.

How is one to sing _namqu-aperis_? and what are we to think of

_clavor-aditus_ for _clavorum aditus_, and _ill-hic_ for _ille, hic_? We

would like to be referred to some authority on this subject. That this

work has already reached the fourth edition in Ratisbon is a very

encouraging sign of the restoration of Gregorian chant among our German

brethren. May it find a wide-spread sale in our own country!

GOLDEN SAND: A Collection of little Counsels for the Sanctification

and Happiness of Daily Life. Translated from the French. New York:

Sadlier & Co. 1877.

We have not seen for a long time a more charming little hand-book of

daily piety than the modest volume of which a young lady, who is too

modest to put her name on the title-page, has here given us an excellent

translation. Miss Ella J. McMahon, to whom we are indebted for the

publication of this version of _Paillettes d’Or_, has turned the simple

and unaffected original into equally simple and attractive English.

First published periodically in the form of tracts, these short chapters

of practical counsels were afterwards collected in pocket volumes, and

the book now before us, though it could be read through in a morning,

contains the series for several years. It is addressed to people in the

world, and it embraces rules for the sanctification of all the actions

of life, for making home happy and the domestic hearth an altar of

blessing and sacrifice. No one can read a few of its pages without

feeling. “Here is something that just suits my case; the circumstances

described here are just my own; the temptations are mine; the little

trials are mine; nothing can be easier than to make the virtues mine,

too.” Several chapters of the book, for instance, are devoted to what

the author styles “The Angels of the Hearth,” and here is a description

of “The Angel of Little Sacrifices”:

“Have you never seen her at work?

“Have you never at least felt her influence?

“In every Christian family and in all pious communities, as the image of

his providence in the household, God has placed the angel of little

sacrifices, trying to remove all the thorns, to lighten all the burdens,

to share all the fatigues.

“She has for her motto these gracious words of an amiable saint: Good

makes no noise, and noise effects no good.

“Thus she is like a ray of sunlight, lighting, warming, giving life to

all, but inconveniencing no one.

“We feel that she is with us, because we no longer experience those

misunderstandings of heretofore, those rancorous thoughts, those

deliberate coolnesses which spoil family life; because we no longer hear

those sharp, rude words which wound so deeply; because affectionate

sentiments mount readily from the heart to the lips, and life is

sweeter.

“Who, then, has absorbed that self-love which would not yield; that

egotism which mingled with the most sincere friendship; that

self-indulgence, in fine, which always sought ease?

“The angel of little sacrifices has received from heaven the mission of

those angels of whom the prophet speaks, who removed the stones from the

road, lest they should bruise the feet of travellers.

“And that of the angels who, according to the simple legend of the first

Christians, scattered rose-leaves 'neath the feet of Jesus and Mary in

their flight into Egypt....

“But, like them, she is oftener invisible; she does her work in secret.

“There is a place less commodious than another; she chooses it, saying

with a sweet smile, How comfortable I am here!

“There is some work to be done, and she presents herself for it simply

with the joyous manner of one who finds her happiness in so doing.

“It is an object of trifling value, of which she deprives herself to

give to her who the evening before has manifested a desire to possess

one like it.

“How many oversights repaired by this unknown hand!

“How many neglected things put in their places, without our ever seeing

how they came there!

“How many little joys procured for another without his ever having

mentioned to any one the happiness which they would give him!

“Who has known thus how to do good in secret? Who has known how to

divine the secrets of the heart?

“Does a dispute arise? She knows how to settle it by a pleasant word

which wounds no one, and falls upon the slight disturbance like a ray of

sunlight upon a cloud.

“Should she hear of two hearts estranged, she has always new means of

reuniting them without their being able to show her any gratitude, so

sweet, simple, and natural is what she does.

“But who will tell the thorns which have torn her hands, the pain her

heart has endured, the humiliations her charity has borne?

“And yet she is always smiling.

“Does sacrifice give her joy?

“Have you never seen her at work, the angel of little sacrifices?

“On earth she is called a mother, a friend, a sister, a wife.

“In heaven she is called a saint.”

Here is another example of the familiar and easy spirit, the clearness,

the practicality of this admirable little counsellor:

“WHAT IS MY CROSS OF TO-DAY?—It is that person whom Providence has

placed near me, and whom I dislike; who humiliates me constantly by her

disdainful manner; who wearies me by her slowness in the work which I

share with her; who excites my jealousy because she is loved more than I

and because she succeeds better than I; who irritates me by her chatter,

her frivolity, or even by her attentions to me.

“It is that person who, for some vague reason, I believe to be inimical

to me; who, according to my excited imagination, watches me, criticises

me, ridicules me.

“She is there, always there.... My efforts to avoid her are of no avail.

“A mysterious power seems to multiply these appearances before me....

“This is my most painful cross; the others are very small compared to

this.

“Circumstances change, temptations diminish, positions improve,

misfortune becomes endurable by habit, but persons who are disagreeable

to us always irritate us more and more.

“HOW I MUST BEAR MY CROSS OF TO-DAY.—By not showing in any way either

the weariness, the dislike, or the involuntary repulsion which her

presence causes me. By obliging myself to render her some service, it

matters little whether she knows it—it is a secret between God and me.

“To say nearly every day something good of her talents, of her virtues,

her tact.... Something, certainly, I will find to praise.

“To pray seriously for her soul, and even to go so far as to ask God to

love her and leave her with me.

“Dear companion, blessed messenger of God’s mercy, you have

unconsciously the mission of sanctifying me, and I will not be

ungrateful.

“Angel of a rude and appalling exterior, were it not for thee I would

fall into humiliating faults. My nature disdains and repulses thee, but,

oh! how my heart loves thee.”

There is an abundance of good advice which will touch directly upon a

multitude of the commonest faults of good people—those apparently

trivial sins and imperfections which cause so much unhappiness at home,

which make family life so hard and bitter, and place so many obstacles

in the path of perfection.

The book cannot fail to do good. It will be a favorite companion of the

pious soul, an affectionate and never unwelcome monitor to the cold and

careless.

LIFE OF THE VENERABLE CLEMENT MARY HOFBAUER, PRIEST OF THE

CONGREGATION OF THE MOST HOLY REDEEMER. By a Member of the Order of

Mercy, authoress of the _Life of Catharine McAuley_, _Life of St.

Alphonsus_, _Glimpses of Pleasant Homes_, etc. New York: The

Catholic Publication Society. 1877.

We have received advance sheets of this beautiful and most interesting

life by the gifted author of the _Life of Catharine McAuley_. Father

Hofbauer was one of God’s heroes, and the story of his life will be

found full of interest and profit. He is fortunate in his biographer,

whose clever pen seems particularly adapted to a style of literary work

than which there is none more pleasing and useful. An extended notice

will appear later.

THE LADY OF NEVILLE COURT. A Tale of the Times. By the author of

_Marion Howard_, etc., etc. London: Burns & Oates. 1877. (For sale

by The Catholic Publication Society.)

It is really refreshing to come across a simple, unaffected, yet most

interesting story such as this. Its only fault is that happiest of

faults—brevity. The characters are few, natural, well contrasted, and

well developed; the situations well wrought up, yet by the most natural

of means. The pathetic portions are indescribably touching, but

constantly and happily relieved by bright dialogue or playfully humorous

narrative. Richard O’Meara is a genuine Catholic hero, albeit a modern

one; and Maud Neville as sweet and noble a woman as we have ever met

with in fiction. The real art of the book lies in its genuine

artlessness, and we trust the author may give us many such.

* * * * *

In the July number of THE CATHOLIC WORLD will appear the first

instalment of a new story, entitled _Alba’s Dream_, by the author of

_Are You My Wife?_, _A Salon in Paris before the War_, _Number

Thirteen_, _M. Gombard’s Mistake_, etc., etc. The story will be

completed in three parts.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XXV., No. 148.—JULY, 1877.

THE EUROPEAN EXODUS.

We propose in the following pages to speak of the past history, the

present condition, and the future prospects of European emigration to

this country. We shall have to present many dry figures and prosaic

statistics; but the investigation will lead us to regard the wonderful

manner in which the wisdom and the love of God have been manifested in

the control which he, as the ruler of all things, has exercised over

this European exodus. Even out of those details of its course and

progress which have seemed most deplorable, and have caused to many of

God’s enlightened servants the greatest anxiety and grief, beneficent

and grand results now begin to be discerned which are likely to secure

the permanent establishment of the church in this land, and to prepare

her for the magnificent task which, as we believe, she is destined to

accomplish here—the salvation of the republic and of society from the

utter ruin into which the arch-enemy of mankind would otherwise soon

engulf them. The foolishness of men is sometimes the wisdom of God; and

God, who governs all things sweetly, has chosen to turn the apparent

folly of a large portion of the emigrants from Europe to the United

States during the last twenty-five years into channels through which

inestimable blessings have already flowed, and others, still more

glorious, are yet to pass.

The great wave of emigration began to rise in 1840, reached its highest

point in 1869-72, and, notwithstanding some fluctuations, continued to

bring to our shores a colony every day until 1875. In that year it

experienced a sudden and serious check, and has ever since steadily

subsided, until now it has not only sunk to low-water mark, but has even

seemed to be about to flow the other way. The official reports of the

Commissioners of Emigration of the State of New York classify the

passengers who arrive at this port from foreign countries as “aliens”

and as “citizens or persons who had before landed in the United States”;

and the “aliens” are subdivided into steerage and cabin passengers. It

is safe to take the “alien steerage passengers” as persons who have come

to this country for the first time with the purpose of residing here—in

fine, as _bonâ fide_ emigrants. The alien cabin passengers in most cases

are tourists or visitors, although among them also are some emigrants.

Now, the whole number of alien steerage passengers who arrived at the

port of New York during the year 1876 was only 60,308, of whom 17,974

were from Germany, 12,728 from Ireland, 5,429 from England, 1,479 from

Scotland, and 428 from Wales. The whole number of steerage emigrants

from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland who landed at New

York during this year was only 20,064—a much smaller number than arrived

in any previous year since 1840. Indeed, in no previous year until 1875,

when it was 34,636, had the number failed to be twice as great; in many

years it was more than ten times as large. The following table will show

the emigration of all classes from the United Kingdom into the United

States at all our ports during the last thirty-six years:

1840 40,642

1841 45,017

1842 63,852

1843 28,335

1844 43,660

1845 58,538

1846 82,239

1847 142,154

1848 188,233

1849 219,450

1850 223,078

1851 267,357

1852 244,261

1853 230,885

1854 193,065

1855 103,414

1856 111,837

1857 126,905

1858 50,716

1859 70,303

1860 87,500

1861 42,764

1862 58,706

1863 146,813

1864 147,042

1865 147,258

1866 161,000

1867 159,275

1868 155,532

1869 203,001

1870 196,075

1871 198,843

1872 233,747

1873 233,073

1874 148,161

1875 92,489

1876 [72]54,554

Footnote 72:

Of whom 24,452 landed at New York.

The 54,554 persons who, not being citizens of the United States, arrived

in this country from the United Kingdom in 1876, embrace all those who

came either for pleasure, or for business, or to remain. But during the

same year 54,697 persons of Irish and British origin arrived in the

United Kingdom from the United States; so that the emigration from this

country to the United Kingdom exceeded the immigration into the United

States from the United Kingdom by 143 souls. The English Board of Trade,

in publishing these returns, says that “as regards North America, in

fact, the records of 1876 are the records of a movement of passengers to

and fro, and the so-called emigration is not really emigration.” We

digress here, for a moment, to speak of one or two facts disclosed by

the emigration returns of the British Board of Trade for 1876, which

cast a side light upon a portion of our subject.

The total emigration from the United Kingdom to places out of Europe in

1876 was 138,222 persons; the total immigration into the Kingdom was

91,647 persons, showing an apparent loss of population of 46,575. But

after deducting from both sides the persons of other than British birth,

the net loss of population to the United Kingdom by emigration is

reduced to 38,000 persons—a percentage scarcely worth mention when

compared with the annual increase by births. As regards the emigration

from that Kingdom to the United States, it is noted not only that it has

become very small, but that its character has materially changed. Only

73 agricultural laborers sailed from England for the United States, but

no less than 3,191 of this class sailed for Australia; while, on the

other hand, “4,535 gentlemen, professional men, merchants, etc., and

10,874 persons of no occupation, have gone to the States, and only 1,106

of the first-named class and 2,753 of the second migrated to Australia.”

The returns go on to point out that emigration from Ireland, and of

Irishmen living in England and Scotland, has almost entirely ceased.

“The total number of persons of Irish origin who emigrated from the

United Kingdom in 1876 to places out of Europe was 25,976.” Of these

16,432 came to the United States; some of these were only visitors; but

counting them all as emigrants, they would not number as many as arrived

here in a single month in former years.

The gradual but steady decrease of Irish emigration to the United States

is pointed out in these returns in a forcible and apparently exultant

manner. From 1853 to 1860 the annual average of Irish emigration to this

country was 71,856; during the ten years following it was 69,084; in

1871 it fell to 65,591; in 1874 it was 48,136; in 1875 it was 31,433;

and last year it sank to 16,432.[73] “The Irish people,” says the Board

of Trade with evident satisfaction, “do not at present migrate from the

United Kingdom in any appreciable numbers, although they may emigrate

from one part of the United Kingdom to another.” We cannot call the

correctness of this statement into question; it is no doubt quite

correct; and it is safe to conclude that, for the present at least, and

probably for many years to come, Irish emigration to this country will

be limited to very small proportions. Nay, there is some reason to fear

that, unless a marked improvement soon occurs in the industrial affairs

of our country, we shall be in danger of seeing too many of our Irish

and Irish-American citizens leaving us to seek homes in Australia. The

year 1877 is scarcely six months old, but it has seen three vessels sail

from this port with American, Irish, and German emigrants for Australia.

This movement is probably a wholly sporadic one, and too much importance

should not be attached to it. But we are not yet in a condition to

encourage emigration from this country nor to desire to see it under any

circumstances. We wish still to receive many millions of people from the

Old World, and, as we shall show, there is a strong probability that we

shall obtain them.

Footnote 73:

Of whom 13,314 landed at New York.

Emigration from the Continent of Europe, while showing a decrease, has

not diminished in such a marked degree as that from the United Kingdom.

The whole number of alien emigrants who arrived at the port of New York

during the thirty years ending December 31, 1876, was 5,604,073. Of

these 2,920,397 were natives of Great Britain and Ireland; 2,665,774

were natives of the Continent; and the remaining 17,902 came from all

the other countries of the earth. The following table will show the

exact number of emigrants from each country arriving at the port of New

York during the last thirty years:

FROM GREAT BRITAIN.

Ireland 2,001,727

England 732,922

Scotland 157,578

Wales 28,170

2,920,397

FROM AMERICA.

South America 3,066

West Indies 7,897

Nova Scotia 1,611

Canada 1,397

Mexico 1,030

Central America 289

15,290

FROM CONTINENTAL EUROPE.

Germany 2,121,020

France 107,710

Switzerland 81,798

Holland 39,069

Norway 44,772

Sweden 116,655

Italy 42,769

Belgium 10,096

Spain 7,796

Denmark 32,974

Poland 11,291

Sardinia 2,306

Portugal 1,791

Russia 22,124

Sicily 339

Greece 269

Turkey 242

Austria 21,677

Luxembourg 1,076

2,663,774

FROM THE ORIENT.

China 1,057

East Indies 304

Arabia 14

Africa 191

Australia 225

Japan 175

Unknown 646

2,612

5,604,073

We may remark that fourteen of the countries in this list are Roman

Catholic countries, and that the emigrants from these number 2,212,963

souls. The proportion of Catholics among the emigrants from the other

twenty-one countries would probably be, taking them altogether, not less

than one-fourth of the whole number—597,772. This would give a Catholic

emigration at the port of New York alone, during these thirty years, of

about 2,800,000 souls. But we shall return to this part of our subject

later on.

The emigration from Germany at the port of New York during the year 1876

was 21,035 persons, of whom 17,974 were steerage passengers; in 1875 the

number was 25,559; during the twenty-eight years from 1847 to 1875 the

average number of emigrants arriving from Germany at this port had been

75,000 annually. The severe and sudden check which emigration received

in 1875 must be traced, in the case of Germany, almost wholly to the

effects of the financial disasters which had occurred in the United

States, and which had then begun to be heavily felt. The Germans are a

prudent people; they are exceedingly well informed concerning the

condition of affairs here, and they were well advised not to come to a

new country at a moment when industry and trade were prostrated, when

labor was superabundant and poorly paid, and when confidence and

enterprise were so paralyzed that capital could find no productive or

safe employment. The restrictive measures against emigration instigated

and enforced by Prince Bismarck, and the financial distress which

prevailed, and which still prevails, in Germany, had also their

influence in discouraging and retarding emigration; but the principal

cause of its decline in the case of Germany was the one we have

mentioned. When that cause shall have ceased to act, as there is reason

to believe it soon will do, we can expect with confidence a revival of

emigration from Germany and the other Continental countries of Europe.

Should the present war in the East become general and involve all

Europe, the anxiety of the people to escape its horrors and burdens will

increase the desire for emigration, but their facilities for seeking a

new home will probably be lessened by the same causes. We must, in all

likelihood, wait for the return of prosperity here and of peace in

Europe before the great wave of emigration again rises to its former

level. There is no reason to doubt that in due time it will again attain

its former proportions; but the principal countries from whence we must

hereafter look for our emigrants are Germany, Austria, Sweden, Norway,

Denmark, Switzerland, Holland, and perhaps England. The emigration of

the future, most probably, will to a large extent be composed of people

possessed of some capital, and prepared to begin their new life under

far more favorable conditions than those which surrounded the Irish and

German emigrants of past years upon their arrival here. The latter,

landing here too often with no capital but their muscles, their honest

hearts, and strong but often uncultivated intellects, have accomplished

the work to which they were ordained. Their successors will find much

prepared for them, but they also will have their mission to fulfil.

Let us now endeavor to ascertain with as much accuracy as possible in

what manner our foreign-born citizens have disposed of themselves, and

what it is that they have done and are doing for us, for themselves, and

for God. It appears that, according to the census of 1870, the whole

number of foreign-born persons then in the United States was 5,567,229,

of whom 62,736 were Chinese, 9,654 were negroes, and 1,136 were Indians.

There were also 9,734,845 persons who had been born in this country, but

whose parents were all of foreign birth, and 1,157,170 others the father

or mother of each of whom had been of foreign birth. These 16,459,244

persons constituted, in 1870, the whole of that portion of our

population which could in any way be classed as foreign or as being

under the immediate domestic influence of foreigners. There remained

22,099,132 persons, who were not only native-born, but whose parents on

both sides were natives. Let us deal, first, with the persons of foreign

birth. In 1850 there were but 2,244,602 persons of this class; in 1860

they had increased to 4,138,697, and in 1870 to 5,567,229 souls. The

following table will show their nationalities:

Ireland 1,855,827

England 550,688

Scotland 140,809

Wales 74,530

Great Britain[74] 4,117

Germany 1,690,410

France 116,240

Denmark 30,098

Holland 46,801

Hungary 3,649

Italy 17,147

Belgium 12,552

Luxembourg 5,802

Austria 30,506

Bohemia 40,287

Norway 114,243

Poland 14,435

Portugal 4,495

Russia 4,638

Spain 3,701

Sweden 97,327

Switzerland 75,145

Turkey 301

Malta 51

China 63,042

Greece 390

Greenland 3

India 551

Japan 73

Africa 673

Asia 834

Australia 3,111

Pacific Isles 305

Sandwich Isles 539

South America 3,378

West Indies 4,897

Mexico 41,308

Cuba 4,811

Atlantic Isles 4,219

British America 489,344

At sea 2,612

Unknown 2,135

Footnote 74:

What part not stated.

We have omitted from the above table 9,654 negroes and 1,136 Indians,

born outside of the United States.

Where now do we find these five and a half millions of foreign-born

citizens? The greater part of them—4,193,971—were congregated in ten

States, as shown by the following table:

TABLE OF TEN STATES HAVING 200,000 OR MORE OF FOREIGN-BORN POPULATION.

STATES. 1870. 1860. 1850.

California 209,831 146,518 21,802

Illinois 515,198 324,643 111,892

Iowa 204,692 106,077 20 969

Massachusetts 353,319 260,106 164,024

Michigan 268,010 149,093 54,703

Missouri 221,267 160,541 76,592

New York 1,138,353 1,001,280 655,929

Ohio 372 493 328,249 218,193

Pennsylvania 545,309 430,505 303,417

Wisconsin 364,499 276,927 110,477

4,193,971 3,183,939 1,737,998

There were fourteen States each of which had an Irish-born population of

less than 10,000 souls—to wit, Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida,

Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina,

Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia, and Virginia; nineteen States each of

which had an Irish-born population of less than 100,000—to wit,

California, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky,

Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New

Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin; while

Illinois had 120,000, Massachusetts 216,000, Pennsylvania 235,000, and

New York 528,000 Irish-born citizens. Eighteen States had each a

German-born population of less than 10,000—namely, Alabama, Arkansas,

Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maine, Mississippi, Nevada, New

Hampshire, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina,

Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, and West Virginia. Thirteen States had

each a German-born population of less than 100,000—namely, California,

Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts,

Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, and Texas; while Missouri had

113,618, Pennsylvania 160,146, Wisconsin 162,314, Ohio 182,889, Illinois

203,750, and New York 316,882. The following table will show the exact

number of persons of Austrian, German, French, and Irish birth residing

in each State in 1870:

States. Austrian. French. German. Irish.

Alabama 99 587 2,479 3,893

Arkansas 41 236 1,562 1,428

California 1,078 8,063 29,699 54,421

Connecticut 154 820 1,243 70,630

Delaware 8 127 1,141 5,007

Florida 17 126 595 737

Georgia 34 308 2,760 5,093

Illinois 2,099 10,908 203,750 120,162

Indiana 443 6,362 78,056 28,698

Iowa 2,691 3,130 66,160 40,124

Kansas 448 1,274 12,774 10,040

Kentucky 146 2,052 30,318 21,642

Louisiana 433 12,288 18,912 17,068

Maine 10 136 508 15,745

Maryland 266 640 47,045 23 630

Massachusetts 255 1,627 13,070 216,120

Michigan 795 3,120 64,143 42,013

Minnesota 2,647 1,743 41,364 21,746

Mississippi 85 621 2,954 3,359

Missouri 1,493 6,291 113,618 54,983

Nebraska 299 340 10,954 4,999

Nevada 157 414 2,181 5,135

New Hampshire 9 59 436 12,190

New Jersey 686 3,128 53,999 86,784

New York 3,928 22,273 316,882 528,806

North Carolina 13 53 904 677

Ohio 3,699 12,778 182,889 82,674

Oregon 53 308 1,875 1,967

Pennsylvania 1,556 8,682 160,146 235,798

Rhode Island 19 167 1,200 31,534

South Carolina 10 143 2,742 3,262

Tennessee 112 562 4,525 8,048

Texas 1,748 2,226 23,976 4,031

Vermont 2 93 370 14,080

Virginia 56 368 4,050 5,191

West Virginia 59 223 6,231 6,832

Wisconsin 4,486 2,704 162,314 48,479

30,104 116,240 1,690,410 1,855,827

These four nationalities, then, account for 3,692,581 of the

foreign-born population in 1870; and the remaining 1,874,648 had their

birth in the other thirty-five different countries named in one of our

preceding tables. A glance over the table just given will show still

more plainly within what limits the great bulk of the Irish and German

born population is found; and the reader will remember that we have

shown that all but 1,373,258 of the entire foreign-born population were

residing in the ten States of California, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts,

Michigan, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. In

twenty of the States the persons of Irish birth exceeded those of German

birth; in the remaining seventeen States the latter outnumbered the

former. The excess of persons of Irish birth over those of German birth,

however, was only 165,417. This was seven years ago. During these seven

years the emigration from Germany has almost equalled that from Ireland,

and for the thirty years last past, taken as a whole, the arrivals from

Germany have exceeded those from Ireland by 119,293 souls. We shall

probably not be far out of the way if we assume that the entire

foreign-born population of the United States is at present about seven

millions, of whom two and a half millions are of German, and nearly an

equal number of Irish, birth. Let us, however, continue to confine

ourselves for the present to the official facts in our possession, and

proceed to follow up the 5,567,229 persons of foreign birth whom we know

were among us in 1870.

One of the remarks most frequently made concerning the foreign-born

population of this country is that it has a general disposition to

congregate in our large cities, from which have come consequences highly

prejudicial both to itself and to the community at large. These two

assertions have been made so persistently and in such good faith; they

have seemed to be so susceptible of proof and so apparently true; and

they have chimed in so well with the sometimes latent and sometimes

active prejudice against “foreigners” which is so often found in the

breasts of the natives of every country, that they have passed current

almost without challenge and have come to be regarded as axioms. Nay,

not a few of our foreign-born citizens themselves, and even of the

Catholic bishops and clergy, have often accepted these two assertions as

true, and have not ceased to deplore the crowding of the foreign

population into the large cities, regarding it as an almost unmixed

evil, and pointing to it as the source of direful woe. No doubt they

have had some reason on their side. A large proportion of the crime and

misery of our cities is perpetrated and suffered by foreign-born

citizens or by their children in the first generation. Had these

citizens not been gathered together in the cities, but scattered at

remote distances throughout the country, they might have been criminal

and miserable, but their crime and misery would not have been so

obtrusive and apparent to every observer. But, leaving this point for a

moment to return to it in the light of the facts we are about to adduce,

let us see what amount of truth there is in these two assertions. We may

remark, in passing, that the truth of the first does not necessarily

imply the truth of the second: it may be true that the foreign-born

population has congregated to an apparently undue and unwise extent in

our cities, but it may not be true that this has been by any means an

unmixed evil either to the foreigners themselves or to the native-born.

POPULATION, NATIVE AND FOREIGN, OF THE LARGE CITIES, 1870.

CITIES. Scotch. French. Austrian. Belgian.

New York 7,559 8,240 2,737 325

Philadelphia 4,175 2,471 519 116

Brooklyn 4,098 1,892 321 142

St. Louis 1,202 2,788 751 254

Chicago 4,195 1,417 704 392

Baltimore 525 428 215 29

Boston 1,794 615 124 31

Cincinnati 787 2,090 554 46

New Orleans 568 8,806 253 134

San Francisco 1,687 3,543 470 139

Buffalo 996 2,332 135 37

Washington 298 191 26 8

Newark 870 710 261 45

Louisville 298 856 69 31

Cleveland 668 339 2,155 16

Pittsburgh 584 348 117 9

Jersey City 1,175 276 69 43

Detroit 1,637 760 161 233

Milwaukee 423 189 574 79

Albany 427 149 36 17

Providence 575 72 5 1

Rochester 428 475 39 4

Allegheny 570 619 109 6

Richmond 146 144 29 5

New Haven 347 133 54 6

Charleston 115 97 39 4

Indianapolis 258 237 14 5

Troy 462 88 14 7

Syracuse 138 276 47 1

Worcester 187 29 12 1

Lowell 469 28 3 3

Memphis 119 207 14 10

Cambridge 298 100 9 1

Hartford 359 92 20 6

Scranton 366 64 4 —

Reading 35 77 36 2

Paterson 879 237 48 21

Kansas City 180 110 44 1

Mobile 166 311 33 11

Toledo 119 206 93 —

Portland 172 23 2 1

Columbus 133 238 20 —

Wilmington 117 64 — 2

Dayton 90 242 28 2

Lawrence 691 4 9 2

Utica 198 287 25 2

Charlestown 89 29 1 2

Savannah 72 99 5 —

Lynn 72 5 1 —

Fall River 382 3 4 2

Totals 43,055 42,430 11,218 2,232

CITIES. Native. Irish. German. English. Brit. Amer.

New York 523,198 201,999 151,203 24,408 4,372

Philadelphia 490,398 96,698 50,746 22,034 1,453

Brooklyn 251,381 73,985 36,769 18,832 2,779

St. Louis 198,615 32,239 59,040 5,366 1,986

Chicago 154,420 39,988 52,316 10,026 9,528

Baltimore 210,870 15,223 35,276 2,138 292

Boston 162,540 56,900 5,606 5,968 13,548

Cincinnati 136,627 18,624 49,446 3,524 1,175

New Orleans 142,943 14,693 15,224 2,005 384

San Francisco 75,754 25,864 13,602 5,166 2,237

Buffalo 71,477 11,264 22,249 3,558 4,113

Washington 95,442 6,948 4,131 1,231 211

Newark 69,175 12,481 15,873 4,040 296

Louisville 75,085 7,626 14,380 930 311

Cleveland 54,014 9,964 15,855 4,530 2,599

Pittsburgh 58,254 13,119 8,703 2,838 282

Jersey City 50,711 17,665 7,151 4,005 556

Detroit 44,196 6,970 12,647 3,282 7,398

Milwaukee 37,667 3,784 22,599 1,395 792

Albany 47,215 13,276 5,168 1,572 843

Providence 51,727 12,085 592 2,426 1,038

Rochester 41,202 6,078 7,730 2,530 2,619

Allegheny City 37,872 4,034 7,665 1,112 152

Richmond 47,260 1,239 1,621 289 42

New Haven 36,482 9,601 2,423 1,087 336

Charleston 44,064 2,180 1,826 234 32

Indianapolis 37,587 3,321 5,286 697 297

Troy 30,246 10,877 1,174 1,575 1,697

Syracuse 29,061 5,172 5,062 1,345 1,167

Worcester 29,159 8,389 325 893 1,960

Lowell 26,493 9,103 34 1,697 3,034

Memphis 33,446 2,987 1,768 589 225

Cambridge 27,579 7,180 482 1,043 2,518

Hartford 26,363 7,438 1,438 787 396

Scranton 19,205 6,491 3,056 1,444 125

Reading 30,059 547 2,648 305 26

Paterson 20,711 5,124 1,429 3,347 128

Kansas City 24,581 2,869 1,884 709 821

Mobile 27,795 2,000 843 386 55

Toledo 20,485 3,032 5,341 694 984

Portland 24,401 3,900 82 557 2,017

Columbus 23,663 1,845 3,982 504 190

Wilmington 25,689 3,503 684 613 47

Dayton 23,050 1,326 4,962 394 131

Lawrence 16,204 7,457 467 2,456 1,563

Utica 18,955 3,496 2,822 1,352 261

Charlestown 21,399 4,803 216 488 1,119

Savannah 24,564 2,197 787 251 63

Lynn 23,298 3,232 17 330 1,133

Fall River 15,288 5,572 37 4,042 1,324

Totals 3,808,770 826,398 564,967 165,024 80,728

In fifty of the largest cities of the United States there was in 1870 a

total native population of 3,808,770 souls; 826,398 persons of Irish

birth; 564,967 of German birth; 165,024 of English birth; 80,728 natives

of British America; 43,055 natives of Scotland; 42,430 natives of

France; 11,218 natives of Austria; and 2,232 natives of Belgium—in all,

1,736,052 persons born in foreign countries.

The foregoing tables give the native population of each of these fifty

cities, with the foreign population belonging to each of these eight

nationalities.

The persons of foreign birth of other nationalities in the above cities

would raise the whole number to about 1,800,000 souls.

It is to be noticed from this table, in the first place, that in these

fifty cities, in 1870, the proportion of foreign-born to native

inhabitants was almost exactly as 18 is to 38—1,800,000 to

3,808,770—while the proportion of foreign-born to native inhabitants in

the entire Union was almost exactly as 5 is to 38—5,567,229 to

38,558,371. It must be confessed that on this showing there was an

apparently or a really undue proportion of our foreign-born citizens

congregated in the large cities. But it should be remembered that among

the native-born population were the 10,892,015 persons who had been born

here of parents, on one or both sides, of foreign birth, and who, to

this extent, were _quasi_-foreign. If these be taken into account, the

proportion of foreign-born and the immediate descendants of foreign-born

persons to the rest of the population throughout the country in 1870

would have been as 16 to 38—16,459,239 to 38,558,371. This is really the

more correct basis upon which to make the comparison; for without doubt

a large proportion of the ten millions of persons born here of foreign

parents were the children of the five millions of foreign-born persons;

and it is perfectly natural that the parents and the children should be

found living in the same localities. After giving to this consideration,

however, all the weight to which it is entitled, the fact still remains

that an apparently excessive proportion of our foreign-born citizens are

to be found in the large cities.

Let us look still closer into the subject. The whole number of persons

of Irish birth in the United States in 1870 was 1,855,827, and of these

826,398, or 44.4 per cent., were living in these fifty cities. There

were 1,690,410 Germans, and 564,967 of them, or 33.4 per cent., were in

the cities; 550,688 English, of whom 165,024, or nearly 30 per cent.,

were in the cities; 489,344 British Americans, of whom 80,728, or only

16.5 per cent., were in the cities; while 30 per cent. of the Scotch,

36.5 per cent. of the French, 36.7 per cent. of the Austrians, and 17.7

per cent. of the Belgians were in the same category. Our Irish

fellow-citizens are the greatest sinners—if any are sinners in this

respect—and after them, in a declining ratio, come the Austrians,

French, Germans, Scotch, English, Belgians, and British Americans. The

Irish, Austrians, French, and Germans are the Roman Catholic emigrants,

and in the wisdom of God it has been ordained that they should be the

ones most crowded into the cities. How have they performed there the

work which he sent them to do?

Our cities are the centres of the intelligence, the culture, and the

wealth of our country. They contain to a very large extent the brains of

the republic. From them issue influences which sway, if they do not

absolutely control, the thoughts and actions of the people. These

influences are not, by any means, always altogether wholesome, but they

are unquestionably potent. The newspapers, magazines, and other

periodicals published in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, St. Louis,

Chicago, Baltimore, Cincinnati, New Orleans, San Francisco, and

Milwaukee have a circulation exceeding that of the similar publications

of all the rest of the country combined. The serial publications of one

firm in New York alone reach into the millions; the aggregate annual

circulation of the New York daily and weekly journals is so large that

mere figures expressing it convey but a faint idea of its extent. The

publisher of a magazine in New York told the writer the other day that

if the copies of his publication issued each year were stacked together,

the column would be three times as high as Trinity Church steeple.

The social influences of the cities upon the rural districts are also

powerful. The cities not only set the fashions in dress, but in

political, moral, and religious thought and custom. The sturdy

independence of the bucolic mind may yet boast of its existence, but it

very often yields to the sway of urban ideas. A lady who had lived all

her life in a small village, in which the only Catholic population

consisted of a handful of poor Irish people, destitute of a church, and

visited only at long intervals by a humble priest who celebrated the

divine Mysteries in an attic over a liquor-store, not long ago came to

New York, and was taken by her friends into one of our magnificent

Catholic churches. The grandeur and beauty of the Mass were for the

first time revealed to her; for the first time she obtained an idea of

what the Catholic Church was and what it taught. By the grace of God her

conversion followed, and, mainly through her exertions and her influence

after her return home, her village is now blessed with a church, a

resident priest, and a Catholic population composed largely of converts.

In very many of our rural localities all over the Union the Catholics

are few and poor; in too many of them the idea of a Roman Catholic in

the minds of the natives is still associated only with the idea of an

ignorant fanatic, who worships images, pays half a dollar to a priest to

pardon him for a crime, and believes that the Pope is God. But when the

country merchant of such a locality comes to New York to make his

purchases, and sees the splendid Catholic churches here, and finds,

perhaps, that the great importer with whom he deals, or the wealthy

banker, or the renowned lawyer to whom he is introduced, is a Roman

Catholic, and not unseldom an Irishman or a German, his eyes are opened

and his mind is prepared for the reception of the truth. In a word, the

congregation of foreign-born emigrants, the most of whom are Catholics,

in our large cities, has had the effect of making the Catholic church in

these cities a noticeable and a respectable fact, and of thereby

accomplishing one of the preliminaries in the work which it has yet to

perform in the republic. The influence of this fact is to be perceived,

also, in the changed tone of the secular press with regard to the

church. Respectable journalists, with few and decreasing exceptions,

have become ashamed to repeat the vulgar and senseless slanders and the

worn-out calumnies concerning the church, her ministers, her dogmas, and

her sacraments which were so current twenty years ago. In communities

consisting in an appreciable and often in a large proportion of

intelligent, wealthy, and influential Catholics, the able editors do not

venture any longer to amuse their readers with arguments based on the

assumption that the church is the foe of knowledge and of education, and

that her mission is to degrade, enslave, and pauperize mankind. In

cities where the spires of dozens and scores of Catholic churches,

tipped with the emblem of our salvation, point towards heaven; where

Catholic hospitals, asylums, schools, and academies abound; where many

of the most enterprising and wealthy merchants, manufacturers, and

bankers are Catholics; where in the front rank of all the professions

Catholics are found—in these communities it is no longer a social

disgrace or a mark of singularity to be a Catholic, and a convert to the

faith is no longer looked upon as a person of weak intellect or a slave

to a benumbing and degrading superstition. We shall show, in the

subsequent pages of our article, that for all this, to a very great

extent, and under what seems to have been the direct guidance of God, we

are indebted to the foreign-born population of the country, and that its

accomplishment was made possible, humanly speaking, by their

congregating themselves in the cities instead of dispersing in small

bodies throughout the agricultural regions of the country. But we shall

show, also, that, the work of God having thus far been accomplished, the

time has now arrived when the future emigration to the United States

should be directed towards the rural districts, under conditions which,

until now, were practically impossible; and we shall seek to point out

in what manner this new colonization may be best directed in order to

promote the welfare of the emigrants themselves, the prosperity of our

country, and the greater glory of God.

ALBA’S DREAM.

BY THE AUTHOR OF “ARE YOU MY WIFE?” “A SALON IN PARIS BEFORE THE WAR,”

ETC.