We must remark at the outset that, when we speak of the corruption

of the Roman Empire, we are not referring to that period of

history which preceded Christ. We wish to speak of that period

which immediately preceded the great invasion of the Northern

barbarians in the fifth century. We are about to point out another

object which God evidently had in view in sending down his wild

warriors, and why their course was one of fire and devastation.

In a word, we are about to speak of that moral rottenness which

had eaten through the very vitals of the Roman Colossus, and which

God, unable to bear it longer before his high heaven, infecting,

as it was, the very universe with its pestilent stench, sent his

messengers of wrath with flaming sword and fiery torch to cleanse

away from the afflicted earth. We must insist upon God being an

active power in the world. We are no followers of Professor Seeley,

who lectures to the young men of Cambridge on the Fall of the Roman

Empire as if God had had no hand in it. However ingenious Prof.

Seeley may be, he will never convince us that God does not make

and unmake empires. We want no new theory of the Fall of the Roman

Empire and the Invasion of the Barbarians. The grandest and the

truest was given us long ages ago by St. Augustine in his immortal

work _De Civitate Dei_, and it has satisfied all Christian thinkers

up to the present day. Prof. Seeley asks what is the cause of the

decaying condition of the empire? “It has been common,” he says,

“to suppose a moral degradation in the Romans, caused by luxury and

excessive good fortune. To support this, it is easy to quote the

satirists and cynics of the imperial times, and to refer to such

accounts as Ammianus gives of the mingled effeminacy and brutality

of the aristocracy of the capital in the fourth century. But the

history of the wars between Rome and the barbaric world does not

show us the proofs we might expect of this decay of spirit. We

do not find the Romans ceasing to be victorious in the field and

beginning to show themselves inferior in valor to their enemies.

The luxury of the capital could not affect the army, which had no

connection with the capital, but was levied from the peasantry of

the whole empire, a class into which luxury can never penetrate.

Nor can it be said the luxury corrupted the generals, and through

them the army.... Whatever the remote and ultimate cause may have

been, the immediate cause to which the fall of the empire can be

traced is a physical, not a moral, decay.”[179]

This specimen of Mr. Seeley’s philosophy of history gives us a

very low opinion of his powers of penetration. If the professor

could see a little further below the surface, he would surely

discover that a frightful moral decay was the underlying cause of

the physical decay. He cannot persuade us that, if the capital

were so corrupt, the generals and the army would still maintain a

manly and a vigorous character. If the central heart be corrupt,

a corrupting influence will flow out over the whole body. It was

so, beyond doubt, with the Roman Empire in past days; it has been

so with another mighty empire in our own times. Moral corruption

flowed out from the capitals of both empires, and destroyed the

vigor, courage, and all the manly virtues of their peoples. And

then the messengers of God came. They came from the North in both

cases, and terrible was the devastation which God gave them power

to effect. In both cases they were irresistible, simply because

he who beckoned them on and was hid in the smoke of battle was

the God of battles himself. This is the theory which a Christian

professor at least will naturally follow. There is something far

more satisfactory in this, both to the intellect and to faith,

than in any theory that can be suggested by the naturalistic views

of men of Mr. Seeley’s school. We wonder if the young men who sat

under Mr. Seeley at Cambridge were satisfied when the professor

summed up his theory of the fall of the empire in these words:

“Men were wanting; the empire perished for want of men”? To go no

further than that seems to us pitiably shallow indeed. We are not

at all captivated by Mr. Seeley’s view. We feel far more satisfied

in believing the grand, old Christian theory, viz., that the empire

perished at the hands of God for its savage cruelty to the holy

martyrs and for its widespread corruption and revolting crimes.

We have already endeavored to sketch out the history of the age of

blood: it now remains for us to give a picture of the corruption in

which the empire lay steeped at the period previous to the descent

of the barbaric hordes. But we most honestly state that we cannot

do more than give a faint portraiture of what is so offensive to

Christian purity of mind. To point to the life in this case, even

if we were able to do so, would be too painful for Catholic ideas.

The picture would necessarily be too frightful for the eye of

modesty to gaze upon. It would be a dreadful exposure to the light

of day of the blackest and the most shameful side of fallen human

nature. Of necessity, then, must the painting be in somewhat dim

outlines. But even so, it will sufficiently answer our present

purpose.

For well-nigh five centuries, then, had Christianity been at work

over the length and breadth of the Roman Empire, and yet paganism

and its demoralizing influence were not dead. We know well how

boldly and triumphantly the apostles went from the Cenacle to

the conversion of the pagan world. The heavenly fire that had

come down upon them had lodged itself in their hearts. It shot

its wondrous power through their whole bodies, darting forth

from their eyes in living light, issuing from their mouths in

burning words, nerving them up to brave tortures and racks. They

went forth, did that little band from the Cenacle, fire-girt and

heaven-inspired, to the most arduous task ever confided to mortal

men. Their wondrous success we need not here recount. It was such

as only men with God in their midst could effect. They no longer

knew fear of earthly powers; they quailed not in the presence of

the terrors of death. Nothing could withstand them in their course.

The demons of paganism fled before them; a thrill of horror ran

through the vast Pantheon of pagan worship, and the idols trembled

on their pedestals. Like the Titans of old, those messengers of

the Crucified scaled the Olympus of paganism, and hurled down the

false gods that were enthroned there. Hell and Olympus mingled

their groans at the sounding blows which were levelling the idols

of false worship and shaking the universe. But was, then, paganism

utterly destroyed? Did it never recover from the shock which it

received at the hands of the apostles of Christ? Did the darkness

flee away before the bright torches of light which Christians held

up in the midst of cities and towns and on every hill-top, and

never return? Did the demons who lurked in the pagan temples and

spoke by the mouths of the idols plunge into the deep abyss at the

approach of Christ’s preachers, and never come back again? It is

usual to think that something like this was the case. But it is far

from the historic truth. We must admit, indeed, that the success

of the first apostles of Christianity was the most amazing fact

which we have ever read of in history. The light of divine truth

flashed with miraculous swiftness through the world. Thousands of

persons abandoned the idols of paganism, and joined the strange,

new standard of the Cross. But yet paganism, continued to exist

and to spread its baneful influence--it was not a dead thing. It

had become welded into the very substance of the empire. It was

associated with so much of the grand historic past.

The Roman could not read of the warlike glories of his country

without finding them mingled with the worship of Jupiter and Mars.

He could not take up the verses of his immortal poets without

meeting at every page with the gods and goddesses of Olympus. The

laws of the empire recalled pagan gods; the customs and festivals

and games kept their remembrance fresh in the mind. We do not

wonder, then, that paganism was not easily destroyed. It would

almost seem that the life of the empire and the life of paganism

were one; that the pillars of the pagan temples were, so to speak,

identical with the pillars of the state. When we bear all this in

mind, we are not so much surprised to find that paganism was still

a living thing more than eighty years after the first Christian

emperor had taken the Labarum for his military standard, and had

lifted Christianity out of the dark caves of the Catacombs to place

it on the throne of the Cæsars. We are also more prepared for what

we read regarding the Emperor Honorius. When in 404 he visited

Rome, in order to celebrate his sixth consulate, pagan temples

still surrounded the imperial palace, the sanctuary of Jupiter

Tarpeius still crowned the capital, and from sacred edifices still

standing on every side a whole host of pagan gods yet looked down,

as of old, on Rome and the world. So real a thing was paganism

still even in the fifth century that the pagan poet Claudian, who

had been appointed to celebrate in verse the occasion just referred

to, could with impunity and, we suppose, with apparent propriety,

point out the gods as seeming to guard the imperial palace by their

divine presence and smile propitiously upon one who was the heir

of so many Christian emperors.[180] Some years later a work was

written by an unknown author who lived in the time of Honorius or

of Valentinian III., giving a topographical description of Rome,

and mentioning those monuments which had been spared by the fire

and sword of the Goths. The writer enumerates as still existing 43

pagan temples and 480 cediculæ. The Colossus of the Sun, a hundred

feet high, still towered aloft close by the Coliseum, where so many

holy martyrs had poured out their blood for Christ. The statues

of Apollo, of Hercules and Minerva still stood, as of old, at the

crossings and in the public squares. Still the fountains flowed

under the invocation of nymphs. And this, though Constantine and

Theodosius had wielded the sceptre of the empire, and SS. Sylvester

and Damasus had sat in the midst on the throne of Peter. Time

passes on, and with it the age of the great fathers of the church.

Those days which Christianity filled with its spirit, when Gregory

and Chrysostom and Basil and Jerome and mighty Augustine preached

and taught, go by with their brightness and their glory, and yet in

419, in the time of Valentinian III., we find Rutilius Numatianus

celebrating the greatness of pagan Rome, the mother of gods and

heroes. Christianity had been throwing bright gleams of light

over the whole world for these 400 years, the voices of the great

fathers of the church had been thundering in the principal cities

of the empire, yet Claudian and Rutilius Numatianus were as though

they had caught no glimpse of the light which shone around them nor

heard a sound from Hippo or Milan. Claudian had found a cord of

that Latin lyre which was broken to pieces on the day when Lucan

opened his own veins in the bath. Though living in Christian times,

he was as pagan as his great model, and his imagination revelled

amid the fabled splendors of Olympus and the baseless fictions of

mythology. He can sing of the rape of Proserpine whilst the cultus

of our Blessed Lady is taking possession of the temple of Ceres at

Catana. He invites the graces, the nymphs, and the hours to prepare

their garlands for the fair spouse of Stilico, though she had, in

hatred and contempt of the gods of paganism, snatched the golden

collar from the neck of the statue of Cybele. His genius takes even

a more daring flight when he introduces Christian princes into the

abodes of the immortals, and represents Theodosius, the greatest

hater of the gods, as holding familiar converse with Jupiter.

Rutilius Numatianus, on the other hand, pours out his soul in

passionate words of patriotism upon Rome herself, the last and the

greatest divinity of the ancient world. To him Rome is the ever

beautiful queen of the universe, whose dominion she holds for all

ages. To him she is the mother of men and of gods. “When we pray

in thy temples,” he exclaims in his burning ardor, “we are not far

from heaven. Of all nations she has made one country, of a whole

world one city. Her trophies are countless as the stars of heaven,

her temples too dazzling for the eyes to look upon. Spread yet

further thy laws; they shall govern ages yet unborn which shall

become Roman despite themselves, and thou alone, of all earthly

things, shalt not fear the power of the fates.”[181]

We might easily imagine on reading these two writers that

Christianity had not yet dawned upon the world, yet we are in

the fifth century. We naturally ask if the Christian emperors

used their power to crush out paganism. History tells us of many

imperial edicts which ordered the pagan temples to be closed and

the sacrifices to be discontinued. We find those edicts often

renewed, and hence, we argue, often disobeyed. Nothing, however,

surprises us so much as to find that in the middle of the fifth

century the sacred chickens were still kept at the capital, and the

consuls, on their appointment to office, went to seek from them the

auspices which they were supposed to be able to give. At this date

also the public calendar indicated the feasts of the false gods by

the side of those in honor of Christ and his saints. In a word,

paganism is yet a living power, with its temples and idols, and

sacrifices and sacred groves.

In Rome itself, where the smoke of incense ascends to the only

true God, the smoke of sacrifice also rises to the false gods of

Olympus. And beyond Rome, over Italy and Gaul and throughout the

whole of Western Christendom, there are still symbols of pagan

worship; still undoubted indications of its enduring influence

over thousands who believe that the empire and the pagan gods

are equally eternal, and will still be in existence when men

here become tired of the folly of the cross and the name of the

crucified Nazarene has faded from their minds. How true, then,

does it appear that paganism continues to hold its ground to a far

greater extent than is commonly imagined! It was a fearful task

for Christianity, divine though it was, to level to the ground the

temples and idols of pagan worship. Paganism seemed to hold on

to the empire with unrelaxing tenacity; it was bound up with its

institutions; it seemed built with the very stones into the walls

of the great capital.

The incontrovertible fact, then, that paganism still existed and

retained a stout hold upon the empire even so late as the fifth

century will prepare the reader to believe that its demoralizing

principles were still working their natural results. We will

not maintain that human sacrifices were as common at this date

as they had been some centuries before; but we do not feel sure

that they were altogether abandoned. We know that in the time of

Constantine, when Christianity was looking down from the throne

of the Cæsars over the empire, pagan priests poured out each year

a patera of human blood to Jupiter Latial. The example which the

Romans themselves had set was followed by the conquered nations,

and those dreadful horrors long continued to be practised among

them in spite of imperial decrees and prohibitions. “All the laws

of civilization,” says F. Ozanam in his striking way, “could not

smother the instincts of that savage beast which paganism had

unmuzzled in the heart of fallen humanity.” But even if human

sacrifices had altogether ceased, yet the essential principles of

paganism were still at work. The direct tendency of pagan worship

was to enslave man to his senses. The fearful degradation to which

mankind were thus brought, it is almost impossible for Christian

minds to credit. St. Augustine, in the seventh book of his _City of

God_, tells us of horrors which we cannot read without a sense of

shame and disgust for our race. Those processions through the towns

and fields of Latium on the feast of Bacchus are too shocking to

describe. We know, also, that unnamable crimes were honored with

a religious cultus, and had temples dedicated to their worship at

Cyprus, Samos, at Corinth, and on Mount Eryx. When we read of this

utter degradation to which paganism reduces human nature, we wonder

how such a religion could endure. But it was precisely because it

ministered so readily and so generously to the worst passions of

human nature that it maintained its influence so long. When in

course of time, and, by the repeated pressure of imperial edicts,

the priests of Cybele and the priestesses of Venus were dispersed,

paganism still had its temples and its thousands of worshippers in

the circus, the theatre, and the amphitheatre. In these centres

of resort, where the most reckless and the most unholy passions

had full play, the gods were in their strongholds. St. Cyprian

had understood the true nature of paganism well when he said that

it was “the mother of the games.” Nothing could have seized upon

human nature with a more powerful grasp than paganism did by making

pleasure into a religious worship. The two strong tendencies of

mankind, viz., the religious sentiment and the intense love of

pleasure, were thus directed to one and the same object. The

combats of the gladiators, which exercised such a fascination on

the Romans for so many years, were supposed to appease the spirits

of the departed; the dances of the stage were thought to avert

the anger of heaven. The symbolism which covered all lent an air

of mystery and solemnity to these exciting entertainments. We are

told that the courses of the circus represented the evolutions of

the stars, the dances of the theatre symbolized the voluptuous

whirl of pleasure in which all living beings were hurried along,

and the combats of the amphitheatre were a type of the struggles

in which the human race is ever engaged. The circus, theatre, and

amphitheatre were, then, so many temples of worship, and, as we

may well believe, the most popular and the best frequented temples

that paganism ever consecrated to its false and corrupting rites.

The other religious temples of the Roman were notoriously small

and poor, but on these he lavished his gold, his marble, and all

that he held most precious, so that he has left behind him nothing

grander or richer than the monuments of his pleasures, and, we may

add, nothing more defiled, more foul or more bloody.

The circus was dedicated to the sun; so proclaimed the obelisk

which rose in stately height in the centre of the arena. Everything

about the circus breathed idolatry. If we accept the view of

the Greeks, its very name was taken from Circe, the daughter

of the sun. If we take up the scathing work of Tertullian, _De

Spectaculis_, we shall be told that “every ornament of the circus

was in itself a temple. The eggs those assign to Castor and Pollux,

who blush not in believing that these were born an egg from a

swan which was Jupiter. The pillars vomit forth their dolphins

in honor of Neptune; they support their Sessiæ, so-called from

the sowing of the seed; their Messiæ, from the harvest; their

Tutelinæ, from the protection of the fruits. In front of these

appear three altars to three gods, mighty and powerful; these they

consider to be of Samothrace. The enormous obelisk, as Hermatetes

affirmeth, is publicly exposed in honor of the Sun; its inscription

is a superstition from Egypt. The council of the gods were dull

without their great mother; she therefore presideth there over the

Euripus. Consus, as we have said, lieth buried beneath the earth

of the Marcian Jail; even this jail he maketh an idol. Think, O

Christian! how many unclean names possess the circus. Foreign to

thee is that religion which so many spirits of the devil have

taken unto themselves!”[182] It would seem that the circus was a

sort of Pantheon, where almost every god received his tribute of

worship. If the pagan deities had lost some of their temples in

the onward advance of Christianity, they still retained a shrine

where they were worshipped all at once. And no opportunity was lost

when an act of religious worship could be brought in. Before the

courses were opened, the gods were carried on rich litters round

the circus by a grand cortége of priests. Tertullian speaks of

the dazzling _pompa_ which preceded the games, “the long line of

images, the host of statues, the chariots, the sacred images, the

cars, the chairs, and the robes” with which the gods were clothed.

“How many colleges,” he says, “how many priesthoods, how many

offices are set in motion, the men of that city know in which the

council of the demons sitteth.”[183] Sacrifices without number were

celebrated in the course of the performances. They preceded, they

came between, they followed them. And it is difficult to conceive

the height of frenzy to which the people were excited by these

games. “On the longed-for day of the equestrian games,” Ammianus

Marcellinus tells us, “ere the clear rays of the sun yet shine,

all hurry headlong, outpoured, as though they would outspeed the

very chariots which are to contend.” Before the races began, all

eyes, wild with the fire of excited passions, were fixed on the

magistrate, who held in his hand the handkerchief whose falling

was to signal the commencement of the sports. As that handkerchief

fell, there came rushing into view those charioteers who were the

delight of the Roman people. The crowd raised a wild cry of joy,

and then, breathless with suspense, followed with their glaring

eyes the rushing horses and the rattling cars as they dashed along

the course. As the horses bounded over the ground, now losing, now

gaining, on one another, and the dust-clouds rose from beneath

the rattling chariot-wheels, louder and wilder rang the shouts of

the spectators, and passion rose to its height in Roman hearts.

Furious factions were formed, which soon developed into violence

and internecine battle. This was the grand climax, sought for

and expected. The gods were appeased; Romulus now recognized his

people. From this state of wild excitement we naturally expect

cruelty and bloodshed. We are quite prepared to believe what

Suetonius tells us. He records that Vitellius massacred some of

the people because they cursed the faction which he favored.

Caracalla is said to have done the same for some jest on a favorite

charioteer. But to add more vivid coloring to the picture, we will

borrow the striking language of Tertullian. “Behold the people,”

he says, “coming to the show already full of madness, already

tumultuous, already blind, already agitated about their wagers.

The prætor is too slow for them. Their eyes are ever rolling with

their lots within his urn. Then they are in anxious suspense for

the signal. The common madness hath a common voice. I perceive

their madness from their trifling. ‘He hath thrown it,’ they say,

and announce to each other what was seen at once by all. I possess

the evidence of their blindness. They see not what is thrown; they

think it a handkerchief, but it is the gullet of the devil cast

down from on high.”[184]

Thus, then, in the stormy days of the fifth century did the

great Roman people forget their troubles and their dangers in

the excitement of the circus. What was so vividly described by

Tertullian went on through the centuries that came after him. The

Roman people had, in truth, lost the empire of the world; it had

purchased its capital out of the hands of savage hordes by heavy

sums of gold; but it forgot all in the delirium of the circensian

games. There, as has been said, it found its temple, its forum,

its country, and the term of its hopes. Through the storms of

war against barbarians, in spite of the thunders of Christian

eloquence, under the dazzling light of the Christian Gospel, still

the circus stood, and its multitudinous gods received their tribute

of worship, and the maddened crowds thronged to the games, as of

old. In the year 448, the calendar marks 58 days for the public

games. We may well be amazed as we read it. Fifty-eight days still

dedicated to this wild self-abandonment, whilst on the Northern

borders of the empire the threatening armies of Genseric and Attila

were amassed, with the sword of fire and vengeance in their hands,

awaiting the signal of God!

The theatre was another temple where paganism still retained a

terrible hold. It was dedicated to Venus, the unholy goddess who

swayed the hearts of almost all mankind. If we would see the great

Roman people at its lowest, we must look upon it as it lies in

prostrate adoration in this temple of Venus. Here it is grovelling

in the veriest mire of abasement. Here, more than anywhere else,

it forgets its dignity, and plunges into the deepest depths of

sensuality and degradation. But we cannot paint the scene in

bold colors. The picture would shock by its startling horror and

deformity. The eye of Christian modesty would turn away in disgust

and pain. We must let the outlines even be faint, lest they should

offend the delicate sensitiveness of pure minds.

In the midst of the theatre stood the altar of the unholy goddess,

crowned with garlands. Before this altar were represented the

shameful histories of the pagan gods. There the wretched mimes,

by look, and gesture, and suggestive attitude, displayed before

the lascivious eyes of the multitude the loves of Jupiter and the

fury of Pasiphaë. But as time went on, and the passions of the

people became more and more inflamed, the mute language of look and

gesture did not satisfy. Far worse horrors were demanded. Shadows

and unrealities were not enough for the hungry fire of unrestrained

passion. Realities, revolting, shameless, and unnamable, must be

enacted before the eyes of a vast multitude, composed of old and

young of both sexes. He who played the part of Hercules must be

burned in the presence of a maddened throng; the horrid history

of Atys must have a reality answering to it, and be carried

into effect before the full gaze of the people. We can conceive

nothing more pitiable than the sight of the great Roman people, so

sadly fallen into baseness, so completely abandoned to shameful

sensualities, and lying prostrate before the foul goddess of unholy

passions in the theatre. The empire might perish and the heavens

fall upon their heads, but the people must have their pleasures.

This was their madness and their worship. Three thousand dancers

ministered, like so many priestesses, in the theatre-worship of

Rome. For these panderers to their vile pleasures, the Romans were

willing to sacrifice all that was dear to them. These favorites

they crowned with flowers, and flattered by their manifestations of

applause. They retained them in the city, as Ammianus Marcellinus

tells us, at a time of severe famine, where a decree was passed

which expelled men of letters and those who exercised the liberal

professions. Old Ammianus, though a pagan, is filled with wrath

at this shameful abandonment of his countrymen, and pours out his

indignation in vehement, fiery words. But what hope was there?

Corruption had affected every class. The dancers were the favorites

of all, and even the senators of Rome were not ashamed to sit in

the first seats of the theatre gazing upon the nudity of these

priestesses of Venus. Thus had the Romans fallen below even the

most fallen of other nations, which had once been great, but had

perished for their crimes. Egypt had deified its agricultural

products and domestic animals, Phœnicia its commerce, Assyria its

sciences, Persia the elements, Greece its arts.[185] But Rome had

gone down far deeper than all into folly and idolatry; it had

raised altars to its own base passions. And this theatre-worship

was existing in its full life in the latter days of the empire.

Christianity had not abolished it. The demons held their own in

their temples of sinful pleasure, and the people came and adored in

countless multitudes, and their passions were kept alive and burned

wildly with unholy fire--and all under the dark, bodeful shadow of

the storm-cloud which hung so black and threatening in the Northern

skies.

But we have yet to speak of another great centre of paganism and

moral corruption--the amphitheatre. “This,” says F. Ozanam, “was

the greatest school which was ever opened for the demoralization of

men.” It exercised a power of fascination beyond all conception,

and was irresistible. The people rushed there in countless

thousands, frantic with excitement. The thirst for blood maddened

them like a wild indwelling demon. The games of the circus were

tame in comparison with the sight of wild beasts engaged in

death-struggle or the savage conflict of well-matched gladiators.

There the emperors presided under the shadow of their pagan

gods; there were gathered together the senators and the great

ones of Rome; there rose tier upon tier round the vast arena the

waving mass of countless human heads. There all Rome assembled

for brutal pleasure and pagan worship, for the amphitheatre was

a temple. Tertullian tells us this in his characteristic way.

“The amphitheatre,” he says, “is consecrated to deities more

numerous and more barbarous than the capitol. It is the temple

of all demons. As many unclean spirits sit together as the place

containeth men.”[186] Under the shadow, then, of so many pagan

gods, breathed upon by so many devils, we can picture to ourselves

the wild excitement of these thousands of spectators, as they

assemble on occasion of a Roman holiday. They have caught a rumor,

perhaps, of what is prepared that day, by a subservient emperor,

for the amusement of his people. It may be that hundreds of

ferocious beasts are to tear one another to pieces before them, as

often happened in the time of Septimius Severus; or it may be that

two hundred lions are to die in a horrid, bloody affray, as took

place in the reign of one of his successors. Or, perhaps, Roman

senators are to descend into the arena, to sacrifice their lives

for the amusement of their fellow-citizens, as was the custom from

the time of the first Cæsars. Perhaps it is near mid-day, and the

crowd has been thronging in for hours. The sun is pouring down his

blazing rays over the scene, though their heat is tempered by the

canvas awnings which stretch a kind protecting shade wherever it is

possible. But the bright light penetrates every nook and corner,

and makes every figure stand forth to view. It flashes off the

shining armor of Roman knights, dances and glistens in many a dark

young eye, falls with a flood of glory upon Cæsar’s throne, and

plays around the imperial robes which gold and precious stones so

gorgeously bedeck. The brightness of the day adds to the excitement

of the people. They talk with vivacity upon the nature of the

expected conflicts; they lay their wagers, and become more excited

as time flies on. They are impatient for the “shows” to begin; they

clamor; they can wait no longer. We will here let a more brilliant

pen than ours help to complete the picture. “And now, with peal of

trumpets and clash of cymbals, a burst of wild martial music rises

above the hum and murmur of the seething crowd. Under a spacious

archway, supported by marble pillars, wide folding-doors are flung

open, and two by two, with stately step and slow, march in the

gladiators, armed with the different weapons of their deadly trade.

Four hundred men are they, in all the pride of perfect strength and

symmetry, and high training and practised skill. With head erect

and haughty bearing, they defile once round the arena, as though

to give the spectators an opportunity of closely scanning their

appearance, and halt with military precision to range themselves

in line under Cæsar’s throne. For a moment there is a pause and

hush of expectation over the multitude, while the devoted champions

stand motionless as statues in the full glow of noon; then,

bursting suddenly into action, they brandish their gleaming weapons

over their heads, and higher, fuller, fiercer rises the terrible

chant that seems to combine the shout of triumph with the wail of

suffering, and to bid a long and hopeless farewell to upper earth,

even in the very recklessness and defiance of its despair:

“‘Ave Cæsar! Morituri te salutant!’

“Then they wheel out once more, and range themselves on either side

of the arena: all but a chosen band who occupy the central place of

honor, and of whom every second man at least is doomed to die.”[187]

We can imagine how the thousands who had come to feast their eyes

on the cruel spectacle would now be frantic for the real work to

begin. We can picture to ourselves how all would proceed. We see

the huge rhinoceros with his overlapping plates of armor led forth

into the arena. He rolls his glowing eyes around in the fury of his

hunger, but sees only the smooth white sand. He stamps with his

large flat foot, and digs madly into the earth with his “horned

muzzle.” We see, too, his enemy come sneaking in--the Lybian tiger,

with his sleek, striped coat and glaring eyes. They approach

each other. The spring is made; they are in a death-struggle.

And now that blood is seen, a maddened shout of savage joy from

the gratified spectators rends the air. More blood is wanted.

The trumpets ring out again. The gladiators step forth and range

themselves in opposing ranks. They are “all armed alike with a

deep, concave buckler, and a short, stabbing, two-edged blade.”

Then is heard the sharp clash of meeting steel. Men’s breath is

hushed; their hearts beat quick; their eyes glare with a wild fire

and are riveted on the struggling athletes. Then the ranks of the

combatants waver and are broken; blood is seen upon the white sand:

it flows from large gashes in the gladiators’ sinking forms. The

huge giants fall one after another, hard and brave to the last.

And this is the hideous sight which day after day delights and

never satisfies the Roman public. It is sad to think of so much

noble strength and magnificent bravery sacrificed so ignobly. It

sickens the heart to dwell on the brutal, reckless destruction

of manly life perpetrated to amuse a blood-thirsty populace

in “those Roman shambles.” Yet “so inured were the people to

such exhibitions, so completely imbued with a taste for the

horrible, and so careless of human life, that scarcely an eye

was turned away, scarcely a cheek grew paler, when a disabling

gash was received or a mortal blow driven home, and mothers

with babies in their arms would bid the child turn its head to

watch the death-pang on the pale, stern face of some prostrate

gladiator.”[188]

We have now said enough to show the reader the corrupting influence

of those three mighty powers of paganism--the circus, the theatre,

and the amphitheatre. Many pagan temples had no doubt fallen under

the crushing arm of Christian teaching, but these three, in which

so many gods and goddesses had taken refuge, stood their ground.

They were found in every province of the empire, and everywhere

were well frequented. The demoralizing effect produced by them it

is not easy to estimate--it was simply never-ceasing and universal.

And when the persecutors had passed away, and there was no longer

the constant presence of cruel death to keep alive the fervor of

Christians, we find that they too came under the demoralizing

influence of these mighty powers of evil. This is the cause of that

bitter cry of grief which bursts forth from every page of the

writings of the great saints of the fourth and fifth centuries.

Pagan corruption was rushing upon them like a strong flood on

every side. They found themselves overpowered and engulfed. Listen

to the plaintive words of SS. Jerome, Chrysostom, and Augustine,

laden with the sobs and groans of grief-stricken hearts. Open

the pages of Salvian, and you will soon be convinced that mortal

degradation has invaded every city and town, and that all classes

of society are grovelling in the lowest depths of corruption. The

holy bishop pours out his soul in the most moving language. His

words sometimes flash with holy wrath and indignation; sometimes

they are the wailing cry of despair; sometimes, again, they are

the tears of deepest sorrow, flowing out of his inmost soul. “How

different,” he exclaims, “is now the Christian people from itself,

that is, from what it formerly was!... What is now every assembly

of Christians but a sink of vices?... We make it our study not only

not to accomplish the precepts, but even to do the contrary. God

commands us to love one another; we tear one another to pieces in

mutual hatred. God commands us to help the poor; and we all rob

others of what belongs to them. God commands every Christian to be

chaste even in look; and who is he who does not grovel in the mire?

I appeal to the conscience of those to whom I speak. Who is the

person who has not to reproach himself with some of these crimes,

or, rather, who is the man who is not guilty of all? It is easier

to find Christians guilty of all these crimes than to meet with any

exempt from some of them; it is easier to find great criminals than

ordinary sinners. Many of the Romans who have been baptized have

arrived at such a laxity of morals that it is a kind of sanctity

amongst the faithful to be less vicious. Audacious criminals rush

into the temples of the true God without any respect for the

Divine Majesty. They go there to meditate in silence upon some

fresh iniquity. Scarcely are the divine mysteries concluded than

some return to their thefts, others to drunkenness; these to their

bad habits, those to their deeds of violence. What is the life

of courtiers? Injustice and iniquity. What is the life of public

officers? Lies and calumny. What is the life of soldiers? Violence

and rapine. What is the life of merchants? Fraud and deceit. Alas!

our vices disinherit us of the beautiful name of Christians; for

the depravity of our morals renders us unworthy of the privileges

of our birth. Base behavior destroys the glory of an honorable

title. As there is no condition which is not disgraced, no place

which is not filled with the crimes of Christians, let us no longer

glory in this beautiful name. It will only serve to render us more

culpable, and to aggravate our offences.”[189]

We think the picture sufficiently complete. Over this huge mass

of moral rottenness; over the heads of pagan gods yet standing

erect in the midst of this foul corruption; over the great sinning

empire, pagan still in its vices and its tastes, the threatening

storm-cloud hangs, waiting the moment when God shall bid it belch

forth its hidden terrors of fire and flame. That moment is close at

hand. Then shall the martyrs be avenged, and this universal crime

be punished.

FOOTNOTES:

[179] _Lectures and Essays_, p. 48.

[180] See Claudian, _De Sexto Consulatu Honorii_, v. 43.

[181] See Ozanam, _Civil. au 5me Siècle_, p. 82.

[182] _De Spectaculis_, viii.

[183] _De Spectaculis_, vii.

[184] _De Spectaculis_, xvi.

[185] _Leroy_, vol. ii. p. 450.

[186] _De Spectaculis_, xii.

[187] _The Gladiators_, by Whyte Melville, p. 135.

[188] _The Gladiators_, p. 140.

[189] Salvianus, _De Gubernatione Mundi_, lib. iii. _passim_.

THE LAST DAYS BEFORE THE SIEGE.

PART II.

EXCELSIOR!

“Great news! Extra! Three sous!” The newsvender, a ragged little

urchin who nearly collapsed under the weight and volume of his

extras, was shouting out these three startling facts at the top

of his voice as I went out early in the morning. Two rheumatic

old rag-women, immediately suspending their investigation of the

dust-heaps, dropped their crooks, and cried out to him to know the

news. Was it a victory or a defeat, or was it anything about the

siege? But the urchin, as hard-hearted as any editor, waved the

momentous sheet majestically with one hand, and answered, “Three

sous!” To the renewed entreaties of the rag-women he condescended

so far as to say that it was well worth the money, that they never

spent three sous more advantageously, for the news was wonderful

news, but for less than three sous they should not have it. I did

not altogether believe either in the extra or in the wonderful

news, but the newspaper fever was on me like the rest of the world,

so I produced the inexorable three sous and took the paper. The

moment the two women saw this they came up to me, and, evidently

taking for granted that I was going to give them the benefit of my

extravagance, stood to hear the news. I read it aloud for them, as

well as to a milk-boy who was passing at the moment and stood also

to get his share of the three sous, and a remarkably sympathetic

audience the three made. The news was none of the best. The

Prussians were at Chalons, and they might be at the gates of Paris

before another week.

“That was MacMahon’s plan from the first,” observed the milk-boy,

“and, if the Prussians fall into the trap, the game is ours.”

The rag-women, not being so well up in military tactics and

technicalities, meekly begged to be enlightened as to the nature

and aim of the trap in question, and the young politician was so

kind as to explain to them that the marshal had all along been

luring on the Prussians to Paris, which was to be their pitfall;

Mont Valérien and the fortifications would annihilate them like

flies; not a man of them would go back alive; the only fear was

that that rascally Bismarck would be too many guns for the marshal,

and make him fight before Chalons, in which case, he observed, “it

was all up with the marshal, and consequently with France.”

Having delivered himself of this masterly exposition of the case,

the milk-boy swung his cans, touched his cap to me, and, having

achieved the most preternaturally knowing wink I ever beheld,

strode off without waiting to see the effect of his words on the

two old women. They looked after him aghast. Had they been talking

to a confidential agent of the War Office, or to an emissary of the

rascally Bismarck himself? A spy, in fact?

“One ought to have one’s mouth sewed up these times,” observed the

more ancient of the beldames, casting a half-suspicious glance at

me as I folded my newspaper and put it into my pocket. “One never

knows whom one may be speaking to.”

This remark was too deep and too fearfully suggestive to admit of

any commentary from her companion; the only thing to be done in

such a crisis was to take refuge in professional pursuits that

offered no ground for suspicion, so seizing her crook the rag-woman

plunged prudently once more into her rubbish.

A little further on, turning the corner of a street, I came on two

gentlemen whom I knew, standing in animated conversation. I stopped

to ask what news? None, except that the horizon was growing darker

from hour to hour. The despatches from the frontier were as bad

as could well be. As to pooh-poohing the siege now it was sheer

stupidity, one of them declared, and, for his part, he only wished

it were already begun: it was the last chance left us of rejecting

the disasters of the campaign and crushing the remains of the

enemy. His companion indignantly scouted both the certainty of the

siege and the desirability of it. The city was not to be trusted;

no great city ever was; there were hundreds of traitors only too

ready to open the gates to the enemy at his own price. Look at the

proprietors! Did any one suppose there were fifty proprietors in

Paris who would not cry _Capitulons_! before one week was out?

“Well, let the proprietors be taken down to their own cellars, and

kept there under lock and key, and let them sit on their money-bags

till the siege is over!” suggested the advocate of the siege.

“Then you must lock up half the National Guard and the Mobiles,”

resumed the other, “for they are full of those money-loving

traitors.”

This was not very reassuring. I kept repeating to myself that

public opinion at a moment like this was always an alarmist, and

that the wisest plan would be to read no papers and to consult

nobody, but just wait till events resolved themselves, as they

infallibly do, sooner or later, to those who have patience to wait

for them, and then act as they decided; but it was no use. I went

home in dire perplexity, and began to wish myself in Timbuctoo or

the Fiji Islands, or anywhere out of the centre of civilization

and the fashions and chronic alarm and discontent. Things went on

in this way for another week, the tide advancing rapidly, but so

gradually that it was difficult for those on shore to note its

progress and be guided by it. No one would own to being frightened,

but it was impossible to see the scared faces of the people,

as they stood in groups before every new placard setting forth

either a fresh order from the Hôtel de Ville or some dubious and

disheartening despatch from the seat of war, without feeling that

the panic was upon them, and that the complicated problems of the

great national struggle had resolved themselves into the immediate

question: Shall we stay, or must we fly? When you met a friend in

the street, the first, the sole, the supreme salutation was: “Do

you believe in the siege? Are you going to stay?” The obduracy of

the Parisians in refusing to believe in the siege up to the very

last moment was certainly one of the strangest phases of the siege

itself. They were possessed by a blind faith in the sacredness

and inviolability of their capital, and they could not bring

themselves to believe that all Europe did not look upon it with the

same eyes; they thought that Prussia might indeed push audacity

so far as to come and sit down before the gates, but beyond that

Bismarck would not go; he would not dare; all Europe would stand

up and cry shame on him, not out of sympathy for France, but out

of sheer selfishness, for Paris was not the capital of France,

but of Europe. So the walls were white with proclamations and

advertisements and invitations to non-combatants to withdraw, and

practical advice to the patriotic citizens whose glorious duty

it was soon to be to defend the city; and the great exodus of

the so-called poltroons and strangers had begun to pour out, and

the much more inconvenient sort of non-combatants, the homeless

population of the neighboring villages, poured in--a sorry sight it

was to see the poor little _ménages_, the husband trundling the few

sticks of furniture on a hand-cart, with the household cat perched

on the top of the pile, while the wife carried a baby and bundle,

and a little one trotted on by her side, carrying the canary bird

in its painted cage--and still the real, born Parisian said in the

bottom of his heart: “It will never come to a siege, they will

never dare; England will interfere, Europe will not allow it.”

On the morning of the third of September I went out to make some

purchases on the Boulevards. Coming back, I saw the Madeleine

draped in black, and a number of mourning-coaches drawn up in

ghastly array on the Place. The solemn cortége was descending the

last steps. I stood to let it pass, and then cast a glance round

to see if there was any one I knew in the crowd. To my surprise

I saw Berthe in the midst of a group of several persons who had

broken away from the stream, and were standing apart in the space

inside the rails; she was talking very emphatically, and the others

were listening to her apparently with great interest, and seemed

excited by whatever she was telling them. When the crowd had nearly

cleared away, I beckoned to her. She ran out to me at once.

“You are the very person I wanted to see,” she said, clutching

me by the arm in her vehement way. “I was going straight to your

house. I have just been to the Etat Major, and met General Trochu

there. He came down on account of despatches that had just come in,

and have put them all in a state of terrible consternation. There

is not a doubt of it now; the city will be blockaded in ten days

from this. The Prussians are within as many days’ march from us. I

thought of you immediately, and I asked the general what you ought

to do; he said by all means to go, and within forty-eight hours;

after that the rails may be cut from one moment to another; he was

very emphatic about it, and said it would be the maddest imprudence

of you to remain; there is a terrible time before us, and no one

should stay in Paris who could leave. Of course, you will leave at

once.”

I was too much taken aback to say what I would do. The news

was so bewildering. I had never looked upon the siege as the

impossible joke it had been so long considered, neither did I

share the infatuation of the Parisians about the inviolability

of Paris in the eyes of Europe, and for the last fortnight we

had come to expect the siege as almost a certainty, that was now

only a question of time, and yet we were as much startled by this

cool official announcement of it as if the thing had never been

seriously mentioned before.

“I don’t know what I will do,” I said; “if we had nerves equal to

it, it would be the most fearfully interesting experience to go

through.”

“No doubt,” assented Berthe; “but it is an experience that will

tax the strongest nerves; of that you may be sure; and unless one

has duties to keep one here, I think it would be mad imprudence, as

the general said, to run the risk.”

“You mean to leave, of course?” I said.

“No; I mean to stay. I am pretty sure of my nerves; besides, as

a Frenchwoman, I have a duty to perform; I must bear my share of

the common danger; it would be cowardly to fly; but with you it is

different. I don’t think you would be justified in remaining for

the interest of the thing. Only if you mean to go, you must set

about it at once. Have you got your passport?”

“No; I had not gone that far in believing in the siege.”

“It was very foolish,” said Berthe; “all the foreigners we know

have got theirs.”

“I will go for it now,” I said. “Come on with me, and let us talk

it all over. Are you on foot?”

“No; but I shall be glad of the walk home; I will send away the

carriage.”

She did so, and we went on together.

“It is like death,” I said; “no matter how long one is expecting

it, it comes like a blow at the last; I can hardly realize even now

that the siege is so near. Why, it was only the other day we were

listening to those people joking about it all!”

“It was a sorry joke,” said Berthe; “but that is always the way

with us; we go on joking to the end. I believe a Frenchman would

joke in his coffin if he could speak.”

“And you really mean to stay, Berthe?”

“I do. I shall be of some use, I hope; at any rate, I will try my

best. But we can talk of that presently. First about you; are you

decided?”

“I cannot say; I feel bewildered,” I replied. “I long to stay, and

yet I fear it; it is not the horrors of the siege that would deter

me, at least I don’t think it is that; it is the dread of being

taken up as a spy.”

She burst out into one of her loud, merry laughs.

“What a ridiculous idea! Why on earth should you be taken for a

spy?”

“There is no why or wherefore in the case,” I said, “that is just

the alarming part of it; the people are simply mad on the point;

they have barked themselves rabid about it, and they are ready to

bite every one that comes in their way. Twice on my way into town

this morning I heard a hue and cry raised somewhere near, and when

I asked what was the matter, a mad dog, or a house on fire, the

answer was, ‘Oh, no; it’s an _espion_ they’ve started, and he’s

giving them chase!’ One man said to me, half in joke, half in

earnest: ‘Madame would do well to hide her fair hair under a wig;

it’s dangerous to wear fair hair these times.’ I own it made me

feel a little uncomfortable.”

“Well, that is not very comforting for me,” said Berthe, laughing,

“my hair is _blond_ enough to excite suspicion.”

“Oh! your nationality is written on your face,” I said; “there is

no fear of you ever being mistaken for anything but a Frenchwoman.”

On arriving at the Embassy, we found a throng of British subjects

waiting for their passports, and considerably surprised at being

kept waiting, and expressing their surprise in no measured terms.

Surely they paid dear enough for the maintenance of their embassies

abroad to be entitled to prompt and proper attendance when once in

a way they called on their representatives for a service of this

kind! The attachés were so overworked that it was impossible to

avoid the delay? Then why were there not special attachés put on

for the extra press of work? And so on. Some nervous old couples

were anxious to have the benefit of his excellency’s personal

opinion as to the prudence of leaving their plate behind them,

and, if he really thought there was a risk in so doing, would

he be so kind as to suggest the safest mode of conveying it to

London? Also, whether it was quite prudent to leave their money

in the Bank of France and other French securities, or whether it

would be advisable to withdraw it at once at a loss? Also, whether

it would be a wise precaution to hang the Union Jack out of the

window, those who had furnished apartments in Paris, or whether the

present state of feeling between England and France was such as to

make such a step rather dangerous than otherwise? It was not for

outsiders to know how things stood between the two countries so as

to be able to guide their course in the present crisis, but his

excellency being a diplomatist was well informed on the subject,

and they would rely implicitly on his judgment and advice, etc.

Berthe and I were so highly entertained by the naïve egotism and

infantine stupidity displayed by the various specimens of British

nature around us, that we did not find it in our hearts to grumble

at being kept waiting nearly two hours.

On reaching the Rond Point of the Champs Elysées, our curiosity

was attracted by a silent, scared-looking crowd collected on

the sidewalk in front of the Hôtel Meyerbeer. The blinds of the

house were closed as if there were a death within, and a few

_sergents-de-ville_ were standing at intervals with arms crossed,

staring up at the windows. The owner of the hotel had been

arrested with great noise the night before, on the strength of

some foolish words which had escaped him about the possible entry

of the Germans into Paris; but we neither of us knew anything of

this, and I asked the nearest sergeant if anything had happened.

The man turned round, and, without uncrossing his arms, bent two

piercing eyes upon me--piercing is not a figure of speech, they

literally stabbed us through like a pair of blades--and, after

taking a deliberate view of my person from head to foot, he growled

out: “Yes, something has happened. A spy has been found!” There was

something so diabolical in the tone of his voice and his expression

that it terrified me, and I suppose my terror got into my face

and gave it a guilty hue, for another _sergent-de-ville_ who had

turned round on hearing his colleague speak, strode up to me, and

said nothing, but drove another pair of eyes into me with fierce

suspicion. The crowd, attracted by the incident, turned round and

stared at me, and I felt as if I had that morning posted a despatch

to Bismarck or Bismarck’s master betraying every state secret in

France. Despair, however, that makes cowards brave, came to my

rescue, and, putting a bold face on it, I said, with extraordinary

pluck and coolness:

“Has he been arrested?”

“He has.”

“Ah, it is well!” I observed. And in abject fear of being pounced

upon there and then, and done equally well by, I walked away.

When we had got to a safe distance, I looked at Berthe. She was as

white as ashes. Indeed, if I looked half as guilty, it is nothing

short of a miracle that we were not both seized on the spot and

carried off to the _Préfecture de Police_.

“Let this be a lesson to us never to speak to any one in the street

while things are in this state,” said Berthe. “Indeed, the safest

way would be not to speak at all, especially in a foreign language,

for whatever they don’t understand they set down as German, and to

be a German is of course to be a spy.”

After this we walked on in silence. Evidently Berthe no longer

looked on my fears as chimerical or matter for laughter, and,

puerile as the incident was, I believe it put an end to my

hesitation, and decided me to leave Paris with as little delay as

possible. She had not realized as much as I had, but the spy-fever

had spread so alarmingly within the last few days that what had

first been merely a recurring panic was now a fixed idea that had

grown to insanity. You might read suspicion and fear written on

the faces of the people as you went along. They walked in twos and

threes without speaking, glancing timidly on every side, and trying

to carry it off with an air of indifference or preoccupation. Every

one was in mortal fear of being pointed at and hooted off to the

nearest _poste_. No nationality was safe. A few Englishmen who

had fallen victims to the popular mania, and been subjected to a

night’s hospitality at the expense of the government, had published

their experiences, and described the sort of entertainment prepared

for casual visitors, and it was anything but enticing: a _salle_

crammed full of every kind and degree of sinner, from the imaginary

spy whipped up on the pavement without proof or witness, to the

lowest vagrants of the worst character, all put in for the same

offence, and huddled up together without a chair to sit on or air

to breathe. Those who were lucky enough to be set free after a

short term of durance vile were warmly congratulated by their

friends, and retired into private life without further _éclat_.

Some English subjects were simple enough to venture a protest

against the unceremonious proceeding on the part of the police, and

were politely reminded that the gates of the city were still open

and trains ready to convey them to many places of more agreeable

manners where the sacred person of a British subject ran no risk of

being mistaken for a common mortal, but that, while they choose to

remain within the gates, they must take the consequences. And this

was, after all, the best answer they could make, and it behooved

all sensible British subjects to abide by it. I parted from Berthe

at the corner of her own street, and went home to pack up and start

the next day by the twelve o’clock train.

I stopped on my way to the station to take leave of her. It was

near eleven o’clock. Contrary to my expectations, I found her up

and dressed, instead of lolling in dishabille on her couch. But

this was not the only surprise awaiting me. The whole appearance

of the house was changed. The _portières_ and curtains were taken

down; the two salons were emptied of their furniture, and four iron

beds placed in the large one and two in the small one. A young

woman was busy cutting out bandages with a great basket of linen

beside her in Berthe’s room--that soft, Sybarite room, so unused

to such company and such occupation. Her face was concealed by

a broad-frilled Vendean cap, but on hearing us enter she turned

round, and I recognized the bride-widow of the Bréton volunteer.

“We are going to work very hard together,” said Berthe, putting

her hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Jeannette is to teach me to

make poultices, and to dress wounds, and to do all kinds of useful

things that one wants to know how to do for the wounded. She is

quite an adept in the service, it seems, so I hope our little

ambulance will be well managed and comfortable for the dear

soldiers.”

Jeannette’s eyes filled with tears, and she took Berthe’s hand

and kissed it. Just at this moment François came in to say there

were some _Sœurs de Charité_ who wanted to speak to madame. Berthe

and Jeannette went out to meet them, and as they left the room

Antoinette came in through the dressing-room. She threw up her

arms when she perceived me, and looked toward the salon with blank

despair in her face.

“The world is upside down,” she said, “everything is going

topsy-turvy; what between the war, and the siege, and the rest of

it, one doesn’t know what to expect next; but of all the queer

things going, the queerest is what is happening in this house. To

think of _le salon de la comtesse_ being turned into a hospital!

That I should live to see such things! Madame does well to go away;

people are all going crazy in this country, and they say it’s

catching.”

“So it is, Antoinette,” I said, “and the best thing I can wish you

is that you may catch it yourself.”

Berthe wanted to come with me to the station, but I would not let

her. I preferred to carry away my last impression of her as I saw

her now. She was dressed in a plain dark silk, with a white apron

before her, and a soft cambric handkerchief tied loosely round

her head; the quaint, half-nunlike dress seemed to me to become

her more than the most artistic of M. Grandhomme’s combinations,

and as I watched her going from room to room with a duster in her

hand, changing the chairs and tables, and working as deftly as

an accomplished housemaid, her face flushed with the exercise

and bright with a new-found joy, I thought I had never seen her

look so beautiful. So we parted in that blue chamber that was

henceforth to have a new memory of its own to both of us. Before

I had started from my own house, the news of Sedan had come in,

and spread like wild-fire. All that I had previously witnessed of

popular excitement was cold and calm compared with what I beheld on

my way to the station. The city was like a galvanized nightmare,

electrifying and electrified into hubbub and madness. Rage and

despair were riding the whirlwind with suspicion tied like a

bandage on their eyes. The cry of _Treason!_ out-topped all other

cries; every man suspected his brother and accused him; the air

was filled with curses and threats, and there was no voice strong

enough to rise above the popular tumult and subdue it. If there

had been, what might not have come of it? If at that moment there

had been a voice loud enough to speak to the hurricane, and compel

those millions of tongues to be silent and listen to the truth, and

then gather them into one great voice that would lift itself up in

a unit of harmony and power that would have been heard, not only

to the ends of Paris, but to the ends of France, What might not

have been done? what might not have been saved? But it was not to

be. Nothing came of the discord but discord. The strong hand that

might even then have welded all these suicidal elements of hate,

and fury, and suspicion into a vigorous bond of action was not

forthcoming; the strife was to go on to the bitter end, till the

soil of fair France was drenched with blood, and all her energies

spent, and her youth and chivalry laid low in bootless butchery.

The blocks that stopped our progress in every street made it a

difficult matter to get to the railway, and when we eventually did

get there we were a quarter of an hour behind our time. But, as it

happened, this was of no consequence; we had to wait another hour

before the train started. Meantime the confusion was indescribable.

Several wagons full of wounded had arrived by the last train, and

a regiment of the line was waiting to start by the next. The Place

was filled with soldiers, some were lying at full length fast

asleep under the hot noon sun, others were smoking and chatting

near their arms that were stacked here and there; some of the poor

fellows had been out before, and were only just recovering from

their wounds; they looked worn and weak as if hardly able to bear

themselves; women were clinging to them, weeping and lamenting;

inside the station, travellers were rushing frantically from bureau

to bureau; then in despair at ever getting through the crowd that

besieged every wicket, they would seize some unlucky porter with

a band on his hat, and implore him in heart-rending tones to help

them to a ticket, and, when he protested that such a service was

not in his power they would belabor him vindictively with hard

words, and make another rush at the bureau.

At last we were off. It was an exciting journey, such as I hope

never to make again. The lines were encumbered with trains full of

wounded coming and troops going, and our pace was regulated with a

view to avoid running into those ahead or being run into by those

behind. Now we darted on at a terrific speed, the engine wriggling

from rail to rail like a snake gone mad; then we would pull up

spasmodically and crawl almost at a foot-pace, then off we flew

again like a telegram. Trains flashed past us on either side every

now and then with a tremendous roar, and soldiers sang out snatches

of war-songs, and we cheered them and waved hands and handkerchiefs

to them in return. We had started an hour and a quarter behind our

time, and we arrived three hours after we were due. For two hours

before we reached Boulogne, the danger lights were flashing ahead,

red and lurid in the darkness, and it was with something like the

feeling of being rescued from a house on fire that we set foot at

last on the platform. Once in safety, I was able to look back more

calmly on the history of the last fortnight. It seemed to me that

I had been standing on a rock, watching the tide roll in, creeping

gradually higher and nearer to my standpoint till I felt the cold

touch of the water on my feet, and leaped ashore.

And Berthe? She stood out like a bright star transfiguring the

dense darkness of the picture. The change I had witnessed in her

appeared to me like the promise of other changes, wider, deeper,

universal. I had ceased to wonder at the choice she had made; the

more I thought of it, the more I felt that she was worthy of it as

it was of her, and the only wish I could form for her now was, that

she might be strong to persevere unto the end. The course she had

adopted was the noblest and the only true one for a Frenchwoman

while France was suffering, and struggling, and bleeding to death.

While the war-cry and the battle psalm were clanging around, it

was not meant for the women of France to sit idly in luxurious

ease, and watch the death-struggle of the nation in indifference

or mere passive sympathy. We may none of us stand aloof from our

brethren in such a crisis, or take refuge in cowardly neutrality.

Neutrality in the brotherhood of Freedom is desertion, treachery.

We have each our appointed post in the battle, and we cannot

desert it without being traitors. We must all fight somehow. Not

of necessity with iron or steel, but we must fight. Moses had

neither bow nor arrow nor javelin when he got up on the mountain

and watched with uplifted arms the conflict in the valley below,

but yet he was not neutral. So to the end of time it must be with

all of us. We must fight somehow; we may never abide in selfish

peace or a sense of isolated security while the brethren around

are at war; whithersoever the battle goes, to victory or defeat,

to glory or humiliation, we must take our share in it, and let

our hearts go on fighting faithfully to the end. We must love the

combatants through good and evil alike; through the smoke and din

we must discern every ennobling incident of the struggle, such

as there abounds on every battle-field in every land, seeing all

things in their true proportions, shutting our hearts inexorably

to despair, making them wide to endless sympathy with the good, to

inexhaustible pity for the wicked. The smoke must not blind us;

the crash and the roar must not deafen us; through the agony of

souls, despair, and hate, and sin, we must have our vision clear

and strong to recognize the loveliness of virtue, the divine beauty

of sacrifice, the infinite possibilities of repentance, the joy

of the conquerors, the sweetness of the kiss of peace. Loving all

love. Hating all hate. We must see angels outnumbering fiends in

incalculable degree, light triumphing over darkness, and the breath

of purity healing the blue corruption of the world.

TO BE CONTINUED.

THE CLERKE OF OXENFORDE.

At his beddes hed

Twenty bokes clothed in blake or red,

Of Aristotle and his philosophie,

Than robes riche, fidel or sautrie,

For al be that he was a philosopher

Yet hadde he but litel gold in coffer,

And all that he might of his frendes hente

On bokes and on learning he it spente,

And besily gan for the soules praie

Of them that gave him wherewith to scholaie.

--_Chaucer._

A BAD BEGINNING FOR A SAINT;

OR, THE EARLY LIFE OF FATHER CHAUMONOT, A CELEBRATED MISSIONARY IN

CANADA.

Lives of saints are somewhat discouraging reading at times to poor

mortals, who feel that they have a good deal of human nature in

them, and that somehow human nature is more disposed to play the

part of mistress than of handmaiden to grace.

These holy souls seem from the cradle so innocent, so faithful,

that they appear a higher creation than ourselves, and accordingly

it is no less consoling than encouraging at times to find early

shortcomings overcome by a tardy fidelity to grace, and sanctity

attained.

In the early annals of Canada, there are few names more revered

than that of Father Peter Mary Joseph Chaumonot, whose impassioned

eloquence gathered round him at Onondaga the braves and sachems of

the Iroquois, wondering to hear their unlabial language flow so

smoothly from the lips of a white man--who founded at Montreal the

Society of the Holy Family, which has been such a potent instrument

in maintaining in Canadian homes the true family spirit of

Catholicity and devotion--and who founded near Quebec a new Loretto

in this Western world for the Huron Indians, whom he so long

directed and guided, after he saw himself deprived of the martyr’s

crown which so many of his fellow-laborers won near the shores of

Lake Huron.

Yet good Father Chaumonot, we are sorry to say, began life as a

young scamp; and to encourage those who sometimes despair of

_mauvais sujets_ whom Providence has placed under their charge,

we will give the story of his early years in Chaumonot’s own

inimitable language. Late in life, by command of his superiors, he

wrote an autobiographical account, and from it we extract:

“For my father I had a poor vine-dresser and for mother a poor

schoolmaster’s daughter. At the age of six, they placed me with

my grandfather, five or six leagues from our village, that I

might learn to read and write. They then took me home, but

only for a short time, one of my uncles, a priest residing at

Châtillon-sur-Seine, having had the kindness to take me to his

house, so that I might study in the college in that place.

“When I had made some progress in Latin, my uncle wished me to

learn plain chant, under one of my class who was a musician. This

fellow persuaded me to leave Châtillon and follow him to Beaune,

where we were to study under the Fathers of the Oratory. As I did

not wish to undertake this journey without funds, I stole about a

hundred sous from my uncle while he was in the church. With this we

took flight.

“We travelled by by-ways to Dijon, whence we made our way to

Beaune. There we put up with a townsman, but as my finances were

short, I wrote to ask my mother to have the goodness to supply

me with money and clothes, so that I might pursue my studies

at Beaune, where I hoped to make more rapid progress than at

Châtillon. The letter fell into my father’s hands, and he answered

me that he would send me nothing; that I must return; and that he

would make peace with my uncle for me.

“This reply filled me with dismay. To return to my uncle was to

expose myself to be pointed at as a thief, and yet to stay any

longer at Beaune was out of the question. So I resolved to run

around the world as a vagabond, rather than bear the shame my

rascality deserved. I started from Beaune with the intention of

going to Rome, though I had not a sou or a change. I travelled

alone for half a day; then I fell in with two young men of

Lorraine, who saluted me and asked me whither I was going. “To

Rome,” quoth I, “to gain the pardons.” They applauded my design,

and entertained me with the object of their own journey to Lyons.

“Meanwhile I was thinking what was to become of me, and what I was

to live on, if I continued my journey. Begging was in my ideas too

degrading, I could not bring myself to work for my living, and

there was little chance of my doing it, for I was unaccustomed to

labor and knew no trade. Fortunately, my two Lorrainers, who were

no better stocked with money than I was, began to beg from door to

door in the first town we came to. Who was dumfounded to see them

ply this trade? Myself, who, after some deliberation, concluded to

imitate them rather than starve, so powerfully had their example

made easy what had previously appeared impossible. Such was my

apprenticeship as a beggar, but as I was only a beginner at the

trade, I gained but a wretched livelihood. However, I flattered

myself that on reaching a city so large as Lyons, some good fortune

would turn up. But, alas! I was astonished to find myself arrested

by the sentinels, who let my companions pass on account of their

passports, and detained me because I had none.

“I did not know what was to become of me, or even where I was to

get shelter. I saw many large buildings, but I durst not ask the

least corner there to pass the night in. At last, spying a wretched

shed opposite a glass furnace, I crept under it. Would to heaven

I had then had sense enough to take my sufferings as an expiation

of my sins, and united my poverty to that of my Saviour lying in a

stable!

“Next morning, seeing at the river-side a boat where people were

embarking to cross the Rhone, I begged the boatman to give me a

passage out of charity. This he did, because in fact the city paid

him to carry beyond the river all the beggars who were refused

entrance into the city.

“When I got to the other side, I met a young man who promised to

make the tour to Italy with me.

“We had just started off together when we met a priest returning

from Rome. He did his best to persuade us to forego our projected

pilgrimage and return home. Among other reasons, he told us that

our want of passports would prevent our getting entrance into

any city on our way. I asked him whether he had one, and he had

no sooner shown it to me than I begged him to allow me to make a

copy of it, which I did on the spot, inserting my own name and my

companion’s instead of his.

“Oh! why did I not then offer to God the hardships of nakedness,

fatigue, heat, cold, and the thousand other miseries I suffered

on that journey! I should have had the happiness of drawing down

upon me the blessings of heaven. Our common Father would not have

refused them to me, beholding in me some traits of the poverty

and sufferings of his Son, but alas! my pride and other sins,

which rendered me more like the devil than I was to our Lord by

my poverty, were great obstacles to grace in me. Yet, O my God!

thou hadst thy views in permitting me to commit fault on fault,

folly on folly! Thou didst deign to set me free from all inordinate

love to my parents, which, had I remained always with them, would

have prevented my consecrating myself entirely to thee. Thou didst

design that when I grew up the remembrance of my trials should make

me sympathize with more love and gratitude in the sufferings of thy

Son.

“But I should be tedious were I to recount all the faults I

committed, and all the miseries that befel me on my way. I shall

give only the principal adventures.

“The first that occurs to my mind is that, when in Savoy, I

entered the court of our college at Chambéry, where I asked in

Latin for alms. One of the fathers was so touched at my wretched

state that he gave me supper, and even promised to take me back to

Lyons, whither he was about to go, and send me from that point to

Châtillon. At first I thanked him as well as I could, and promised

to follow him, but as soon as he left me I took flight, my money

always terrifying me from the thought of returning to my parents.

Was I not out of my senses, and did I not well deserve all the

evils that befel me, when I refused such kind offers for my own

quiet, and the comfort of my poor family? How deplorable was the

blindness of my proud spirit, to choose to face countless dangers

and hardships, rather than undergo a wholesome reprimand!

“In a village in Savoy we met a good parish priest, who took us to

his house, and, after giving us supper, allowed us to sleep on the

bed of his servant, whom he had sent to Chambéry. This gentleman

slept in a room over his valet’s, which was entered by a ladder,

at the top of which was a trap-door, which our host neglected to

close properly, so that about midnight a cat pursuing her prey

threw it down. The noise was sufficient to awake the priest, who

imagined that we were trying to enter his room for no good purpose.

So he jumped out of bed and, attired as he was, rushed out on a

balcony, crying Murder! murder! murder! at the top of his voice. No

less alarmed, I ran up the ladder and reassured him by explaining

the innocent cause of all the trouble. Fortunately for us, the

neighbors were not awakened by their pastor’s voice.

“Here is another adventure where we ran greater risk. In a town

in the Valteline we found a French garrison reduced to a very

small number of soldiers, so that the officers urged us strongly

to enlist. I would have consented to get my bread every day in

this manner, in the hunger I suffered, but my wiser comrade would

hear nothing of it. All they got from us was our consent to await

the arrival of the commissary, who was daily expected. They led

us to hope that we should receive the same pay as real soldiers.

Meanwhile, they wished to see what figure we would cut on parade.

It was easy enough to travesty into a soldier my comrade, who was a

big fellow; but as I appeared a mere boy, from my youth and small

body, there was some difficulty in finding a sword to suit me. That

which they judged best suited to my size had an eel or snake skin

scabbard, and for want of belt or baldric they tied it around with

an ass’ halter. I appeared so ridiculous in this that they resolved

to put me to bed as sick when the commissary came. While awaiting

that event, we lived on the king’s bread, and my comrade was in a

constant shiver lest we should be regarded as interlopers or be

detained there in spite of ourselves. He made the danger out so

great that I yielded to his urging. Bent on pursuing our pilgrimage

to Rome, we started one fine morning, but had not travelled more

than a mile and a half when we were arrested by some soldiers, who

had orders to seize all deserters they found and take them back to

their officers. ‘Alas!’ I cried with tears, ‘have I the look of a

military man? I am a poor student, who has taken a vow to go to

Rome.’ So pathetic was my accent that it touched them, and they let

us go. If God had not given them compassion for us, what would have

become of us? He saved us from another danger after we had entered

Italy.

“Towards nightfall we reached a hostelry by the roadside, where we

proposed to sleep, but we counted without our host. We had scarcely

eaten our wretched supper, which he made us pay for as dearly as

he wished, when, in spite of all our demands that he would at

least give us shelter in one of his stables, he barbarously drove

us out. It would not have been so bad could we have slept by the

light of the stars, but there were none, and the weather, which was

overcast, soon poured down on us a drenching rain. Our clothes were

all soaked, and, to cap the climax, the road was full of holes and

ditches that we did not see, so that we made almost as many tumbles

as steps.

“We were well-nigh used up when a gleam of light enabled us to make

out a stable. As we crawled towards it, we found a great stack of

straw quite near it. We climbed up on it and made a hole in the

top to creep in. As we were chilled through, especially our feet,

we put them under each other’s arm-pits, lying so that my head was

opposite my companion’s. We were just beginning to get warm when

some large dogs, scenting us, came running up barking furiously. At

this noise the people ran out of the farm-house and tried to drive

us off with stones. This new kind of hail did not suffer us to

remain in our quarters, and fear of the dogs prevented our leaving

them. I then thought it high time to speak, and my skill in getting

up tears served my turn here as it had already done in getting us

off when arrested as deserters. So I began to shout out in Latin:

_Nos sumus pauperes peregrini_. As the last word is Italian also,

it informed these good people who we were. They took pity on us,

called off their dogs, and left us to pass the rest of the night in

peace.

“After many hardships and sufferings we reached Ancona. Alas! who

can express the wretched condition to which my vagabond life had

reduced me! From head to foot, everything about me inspired horror.

I was barefooted, having been obliged to throw away my shoes,

which were broken and galled me. My shirt was rotting, my tattered

clothes swarmed with vermin, my uncombed head was filled with so

horrible a disease that it swarmed with worms and matter of most

loathsome stench.... It was only at Ancona that I was aware of the

extent of this disease, when on scratching it I found a worm on my

hand. At the sight of this my consternation was unspeakable. ‘Must

I, then,’ I said to myself, ‘in punishment of my villanies, be

eaten alive by worms and vermin? I no longer wonder that when I

take off my hat before people, they show wonder and horror at the

sight. What is to become of me? Am I not a sickening sight to all

the world? O sad chastisement of my pride!’

“After all, I resumed courage as I approached the Holy House of

Loretto. Perhaps the Blessed Virgin, who performs so many miracles

in this sacred spot in favor of the wretched, will take pity on

my misery! Ah! why had I not then the knowledge I subsequently

acquired of the wonders wrought by her in that sanctuary in favor

of soul and body? I should have had a far different confidence in

her power and goodness!

“Although I invoked her coldly enough, she showed me that,

independently of our merit and disposition, she is pleased to

exercise towards us the duties of a real mother; and as one of

these duties is to see to the cleanliness of their children, thou

didst regard me in that light, O Blessed Virgin! unworthy as I was

and am to be adopted by thee as thy son. Thou didst inspire a young

man whom I was never able to discover with the will and power to

heal my head. Thou knowest better than I how it was accomplished.

Yet I will not omit in token of gratitude to set down what I know.

“On leaving the Holy House of Mary, an unknown person, who seemed

to be a young man and who was perhaps an angel, said to me with an

air and tone of pity: ‘My dear boy, what a wretched head you have!

Come, follow me, I will try to apply some remedy.’ I followed him:

he took me outside the church, behind a large pillar, where no one

passed. Having reached this retired spot, he made me sit down,

and bade me remove my hat. I obeyed. He cut off all my hair with

scissors, rubbed my poor head with a white cloth, and, without my

feeling any pain, entirely removed all trace of the disease and

its hideous accompaniments. He then put my hat on again. I thanked

him for his charity; he left me, and I am yet to see a better

physician or experience a more wretched disease.

“If the least lady had done me this service by her lowest valet,

should I not render her all possible thanks? And if, after such a

charity, she had offered always to serve me in the same way, how

should I not feel bound to honor, obey, and love her all my life!

Pardon, Queen of angels and of men! pardon me, that after receiving

from thee so many marks convincing me that thou hast adopted me as

thy son, I have been so ungrateful as for whole years to act more

as a slave of Satan than the child of a Virgin Mother. Oh! how

good and charitable art thou, since, in spite of the obstacles my

sins have raised to thy graces, thou hast never ceased to draw me

towards good; till thou hast caused me to be admitted into the holy

Society of Jesus, thy Son.

“My comrade and I resumed the road to Rome, after spending three

days at Loretto; but God stopped me at Terni, in Umbria, to change

my beggar life for a place as valet. I was begging from door to

door as usual, when a venerable old man, a doctor of laws, invited

me to stay with him to attend him in the house and accompany him to

town. I was so weary of my beggar’s trade that I readily accepted

the citizen’s offer to become his lackey; I even did the lowest

tasks, for there was nothing that did not seem sweet and honorable

compared to the hardships and humiliations which had made me loathe

my mendicant life.

“I had been some time at Terni, but as I had not picked up enough

Italian to confess in that language, I made my confession in

Latin to a father of the Society of Jesus. After my confession, he

questioned me as to my studies. I told him that I was in rhetoric

when I allowed myself to be led astray. He manifested the regret

he felt to see me reduced to so low a condition after starting

so well in my education. He urged me to resume my studies; and

to facilitate this he proposed, if I chose, to have me received

into the college, where I would advance in science and virtue. I

took his proposal ill, imagining he wished to make a Jesuit of me;

but in the sequel I had every reason to believe that this wise

religious merely wished to give me at first the place of a young

secular who taught the lowest class in the college. Would to God I

had then commenced to do so! How many sins I should have avoided!

I did indeed go two days after to see the father and remind him of

it, but as I did not know his name, I was stupid enough to ask for

‘the father who heard my confession.’ The scholars in the college

yard to whom I put this question roared at my folly, and that was

enough to send me back quicker than I came. However, I asked the

doctor whom I served what kind of people the Jesuits were. He

answered me carelessly that they received only persons of rank and

talent, that their order was less austere than others, and that you

could leave it even after taking the vows. These last traits with

which he described them did not displease me. I would willingly

have entered among them for a time. I was not yet fit for the

kingdom of God, as I looked behind me before putting my hand to the

plough.

“As I began to understand Italian, I read devotional books in that

language, and among the rest one, _The Lives of the Fathers of

the Desert_, inspired me with the desire of becoming a hermit.

Thereupon, without consulting any one, I left my master’s house

with the view of going to bury myself in some wilderness in France

after I had visited Rome.

“As I left the city I met my doctor’s daughter, and explained my

intention to her, so that they should not be alarmed at my sudden

disappearance. After I had travelled a few leagues, I thought I

would try whether I could live on herbs like the anchorites. I took

some growing wheat, put it in my mouth, chewed it, but could not

swallow it, so I fell back on my trade of beggar, which did not

prevent my suffering considerably from hunger, even in Rome, for I

did not know the religious houses where alms were given at stated

days and hours. The novitiate of the Jesuits at St. Andrew’s is

one of these charitable places, and the only one I knew. Although

my would-be vocation to the eremitical life was somewhat shaken, I

started from Rome intending to return to France. Retracing the same

road I came by, I reached Terni, but not daring to return to my

master, I retired to a soap-maker of my acquaintance, where I spent

the night. The next morning he told the doctor, who was good enough

to invite me back to his service. I at once accepted his offer,

renouncing for ever beggary, for which I had now a greater horror

than ever.

“My good master had an intimate friend called Il Signore Capitone,

who some time after my return to Terni told my doctor that he

would like to have me at his house as tutor to his two sons, who

were studying at the college of the Society of Jesus. My master

consented, and, after speaking to me, sent me to his friend. I was

received with open arms, and presented the next day to our fathers,

who put me in rhetoric. I was not long studying under them without

feeling stimulated to imitate the virtues which I admired in these

worthy servants of God. One thing prevented openness with my

confessor, and it was that I could not bring myself to acknowledge

my low birth, for up to this time I had boasted that my father was

a _procureur du roi_ (district attorney), and I was ashamed to

unsay it or keep on saying it. Several months rolled on in this

combat of nature and grace, the latter pressing me to declare my

vocation, the former preventing it. However, God, wishing me to be

received into the Society, prepared the occasion.

“A young ecclesiastic paid by the fathers taught one of the lower

classes, but, getting tired of it, asked to be relieved. They cast

their eyes on me, and promised me the same salary. The gentleman

with whom I dwelt consenting, I became regent or teacher. God gave

me grace to economize my earnings, and when I had a pretty good sum

I divided it between the churches and the poor. I even tried to

imitate at least in something the great St. Nicholas, by throwing

some money one night into a house where there was a girl in want.

“Our Lord rewarded me well for these liberalities by the great

grace he did me by calling me strongly to the religious state.

One day among others, while they were celebrating in the church

the feast of Blessed Francis Borgia, not then canonized, I was

so touched by the sermon of the Jesuit father that, to follow as

far as I could the example of the blessed Francis, I made a vow

to leave the world and enter religion either among the Jesuits,

if they were willing to receive me, or, in case they deemed me

unworthy of that favor, among the Capuchins or Recollects.”

We will not follow his account of some interior struggles that

followed. When the provincial of the order arrived at Terni, the

accounts given were so favorable that Chaumonot was received and

sent with good letters to the novitiate of St. Andrew’s at Rome. “I

was twenty-one years old,” says he, “when I entered the novitiate

May 18, 1632.” But he did not finish it there. A nobleman had

founded a novitiate at Florence, and young Chaumonot with others

was sent there six months after his entrance. The master of novices

here, less austere than his former one, encouraged him to reveal

the great deception that troubled his conscience.

“One of the first things I asked this second master of novices was

that, to punish my pride, he should question me in public as to

the condition of my parents, my coming into Italy, and how I had

been employed. I hoped thus to expiate to some extent my faults,

and especially the falsehood I had uttered to conceal my low birth.

He consented. One day, when all the novitiate was assembled, he

questioned me on all these points. God gave me grace to practise

the humiliation which he had inspired, and I publicly declared

who I was, how and why I had left France, and what had been my

adventures in Italy. The holy man added to my avowal as I had

proposed making it, another act of mortification that I had not

counted on. He told me to sing one of my village songs, and for

this purpose made me mount on a trunk as my stage. I tried to obey,

but the music was not long. My memory could bring up only a dancing

tune. I started it. After the first couplet, the father stopped me,

crying: ‘Shame! what a ridiculous song! If you don’t know a better

one, never sing again.’”

His joy in the abode of religion was unbounded. To find himself

admitted among young men so far superior to him in all that the

world esteems, gave him constant occasions for zeal and fervor. Yet

his trials were not ended. The health which had stood the hardships

of his gipsy life now became so impaired that there was some

hesitation whether he should be allowed to take his vows.

But heaven favored his desires. He returned to Rome, and was thence

sent to the college at Fermo, to his intense delight; for it was

but a short distance from that Holy House which was to his last

breath the one beloved spot of earth to his warm heart, throbbing

with love for the Holy Family.

He easily won permission to make a pilgrimage to that shrine; and

the young French runaway of former days, a spectacle to excite

pity and horror, would not now be recognized in the talented young

Italian Jesuit, Calmanotti. His mother tongue even was lost, but

a French father at Loretto gave him some books in his native

language, and urged him to recover it. After a time it came back,

and he could read with ease.

As a teacher, he won the favor of his pupils and his superiors, for

he seemed to possess the _donum famæ_, that singular gift which

constitutes popularity, and wins its way with men of all nations

and places.

While pursuing his theology at Rome, he became acquainted with

Father Poncet de la Rivière, a Parisian Jesuit just completing his

divinity course in the Holy City, destined at a later day to be

hurried through Northern New York by savage captors and to reach

the Mohawk amid torture and suffering.

One day this father placed in the hands of his young and brilliant

countryman one of those Jesuit _Relations_ our bibliomaniacs now

prize so highly. Chaumonot read with wonder and excited interest

the narrative of the heroic Brébeuf and his call for religious to

labor with him in converting the Indians of New France. To him it

was a personal call, and he responded. There were obstacles, but he

applied for everything, permission to abridge his course of study,

permission to be ordained, permission to start as early as possible

for France to catch the ships on their annual voyage.

Yet with all his eagerness and haste, he clung to one spot of

Italy. He could not leave it without kneeling once more as a

pilgrim in the Santa Casa, and bearing it in his heart of hearts

to the New World, till he could erect there a Loretto on the model

of that he so revered. His devotion to the Holy Family led him to

adopt the name of Joseph and Mary, and to choose for saying his

first Mass the Loretto Chapel, erected after the model of the Santa

Casa by Cardinal Pallotti.

An unfortunate hiatus in his autobiography prevents our following

him through France, and witnessing his meeting with his family

and his long farewell. The uncle, we can well believe, readily

pardoned the escapade of one who was now showing such devotion and

self-sacrifice; while the mother must have pressed to her heart the

son now more than ever dear to her.

The Canada fleet sailed from Dieppe, and thither Chaumonot and

Poncet bent their way. The fleet and its voyage are historical. As

the old chronicle remarks, it bore “a College of Jesuits, a House

of Hospital Nuns, and an Ursuline Convent,” the last accompanied

by Madame de la Peltrie, the foundress and Mother Mary of the

Incarnation, as first superior. Of the Hospital Nuns--whose

contemplated establishment was endowed by Richelieu’s niece, the

Duchess d’Aiguillon, and the great cardinal himself--Mary Guenet of

St. Ignatius had in chapter been appointed to assume direction. The

passage of the ocean was not without its risks. Richelieu’s attempt

to create a French navy, and his motto, so adroitly alluding to the

arms of France:

“Florent quoque lilia pronto”

(E’en on the waters lilies bloom),

had excited jealousy, and cruisers, privateers of all kinds, were

ready to sweep away the cargoes destined for the colonies the

far-sighted minister sought to create.

But fearless of this danger the fleet swept out of Dieppe on the

4th of May, 1639, and the convent life, with almost daily Masses,

made the flagship vie in its regularity with the time-honored

monasteries of the Old World.

But if the danger of hostile cruisers did not alarm them, the feast

of the Holy Trinity came with a new peril. Dense fogs hung over the

bosom of the ocean while the Masses were offered. Just as they had

risen from their adoration, a sailor on the deck shrieked: “Mercy!

mercy! we are all lost!” Through the lifting vapors he caught,

within two fathoms of the ship’s side, the flash and the glitter of

ice. While all sank in prayer, offering vows and Masses, and the

Ursuline Sister St. Joseph began to chant the Litany of Loretto,

the vanishing mist showed them the fearful extent of their danger.

The iceberg towered high above their topmast, its summit still

wreathed in a cloud of mist, while far and wide it extended over

the sea. “You would have called it a city,” says Mother Mary of the

Incarnation, “and there are cities which are far less extensive

than this berg,” with turrets and spires, streets and dwellings,

as it were of crystal.

The sails were straining, the wind being full in their favor, and

the iceberg advancing. All passed in a moment. Captain Bontems’

voice rang out, but providentially the man at the wheel, appalled

by terror, gave a wrong movement, the wind suddenly changed, and

the vessel was saved, as the ice fairly grazed it, and bore away

from the magnificent object that so recently sent a thrill through

every heart--even the best pilots averring that it was a miracle,

as no human skill could have saved them.

Still storms and fogs delayed the ships, and it was not till the

15th of July that they entered the port of Tadoussac on the lower

St. Lawrence. Transferred to a fishing-smack, the whole party

were here detained several days, but at last on the 1st of August

reached the lower town of Quebec.

The gallant Knight of Malta, Huault de Montmagny, Governor-General

of Canada, received them at the wharf, and the city made it a

general holiday. As the nuns stepped on the American soil which was

to be the scene of their labors for God and the Indians, they knelt

to kiss the earth. All then proceeded to the church, where a Te

Deum was chanted.

Father Chaumonot was not to linger long at Quebec. A letter of

August 7th announces that he with three other fathers was about

to start for the Huron country. His stormy sea voyage of three

months was followed by a month’s journey over the rivers and lakes

and through the vast forests of the New World. On the 10th of

September, the six Hurons ran their bark canoe ashore at the end of

Lake Tsirorgi, where Father Jerome Lalemant was at the moment in a

rude cabin he had recently thrown up.

Chaumonot was on the field of his labor. Strange indeed was all

around him. “Our dwellings are of bark, like those of the Indians,

with no partitions except for the chapel. For want of table and

furniture, we eat on the ground and drink out of bark. Our kitchen

and refectory furniture consists of a great wooden dish full of

_sagamity_, which I can compare to nothing but the paste used for

wall paper. Our bed is bark with a thin blanket; sheets we have

none, even in sickness; but the greatest inconvenience is the

smoke, which, for want of a chimney, fills the whole cabin.”

“Our manner of announcing the Word of God to the Indians is not to

go up into a pulpit and preach in a public place; we must visit

each house separately, and by the fire explain the mysteries of our

holy faith to those who choose to listen to it.”

The superior soon recognized in the young father--to whom the

Hurons gave the name of Oronhiaguehee (the Bearer of Heaven)--a

great facility for languages, as well as zeal, courage, and

perseverance.

Father Chaumonot began his Huron labors at a critical moment. The

mission among the Wyandot tribes, renewed by the great apostle

Brébeuf soon after the restoration of Canada to France, had been

fruitful in crosses and gave little to encourage the ministers of

religion.

Most of these Indians, obdurate in their errors and superstitions,

not only turned a deaf ear to the teachings of the missionaries,

but, regarding them as powerful sorcerers, attributed to them every

misfortune that befel the tribe or any individual. In those wild

communities, every one rights his own wrongs, real or imaginary.

Hence the fearless Jesuits actually carried their lives in their

hands, never free from danger, or without the probability of being

tomahawked.

The flotilla that brought up Father Chaumonot and Poncet carried

also the deadly small-pox. As it devastated town after town, the

missionaries were compelled to bear the responsibility of this

new scourge. Their very efforts to reach the sick, to baptize and

instruct, were resisted with superstitious terror; they were driven

from cabins; and often, on reaching a town, would find every lodge

closed against them.

Their crosses were cut down, the crucifix torn from their necks,

the tomahawk often menaced their lives while on their errands of

mercy or at prayer in their cabins.

It was a position to appall the stoutest heart. Yet Chaumonot

entered on his work with alacrity and courage, fit associate

for those who had already braved all the risks and perils. None

faltered or hesitated.

They took, however, at this time an important step. To enable them

to act more independently and give them at all times a place for

retreats, as well as a centre of mission work, they established St.

Mary’s, the first mission settlement in the West. It was on the

river Wye, easy of access from all the towns where they had been

laboring. From it the fathers, generally two together, proceeded to

the towns assigned as their field of labor.

The large fortified town of Ossossane was entrusted to Father

Ragueneau, and Chaumonot was named his assistant. Here the

opposition and obduracy were such that they had actually driven out

the missionaries. The young Jesuit went forth bravely into this

hardened field--Ossossane and twelve neighboring towns.

In St. Teresa, as the missionaries styled one of these villages,

a young man solicited instruction and seemed to hear it with

pleasure. While Father Ragueneau was speaking, another Indian

rushed furiously in and ordered the two missionaries to be gone. As

Father Ragueneau rose, the young man whom he had been instructing

sprang upon him, tore his crucifix violently from his neck, and,

brandishing his tomahawk, bade him prepare to die. “I fear not

death,” said Ragueneau; “you should thank me for what I have just

taught you. If you wish to kill me I shall not fly, for death will

place me in heaven.” His tomahawk was raised, and he dealt the

blow. “Father Chaumonot and I thought that we that moment beheld

our long-cherished desire gratified,” but the blow was averted--how

they knew not. As he raised his hatchet again his arm was caught.

One day the two fathers were passing near a cabin full of sick

Hurons, whom they were not permitted to see. A bright little boy

ran out and welcomed them with kind words. His danger of taking the

epidemic touched them. Father Ragueneau felt impelled not to lose

the opportunity which Providence seemed to offer them to baptize

him, and he asked our young missionary to baptize him secretly.

Father Chaumonot took up a handful of snow, and, melting it in

his hand, poured it upon his head. The little fellow smiled, and

then, as though he had accomplished his errand, ran back to his

death-stricken home. A few days later they heard that he had sunk

under the fatal malady.

The next year he was sent to the Arendaenronnon with Father Daniel.

As the great object was to learn the language, his experienced

companion made him daily visit a certain number of cabins and

pick up all the words he could, writing them down. “So great a

repugnance had I to making these visits,” he tells us, “that every

time I entered a cabin I seemed to be going to the torture, so much

did I shrink from the railleries to which I was subjected.”

After this rude apprenticeship he set out with the great Father

Brébeuf to attempt to establish a mission among the Attiwandaronk,

a tribe lying on both sides of the Niagara, or, as they called it

and one of their towns near the Senecas, Onguiaahra. This tribe,

fiercer and more brutal than the Hurons, had hitherto observed a

neutrality between them and the Iroquois--a fact which led the

French to call them the Neutral Nation. A journey of four days and

nights through the woods from Teananstayae on the Huron frontier

brought them to Kandoucho, the first of the Neuter towns.

In the beginning they were well received, and all awaited the

return of the great chief Tsohahissen from war, there being no

one in his absence to treat with them; but gradually pagan Hurons

came, and represented the missionaries as great magicians who

sought their ruin. Then every door was closed against them, and

they often nearly perished at night, deprived of all shelter. After

visiting eighteen towns, they sadly turned back towards Kandoucho,

but the snow came on so rapidly that they could not proceed beyond

Teotongniaton. There they found a charitable woman who not only

welcomed them to her cabin, but during their twenty-five days’

stay was their patient and intelligent instructor in her language,

enabling them to adapt the dictionary and grammar of the Huron

language to that of this nation.

Yet even this good woman could not protect her guests from all

injury. A crazy fellow in her cabin spat upon Father Chaumonot,

tore his cassock, and kept up such a din that they could not sleep,

and tore from their persons any object that took his fancy.

After a stay of four months and a half they finally abandoned this

field, and the Neuter Nation rejected its last call, for it was

soon after destroyed by the Iroquois.

Still greater suffering awaited him. With the early summer he

joined Father Daniel once more. They entered the cabin of a dying

woman in the town of St. Michael to baptize her; one of her

relatives, incensed at this, awaited them without, and as Father

Chaumonot issued forth tore off his hat with one hand, and with

the other dealt him a terrible blow with a stone. “I was stunned

by the blow,” says he, “and the assassin seized his tomahawk to

finish me, but Father Daniel wrested it from his hands. I was

taken to our host’s cabin, where another Indian was my charitable

physician. Seeing the large tumor I had on my head, he took another

sharp stone to make some incision, through which he endeavored to

press out all the extravasated blood, and then bathed the top of my

head with cold water, in which some pounded roots were steeped. He

took some of this infusion into his mouth and squirted it into the

incisions. This treatment was so successful that I was soon well.

God was satisfied with my desire of martyrdom, or rather deemed

me unworthy to die a victim to the hatred of the first of our

sacraments.”

Amid such men, with all the horrors of war--for the Iroquois from

New York were gradually conquering the land--Chaumonot labored on,

suffering in health but undaunted and unappalled, even when, in

1648, Father Daniel perished in his village, and in the following

March Father Brébeuf and his young associate Gabriel Lalemant

underwent the fearful torture which gave them the highest crown

among our martyrs.

A general panic seized the Hurons after this last blow. “At the

time of this greatest defeat of the Huron nation,” says Father

Chaumonot, “I had charge of a town almost entirely Christian.

The Iroquois, having attacked the villages about ten miles off,

gave our braves a chance to sally out and attack them; but the

enemy were in greater force than they supposed, and our men

were defeated. Two days after their defeat news came that all

our warriors were killed or taken. It was midnight when the

intelligence came, and at once every cabin resounded with wailing,

sobs, and piteous cries. You could hear nothing but wives bewailing

their husbands, mothers mourning for their sons, and relatives

lamenting the death or captivity of those nearest to them.

Thereupon an old man, justly fearing lest the Iroquois might dash

on the town, now deprived of its defenders, began to run through

the town crying: ‘Fly! fly! let us escape; the hostile army is

coming to take us.’

“At this cry I ran out and hastened from cabin to cabin to

baptize the catechumens, confess the neophytes, and, arm all with

prayer. As I made my round I saw that they were all abandoning

the place, to take refuge with a nation about thirty-three miles

distant. I followed these poor fugitives with the view of giving

them spiritual aid, and as I did not even think of taking any

provisions, I made the whole journey without eating or drinking or

ever feeling any fatigue. While marching on, I thought only and

busied myself only with administering consolation to my flock,

instructing some, confessing others, baptizing those who had not

yet received that sacrament. As it was still winter, I was forced

to administer baptism with snow-water melted in my hands. What

showed me clearly that my strength in flight was given me from on

high, is that a Frenchman in the party, a man incomparably stronger

in constitution than I, almost perished on the way, spent with

weariness and overexertion.”

He was with the surviving missionaries when they committed to

the grave at St. Mary’s the bodies of Brébeuf and Lalemant; and

when tidings came of Garnier’s heroic death, and of Chabanel’s

disappearance, he accompanied the Hurons who fled to St. Joseph’s

Island in Lake Huron. There is nothing in the annals of the

missions more touching than Father Chaumonot’s letters describing

the fearful sufferings of the fugitives there.

When they at last resolved to seek a refuge at Quebec with their

allies the French, Father Chaumonot bore them company, bidding

adieu to the land which for eleven years had been the constant

scene of his labors.

No missionary had more thoroughly entered into the Indian character

or identified himself with them in thought. To him, therefore, they

gave the name which the illustrious Brébeuf had borne, that of

Hechon; and he was naturally the one to whose direction they were

committed on Isle Orleans.

His labors on the Huron language were now probably completed. He

had thoroughly mastered it, and drew up a grammar and dictionary,

which continued for years to be the guide, not only for Huron,

but for all the kindred Iroquois languages. “It pleased God,” he

says, “to give my work so much benediction, that there is no

turn or subtlety in Huron, nor manner of expression, that I am

not acquainted with, or have not, so to say, discovered.” This

knowledge he attributed as much to prayer as to his natural talent

and assiduity.

His grammar was published some years since in the second volume of

the _Collections_ of the Quebec Literary and Historical Society,

and is one of the most important of those linguistic treasures

which American ethnology owes to the early Catholic missionaries.

Father Chaumonot had scarcely organized his Huron church on Isle

Orleans when he was summoned to a new field. The Iroquois, their

hands reeking with the blood of Goupil, Jogues, Daniel, Brébeuf,

Lalemant, Garnier, asked for missionaries. They began to respect

the faith which gave such heroes, able to read the grandeur of

Christianity in the virtues of its apostles.

Father le Moyne had led the way to Onondaga. Dablon and Chaumonot

followed. In a general assembly of the cantons, Father Chaumonot

proclaimed the faith with such eloquence, and in a style so

adapted to reach the Indian mind, that the Indians lost their cold

indifference, and applauded loudly, while Father Dablon himself

listened in wonder to the language of his fellow-missioner. The

mission was established. Huron captives formed a nucleus, around

which gathered Iroquois converts, warriors and matrons, sachems and

orators.

There was no sparing of vice. Amid all the suspicion that lurked

in the Indian mind against the motives of the missionaries,

and compelled constant discourses and apologies, the fearless

missionaries rebuked them for their evil life.

Once, when accusations were made that the blackgowns came to

diminish their numbers and blight their race, Father Chaumonot

boldly retorted the charge on the men, and showed them that, by

their infidelity and harshness to their wives, their divorces,

abandoning them, and overtasking their strength, they caused the

death of their children, and were forced to adopt captives to fill

their cabins. Christian marriage alone, he showed them, could save

the race from extermination.

This advocacy of woman’s real rights closed the mouths of his

assailants, and so won the women of Onondaga to the cause of

Christianity that they wished to render public thanks to the

fearless missionary. They gave him a great banquet, to which they

came adorned in all their finest ornaments, to dance to the cadence

of two native minstrels, while they sang his praises and thanked

him for his advocacy.

Strange that alarmed statisticians in this country point now to the

same causes as producing the rapid decline in the birth-rate of the

Americans as a people, while the church, echoing Chaumonot’s sermon

of two centuries ago, points to the sacrament of matrimony as the

only sure hope for the country.

The Onondaga mission of 1655 is full of beautiful details. Its end

was strange and romantic. A plot formed for the destruction of all

the French was baffled by a secret flight, so adroitly managed that

the Indians believed that the French had become invisible.

Montreal was the next field of our missionary. Here, in 1663, with

the aid of Madame d’Ailleboust, Margaret Bourgeoys, foundress of

the Congregation Sisters, Mother de Brésoles, of the Hôtel Dieu,

and other pious persons, he founded a society which has for its

model the Holy House of Nazareth, to which he was so devoted,

and which has for two hundred years been the instrument of

incalculable good in Canada--one of the mighty aids in maintaining

the family faith and family piety--the Society of the Holy Family.

Amid our great wants is such a society, to sanctify Christian

families, by modelling them on that of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

The remnant of his Huron flock had gathered beneath the fort of

Quebec, but before he returned permanently to them he was sent as

chaplain to Fort Richelieu, at the mouth of the Sorel. Adapting

himself to any life, he labored among those committed to him with

his habitual zeal. He soon gained the hearts, not only of the

private soldiers, but of the officers; and established among them

regular practices of piety. One officer, touched by his words

and example, hung up his sword at the altar, and, receiving in

due time holy orders, was for many years a devoted missionary in

Nova Scotia; while a soldier, formed by Father Chaumonot, devoted

himself to the service of the missionaries, and became an excellent

teacher.

At last he is with his Hurons, never to leave them. He reared for

them the Chapel of Notre Dame de Foye, so called after a celebrated

shrine of Mary near Dinan. A copy of the miraculous statue there

venerated excited the devotion of his flock, and was the instrument

of God’s blessings and favors. To commemorate these, the Hurons,

through Father Chaumonot, sent to the Old World shrine a wampum

belt with the inscription, “_Beata quæ credidisti_,” and this

token of Indian homage was laid before the altar of Our Lady with

the offerings of kings and princes. Others followed the example,

and to this day celebrated shrines in Belgium, France, and Italy

preserve the wampum belts sent from the depths of our forests by

the converts of our early missionaries.

Six years later, the wants of the Indians compelled them to select

a new site, where unbroken land and fuel were abundant. When it

was chosen, Father Chaumonot carried out a long-cherished design,

and with the alms of the Children of Mary in Europe and America

erected a brick chapel of the exact dimensions and arrangement of

the Santa Casa of Loretto. It soon became a renowned pilgrimage for

the supernatural favors obtained there. And here in this favored

sanctuary the servant of Mary spent nearly a quarter of a century,

giving his time to God and his neighbor. He rose at two, spent four

or five hours in prayer or contemplation, recited his office, said

Mass, preaching almost daily, then attended to the affairs of the

mission, instructing some of his colleagues in Huron, catechising

children; after a slight repast at noon, he again spent some time

in prayer, and visited some cabins to give special instructions. At

nightfall, his chapel was filled for evening prayer, and with his

private devotions he closed his day.

In 1689, he celebrated at the Cathedral of Quebec the fiftieth

anniversary of his first Mass, being the first one who had ever

there attained such years of ministry. The Governor and Intendant,

with many other persons of distinction, sought the privilege of

receiving at the hands of the venerable priest on this day.

At the close of the year 1692, he began to sink under a

complication of disorders, and was conveyed to Quebec. He rallied

for a time, but after suffering intense pains, which he bore

with unshaken patience and admirable piety, he died the death

of a saint. As such, his austerities, his mortifications, his

uninterrupted union with God, his zeal and love for his neighbor,

had long caused him to be regarded. All gathered around his

venerated remains seeking some relic, and many afflicted in soul

or body sought his intercession--as documents show, not without

effect. His funeral was the most imposing yet seen in Canada.

Such was the repute of his sanctity that even Frontenac, the

Governor-General, bitter and fanatical in his hostility to the

Jesuits, attended, as well as the Bishop of Quebec, who had long

revered the aged missionary.

None who beheld his unpromising start in life could have dreamed of

such a career or of such a close.

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN INDIA.[190]

The contents of this book, put forward with all the apparent

sanction possible of the sect that employs Mr. Butler, may be

looked upon as the quintessence of all that has been or can be

said on the subject of missions in Hindostan, by a writer who

feels that he has a claim to challenge our attention and command

our belief. That it is orthodox in character, according to the

notions of his class, cannot be doubted in view of the official

position of the author, and the innumerable extracts from the

Old and New Testaments, particularly the former, with which its

pages are interspersed; quotations the frequency of which, if not

reflecting much credit on the reverend doctor by their charity or

appositeness, give to the work an air of ponderous learning and

holiness that must be highly relished by his brother Methodists.

But in justice to the author, it must be said that he does not

altogether confine himself to the sacred writers. When the grandeur

of the pagan temples or the horrors of Mohammedanism become too

great even for his descriptive powers, he freely draws on that

profane child of the muses, Tom Moore, whose merits, however, he

is careful, in his clerical capacity, to depreciate by assuring us

that the author of _Lalla Rookh_ “was for a good part of his life a

_Romanist_”; an objection which he seems to forget might be urged

with equal truthfulness against the majority of the gifted minds of

the past eighteen centuries, and even against the inspired penmen

of the New Testament and the fathers of the church.

However, aside from the attractions of the work in an artistic

point of view, we do no injustice in selecting it as a very

favorable specimen of this sort of literature, and, recognizing its

author as a tried and approved servant of the Methodist Episcopal

Church, we shall proceed to gather from its veritable pages a

history of his labors, sufferings, and triumphs in the cause of

Protestant Christianity.

India, as our readers are aware, is one of the most densely peopled

and, in one sense, highly civilized of Asiatic countries. Its

population numbers considerably more than two hundred millions,

or about one-sixth of the whole human race, speaking many

languages and professing various forms of faith. The Hindoos,

the original inhabitants, forming the mass of the people, are

polytheists, worshipping according to the _Vedas_ and other books

considered sacred, their priests being known to the Western world

as Brahmins--an hereditary religio-social aristocracy, the most

ancient, and at one time considered the most learned, body of

men in existence. The Mohammedans, who are said to amount to

some twenty-five millions, are the descendants of the conquerors

of the eleventh century, and follow more or less strictly the

teachings of the Koran. The Brahminical classes or castes, which

are numerous, though not enjoying their full immunities since the

advent of Europeans on their shores, are still ardently devoted to

learning, and indeed, in common with all their countrymen, may be

said to develop remarkable mental acuteness and quick perception,

though still unfortunately strongly attached to the grossest forms

of idolatry. To wean them from these degrading practices, and to

introduce in their stead the pure teaching of the Gospel, has

been the professed object of the Protestant sects of Europe in

sending out crowds of missionaries and innumerable Bibles since the

commencement of the century--a work in which some of their brothers

in this country have not been behindhand. But American Methodism,

until 1856, had no representative in the “land of the Veda,” and

the Indians up to that time were ignorant of its peculiar and

manifold blessings till Dr. Butler was despatched from Boston to

enlighten them. He sailed in April, and arrived at Bareilly in

the autumn of that year, where, as he tells us, “his appearance

caused a great deal of talk and excitement.” He was accompanied

from Allahabad by a native named Joel, wife and child, and, having

his own wife and two of his children with him, he commenced his

labors. This Joel, who is frequently mentioned in the book, was,

it seems, already converted, and when transferred to Dr. Butler

by his spiritual guardians they “playfully intimated that Joel

had been trained a Presbyterian, knew the Westminster Catechism,

and was sound on the five points of Calvinism, and that they

would naturally expect him to continue in the faith even though

he was going with a Methodist missionary; but,” continues the sly

doctor, “I felt assured that these things would regulate themselves

hereafter”--and he was right, for, as he tells us in another place,

his faithful helper “was destined to become the first native

minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church in India.” He became in

a manner the corner-stone of the vast edifice that was about to be

erected on the ruins of heathenism.