Marcella, one of St. Jerome’s spiritual daughters, and whose

funeral eulogy he wrote, was, according to this great saint’s own

words, “the greatest glory of the city of Rome.” When Alaric and

his Goths invaded Rome, her house was broken into, and herself

cruelly beaten and disfigured. All her reply was, “My gold I have

given to the poor: you will find nothing in my possession but the

tunic I wear.” She collected many holy and learned women around

her, and her house was the rallying point of all Christians. All

good works received their impetus from her, and she was often

consulted by bishops and priests on questions of Biblical learning,

after St. Jerome, who had taught her the Scriptures, had left

Rome. Although consecrated virgins of both sexes abounded in her

time, as yet no distinct community under a recognized rule had

been formed in Rome. She undertook to establish the monastic life

in the capital of the empire, and was the first to reduce to order

the elements of which such a community might be formed. With the

advice of St. Athanasius, and some fugitive priests of Alexandria,

who took refuge in Rome in 340, during the Arian persecution in the

East, Marcella gave up a country-seat of hers for a monastery, and

adopted for the future religious the rule of St. Pachomius. The men

followed her example, and assembled in concert to found communities

of their own. Rome vied with the Thebaïd for sanctity and learning,

and this was the work of a woman. When, in the seventh century,

St. Benedict, the reformer and patriarch of all religious orders

in Europe, reduced monasticism in the West to the state in which

we know it in our own days, he was only, says Ventura (_Donna

Cattolica_, vol. i. p. 488), walking in the path which the heroic

women of Christendom had hewn out before him in imitation of the

hermits and anchorites of the East. But Marcella shines no less as

a pillar of orthodoxy than as the institutrix of Western monachism.

When the Origenists, through the aid of the cunning Rufinus and

the intriguing Macarius, who disseminated skilfully veiled errors

in Rome, began to attack the integrity of the Christian faith,

Marcella left her solitude, and came to the capital to confront

the heresiarchs. The following details are all vouched for by

St. Jerome in the funeral eulogy addressed by him to her friend

and scholar Principia: “The faith of the Roman people had been

weakened on many points.... The new heresy had made many victims,

even among priests and monks.... The Sovereign Pontiff himself,

Siricius, who was as conspicuous for holy simplicity as for

sanctity of life, and who judged of others by the candor of his own

soul, seemed for a moment to have become the dupe of the hypocrisy

of these new pharisees. The orthodoxy of the bishops Vincent,

Eusebius, Paulinian, and Jerome had even been suspected, and, when

they cried out that the wolf was in the fold, no one vouchsafed

to listen to them. In this grave emergency, in presence of much

coldness, indifference, and weakness on the part of _men_, God made

use of the far-sightedness, the zeal, the courage of a _woman_ to

keep the faith intact in Rome. Marcella, more eager to please God

than men, resisted the Origenist heresy publicly, vigorously, and

efficaciously. She it was who by the very testimony of those who

had first been deceived by the new errors and then abjured them,

convinced every one of the real nature of the heretical doctrine.

She stimulated the zeal of the Sovereign Pastor by proving to

him how many souls had already gone astray.... She was the first

to point out to him the disguised impieties of the garbled

translations of Origen’s book on _Principles_, which Rufinus had

translated and altered, and was now selling everywhere. She often

summoned the heretics to come and justify themselves in Rome, but

they dared not answer, and preferred being condemned as absent

and contumacious, rather than be publicly confounded by a woman.

At last, when a general condemnation was pronounced upon their

doctrines, it was chiefly the result of Marcella’s vigilance.”

Here, therefore, is a woman exerting a guiding influence on the

destinies of the church by her learning, subtleness, and eloquence.

If the women of the early centuries achieved such successes with

the natural weapons of their sex and position, why do our sisters

of the present day desire a reorganization of society, and a

new accession of hitherto unknown and unnatural weapons? Why

indeed but because the order of society sanctioned and regulated

by the church has been subverted by the Reformation; the holy

charter of woman abolished; and elegant and veiled Islamism, or

in some instances a coarse and degrading barbarianism, inculcated

and forcibly brought into action concerning woman, and the sex

gradually forced out of its legitimate orbit, with its capabilities

dwarfed, its intellect narrowed, its talents sneered at, and its

affections repressed? The broad river of woman’s influence, flowing

so calmly and majestically through the centuries of the church’s

undisturbed unity, has been dammed up by the Protestant tradition

of the last three hundred years, till it has broken forth again

as a turbulent torrent, devastating where it once fertilized,

disturbing where once it conciliated. In its new form and its

strange aggressiveness, it now horrifies mankind, where in early

days, in its legitimate sphere, it guided the greatest statesmen,

orators, and saints, and gravely helped them on the road to heaven,

to science, and to happiness. But we are digressing, for we have

undertaken to speak of facts, not to declaim about theories. We

have much ground to travel over yet before we come to the end of

the list of glorious women who have made the church, so to speak,

their panegyrist, and the world their debtor. We have once before

mentioned the Roman ladies, Proba, Juliana, and Demetrias, to whom

St. Chrysostom recommended his envoys and their mission to Pope St.

Innocent. Demetrias was the daughter of the Consul Olibrius and

of St. Juliana; Proba was her grandmother on her father’s side.

The two widows, having converted their husbands, consecrated their

after-lives to the education of Demetrias. St. Augustine was their

friend and counsellor, and wrote them letters that are among the

most prominent of his works. One to Proba is on the efficacy and

the nature of prayer; another to Juliana treats of the advantages

and duties of widowhood. When Demetrias announced her intention

of remaining a virgin, the holy joy of the family knew no bounds,

and the day of her formally receiving the veil was a festival for

all Rome. St. Jerome honored her with a discourse which has come

down to us in the shape of a _Letter to Demetrias_, followed by a

treatise on _Virginity_, and not only did he interrupt for this

purpose the grave commentaries on the Scriptures in which he was

engaged, but he also addressed to the parents of the virgin such

congratulations as rang throughout Italy, and made the holy and

happy trio the envy of every matron and maiden in the Christian

world. (Ventura, _Donna Cattolica_, vol. i. p. 520.) The heresiarch

Pelagius so little understood the importance of woman that he

took the trouble to address to Demetrias a letter so long that it

almost forms a book, which is still extant, and was intended to

instil into her mind his insidious errors. St. Augustine, however,

cautioned her against Pelagius, and bid her keep staunch to “the

faith of Pope Innocent.”

There was one sphere which more than any other was christianized

and influenced for good by women, and indeed could not have been

otherwise sanctified--the sphere of the imperial court, both in

Rome and in Constantinople. We have already seen empresses and

relatives of the Cæsars becoming Christians and often martyrs, but

it remained for the women of the fourth and fifth centuries to make

the palace into a sanctuary and add the lustre of a heavenly crown

to the majesty of an earthly sceptre. Constantine, under whose

auspices Christianity first emerged from the Catacombs, was the

gift of woman to the church. His mother Helena, his wife Fausta,

and his mother-in-law Eutropia (the two latter being respectively

the wife and daughter of Maximian-Herculeus) were zealous and

devoted Christians, and to their influence are due the toleration

and subsequently the favor with which the faith was treated by

Constantine. Eusebius relates that Eutropia on her pilgrimage to

the Holy Places found idols and sacrificial rites still flourishing

near the famous oak of Mambre, where tradition places the scene

of the visit of the three angels to Abraham. She wrote to her

son-in-law in unconcealed indignation, and thus procured after a

time the destruction of the shameful altars. Later on we find the

emperor building a church on the identical spot. The progress of

the Empress Helen through Palestine is as an ovation to the faith,

and a record of churches built and monasteries founded in every

Holy Place. She constantly besought her son’s aid and munificence

in these undertakings, and extended the protection of his name to

all Christian establishments in the East. We owe to her piety and

energy the most solemn and the greatest of the memorials of the

Passion, the Holy Cross on which our Lord suffered and died. It is

likewise to her, a woman, that we owe one of the most beautiful

of Christian churches, that of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem,

as well as one of the most interesting basilicas of Rome, _Santa

Croce in Gerusalemme_, where a portion of the august relic of the

cross was deposited. Her charities were numberless, her foundations

magnificent. She alleviated the condition of those who were

condemned to the mines, and freed many from chains and slavery.

The city of Drepanum in Bythinia, where St. Lucian the martyr had

died for his God, she so beautified and endowed in his honor that

after her death her son changed its name to Helenopolis. Even the

fame of the local and municipal life of many cities can be traced

to the influence and activity of woman, and further on we shall see

how some of her sex have laid colleges, schools, and universities

under eternal obligations. Constance, the daughter of Constantine,

was the first convert of the imperial family, and exercised no

little influence over her father. She assembled numbers of holy

virgins, and consecrated herself with them in a state of virginity

to the service of God and the poor. When Constantius, her brother,

became emperor, and, favoring Arianism, called himself head of

the church, while he exiled Pope Liberius, hundreds of the Roman

ladies united in a deputation to protest against this illegal

act. As long as the anti-Pope Felix remained in Rome, these same

women utterly scorned his authority, and encouraged the people

to refuse to hold communion with him. This firm attitude of the

women of Rome had its reward, and Pope Liberius was at length

recalled when the emperor perceived that the forced schism was

likely to result in sedition against himself. Maximus, Emperor

of the West, through the influence of his Christian wife, became

the friend and protector of St. Martin of Tours; and Theodosius,

the contemporary of St. Ambrose, was mainly guided in his wise

and, upon the whole, salutary administration by his wife Placidia

and his daughter Pulcheria. But his granddaughter, also named

Pulcheria, and justly honored as a saint, was pre-eminently the

glory of the Eastern Empire and the honor of her sex as well as

of her order. Her reign was the triumph of the church, the golden

age of justice, the realization of a Christian Utopia. When the

tranquillity of the age was disturbed, it was through the decline

of her influence and the triumph over her of her many enemies.

When her father Arcadius died and left his throne to his son

Theodosius, she was chosen not as regent, but as _Augusta_, or

co-ruler and empress, with her brother, and moreover was entrusted

with the care and responsibility of his education. The historian

Rohrbacher, ever eager to extol the sex says of her: “It was a

marvel, the equal of which has never been known either before

or since, and which God wrought in those days for the glory of

woman, whom his grace sanctified and his wisdom inspired--that a

maiden of sixteen should govern successfully so vast an empire.”

Pulcheria reduced the imperial household to a degree of order and

decorum more resembling a college than a court; her brother’s

masters were all chosen and approved by her, and the utmost respect

was paid by her both to the laws and the prelates of the church.

Alban Butler, in his _Lives of the Saints_, speaks of her and

her reign in these terms: “The imperial council was, through

her discernment, composed of the wisest, most virtuous, and most

experienced persons in the empire: yet, in deliberations, all of

them readily acknowledged the superiority of her judgment and

penetration. Her resolutions were the result of the most mature

consideration, and she took care herself that all orders should be

executed with incredible expedition, though always in the name of

her brother, to whom she gave the honor and credit of all she did.

She was herself well skilled in Greek and Latin, in history and

other useful branches of literature, and was, as every one must

be who is endowed with greatness of soul and a just idea of the

dignity of the human mind, the declared patroness of the sciences

and of both the useful and polite arts. Far from making religion

subservient to policy, all her views and projects were regulated

by it, and by this the happiness of her government was complete.

She prevented by her prudence all revolts which ambition, jealousy,

or envy might stir up to disturb the tranquillity of the church or

state; she cemented a firm peace with all neighboring powers, and

abolished the wretched remains of idolatry in several parts. Never

did virtue reign in the oriental empire with greater lustre, never

was the state more happy or more flourishing, nor was its name

ever more respected even among barbarians, than whilst the reins

of the government were in the hands of Pulcheria.” Ventura is not

less explicit in praise of this great woman. After mentioning the

different studies embraced in the plan of education which Pulcheria

had traced for her brother, he says: “In these arrangements,

both the subject-matter which was to occupy the young prince’s

attention, and the time he was to spend in each occupation, were

so judiciously and admirably managed that such a plan of education

seemed rather the work of an experienced philosopher than that

of a young girl of sixteen.... Theodosius possessed neither a

generous soul nor exalted intellect; in fact, his was a nature

scarcely above mediocrity. Pulcheria, however, by her enlightened

efforts, succeeded in producing unexpected results from so

thankless a field of labor.” (_Donna Cattolica_, vol. ii. pp. 23,

24.) Exiled and disgraced by the machinations of her frivolous

sister-in-law, the Empress Eudocia, and the ambitious Chrysaphius,

one of the courtiers, she left Constantinople and retired into the

country, no more downcast in adversity than she had been elated in

prosperity. Eudocia and Chrysaphius, unable to draw St. Flavian,

the Patriarch of Constantinople, into their conspiracy against

the noble exile, became violent partisans of Eutyches and his new

heresy. Between the years 447 and 450 of the Christian era, the

condition of the empire was perfectly chaotic; the heresies of the

Eutychians, the Nestorians, and the Monothelites disturbed the

public peace; morality was forgotten; the court became an assembly

of intriguers; Theodosius himself was no longer obeyed at home

or respected abroad. St. Leo the Pope, scandalized and grieved at

such excesses, wrote to the emperor, the clergy, and the people

of Constantinople, but reserved his most remarkable mission for

Pulcheria. He says, “If you had received my former letters, you

would certainly have already remedied these evils, for you have

never failed the Christian faith, nor the clergy her guardians,”

and towards the end of his letter he adds: “In the name of the

blessed apostle St. Peter, I constitute you my _special legate_

for the advancement of this matter before the emperor.” Referring

to this magnificent elogium, the historian Rohrbacher remarks

that, “when the Pope writes to the Emperor Theodosius, one would

think he was addressing a woman; when, on the contrary, he writes

to the ex-empress, one would imagine he was speaking to a _man_,”

upon whose energy he could depend. In 450, the Emperor of the

West, Valentinian, and his mother and wife, Placidia and Eudoxia,

came to Rome, where the Pope entrusted them with the task of

admonishing by letter the weak-minded Theodosius and his heretical

followers. Thus was the power of woman and her influence in state

affairs recognized and honored by the church from end to end of the

Christian world. Pulcheria, urged by the entreaties of all these

great and holy personages, boldly went to the court, reproached her

brother, and by her firmness opened his eyes and restored peace,

orthodoxy and morality in the distracted empire. Her brother’s

death in 450 left her, by the universal consent of the people, once

more ruler of the vast realm she had already so much benefited. Now

again she evinced consummate wisdom in her choice of Marcian, the

most renowned soldier and most talented statesman of the empire,

to be her husband and fellow-ruler. Under condition of preserving

her early vow of perpetual chastity, she admitted him to an entire

participation of her life and counsels, and together, with a

strong yet gentle hand, they upheld and protected the fathers of

the Council of Chalcedon. After three years of a wise and virtuous

reign, Pulcheria died, lamented by the thousands of the poor and

destitute whom she had never ceased to relieve, and honored by

the church as the “guardian of the faith, the peace-maker, the

defender of orthodoxy,” as the Chalcedonian fathers expressed

it. The historian Gibbon, whose testimony can hardly be deemed

interested, has thus outlined the history of her reign: “Her piety

did not prevent Pulcheria from indefatigably devoting her attention

to the affairs of the state, and indeed this princess was the only

descendant of Theodosius the Great who seems to have inherited any

part of his high courage and noble genius. She had acquired the

familiar use of the Greek and Latin tongues, which she spoke and

wrote with ease and grace in her speeches and writings relative

to public affairs. Prudence always dictated her resolves. Her

execution was prompt and decisive. Managing without ostentation all

the intricacies of the government, she discreetly attributed to the

talents of the emperor the long tranquillity of his reign. During

the last years of his life, Europe was suffering cruelly under

the invasion and ravages of Attila, King of the Huns, while peace

continued to reign in the vast provinces of Asia.” (_History of the

Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire_, vol. vi. chapter xxxii.)

The holy Pope St. Gregory the Great did not owe less to the

influence and friendship of woman than Pope St. Leo. Among his

many and remarkable letters, those addressed to the Empress

Constantina and the Princess Theoclissa, wife and sister of

Maurice, Emperor of the East, are not the least admirable. The

emperor being both imbecile and miserly, and of a nature utterly

despicable, the only bulwark of orthodoxy against the heretics

lay in the strenuous and continued efforts of these two women in

favor of the church. When Phocus, a general of Maurice, freed

the indignant empire from its supine and debased ruler, his wife

the Empress Leontia took the place of the former princesses, and

continued their work of protecting the faith of the Councils.

In the West, where the Lombards were successfully laying the

foundation of the future power they were destined to wield, it

was chiefly to a woman that Gregory the Great looked to defend

the interests of religion, and saw among these half-reclaimed

barbarians the seeds of Christian chivalry. Theodolinda was his

pupil and correspondent, and by her care the future King of the

Lombards, Adoloaldus, was baptized and brought up a Christian. In

the matter of the great expedition which resulted in the final

conversion of England, the same Pope testifies by his letters

that Bertha, the wife of King Ethelbert, and Brunehault, Queen of

the Franks, were chiefly instrumental in aiding and countenancing

St. Augustine in his mission. He says to Brunehault: “We are not

ignorant of the help you have afforded our brother Augustine.... It

must be a source of great rejoicing to you that no one has had a

greater share in this work than yourself. For, if that nation [the

Saxons] has had the blessing of hearing the Word of God and the

preaching of the Gospel, it is to you, under God, that they owe it.”

The throne of Constantinople was to be honored yet by another

sainted empress, the worthy successor of Pulcheria, and, like her,

an able ally of the Pope and the orthodox patriarch of her own

capital. Once more, through the vices and indifference of men, a

heresy had arisen and flourished, the heresy of the Iconoclasts.

Great persecution had been suffered by the faithful, during the

reign of Leo, the husband of our heroine Irene, and the new

heretics, had completely triumphed. At his death, his widow became

regent for her young son. The clergy, the nobility, and especially

the army, were arrayed on the side of the Iconoclasts. Irene was

as prudent in action as she was zealous in heart. The persecutions

against the followers of the Pope were first merely suspended,

thought and speech were once more free, and gradually a reaction

began to take place. The patriarchal see of Constantinople becoming

vacant by the death of Paul, the finally repentant abettor of

the unhappy heresy, it was Irene who proposed the election of

Tarasius, the most popular, most pious, and most talented man

among her subjects. He, too, was the product of a wise and holy

woman’s training, and the name of his mother, Eucratia, is among

the saints. Having thus paved the way, the empress wrote to Pope

Adrian about the year 786, and begged him to assemble a general

council to further the interests of religion and cement the peace

of Christendom. The council, which was the second of Nicea, took

place according to this suggestion, upon which the Pope, through

his legates, formally congratulated the empress. The utmost success

having attended the sittings of the council, and the faith having

been triumphantly vindicated against the Iconoclasts and their

errors, the empress sent to entreat the assembled fathers to hold

one final and ceremonial sitting in Constantinople itself. She

procured an efficient guard among the orthodox cohorts of the

imperial army, and prepared an immense hall in the palace for the

gathering of the council. Ventura describes the scene thus: “The

Pope’s legates waived their right of precedence in favor of Irene,

and the astonishing spectacle was seen of a woman, accompanied

by a child twelve years old (her son), presiding over one of the

most august assemblies of the church. The sitting was opened by a

discourse by the empress, in which she spoke, both in her son’s

name and in her own, with so much eloquence, warmth, and grace,

that the greatest emotion was manifested throughout the assembly;

tears of joy flowed from the eyes of all present, and the last

words of Irene were followed by the most heartfelt acclamations....

The enthusiasm was at its height, when, in the assembly and also to

the people without, the decree or definition of faith made by the

council was read, and the empress claimed her right to be the first

to sign it.... It must never be forgotten that this great council,

as well as its consequences, which put an end to a great heresy

and restored Catholicism in the East, was the thought and work of

a woman, and that it was a woman-sovereign (_un empereur-femme_)

who alone by her discreet and courageous zeal knew how to blot out

and destroy the scandals caused by three men-sovereigns and even a

great number of bishops themselves.” (_Donna Cattolica_, vol. ii.

pp. 55, 56.)

Before the Empire of the East became totally degraded, another

sovereign, another woman, lent it the glory of her reputation. The

Iconoclasts, profiting by the treacherous support of succeeding

emperors, again renewed their hostilities against orthodoxy, but

were speedily checked once more by a brave Christian woman, the

Empress Theodosia, widow of Theophilus, and of whom Rohrbacher

says: “If in the West the temporal sovereigns were insignificant,

in the East they were detestable. There was but one exception, and

that was a woman, the Empress St. Theodosia. She began her reign

after the death of her unworthy husband--whom she had succeeded,

however, in converting on his death-bed--by threatening the

heretical patriarch, Lecanomantes, with the condemnation of the

coming council unless he consented to vacate his see and renounce

his errors. He refused, and the council assembled within the

walls of the imperial palace. The Iconoclast heresy was again

solemnly denounced, and the previous Council of Nicea confirmed.

For the countenance and protection afforded by her to the church,

the empress only asked as a reward that the prelates should pray

for the forgiveness of the sin of heresy which her husband had

committed. Theodosia celebrated this new victory of the church

with becoming solemnity, and instituted in its honor a festival,

which is observed to this day under the name of the ‘festival of

orthodoxy.’ When Methodius, the holy Patriarch of Constantinople,

died, she replaced him by St. Ignatius, the friend of the Pope, St.

Nicholas I. She made peace with the Bulgarians, whom the Pope was

interested in converting to the faith, and seconded his efforts

by procuring the conversion of the captive Bulgarian princess,

sister to King Bogoris, whom she afterward freed and sent back to

her brother. This princess became the Clotildis of her people,

and, together with Formosus, the Pope’s legate, and St. Cyril,

Theodosia’s envoy, effected the conversion of the whole Bulgarian

nation in 861.”

Other Danubian tribes also owed their conversion to Theodosia;

she sent missionaries to the Khazars and the Moravians, whose

chief specially addressed himself to her for instruction. Her

son Michael, when he came to the throne, renewed the horrors of

the pagan empire of Caligula and Domitian, persecuted his mother

and sisters, exiled and deposed the Patriarch Ignatius, and put

the heretic Photius into his place. One of his captains, Basil,

put a violent end to his infamous reign, and, though inexcusable

in the eyes of the ecclesiastical law, yet redeemed his act by

the utmost deference to Theodosia and devotion to religion. The

empire breathed again, and Theodosia’s counsels procured another

general assembly of the church at Constantinople, when Photius was

condemned and the rightful patriarch reinstated in his authority.

After the death of the empress, the heresy of Photius revived and

spread, and, schism becoming more or less general, the empire began

to degenerate, until its very name, the “Lower Empire,” became a

synonym for all degradation and hopeless ruin. Ventura, who says

truly that real sanctity is impossible in the bosom of voluntary

schism, attributes the degeneracy of the Empire of the East to

the want of strong and generous women, such as those whom we

have briefly sketched in this article, and asserts that the very

accumulation of evils which this scarcity of holy women has heaped

upon the church during some of the darkest periods of her history,

is in itself a proof of the paramount importance of woman in the

work of the propagation and protection of true religion.

We are now close upon the mediæval times, when the glory of the

sex shone forth again in the West, and counted as many champions

as there were kingdoms to convert, universities to endow, courts

to reform, and infidel powers to overthrow. The influence of

woman began to be recognized in society as it had always been in

the church; chivalry taught men to place the honor of woman next

in their estimation to faith in God, and equal with loyalty to

their king and patriotism to their country. We can find no more

beautiful, no more _Catholic_, expression of this sovereignty

of woman’s pure and ennobling influence, as consecrated by the

church’s approbation, and guarded by all that is noblest and

most generous in man, than the following extract from a modern

poet, whose inspiration, like that of all true artists, is drawn

perforce from the legends of Catholic antiquity. The poet of the

Holy Grail is also the poet of woman; the legends of the deeds of

the prowess of knights, whose names are perchance but myths as to

actual history, but nevertheless are human types of the exalted

ideal of the old Catholic days, are inevitably mingled with legends

of the vows of holy chastity, and the pure and stainless lives of

many of those renowned heroes of the field and tournament. Let the

following serve as an introduction to our next article, which will

treat chiefly of the great women of the Middle Ages:

“For when the Roman left us, and their law

Relaxed its hold upon us, and the ways

Were filled with rapine, here and there a deed

Of prowess done redressed a random wrong.

But I was first of all the kings who drew

The knighthood-errant of this realm and all

The realms together under me, their head,

In that fair Order of my Table Round,

A glorious company, the flower of men,

To serve as model for the mighty world,

And be the fair beginning of a time.

I made them lay their hands in mine, and swear

To reverence the king as if he were

Their conscience and their conscience as their king,

To break the heathen and uphold the Christ,

To ride abroad, redressing human wrongs,

To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it,

To lead sweet lives in purest chastity,

To love one maiden only, cleave to her,

And worship her by years of noble deeds,

Until they won her; for indeed I knew

Of no more subtle master under heaven

Than is the maiden passion for a maid,

Not only to keep down the base in man,

But teach high thought, and amiable words,

And courtliness, and the desire of fame,

And love of truth, and all that makes a man.

And all this throve.... I wedded thee,

Believing, lo! _mine helpmate_, one to feel

My purpose, and rejoicing in my joy.”

_Tennyson_, _Idylls of the King._

DEVOTA.

Sweet image of the one I love,

To whom your infant years were given

(And still the faithful colors[61] prove

A constancy not all in heaven):

To me a violet near a brink,

Far-hidden from the beaten way,

And where but rarest flowerets drink

A freshness from the ripples’ play:

A lily in a vale of rest,

And where the angels know a nook

But one shy form has ever prest--

A poet with a poet’s book.

But poet’s book has never said

What I, O lily, find in you:

’Twas never writ and never read,

Though always old and always new.

And ah, that you must change and go--

The violet fade, the lily die!

Let others joy to watch you grow;

Let others smile: so will not I.

Yet smile I should. Is heaven a dream?

In sooth, he needs to be forgiven

Who matches with the things that seem

A deathless flower, that blooms for heaven.

And while he mourns the onward years

That sweep you from the things that seem,

Let faith make sunshine on his tears:

’Tis heaven is real, and earth the dream.

FOOTNOTE:

[61] Children dedicated to the Blessed Virgin wear white and blue.

THE CARESSES OF PROVIDENCE.

FROM LA CIVILTA CATTOLICA.

Very recently, the Liberal Italian party, finding that their

Catholic opponents were in no wise damaged by arguments drawn

from a denial of God’s concern in human affairs, has changed its

tactics, and proposes now to convert us clericals by appeals to our

religious sensibilities. We are assaulted by a theological attack

_ad hominem_, which they tell us is so conclusive that, if we do

not acknowledge ourselves beaten, it is because we have lost our

reason and renounced the faith.

“You believe,” say they, “in the providence of God. You recognize

his hand in all the events of life, and you profess to bless and

bow to the divine decrees. Well, then, Providence, you perceive,

has smiled graciously on us and on our work--a work which you

execrate and detest. Providence is plainly on our side. He declares

himself for us and against you. Submit, then, to his decrees. Lay

aside this idle expectation of the triumph of your cause, which

is evidently opposed to the holy will of God. Accept accomplished

facts. Reconcile yourselves with Italy, our glorious new kingdom,

and cease, amid your noisy professions of religion, to rebel

against the will of the Most High.”

Such in its naked substance is the argument to which the Liberals

now exultingly resort; more especially since the breach of Porta

Pia and the successful picking of the locks of the Quirinal. They

hope in this way to convict us of apostasy from the faith, and

(what they deem still more atrocious) of an unpardonable outrage

against the laws of “the human understanding.”

“It seems incredible,” they go on to say, “that, after such

positive proofs of a special protection vouchsafed by Providence

to regenerate Italy, the clerical party should cling so stubbornly

to the hope of a resuscitation of the past--a past which, were it

not already irrevocably condemned by the logic of events, would be

condemned by their own theory of an all-seeing and all-wise God.”

This is the language in which the Jewish journal _L’Opinione_,

after taking Roman ground at the close of the year just elapsed,

expressed this very formidable argument. They had already uttered

it some hundred times before. Many sheets of less importance had

got up an industrious echo to this cry; and one in particular,

a petty Florentine print, undertakes to celebrate the new year

by magnifying “the caresses of Providence” bestowed upon the

little darling angel, Italy, born, as everybody knows, of the

wonderful shrewdness of the Italian people and their undying love

of liberty--a liberty, by the way, which never fails to exemplify

itself by a free and strenuous appropriation of a weaker neighbor’s

earthly goods. Strange indeed it is that men, who never were

known as professed believers in any other divinity than Mammon,

should now, after having derided for years, and with every mark of

blasphemous scorn, “the finger of God,” suddenly assume the office

of apostles of a new idea of Christian Providence. Strange it is

that only now, after the plunder of a city gained by battering

down walls and picking locks with forged keys--that these men,

we say, should chant the praises of the God they had defied, and

defend his holy decrees against the “scandalous negations” of the

Catholic Church. Strangest is it of all, that the prince of these

extraordinary apostles should be no other than the so-called Jew

proprietor of the _Opinione_--who is not even a Jew; for he has

always shown that he believes as little of the Old Testament as he

does of the New.

But--

“To what infamies untold

Hast thou man’s nature not controlled,

Thou execrable greed of gold!”

Solid or not, this _argumentum ad hominem_ has for a certain class

of minds an air of great plausibility. At all events, it might

be well to look into it a little; for we may thereby throw some

light upon several important truths which nowadays need special

illumination. We let in the argument, therefore, as the new Jewish

and infidel philosophers present it; and we propose to give them,

in a nutshell, the proper answer to it. They will then understand

why Catholics not only refuse to surrender to this showing, but, on

the contrary, see in it reason to stand firm to their first faith,

and to cherish unceasing hopes of the speedy triumph of their cause.

Yes, gentlemen, we Catholics believe, with all our heart and soul,

in the holy providence of God. In this Providence we recognize

the origin and order of all created things. We make it indeed our

glory that we bless and humbly worship its adorable decrees. We

confess, therefore, without reserve, that what you choose to call

its “loving caresses” are really yours by divine appointment; and

the very decree which to you is the source of so much joy, and to

us of so much mourning, we adore as the undoubted manifestation

of his most holy will. All this we freely admit as truth, as

unquestionable, unanswerable truth. But while, in these explicit

terms, we confess this Catholic verity, we deny, in equally

explicit terms, that what you choose to call “caresses” are in

any sense _such to you_, or that the palpable proofs of that

“special protection” of which you make so vain a boast are proofs

of anything but the very opposite; nay, so false is it, that the

caresses you claim are marks of divine approval, that the very

assertion is a blasphemy most insulting to the sovereign providence

of God. To prove these propositions is an easy thing to any one who

knows his catechism; and the understanding of them easier still to

any one who believes as well as knows. To him who either does not

know his Christian primer, or, knowing it, will not believe, they

may seem incapable of either proof or comprehension. Should such a

case present itself, the fault is certainly not ours. A poet tells

us that:

“Of winds the sailor ever loves to speak,

Of arms the soldier, and the boor of swine;

The astronomer, of planet, moon, and stars;

Of palaces and piers, the architect;

The juggling necromancer prates of ghosts,

And the old harper of his well thrummed strains.”

If so, why is it that this Jew, instead of sticking like a worthy

Hebrew to his stock-list, takes to teaching us the Christian

catechism? And why is it that this worshipper of Voltaire, instead

of chanting hymns to Venus, reads us a lecture on what he knows

about the purposes of God? _Sutor ne ultra crepidam._

Nevertheless, we proceed to explain the propositions advanced

above.

Catholics acknowledge that every event, be it favorable or

unfavorable to their prayers, is consistent with the providence

of God. To Providence they refer evil as well as good, with this

difference, that good and unblamable evil they ascribe to the

decrees of his sovereign direction, but blamable evil they ascribe

to his permissive decree. In a word, they believe and confess that

God wills _positively_ all that comes to pass without taint of

moral evil, and wills _negatively_ (that is, he does not preclude)

what comes to pass so tainted by cause of man’s abuse of his

free-will. They nevertheless hold and profess that whatever evil he

permits, that also is ordained to good; so that nothing enters into

those most just and wise decrees that does not aim effectively at

the final design of the creation and redemption of mankind; which

design in this life is the church militant, and, in the next, the

church triumphant, the central point of his extrinsic glorification.

The reason, then, that Catholics hold and profess that God does

not and cannot decree, otherwise than _permissively_, moral

evil--that is, disobedience, injustice, or briefly sin--is that he

neither participates nor can participate in evil of this nature

which is essentially opposed to his infinite sanctity. He would,

in fact, participate therein if he willed it positively and not

merely negatively; whereas, permitting it only, he in no wise

participates, though he allows man, whom he had created free, to

make an evil use of the gift of liberty. He does not hinder him,

because neither is he so obliged, nor can the divine hindrance

of human freedom be exacted by the nature of man left free. With

all this, God is in no wise the less able to secure for himself,

always and in every case and from every human being, the external

glory which he reserved to himself when he created man. Because,

he who shall not glorify in heaven an infinite mercy granted to

the good use of the free-will, shall glorify in hell an infinite

justice merited by the abuse of this same free-will. Hence the

Almighty will not be shorn of the least shadow of that glory,

for which, among other things, he drew man out of the abyss of

nothingness.

Catholics, moreover, believe and confess that the effects of

moral evil are invariably directed by Almighty God to the good

of mankind. They serve to punish in order to amend, or else to

exercise in order to confirm. St. Augustine remarks, with his usual

perspicacity, that the life of a bad man is often prolonged not

only to afford an opportunity for his amendment, but to serve as

an occasion of sanctification to the good. _Ne putetis gratis esse

malos in hoc mundo, et nihil boni de eis agere Deum. Omnis malus

aut ideo vivit ut corrigatur, aut ideo vivit ut per illum bonus

exerceatur._[62]

Hence it is that Catholics, in all emergencies, even in the most

calamitous, nay, even in those caused by the worst iniquities of

unscrupulous men, do not fail to adore the goodness and justice of

Almighty God, and to acknowledge the inscrutable dispositions of

his most holy will. But they never think of imputing to him the

sins and transgressions of the wicked. These he neither wills nor

is he capable of willing them. He permits them only as subserving

his mercy or his justice.

It follows, then, that, in order to decide whether the easy

successes of certain definite transactions are successes due

to divine approbation, and palpable proofs of his gracious

protection, or whether rather they are not facilities that

Providence permits for the punishment of the wicked and for the

chastening of the virtuously minded, it is essential to see first

whether these definite acts are right or wrong, meritorious or

sinful; that is, conformable or unconformable to the law of eternal

justice, and to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Now, certain it is that in those transactions which the enemies of

Christ regard as sanctioned by the manifest “caresses” of Almighty

God, Catholic Christians see nothing but acts of iniquity and sin;

and accordingly, while they accept them as permitted by God for

reasons and results full of justice and mercy, they nevertheless

esteem it the height of blasphemy to look upon such outrages,

however successful for the moment, as “caresses” bestowed by

Providence upon the very men who at other times deny his existence

or treat his word with open scorn and contempt.

We have thus, as briefly and as lucidly as we could, and with the

Christian catechism for our guide, explained to these Jews who are

no Jews, and to these philosophers who are no philosophers, the

sense of the propositions we affirm.

Perhaps they will now require of us to prove that the acts referred

to are acts of iniquity and sin. This is very much like asking us

to prove that the sun is shining, when it is evidently blazing

at mid-day. We let pass that the highest authority on earth has

pronounced, again and again, that the acts are simply acts most

sinful and sacrilegious. We let pass that the concurrent testimony

of all minds endowed with natural rectitude of judgment (not

excluding Protestants nor Israelites nor Turks) has confirmed and

reconfirmed the condemnations spoken already by Pope, by church,

and by the entire Catholic world. It is enough that the authors

and prime movers of these outrages proclaimed and stamped them as

dishonorable and base before they perpetrated them, and even in the

very act of their perpetration. Can these apostolic gentlemen, now

so anxious for the conversion of the Catholic Church, be ignorant,

for instance, that two of the Subalpine ministry, Visconti-Venosta

and Lanza, declared the invasion of Rome and the usurpation of

the Papal power acts of barbarism destitute of every semblance of

right? And are they not aware that they so avouched just one short

month before both invasion and usurpation were consummated by

burglary and breach?

Who can hope, then, to persuade a Catholic that these successful

shells, pick-locks, and jimmies have not been instruments of the

most iniquitous wrong-doing, seeing that these two men, in the

face of heaven and earth, averred its baseness themselves only a

few weeks before the formal consummation of the act? Perhaps, too,

our converters have never heard how their _divine_ Camillo Cavour

said one day to their other _divine_ Massimo d’Azeglio, who has

recorded it _ad perpetuam rei memoriam_: “If what we are doing

for Italy, you and I had done for ourselves, what a precious pair

of big _balossi_ we should have been!” The _Opinione_ knows too

well the sense of the Subalpine word _balosso_ that we should put

it into good Italian. The editor and his pharisaical colleagues

have learned, no doubt, the lovely dialect of the northern masters

they have chosen for Italy and for themselves. They can teach us,

we dare say, the full force of this fine word _balosso_; that it

means all that is contained in the words scamp, scoundrel, robber,

rascal, villain, ruffian, knave. Can Catholics, then, be easily

persuaded that the _facts accomplished_ by Azeglio and Cavour for

the regeneration of Italy have been free from sin and iniquity,

seeing that these two _divines_ have stigmatized them as the acts

of men bad enough to be _balossi_? For be it observed that Azeglio

himself admits that what is criminal in private life is no less

criminal in public;[63] showing (though we are losing time in the

attempt to throw light upon the sun) that our apostolic friends, in

order to justify the _accomplished facts_ resorted to for Italy’s

new birth, have been obliged to invent a modern social law the

converse of the ancient one ordained by God himself.

If this be admitted, what can prove more incontestably that the

acts complained of were acts of sin and iniquity; sin being any

act contrary to God’s commands, and iniquity an act opposed to the

justice he enjoins?

But Catholics may go further, and say to the apostles of our

conversion that not only are the means used for the _regeneration_

of Italy sinful and iniquitous, but that the _end_ itself

aimed at by the ringleaders of this pretended regeneration is

absolutely antichristian and diabolical, being nothing less than

the demolition of the Catholic Church and the annihilation of the

kingdom of God among men. Of course, the _end_ is simply absurd,

and rendered impossible by the excess of its absurdity. But

nevertheless, though it cannot exist as a thing attainable, it does

exist as a thing conceivable, and as such inspires the mad career

of Masonry, which pursues it with satanic rage and open ostentation

as the main objective point of the machinations of the sect.

Mazzini, to whom the _regenerators_ are indebted for their grand

_idea_, aimed as far ago as 1834 at the abolition of the temporal

power, without regard to cost. His argument was that the downfall

of this power carried with it, as a necessary consequence,

the emancipation of the human race from the thraldom of the

spiritual power. “The Vicars of Christ” he called “Vicars of the

Spirit of Evil, to be exterminated, never to be restored.”[64]

Visconti-Venosta, a member of the present Italian cabinet, wrote

to Mazzini, in 1851, that the rallying-cry of the _regeneration_

should be, “Down with the Monarchy, down with the Papacy.”[65]

Ferrari, the philosopher of the movement, proclaimed in 1853 that

the end it proposed was the stamping out of Pope and Emperor, of

Christ and Cæsar; the four tyrannies that Machiavelli had delivered

over to Italian hate.[66]

To make this matter short, though we might go on for ever, the

more rabid partisans of the _regeneration_ do not blush to say

that the essential end of the great Italian movement is the

emancipation of human consciences from the authority of the church,

by laying prostrate the colossus against whom Luther, Calvin, and

Henry VIII. ineffectually strove. They aim, in a word, at the

radical destruction of the entire Catholic Church; to which end,

nationality, unity, political liberty itself, were always to be

regarded as nothing more than the means.[67]

These preliminaries being understood, our free-thinking friends

ought to see that their argument, derived from what they call

“providential protection” to their sacrilegious acts, strikes the

Catholic mind as a shocking blasphemy, because it makes our blessed

Lord an accomplice in detestable transactions, and an instigator

to the worst of crimes--a deliberate plotter, in short, of the

ruin of that church which is the masterpiece of his wisdom, and

the object of his infinite love. We have no objections to their

saying that the anger of God has unchained their barbarous allies,

and for a time has left them free to do their worst against the

children of the church. They may say all this, and Catholics will

assent and even approve--not the _animus_, but the words. They will

exclaim with St. Jerome of old, when the barbarians of that day

were making havoc of the things of God: _Peccatis nostris barbari

fortes sunt_[68]--“In our sins the barbarians are strong.” But let

them not venture to say that Almighty God, because he allows them a

fatal facility of blasphemous impiety, protects and even caresses

this impiety. For religious men will answer them: Yes, he protects

and caresses you, as he protected and caressed the crucifiers of

his only-begotten Son.

And here we entreat the Israelitish editor of the _Opinione_ to pay

strict attention to what we have to say, inasmuch as it concerns

him in his nationality; since he is an Israelite by nature and

nation, and Italian only by the place of his accidental birth.

The synagogue, sustained by the coalition of Pharisees and

Sadducees, undertook to regenerate Judea by taking the life of

Jesus, Son of God, true God and true Man. The great sin of Jesus

Christ in the eyes of the synagogue was similar to that of the

church of Jesus in the eyes of the Masonic Order. He was the Son

of God and the Word of Truth, as the church is his spouse and the

organ of the truth.

But there stood many obstacles in the way of compassing his

death. First, there needed a lawful sanction, and there was none.

Secondly, it was necessary to take him captive, a very dangerous

undertaking, for he was always surrounded by throngs of devoted

followers and friends. Thirdly, it was necessary to keep the

people in good humor, or, as Jesus was their principal benefactor,

they might rebel against this public execution. Fourthly, it

was necessary to ascertain that the Romans, who had cognizance

of capital cases in Palestine, would connive at his trial for

life and at his sentence to death. Fifthly, they had to risk the

display of his miraculous power, for his miracles surpassed all

that had ever been seen in Israel. It must be admitted that these

difficulties were very formidable. Yet what happened? _Everything

was made easy._ The sanction of law was found in a tissue of lies

and political misindictments, successful beyond all expectation.

His capture proved the easiest imaginable, through the unexpected

treachery of one of his own disciples, who sold him for a bauble.

The populace was led with wonderful facility not only not to rise

to his rescue, but in a solemn _plébiscite_ to save the robber

Barabbas at his expense, and to sentence him to an ignominious

death. The Romans made some show, through Pilate, in his defence;

but after five times declaring him innocent of every charge,

condemned him to the cross, following the will of the synagogue to

the last; and finally Jesus, though challenged with insult to the

exercise of his supernatural powers, abstained mysteriously from

their use, and did nothing to withdraw himself from torture or

death. Could any greater facility of consummation be imagined than

was here shown in the _accomplishment_ of this tremendous deicidal

_act_? But will our Israelitish apostle have the heart to undertake

to win over Italian Catholics to the belief that the wonderful

_success_ of the crucifixion (permitted, as it undeniably was) is

to be construed as a caress bestowed by Providence upon a corrupt

and apostate synagogue, and as a palpable and unmistakable proof of

his protection of the bloody and treacherous council that sentenced

him to death?

Between the Jewish sacrilege directed against the adorable Person

of the Incarnate Word, and the Italian sacrilege against the Vicar

of that Word, there is but this distinction: that the Person aimed

at in the former was God present in his human nature, and the

Person aimed at in the latter was God present in his church.

In the days of Pontius Pilate and Caiphas, the Jews slew the

material body of our Blessed Lord: the latter-day Jews, in these

days of Lanza and Visconti-Venosta, would, if they could, slay the

Spiritual Body of the same Jesus Christ. And do you dare, wretched

Pharisees, to ask of us Catholic believers to recognize in the

facilities that have attended until now this monstrous sacrilege

of yours, this second deicidal act, the smiles of an approving

Providence, and the marks of a divine protection accorded to the

prompt success of your heaven-defying crime?

The capital error of the gross and impious sophism now the subject

of our comment, consists evidently in the assumption that easy and

unexpected success (in operations ordinarily of a very arduous

character) is a sure note of the divine approval, even when the

accomplished facts are manifest breaches of the Decalogue.

A proposition of this sort, if it had the least value, would serve

to sanction any atrocity, however monstrous, provided it were only

successfully and rapidly achieved.

Such wretches as Passatori, Ninco Nanchi, Carusi, and Troppmann

ought in this view to be regarded as protected and caressed by

Divine Providence. Every prosperous villain would only have to

quote to his judges the argument of the _Opinione_ to conciliate

their approbation, and to obtain from them not only an acquittal,

but an honorable testimonial in high praise of these favorites of

heaven.

True it is, however, that a striking and brilliant success dazzles

the judgment of men without faith, or of men with faith as sensual

as their flesh.

We Catholics, on the contrary, are rich in the possession of a

divine promise which keeps us cheerful and buoyant with hope in

the face of what seems like the final triumph of the wicked. And

this is more especially true when we have to deal with those who

plot against the church and its visible Head, _adversus Dominum,

et adversus Christum ejus_. Nobody that we know of has set this

promise in a truer light than P. Paul Segneri, and we take the

liberty to transcribe here for our readers two or three passages of

his, which are just so much gold to the purpose we have in view.

“‘The prosperity of fools,’ says Solomon, ‘shall destroy them.’

He does not say ‘destroys them,’ but ‘shall destroy them.’ Why

so? Because the prosperity of the wicked does not always produce

immediately its disastrous effects. Sometimes the reverse comes

after long delay. Wait patiently. You will see the end of what

seems to begin so well. Have you never read in the Book of Job how

that the Almighty takes pleasure in defeating the machinations of

the impious? He brings their counsellors to a foolish end.” Not to

a bad beginning. No; all seems prosperous at first. It is the end

that is disastrous. He lets them raise aloft their mighty tower

of Babel. But afterwards, in the confusion of their pride, they

disperse and are gone. He lets them build up the beautiful towers

of Siloe; but these fall, and the builders are buried beneath

the ruins. For want of this reflection, many men wonder at the

prosperity of the wicked. Even the prophets themselves address God

sometimes with tender reproaches. They almost accuse him, I might

say. We are apt to look too much at the beginning of things, and

not, like holy David, at the end. _Donec intelligam in novissimis

eorum._ As much as to say, they are so taken up with gazing upon

the comely golden head of their tall Babylonian colossus, that they

have not thought of lowering their eyes to see its brittle legs of

clay. Now hear me, and witness the establishment of the truth. If

ever since the birth of Christ there was a race of men who rose by

unscrupulous arts to enormous wealth and power, it was doubtless

the Greek emperors, tyrants as they may well be called. Now answer

me, Have there ever existed empires which have furnished subjects

for tragedy more truly horrible than theirs?

“Nicephorus succeeded at first by the employment of dishonest means

to usurp the imperial power, driving away the right inheritress,

Irene. What then? Crushed by a series of misfortunes, he began

to look upon himself as a modern Pharaoh, hardened by defeats.

Finally, vanquished and slain by the Bulgarians, his enemies made

a drinking-cup of his skull, and out of joy or derision used it

as such in the diversions of the camp. Stauratius by illegitimate

alliances, and Leo the Armenian by repeated high-handed rebellions,

succeeded in establishing themselves in the height of power. How

long was it before these two men died under the blows of the

assassin, the former in war, and the latter at the altar he had

profaned? Michael the Stammerer was so fortunate as to step, in

his famous conspiracy, from the dungeon to the throne; demanding

there the worship of his subjects, the chain still on his neck and

the fetters on his feet. Intoxicated by his success, he compelled

a holy virgin to share his bed. All Sclavonia revolted, his entire

army deserted him; nor yet repenting, he was literally devoured

by a malady the most disgusting. Theophilus was successful in

suppressing, for reasons of state, the veneration of sacred images;

but almost immediately after, on being shamefully defeated by

the Saracens, died of rage and intense mortification. Michael

III., regarded as another Nero on account of his licentiousness

and cruelty, succeeded so far as to put his mother and guardians

out of the way, in order to reign without opposition or control.

He ended his ‘prosperous’ career by kindling against himself the

hatred of his subjects, and encountered rebellion after rebellion,

in the last of which, in the midst of a drunken debauch, he paid

the forfeit of his life. Alexander attained a sort of success in

plundering the holy altars, and in appropriating the gold thus

obtained to his own private use; but very soon thereafter he was

seized with a sudden madness, and he had not held out a year when

he ended his life in a fearful vomiting of blood. What shall I say

of Romanus I.? He too was successful to all appearance; for, by

a stratagem of wonderful adroitness, he expelled the legitimate

possessor from the patriarchal see of Constantinople, and placed

in it a mere child, his own son. The year following he himself was

driven from the imperial throne by another son, and banished to a

lonely isle for life. So also fared it with Romanus II. Impelled by

the lust of dominion, he took the life of his own father by poison.

His own life was taken very shortly after, and by the self-same

means. Michael Paphlagonius, by infamous devices, carried his point

of usurping the throne. Seized suddenly with demoniacal obsession,

he could obtain no repose. Exorcisms and almsgivings were tried

in vain. He died as he lived, with his agony unrelieved. Michael

Calaphates was ‘successful’ in driving the empress into exile, that

he might reign alone; but the people rose against him at once,

stoned him, deprived him of sight, and dragged him through the

city streets more dead than alive. Diogenes and Andronicus, two

usurpers who had ‘succeeded’ in their treason, one by a courtesan’s

vile aid, the other by the arm of an assassin, came to the same

lamentable end.

“Now answer me! Can you look upon as truly successful the wicked

arts which brought these bad men to power? Speak out! Would you

be willing to enjoy their ‘prosperity’ if with it you had to

accept its reverse? Is there any one so stupid as to envy their

short-lived ‘good luck’? Rest assured that such has ever been

the fate of those who attain for a time their unhallowed ends by

iniquitous means. ‘The prosperity of fools will destroy them.’

Doubt it not, my friends. The prosperity of fools will most

assuredly destroy them. It is hardly worth while to labor longer

in the proof. All writings, all ages, all powers, attest in unison

this truth, that ‘Justice exalteth a nation’; and this other, that

‘Injustice leadeth a nation to misery and ruin.’ These are the

words of one who was the wisest among men; and elsewhere he says,

‘Man shall not be strengthened by wickedness’; and, again, ‘The

unjust shall be caught in their own snares’; and then, again, ‘They

who sow iniquity shall reap destruction.’”

Thus, by examples drawn from the annals of the Byzantines (a race

dear to our modern liberals), the eloquent Segneri points out the

end which, according to Holy Writ, awaits the criminal successes

of the wicked. If he had chosen to embrace a wider range of

history, he might have compiled an endless catalogue of examples

the most frightful; commencing with the dreadful success of the

crucifixion of our ever blessed Lord, of which the sequel was as

dreadful a retribution. The synagogue nailed the Messiah to the

cross, under the pretext that otherwise the Romans would come and

occupy Jerusalem. And _precisely because_ they did this wicked

thing, the Romans took Jerusalem and levelled it to the ground. So

that the very success of the Jews, which, execrable as it was, the

_Opinione_ would have adored as a protecting caress bestowed by

Providence upon Sion, ended simply in bringing upon the guilty city

a horrible siege and irremediable ruin.

We content ourselves, for our part, in citing the Roman Cæsars,

who, in the first three centuries, renewed ten different times,

and with all the incidents of success, the bloody persecution of

the followers of Christ. All of these, without a single exception,

came to a wretched end. When the fourth century arrived to witness

the triumph of Christianity, the descendants of the persecuting

emperors were found extinct by foul or violent deaths; the series

closing with Maximin breathing his last amid the agonies of poison

and the blasphemous howlings of despair, and with Candidianus (the

adulterous son of Galerius, adopted by Valeria, Maximin’s wife)

murdered by Licinius along with another brother, a sister in tender

age, and finally Valeria herself. It thus appears that the massacre

of the Christians, which our modern Caiphases would have celebrated

as an edifying “divine caress,” had this one effect after all,

viz., to bring around the lasting triumph of the persecuted cause.

It was the children of the slaughtered ones who were victorious in

the end; the progeny of the slaughterers died suffocated in the

blood which their guilty fathers had shed.

We might easily continue these examples, and recount, for

instance, the end to which a career of successful iniquity at

last conducted Julian the Apostate, the idol and exemplar of our

Italian regenerators. We might enlarge on the fates of Astolphus

and Desiderius, whose “patriotism” they so much admire. We might

with still more force bring out contemporary cases, the case

of Cavour, for example, withdrawn suddenly away by an ominous

death in the flower of life from the hosannas of the people he

had misled; the case of Farini, Cavour’s right-hand man, struck

also in life’s prime by a shocking frenzy which urged him to acts

incredibly revolting, and soon after to a most painful death; the

case of Fanti, the plunderer of Umbria, who, before he could die,

was tortured for a year with all the agonies of death; the case of

Persano, the bombarder of Ancona, who, after making shipwreck on

the sea of Lissa of his rank and reputation, avenged himself of

fortune by publishing the infamies of the successful revolution.

And to these we might add the cases of Pinelli, of Valerio, of La

Farina, and of a hundred others equally conclusive. We might even

quote examples among the living; of a certain _regenerator_, who,

in spite of his impious successes, roams incessantly from place to

place seeking a rest he cannot find--condemned, it would seem, to

endure the torments of Caina, Antenora, and Ptolomea in Dante’s

ninth circle of hell, and to realize in himself the fate described

by Alberigo:

“This boon the sufferer hath, if boon it be--

Ofttimes to know the pangs of parting breath,

Ere Atropos shuts down the shears of death.”

To be brief, we shall confine ourselves to the two most

distinguished and most successful persecutors of popes--Frederick

II., a mediæval emperor of Germany, and Napoleon the First, a

French emperor of the modern sort. Both of these men, in the

studied outrages they inflicted, the one upon Gregory IX. and

Innocent IV., the other on Pius VII., were encouraged by such

marvellous successes that our Israelitish proselytizer would have

had them canonized as the very Benjamins of Providence. Suffice

it to say that Frederick II. had his political Cæsarism preached

into right divine by the most learned jurists of his day, just as

Napoleon I. made the most powerful monarchy of Europe kneel down

and adore his bloodier Cæsarism of the sword. Both the one and

the other returning from their triumphs, carried fortune, to all

appearance, chained for ever to their cars. The more they raged

against Christ’s Vicar, the more their victory seemed complete. The

greater the number of excommunications they incurred, the easier

seemed to be their subsequent encroachments. It was after the

last papal censure that Frederick gained the adhesion of several

powerful barons in Rome. It was after the Pope’s worst imprisonment

that Napoleon won his greatest battles, making them the subjects

of the most vainglorious boasts, that he had thus received from

the God of armies special marks of approbation--“caresses,” as the

_Opinione_ calls them, when bestowed upon the enemies of the church.

Yet where did they end, these lucky sacrileges, this prodigious

and prolonged prosperity of crime? Both these men outlived their

glittering fortunes. The false magnificence and grandeur for which

they had thrown away their souls, turned to ashes in their grasp.

King Henry, Frederick’s eldest son, dies in prison, leaving a

son who was struck dead by a blow from an unknown hand. Enzio,

his bastard offspring, created by him King of Sardinia, after

twenty-five years of imprisonment in a cage of iron dies a

miserable death. Ezzelino, his son-in-law closes with a horrible

end a life, if possible, of greater horror. His great champion,

Thaddeus of Suessa, is slain with every accompaniment of contempt.

Pier delle Vigne, his evil genius, has his eyes thrust out, and

commits suicide in his despair. Frederick himself, after surviving

all these horrors, is strangled by Manfredi, another of his

base-born sons, who, after bathing his gory hands in the blood of

Conrad, Frederick’s lawful son, is himself stretched dead on the

field of a dishonorable strife. To close this interminable tragedy,

Corradino, the last scion of the hated tyrant, ends on a felon’s

scaffold his seventeen short years of life. With this unfortunate

youth the dynasty of Frederick is closed. The empire passes over

into other hands, and Rodolph of Hapsburg reigns, the first of a

better line.

The fall of Napoleon I. is still remembered as an event of recent

date. Elated with his continual victories, he invaded Russia with

the most formidable army the world ever saw. Warned that he had

the fate of the excommunicated to encounter, he asked in scorn

whether his soldiers would drop their muskets at the sight of a

Papal Bull. Forced to retreat after a show of vain success, famine

and frost decimated his ranks, and his soldiers’ frozen fingers

refused to hold the interdicted arms. Unable to contend against

fast-increasing numbers, he found himself by a strange fatality

compelled to renounce the crown in the very palace at Fontainebleau

which he had turned into a prison for the Pope. The Holy Father

had quitted it to resume the throne. The fallen emperor left it

to accept in Elba an asylum which he begged as a shelter in his

friendless old age. Leaving his place of refuge, in a mad attempt

to resuscitate his fortunes, he incurred at Waterloo a ruin the

most disastrous ever known. Stripped of every resource, he was

dragged to a prison-cell on a miserable island, scarcely noticeable

in its vast expanse of sea. From this inhospitable rock, he was

permitted to contemplate the plenary restoration of the mysterious

Papal power, and simultaneously the downfall of all the thrones he

had presented to his brothers and next of kin. After spending, in

desolate captivity, the five years he had decreed of prison to the

blameless Pius VII., he gave up his tortured soul to meet the just

displeasure of his God. What more striking confirmation can we ask

of the truth of those awful words, “They who sow injustice” sooner

or later “shall reap its bitter fruits”?

It would not do to pass without notice the still living and

speaking case of Napoleon III. Who but he has been the foremost

leader of the _regenerators_ of unhappy Italy? The Gog and Magog of

our Italian pharisees! And are not these the men who fell down and

worshipped the divine prosperity of their master’s eighteen years

of empire? Have they not claimed it as a miracle of God’s favor,

a long and lasting “caress” of Providence, the possible failure

of which it would be impious to suspect? Have they not sung and

celebrated, time and again, the famous victory of Solferino as a

prodigy sent from heaven to show that the Almighty took the side of

Italy, and had declared against the Pope?

Well, now, what has become of this epopee of miraculous prosperity,

this note of ruin to Catholic Christianity, to the claims of the

Holy See, and (as justly we might say) to the repose and peace

of Europe? It came to naught in Sedan, in a military defeat and

a dynastic misfortune the most appalling that ever was known or

written of in the world.

And it _so_ came to naught precisely because of the “success” at

Solferino. That victory of Napoleon’s, chanted so loudly and so

often by the pious Jew editor of the _Opinione_ as an unmistakable

revelation of God’s decision in favor of Bonaparte and his new

Italy--that victory (when the hour of Sedan had come) was plainly

seen as the manifest cause of his every subsequent reverse. Who

can help perceiving now that, had not Austria lost the battle

of Solferino, won by France that Italy might be “made,” Austria

would not have lost the battle at Sadowa, achieved by Prussia that

Germany might be “made”? And had not Austria lost at Sadowa, is it

not plain that Napoleon would never have been dragged down into the

horrible catastrophe of Sedan? In this catastrophe we find the

meaning of the “approving smile” at Solferino. The “caress,” we

are told, was intended for the third Napoleon. For whom, then, was

intended the crushing dispensation at Sedan?

Will our kind converters to the new reading of the ways of

Providence reflect maturely on this matter? All genuine Christian

gentlemen, all admitted men of honor (except a few who were

misled), regarded the war of 1859, so well characterized by

the victory of Solferino, as iniquitous in its motives and as

anti-Christian in its scope. It was looked upon by all as a _magnum

latrocinium_, a godless scheme of robbery; but it had what its

perpetrators called “a great success.” Eleven years roll by, and

what do we see?

Napoleon III., at first so splendidly victorious by the force of

an act of larceny that dispossessed four princes and displaced

the Pope, is caught at last like a weasel in a trap, dethroned in

his turn, driven off in scorn, steeped to the lips in indelible

disgrace; all his marshals and generals, without a solitary

exception, ignominiously humbled, soundly beaten, and detained in

durance vile by a logical rebound from their first Italian success;

all his army, four hundred thousand strong, lately invincible,

now led into exile or captivity, to shiver with cold or to wince

under the epithets of scorn. Victorious France, in retribution

for her “new idea” of _nationality_, and to set the good example,

yields up the costly tribute of _two_ of her wealthiest provinces;

just the number she had stolen from Italy, on the strength of the

“new idea,” as her due for allowing Piedmont to absorb the entire

peninsula within her ravenous maw.

How is it possible not to recognize, in this unprecedented drama,

the real lesson of divine retaliation, the exclusive right of

Providence to repay--to exact eye for eye, tooth for tooth, and

life for life, when such extremity is required? Who will hesitate

to say with the poet:

“The sword of God is strict, and cuts amain.

But still in stated measure, time, and place,

Till all things find their equal own again.”

And in this most memorable reverse of Napoleon III., we invite our

apostolic interpreters of Providence to note a special fact. The

fallen emperor not only lives to realize the forfeiture of all his

fame, differing herein from those who die before the loss, but has

to endure the bitterness of witnessing the demolition of all the

proud creations of his reign. He had raised France to the pinnacle

of earthly greatness, had just crowned, as he himself phrased it,

the glorious edifice his genius had successfully constructed.

France is now dismembered, dilapidated, a mass of melancholy ruin;

reduced to chaos militarily, morally, politically, and to a great

extent materially, if this last trait be deemed of much account.

He had decorated the palaces of St. Cloud and the Tuileries with

munificence more than Asiatic. They are stripped to the bare walls.

He rose, on the wings of the _plébiscite_, from obscurity to a

throne. The _plébiscite_ is now an obsolete absurdity. The treaty

of Paris, which crowned the triumphs of the East; the Chinese

victories and ovations at Canton and Palikao; the Mexican Empire,

the fruit of so much toil and treasure, the price of the good name

and fame of France; the Prague conventions, intended to defeat the

growth of Prussia into a vast and consolidated Germany--of all

these magnificent enterprises not a trace. In short, the countless

dazzling exploits of the prosperous reign of the third Napoleon

have vanished for ever like so many dissolving views. One work,

one only work survives--the Subalpine government of Italy, to

lick which hideous monster into shape the unhappy monarch threw

recklessly away his honor and his crown. We might pursue this

train of thought to its logical conclusion, but we refrain. Too

strict an application of the laws of logic might bring us into

conflict with other laws which we prefer not to provoke. But we may

perhaps venture to request our pious friends of the “Regeneration”

to undertake the argument themselves--an argument which runs on

almost of itself, being one of the kind which dialecticians call

reasoning from analogy. Let them look to it well, and say if there

be not better ground to be anxious about the life of their _Italy_

than there is to be solicitous about converting Catholics to the

modern dogma, that the voice of an accomplished fact is no less

than the voice of God; that the lucky consummation of a crime is

itself the signal of the divine applause. Let them reflect that

not a fact, which ceases afterwards to be a fact, can come into

being or go out of it, without, at least, the permissive sanction

of Almighty God. Let them pause and consider that the series of

events, opened by Providence in 1859, is not absolutely or finally

closed. Let them ever bear in mind that, when least it is expected,

Providence may complete the line of this analogy by dissolving into

nothingness the only remnant left of all the Napoleonic creations.

The world and the ages will then believe that not a single one

of the supposed marks of the divine “caress,” claimed by Italy’s

_regenerators_, was really a mark of favor; but simply one of the

many illustrations of the way in which the scorner is caught in the

midst of his devices: _In insidiis suis capientur iniqui_.

In what we have advanced, we have, as seems to us, fairly and

fully refuted the boastful syllogism of our adversaries. We shall

conclude by exhorting them to lay aside all hope of converting

Catholics by a show of blasphemous successes or an appeal to the

longest impunity of crime. Go on, gentlemen! Enjoy your fortune!

Vaunt as loudly as you will the triumphs you have secured over us,

over the church, over the rights of the Holy See. Do all this, and

welcome. But when you come to tell us that Providence is “caressing

your cause,” and ask our adhesion to this impiety, we warn you to

desist. Satan himself would not dare to give utterance to such an

insult, or even to harbor such a thought. Providence has allowed

you, in the abuse of your own free-will, a certain measure of

easy success; as he allowed it to the synagogue, to the Cæsars,

to Julian the Apostate, to Desiderius, and to all such of your

predecessors as were permitted for a time to triumph over Christ

and his commandments. And this he has allowed to you, not as to

his loved ones, but as to his persecutors, that you may be the rod

of his justice against the sins of the world. He will make this

to yourselves, if you repent not, a snare and a delusion; to the

church, an assurance of greater exaltation; and to all of us, a

call to better service and obedience. We as Catholics know that we

must bow beneath your blows. We bear the pain of them in peace,

because faith teaches us that even scourges are wielded by God, and

that his hand is to be kissed as much when it strikes as when it

strengthens. For this reason we can accept you as you are. And yet

we see in you no higher mark than that of our flagellators and the

exercisers of our patience; but be warned in time. God makes use

of his scourges, and then destroys them. We have made this plain

to you by innumerable examples. Beware! for the prosperous days of

God’s scourges end invariably in misfortune and disaster. Beware,

for the good times of the enemies of Jesus Christ and his church

have ever been as pitfalls with a covering of roses; yokes of iron

masked by a drapery of flowers. On the contrary, from her greatest

tribulations the church has ever issued brighter, lovelier, and

more radiant than before. She numbers as many victories as battles,

as many prisoners as foes. All the promises of God are for her and

against you, and all history attests that of these promises not a

syllable has failed. The church is our mother; her cause is our

own. We have, therefore, no fear for the result. You may scorn us,

you may strip us, you may deny us the protection of the laws. You

may tear us limb from limb during the brief occasion of your power.

But conquer us, no! In all eternity, you cannot. God has ordered it

that we shall be _your victors_. Rallying close to the Vicar of the

King of heaven, and faithful to the call of his immortal Spouse, we

shall announce to you, with front uplifted, that we have conquered

you; or (if that better pleases you) that Christ has conquered you

through us. Laugh to your hearts’ content at this faith of ours.

All your predecessors have done as much. Yet who triumphed in the

end? So certain are we of the victory that we scarce dare hasten it

by our desires. The thought of the bolts of divine wrath impending

over you appalls us, and we abstain, out of pity for you, from

asking what Dante, on a like occasion, prayed for in these words:

“O God! when wilt thou give me to be blest

To see thy vengeance, which, long hid, made sweet

The sacred anger garnered in thy breast?”

_Purg._, c. xx.

FOOTNOTES:

[62] In Psalm liv.

[63] See _Diary of C. Pisano_, fourth part, p. 125.

[64] _Ai giovani Italiani_, p. 15.

[65] See _L’Unità Italiana di Milano_, April 14, 1863.

[66] See _The Republican Federation of the Peoples_.

[67] See _Il Diritto_, July 31 and August 11, 1863.

[68] Epist. i. ad Eliod.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

LITTLE PIERRE, THE PEDLAR OF ALSACE; or, The Reward of Filial

Piety. Translated from the French by J. M. C. With 27

illustrations. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 236. New York: The Catholic

Publication Society, 9 Warren Street. 1872.

The French can write charming stories, as every one knows. _Little

Pierre_ is one of the best we have seen in a long time--such a

one as enchants a child, and makes him or her unwilling to lay

it aside for supper or bed. It leads one through the romantic

scenes of Alsace and the country of the Rhine, has plenty of

stirring adventures, and, what is best of all, ends in a capital

and satisfactory manner: Pierre and his little sister happily

married, the old lady comfortable, Pierre a well-to-do merchant

at Niederbronn. The illustrations, twenty-seven in all, which

have been recut from the originals for the American edition, are

uncommonly well executed. Little Pierre is destined to become an

intimate friend of our young folks, to say nothing of Christine and

Lolotte. Perhaps the most comical scene in the book is where Little

Pierre is put by Madame Frank in the top of a Christmas-tree, with

the name of little Cecile pinned on his breast. The most touching

scene is the finding of little Lolotte in the wood, with her eyes

bandaged and her hands tied. We advise our young readers not to

rest until they get possession of this pretty book.

* * * * *

THE MEN AND WOMEN OF THE ENGLISH REFORMATION, from the Days

of Wolsey to the Death of Cranmer. Papal and Anti-Papal

Notables. By S. H. Burke, author of “The Monastic Houses of

England.” 2 vols. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.

1872.

This is a work which fairly answers its title, and we have in its

two handsome duodecimo volumes sketches and descriptions so graphic

of the men and women of the English Reformation as to place them

most vividly before us.

Beginning with the unlovely correspondence of Henry VIII. with Anne

Boleyn, and recounting many interesting details of the divorce

question, the narrative passes on to a review of the leading

incidents and the principal personages of the reign of Henry.

The political murders of Sir Thomas More and of Bishop Fisher,

the death of Queen Katharine, and the fall of Anne Boleyn, are

described with fresh details of interest drawn from newly opened

sources of historic information.

On the subject of “Clerical Reformers and their Spouses,” there

is a very readable chapter, and, with a full disquisition upon

the “Religious Institutions of Old England,” we have startling

statements concerning the character of the “Monastic Inquisitors”

under that arch-villain, Thomas Cromwell, Henry’s Secretary of

State, as will open the eyes of such as are unaware of the depth of

infamy fathomed by the scoundrels who stole or wasted the wealth

of England’s grand mediæval charities and robbed the poor and the

sick of their sole heritage of succor and consolation. At the sight

of the suffering entailed by the destruction of the monasteries,

those glorious asylums of religion, charity, and learning, even

as enthusiastic a panegyrist of the Reformation as Froude cannot

help exclaiming: “To the universities, the Reformation had brought

with it desolation. _To the people of England it had brought

misery and want. The once open hand was closed._ ... The prisons

were crowded.... Monks and nuns pointed with bitter effect to the

fruits of _the new belief, which had been crimsoned in the blood of

thousands of the English peasants_.”

The second volume gives us the principal events and personages of

the end of the reign of Henry VIII. and of the reigns of Edward VI.

and of Mary Tudor; and effective use is made not only of authentic

documentary evidence which has come to light within the past seven

years, but also of the important, because impartial, testimony of

distinguished Protestant writers, such as Hook, Maitland, Brewer,

Blunt, and Stephenson. We commend the work as one of exceeding

interest.

* * * * *

THE LIFE OF MARIE-EUSTELLE HARPAIN, the Sempstress of St.

Pallais, called “The Angel of the Eucharist.” Second

edition. London: Burns, Oates, & Co.; New York: The Catholic

Publication Society. 1872.

This is one of the most interesting lives which we have read.

The lives of the saints always should be interesting, but often

the methodical and dry way in which they are, as we may say,

constructed, has a discouraging effect upon the reader greater than

that which the heroic virtues of their subjects can produce. This

is not the case with this memoir of one whom we may be allowed

to call a saint, though she has not yet been recognized as such

by the church, always prudent, and especially so with regard to

canonizations. Marie-Eustelle died in 1842, at the age of 28, and

belongs entirely to this nineteenth century, which is so ignorant

of its true glories. Her life is quite imitable in most respects,

as well as admirable, which is an additional reason for reading a

book that is so very readable.

* * * * *

THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST. With

twenty-one Illustrations, from original designs by D. Mosler,

H. Warren, and J. H. Powell, engraved by Holman and Bale. New

York: The Catholic Publication Society.

The Rev. Mr. Formby, whose zeal, learning, and taste have so

enriched the library of Catholic books for the young, gives here a

popular work on the Parables, which will be wonderfully attractive.

The Parables are all given in full, with fine illustrations to

fix them on the mind, and explanations of their spiritual sense,

drawn from the holy fathers. These beautiful lessons of our Lord

cannot be too deeply impressed on minds to serve as subjects of

meditation, and, well understood, they will prove sources of many

graces. Outside the church, they remain to most “mere parables, not

unfrequently indeed admired, and even quoted, beautiful in their

way as anecdotes, but without in the least disclosing their true

meaning.”

* * * * *

THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH; or, The Seven

Pillars of the House of Wisdom. A Brief Explanation of the

Catholic Doctrine of the Seven Sacraments, in connection with

their corresponding types in the Old Testament. Illustrated

with sixteen original designs by J. Powell, engraved on wood

by the brothers Dalziel. By the Rev. Henry Formby, Priest of

the Diocese of Birmingham. New York: The Catholic Publication

Society.

Another of Mr. Formby’s charming books, “not meant as a book of

piety alone, but rather intended as a book of general popular

knowledge.” He saw clearly the want of our time. “The whole tone

and spirit of modern civilization is built upon the denial that

there either is or can be anything superior to itself, or, indeed,

anything that is not of its own order of things in the world.”

“The young mind cannot be too soon made aware of the contradiction

between the world and our Lord, and cannot be too soon and too

effectually brought up to love and abide by all that our divine

Lord has taught, and made firmly to disregard and despise all that

is contrary to it in the world’s doctrine, from the knowledge that

our Lord is greater than the world.”

* * * * *

THE SCHOOL KEEPSAKE, AND MONITOR FOR AFTER LIFE. By Rev.

H. Formby. With illustrations. New York: The Catholic

Publication Society.

This perfectly beautiful little gift for the young leaving school

is one so attractive in itself that it cannot fail to be kept; so

sound, so clear, so distinct in its matter, that it cannot but be

such a help as will gladden the guardian angel watching over the

child as it steps from the school into the busy world.

* * * * *

THE DEVOTION OF THE SEVEN DOLORS OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN.

Translated by the Rev. Henry Formby. New York: The Catholic

Publication Society.

A devotion approved by the highest authority, commended by the

example of saints, and one full of consolation and piety, is here

presented in a form that will give it currency among many who had

overlooked it. No one can sorrow with Mary over the sorrows of

Jesus without a return on self, and a sense of what our sins, the

cause of all, demand on our part.

* * * * *

SCHOOL SONGS, to which music is adapted. Complete volume

containing--Part I., The Junior School Song-Book; Part II.,

The Senior School Song-Book. Edited by the Rev. Henry Formby.

New York: The Catholic Publication Society.

Amid the abundance of bad books, it is delightful to find a

miniature volume like this of 200 pages, containing hymns, nursery

rhymes, ballads, and minor poems suited to the young selected

with care. The young must laugh and play; they will sing hymns

sometimes, touching ballads sometimes, nonsense sometimes; give

them all this to sing, but keep them from the immoral and low,

slangy songs that even our music stores are now flooding the land

with. We hope this little collection will sell by the thousand. It

is cheap and it is good.

* * * * *

WILD FLOWERS OF WISCONSIN. By B. J. Dorward. Edited by his son.

Milwaukee: Catholic News Co.

The productions of our author, under the signature of “Porte

Crayon,”[69] have long been favorites of the Western public.

The late Dr. J. V. Huntington, a poet and critic of no ordinary

ability, sought him out and secured his contributions to the

St. Louis _Leader_. His poems are characterized by a beautiful

simplicity and spontaneity, genuine sentiment, and native good

sense. Other poets may exhibit the delicate touch of the artist

in elaborate and polished images, but the efforts of writers like

the present must be the inspiration of the moment, and the less

forethought they show, the more are they enhanced in value. To

change the figure, the wild flowers lose their hues and fragrance

if subjected to hot-house processes. The former excite our

admiration, the latter elicit our sympathy, and perhaps live longer

in the memory by those “touches of nature which make the whole

world kin.”

We bespeak a welcome to these flowers of song on the part of those

who love poetry in its native simplicity, who set a proper estimate

on all that is gentle, pure, and kind in the sentiments of our

common nature, noble and sublime in our common faith, and would

cultivate an indigenous literature worthy of the name.

Among many gems of thought and feeling, we can only particularize:

“To a Bird in Church,” “By the Rivulet,” “To the Memory of Dr. J.

V. Huntington,” “St. Mary’s of the Pines,” “The Datura,” and “A

Soldier’s Funeral.”

* * * * *

A SISTER’S STORY. By Mrs. Augustus Craven. Translated from the

French, by Emily Bowles. Fourth American edition. 1 vol. 8vo,

pp. 539. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.

It is with pleasure that we announce the appearance of a fourth

American edition of this exquisite and charming book, whose

reputation and circulation have become world-wide. Even the

publications most hostile to our holy religion have been compelled

to eulogize it, although evidently feeling very uneasy about its

great and increasing popularity among non-Catholic readers. The

great discovery of a forgery in one part of the history which

the _New Englander_ fancied itself to have made, is known to a

great part of the reading public. This supposed _forgery_ was a

profession of faith by the subject of the story, differing in form

from one given in a French edition (14th of Didier, Paris), which

the _New Englander_ rather hastily concluded to be the genuine and

authentic form which Mrs. Craven had published. The _New Englander_

did not, however, express any suspicion that this forgery had been

perpetrated by the American editors--on the contrary, disclaimed

any such suspicion. Refinement of language, cautiousness in making

infamous charges against persons of high character, and similar

marks which denote gentlemanly and conscientious principles in a

literary man, are, however, unhappily too rare among the conductors

of the “Moral Spouting Horns” of the American press. Following

those instincts by which they are usually impelled, and imitating a

long series of precedents furnished by those who have been their

precursors in their honorable trade, several of these papers,

the _Independent_ leading off, accused the American editors and

publisher of the work with having forged a “profession of faith” to

suit themselves. Says the _Independent_ of Jan. 15:

“The creed of this good Catholic was not half papistical enough

to suit these American editors; so they have introduced into

it not only what she did believe, but what, in their judgment,

she ought to have believed. We desire to call the attention of

THE CATHOLIC WORLD and the _Tablet_ to this translation. It is

possible there may be some explanation of what seems to be an

astonishing piece of literary knavery. If there be, we should be

glad to hear of it.”

To this the publisher, in the “Literary Bulletin” of THE CATHOLIC

WORLD for April, replied that--

“The Catholic Publication Society’s edition is printed exactly,

word for word, from the first London edition, published by the

respectable house of Bentley, in three volumes. If any deviation

from the French was made, ‘The Catholic Publication Society’

did not make it, but followed the London edition in good faith,

knowing the high source from which it emanated. But as the

writer in the _New Englander_ quotes from the _fourteenth French

edition_, how does he know that the alteration may not have been

made in that or previous French editions? We have written to the

translator [Miss Bowles] in reference to this matter.”

But this did not seem to satisfy the _Independent_, for in its

issue of April 4 it reiterates its accusation of forgery as follows:

“Let us ask once more (this makes three times) what our Catholic

neighbor thinks of that forgery in one of the books of ‘The

Catholic Publication Society’ which was exposed in the January

number of the _New Englander_. We have looked in vain in the

columns of the _Tablet_ for a denunciation of this pious fraud,

and our diligent questioning has failed to elicit from that

usually fair journal any reply.”

The Chicago _Advance_ is another paper that took particular

pleasure in re-echoing the “forgery”; but, unlike the

_Independent_, it notices the denial put forth in the “Bulletin” of

THE CATHOLIC WORLD, and says:

“THE WORLD at last notices the forged prayer in the ‘Sister’s

Story,’ brought to light by the _New Englander_, but affirms that

‘The Catholic Publication Society’ reprinted it verbatim from

Bentley’s London edition; and rather improbably suggests that the

alteration may have been made in one of the later French editions

of the original. Meanwhile, the editor says that the translator

[Miss Bowles] has been written to about it. We want THE WORLD to

be sure to publish her reply.”

To which we reply: Here is the letter.

“5A DAVIES ST., BERKELEY SQ.,

LONDON, W., March 18th, 1872.

“SIR: The ‘Profession of Faith’ in the first edition (3 vols.) of

_A Sister’s Story_ was the correct one, given me by Mrs. Craven

herself. I think she said it was incorrectly given in Didier’s

editions, having been copied from those commonly used. She was

very particular in writing it out herself for _A Sister’s Story_.

Mr. Bentley published the one vol. edition in a singular manner,

without referring to me at all, and I never knew why he had

shortened the ‘Profession.’ I have never compared the editions, but

possibly there are other mistakes.

“Your obed’t serv’t,

“EMILY BOWLES.”

We do not think it necessary to add anything to the above. The

newspapers which have published remarks similar to those we have

quoted cannot make any apology which will entitle them to notice

on our part, and we take leave of them until we are compelled to

refute some new libel.

Mr. P. DONAHOE announces for early publication: _Six Weeks

Abroad, in Ireland, England, and Belgium_, by Father Haskins;

_Sketches of the Establishment of the Church in New England_, by

Father Fitton; _Catholic Glories of the Nineteenth Century: The

Old God_, translated from the German; _Conversion of the Teutonic

Race_, by Mrs. Hope, as well as several others.

“The Catholic Publication Society” announce for early

publication, in addition to the books already announced, Canon

Oakeley’s two books, namely, _Ceremonial of the Mass_ and

_Catholic Worship_. Also, _Aunt Margaret’s Little Neighbors; or,

Chats about the Rosary_.

FOOTNOTE:

[69] This _nom de plume_, chosen without the knowledge of any other

appropriation of the name, was quite significant in the case of the

writer, as he at one time took portraits in crayon, though he has

since restricted himself to altar pieces in oil.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XV., No. 87.--JUNE, 1872.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by Rev.

I. T. HECKER, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at

Washington, D. C.

DUTIES OF THE RICH IN CHRISTIAN SOCIETY.

NO. V.

PRIVATE DUTIES.

That part of our subject which is included under the title of the

present article is the most difficult, complicated, and extensive

of the several divisions under which we have classed the various

and weighty duties of the rich. A volume of the most carefully

prepared sermons, or a copious moral treatise, from the hand of a

master of spiritual and moral science, could alone do justice to

the demands of such a theme. The question to be answered, and it

is one which harasses many a heart and conscience, is, How shall

one live and govern his household amid the abundance of temporal

goods, so as to make his state in life subserve the great end

to which a Christian must direct all his thoughts and actions?

The solution of this problem is theoretically and practically

difficult. The language of Jesus Christ and the apostles in respect

to the difficulty is startling, and even terrifying. Our Lord said:

“_How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom

of God. For it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a

needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God_.” The

efforts which some critics have made to soften and diminish this

fearful declaration of Christ by changing “camel” into “cable,” or

making the “needle’s eye” to be a gate of the city, so-called, are

frivolous and futile. The figure is that of a laden camel before

the eye of a small needle, through which his driver is essaying

to make him pass. And its force consists precisely in the utter

and extravagant absurdity of the image which it presents to the

mind. It is intended to represent that which is violently contrary

to the laws of nature, and, therefore, impossible. And it is this

impossibility which is taken to illustrate the difficulty of a

rich man entering the kingdom of God. What follows elucidates and

completes the idea which our Lord intended to present before the

minds of all his followers. His astounded listeners exclaimed,

“Who then can be saved?” To whom he replied: “_The things that are

impossible with men are possible with God_.”[70] The power of God,

some philosophers tell us, can compress the substance of a camel

into such small dimensions that it can pass through the eye of a

needle. By that almighty power, and that alone, Christ teaches, can

a rich man with his substance pass through the narrow gate of the

kingdom of God.

St. James addresses to the rich the following terrible invective:

“Go to now, ye rich men, WEEP AND HOWL for your miseries that shall

come upon you.”[71] Similar passages might be multiplied, and the

comments and applications of the successors of the apostles, in a

similar strain, have filled the pages of the fathers and doctors of

the church, and resounded from the chair of truth, from the days

of the apostles to our own. Great numbers of the rich have been

impelled by the force of these alarming declarations to seek for

perfection and salvation by following the counsel which our Lord

gave to the rich young man. Let those who have the opportunity and

the vocation to do the same imitate their example; we will not

dissuade them, and let parents and others beware of dissuading,

much more hindering, any who are dependent on them from obeying

such a divine call. This is one of the duties of the rich, which

we will specify here in passing, that we may not be obliged to

recur to it hereafter--to give their best and dearest, their sons

and daughters, the most gifted, the most gracious, the most loved,

as Jephte gave his daughter, a sacrifice to God and the church,

whenever the Lord honors them by the demand. But it is not our

purpose to persuade any to follow the evangelical counsels. We

are speaking of the way of keeping God’s commandments in a state

of riches in the world. There must be a way of living a perfect

life; and gaining heaven, not merely “so as by fire,” but with

the abundant merit which wins a bright crown--in spite of the

possession of riches, and even by means of those riches. Wealth

is not an evil, but the abuse of wealth. Temporal goods are not

in themselves an obstacle to perfection and salvation, but the

sins and vices which are caused by attachment to them, and the

self-indulgence for which they afford the facility. The possession

of wealth increases a person’s responsibilities and dangers, but

at the same time augments his power of doing good and acquiring

merit. Human nature, left to itself, ordinarily swells up, through

the possession of either material or intellectual riches, to such

a huge bulk of pride, avarice, and sensuality, that it is like a

laden camel, or, as we may say, like an elephant with a tower full

of armed men on its back; and in this condition, submission to the

law of Christ is like passing through the eye of a fine cambric

needle. But God, with whom those things are possible which are

impossible to men, has not left human nature to itself. Through the

Incarnation and the cross, through regenerating and sanctifying

grace, through the aids of the Holy Spirit, Catholic faith, the

sacraments, the examples of the saints, Catholic principles and

education, the ennobling, purifying power of religion--human nature

can be kept, in the state of abundance and prosperity, as well

as in that of poverty and adversity, from the contamination of

worldliness and iniquity. Even more, it can glorify its state, and

turn it to the best and highest use, by the practice of the most

exalted Christian virtues. The proof of this may be seen in the

fact that this has been done in many thousands of instances, and is

being done now in every part of Christendom.

The principles upon which Christian sanctity in the great, the

noble, and the wealthy is based, are all summed up by the Apostle

St. James in this short sentence: “Let the brother of low condition

glory in his exaltation, _but the rich in his being low_,”[72]

which is more literally translated, “_in his humility_.” Humility

entitles the rich man to claim all the special blessings which are

so frequently and emphatically promised in the New Testament to the

poor. It is poverty of spirit, or interior detachment from temporal

goods for the love of God, and not mere exterior poverty, which

fits a person for the kingdom of God. The poor and lowly, if they

are possessed of Catholic faith, have so little of that which makes

the present life brilliant and attractive that they are forced by

a happy kind of necessity to find everything in the church and

their religion. They find their nobility in their baptism, their

glory in the sign of the cross and their Catholic profession, their

treasure in the blessed sacrament, their palace with its picture

gallery and service of gold and silver in the church, their royal

audiences at the ever open court of the King and Queen of heaven,

their gala-days and spectacles in the festivals and processions and

ceremonies of the ecclesiastical year, their ideal vision of coming

happiness in heaven. They are “rich in faith,” and “glory in their

exaltation” as the “heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ.”

The rich must do voluntarily what the poor do from necessity.

They must quit the position in their own esteem which human pride

loves so dearly to take, of superiority over others on account of

accidental and temporal advantages, and come down to the common

level at the foot of the cross, where pride of rank and power,

pride of intellect, and pride of wealth are alike annihilated, to

make way for a true and lasting exaltation in the Son of God.

Here, then, is the first duty of the rich--to adopt inwardly,

profess openly, and act out consistently the same principles of

Catholic faith which are common to all Christians, and to place

their glory, their treasure, their heart’s affection, their end in

life, their hope of happiness, not in the transitory things of this

life, but in the kingdom of God; “_because as the flower of the

grass they shall fade away_.”

These transitory things, however, do last for a little while, and,

although worthless as a final end and object to live for, are

necessary and valuable as means. Private interpretation of the

Scripture might deduce from it that Christ intended to do away

with all power, rank, human science, art, commerce, wealth, and

civil or social polity, with marriage and the family even, and

thus extinguish this present world and this life to make way for

the next. This is not the interpretation of the church or the way

of Catholic practice. All these worldly, transitory things are

retained and made use of, notwithstanding that “the figure of this

world passeth away.” The rich man who is resolved to be a perfect

Christian needs, therefore, to know not only what esteem he is to

place on wealth and other temporal things in reference to the real

and final good, but how practically to use them for the attainment

of the same, and for helping his dependents and others to attain

it. The more we go into detail in regard to this matter, the more

difficult it becomes to draw lines and lay down practical rules.

A sound and well-directed conscience must at last be the guide of

each one, and it is a sufficient though not strictly infallible

guide to those who are instructed in good general principles.

One general principle which may be useful as a rule for application

to a great many particular cases is this: Those indulgences which

gratify the more refined and intellectual tastes may be more

freely made use of than those which gratify the senses. Another

principle, closely allied to this, is the following: Whatever has

an honorable or useful end is allowable; whatever merely gratifies

a selfish passion must be condemned and avoided. To apply these

principles as rules in certain important particular cases, let us

begin with the rich man’s house. The first fault and folly to be

avoided is extravagance. He ought not to embarrass his estate and

prejudice the interests of his family by spending more money on

his houses and the decoration of his grounds than he can afford.

If he does, his motive is ostentation, or some other inordinate

passion, and therefore worthy of condemnation. That there has been

a vast amount of extravagance in this respect in our country within

the past thirty years is obvious to every one. The outside show

of our towns and cities indicates an amount of wealth certainly

four times greater than really exists. A man who is governed by

Christian principles, with which common sense and sound reason

always coincide in so far as they are competent to judge of what is

right, will, of course, avoid all extravagance. More than this, he

will not take the lead in splendor and magnificence of buildings

and furniture, even if he has wealth enough to do so without

extravagance. On the contrary, he will choose to be rather behind

than before his compeers in this respect. We are not speaking now

of princes and magnates, but of private citizens. There is no

fitness, especially in a republic, in making private residences

palaces. It is proper to provide for all the conveniences of

domestic life. Moreover, architectural beauty in the construction

of houses, and taste and elegance in their furniture, give decorum

to life, and innocent and refining pleasure to those who behold

them, and a means of living to a large class of persons who are

especially fitted for a kind of work which demands artistic taste

and skill. We cannot draw the line precisely where mere useless

and luxurious pomp, show, and splendor begin. We can only say that

a man thoroughly imbued with Christian principles and sentiments

will be very anxious and careful to keep on the safe side of it,

so far as he is able to do so. But whatever degree of costliness

and splendor may be suitable or permissible in the residence of

any Catholic gentleman, whether he be a plain, private citizen

in our democratic republic, or a nobleman, prince, or monarch

elsewhere, everything should be made to conform not to a pagan,

but a Christian and Catholic, ideal. All that is even bordering

on heathen voluptuousness should be rigidly excluded. Works of

Catholic art should adorn the walls even of the most public and

splendid apartments. Every private room should have its crucifix,

its Madonna, its vase of holy water, its prie-dieu, and books of

prayer and devotion. An oratory, fitted up with the utmost elegance

and costliness that is suitable to the circumstances, should be

the shrine and chief ornament of the house. The library and other

receptacles for books should be pure of all that is tainted and

corrupting, and filled up with everything which Catholic literature

can furnish, both in English and in the other languages which

the members of the highly distinguished circle we have the honor

of addressing are supposed to know. In a word, the elegancies

and ornaments of life should be made to minister to intellectual

cultivation, to the education of the higher and more refined tastes

of the soul; and these should be made all subservient to that which

is highest of all--the culture and improvement of the _spirit_ in

the knowledge and love of the Supreme Truth and the Infinite Beauty.

Just at the moment of writing down these thoughts, we have come

across a beautiful sketch of the family of Count Stolberg, in

the pages of a German periodical. It is so appropriate as an

illustration that we will postpone any further continuation of our

subject, and finish the present article with a translation of the

sketch alluded to.[73]

“It is singular (writes Count Stolberg) that I cannot remember

ever to have heard in the house of my parents such words as

money, competency, economy, expense, saving. At that time luxury

had not yet become the fashion; and, even if it had been, the

house of our parents was like an island. We lived separate from

others, although scarcely adverting to the fact that our life

was so retired. There was just as little said about making

ourselves comfortable as about money and fashion. The modern

luxury in chairs and sofas with all its ingenious contrivances

was altogether unknown to us. All the articles of furniture, our

dress, and the table were good and befitting our rank; but we

might have said about all these things what Cyrus said at the

table of Astyages about the customs of the Persians: ‘I do not

know whether at that time all people remained longer children, or

whether we ourselves only remained so.’ Count Stolberg’s father

died in the year 1765, and the last anxious wish of his heart

was that ‘his children might walk in the way of the Lord.’ How

much, writes the count, this desire occupied the hearts of both

my father and my mother! I can still hear my mother say that she

envied no one so much as the mother of the seven Macchabees; that

she was the most fortunate of mothers. It was her solitary wish,

prayer, and effort that she might one day be able to say, ‘Lord,

here are we, and the children whom thou hast given us’--it was

the soul of her entire plan of education.

“At the father’s death, the countess gave his Bible to the young

Count Frederic, and wrote in it the following words: ‘This Bible,

which your blessed father used on the very day of his death,

consoling himself with the words, “Thou hearest, O Lord! the

longing of those who cry to thee, their heart is sure that thou

dost give ear to them,” must prove a great blessing to you, and

continually stimulate you to love the Word of God, to venerate

it, to make it the rule of your life, as he did, and to seek

consolation in it to the end of your life. For this, may the

Triune God give you his grace and benediction!’

“The mother’s testament to her children, which was found after

her death, in 1773, in her writing-desk, was as follows: ‘Dear

children, cling to the Saviour, to his merits, to his faithful

heart; and do not love the world or what is in the world. For all

is passing, and but mere dust of the earth. Nothing can last with

us through life and in death but the blood of Jesus, the grace

of God, communion and friendship with him. Seek for this; do

not rest until you possess it; and then hold it fast; this will

help you through until we are with him; oh! let not one, not one

remain behind. I will always watch over you, and will hasten to

meet you with open arms when you come after me. Watch and pray!’

“We can understand without difficulty from this how Count

Stolberg could say, ‘Christ, the Saviour of the world, was the

guiding star of my youth. Our parents desired nothing more

earnestly than that we should seek him, love him, and confess him

before the whole world. I have always regarded that as my highest

duty, which necessarily led me into the Catholic Church.’”

In this sketch of Count Stolberg’s parents and early home, we

see the old-fashioned simplicity and piety of the best sort of

the ancient Lutheran nobility of Germany. There is a sombre and

austere character in the picture, partly belonging to the national

temperament, but chiefly due to that shadow of sadness which

Protestantism in its more earnest phase casts over the practice

of virtue and religion. The count himself, as is well known to

all, while preserving all that was good and truly Christian in

the principles and habits given him by his early education, cast

aside its sectarian prejudices and errors to embrace the Catholic

religion. In him, as the model of a perfect Christian gentleman

and scholar, to quote again the language of the writer in _Der

Katholik_,

“was gloriously fulfilled the wish expressed by Lavater (a

Protestant) in a letter to the count. ‘Become an honor to the

Catholic Church! Practise virtues which are impossible to a

non-Catholic! Do deeds which will prove that your change had a

great end, and that you have not failed to gain it. You have

saints, I do not deny it: we have none, at least none like yours.

Be to all Catholics and non-Catholics a shining example of that

virtue which is the most worthy of imitation and of Christian

holiness.’”

We have been tempted into a digression which will, we trust, not

be ungrateful to our readers, and find that we have not been able

to bring our series of short articles to a close in the present

number, as we had hoped to do. We must therefore resume the same

subject after another month, and we trust that our gentle readers,

upon their summer excursions, will find time and inclination to

listen to one more brief moral instruction.

FOOTNOTES:

[70] St. Luke xviii. 24, etc.

[71] St. James v. 1.

[72] St. James i. 9, 10.

[73] From _Der Katholik_, for January, 1872.

ON THE TROUBADOURS OF PROVENCE.

True hearts, that beat so fast, but now are still,

The gracious days will never come again

Ye loved and sang; your tender accents will

Linger no more on the warm lips of men!

Alas! your speech lies with ye in the grave!

Yet where Montpellier’s skies their balm impart,

And Barcelona wooes the southern wave,

The student cons your pages when his heart

Hungers for solace. Take it in kind part,

Count it not loss, dear hearts, but loyalty,

If I like him, though with a ruder hand,

Am fain to cull your flowers too sweet to die,

To waft their fragrance to a distant land,

And bid them blossom ’neath a colder sky.

THE HOUSE OF YORKE.