Irish parentage 3,711,558
---------
Total Irish 5,567,337
German birth 676,213
German parentage 1,352,426
---------
Total German 2,028,639
---------
Grand total 7,595,976
This, of course, is too high an estimate. Unfortunately, a great
many of the descendants of Catholic immigrants are not brought up
in the faith. Protestant associations, mixed marriages, the want of
priests and churches in a large part of our territory, the general
deficiency of schools, the influence of an overpowering Protestant
tone in society, politics, and literature, and the inadequacy of
the Catholic press thus far to meet the intellectual needs of the
day, have robbed us of many of the descendants of the Catholic
settlers--how many it is impossible to say. On the other hand, it
must be remembered that the figures we have given refer only to
immigrants and a single generation of their descendants. Irish and
German Catholics, however, have been pouring into the country ever
since the Revolution, and their descendants in the second, third,
and later generations must be counted by hundreds of thousands.
Then we have the offspring of the original Catholic settlers of
Maryland and of the French posts along the Mississippi Valley from
the Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, and the Spanish Catholics along
the Pacific coast; and, finally, we have thousands of converts,
whose number is increasing in a constantly growing ratio. All these
elements must far outweigh the loss by neglect and perversion.
Then, the movement to extend Catholicism among the colored people
of the South has occasioned no little alarm in the Protestant
sects. It was thoroughly discussed at the General Council of
Baltimore six years ago, and especially attracted, as our readers
know, the Christian zeal of the late Archbishop Spalding. The
English Church has come to our aid by sending us missionaries
for this special work, and there is every reason to believe that
in this long-neglected field, now open to us by the abolition of
slavery, we shall reap an abundant harvest. Everybody perceives
that for a long time to come, if not permanently, the colored
people will hold a preponderance of power in several of the
Southern States. As they advance in education and material
welfare, their influence will enormously increase. In many
districts, they are evidently destined to be the ruling race, for
they are improving in culture, and can no longer be overlooked by
the social or religious philosopher. Whether they shall be Catholic
or Protestant is a momentous question, not only to their own souls,
but to the country.
But not only is the formidable number of the Catholics of the
United States a subject of increasing anxiety to the sects, their
attitude towards political parties presents some new and perplexing
problems. Heretofore they have exerted no special influence as
Catholics upon political affairs. As a general rule, at least in
large cities, an immense majority of them have adhered to the
Democratic organization, but without giving the slightest Catholic
tendency to Democratic principles and objects. They have been
swallowed up and lost in the party rather than incorporated with
it; they have given it votes, and got little or nothing in return.
Why this has been so we need not now inquire; for it has become
evident that a general reconstruction of parties is close at hand.
The next Presidential election will not be so much a contest of
principles as a trial of strength between the personal adherents
of the rival nominees; and before the end of another four years we
may expect on both sides a new declaration of political faith, a
new setting up of standards, a new mustering of opposing camps, so
that the fight hereafter shall be not for a candidate, but a cause.
Republicans and democrats alike are looking for a new departure,
and we cannot help being interested in what the new symbols of
party orthodoxy are to be.
Of course, as a religious body our duty is now, as it always has
been, to keep aloof from partisanship. We have observed this duty
religiously in the past; we shall observe it no less strictly
hereafter. But Protestants do not comprehend our position in the
matter, and they are watching eagerly for indications of the new
alliance which they take it for granted we must contemplate. More
than this, certain sections of them are acting upon the assumption
that we must naturally rank ourselves as their political enemies,
and are striving to give a distinctly anti-Catholic tendency to
state and national legislation. What are we to do if they succeed?
What must be our attitude if the school question, for example,
become a leading topic in state politics, or if the broad question
of national education be incorporated with the dogmas of the coming
political parties? Leaders on the Republican side have already been
trying the temper of the people on this point, and it is not at
all impossible that organizations may be made so uncompromisingly
hostile to us that we shall have to raise our own standard and
define our lines. Protestants see all this more clearly than
Catholics, and hence the instinctive gathering together of the
sects, the renewed bitterness of some of their leading journals,
such as the New York _Times_ and _Harper’s Weekly_, the attempt
to exclude our charities from the state aid to which they are
fairly entitled, the attacks upon our schools, and the plans for
an anti-Catholic crusade by the establishment of no-Popery organs.
A paper of the class indicated in the extract at the head of this
article would not, indeed, be a formidable enemy. The people
at least have no taste for the violent, old-fashioned style of
controversy; but, as one indication among many of the drift of
Protestant sentiment, the establishment of a professedly and
distinctively anti-Catholic paper as a political engine would be
significant.
If evil times are coming, how are we prepared to meet them? If
our schools are to be attacked, our asylums and hospitals starved
out, our children led away from the church and the parish school
by the strong arm of the government, our young men and young
women corrupted by hostile literature, the newspapers given up to
falsehood and misrepresentation about our faith and practices, we
who are seven millions strong are surely not to sit idle and strike
no blow in our own defence. The pulpit cannot be our only guardian.
Before the altar we listen to instruction in our religious duties,
we learn of the mysteries of our creed, we are roused to penitence,
to charity, to the love of God and man; we do not look there for
guidance in our duty as citizens, or for the answer to the slanders
of our enemies. Our priests have a more sacred function to perform;
there is still a work which, from the nature of the case, they
cannot do. The Catholic cause must be upheld not only in the shadow
of the sanctuary, but in the very midst of the hostile camp. The
most eloquent sermon cannot reach a man who will not go to church.
The most complete refutation of a slander will do no good if the
slanderer and those who believe in him never hear the answer. But
newspapers go everywhere. Their readers are not confined to any
one sect or any one party; and when disputes arise which affect
the relations of Catholics to the secular government and to their
Protestant brethren, the heaviest of the fighting must always be
done by the daily, weekly, and monthly press.
In an article published over a year ago, we touched upon this
subject in connection with the duty of American Catholics
towards Catholic literature. Our remarks were generally approved,
we believe, but they called forth some little criticism of an
unfavorable character which, upon the whole, we were not sorry to
see. It is an encouraging sign of development when the religious
press shows vitality enough to discuss something else than the
commonplaces of controversy which have formed the staple of
Catholic and Protestant polemics for generations. It is high time
for us to apply to our own publications a little of that free
examination which we have bestowed upon others, and to let argument
among Catholic writers be something more than the foolish wrangling
of ambitious rivals. In the article to which we have alluded, we
said that few of the Catholic papers had a circulation of more
than 10,000; and some people found fault with us for that. We wish
we could give them 25,000 or 50,000 apiece; but it will not mend
matters to say that all Catholic papers are powerful organs of
public opinion, when we know that they are nothing of the sort.
Most of them are doing excellent service within their own sphere;
but why affect to deny that their sphere is a narrow one and
their means are small? We have tried to impress upon the Catholic
public the duty of supporting the Catholic press to the utmost of
their ability. We have shown that where Protestants attack us in
a million printed sheets, we give a feeble answer in perhaps ten
thousand. We number 8,000,000 souls, yet our newspapers with very
few exceptions languish for want of readers, and our colleges are
not creating a literary class among the laity. This is one side of
the picture, but there is another. If the public is doing little
for the papers, are the papers doing much more for the public? We
dare say they are doing what they can; but how much is that? What
Catholic journal have we capable of meeting _Harper’s Weekly_,
for instance--we do not mean in argument, but in influence? As
we write, the current number of that periodical is laid upon our
table. It contains a long article on “Romish Cruelty,” telling
how in a Pennsylvania town “the Roman Catholics formed a plot to
murder” a school-teacher. “The priest aided in encouraging the
dangerous spirit of the people, and the assassins seem to have
been urged on to their dreadful deed by the open countenance of
the Romish Church.” The writer comes to the conclusion that “no
one’s life is any longer safe who ventures to doubt the divinity
of Mary or the supreme prerogatives of the Pope.” This is only a
sample of many similar slanders which the unprincipled publishing
firm of the Harpers are spreading all over the country. What are
we doing to counteract them? Surely, we cannot afford to let them
go unanswered, and we leave it to any Catholic to say whether
there is a single publication of our creed in the United States
which we can depend upon for a prompt and thorough reply to such
falsehoods, in such form and manner as to convince not merely
the Catholic, but the Protestant public. We must confront our
assailants on their own ground. If they tell us that a priest and
his parishioners in an obscure Pennsylvania town have conspired to
murder Protestant school-teachers, we must be able to show, and
to show at once, that the incidents never occurred, or that the
interpretation placed upon them is unwarranted. We ought to have
our sources of information as well as our enemies. We need our
news-gatherers and investigators, who shall answer falsehood not
with indignant invective, but with fact. This is not the work for
a monthly magazine, but for a much prompter sort of publication.
Long before the true story of such an affair could be told in THE
CATHOLIC WORLD, it would have been succeeded by a new slander. The
poison would have run through the public veins, and it would be
too late for the antidote to overtake it. Newspapers ought to do
this work, and we suppose they would do it if they had the money;
but investigations are expensive, and when the force of a Catholic
organ consists of nobody but the editor, who writes all the fourth
page, and the assistant, who makes up the rest of the forms with
a paste-pot and a pair of shears, there is of course no reporter
who can be sent away on excursions. The New York _Times_, which
has long rivalled _Harper’s Weekly_ in bigotry and anti-Catholic
malice, allows a correspondent to take up this story, repeat it as
a well-ascertained truth, and enforce the lesson that “a faithful
son of the Romish Church cannot be a law-abiding citizen of this
free Republic.” We dare say scores of Union newspapers will follow
the example of the _Times_; and, meanwhile, if a few weekly
Catholic papers succeed in getting at the truth of the incident,
we may depend upon it their refutation of the falsehood will never
reach Protestant ears. It is time for us to understand that calumny
cannot be conquered by such means as we now employ, and that
practically our enemies are having everything their own way.
Catholic questions of the most momentous character are now
agitating the whole continent of Europe. Germany is shaken by
the problems of education; Italy, by the contest between the
rights of the Vicar of Christ and the usurpations of the godless
Sardinian monarchy. The Döllinger party are encouraged by some
of the secular powers to attempt a new heresy. France and Spain
are both vexed by infidel and persecuting political factions.
England even and Ireland have their Catholic difficulties arising
out of the relations between the state and the schools. All the
intelligence which reaches us on these important topics comes
from the worst sources. The cable reporters who collect European
news for transmission through the telegraph are usually not well
informed on Catholic subjects, and not always honest. When they
touch upon religious matters, they are habitually, even though
not intentionally, untruthful. The impression conveyed by their
meagre and blundering dispatches is almost always the direct
reverse of the right one, and the press telegrams from Rome
especially are marvels of ingenious and bold falsification. All
the European dispatches printed in American newspapers are sent
from London. They are dated at various cities on the Continent, but
they all come from one central office in the English metropolis,
and they are obtained there from a Jewish news-agency which has
relations with the Continental press. Thus, they really give merely
the statements of a few French, Italian, Spanish, and German
journalists, and these are almost invariably journalists of the
anti-Catholic party. In Italy, the mendacity of the anti-Papal
press is almost beyond belief; and probably there is no class of
persons anywhere so utterly unscrupulous, so wedded to lying, as
the radicals of Italy when they speak of the Pope or the Papal
Government. The German Liberal and Protestant press is only a
little better. It has magnified and misrepresented the Döllinger
movement, and distorted, in the grossest manner, the story of
the school question in Prussia. Elsewhere, on the Continent, the
difficulty is the same. A vigorous press is constantly battling
against us, and it is from this press and this press alone that
we get our European news. The mail correspondence of American
secular newspapers is colored by the same influences which deform
the telegraphic summaries. The lie which is insinuated to-day by
a cable dispatch will be rubbed in by a letter in due course of
the post. Here, again, our enemies have things all their own way.
The best of our weekly papers, indeed, do something to correct
the falsehoods of the daily journals, but the great difficulty
still remains; they cannot reach the general public. Fisher Ames
said that “a lie will travel from Maine to Georgia while the truth
is putting on its boots.” But, if the lie has the advantage of a
daily newspaper and a telegraph under the Atlantic Ocean, whilst
the truth must trust to steamships, and post-offices, and a small
weekly paper or a monthly magazine, what hope is there that the lie
can ever be overtaken?
Secular literature is almost entirely in Protestant hands, and in
a thousand unsuspected ways it is infusing into our intellectual
system the poison of indifferentism, or infidelity, or miscalled
liberalism, and teaching our young people to divide themselves
between two incompatible lives--an active Protestant life, which
absorbs all their busy and productive hours, and a sluggish
Catholic life, which is confined to Sunday mornings and a few
great festivals. What is the Catholic press doing to correct
these literary influences? What is it doing to cultivate the art
of criticism? If we want to know the characters or the literary
merits of a new book, shall we turn to the journals of our own
faith, or to the _Tribune_ and the _World_? Our periodicals (with
a few honorable exceptions) rarely give any notice at all to the
productions of secular book-houses, while magazines and books
bearing the imprint of a Catholic publisher are generally reviewed
in some such style as the following:
“This sterling periodical has now reached its eleven thousandth
number, and has improved with every issue since it was started.
The present number alone is worth a year’s subscription. No
Catholic family can afford to be without it. Price 25 cents.
“The enterprising publishers, Messrs. Jones & Robinson, have just
got out in the elegant style for which they are celebrated a new
edition of _Barney O’Toole: a Tale of ’98_. This is a work of
great learning, and no Catholic library is complete without it.
We are deeply indebted to the liberal publishers for sending us
a copy. It is elegantly gotten up. For sale, in this city, by
Michael Smith. Price 50 cents.”
This sort of journalism is worse than a waste of ink and paper.
It is a direct injury to the cause it is intended to serve. There
is no reason why a book that is badly printed and shabbily bound
should be described as “elegantly gotten up”; nor why every
number of a magazine should be called the best ever printed; nor
why everything published at a Catholic house should be declared
essential to the spiritual welfare of every Catholic family. But
there is a reason why Catholic journalists should tell the plain
truth, and sometimes the whole truth, if they expect to obtain
influence in an intelligent community.
The time has come when a vigorous, enterprising, well-conducted
press is essential to every community in the United States. No
man in this country can do without his newspaper. He must keep
abreast of the age; he must know what happens in politics, finance,
trade, literature, art, and society, and he must know it promptly;
otherwise the current of the world flows past him, and he is left
idly floating in the pools by the shore. We cannot afford to ignore
this imperative want; it is a necessity created by conditions of
society far beyond our control; and it is by no means a necessity
which we ought to regret. Our task should be not to oppose this
demand for newspapers, but to satisfy it more thoroughly than
it has ever been satisfied yet. We are numerous and rich enough
to create a Catholic periodical literature which shall be the
glory of America, and, next to the church and school, the noblest
defence of Catholic principles. We are numerous and rich enough to
make newspapers which shall meet every demand of the most active
and intelligent and best educated citizen; which shall give our
own people the most palatable as well as the most nourishing
intellectual food, and enforce from our adversaries a respect which
is not now paid us. In the providence of God, we believe such a
press will some day be built up in America, and then we shall
wonder how we lived and kept our faith so long without it.
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
THE HOUSE OF YORKE. By M. A. T. 1 vol. 8vo, pp. 261. New York:
The Catholic Publication Society. 1872.
A thoroughly good American novel was, we suppose, a literary
event which was looked for by nobody who had much knowledge of
what had been done in that direction, or who had thought much
about the causes which produce the painful thinness of most of
our native literature. It is true enough, as Dr. Holmes says,
that Protestantism in its last analysis means “none of your
business,” and what it means at the root it means more or less
in every branch and stem, every leaf and flower. And in America
especially, which has, so to say, no history and no traditions,
and whose vast material resources tempt its children to believe
that the world has been started afresh for them on a different
basis from that which underlies older civilizations, one of the
most patent and most unpleasant results of the theories on which
the new civilization was founded has been the barrenness, the
hopeless mediocrity, of the literature which it has produced.
How was it possible that a people who, as a people, recognized
no absolute authority in any matter whatsoever, even in those of
fundamental importance, and who had engrained in their minds the
conviction that everybody’s opinion, especially in matters of
taste and of religion, was as likely to be true as his neighbor’s,
should produce a characteristic and thrifty national art and
literature? Lawlessness, a lack of respect for authority, and, in
most instances, a provincial ignorance that in these matters there
was any recognized authority, were what made the weakness of our
efforts in this direction. There were a few writers and a few works
of acknowledged ability. In fiction we have had Cooper, and we
had also an _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_, but that the latter owed much of
its success to the local evil with which it dealt was evidenced by
the inferior merit of the works from the same hand which preceded
and which followed it. In the limits of a book-notice it is, of
course, not possible to do more than to intimate a conviction
that literature and art, like civilization and public morality,
rest securely only when they are built upon Catholic truth. Here
in America there was ample room and opportunity to prove the
opposite proposition if it could be proved, and to show that on a
foundation of criticism and negation a strong and sightly structure
could be reared. There was no lack of ability in our writers,
and there was occasional genius; but, when what they did was not
an evident imitation of some foreign model, it generally showed
incompleteness, a lack of definite conceptions, and an unpleasant
awkwardness and indecision of purpose. We are speaking now only
of what is known as light literature--essay-writing, fiction, and
poetry.
To find, therefore, a distinctively American novel which one can
honestly praise as a work of art, is something at which one may be
legitimately surprised as well as pleased; and that we have, at
last, in _The House of Yorke_, such a novel, is what nobody who
has read it attentively will be at all likely to deny. The true
story intertwined with the fictitious one is, as it should be in
a work of fiction, so skilfully subordinated to the main current
of the novel that it in no way mars the catholicity which is the
first element in all genuine art. Pettiness and provinciality
are the two rocks on which novels “founded on fact” are most apt
to strike; particular facts get such a prominence in them that
the larger truth which art demands is lost sight of. Our author
shows, however, a thorough mastery of her materials and an accurate
perception of what are the proper means to an end. She shows, too,
an unusual degree of insight into character and a trained skill
in delineating it. All her personages live: not one of them is an
imitation of some other novelist’s creation. Their individuality
is preserved, too, without recourse to tricks of speech and
gesture--they are always themselves, because in the mind of their
creator there existed a clear and definite image of each of them.
That she has studied herself and other people very closely is
evident as well when she brings her characters into action as when
she analyzes their motives. The book is full of bits of delicate
insight, as, for instance, where she says of the impetuous Dick
Rowan that “his soul had, indeed, always been more tranquil than
his manner.” The whole of this character, though, and especially
the story of his vocation, may well enough be given as an instance.
She knows, too, how to be dramatic without becoming sensational,
and how to be thoroughly delicate and reserved and yet make an
interesting love story. Her style is easy and unembarrassed, and
always level with the occasion, whether in dialogue, description,
or moralizing, and her book is one to be as well liked by the
ordinary novel-reader, purely for the interest of the story, as by
those who are more attracted by its lofty purpose and by the skill
with which that purpose is carried out.
* * * * *
DISCUSSIONS AND ARGUMENTS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS. By John Henry
Newman, sometime Fellow of Oriel College. London: Basil
Montagu Pickering, 196 Piccadilly. 1872. (New York: Sold by
The Catholic Publication Society.)
This is another volume of the uniform series of Dr. Newman’s
works. It contains an essay on the manner of catholicizing the
Church of England, one on Anti-Christ, one on the analogy of
Creed and Scripture in respect to the difficulties of each, one
on Secular Knowledge as a means of moral improvement, one on the
Defects and Excellences of the British Constitution, and one on the
argument of the _Ecce Homo_--the last two essays only having been
written since the conversion of the illustrious author.
The republication of Dr. Newman’s Catholic writings is only
something which might have been expected, and which would be
considered by all as desirable. The same might be said of his
previous works, so far as these contained no heretical or
uncatholic statements and opinions. But the entire republication of
his Anglican writings was something novel in its way, and rather
calculated to startle the mind of one who had not considered the
very weighty motives which have induced the author to make this
bold stroke. These writings could not have been suppressed. To
a very great extent, they are substantially sound, as well as
masterly in thought and style, with only an accidental mixture of
error. Even those which are in their substance and scope directly
anti-Catholic are important documents in the history of polemics.
By their incorporation with a complete series of the doctor’s
works, they are reduced to the category of those arguments and
objections against the faith which are incorporated into systems
of theology for the purpose of exhibiting both sides of the
controversy, and bringing out the truth in its contra-position to
error. The work of Dr. Newman’s life has been a most remarkable and
providential one. He has reasoned himself up from Protestantism,
through Anglicanism, to the Catholic Church, speaking aloud, and
in tones to command attention, during the whole process. It is
impossible to estimate the influence for good which he has exerted
as an instrument in the hand of God in bringing back Protestants to
the fold of the church. The preservation of the complete history
of his intellectual progress is therefore something which tends
entirely to advance the cause of truth, and to illustrate the
glorious conclusion which he finally drew from his premises and
proved with such power of reasoning and charm of rhetoric. The
present volume contains many things of the greatest intrinsic
value, besides what is valuable for the reasons above given,
especially the essay on Creed and Scripture, in which the present
downward slide of the English toward infidelity is distinctly
predicted.
* * * * *
CONSTANCE SHERWOOD. An Autobiography of the Sixteenth Century. By
Lady Georgiana Fullerton. 1 vol. 8vo, pp. 284. New York: The
Catholic Publication Society.
Our first feeling on reading this book was regret that we have so
few similar publications in this country, where the subjects so
admirably discussed in it are of such deep and lasting interest.
To English-speaking people at least, no matter in what land,
the persecution of Catholics during the reign of Elizabeth, the
malignant attempts of her able courtiers to destroy utterly the old
faith among her subjects, and the heroic struggles and sufferings
of the people, particularly of those of the better class, form one
of the most interesting, if painful, chapters in the entire modern
history of the church. The rebellious and anti-christian spirit of
the Eighth Henry descended with fourfold malice on his not unworthy
daughter, and a host of recreant prelates and rapacious nobles had
sprung up around the throne whose abject subserviency to royal
authority was in proportion as they possessed or expected lucrative
church livings and the spoils of dismantled schools, convents,
and almshouses. Her penal laws made even the secret observance of
the forms of worship an offence punishable by torture, death, and
confiscation, while the minister of God was legally proclaimed a
traitor, hunted down by professional informers, and, when caught,
summarily executed with all the cruelties of the most barbarous
ages. But while the fagot and the gallows had no terrors for the
devoted priest, the loss of court favor, beggary, imprisonment, and
the rack were as persistently disregarded by a large number of the
nobility and commoners with a steadfastness and resignation which
remind us of the days of the early martyrs.
It is to illustrate this period in English history, this contest
between ill-gotten and despotic power on one side, and constancy,
zeal, and piety on the other, that _Constance Sherwood_ has been
written by one who has already done good service in the cause of
our holy religion, to the great credit of her sex and country.
As a work of art, the book does not exhibit that strong dramatic
power or depth of coloring which characterized the efforts of Sir
Walter Scott when treating of the same epoch in _Kenilworth_; but
it more than compensates us for these deficiencies in the greater
truthfulness of its portraiture of historical personages, and its
exquisite delineation of those purely fictitious, who, with all
their human weaknesses and spiritual strength, are fittingly held
up to us as types of Christian excellence. So delicately, indeed,
and so nicely defined are some of Lady Fullerton’s touches that we
have sometimes found ourselves going back over the pages of her
tale to be assured that we had caught aright the gentle allusion or
implied meaning in all its significance. Constance Sherwood, who is
supposed to relate the story of her life and times, appears to us a
most attractive creation of the author, but the character of Ann,
Countess of Arundel and Surry, we venture to say could only have
been drawn by a highly gifted, sympathetic, and virtuous woman, so
conformable is it in its leading features to well-authenticated
facts and so delicately finished in its imaginary details.
Though an historical novel, necessarily devoted to grave and often
painful matters, and plentifully strewn with moral and theological
reflections, there is just enough of romance and feminine gossip
in its pages to enlist the attention and excite the sympathies of
the more sentimental and less seriously inclined readers. Human
passions, hatred, jealousy, and remorse, friendship, love, and all
the other concomitants of everyday life, are neither ignored nor
obtruded, but are made subservient to the main design of the work,
which is to teach us true Christian principles by exhibiting to
our view the virtues and constancy of our co-religionists of other
times. The style of the autobiography, as the design of the book
required, is slightly tinged with the quaint phraseology of the
period, which, however, does not lessen, but rather adds to, its
attractions, and the illustrations which accompany this edition are
excellently designed and executed. As a well-written book, uniting
amusement with sound instruction and pure morality, we consider it
every way worthy to be placed in the hands of Catholic readers.
Particularly feminine in its tone and healthful in its tendency, it
is in every way vastly superior to even the best works of fiction
of which the secular press has become so prolific.
* * * * *
THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF ST. FRANCIS XAVIER. By Henry James
Coleridge, S.J. Vol. I. Burns, Oates & Co. 1872. (New York:
Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)
Father Coleridge has a happy talent for biographical composition
and historical sketching. The letters of St. Francis give to this
biography a most decided advantage over all others with which we
are acquainted, and the original portion of the _Life_ is equal in
merit and interest to the best specimens of biography which the
English language possesses. We would be greatly obliged to the
author if he would collect and publish in a volume the various
sketches of distinguished persons, such as Suarez, De Rancé, etc.,
which he has from time to time printed in _The Month_.
* * * * *
THE WORKS OF AURELIUS AUGUSTINE, BISHOP OF HIPPO. A New
Translation, edited by the Rev. Marcus Dods, M.A. Vol.
III.--Writings in Connection with the Donatist Controversy;
Vol. IV.--The Anti-Pelagian Works of St. Augustine. Vol.
I. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. 1872. (New York: Sold by The
Catholic Publication Society.)
The first two volumes of this series containing _The City of God_,
received a favorable notice in a former number of this magazine,
in so far as an examination which was distinctly said to be only
“cursory” warranted us in expressing an opinion. A very opposite
criticism, accompanied with some strictures upon THE CATHOLIC WORLD
for its favorable notice, from the pen of a learned and acute
writer in the _Boston Pilot_, occasioned a considerable stir for
the time, and we were requested by several persons to re-examine
the work more carefully, and express a more matured and decisive
judgment. We took the trouble to make the examination, and take
this occasion to reiterate the opinion we at first expressed. A
similar judgment was expressed by the _Dublin Review_, and, as
there seems to be a general consent among critics on the subject,
we think that all those who wish for a good translation of _The
City of God_ may consider it certain that the one edited by Mr.
Dods is not only an elegant but an accurate version of this
splendid work. There are one or two mistakes in the translation,
and we remember noticing one decidedly anti-Catholic note, but
these slight faults may be pardoned in a work of such great
excellence and value. We have had no time as yet to collate any
portion of the translation of the two new volumes before us with
the original text. The quality of the translation of the preceding
volumes, however, is a fair guarantee for the fidelity and elegance
of the present one. The scholarship and reputation of the editors
are a sufficient security that they will spare no pains to do
their work well, and the works of St. Augustine afford very little
room for any serious mistakes in regard to his real meaning. It
is in the interpretation of his meaning and deduction from his
principles that there is room for error, and that the grossest
heresies have been manufactured by Lutherans, Calvinists, and
Jansenists from a perversion of his doctrines on original sin,
grace, and free-will. These heresies are now very unpopular and
not at all dangerous. In respect to the constitutive principles of
the Catholic Church, as opposed to every species of Protestantism,
there is no room for mistaking or perverting the doctrine of St.
Augustine. We cannot think of any way of convincing educated
persons in England and the United States of the identity of the
modern with the ancient Catholic Church more efficaciously than
that of giving them the chance to read extensively in the works of
the great Doctor through the medium of a good translation. We are
rejoiced, therefore, that English scholars should engage in this
work and in those of a similar kind. The quantity of pure Catholic
literature thus disseminated by Protestants and among Protestants
in England, and to some extent in America also, is truly inspiring.
The republication of choice specimens of old English literature by
an antiquarian society in London, the translation of the Venerable
Bede’s _History_, the abbreviated _Lives of the Saints_ from
the Bollandists, and other books of the same character which are
multiplying with an inconceivable rapidity, show what an avidity
the English palate is acquiring for this most wholesome and
pleasant medicine. The editors frequently seek to counteract the
effect which their inward misgiving warns them these books must
produce, by remarks of their own in notes and prefaces, for which
their readers will care but little. Sometimes they avoid almost or
altogether this futile procedure, and provide the Catholic reader
with a valuable book in English which is a considerable accession
to his library, and is free from anything which can offend his
eyes--a service for which they have our sincere thanks. The volumes
which are at present under notice are not, we regret to say,
unexceptionable in this respect. The Preface to the anti-Pelagian
works speaks in a very inexact and misleading manner upon the
supposed differences of the Eastern and Western theology, upon the
judgments of the Pope in the case of Pelagius, and the relation
of the teaching of St. Augustine to Protestant doctrine. The very
meagre sketch of the Donatist schism prefixed to Vol. III. is long
enough, nevertheless, to permit the author to indulge in the only
amusement which can make an English Protestant perfectly happy,
and to get off the little squib he always carries in his pocket,
“the despotic intolerance of the Papacy, and the horrors of the
Inquisition.” A Catholic scholar cares nothing for the flippant and
superficial cavils and sneers of theological amateurs who venture
to criticise and judge the Fathers, the Popes, and the church of
God. But he does not like to have a book in his library which has
such blots on it. The editors may say that they consult the tastes
and convenience of Protestants and not of Catholics. Very well.
It is convenient, however for Catholics to have certain works of
standard value in an English translation, and it is the interest
of _publishers_ to provide them with the same. If the publishers
could furnish an edition in which the text alone was given, without
the disfiguring incumbrance of prefaces and advertisements, for
the convenience of Catholic purchasers, their splendid series
of patristic works would undoubtedly find a much more ready and
extensive sale than it is now likely to have among the clergy and
studious laity of the Catholic Church in Great Britain and the
United States.
* * * * *
THE BETROTHED. By Alessandro Manzoni. 1 vol. 12mo. New York: The
Catholic Publication Society. 1872.
“The Catholic Publication Society” has done a good work in
publishing a new edition of Alessandro Manzoni’s world-renowned _I
Promessi Sposi_, which has been for many years before the public.
It was first published in 1827. Since then the author has increased
the size and interest of the volume by a thrilling description of
the devastations of the plague in Milan in 1630.
While the author charms by the ease and simplicity of his style,
the story is no less remarkable for originality and vigor.
Above all, the purity of the pages and the religious tone that
pervades the narrative give an additional interest to the story of
the rustic life of the hero and heroine.
This is the best known of the author’s works, and deservedly
popular.
* * * * *
FRENCH EGGS, IN AN ENGLISH BASKET. Translated from Souvestre by
Miss Emily Bowles. London: Burns, Oates & Co. (New York: Sold
by The Catholic Publication Society.)
This book comprises some fifteen short, readable, and well-varied
stories, illustrating life and manners among the humbler classes
in France, originally written by a very successful _littérateur_
of that country, and accurately translated by the English editor.
They are not moral tales in the usual acceptation of that much
misused term, for the writer neither puts prosy sermons in the
mouths of babes nor interlards the discourse of simple peasants
with profound theological reflections, but they are natural and
healthful in their tone, humorous as well as pathetic in design,
and the reader will be dull indeed who is not able to draw his
own moral from them. As a gift to young people, this volume
would be very appropriate, and, if not exactly suited to the
breakfast-table, will no doubt be found worthy a place in the
boudoir or drawing-room.
* * * * *
SERMONS BY FATHERS OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS (in England). Vol. II.
By the Rev. Thomas Harper. London: Burns, Oates & Co. (New
York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.) 1872.
These sermons are very peculiar and original, and are
specially adapted for the perusal of the most intelligent and
educated persons. The first series, composed of discourses for
Christmas-tide, is on “Modern Principles,” as contrasted with truly
Christian principles deduced from the great fact and doctrine
of the Incarnation. The one on “The Last Winter of the World”
has especially attracted our attention. The second series is a
condensed and yet eloquent _résumé_ of a great part of Catholic
philosophy and theology respecting the great first truth of the
being of God. The volume is a remarkable and an admirable one, most
suitable for the times, and we earnestly recommend it to those
who desire to find religious reading of the highest intellectual
quality, which is at the same time really profitable for the
spiritual good.
* * * * *
MAGGIE’S ROSARY, AND OTHER TALES. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 208. New York:
The Catholic Publication Society. 1872.
We know of no book of this class recently issued from the press
which contains more pleasing and useful reading than this.
Equally instructive and entertaining, its perusal cannot prove
otherwise than acceptable to those for whose especial benefit it is
published. It is admirably adapted for a premium, and we hope that
in the coming distributions it will occupy that prominent place
which its intrinsic merits deserve. It is a handsome volume of over
200 pages, got up in that style which “The Publication Society” was
the first to introduce--a style of mechanical excellence and simple
elegance.
* * * * *
VIA CRUCIS; or, The Way of the Cross. Translated from the German
of the Rev. Dr. Veith, Preacher of St. Stephen’s Cathedral,
Vienna. By the Very Rev. Theodore Noethen. Boston: Patrick
Donahoe. 1872.
Did any one ever see a book on the Passion of Christ and not wish
to buy it? The very title appeals to the heart. It is because we
would go on for ever trying--but in vain--to sound the depths of
that fathomless ocean of divine love and mercy.
We cannot have too many books on this great theme, that there
may be some adapted to every cast of mind: now emotional, again
embodying every tender legend and the pious imaginings of saintly
hearts, or full of profound reflections on the great scheme of
salvation through the sufferings of our Lord. Every person should
have at least one such book in which to bathe his world-weary
soul from time to time. In these days, when ease, luxury, and
self-indulgence of every kind seem to be the great aim of life, the
image of the Divine Sufferer cannot be too constantly presented to
the mind, with its lesson of mortification and self-crucifixion.
Protestants often say the Blessed Virgin has been made by Catholics
to supersede our Lord in the economy of grace. Let such read this
book, and see on whom we rely for salvation, and how Christ and
him crucified is preached in all the purity of the Gospel in the
great Catholic centre of Vienna.
This book is the last of a series of works on the Passion which
have already been noticed in our columns. The author being now
blind, it was dictated to his amanuensis. Under such circumstances,
his great familiarity with the Holy Scriptures is the more
striking, showing that a knowledge of the sacred volume is not
quite a Protestant monopoly.
A calm, dignified, thoughtful tone pervades the whole volume. The
piety is not strained; it is elevated, but not _exaltée_; there is
no false sentiment, nothing to offend the most fastidious taste.
A few quotations will give an idea of the author’s style and
suggestiveness:
“He who lives within and for himself, who only makes use of
others for the sake of adding to his own pleasure, is ignorant
of the first principle of charity or of true life, which cannot
be obtained without sacrifice and without entering morally into
communion with thee.
“It is by no means necessary that true humility must spring forth
from the consciousness of guilt, like a flower whose root grows
only in the mire; its true foundation is the acknowledgment of
the relation in which spiritual beings find themselves to their
Creator, Lord, and gracious Ruler.
“Whether or not my bodily life shall one day bloom again in
the transfigured state of happiness, will depend upon my moral
fidelity, which keeps my spirit, while on earth, in thy holy
grace.
“Fall not into the common error of imagining that a negative
state of existence is compatible with the duties of a Christian.”
“This narrow gate, which alone leads to true life, but which many
do not wish to enter because they shun the work of self-denial
and privation, what is it but the entrance into the communion of
thy death and life--into thy grave!”
This work was intended particularly for Lent, but is suited to
any season. As the church, on the most joyful of festivals, never
fails to show forth the Lord’s death at the altar, so the thought
of the Passion should never be absent from the soul. The heroine
of _The House of Yorke_, alluding to a picture of St. Ignatius of
Loyola, says: “He looks as though he were present when our Lord was
crucified, and could not forget the sight.” “We were all present,”
exclaimed Rowan. “How can we forget it?”
So, too, when three old men came to the Abbot Stephen to ask what
would be useful to their souls, he was silent awhile, and then
replied: “I will show you all I have: day and night, I behold
nothing but our Lord Jesus Christ hanging from the wood.”
This ably translated work, with its excellent binding, its soft
paper so grateful to the eye, and its clear print, is a credit to
our enterprising New England publisher.
* * * * *
THE POPE OF ROME AND THE POPES OF THE ORIENTAL ORTHODOX CHURCH.
An Essay on Monarchy in the Church, with special reference to
Russia. From original documents, Russian and Greek. By the
Rev. Cæsarius Tondini, Barnabite. London: Longmans & Co. (New
York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)
The conversion of Count Schouvaloff, a Russian nobleman, and his
profession in the Barnabite order, was the occasion of awakening
a great interest in the conversion of Russia among his religious
brethren. The most conspicuous among them for his zeal and efforts
in this direction is F. Tondini. In the present volume he has given
a full and accurate account of the organization of the Russian
Church, supported by numerous citations, and evincing the thorough
knowledge of the author on the subject. The utterly secular
character of the Russian state church and the degrading enslavement
of its hierarchy under imperial authority are clearly shown. The
efforts which have been made to throw dust in the eyes of the
American public on this subject make this book quite seasonable,
and we recommend it to the attention both of our Catholic readers
and of the amateurs of Russo-Greek Christianity.
* * * * *
THE PASSION PLAY. By the Rev. Gerald Molloy, D.D. Boston: Patrick
Donahoe.
Dr. Molloy, of Maynooth, has described the Ammergau Passion Play
with great skill, accuracy, and beauty of language, and has
enriched his work with a number of very good photographs, which
add much to its interest. The republication has been executed in
very pretty style, and the volume is in every sense attractive
and interesting, worthy of a place on every table, and most
appropriate as a premium or gift book. We trust it may have the
wide circulation it deserves.
* * * * *
THE DIVINE TRAGEDY. By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Boston: J. R.
Osgood & Co.
A most reverently, carefully, and skilfully executed reduction of
the evangelical narrative within a small poetical picture. The
greater portion is an almost literal translation of the sacred
text, and there are also a few passages of exquisite original
poetry. Mr. Longfellow has in no way tampered with or marred
the beauty of the divine original, and his copy is itself a
masterpiece. All Catholics may read this poem without fear of
finding anything which is not in perfect consonance with their
faith. It is a beautiful offering to Christ from a place where he
has received many insults, and we trust that he may give the best
of all rewards to the one who has made it.
* * * * *
A MANUAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE: A Text-book for Schools and
Colleges. By John S. Hart, LL.D., Professor of Rhetoric and
of the English Language and Literature in the College of New
Jersey.
The arrangement of this work is simple and adapted to practical
use, and one may see at a glance the whole history of the English
tongue. The different authors are well grouped in connection with
conspicuous public events, which show at once the time in which
they flourished, and the influences, political or educational, with
which they were surrounded. Living writers have also received their
share of attention, and are appropriately classified according to
the subjects they have treated. There are a few authors omitted
(among others Gerald Griffin, the most _characteristic_ of Irish
novelists) who deserve mention, and who will no doubt receive
attention in another edition. We think that Dr. Hart deserves
the thanks of the community for his valuable labors. Among many
studies, surely there is none more important than that of our own
language. There are many of our public men who would do well to
learn better the genius of their mother tongue. It is certainly
desirable to know and speak foreign languages, but far more
necessary is it to understand the wealth and beauty of our own--so
little known and so poorly appreciated by many of our speakers or
writers. We are glad to learn also that Dr. Hart has in preparation
a book upon American literature.
* * * * *
HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN CALIFORNIA. By W. Gleeson,
M.A., Professor in St. Mary’s College, San Francisco, Cal. In
two volumes. Illustrated. San Francisco: A. L. Bancroft & Co.
1872. pp. 446, 351.
A work of this size on the church in California excites
astonishment, so recent does the growth of that State seem; but the
history of the church in California dates far back, and is full of
interest and edification.
The discovery of the country, the strange journey of Cabeza de
Vaca, the adventurous exploration of the Italian Franciscan,
Mark, of Nice, and of those who followed him, and an account of
the Indians, form the opening chapters of Mr. Gleeson’s work. He
then devotes some space to the question whether St. Thomas ever
visited America, a point discussed some years since by the Count
Joannes when simple George Jones. Another chapter is devoted to
the examination of early Irish missions on the northwest coast of
America, the object of the author being to show the possible source
of certain Christian traditions found among the California Indians.
Garcia in his _Origen de los Indios_, Lafitau in his _Mœurs et
Coutumes_, Boudinot in his _Star in the West_, and many other
writers, have traced these analogies, but it seems to us were often
misled by taking as primitive Indian traditions ideas acquired
after missions were established.
The remainder of the first volume is devoted to the great Jesuit
mission in Lower California, founded by the German Father Kühn or
Kino and the Italian Father Salvatierra, a mission which excited so
much interest that a special fund was gradually formed by devoted
Catholics for its support, and which, under the title of the Pious
Fund of California, long maintained religion there, and will
still do its part if a sense of justice prevails with the Mexican
Government. Of this mission, which lasted to the suppression of the
order, Mr. Gleeson gives a valuable account. Three works exist on
it, that of Fr. Venegas in Spanish, of Fr. Begert in German, and of
Fr. Clavigero in Italian, and there are also some communications on
the _Lettres Edipantes_ and other collections.
The second volume is devoted to Upper California, or what is now
the State of California. After the fall of the Society of Jesus,
the Spanish government sent the Dominicans and Franciscans to
continue its labors in California. The Dominicans took Lower
California, but our author does not dwell on their labors,
apparently not having met the _Tres Cartas_ giving an account of
them.
The labors of the Franciscans, who, under Father Juniper Serra,
peopled Upper California with missions that were the wonder of that
age of unbelief, for they began and rose during the latter part
of the last century, is given in a most interesting manner. No
missions ever rose with greater celerity, and, though missionaries
laid down their lives in the struggle, the land was christianized
and the wild savages became thriving Christian communities,
self-supporting and gradually advancing in civilization.
If their rise is one to cheer the heart of the believer, there is
nothing in history so sad as the utter destruction of missions and
people in a few short years. The happy Indians who by thousands
filled the missions in peace and plenty are represented by a
handful of debased and fast vanishing outcasts. The civilization
of the nineteenth century may be a very fine thing, but it is only
necessary to read the history of the California mission to accept
the Syllabus heartily.
If we find any fault with this portion of Mr. Gleeson’s work, it
is that he has not given place enough to the linguistic labors of
the missionaries amid the perfect Babel of languages in California.
Several of their grammars and dictionaries have been printed by
one of the first Catholic writers who treated in English of this
mission, and it cannot be that the great California libraries
do not contain the works of Father Sitjar, Cuesta, and others,
or of the distinguished living missionary of California, Father
Mengarini, whose philosophical study of the Selish language makes
him the highest authority with American and European scholars.
The sad state of the church both as to its white and red children
during the Mexican rule, and the erection of the See of California,
are next treated of by our author.
The annexation to the United States and the discovery of gold
brought in an entirely new element. The Mexicans were but few;
the incoming tide of emigration was both Protestant and Catholic,
the new government Protestant. Of this, the actual church of
California, the reverend author gives an account full of edifying
details, although he has allowed himself too little space to give
such sketches of some of the various institutions as we should
desire.
The Appendix is a partial review of the accounts of the
American mounds and an attempt to show a similarity between the
mound-builders and the _Tuatha dè Danaans_ in Ireland; but such
theories have been too often raised and fallen to accept this. Our
Indian is the type of primitive man; as he was found by our first
explorers, he used stone arrow and spear heads and knives; made
his shell-beads; boiled and cooked by heated stones, just as the
earlier races on the Eastern continent did, if we are to believe
the lessons from the tombs of that part of the world. Side by
side, you cannot distinguish the stone arrowheads and implements
of America, Ireland, France, Denmark, and Germany, and we can only
conclude that all men were of one family, and ascended the scale of
civilization by similar steps.
This work is enriched with many illustrations, a portrait of Father
Salvatierra, many views of the missions as Duflot de Mofras found
them, the quasi-portrait of the venerable Father Juniper Serra in
Palou’s life of that great missionary, and diagrams of some Western
mounds.
* * * * *
HISTORY OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD UNDER THE OLD TESTAMENT. Translated
from the German of E. W. Hengstenberg. Edinburgh: T. &
T. Clark. (For sale in New York by Scribner & Co., 664
Broadway.) Vol. I.
The highest encomium we can pass upon the works of Hengstenberg
is to mention the fact that they are several times referred to in
terms of great praise in the _Theology_ of the illustrious Jesuit,
F. Perrone. He is certainly equal to any Protestant theologian
of this century in learning and critical ability. In regard to
soundness of doctrine and the actual value of the results of study
contained in his works, we consider him to be far superior to any
of those Protestant authors with whose writings we are acquainted.
Indeed, we may say that his works are almost indispensable to
the student of those departments of theology concerning which
they treat. The great and praiseworthy end of Hengstenberg was to
destroy German neology with its own weapons, and he has effectually
accomplished the task.
* * * * *
LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. Delivered in St. Francis Xavier’s Church,
New York. By Rev. D. A. Merrick, S.J. New York: P. O’Shea.
Fr. Merrick’s _Lectures_ are logical, solid, and, at the same
time, easy to be understood. He refutes the Protestant doctrine on
the Rule of Faith, and establishes the Catholic rule, ending with
the culminating point of the supremacy of the Pope in government
and doctrine. The proofs of the latter from English history are
remarkably appropriate and well put. The style of the reverend
author is pure and pleasing, and the book, which is of very
moderate size, is tastefully printed. It is therefore admirably
suited for general use, and we bespeak for it a wide circulation.
* * * * *
THE RELATION AND DUTY OF THE LAWYER TO THE STATE: A Lecture
delivered before the Law School of the University of the City
of New York, February 9, 1872, by Henry D. Sedgwick.
This is an eloquent and philosophical contribution to the question
of questions in this city: Are we advancing or retrograding in
legal and judicial probity and learning? The author speaks like an
honest lawyer jealous for the high name of his profession; but
proclaiming the follies of men or corporations in the lecture-room
never has nor ever will put an end to them. The lawyers on and
off the bench are no more corrupt than other classes of the
community, but they are more conspicuous, and more reprehensible
in consequence. Corruption, like all _catching_ diseases, when it
finds shelter among legislators, will soon find its way to the
lawyer’s library and to the bench of the judge.
We cordially endorse the admonition and compliment contained in the
following:
“Set before you, rather, if you need an example, those who, with
an earnestness and a determination never surpassed, have grappled
with and overthrown the band of thieves who had seized the public
coffers. No future enemy of the commonwealth can be more wily, nor
can be entrenched in his lair with greater cunning, than the men
who lately possessed our municipal government. Whoever that future
enemy shall be, however warily he spring, however secretly he
strike or stab, O’Conor can exclaim, ‘Contempsi gladios Catilinæ,
non pertimescam tuos.’”
* * * * *
PHYSIOLOGY OF THE SOUL, etc. By Martyn Paine, A.M., M.D., LL.D.,
etc. New York: Harper & Brothers.
Dr. Paine is a very venerable gentleman who is a remarkable
instance of intellectual activity and industry continued into a
very advanced age. We sincerely admire the boldness with which
he denounces materialism and professes his belief in the Bible.
We do not agree with him in his opinion that the Holy Scripture
requires us to reject the common theories of modern geologists, and
therefore regard his attempt at a scientific refutation of those
theories as something which we may leave to the consideration of
experts in geological science. That part of his work which has
most value in our eyes is the one which treats of the distinct
existence and spiritual nature of the soul, a subject which is
handled in an able and ingenious manner.
* * * * *
SPECTRUM ANALYSIS. Three Lectures by Profs. Roscoe, Huggins, and
Lockyer. New Haven, Conn.: Charles C. Chatfield & Co. 1872.
These lectures are very interesting, and give an excellent account
of what is perhaps the greatest real discovery of modern science;
also of its application to the determination of the chemical and
physical constitution of the sun and other celestial bodies. Their
authors are men eminent in the scientific world, who have specially
distinguished themselves by their researches in this particular
department of investigation.
* * * * *
REPORTS ON OBSERVATIONS OF THE TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE OF DECEMBER
22, 1870. Conducted under the Direction of Rear-Admiral B. F.
Sands, U.S.N., Superintendent of the U. S. Naval Observatory,
Washington, D. C. Washington: Government Printing Office.
1871.
These reports, like those on the eclipse of the preceding year in
the United States, noticed in THE CATHOLIC WORLD of April, 1870,
form a valuable contribution to the literature of solar science.
They are by Profs. Newcomb, Hall, Harkness, and Eastman, the first
of whom was stationed at Gibraltar, the rest at Syracuse. The
observations were in all cases somewhat interfered with by clouds,
which, however, broke away sufficiently at the moment of totality
to allow the skilful and practised observers to obtain many
interesting results. It is on such occasions that the qualities
required for a good practical astronomer are put to the most severe
test; a moment of nervousness may lose that for which he has spent
months in preparing. It hardly needs to be said that, in this
instance, the test was well sustained. Prof. Harkness considers
his conclusions as to the composition of the corona, spoken of in
our previous notice, to be borne out by his observations on this
occasion. The sun really seems to be the wearer of an iron crown.
The descriptions of the general appearance and effects of the
eclipse are of course the most interesting to unscientific readers.
* * * * *
HALF-HOUR RECREATIONS IN POPULAR SCIENCE. No. 1. Strange
Discoveries Respecting the Aurora, and Recent Solar
Researches. By Richard A. Proctor, B.A., F.R.A.S., author
of _The Sun_, _Other Worlds than Ours_, etc. Boston: Lee &
Shepard. New York: Lee, Shepard & Dillingham.
This, as implied in the title, is the first of a series of papers
on subjects of modern science by various well-known writers in
that department. It is expected to publish one such “recreation”
every month, at the price of twenty-five cents, which would seem
to be enough, or $2 50 a year. Enough, at least, it will be for
the speculations of such men as Mill, Spencer, Huxley, and Darwin,
who are promised among the “eminent European scientists” in the
prospectus. The present number, however, is a very good one, having
in it a great deal of information, some valuable suggestions, and
no humbug; and the next will be, perhaps, even better, as it will
contain an explanation of the wonderful modern discovery known as
“Spectrum Analysis.”
* * * * *
HALF-HOURS WITH MODERN SCIENTISTS--Huxley, Barker, Stirling,
Cope, Tyndall. New Haven, Conn.: Charles C. Chatfield & Co.
1871.
We have in this a publication somewhat similar to the _Half-Hour
Recreations_ noticed above; there are, however, five numbers
instead of one bound up together. It might be said of them, as
of other such, that their facts and strictly physical theories
are interesting, and their philosophical ones rather otherwise.
Professors Barker and Tyndall furnish the best papers of the five,
particularly the latter, who is a thoroughly scientific man,
having, besides his talent, the great advantage of prudence.
* * * * *
LEGENDS OF THE PATRIARCHS AND PROPHETS. By the Rev. S.
Baring-Gould, M.A. New York: Holt & Williams.
This collation of Rabbinical and Mohammedan legends has been made
with great judgment and taste. The legends are very curious and
interesting, some of them very poetic and beautiful. The book is
one of very great value to the scholar, and most entertaining and
amusing for the general reader.
* * * * *
CHRISTIAN FREE SCHOOLS. The Subject Discussed by the Rt. Rev.
Bernard J. McQuaid, D.D., Bishop of Rochester. At Rochester,
N. Y. (New York: For sale by the Catholic Publication
Society.)
We can only call attention to this important pamphlet at present,
hoping to take up the subject in earnest at a future time. The
pamphlet is replete with important testimonies of statesmen and
Protestant ministers, which make it very serviceable to those who
wish to write or speak on the same subject.
* * * * *
WALKS IN ROME. By Augustus J. C. Hare. New York: George Routledge
& Sons, 416 Broome Street. 1871.
This, in a qualified sense, is a readable and valuable guide to
the Eternal City. It contains a great deal of information about
the historic sites of old Rome, a good deal about the galleries
in which the intelligent Protestant visitor is supposed to be
interested, and something also about the restaurants, livery
stables, etc., to which it would be rash to assume that he is
indifferent. It likewise contains a good deal about the churches
and holy places, giving some interesting facts, together with
various remarks and stories characterized by the usual dense
ignorance and stupidity as to the dogmas and practices of the
Catholic Church which may be said to be the special glory of the
“reformed” Anglo-Saxon. The principal value of such commonplace
productions is that they suggest the necessity of having a good
manual on a somewhat similar plan for the use of people who really
want to see and understand Rome when they visit it.
* * * * *
TRAVELS IN ARABIA. Compiled and arranged by Bayard Taylor. New
York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1872.
This is another volume of the _Illustrated Library of Travel and
Exploration_ series, and is nearly all taken up with Palgrave’s
narrative of his travels in Arabia. It is well illustrated.
* * * * *
LITTLE JAKEY. By Mrs. S. H. De Kroyft. New York: Hurd & Houghton.
A simple story and a sad one of the short yet not uneventful life
of a little German, an inmate of the New York Institution for the
Blind. It is written in a pleasing and unaffected style.
* * * * *
AUNT FANNY’S PRESENT; or, The Book of Fairy Tales.
WOODLAND COTTAGE, and Other Tales. Philadelphia: Peter F.
Cunningham.
We recommend these neat little volumes with pleasure to those about
to select books for their children.
P. F. CUNNINGHAM announces as in press: _Marian Howard; or, Trials
and Triumphs_. _The Divine Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary_: Being
an Abridgment of the _Mystical City of God_. _Life of St. Augustin,
Doctor of the Universal Church._
THE CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. XV., No. 88.--JULY, 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.
THE PROGRESSIONISTS.
FROM THE GERMAN OF CONRAD VON BOLANDEN.
CHAPTER I.
THE WAGER
The balcony of the _palais_ Greifmann contains three persons who
together represent four million florins. It is not often that
one sees a group of this kind. The youthful landholder, Seraphin
Gerlach, is possessor of two millions. His is a quiet disposition;
very calm, and habitually thoughtful; innocence looks from his
clear eye upon the world; physically, he is a man of twenty-three;
morally, he is a child in purity; a profusion of rich brown hair
clusters about his head; his cheeks are ruddy, and an attractive
sweetness plays round his mouth.
The third million belongs to Carl Greifmann, the oldest member of
the group, head _pro tem._ of the banking-house of the same name.
This gentlemen is tall, slender, animated; his cheeks wear no
bloom; they are pale. His carriage is easy and smooth. Some levity
is visible in his features, which are delicate, but his keen,
glancing eye is disagreeable beside Seraphin’s pure soul-mirror.
Greifmann’s sister Louise, not an ordinary beauty, owns the fourth
million. She is seated between the young gentlemen; the folds of
her costly dress lie heaped around her; her hands are engaged with
a fan, and her eyes are sending electric glances into Gerlach’s
quick depths. But these flashing beams fail to kindle; they expire
before they penetrate far into those depths. His eyes are bright,
but they refuse to gleam with intenser fire. Strange, too, for a
twofold reason; first, because glances from the eyes of beautiful
women seldom suffer young men to remain cool; secondly, because a
paternal scheme designs that Louise shall be engaged and married to
the fire-proof hero.
Millions of money are rare; and should millions strive to form
an alliance, it is in conformity with the genius of every solid
banking establishment to view this as quite a natural tendency.
For eight days Mr. Seraphin has been on a visit at the _palais_
Greifmann, but as yet he has yielded no positive evidence of
intending to join his own couple of millions with the million of
Miss Louise.
Whilst Seraphin converses with the beautiful young lady, Carl
Greifmann cursorily examines a newspaper which a servant has just
brought him on a silver salver.
“Every age has its folly,” suddenly exclaims the banker. “In the
seventeenth century people were busy during thirty years cutting
one another’s throats for religion’s sake--or rather, in deference
to the pious hero of the faith from Sweden and his fugleman
Oxenstiern. In the eighteenth century, they decorated their heads
with periwigs and pigtails, making it a matter of conjecture
whether both ladies and gentlemen were not in the act of developing
themselves from monkeydom into manhood.
“Elections are the folly of our century. See here, my good fellow,
look what is written here: In three days the municipal elections
will come off throughout the country--in eighteen days the election
of delegates. For eighteen days the whole country is to labor in
election throes. Every man twenty-one years of age, having a wife
and a homestead, is to be employed in rooting from out the soil of
party councilmen, mayors, and deputies.
“And during the period these rooters not unfrequently get at
loggerheads. Some are in favor of Streichein the miller, because
Streichein has lavishly greased their palms; others insist upon
re-electing Leimer the manufacturer, because Leimer threatens a
reduction of wages if they refuse to keep him in the honorable
position. In the heat of dispute, quite a storm of oaths and ugly
epithets, yes, and of blows too, rages, and many is the voter who
retires from the scene of action with a bloody head. The beer-shops
are the chief battle-fields for this sort of skirmishing. Here,
zealous voters swill down hogsheads of beer: brewers drive a brisk
trade during elections. But you must not think, Seraphin, that
these absurd election scenes are confined to cities. In rural
districts the game is conducted with no less interest and fury.
There is a village not far away, where a corpulent ploughman set
his mind on becoming mayor. What does he, to get the reins of
village government into his great fat fist? Two days previous to
the election he butchers three fatted hogs, has several hundred
ringlets of sausage made, gets ready his pots and pans for cooking
and roasting, and then advertises: eating and drinking _ad libitum_
and _gratis_ for every voter wiping to aid him to ascend the
mayor’s throne. He obtained his object.
“Now, I put the question to you Seraphin, is not this sort of
election jugglery far more ridiculous and disgusting than the most
preposterous periwigs of the last century?”
“Ignorance and passion may occasion the abuse of the best
institutions,” answered the double millionaire. “However, if beer
and pork determine the choice of councilmen and mayors, voters have
no right to complain of misrule. It would be most disastrous to the
state, I should think, were such corrupt means to decide also the
election of the deputies of our legislative assembly.”
The banker smiled.
“The self-same manœuvring, only on a larger scale,” replied
he. “Of course, in this instance, petty jealousies disappear.
Streichein the miller and Leimer the manufacturer make concessions
in the interest of the common party. All stand shoulder to shoulder
in the cause of _progress_ against Ultramontanes and democrats, who
in these days have begun to be troublesome.
“Whilst at municipal elections office-seekers employed money and
position for furthering their personal aims, at deputy elections
_progress_ men cast their means into a common cauldron, from which
the mob are fed and made to drink in order to stimulate them with
the spirit of _progress_ for the coming election. At bottom it
amounts to the same--the stupefaction of the multitude, the rule of
a minority, in which, however, all consider themselves as having
part, the folly of the nineteenth century.”
“This is an unhealthy condition of things, which gives reason
to fear the corruption of the whole body politic,” remarked the
landholder with seriousness. “The seats of the legislative chamber
should be filled not through bribery and deception of the masses,
nor through party passion, but through a right appreciation of the
qualifications that fit a man for the office of deputy.”
“I ask your pardon, my dear friend,” interposed the banker with
a laugh. “Being reared by a mother having a rigorous faith has
prompted you to speak thus, not acquaintance with the spirit of
the age. Right appreciation! Heavens, what _naïveté_! Are you not
aware that _progress_, the autocrat of our times, follows a fixed,
unchanging programme? It matters not whether Tom or Dick occupies
the cushions of the legislative hall; the main point is to wear
the color of _progress_, and for this no special qualifications
are needed. I will give you an illustration of the way in which
these things work. Let us suppose that every member is provided
with a trumpet which he takes with him to the assembly. To blow
this trumpet neither skill, nor quick perception, nor experience,
nor knowledge--neither of these qualifications is necessary. Now,
we will suppose these gentlemen assembled in the great hall where
the destinies of the country are decided; should abuses need
correction, should legislation for church or state be required,
they have only to blow the trumpet of _progress_. The trumpet’s
tone invariably accords with the spirit of progress, for it has
been attuned to it. Should it happen that at a final vote upon a
measure the trumpets bray loudly enough to drown the opposition
of democrats and Ultramontanes, the matter is settled, the law is
passed, the question is decided.”
“Evidently you exaggerate!” said Seraphin with a shake of the head.
“Your illustration beats the enchanted horn of the fable. Do not
you think so, Miss Louise?”
“Brother’s trumpet story is rather odd, ’tis true, yet I believe
that at bottom such is really the state of things.”
“The instrument in question is objectionable in your opinion, my
friend, only because you still bear about you the narrow conscience
of an age long since buried. As you never spend more than two
short winter months in the city, where alone the life-pulse of
our century can be felt beating, you remain unacquainted with the
present and its spirit. The rest of the year you pass in riding
about on your lands, suffering yourself to be impressed by the
stern rigor of nature’s laws, and concluding that human society
harmonizes in the same manner with the behests of fixed principles.
I shall have to brush you up a little. I shall have to let you into
the mysteries of _progress_, so that you may cease groping like a
blind man in the noonday of enlightenment. Above all, let us have
no narrow-mindedness, no scrupulosity, I beg of you. Whosoever
nowadays walks the grass-grown paths of rigorism is a doomed man.”
Whilst he was saying this, a smile was on the banker’s countenance.
Seraphin mused in silence on the meaning and purpose of his
extraordinary language.
“Look down the street, if you please,” continued Carl Greifmann.
“Do you observe yon dark mass just passing under the gas-lamp?”
“I notice a pretty corpulent gentleman,” answered Seraphin.
“The corpulent gentleman is Mr. Hans Shund, formerly treasurer
of this city,” explained Greifmann. “Many years ago, Mr. Shund
put his hand into the public treasury, was detected, removed for
dishonesty, and imprisoned for five years. When set at liberty,
the ex-treasurer made the loaning of money on interest a source
of revenue. He conducted this business with shrewdness, ruined
many a family that needed money and in its necessity applied to
him, and became rich. Shund the usurer is known to all the town,
despised and hated by everybody. Even the dogs cannot endure the
odor of usury that hangs about him; just see--all the dogs bark at
him. Shund is moreover an extravagant admirer of the gentler sex.
All the town is aware that this Jack Falstaff contributes largely
to the scandal that is afloat. The pious go so far as to declare
that the gallant Shund will be burned and roasted in hell for all
eternity for not respecting the sixth commandment. Considered in
the light of the time honored morality of Old Franconia, Shund,
the thief, the usurer and adulterer, is a low, good-for-nothing
scoundrel, no question about it. But in the light of the indulgent
spirit of the times, no more can be said than that he has his
foibles. He is about to pass by on the other side, and, as a
well-bred man, will salute us.”
Seraphin had attentively observed the man thus characterized, but
with the feelings with which one views an ugly blotch, a dirty page
in the record of humanity.
Mr. Shund lowered his hat, his neck and back, with oriental
ceremoniousness in presence of the millions on the balcony. Carl
acknowledged the salute, and even Louise returned it with a
friendly inclination of the head.
The landholder, on the contrary, was cold, and felt hurt at
Greifmann’s bowing to a fellow whom he had just described as a
scoundrel. That Louise, too, should condescend to smile to a thief,
swindler, usurer, and immoral wretch! In his opinion, Louise should
have followed the dictates of a noble womanhood, and have looked
with honest pity on the scapegrace. She, on the contrary, greeted
the bad man as though he were respectable, and this conduct wounded
the young man’s feelings.
“Apropos of Hans Shund, I will take occasion to convince you of
the correctness of my statements,” said Carl Greifmann. “Three
days hence, the municipal election is to come off. Mr. Shund is to
be elected mayor. And when the election of deputies takes place,
this same Shund will command enough of the confidence and esteem
of his fellow-citizens to be elected to the legislative assembly,
thief and usurer though he be. You will then, I trust, learn to
understand that the might of progress is far removed from the
bigotry that would subject a man’s qualifications to a microscopic
examination. The enlarged and liberal principles prevailing in
secular concerns are opposed to the intolerance that would insist
on knowing something of an able man’s antecedents before consenting
to make use of him. All that Shund will have to do will be to
fall in under the glorious banner of the spirit of the age; his
voting trumpet will be given him; and forthwith he will turn out a
finished mayor and deputy. Do you not admire the power and stretch
of _liberalism_?”
“I certainly do admire your faculty for making up plausible
stories,” answered Seraphin.
“Plausible stories? Not at all! Downright earnest, every word of
it. Hans Shund, take my word for it, will be elected mayor and
member of the assembly.”
“In that event,” replied the landholder, “Shund’s disreputable
antecedents and disgusting conduct at present must be altogether a
secret to his constituents.”
“Again you are mistaken, my dear friend. This remark proceeds from
your want of acquaintance with the genius of our times. This city
has thirty thousand inhabitants. Every adult among them has heard
of Hans Shund the thief, usurer, and companion of harlots. And
I assure you that not a voter, not a progressive member of our
community, thinks himself doing what is at all reprehensible by
conferring dignity and trust on Hans Shund. You have no idea how
comprehensive is the soul of liberalism.”
“Let us quit a subject that appears to me impossible, nay, even
unnatural,” said Gerlach.
“No, no; for this very reason you need to be convinced,” insisted
the banker with earnestness. “My prospective--but hold--I was
almost guilty of a want of delicacy. No matter, my _actual_ friend,
landholder and millionaire, must be made see with his eyes and
touch with his fingers what marvels _progress_ can effect. Let us
make a bet: Eighteen days from now Hans Shund will be mayor and
member for this city. I shall stake ten thousand florins. You may
put in the pair of bays that won the best prizes at the last races.”
Seraphin hesitated.
“Come on!” urged the banker. “Since you refuse to believe my
assertions, let us make a bet. May be you consider my stakes too
small against yours? Very well, I will say twenty thousand florins.”
“You will be the loser, Greifmann! Your statements are too
unreasonable.”
“Never mind; if I lose, you will be the winner. Do you take me up?”
“Pshaw, Carl! you are too sure,” said Louise reproachfully.
“My feeling so sure is what makes me eager to win the finest pair
of horses I ever saw. Is it possible that you are a coward?”
The landholder’s face reddened. He put his right hand in the
banker’s. “My dear fellow,” exclaimed he jubilantly, “I have just
driven a splendid bargain. To convince you of the entire fairness
of the transaction, you are to be present at the manipulation
that is to decide. Even though you lose the horses, your gain is
incalculable, for it consists in nothing less than being convinced
of the wonderful nature and of the omnipotence of progress. I
repeat, then, that, wherever progress reigns, the elections are the
supreme folly of the nineteenth century; for in reality there is no
electing; but what progress decrees, that is fulfilled.”
CHAPTER II.
THE LEADERS.
The banker was seated at his office table working for his chance
in the wager with the industry of a thorough business man. Whilst
he was engaged in writing notes, a smile indicative of certainty
of success lit up his countenance; for he was thoroughly familiar
with the figures that entered into his calculations, and, withal,
Hans Shund invested with offices and dignity could not but strike
him as a comical anomaly. “Happy thought! My father travels half
of the globe; many wonderful things come under his observation,
no doubt, but the greatest of all prodigies is to be witnessed
right here: Hans Shund, the thief, swindler, usurer, wanton--mayor
and law-maker! And it is the venerable sire _Progress_ that alone
could have begotten the prodigy of a Hans Shund invested with
honors. My Lord Progress is therefore himself a prodigy--a very
extraordinary offspring of the human mind, the culminating point
of enlightenment. Admitting humanity to be ten thousand million
years old, or even more, as the most learned of scientific men have
accurately calculated it, during this rather long series of years
nature never produced a marvel that might presume to claim rank
with progress. Progress is the acme of human culture--about this
there can be no question. Yes, indeed, _the acme_.” And he finished
the last word in the last note. “Humanity will therefore have to
face about and begin again at the beginning; for after progress
nothing else is possible.” He rang his bell.
“Take these three notes to their respective addresses immediately,”
said he to the servant who had answered the ring. Greifmann
stepped into the front office, and gave an order to the cashier.
Returning to his own cabinet, he locked the door that opened into
the front office. He then examined several iron safes, the modest
and smooth polish of which suggested neither the hardness of their
iron nature nor the splendor of their treasures.
“Gold or paper?” said the banker to himself. After some indecision,
he opened the second of the safes. This he effected by touching
several concealed springs, using various keys, and finally shoving
back a huge bolt by means of a very small blade. He drew out twenty
packages of paper, and laid them in two rows on the table. He undid
the tape encircling the packages, and then it appeared that every
leaf of both rows was a five-hundred florin banknote. The banker
had exposed a considerable sum on the table. A sudden thought
caused him to smile, and he shoved the banknotes where they came
more prominently into view.
The blooming double millionaire entered.
“Sit down a moment, friend Seraphin, and listen to a short account
of my scheme. I have said before that our city is prospering and
growing under the benign sceptre of progress. The powers and honors
of the sceptre are portioned among three leaders. Everything is
directed and conducted by them--of course, in harmony with the
spirit of the times. I have summoned the aforesaid magnates to
appear. That the business may be despatched with a comfortable
degree of expedition, the time when the visit is expected has
been designated in each note; and those gentlemen are punctual in
all matters connected with money and the bank. You can enter this
little apartment next to us, and by leaving the door open hear the
conversation. The mightiest of the corypheuses is Schwefel, the
straw-hat manufacturer. This potentate resides at a three-minutes
walk from here, and can put in an appearance at any time.”
“I am on tiptoe!” said Gerlach. “You promise what is so utterly
incredible, that the things you are preparing to reveal appear to
me like adventures belonging to another world.”
“To another world!--quite right, my dear fellow! I am indeed about
to display to your astounded eyes some wonders of the world of
progress that hitherto have been entirely unknown to you. Within
eighteen days you shall, under my tutorship, receive useful and
thorough instruction. This promise I can make you, as we are
just in face of the elections, a time when minds put aside their
disguises, when they not unfrequently shock one another, and when
many secrets come to light!”
“You put me under many obligations!”
“Only doing my duty, my most esteemed! We are both aware that,
according to the wishes of parents and the desired inclinations
of parties known, our respective millions are to approach each
other in closer relationship. To do a relative of mine _in spe_ a
favor, gives me unspeakable satisfaction. I shall proceed with my
course of instruction. See here! Every one of these twenty packages
contains twenty five-hundred florin banknotes. Consequently, both
rows contain just two hundred thousand florins--an imposing sum
assuredly, and, for the purpose of being imposing, the two hundred
thousand have been laid upon this table. Explanation: the mightiest
of the spirits of progress is--Money.
“All forces, all sympathies, revolve about money as the heavenly
bodies revolve about the sun. For this reason the mere proximity
of a considerable sum of money acts upon every man of progress
like a current of electricity: it carries him away, it intoxicates
his senses. The leaders whom I have invited will at once notice
the collection of five-hundred florin notes: in the rapidity
of calculating, they will overestimate the amount, and obtain
impressions in proportion, somewhat like the Jews that prostrated
themselves in the dust in adoration of the golden calf. As for me,
my dear fellow, I shall carry on my operations in the auspicious
presence of this power of two hundred thousands. Such a display
of power will produce in the leaders a frame of mind made up of
veneration, worship, and unconditional submissiveness. Every word
of mine will proceed authoritatively from the golden mouth of the
two hundred thousands, and my proposals it will be impossible for
them to reject. But listen! The door of the ante-room is being
opened. The mightiest is approaching. Go in quick.” He pressed the
spring of a concealed door, and Seraphin disappeared.
When the straw-hat manufacturer entered, the banker was sitting
before the banknotes apparently absorbed in intricate calculations.
“Ah Mr. Schwefel! pardon the liberty I have taken of sending for
you. The pressure of business,” motioning significantly towards the
banknotes, “has made it impossible for me to call upon you.”
“No trouble, Mr. Greifmann, no trouble whatever!” rejoined the
manufacturer with profound bows.
“Have the goodness to take a seat!” And he drew an arm-chair quite
near to where the money lay displayed. Schwefel perceived they were
five-hundreds, estimated the amount of the pile in a few rapid
glances, and felt secret shudderings of awe passing through his
person.
“The cause of my asking you in is a business matter of some
magnitude,” began the banker. “There is a house in Vienna with
which we stand in friendly relations, and which has very extensive
connections in Hungary. The gentlemen of this house have contracts
for furnishing large orders of straw hats destined mostly for
Hungary, and they wish to know whether they can obtain favorable
terms of purchase at the manufactories of this country. It is a
business matter involving a great deal of money. Their confidence
in the friendly interest of our firm, and in our thorough
acquaintance with local circumstances, has encouraged them to apply
to us for an accurate report upon this subject. They intimate,
moreover, that they desire to enter into negotiations with none but
solid establishments, and for this reason are supposed to be guided
by our judgment. As you are aware, this country has a goodly number
of straw-hat manufactories. I would feel inclined, however, as far
as it may be in my power, to give your establishment the advantage
of our recommendation, and would therefore like to get from you a
written list of fixed prices of all the various sorts.”
“I am, indeed, under many obligations to you, Mr. Greifmann,
for your kind consideration,” said the manufacturer, nodding
repeatedly. “Your own experience can testify to the durability of
my work, and I shall give the most favorable rates possible.”
“No doubt,” rejoined the banker with haughty reserve. “You must
not forget that the straw-hat business is out of our line. It is
incumbent on us, however, to oblige a friendly house. I shall
therefore make a similar proposal to two other large manufactories,
and, after consulting with men of experience in this branch,
shall give the house in Vienna the advice we consider most to its
interest, that is, shall recommend the establishment most worthy of
recommendation.”
Mr. Schwefel’s excited countenance became somewhat lengthy.
“You should not fail of an acceptable acknowledgment from me, were
you to do me the favor of recommending my goods,” explained the
manufacturer.
The banker’s coldness was not in the slightest degree altered by
the implied bribe. He appeared not even to have noticed it. “It
is also my desire to be able to recommend you,” said he curtly,
carelessly taking up a package of the banknotes and playing with
ten thousand florins as if they were so many valueless scraps of
paper. “Well, we are on the eve of the election,” remarked he
ingenuously. “Have you fixed upon a magistrate and mayor?”
“All in order, thank you, Mr. Greifmann!”
“And are you quite sure of the order?”
“Yes; for we are well organized, Mr. Greifmann. If it interests
you, I will consider it as an honor to be allowed to send you a
list of the candidates.”
“I hope you have not passed over ex-treasurer Shund?”
This question took Mr. Schwefel by surprise, and a peculiar smile
played on his features.
“The world is and ever will be ungrateful,” continued the banker,
as though he did not notice the astonishment of the manufacturer.
“I could hardly think of an abler and more sterling character for
the office of mayor of the city than Mr. Shund. Our corporation
is considerably in debt. Mr. Shund is known to be an accurate
financier, and an economical householder. We just now need for
the administration of our city household a mayor that understands
reckoning closely, and that will curtail unnecessary expenses, so
as to do away with the yearly increasing deficit in the budget.
Moreover, Mr. Shund is a noble character; for he is always ready to
aid those who are in want of money--on interest, of course. Then,
again, he knows law, and we very much want a lawyer at the head of
our city government. In short, the interests of this corporation
require that Mr. Shund be chosen chief magistrate. It is a
subject of wonder to me that progress, usually so clear-sighted,
has heretofore passed Mr. Shund by, despite his numerous
qualifications. Abilities should be called into requisition for
the public weal. To be candid, Mr. Schwefel, nothing disgusts me
so much as the slighting of great ability,” concluded the banker
contemptuously.
“Are you acquainted with Shund’s past career?” asked the leader
diffidently.
“Why, yes! Mr. Shund once put his hand in the wrong drawer, but
that was a long time ago. Whosoever amongst you is innocent, let
him cast the first stone at him. Besides, Shund has made good his
fault by restoring what he filched. He has even atoned for the
momentary weakness by five years of imprisonment.”
“’Tis true; but Shund’s theft and imprisonment are still very fresh
in people’s memory,” said Schwefel. “Shund is notorious, moreover,
as a hard-hearted usurer. He has gotten rich through shrewd money
speculations, but he has also brought several families to utter
ruin. The indignation of the whole city is excited against the
usurer; and, finally, Shund indulges a certain filthy passion with
such effrontery and barefacedness that every respectable female
cannot but blush at being near him. These characteristics were
unknown to you, Mr. Greifmann; for you too will not hesitate an
instant to admit that a man of such low practices must never fill a
public office.”
“I do not understand you, and I am surprised!” said the
millionaire. “You call Shund a usurer, and you say that the
indignation of the whole town is upon him. Might I request from you
the definition of a usurer?”
“They are commonly called usurers who put out money at exorbitant,
illegal interest.”
“You forget, my dear Mr. Schwefel, that speculation is no longer
confined to the five per cent. rate. A correct insight into the
circumstances of the times has induced our legislature to leave the
rate of interest altogether free. Consequently, a usurer has gotten
to be an impossibility. Were Shund to ask fifty per cent. and more,
he would be entitled to it.”
“That is so; for the moment I had overlooked the existence of
the law,” said the manufacturer, somewhat humiliated. “Yet I
have not told you all concerning the usurer. Beasts of prey and
vampires inspire an involuntary disgust or fear. Nobody could find
pleasure in meeting a hungry wolf, or in having his blood sucked
by a vampire. The usurer is both vampire and wolf. He hankers to
suck the very marrow from the bones of those who in financial
straits have recourse to him. When an embarrassed person borrows
from him, that person is obliged to mortgage twice the amount that
he actually receives. The usurer is a heartless strangler, an
insatiable glutton. He is perpetually goaded on by covetousness
to work the material ruin of others, only so that the ruin of his
neighbor may benefit himself. In short, the usurer is a monster so
frightful, a brute so devoid of conscience, that the very sight of
him excites horror and disgust. Just such a monster is Shund in the
eyes of all who know him--and the whole city knows him. Hence the
man is the object of general aversion.”
“Why, this is still worse, still more astonishing!” rejoined the
millionaire with animation. “I thought our city enlightened. I
should have expected from the intelligence and judgment of our
citizens that they would have deferred neither to the sickly
sentimentalism of a bigoted morality nor to the absurdity of
obsolete dogmas. If your description of the usurer, which might
at least be styled poetico-religious, is an expression of the
prevailing spirit of this city, I shall certainly have to lower my
estimate of its intelligence and culture.”
The leader hastened to correct the misunderstanding.
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Greifmann! You may rest assured that we
can boast all the various conquests made by modern advancement.
Religious enthusiasm and foolish credulity are poisonous plants
that superannuated devotees are perhaps still continuing to
cultivate here and there in pots, but which the soil will no
longer produce in the open air. The sort of education prevailing
hereabout is that which has freed itself from hereditary religious
prejudices. Our town is blessed with all the benefits of progress,
with liberty of thought, and freedom from the thraldom of a dark,
designing priesthood.”
“How comes it, then, that a man is an object of contempt for acting
in accordance with the principles of this much lauded progress?”
asked the millionaire, with unexpected sarcasm. “We are indebted to
progress for the abolition of a legal rate of interest. Shund takes
advantage of this conquest, and for doing so citizens who boast of
being progressive look upon him with aversion. A further triumph
secured by progress is freedom from the tyranny of dogmas and the
tortures of a conscience created by a contracted morality. This
beautiful fruit of the tree of enlightened knowledge Shund partakes
of and enjoys; and for this he has the distinction of passing for
a vampire. And because he displays the spirit of an energetic
business man, because his capacity for speculating occasionally
overwhelms blockheads and dunces, he is decried as a ravenous
wolf. It is sad! If your statements are correct, Mr. Schwefel, our
city ought not to boast of being progressive. Its citizens are
still groping in the midnight darkness of religious superstition,
scarcely even united with modern intellectual advancement. And
to me the consciousness is most uncomfortable of breathing an
atmosphere poisoned by the decaying remnants of an age long since
buried.”
“My own personal views accord with yours,” protested Schwefel
candidly. “The subversion of the antiquated, absurd articles of
faith and moral precept necessarily entails the abrogation of the
consequences that flow from them for public life. For centuries the
cross was a symbol of dignity, and the doctrine of the Crucified
resulted in holiness. Paganism, on the contrary, looked upon the
gospel as foolishness, as a hallucination, and upon the cross as a
sign of shame. I belong to the classic ranks, and so do millions
like myself--among them Mr. Shund. Viewed in the light of progress,
Shund is neither a vampire nor a wolf; at the worst, he is merely
an ill-used business man. They who suffer themselves to be
humbugged and fleeced by him have their own stupidity to thank for
it. This exposition will convince you that I stand on a level with
yourself in the matter of advanced enlightenment. Nevertheless,
you overlook, Mr. Greifmann, that, so far as the masses of the
people are concerned, reverence for the cross and the holiness of
its doctrines continue to prevail. The acquisitions of progress
are not yet generally diffused. The mines of modern intellectual
culture are being provisionally worked by a select number of
independent, bold natures. The multitude, on the other hand, still
continue folding about them the winding-sheet of Christianity.
The views, customs, principles, and judgments of men are as yet
widely controlled by Christian elements. Our city does homage to
progress, pretty nearly, however, in the manner of a blind man that
discourses of colors.”
TO BE CONTINUED.
A HISTORY OF THE GOTHIC REVIVAL IN ENGLAND.[103]
We purpose giving in this article a sketch, as far as our limited
space will allow, of a costly and beautiful work published in
London under the above title. Many of our readers will perhaps
turn willingly to the history of a movement which is not without
its echo in America, and which the future bids fair to foster
and popularize wherever the Anglo-Saxon tongue and spirit have
sway. A work treating of such very modern and recent events in
the history of art is not easily reducible to salient divisions;
yet, having to be brief, we must necessarily endeavor to be clear,
and we will, therefore, pick out a few prominent ideas, which, we
hope, will be more interesting to the general reader than the mass
of technical detail in which Eastlake’s book naturally (and very
properly) abounds. We have also to promise that we wish only to
state and quote facts, or such anecdotes and professional opinions
as give our history an individual interest, not to drag up the
vexed questions which have made the venerable words “Gothic” and
“mediæval” signs of warfare and contradiction. This is a pure
chronicle of accomplished facts, and addresses itself only to such
as already lean to the æsthetic principles of those “dark ages”
of spiritual light which gave us along with Monasticism the great
conservative power. Feudalism--the progressive power, the check
on royal autocracy, the guardian of Magna Charta, the parent of
constitutional liberty.
Passing by the history and literature of Gothic art since its decay
in the sixteenth to its full revival in the nineteenth century,
we are attracted by the subject of its symbolism, over which such
fierce and sometimes ludicrous battles have been fought; but,
even before the symbolism of the art, its very origin was made a
subject of curious dispute. For instance, the author of this work
says: “In the beginning of this century, various arguments were
rife. The style was Gothic; it was Saracenic; it had been brought
to England by the crusaders; it had been invented by the Moors in
Spain; it might be traced to the pyramids of Egypt. One ingenious
theorist endeavored to reconcile all opinions in his comprehensive
hypothesis that the style of architecture which we call cathedral
or monastic Gothic was manifestly a corruption of the sacred
architecture of the Greeks and Romans, by a mixture of the Moorish
or Saracenesque, which is formed out of a combination of Egyptian,
Persian, and Hindoo!”
Of symbolism, and the intimate union of the religious and artistic
spirit, Eastlake says: “In modern days, we have unconsciously drawn
a distinction between religious art and popular art. In the middle
ages, they were thoroughly blended;” but he goes on to infer from
this blending that, according to the old adage, “Familiarity breeds
contempt,” there was no reverential and spiritual idea whatever
embodied in the work of the mediæval carvers and architects. We,
by the light of our faith, the heirloom of the very times we
speak of, believe him to be either unconsciously prejudiced or
mistaken. He seems to scout the idea of the deviation of the line
of the chancel from the line of the nave, an occasional feature
in some old churches (for instance, the Abbey of St. Denys, near
Paris), being a symbol of the inclination of Our Lord’s head upon
the cross. It is but a tradition, a pious belief, it is true; but
why throw doubt upon it? If it really was meant as a symbol, he
asks why was it not so in all churches? And if the triplet window
typified the Trinity, why were two or five light windows used?
Simply because the symbol was optional, yet none the less a symbol.
From the old symbolism of the forgotten artists of past days,
we come to the miscalled “Pre-Raphaelite” naturalism of modern
architects. Ruskin with all his merits, of which we will speak more
fully further on, had an exaggerated tendency to find in carving an
exact copy from nature, and to condemn anything in that line that
did not absolutely reproduce some organic form. Eastlake himself
expresses his own views on the subject in the following words: “In
the gable [of St. Finbar’s, Cork], ... a seated figure of Christ
is to occupy a vesica-shaped panel, with angels censing on each
side. Of these works, executed by Mr. Thomas Nicholls from Mr.
Burges’ design, it is not too much to say that no finer examples of
decorative sculpture have been produced during the Revival. They
exactly represent that intermediate condition between natural form
and abstract idealism which is the essence of mediæval, and indeed
of all noble art.” From this subject we are led to the kindred one
of the contrast between old work and new. Our author repeatedly
returns to this point. Here are some amusing sayings about the
deplorable ‘tameness’ of modern sculpture: “The Roman Catholic
churches erected at this period (1850) had one decided advantage
over those designed for the Establishment, viz., the richness of
their interiors.... A tamely carved reredos, generally arranged
in panels to hold the Ten Commandments (!), a group of sedilia
and a piscina, with perhaps a few empty inches in the clerestory,
were, as a rule, all the internal features which distinguished an
Anglican church from a meeting-house.” So that wherever art is
concerned, an unconscious tribute is naturally offered to the
church! Again and again, our author vigorously denounces the dead
imitation of living and forcible models, which is in the spirit
of a “Chinese engraver who should undertake to imitate, line for
line and spot for spot, a damaged print.” “Every one,” he says,
“who has studied the principles of mediæval art, knows how much
its character and _vitality_ depend upon the essential element
of decorative sculpture, of the spirit of what Ruskin has called
‘noble grotesque,’ in its nervous types of animal life and vigorous
conventionalism of vegetable form.... To copy line for line, even
when sound and fresh from the chisel, and yet preserve the spirit
of the original, would have been difficult in the best ages of art.
The mediæval sculptors never--to use an artistic phrase--repeated
themselves. If the conditions of their work required a certain
degree of uniformity in design, they took care to aim at the
spirit, but not the letter, of symmetry.... They took the birds of
the air and the flowers of the field for their study, but seemed
to know instinctively the true secret of all decorative art, which
lies in the suggestion and symbolism, rather than the presumptuous
illustration of natural form.” “Since,” continues Eastlake, “we
cannot ‘restore’ the thoughts and stamp of the artists of old, we
should the more sedulously watch what we have left of such traces,
and prop up and secure that which a little common care might
long preserve to us.” Of an unfortunate modern carver, he says:
“Impartial critics who compare the mediæval carving with its modern
substitute will probably consider the neat finish and anatomical
correctness of Westmacott’s groups a poor exchange for the earnest
and vigorous, though somewhat rude, treatment of the old design.
King George’s loyal subjects thought they knew better than those of
King Edward; ... their work was not clever; it was not interesting;
it was not lifelike; it was not humorous; it was not even ugly
after a good honest fashion--it was deplorably and hopelessly
_mean_.... All these accidents combine not only to deprive the
building of scale, but to give it a cold and _machine-made_ look.
In a far different spirit the mediæval designers worked.... Fifty
years ago, ... there was naturalistic carving and there was
ornamental carving, but the noble _abstractive_ treatment which
should find a middle place between them, and which was one of the
glories of ancient art, had still to be revived.” In whimsical
pursuance of his subject, he says elsewhere that before Pugin’s
days “an architect would no more have thought of introducing a
porch on the south aisle which had not its counterpart on the
north, than he would have dared to wear a coat of which the right
sleeve was longer than the left.” Ruskin, too, seems to have
thought a _coat_ a very effective instrument of illustration: here
is his version of the likeness between the tailor’s and the modern
architect’s occupations. “A day never passes,” he says in his
_Seven Lamps of Architecture_, “without our hearing our English
architects called upon to be original, and to invent a new style;
about as sensible and necessary an exhortation as to ask of a man
who has never had rags enough on his back to keep out the cold
to invent a new mode of cutting a coat. Give him a whole coat
first, and let him concern himself about the fashion afterwards.
We want no new style of architecture. Who wants a new style of
painting or of sculpture? But we want _some_ style.” To return to
Eastlake’s strongly accentuated views of mediæval carving: he has
summed them up in one sentence, as terse and vigorous as the old
sculptural handiwork itself. “During the Revival,” he says, “it
took a decade of years to teach workmen to carve carefully. It
took another to get them to carve simply. We may expect more than
a third to elapse before they have learnt to carve nobly.” With
one more quotation which is too humorous to miss, we will close
this part of the history of the Revival: “There is no want of
manipulative skill or of imitative ability, but from some cause or
another there is a great want of spirit in the present carver’s
work. The mediæval sculptor, with half the care and less than half
the finish now bestowed on such details, managed to throw life and
vigor into the capitals and panel subjects that grew beneath his
chisel. The ‘angel choir’ at Lincoln is rudely executed compared
with many a modern bas-relief, but the features of the winged
minstrels are radiant with celestial happiness. There are figures
of kings crumbling into dust in the niches of Exeter Cathedral
which retain even now a dignity of attitude and lordly grace which
no ‘restoration’ is likely to revive. Our nineteenth century angels
look like _demure Bible-readers, somewhat too conscious of their
piety to be interesting_. Our nineteenth century monarchs seem (in
stone, at least) _very well-to-do pleasant gentlemen_, but are
scarcely of a heroic type. The roses and lilies, the maple foliage
and forked spleenwort, with which we crown our pillars or deck
our cornices, are cut with wonderful precision and neatness, but
somehow they miss the charm of old-world handicraft.... The truth
is, that in the apparent imperfections of some arts lies the real
secret of their excellence. For instance, the superior _quality_ of
color which long distinguished old (stained) glass from new was due
in a great measure to its streakiness and irregularity of tint.”
We would here submit to the talented and enthusiastic author that
the _spirit_ of ancient art, the loss of which he so vehemently
deplores, is intimately connected with that Catholic symbolism he
so cavalierly dismisses. The Reformation took away the reality
of faith from the souls of modern Christians; it could not but
weaken likewise the realization of faith which for so many ages had
inspired the hands of Christian artists. A noble orator, who is
as much an artist in soul as he is a priest in fact, and in whom
Ireland and Irish America claim equal pride, said from the pulpit
very recently, and in a church of New York, that animal painting,
the lowest of the products of brush or pencil, was hardly known in
its present development before the famous Reformation. The first
painter who took to this earthy style was a German Lutheran in
Naples, an emissary of the growing intellectual “disfranchisement”
of the sixteenth century; and his fellow-artists, who hitherto had
never looked lower than heaven itself for their models, would not
speak to him, nor recognize him as one of themselves, saying in a
tone of contempt, “There goes the man who paints cows and horses!”
As the old spirit died away, the forms of art grew downwards
more and more till we were reduced to roots and herbs, onions
and cabbages, and foaming tankards of beer, and were expected to
find for these some words of praise on account of their fidelity
(shall we not rather say _servility_?) to nature. Even now, the
correct texture and pattern of a bed-quilt or a woman’s dress is
a thing strained after by modern painters of supposed merit. In
the face of this three hundred years old debasement of art, who
could expect to revive the spirit of mediæval carving without first
reviving that of mediæval faith? And here we are naturally led to
speak of Pugin, the great apostle of the Gothic Revival, the most
mediæval-spirited of all its known leaders; the man whose art, in
fact, was the instrument of his conversion. Although Eastlake tends
towards depreciating the part and influence of our religion in this
artistic crisis, and although, as he most truly and fairly says,
our ceremonial, like our faith, can associate itself indifferently
to any style, and therefore is sovereignly independent of any, yet
it remains no less true that the Catholic Church is so exclusively
the real patroness of art that no artist-soul can fail to be
attracted and won by her. Overbeck, the great German painter, who
established in Rome a school that revives and rivals the glories of
Perugino, Giotto, Mantegna, and Fra Angelico, was an artist before
he became a Catholic, but he found himself unable to teach his
art-ideal without the spirit which of old had created that ideal.
So it was with Pugin.
France and England have an equal claim to the honor of being the
mother of the noblest, most earnest, truest artist, who has shared
the vicissitudes and anxieties of our modern (and more beneficial)
Renaissance. His father was a French refugee, an architect of
great merit, who had been associated in the early part of this
century with Nash, the reigning architect of that time. Pugin’s
youth seems to have been very adventurous; at all events, it shows
the irrepressible energy of his nature. He was an enthusiast of
the noblest type; his life was influenced by the purest motives.
So, with all his genius and, as far as the educated public was
concerned, his popularity, he was not overburdened with this
world’s goods. His work on _Contrasts_ (of which we have had the
privilege of seeing some of the original illustrations in etching)
is thus noticed by Eastlake:
“In 1836, Pugin published his celebrated _Contrasts_--a pungent
satire on modern architecture as compared with that of the middle
ages. The illustrations by himself afford evidence not only
of great artistic power, but of a keen sense of humor. To the
circulation of this work, we may attribute the care and jealousy
with which our ancient churches and cathedrals have since been
protected and kept in repair. In estimating the effect which
Pugin’s efforts, both as an artist and as an author, produced
on the Gothic Revival, the only danger lies in the possibility
of overrating their worth. The man whose name was for at least
a quarter of a century a household word in every house where
ancient art was loved and appreciated--who fanned into a flame
the smouldering fire of ecclesiastical sentiment--whose very
faith was pledged to mediæval tradition--such a writer and such
an architect will not easily be forgotten so long as the æsthetic
principles which he advocated are recognized and maintained....
Notwithstanding the size and importance of some of his buildings,
it must be confessed that in his house and the church at Ramsgate
one recognizes more thorough and genuine examples of Pugin’s
genius ... than elsewhere.”
The list of his works is really so extensive that we must confine
ourselves by preference to one or two whose beauties we have had
personal opportunities of admiring.