We have often heard the anecdote of lending a congregation, but

this is the first instance, within our knowledge, of borrowing, not

to use a harsher term, a convert; still, we can sympathize with

honest Joel in the confusion of mind he must have experienced in

discriminating between the Christianity of John Calvin and that of

John Wesley, and his mystification at receiving as the Word of God

two different and distinct versions of the same law, not to speak

of his trying to expound them to his audience in his capacity of

first native pastor. Still, he was a beginning, the nucleus of

that great conglomeration of religion and intelligence about to be

called into existence by the potent spells of the grand magician.

Nor was he long left alone. There was a Christian girl, it seems,

named Maria, who had formerly been converted by the Madras

Baptists, but whom Dr. Butler speedily reconverted to Methodism.

“This precious girl,” says the author, “who, of her race and sex

in Bareilly, alone loved us for the Gospel’s sake, seemed raised

up to encourage and aid us in our new mission;” and with this

encouragement, and two such followers, he forthwith set about the

conversion of Rohilcund, having first secured “a furnished house,

and began to study the language.”

If there is something absurd in the commencement of a Methodist

church with only a Presbyterian and a Baptist, the idea conveyed

in the last sentence is excessively ridiculous. Can we imagine a

heaven-appointed minister, filled with holy energy, so eager to

christianize the heathen and elevate his mind that he leaves his

distant home and two of his (four) children in tears, penetrates

into the heart of the enemy’s country, and, having made his

“comfortable arrangements,” established his wife and family, and

procured two ready-made helpers, quietly sits down for the first

time to learn the language of the highly astute and observant

people to whom he is sent to preach, and consequently ignorant of

the prejudices and doctrines against which he would have to combat?

We are not surprised therefore to hear that for several months

after the establishment of the mission Mr. Butler’s congregation,

as he delights to call it, did not increase perceptibly. Says Dr.

Russell, a Protestant and the correspondent of England’s leading

journal: “So long as a Christian minister can argue with a Moulvie

or a pundit with patience and ingenuity, he will be listened to

with interest and respect; he will be permitted to expound the

Scriptures, and to warn his hearers against the errors of their

faith, provided that he refrains from insulting, contemptuous,

and irritating language; but if he be a mere ignorant, illiterate

zealot, without any qualification (temporally speaking) except a

knowledge of Hindostanee and good intentions, he may be exposed

to the laughter, scorn, and even abuse of the crowded bazaar in

consequence of his manifest inability to meet the subtle objections

of his keen and practised opponent. From what I have heard I regret

to state my conviction is, that no considerable success, so far

as human means are concerned, can be expected from the efforts of

those who are like the ancient apostles in all things but their

inspiration and heavenly help.”[191]

In May, 1857, the Sepoy rebellion, caused to a great extent by the

conduct of just such “illiterate zealots” and the criminal neglect

of the East India Company, broke out, and the terror extending to

Bareilly, the foreign women and children were ordered to be sent

to the mountains for safety, Dr. Butler being advised to accompany

them. After “prayerfully considering” this message, he resolved

not to go, not to abandon his post in the hour of danger; but,

with the inconsistency of poor weak human nature, from which even

missionaries, it would appear, are not exempt, he tells us that

“before going to bed we arranged our clothes for a hasty flight

should any alarm be given.” As the doctor is an advocate of the

superiority of married over single missionaries, we give literally

his own account of the domestic scene that followed the warning,

which, to say the least, is very complimentary to his amiable

spouse:

“As soon as the adjutant had gone, I communicated the message

to Mrs. Butler. She received it with calmness, and we retired

to our room to pray together for divine direction. After I

had concluded my prayer, she began, and I may be excused in

saying that such a prayer I think I never heard; a martyr might

worthily have uttered it, it was so full of trust in God and

calm submission to his will. But when she came to plead for the

preservation of ‘these innocent little ones,’ she broke down

completely. We both felt we could die, if such were the will

of God; but it seemed too hard for poor human nature to leave

these little ones in such dreadful hands or perhaps to see them

butchered before our eyes! We knew that all this had been done

on Sunday last at Meerut, and we had no reason to expect more

mercy from those in whose power we were should they rise and

mutiny. But we tried hard to place them and ourselves, and the

mission of our beloved church, in the hands of God, and he did

calm our minds and enable us to confide in him. On arising from

our knees, I asked her what she thought we ought to do? Her reply

was that she could _not_ see our way clear to leave our post; she

thought our going would concede too much to Satan and to these

wretched men; that it would rather increase the panic; that it

might be difficult to collect again our little congregation if

we suspended our services; and, in fact, that we ought to remain

and trust in God. I immediately concurred, and wrote word to the

commanding officer.”

But all flesh is weak. Notwithstanding the result of this combined

appeal for “divine direction,” the doctor knew better, and, instead

of imitating his wife’s brave determination in that trying hour, he

hearkened to the counsel of a _Moonshee_, and Methodism, while it

retained its missionary, lost its first and, it may be surmised,

its only chance of having a martyr. “Being a Mohammedan,” he

says, “with more worldly wisdom than consistency, and having a

pecuniary loss in the suspension of my lessons in the language,

his warning had much weight with me. I had then to settle the

question raised by the commanding officer whether our resistance

to going, under those circumstances, was not more a tempting of,

rather than a trusting in, Providence? I hated to leave my post,

even for a limited time. Yet to remain looked, as he argued, should

an insurrection occur and I become a victim, like throwing away my

life without being able to do any good by it; and the Missionary

Board would probably have blamed me for not taking advice and

acting on the prudence which foreseeth the evil and takes refuge

‘till the indignation is overpast.’” Was there ever as prudent

an apostle or one so entirely anxious to avoid (after death) the

reproach of his superiors by the exhibition of too much courage?

Not that he cared for his personal safety, by no means, but the

thought of the censure he would have incurred for not having taken

more care of his precious life could not be endured. “Still,”

continues this intrepid contemner of ‘wifeless priests,’ “had I

been _alone_, or could I have induced Mrs. B. to take the children

and go without me (a proposition she met by declaring that she

would never consent to it, but would cling to her husband and

cheerfully share his fate, whatever it might be), I would have

remained. But then, to all the preceding reasons, the reflection

was added that Mrs. B.’s situation required that if moved at all

it must be then, as a little later flight would be impossible,

and she and the children and myself must remain and take whatever

doom the mutineers chose to give us.” What one of the “wifeless

priests” would have done amid similar circumstances, those at all

conversant with the history of Catholic missions in every portion

of the world--and there is no part of it but has been hallowed by

their footsteps--can be at a loss to determine; but then, those

short-sighted celibates have never allowed family or other human

ties to come between them and their manifest duty to their Master.

The result of the lady’s sickness, so indelicately introduced, we

think, as a cloak for her husband’s cowardice and hypocrisy, was,

we subsequently learn, the increase of the Methodist “congregation”

of India by one member known by the sobriquet of the “mutiny baby,”

and it is pleasant to consider that, despite the disasters of the

times, the conversion of the country was thus progressing, even

though slowly.

Moved by all these considerations, the author left Bareilly

with his family, and proceeded to the assigned refuge in the

mountains, some seventy miles distant, with surprising alacrity,

considering that for many days after everything remained quiet in

the neighborhood. But what a hegira was that, so full of perils,

adventures, and even miracles, performed, of course, by him alone!

In his narration of the journey he rises above himself, and becomes

almost apocalyptic in style. At one time, when the bearers showed

an unwillingness to carry Mrs. B. and the children further, this

was his noble device:

“But in spite of urging, there stood my men. It was an awful

moment. For a few minutes my agony was unutterable; I thought I had

done all I could, but now everything was on the brink of failure.

I saw how ‘vain’ was the ‘help of man,’ and I turned aside into

the dark jungle, took off my hat, and lifted my heart to God. _If

ever I prayed, I prayed then._ I besought God in mercy to influence

the hearts of these men, and decide for me in that solemn hour.

I reminded him of the mercies that had hitherto followed us, and

implored his interference in this emergency. My prayer did not last

two minutes, but how much I prayed in that time!”

No wonder that his heart was glad at the result, particularly

at the fact that the men not only took up their valuable burden

cheerfully, but forgot to ask for their hire when their task

was accomplished, which to any one acquainted with that class

of men in the East certainly savors of the supernatural. “The

divine interposition in the case will appear more manifest,”

he modestly continues, “when I add that even the ‘bucksheesh’

for which the bearers were contending they started off without

staying to ask for or receive.” The ladies who met the party at

the first halting-place were astonished, and one of them, Miss Y.,

asked: “Why, what could have happened to Mrs. Butler’s bearers

that they started so cheerfully, and arrived here so soon without

giving her the least trouble?” “Ah! she knew not,” ejaculates the

self-contained missionary, “but I knew, there is a God who heareth

and answereth prayer!” But let not this remark be misunderstood.

That initial lady, if at all in the flesh, was a Christian, and

must have believed in the efficacy of prayer. The true meaning is

that she did not know what a holy man Dr. Butler really was, and of

what special graces he had became the favored recipient. Poor Miss

Y., how we commiserate her ignorance!

While the civil war lasted, the refugees remained in the mountains

at Nynee Tal, a pleasant summer resort, where, for a rent of

$225, our missionary and family had no difficulty in securing the

inevitable “furnished house,” and, save an occasional scarcity of

milk for the baby, suffered no great inconvenience from want of

the necessaries and even luxuries of life. Food was readily and

cheaply supplied by the natives, and the Nawab of Rampore, though

an infidel, generously furnished them with food and money. Still,

in this comfortable shelter, and while his brother missionaries

were exposed to all sorts of dangers, our hero was rivalling Nana

Sahib in the fierceness of his denunciation and maledictions;

for, while the rebellious Peishwa was petitioning his tutelary

gods to destroy the English, and send them _en masse_ to the

infernal regions, the American Christian was invoking the Deity,

in all the forms peculiar to Methodist camp-meeting exhorters, to

weed out, root and branch, the very people to whom he had been

commissioned, and upon whose hospitality and forbearance so many of

his co-religionists depended for safety. The utter want of decency

and common humanity exhibited by many of the Protestant ministers

during and subsequent to the war cannot better be illustrated than

by transcribing the following gratuitous account given in this book

of a visit to the deposed Emperor of Delhi while _in prison_:

“A day or two previously, my friend, Rev. J. S. Woodside,

missionary of the American Presbyterian Church, was here. He

went to see the emperor, and took the opportunity of conversing

with him about Christianity. The old man assented to the general

excellence of the Gospel, but stoutly declared that it was

abrogated by the Koran--as Moses and the law were abolished by

Christ and the Gospel--so, he argued, Mohammed and the Koran had

superseded Christ and every previous revelation. Brother Woodside

calmly but firmly told him that, so far from this being the case,

_Mohammed was an impostor and the Koran a lie_, and that, unless

he repented and believed in Christ alone, without doubt he must

perish in his sins. He then proceeded to enforce upon his bigoted

hearer the only Gospel sermon which he had ever heard; and

Brother Woodside _was the very man to utter it_!”

Surely this Woodside, who could thus wantonly insult a feeble

old man, the fallen monarch of two hundred millions of subjects,

heathen though he was, must have been one of the ignorant zealots

alluded to by Mr. Russell; and the writer who could mention him

with unctuous satisfaction runs the risk of being considered little

better.

For nearly a year the missionary toils of Dr. Butler were

suspended; but when all danger was passed, he returned to his

former scene of action, or rather inaction, this time reinforced

by two “brothers” from America, who, having been lately ordained,

knew as little of the language, religion, and disposition of the

natives as he did on his arrival. The reunion took place at Agra,

and the trio, with their respective families, of course, proceeded

to Nynee Tal, “as we could there best devote ourselves,” says

the author, “to the acquisition of the language, and be ready to

descend to Bareilly and our other stations, where God had prepared

our way, after the reoccupation of Rohilcund by the English

Government”--rather a strange precursor, we should suppose, for the

servants of the Prince of Peace; but tastes, particularly Methodist

tastes, cannot always be accounted for. The “Church in India” also

received at this time another valuable member (number four) in the

person of a small boy, the orphan of a deceased sepoy officer,

who had been found on the battle-field by Lieutenant Gowan, and

“made over”--to use his own expression to the superintendent--by

that officer. “No man in the East or in America,” observes the

matter-of-fact missionary, “has given half as much money to

develop our work in India as Colonel Gowan has contributed.... His

liberality to our mission work, up to the present, cannot be much

less than $15,000.”

Encouragement also came from other official sources. His next step

was taken in the direction of Lucknow, “where he was assured that

houses could at once be obtained by the assistance of Sir Robert

Montgomery,” Governor of Oude, and thither he bent his steps,

“escorted by relays of _sowars_ (cavalry), the general considering

the precaution necessary.” Of the subsequent history of the

missions established in that city, Meradabad, near Nynee Tal, and

the old one at Bareilly, the book before us relates little. War,

famine, and pestilence, the three great scourges of mankind, seem

to have been more effectual proselytizing agencies than the Bible

and preaching. The first child in the orphanage established at

the latter place was, as we have seen, a waif from the rebellion,

and when, in 1860, a dreadful famine occurred in Northern India,

“so decided and quick was the calamity, that before the English

Government ascertained its extent, and could originate public works

to arrest its severity, large numbers of the people had died of

want,” and their children were left an easy prey to whoever cared

to snatch them up. This specious excuse for the government brings

to our mind the history of another famine which happened some

years previously nearer home, and which the same rulers failed to

alleviate even to the extent of affording free transport for the

food provided for the sufferers by the generous people of this

country. Though in the latter-mentioned case the victims were

Catholics, not Hindoos, the advantage sought to be taken of the

calamity by a similar class of men was the same. “The idea came

to us,” says Dr. Butler, “that this emergency might be turned to

good account by our missionaries seizing on the opportunity thus

presented,” and it was therefore agreed among them to solicit the

bodily possession of three hundred boys and girls. “I wrote,” he

continues, “to the Government; they were only too glad to consent

and have the children off their hands.” Of course they were, and

doubtless if he had asked for as many thousands, he would have got

them as readily. Nor was money wanting for the support of these new

_protégés_. “Responses came pouring in from schools and individuals

in America.... Individuals in India also, and government itself,”

says the doctor, “came to our help.” Even the Nawab of Rampore, “a

Mohammedan sovereign in the vicinity”--who, by the way, owed his

position to the English authorities--was put under contribution to

the amount of five hundred dollars. Still it was found difficult

to introduce Methodism even among these destitute children; for

elsewhere he acknowledges that out of nearly one hundred and fifty

girls, only about forty have been “soundly converted.” But no

effect whatever could be produced on the children not actually

starving, even by the free use of money. Here is his own emphatic

acknowledgment of the fact, on page 520:

“Every effort was made by our missionary ladies to obtain even

day-scholars from among the people, but such was then their

bitter prejudice against educating girls that they generally

treated the proposal with scorn. The ladies of our Bareilly

mission made a vigorous effort in that city to obtain even a few

scholars. They went from house to house, hired a suitable place

in which to hold a school, bought mats and necessary equipments,

offered even to _pay the girls_ some compensation for the time

expended, if they would only attend; but at the end of three

months they had only succeeded in inducing two children to come,

and one of these was unreliable. At length, tired out, they had

to abandon the effort as hopeless, until some change would come

over the minds of the people in favor of female education.”

The system adopted towards the adult population was more

questionable, though equally unsuccessful. Rohilcund and Oude,

the scenes of the labors of the American Methodists, were also,

it appears, great recruiting depots for the company’s officers,

who, as the term of their sepoys expired, formerly allowed them

to return home and enjoy liberal pensions, so that a large

portion of the male population of those provinces were actually

dependent on the company for the necessaries of life. The failure

of the rebellion not only caused the breaking up of the sepoy

army, but the innocent were made to suffer with the guilty,

for the allowance that was paid to the superannuated soldiers

for past services ceased and general destitution prevailed. Of

this circumstance, the result of base ingratitude, the worthy

missionaries were not slow in taking advantage, hoping that, since

prayer and exhortation had failed, the more tangible arguments of

meat and dollars might at least partially succeed. Previous to the

war the “converted” native held, and as we shall presently see

for good reasons, a very unenviable position in the community.

According to the author, “he was cut off and proscribed by his

friends, looked down upon too often by European officials,” and

“refused all employment under government.” But this was all changed

by Montgomery, the local ruler of Oude, and Governor-General

Lawrence, who were favorable to the encouragement of native

Christians. “Other officials,” we are told, “did the same.

Merchants and traders also sought them, for they saw they could be

trusted. _Their value rose at once._” “And,” adds Dr. Butler, “the

rapid growth of the Christian church in India since that time, and

especially of the native ministry, will be fully exhibited in the

statistical tables which follow the next chapter.”

We regret that he has not favored us with the details of this

astonishing increase in the number of the faithful which so closely

followed the distribution of government patronage and pecuniary

rewards; but to our chagrin the indefatigable and sanguine

missionary, whom we have followed from Boston to the Himalayas,

prayed with, in spirit, in the “dark jungles,” and moaned with in

unison over the combined sins of the heathen and the _Romanist_,

parts from us abruptly, leaving us the prey of a cruel suspicion

that, notwithstanding the generous donations of American friends,

the efficient aid of British officials, and, above all, his own

sanctified character and wonderful intrepidity, his mission, like

so many others undertaken in the same spirit, was, after all, a

melancholy failure. In winding up his long history, he tells us:

“The organization of the missions into an annual conference,

at the close of 1864, terminated my superintendency, while the

toil and care to which body and mind were subject during these

scenes, and in such a climate, were so exhausting that release

from further service there became indispensable. This release was

kindly granted by the bishop and the missionary board.”

Now, what were our reverend friend and his co-laborers doing

during the six years that followed the establishment of the three

missions which still manage to exist in India? Surely a lively and

scriptural account of those toils and cares of which he speaks

would, particularly when told in his glowing style, be highly

interesting to the public. Chapters of his voluminous book are

devoted to descriptions of temples and tombs of the past ages, and

some hundreds of pages to a detailed account of the massacres,

battles and disasters incident to the civil war, but not a line

do we find in which may be traced the efficacy of the gospel as

preached by such pious expounders, nor is mention made of a single

grown-up convert won to Methodism during the whole time, save

through the agency of filthy lucre, the root of all evil. For our

further information, it is true, he refers us to certain tables

with which he supplements his work, but that is small consolation,

for, though we believe in the old saying that figures cannot lie,

we are satisfied from an examination of the tables referred to

that this veracious character does not strictly apply to those who

collated them.

From Table I. we gather that the Methodist Episcopal Church in

India, in 1872, had no less than eighteen male and nineteen

female missionaries of foreign birth in Rohilcund and Oude, and

eighty-six native assistants, with church-members, amounting in the

aggregate to five hundred and forty-one, so that every fourteen

and a half members had one foreign missionary, or, counting the

local preachers and exhorters, every _four_ converts may now enjoy

the sole solicitude of one spiritual guide at least! But in Table

II., on the next page, the foreign missionaries are increased to

forty-six, or one to every dozen actual Christians, and, taking

the entire force of foreign missionaries, native pastors, local

preachers, exhorters, and teachers, the whole number of “laborers,”

more or less dependent on the missionary fund for a livelihood, are

reported at the handsome figure of _three hundred and sixty-six_,

two laborers for every three members! But if we deduct the number

of teachers returned at two hundred and thirty-four in Table II.

from the whole number of members, we find that for every _thirty_

members who are not laborers, and consequently derive no official

benefit from the church connection, there are _twenty-three_ who

do. Should matters go on as prosperously as they seem to have done

for a few years more, we hope to hear that every native convert who

is not a pastor, exhorter, or teacher himself will be able to have

the sole and separate use of a missionary or an assistant for his

own benefit. We expect, also, to find that the exhausting duties

of the foreign missionaries in taking charge each of at least one

dozen of converts, including the native preachers, exhorters, and

teachers aforesaid, will be duly considered by the board, and

that reinforcements will be sent to them forthwith. What the

eighty-six native pastors and catechists, as returned in Table

II., find to do except to preach to each other, we are at a loss

to surmise. Perhaps, however, they look after certain individuals

classified as probationers and non-communicant adherents, and by

the help of which, and the children of the schools, the compiler

endeavors to make out a show of figures. The former class he

counts at five hundred and twenty, and the latter at seven hundred

and thirty-five, which, with nearly twelve hundred children and

the helpers, make the sum-total of the officers and rank and

file of the church three thousand and sixty-five, “all won for

Christ since the rebellion closed.” Now, taking these figures as

correct in every particular, we arrive at the following curious

calculation, to which we respectfully call the attention of the

admirers of Protestant, and particularly Methodist, missions.

According to their own showing, there is in India one missionary

for every _seventy-seven_ men, women, and children in the remotest

degree connected with the Methodist Church; leaving out the

children, there is a foreign missionary for every forty native

adults, and taking the _bona-fide_ church-members there is one

duly commissioned American missionary for every _twelve_ converts!

Taking the whole number of Christians at three thousand, we find

the annual conversions to have averaged two hundred and thirty,

which amount being divided by forty-six makes the exact number of

_five_ persons converted every year by each of our countrymen in

India. If we leave out the children who as we have already seen,

are simply given away by the authorities,[192] we reduce the whole

number of yearly gains to one hundred and forty-five, or an average

of _three_ annual converts for each foreign missionary; but when we

only count the actual church-members, we discover that forty-two

native persons are actually converted every year by forty-six

American missionaries, and this calculation agrees very nearly with

the statement of Dr. Butler, who says in a note to the very table

to which he calls our attention, “Conversions during last year,

56.” How many years, missionaries, native pastors, and catechists

would be required at this rate to christianize the two hundred

millions of heathens in Hindostan is a problem too difficult for

our solution.

So much for the wonderful progress of Methodism in India. Let us

now glance for a moment at the _personelle_ of the brands thus

snatched from the burning.

The ingenious attempt to make the public believe that any form

of Protestantism has at length gained a foothold in Asia is more

common than honest, and has been repeatedly exposed and censured

by sectarian writers of all classes and degrees, many of whom have

lived as missionaries in India, and know the truth by painful

experience. A few extracts from their works and speeches will

suffice to show at once the deficiencies of the would-be apostles,

the character of their neophytes, and the absolute falsity of such

statistics as we find in Butler’s tables:

“Missionaries have gone out from this country (England) who have

dishonored their great cause, and rather confirmed than shaken

the superstitions of the people they visited.”--Cunningham’s

_Christianity in India_, p. 147.

“From the want of superintendence, it is painful to observe

that the characters of too many of the clergy are by no means

creditable to the doctrines they profess, which, together with

the unedifying contests that prevail among them even in the

pulpit, tend to lower the religion and its followers in the eyes

of the natives of every description.”--Lord Valentia’s _Travels_,

vol. i. p. 199.

“A large portion of the sterility of our missions may be

attributed to that discord which Christianity (Protestantism)

exhibits in the very sight of the unbeliever.”--Rev. Dr. Grant’s

_Brompton Lectures_.

“The numerous missionaries, although they waste years and words,

and even money, have converted very few; yet when they have

induced one or two apparently to adopt their particular tenets,

it is their fashion to make a clamor in the newspapers and by

pamphlets, although too frequently they are not sure of their new

converts for any length of time.”--Mackenna’s _Ancient and Modern

India_, p. 516.

“Missionaries announcing the conversion of a solitary Hindoo

among thousands of unbelievers are themselves frequently members

of some straggling sect, and too often the instruments of

fanatical bigotry.”--_Travels in India and Kashmir_, p. 195.

It is needless to multiply further such sketches of the unfitness

of the shepherds, for the reader will easily find them, and

generally much more strongly drawn, in any impartial work on

British India. Let us, however, take a glance at the moral and

social status of the spiritual flocks, whose members, before the

arrival of Montgomery and Lawrence, found it so difficult to

obtain situations. Captain Hervey, in his _Ten Years in India_,

tells us that, whenever a native convert wishes employment as a

servant, “he is not taken, because all Christians, with but few

exceptions, are looked upon as great vagabonds, drunkards, thieves,

and reprobates.” A writer in the _Edinburgh Review_, vol. xii.,

assures us that “whoever has seen much of Christian Hindoos must

perceive that the man who bears that name is very commonly nothing

more than a drunken reprobate who conceives himself at liberty

to eat or drink anything he pleases.” The Baptist “converts,” we

are assured by Rev. John Bowen, in his _Missionary Incitement_,

etc., are accused of wallowing in every crime that “degrades human

nature,” and deserve the accusation. The Rev. Mr. Schneider,

writing from Agra, in Dr. Butler’s neighborhood, assures us that

the “motives of the Hindoos for embracing Christianity were chiefly

the desire of employment and to have their bodily wants provided

for.” “It is a fact,” he adds, “that many new converts have, after

their baptism, not adorned their Christian profession, and so have

ever proved great offences and stumbling-blocks to the cause of

Christ.” Of the Baptist converts in the same place, we learn from

their _seventieth report_ (1862), that “what with members who

have left the station, and others (including paid catechists) who

have been cut off for immoral conduct, our loss has been heavy;

while in the city of Delhi in the same year sixty-six persons

were baptized and _seventy-five_ excluded from the churches.”

The author of _India and the Gospel_, a Protestant missionary of

Central India, candidly says: “I have met with native Christians

who have been baptized, some on the eastern, some on the western

coast, and others at some southern stations--lamentable to say,

they were not to be known from the heathen but in name.” Mr. Marsh

declared some years ago in the English House of Commons, speaking

of Indian converts generally: “They are drawn from the Chandalahs,

or Pariahs, or outcasts--a portion of the population who are shut

out from the Hindoo religion, and who, being condemned to the

lowest poverty and most sordid occupations, are glad to procure by

what the missionaries call conversion whatever pittance they are

enabled to dole out for their subsistence.” But it appears that the

bad character of the Protestant converts has even a more disastrous

effect than that produced on the reputation of their sponsors.

Mr. David Hopkins, of the Bengal Medical Establishment, in his

work on India, asserts, in reply to some overzealous advocate of

Protestantism, “the outcasts have indeed joined the missionaries,

and have appeared as of their faith; but the conduct of these

outcasts has generally proved that they professed what they did not

feel, and has considerably influenced the higher orders in their

prejudices against Christianity.”

If we proceed still further, we will find from these reiterated

complaints of the influence of Protestantism in the East, how much

it perverts whatever sense of natural justice may remain in the

heathen, and, by appealing to his basest passions, renders him

an object of contempt and mistrust even to his less enlightened

fellows--for there are few of the Indian population so mentally

obtuse as not to recognize the rankest hypocrisy and mendacity,

though they be covered with the garb of religion. How far such

men as Dr. Butler is justified in claiming three hundred and

fifty thousand native _Christians_ (Protestants) as the result of

sectarian teaching and zeal in India is not easily determined.

In 1850, General Briggs noticed that the missionaries reckoned

but one in every six nominal converts as church members; the Rev.

Mr. Ward, a missionary, states that of the number of converts

of every sort reported to the home societies not one in ten is

actually converted.[193] A writer in the _United Service Gazette_,

who had served as an officer in India in 1856, declared that,

though the missionaries reported their disciples by thousands,

an omnibus would hold all the sincere native Protestants then in

the peninsula, while a later authority, Rev. E. Storrow, in his

book on _Indian Missions, etc._, is not willing to claim more than

one-fifth of all the so-called converts as Christians even in his

indefinite sense of that term. Following the Storrow method of

computation, therefore, and applying it to the doctor’s tables,

we arrive at the following results: There are at the present day

three hundred and fifty thousand men, women, and children in

India claimed to belong to the various denominations, seventy

thousand of whom Mr. Minturn, in his _From New York to Delhi_,

emphatically says “are mostly of the most degraded classes,” and

no less than two hundred and eighty thousand who disgrace the name

of Christianity by debauchery, theft, hypocrisy, and immorality of

every sort in its most degrading shapes. Of the former we freely

accord to Methodism six hundred, and of the latter four times the

number.

But Dr. Butler has many arrows in his quiver to be discharged

against that target of sectarian animosity, _Romanism_, and

other claims to public sympathy and patronage broadly set forth

in his manifold tables. It is the question of education, and on

this his figures assume a prodigious magnitude. The Methodist

day-schools in India, he tells us, number one hundred and sixteen,

the teachers two hundred and thirty-four, and the pupils four

thousand four hundred and sixty-two. If these children were all

Protestants, it might indeed be a source of some congratulation

to his friends, but unfortunately only a little over a thousand

of them attend Sunday-school, and the balance, considerably over

three thousand, are being “educated” to stigmatize the Methodists

themselves as infidels, and to deny the first principles upon

which all religion is founded. That this, though a startling

view to some persons, is nevertheless a correct one, we have the

most indisputable Protestant evidence, and what applies to the

Methodists in particular, is general to all the sects in Hindostan;

who, collectively, are said in Table II. to be educating one

hundred and thirty-seven thousand children, of whom more than _one

hundred thousand_ are not brought up in any form of faith known

to Christianity. “The colleges of India,” says Major H. Bevan,

“receive fanatical idolaters, they disgorge only hypocrites.”[194]

The author of _Tropical Sketches_ avers, in allusion to the same

institutions, “the results have been great intellectual acuteness

and total want of moral principle; utter infidelity in religion,

etc.” According to the Parliamentary reports, out of over seventeen

thousand pupils educated at the public expense, only three hundred

even professed the religion of the state. At Benares, where there

are fourteen missionary schools, not one conversion is reported;

and the Rev. Mr. Percival, in his _Land of the Veda_, goes the

length of saying that “in almost every part of India the spread

of the English language and literature is rapidly altering the

phases of the Hindoo mind, giving it a sceptical, infidel cast,”

while the Rev. Mr. Clarkson goes further, and adds: “Some have

argued that the Indians, by receiving an education which undermines

their superstitions, are being prepared for the reception of

Christianity. We believe that they are being prepared for occupying

a position directly antagonistic to it. Several documents from

missionaries at Bombay, Poonah, Surat, Calcutta, Delhi, Madras, and

Benares _corroborate all that I have stated_.... None can doubt

that infidelity in its most absolute sense is on the increase.

There is no connection between the natives ceasing to be Hindoos

and becoming Christians.”[195] Dr. Grant also gives his testimony

of the effects of missionary schools: “It is the universal

confession,” he says, speaking for his brother missionaries, “that

but very few of the children so educated embrace the Christian

faith”; and even the orphans, we are told by Count Warren, “when

they grow up, all return to the religion of their ancestors.”

Lastly, the Indian correspondent of the leading organ of public

opinion in England thus sums up the whole question:

“Missionary schools do not make more converts to Christianity

than Government schools. A most zealous missionary in India

assured me, with tears in his eyes, that, after twenty-five

years’ experience, he looked upon the conversion of the Hindoos

under present circumstances to be hopeless, without the

interposition of a miracle.”[196]

We pause here, for the subject becomes too deeply painful for

contemplation, even at a distance. To think that, in this age of

boasted civilization and religious progress, one of the fairest

portions of the habitable globe, filled with millions and millions

of our fellow-men, in many respects at least our equals in natural

gifts, should still not only be ignorant of the worship of the

true God, but that, through the instrumentality of the ministers

of the discordant, jarring Protestant sects, and from their desire

to forward their own selfish ends, the natives, instead of being

taught the beauties of Christianity, are actually led to deny even

the existence of a superior power, and by the miserable examples

set before them, are forced to despise and hate the very name

of Christ’s followers. We arraign Protestantism of this great

crime, and we ask the serious attention of every candid man, no

matter what may be his religious opinions, to the authorities

above cited in support of our indictment. The British Government,

through its armed mercenaries and no less corrupt civil officials,

have doubtless inflicted dire and manifold cruelties on the

Indians, but the evils perpetrated by the sectarian missionaries

of this country and Europe on those unfortunate people are

beyond all comparison greater, for they are more far-searching

and permanent. Human laws and agencies may strip a conquered

nation of its wealth and liberties, but it requires the aid of

the missionary and _colporteur_ to rob it of even the semblance

of religion and morality, and by the means of what is so falsely

called “education,” to plunge it into the depths of unbelief and

complete spiritual degradation. This is what Protestant England

is endeavoring, and, as we have seen, with some success, to do in

Hindostan, and in what the generous but easily-duped people of

America are endeavoring to rival it. To christianize, in any sense,

the Hindoos has been found an impossibility by the well-paid and

well-fed sectarian missionaries, so they are now trying to earn

their salaries by utterly demoralizing the people they have failed

to convert.

They are aided in this by the active countenance of the dominant

power, by no less than twenty-seven distinct societies, and have

at their disposal unlimited funds; a great portion of which is

made up of the annual contributions of the people of the United

States. Of the five and a quarter millions subscribed by the

various Protestant societies of the world in 1871, considerably

over a million and a half of dollars came out of the pockets of

Americans, as we learn from Table IV., and doubtless money will

continue to flow into the coffers of these organizations as long

as they can continue to delude the charitable by false hopes and

bombastic reports of missionary successes. We are not of those who

are disposed to consider the conversion of souls from a commercial

point of view; on the contrary, we are rather in favor even of the

lavish expenditure of money, if by that means we can win men to

Christ and to the inheritance of his kingdom; but when it becomes

an instrument to rob the parent of his child, to convert the

heathen not through his mind but his stomach, to bring Christianity

into disrepute by sustaining the dissolute and degraded, to pervert

the mental gifts of Providence by teaching the heathen that all

religion is imposture,[197] and by supporting and sustaining

thousands of lay and clerical officials who are as destitute of

real sympathy for the pagan as they are ignorant of the first

principles of Christian charity and responsibility--all of which it

has done and is doing in India--we consider that it may justly be

asserted that what was meant for a blessing becomes a curse to the

donor as well as the recipient.

Dr. Butler in one of his tables shows that the Catholic Church

missions, embracing nearly nine millions of Christians, expend less

than a million dollars annually, while those of the Protestant

sects, ostensibly counting about a third of that number, cost five

and a half times that amount, and would have us believe from this

that Protestantism exhibits more vitality and zeal in the cause

of religion than does the church. But the contrary is the fact.

Unlike the sectarian, whose inducement arises out of and is in

proportion to the amount of his salary, the Catholic missionary

goes forth into the pagan world, without money, friends, or family

encumbrances; he forsakes all comforts and material pleasures to

preach Christ crucified; his energy is not of the earth, earthy,

his inspiration is from a power higher than that of man, and as his

life is one long-continued sermon on temperance, forgiveness, and

self-abnegation, his success is always in proportion, not to the

money employed, but to the sanctity of the preacher. He does not

distribute badly translated and often unreadable copies of the Word

of God, “in thirty-seven languages” as claimed for the Protestants

by Dr. Butler, to persons who can neither read nor appreciate

them; but, living sparingly, dressing humbly, and conforming in

all respects his daily practice to his clerical professions, he

wins to the standard of Christ the rich as well as the poor, the

ignorant _pariah_ as well as the learned and disputatious pundit.

Even Protestants, missionaries at that, have seen through their

prejudices, the uniform success of the Catholic teachers, and while

their system does not allow them to imitate their example, they

have nevertheless borne unwilling testimony, and therefore more

valuable, to the superiority in point of morality and ability of

the servants of the church. In India to-day, even Dr. Butler is

forced to admit there are close on a million actual practical

Catholics, with hundreds of churches, and a ministry of foreign and

native priests amounting to seven hundred and seventy-nine, who

are supported at an expense to the Society _de Propaganda Fide_

of twenty-eight thousand dollars, while their schools, numbering

according to the _Catholic Register_ of 1869 one thousand, contain

over thirty thousand native pupils. Dr. Butler has called our

attention to his tables, we have given them serious attention, and

have even taken his own figures as thoroughly exact, and we have

come to the conclusion that he must either have had a very limited

appreciation of the perspicacity of his readers, or recklessness of

character in thus exposing the hollowness of Protestant professions

of progress, superinduced by the complete failure of himself and

his co-laborers to vitalize in the far East the decaying body of

Protestantism, which is so fast degenerating into materialism and

scepticism in the West.

There are one or two points more, overlooked in passing, of which

we wish to take note. Dr. Butler has included that part of Farther

India in his tables, which will help him to swell the number of

his converts, and excluded that part of it in which the Catholic

religion flourishes. Include the whole, and you add 500,000 to

the number of native Catholics in India. Again, he repeats the

unmeaning, silly twaddle which we hear without ceasing from

writers of the same sort, that Protestant missionaries make real

Christians, Catholic missionaries only nominal ones. Methodist

religion consists in emotion and excitement, the most unreal of all

things. So far as it is worth anything, there is far more sensible

devotion, although of a more quiet and sober kind, among Catholics

than among any class of Protestants. But this is not the essence of

religion. To be a Christian is to believe the revelation and keep

the commandments of God. Whoever says that Catholic missionaries

do not carefully instruct their converts in the doctrines of the

faith and in sound morals, and endeavor to make them both pious

and virtuous, is either a slanderer or the dupe of some slanderer.

Let every one who wishes to know the truth read the work of Dr.

Marshall, and ponder the evidence he has collected. Dr. Butler’s

effort to weaken its influence, like every other attempt of the

same sort, has proved abortive.

FOOTNOTES:

[190] _The Land of the Veda._ Being Personal Reminiscences of

India, etc. By Rev. William Butler, D.D. New York: Carlton &

Lanahan. 1872.

[191] _The_ (London) _Times_, March 17, 1859.

[192] Alluding to the famine season, Baron von Schonberg says: “Six

hundred children were purchased for eighteen hundred rupees, which

certainly was not an exorbitant price.”--_Travels in India and

Kashmir_, vol. i. p. 193. This was at the rate of a dollar and a

half a head.

[193] _India and the Hindoos_, p. 337.

[194] _Thirty Years in India_, p. 239.

[195] _India and the Gospel_, p. 279.

[196] _The_ (London) _Times_, 1858.

[197] “They [the pupils of the secular and missionary schools] have

no more faith in Jesus Christ than in their own religion. They

believe the Jesus of the English and the Krishna of the Hindoos to

be alike impostors.”--_Six Years in India_, vol. iii. p. 277.

ON THE MISTY MOUNTAIN.

ROUTE I.

It was in the by-gone days of the Misty Mountain Stage and Express

Company--only a few years ago by actual chronological computation,

it is true; but at least a half a century by the change effected in

the less than demi-decade which has passed.

Do you know that at times, when I contemplate this change, I can

scarcely realize that I have lived long enough to have lived

through it? I often feel as if the memory of the things that were

is the reflection of experiences in a former state of existence, so

different is the _what is_ from the _what was_. I feel burdened by

great personal antiquity, and cannot help considering myself a sort

of Methusalem le Petit. I have seen the great plains spanned by the

rail and the wire. The smoking, shrieking steed of steam drinks the

waters of the fork of the Misty Mountain, sacred but a year or two

ago to the pony of the red man. The journey which occupied weeks to

accomplish ten years past is now made in a few hours, and lightning

whispers are interchanged between the Atlantic and the Pacific.

My good old Uncle Joe, an old-time leather-dealer in the “Swamp”

in New York City--who, a bachelor, had adopted me, an orphan, and,

having educated me, had assigned me a desk in the dingy old office

with the leathery smell--told me one day, without any previous

warning, that he wished me to start without delay for the Stony

Sierra to look after some of his business interests in that region.

That was my Uncle Joe’s way of doing things. His engagements

did not permit his leaving New York at the time. Besides, he had

crossed the great plains more than twice or thrice, and had had

enough of them. But as I had not had any of them, a little, he

thought, would do me good, and he proposed to give it me.

My journey to the (then) end of railroad communication was

remarkable only for the general railway decadence which, commencing

at Chicago, increased “in inverse ratio to the square of the

distance from our objective point,” as the elegant English of

the telegraph would phrase it. The conductor grew familiar with

the passengers, who grew fewer. The various characters of the

“newspaper boy,” the vegetable-ivory notion vender, the “ice-cold

lemonade” boy, the candy-seller, the cigar boy, the bookseller,

the apple and orange boy, were all performed by one and the same

protean youngster. The passengers had dwindled so that it would not

pay to invest two boys in that dramatic business. At length, the

Thespian youth, tired of playing a dozen different characters to

empty cars, threw off all his disguises at once, and subsided into

a mere passenger like the rest of us.

A sudden shock brought a slight nap in which I was indulging

to a timely end. The train had stopped. The pitiful account of

passengers were on their feet, some leaving the car, others looking

about them with an expression of interrogative imbecility, when the

brakeman shouted out:

“Devil’s Landing--end o’ track!”

No danger of taking a wrong train now. So we passengers, four in

number, left the car. We concluded a hasty agreement to stick

to each other as fellow-men and fellow-passengers, we four

waifs washed on the shore of barbarism by the advancing tide of

civilization. A fellow-feeling of lost-sheepiness made us wondrous

kind to each other.

I accosted a small, dried-up, hard-featured old fellow of eighteen

or nineteen:

“Any hotels here?”

Answer (in an intensely contemptuous manner): “No!”

“Any restaurants--eating-houses?”

“Yes, four on ’em: the ’Merik’n House, the Mansh’n House, the

Pacific S’loon, and Jack Langford’s dug-out.”

Finding the old juvenile so communicative, and having more

questions to propound, we propitiate him by offering a cigar in

recognition of his social and chronological equality, and in proof

that we are not “stuck-up snobs from the East.” He takes the cigar

brusquely without oral signification of acceptance or expression

of thanks. He bites the end off wolfishly, and places the cigar as

near his ear as possible. We offer him a match. He takes it, puts

it into his vest-pocket, saying:

“Guess I’ll take a dry smoke.”

“Which is the best of the hotels or eating-houses?”

“All doggoned bad.”

“Which is the cleanest?”

“All doggoned dirty.”

“Which is the cheapest?”

“All doggoned dear.”

“Which is the quietest?”

“Doggoned row goin’ on in all of ’em most o’ the time. Man killed

at some one on ’em ’most every night, and a brace or more on

dance-nights.”

We requested him to direct us to the “American” or the “Mansion

House.”

“Don’t need to go far. That,” said he, indicating by a movement of

his cigar and his lower jaw a partially finished “balloon-frame”

house about thirty yards to the right, “is the ’Merik’n; and that,”

indicating in like manner a canvas shed to the left, “is the

Mansh’n House.”

Devil’s Landing consisted of about a dozen mushroom edifices and

about as many “dug-outs.” On reflection, we concluded to try the

“American House.”

A small space cut off by an unpainted counter served for an office,

but no “register” was displayed. The establishment had only very

recently been moved up, the official behind the counter informed

us, from the last resting-place by the way of runners with the

rails.

A look at the “sleeping apartments” was sufficient for me. I

determined not to sleep in any of them if I could possibly help it.

I went back to the functionary at the counter, and asked the time

of departure of the Misty Mountain coach, and learned that a coach

left the same afternoon, and that there was one place vacant. I

engaged the seat at once, glad to escape the horrors of a night in

the American House and Devil’s Landing. My fellow-passengers wished

me to wait for the next day’s coach, but I declined. When we agreed

to stick together, I knew nothing of the American House.

We had dinner. It consisted of very fat and very rusty bacon, putty

biscuits, and mud coffee without milk.

“The cows have not come in,” said one of the greasy waiters, when I

asked for milk.

“The cows never do come home here,” whispered a neighbor, evidently

an _habitué_.

It was toward the close of August, and the heat was excessive. The

sun shone mercilessly on us through the partially glazed and wholly

uncurtained windows. Yet we ate and perspired, and perspired and

drank mud coffee, with a persistency which astonished me when after

thinking on these matters.

The flies were terrible. They swept around the room in buzzing

clouds. Some of them were nearly large enough to offer a fair

mark for a shot-gun; the smaller ones insinuated themselves

everywhere--into your nose, ears, eyes--aye, even into your mouth.

They immolated themselves in the frowzy, oily butter; and their

remains studded the reeking mass like currants in a pudding.

Such a wonderful effect has the pure prairie air--it doth so whet

the edge of appetite--that, though our eyes were shocked, we ate

and ate, and our sense of taste was not offended. The meal only

cost us two dollars apiece.

After dinner, I lit a fifty-cent Devil’s Landing cigar, and walked

(literally) around town--a perambulation which did not quite occupy

five minutes. As I finished my walk, a shot was fired at the

other end of town--that is, within fifteen or twenty rods. Other

shots followed. A long-haired, slouched-hatted, and red-legginged

individual dashed past on a pretty good horse. Evidently he was the

mark at which the firing was directed. As he passed, an armed man

or two rushed out of every house and shot at him. The proprietor

of the Oriental Saloon came forth, armed with a Henry rifle, and

deliberately blazed away at the long-haired fugitive. The latter,

finding bullets in front of him, bullets to left of him, bullets

behind him, after several miraculous escapes from close shots, had

no course open but to turn to right of him, around the corner of

the American House, which would afford him some cover. But just

as he turned, his horse was hit in the off fore-leg and brought

to in a moment. Immediately he was hemmed in by the muzzles of

twenty repeating-rifles. He had emptied his six-shooter. Flight

was impossible. There was no course but surrender--not even

suicide--left. He jumped from his horse, and sat down cross-legged

on the ground. He was quickly seized and pinioned. His horse was

taken in charge by a citizen. No words were wasted on either side.

His lariat of horse-hair furnished a deadly loop, which was placed

around his neck. He was marched about a mile to the only tree in

sight--an old cottonwood.

While the crowd was going to the tree, the clerk of the American

House told me in a few words the history of the long-haired victim.

He was a half-breed Choctaw, frequently employed as a scout by

the government. There were several of these scouts in the region.

They called themselves “wolves,” and prided themselves on their

destruction of human life. When any of them came into town citizens

were sure to be shot at. Their favorite way of leaving town was,

having first filled themselves with “fighting whiskey,” to dash

through at full speed, discharging their revolvers at anything

human that chanced to appear in their path. The citizens had

determined not to stand this sort of thing any longer. “Johnny

Henshaw”--so our “wolf” was called--had been drinking rather freely

of late. He had declared his intention of shooting three prominent

men of the town, mentioning them by name. Hence the measures about

to be taken.

Johnny Henshaw seemed to be about twenty years old--indeed rather

under than over that age. There was nothing in his features to show

a trace of Indian blood. His hair was light brown, his eyes a soft,

light blue, his skin fair, and his cheeks rosy. The expression of

his face was gentle and pleasing. It made me heart-sick to look at

the young fellow, even though he was a wolf and deserved a wolf’s

fate, and to think that in the midst of health and strength and

youth he was marching to a speedy death. As we came near the fatal

tree, I tried to imagine what thoughts were passing in the outlaw’s

mind by mentally putting myself in his place. The effort made me

dizzy and sick. I felt as if I were about to fall senseless.

When we had reached the cottonwood tree, the cortége halted. A

wagon was hauled up to the tree, and Johnny caused to mount it. One

end of his lariat was made fast to a branch of the tree. Three or

four men jumped on the wagon. Some confusion occurred in properly

adjusting the noose about the victim’s neck. Johnny pushed the men

from him, saying:

“Get out o’ here! I’ll show ye how a man can die!” And, fixing with

his own hands the noose about his neck, he jumped into eternity!

ROUTE II.

Poor wolf! His time to howl was over.

I felt sick and faint from witnessing the scene, and had to take

some of the “fighting whiskey” of Devil’s Landing to keep me from

fainting. It did so. It was as good--or as bad--as a galvanic

shock. I was glad, therefore, when the Misty Mountain coach drove

in front of the American Hotel to take up its passengers. The

stage had seven inside: a congressman, a divine, an Indian agent,

three ladies, and a small boy. The gentlemen looked at me in such

a dog-in-the-mangerish fashion when I popped my head in at the

door to see what prospect there was of an inside seat, that I

immediately withdrew it and took my seat on the box between the

driver and the conductor.

“Passengers for the Stony Sierra! All aboard!” And off we go behind

six good mules.

The country we travelled through was flat and uninteresting. Not a

tree or shrub within the circular boundary of the horizon. Little

of life, animal or vegetable, to be seen; only a stray hare--vulgo,

jackass rabbit--a prairie-dog, with its sentinel owl, a prairie

wolf or coyote, and an occasional hawk.

After a run of nine or ten miles, we stopped at a “dug-out” to

change animals. While the change was being effected, a man in a red

buggy with a white horse arrived from the west. He was evidently

excited, and his horse was covered with foam.

“How d’e do, general? You seem kinder flurried. Anything happened?”

asked the stage-driver.

“Well,” said the person addressed as “general” (by the way, you

could have bought generals there as they buy hobnails) “I have had

a pretty sharp run. Ten or fifteen Indians began running me after

crossing the Blue Fork. They fired three or four shots at me.

Here’s the mark of one,” he continued, pointing to a bullet-hole

in the body of the red buggy. “They came mighty near getting me.

And they would have got me were it not for Old Whity here.” And he

patted the white horse affectionately.

Thus the INDIAN QUESTION, at the very outset, was brought home

to the bosoms of the passengers by the Misty Mountain coach. They

asked many questions of the “general.” The Indian agent--who

had never seen an Indian of the wild tribes in his life--made a

pretence of experience, and offered a few suggestions. But a few

remarks from the stock-tenders at the dug-out stable raised a laugh

at his expense, and he “was squelched for the rest of the trip,” as

the conductor expressed it.

The conductor and the driver looked to their Henry rifles, and

hurriedly inventoried the arms in the party. The Indian agent had

a double-barrelled shot-gun--both barrels unloaded--no ammunition;

the congressman had a diminutive five-shooter which would scarcely

have tickled a papoose--five barrels unloaded, one round of

cartridges on hand, no reserve ammunition; the divine, the ladies,

and the small boy were unarmed; the reader’s humble servant had

one six-shooter--Colt’s navy pattern--with half-a-dozen rounds of

ammunition for the same. This weapon he had never yet used. He

was not fully enlightened as to the _modus_ of loading it. It was

in the reader’s humble servant’s trunk at the bottom of the pile

of baggage which towered behind the coach. Of course, he didn’t

wish to give the conductor or the driver the trouble of changing

the luggage. With remarkable good nature, he preferred going out

defenceless to troubling these gentlemen. Like most human feelings,

however, this one was perhaps not quite pure. It must be owned the

idea crossed his mind that it was as well not to introduce the

factor of premature explosion into the quantity of danger to which

he was about to be exposed.

We changed mules and started. Everybody saw Indians for the

first few miles. But the objects appearing as Indians to our

excited vision had been so often pronounced by the conductor to be

“soap-weeds,” “old buffalo carcasses,” etc., that the number seen

began greatly to diminish. Once we thought there was no doubt about

it. They came dashing along in “Indian file,” fifteen or twenty in

number, directly toward us. I felt “very queer.” Here were Indians

now, not a doubt about it. I was seized by a sudden desire to have

something to shoot with. I mentally resolved, if I got out of this

scrape alive, never again to travel unarmed in an Indian country.

“Antelope,” remarked the conductor.

Antelope it was; a herd of fifteen or twenty. They crossed the road

a few hundred yards in front of us.

We had travelled about five miles without an incident or a sight

to break the monotony of the waste around us, when above a rising

ground before us the Stars and Stripes, relieved against the sky,

gladdened our eyes. How that sight revived us! We remembered that

“the home of the brave” was our home; and I think that, if Indians

had appeared at that moment, or within five minutes thereafter,

we would have received them in heroic attitudes. But they did not

appear.

As we ascended the ridge between us and Fort Jones, that post came

gradually into view. It looked to us like a collection of very

miserable “shanties” dropped down haphazard on the prairie.

A large stone building--the hospital, the conductor informed

me--was in course of erection. It seemed larger than all the

rest of the post put together. The officers’ quarters were such

constructions as we have seen inhabited by the squatters on the

vacant lots up-town in New York or in “Jackson’s Hollow” in

Brooklyn.

The “Fort” disappointed me very much. I expected to enter the

guarded precincts over a drawbridge and under an arched portcullis.

But Fort Jones was destitute of ditch, rampart, or parapet, and

uninclosed by stockade, palisade, or even by a common board fence.

The coach drove up to the sutler’s store--there the post-office was

established--without let or hindrance from warder or sentinel.

Some half-dozen officers were in the store awaiting the

distribution of the mail. The congressman, the Indian agent, and

the divine soon discovered who was the officer in command of the

fort. They immediately approached him on the subject of an escort.

The officer said he had comparatively few men; his small force was

scattered along the stage-road for two hundred miles; he had only

twenty men present for duty; but he would try to furnish three or

four men. “An officer and a sergeant,” he said, “were going up on

the coach to see to the defences of the station-guards along the

road.” The conductor here put in his oar, and said it would be

impossible for him to take four men more. This settled the question

of an escort. The congressman, the divine, and the Indian agent,

having ascertained that they could be accommodated with bed and

board at the sutler’s, concluded “to stay over for the present.”

The conductor and the driver did not seem to regret this

determination. The former remarked that this lightening of our load

helped us much, and we should now be able “to pull through” in good

time.

While we were waiting to have the mail made up, a mounted man came

in at full speed with news that a government wagon train had been

attacked by Indians on one of the roads leading to the post--that

the teams were very much scattered--that some of the mules were

already in the hands of the Indians. This caused a flutter among

the officers. A company of infantry was ordered at once to the

relief of the train.

As we left the fort we could see the infantry going over the rise

at a double-quick and in skirmish order.

We stopped for a moment, in rear of the officers’ quarters, to take

up the officer and the sergeant. The officer’s wife and little

child came out to see him off. He kissed them both affectionately,

and took his seat with us on top of the coach. The sergeant, also,

rode on the roof. Both were well armed. Much to my delight, the

officer, finding me unarmed, furnished me with a spare musket he

had brought with him.

At first, I was rather disappointed in this officer. He was very

plainly dressed. He had just enough gold lace about him to indicate

his rank, and no more. I had supposed that regular officers always

wore epaulets and white kid gloves. However, the lieutenant--for

such was our new passenger’s rank--was evidently a gentleman. He

had a certain quiet, unobtrusive affability which charmed me very

much. I was glad he had come. His easy self-possession inspired me

with confidence.

“If we meet any Indians, lieutenant,” said the conductor, an old

hand who had driven stage for ten years along the Great Sandy,

“we’ll have to do the work from out here; there’s nobody below

(pointing downwards) to help us.”

“Do you think we may be attacked by Indians?” I ventured to ask.

“Think it most probable we shall see some, at the least,” answered

the officer. “They have shown themselves at several points along

the line. The Great Alamos, which we have to pass, is a favorite

crossing-place, when they go south in the spring or north in the

fall.”

“It is about as bad a place for Injuns as there is in the whole

route,” said the conductor.

“Yes,” said George, the driver; “and though I’m a white man, an’

agin an Injun all the time, I must say that we owe the badness of

that there place to a white man.”

“How?” I asked.

“The Great Alamos,” answered the driver, “was a great buryin’-place

of the Flat Noses. It was quite a large grove once--considerable of

a rarity on these here plains. You know,” he continued, “that the

Flat Noses bury their dead high up in the trees, or, where there

are no trees, stick ’em up on trestles made with long poles.”

“They bury them in the air instead of in the ground,” I said,

intending the remark as a sort of semi-joke, at which I designed

smiling if any one else smiled, and, if not, to let it go for a

serious observation. It was probably not new in either phase to my

companions, who took no notice of it. So to break silence, I asked

why the Indians of the plains sought these elevated resting-places

for their dead.

“To keep ’em from being eaten up by the ki-o-tees.”

“Do the ki-o-tees devour the dead of other tribes?” I asked,

horrified at the thought.

“The ki-o-tees is the wolves,” the conductor explained.

The lieutenant informed me of the orthography of the word--coyote.

About sunset we reached a house built of loose stones, and

therefore known as “The Stone Ranch.” There were fifteen or twenty

men about the ranch--all of them armed.

George pulled up before the door--there was only one, by the bye,

and no windows--and exchanged a friendly greeting with Jake, Ike,

Ed, _et hoc genus omne_.

“What’s the word?” asked George. “How is hay-cutting comin’ on?”

“We ain’t cut a blade of hay to-day,” said one of the men. “Them

cussed Injuns kep’ us corralled here all day.”

“Whew!” whistled George.

“How many were they?” the lieutenant inquired.

“Somewhere’s about thirty or forty.”

“Many guns among ’em?” asked the conductor.

“Some of ’em had rifles; all of ’em as I seen had six-shooters.”

“How long did they remain about?”

“Pretty nigh all day. They kep’ shootin’ at us at long range, and

we returnin’ their fire, until about ten minnits before the coach

kem.”

“Did yer git any on ’em?”

“Jake thinks as he hit one, and Mac says he saw another fall sure.”

“Well! we must be goin’. Git-e-p!”

“Keep yer eye skinned, George.”

“Hold on to that old skelp o’ yourn!”

“You bet! I’ll freeze to it.”

A mile further on we reached the Great Alamos. Darkness was

overcoming the twilight as we struck a deep sandy hollow which

extended for five or six miles. A slow walk was the only gait

possible here. The road for miles ran close under a ridge about

twenty feet in perpendicular height. It seemed to me about as bad

an “Indian place” as it was possible to find. My Indian weakness

came on again as in the morning. The snail-like pace at which we

were compelled to move was almost intolerable. There is some

sensation of security, or, rather, some suggestion of escape,

in a fast gait when danger is impending. Its source is probably

the initial instinct of the human breast when danger first

threatens--to run from it.

I consulted my companion, the lieutenant, on the possibilities or

probabilities of an attack.

“An attack,” he answered, “is possible. It is very probable that

there are Indians watching us now. They may fire into us at any

moment, as in our position they have the chance of hurting us

without being exposed to hurt themselves; for your Indian always

runs from a fair fight. He is only ‘brave’ when he has his enemy

at a disadvantage, and sees, or thinks he sees, what is called

out here ‘a sure thing.’ It is only their very recent presence,

however, that causes me to apprehend trouble, as ordinarily they

do not attack at night, and they rarely attack a stage-coach: for

the reason that they are sure to get a pretty tough fight. Even if

successful, their gain is very small; three or four mules at most,

perhaps a gun or two. They do not consider the investment a paying

one, as a general thing. In any event,” he concluded, “if I were

you, I should take off that white duster. It offers quite a shining

mark for them, if they feel like shooting.”

The rapidity with which I followed this friend’s advice must have

given him a pleasing proof of my confidence in his counsels.

We had now entered the bed of the Great Alamos. It was quite dark.

Silence fell upon us. Every man held his loaded rifle, full-cocked,

and finger on trigger--peering into the darkness, and seeking

in every sage-bush an Indian contour. Every now and then the

conductor’s rifle went up and down with a nervous twitch.

The evening had become quite cold. I had felt it keenly before we

reached the Stone Ranch; but as we crept along in the heavy sand,

through the darkness, looking every moment for the flash of an

Indian rifle, I felt all in a glow. I did not think of cold. No

doubt, the reason was that I could think only of Indians, and felt

that I was in a pretty warm place.

At last! We are out of the sand. The mules strike a good trot. It

is only four miles now to Artesian Wells, and then we shall have

supper, I am informed. I feel quite light-hearted over the recent

past and the close future. Strange to say, with the decrease of

my fear of Indians, the glow subsides and I feel cold again. The

strain is over; we begin to talk once more. George, the driver, has

won my admiration by his cool and calm attention to his team while

we passed through the “bad Injun place.”

“If we’re attacked,” George had said, “you others must do the

shootin’. I’ll have all I can do to manage this team.”

George was the beau ideal of a good stage-driver in an Indian

country--so the lieutenant told me.

“It is a driver’s duty to attend to his team under fire, as George

very properly says, as much as it is a surgeon’s to cure the

wounded, when necessary, under like circumstances. It requires a

good deal more coolness, and it is much harder for him to watch and

control his team while bullets are grazing him, than it would be to

throw down the reins and begin firing. It takes all his strength

and coolness to manage the excited and terrified animals. Shooting

gives needed excitement at such a time, but then the mules run off,

the stage is upset, and broken legs or necks and certain capture

are the result. George is a good driver, and, had he not one great

defect, would be a very good man.”

“What is the defect?” I asked.

“Drinking,” whispered the lieutenant.

“He does not look in the least like a drinking man.”

“True; yet he is as drunk as he can be now. He has not been sober

for years. George is one of your white-faced drinkers. He is always

as you see him now. I have been two years on this line, and I have

not seen George sober yet. Look at his eyes when we get to supper,

and you will see they are not the eyes of a man in his normal

condition.”

“I heard him refuse a pull at the Indian agent’s flask, between

Devil’s Landing and Fort Jones.”

“No doubt. That is George’s gnat. He makes it a point never to

drink while driving. But he had swallowed his camel before he took

the ribbons at Devil’s Landing, and he will swallow another when

he reaches Artesian Wells, where his route ends. Aye! and keep

swallowing camels every time he wakes up during the night, and

until he mounts the box for his return trip to-morrow.”

“What a fearful life for a man to lead!” I said.

“Yes, indeed,” said the lieutenant, “and the ending is still

more fearful. George’s team will bring him in some fine morning

stone-dead on the box, with the ribbons still in his stiffened

fingers.”

“I can imagine,” I answered, “how a man who is excited by strong

drink may find pleasure in it, though it may tempt him to break

things and get him into many a fight. But I cannot for the life of

me imagine why those dead-alive drinkers continue the habit.”

“I suppose they can’t stop it,” said the lieutenant. “They have

gone too far to turn back. Death is behind them as well as before.”

Our conversation was interrupted by a series of prolonged howls

from George:

“Hi-hi-hi-hi,” etc., _ad libitum_.

I was very much startled by these vocal efforts. I thought “it was

Indians.” Next it struck me that George’s last fit of _delirium

tremens_ had commenced, and he was about to become dangerous. My

military companion, noticing my astonishment, kindly explained

that this was the usual signal to the station-keeper. The drivers

commence their howls of warning when they arrive within a mile or

so of the station. Their peculiar cry can be heard quite a long way

off.

When we were quite near the station, we overtook an ox-wagon with

its solitary driver walking by the side of his animals, and giving

the talismanic “whoa haws!” and “gees” by which the movements of

these clumsy beasts of draught are directed.

“Hallo! Tommy John!” said the driver, bringing his team down to a

walk.

“That you, George?”

“What is left of me, my son. Where are you bound for, Tommy?”

“The old Sandy, as usual.”

“How far did you come to-day, Tommy?”

“From the Stone Ranch.”

“You must have left there mighty early.”

“Yes! I started afore daylight. I nooned at the Wala Hole, and

watered my stock and cooked my supper at the Great Alamos.”

The conductor then informed “Tommy John,” whose real name was John

Thompson, as I learned, of the state of things at the Stone Ranch

when the coach passed there.

“So, friend Tommy,” he concluded, “you have got through by a

scratch.”

“Oh! pshaw!” said Tommy John, laughing; “Injuns won’t hurt me. I’ve

been through the mill too often to be scared.”

“Well,” said the lieutenant, “as you have been fortunate enough to

get thus far safely, you had better remain at the Wells until some

government train with an escort comes up.”

“That you, lieutenant? How d’e do? Much obliged. But I’m agoin’

to Snake Spring before my next stoppage. I want to get on home as

soon as I can. It’s some time since I’ve seen the old lady and my

half-dozen babies over on the Sandy.”

“I tell you, Tommy,” said the lieutenant, “you are very foolish to

go on from the Wells alone.”

“Oh! no Injuns will trouble me, lieutenant. There’s nothing to

take. The investment wouldn’t pay.”

“There’s your scalp to take,” said George, “and I shouldn’t wonder

if you lost it.”

“Don’t be afeard about my scalp, George,” said Tommy John,

good-humoredly. “I have a notion to go after some ha’r myself this

trip.”

“Good-night!”

“Good-night, my son!”

“Gee!”

“Get aup! ye critters.” And off we go, leaving poor Tommy John to

pursue his lonely route.

“That thar Tommy,” said George, “is one of the kind-heartedest,

good-naturedest fellows as travels this road. An’ he’s churful,

too; always in for a joke and a laugh. He’s drove team--ox and

mule--on this line for nigh on to four year. He never carries no

arms, and always travels alone. He’s had some mighty close shaves

has Tommy, but I shouldn’t wonder if they got him yet. He takes too

big risks.”

“Does it often happen that you have no passengers, George?” I

asked.

“Once in a while,” said George.

“It seems to me that on those occasions you take as big a risk as

your friend Tommy.”

“Not by a durned sight,” replied George. “I have a good team,

and can give a party of Indians a lively run at any time. I have

generally a conductor or express-messenger with me, and a good

rifle well handled will keep off a power of Indians for awhile.

While he amuses them, I keep lightin’ out for the next station.

Before the company got stingy--when there was a swing-station every

dozen miles where you got a fresh team--I could have got away from

Injuns all the time, either by runnin’ back to the station I had

left or pushin’ out for the one ahead of me, accordin’ to whichever

was the nearest. I takes no risk that I ain’t obliged to.”

“What do you call a ‘swing-station’?” I asked.

George looked at me with an expression of mixed pity and contempt,

and replied:

“A swing-station is where you changes teams; a home-station is the

end of a route, where you gits meals.”

It was after midnight when we reached the Artesian Wells. I had

found the Sandy Hollow of the Great Alamos a pretty warm place,

but after I got out of it I felt cold again, and when I reached

the wells I was chilled through. Notwithstanding George’s warning

cry, everybody was asleep at the station. It took some time to

wake the people up, to get a fire kindled, and a meal prepared. I

took advantage of the delay to get at my trunk, whence I took my

revolver and some woollen clothing. The latter, with the consent of

the cook (a male specimen of the culinary tribe), I put on in the

kitchen.

The station was out of fire-wood, and was now endeavoring to

effect its cooking with the remaining chips of departed logs and

the chips of the passing buffalo. It took a long time to get

biscuits baked and meat stewed, thus I had a good nap by the not

very bright, though very aromatic, fire. The lieutenant, as soon

as the door was opened, had thrown his blankets on the floor and

himself upon the blankets; and slept the sleep of the brave until

he was waked for supper, or breakfast, as you please.

It was about half-past three o’clock in the morning when we started

again. The poor ladies and the child had remained in the coach all

this time, notwithstanding our efforts to induce them to alight.

Nor could they be induced to accept even a cup of tea or coffee.

With what a power of endurance these weak, gentle creatures--our

sisters--are endowed!

TO BE CONTINUED.

DECISION AGAINST THE ST. JAMES’ MISSION CLAIM AT VANCOUVER--ITS

APPRECIATION.

We reprint, at the request of Bishop Blanchet, the following

article on this subject, taken from the _Catholic Sentinel_ of

May 25. For a further exposition of the attitude assumed by the

government towards our struggling missionary church in that region,

we refer the reader to the February (1872) number of this magazine:

_Editor Catholic Sentinel_:

The case of the St. James’ Mission Claim, which for the last

twelve years has been pending in the office of the General Land

Department, and that of the Secretary of the Interior, has at last

been taken into consideration, and decided, as reported a few weeks

since. To Hon. W. H. Smith, Assistant Attorney-General, was given

the commission to examine the case and give his opinion. He did so

in a document dated January 29 last.

In his report, transmitted to the Department of the Interior, we

see that he had to solve these two questions:

1. Who are included within the proviso of the first section of the

act of Congress of the 14th of August, 1848, which proviso is in

the following language: “That the title to land, not exceeding 640

acres, now occupied as missionary stations among the Indian tribes

in said Territory (Oregon Ty.), together with the improvements

thereon, be confirmed and established in the several religious

societies to which such missionary stations respectively belong”?

2. What is confirmed by said proviso to missionary stations?

The hon. gentleman, after an attentive examination of the first

question, says: “I am of opinion that the proviso of the first

section of the act of 1848 conferred an immediate title right

upon all the societies then within its provisions. Here is a

confirmation of title immediately operating _proprio vigore_

for the benefit of all who should at that date be within its

provisions.”

For the construction of the law he refers to the opinion of

Attorney-General Bates, May 27, 1864, of Secretary Harlan, and the

Commissioner of the General Land Office in his instructions to the

Surveyor-General, which opinion has never been anywhere seriously

questioned. His final conclusion is: “I am satisfied that on the

14th of August, 1848, there was existing a missionary station of

St. James.”

This opinion is so well established by the documentary evidence

and the opinion of the gentlemen above quoted that there cannot

reasonably be the least doubt in the mind of any candid man as to

the existence of the St. James’ Mission on the 14th of August,

1848--a fact acknowledged by all, irrespective of party or creed.

Let us now come to the second question, about what is confirmed by

the proviso.

Here the hon. gentleman experiences some uneasiness in regard to

the words _land now occupied_ of the proviso. He knows not exactly

what they mean. He is not ready to say whether in _every case_ “all

the land claimed ought to have been enclosed, cultivated, built

upon, or the like.” Then he speaks of “stakes or other marks,” and

says that “for the liberal purposes of the proviso (?) he would

give the language the most liberal construction, but knows of no

rule so liberal as to hold _land occupied_ which has never been

included in any inclosure, etc.” (He had a little before said he

was not ready to require in every case enclosure of the land; it is

only a trifling contradiction!) Why should he be so troubled about

“enclosure, stakes, etc.”? Had he not before his eyes the following

rules, given by the Commissioner of the General Land Office to the

Surveyor-General in 1853, to direct him?

“1. Such provision is understood to grant 640 acres to each

separate and distinct missionary station referred to.

“2. In order to comply with the terms of the grants, ... it will

become necessary to cause to be made a special survey of a square

mile, which _shall include the land occupied_ with the buildings,

and improvements in the centre, as nearly as may be.”

These rules are undoubtedly plain and clear, and no candid man

can deny that the intentions of Congress in granting 640 acres to

each missionary station were as well, if not better, known to the

commissioner in 1853, as they can now be known after twenty years.

He knew that it was not as an alms, but in consideration of the

services rendered by the missionaries in laboring to civilize and

christianize the Indians, that the grant was made by Congress.

The same view has been invariably taken by all his successors in

office, by all the occupants of the Department of the Interior,

and all the Attorney-Generals from 1853 to 1872. Accordingly, all

cases of missionary stations have been settled whether they were

fenced or not. The Methodist Mission at the Dalles in Oregon,

received from the government $20,000 for a portion of its claim,

which was not fenced in 1849, and had never been before. The title

of the Presbyterian Mission at Walla Walla, and many others which

were in the same condition, were readily acknowledged and granted.

Should not all these incontrovertible facts have convinced the Hon.

Assistant Attorney of the true meaning of the words “the land now

occupied”? But they did not.

Yet notwithstanding his apparent disposition “for the charitable

purpose of the proviso to give the language the most liberal

construction,” he cannot go so far as went all the secretaries,

the attorney-generals, and the commissioners in office during

the course of the twenty previous years. He seems to have been

sent to teach them that they all have erred in the interpretation

they have given to the proviso, and accordingly he sets himself

up as a reformer. Therefore, grounded on his far superior legal

acquirements, he hesitates not to say: “I am unable to see how

Commissioner Wilson reached the conclusion in his instructions to

the Surveyor-General. It is in my opinion an erroneous construction

of the proviso.” The Hon. Mr. Wilson, as well as all the other hon.

gentlemen who approved his construction, will no doubt be much

flattered by the compliment.

The Hon. Assistant Attorney-General continues: “On the 14th day of

August, 1848, the mission of St. James was _in actual possession_

of a small piece of land upon which had been erected a church,

in which the priests there stationed held religious worship. The

mission at that date had never asserted any claim whatever” (would

the Hudson Bay Company, wrongfully claiming possessory rights to

the land, have allowed it?) “had no enclosure, and was therefore

only in occupancy of the land covered by the church edifice, and

such land as was appendant to it. This it occupied in my opinion as

a missionary station among the Indians. The society to which said

mission belongs has therefore a vested title in the land upon which

the church edifice extends, and as much appurtenant thereto as at

the passage of the act was within the enclosure or used for church

purposes.”

Such, therefore, has been the generosity of the Congress of the

United States, in his opinion!

As an acknowledgment of the previous efforts of the missionaries

to civilize and christianize the Indians, Congress grants the

land covered by the church, and a few feet more. What wonderful

liberality! _Obstupescite coeli super hoc!_

This opinion has been submitted to the Hon. Attorney-General

Williams, although he has an interest in a portion of the claim.

He has written a letter on the subject which may be considered

as approving it, from the fact that the Hon. Mr. Cowen, acting

Secretary, has declared that he himself concurs in the opinion of

the Hon. Mr. Smith. The legists will here please remember that

the old axiom, _favores sunt ampliandi_, is no longer in fashion!

Hereafter they must say: _Favores sunt restringendi_; and, _odiosa

amplianda_, as in the present case.

By such a decision, if it could stand, the first Catholic mission

established among the Indians in Washington Territory, the mission

which before 1848 incontestably labored more than any other for

the civilization of the Indians, would have only a few feet of

land, while all other similar missions have received 640 acres,

and one $20,000 for the land occupied by the government for a

military post. Why such glaring partiality in the administration?

There cannot be any other reason for such a decision but that the

land claimed is considered as of too great a value, and that some

military officers but already too well known here covet the land in

whole or in part. There is no doubt that by their influence they

have been in a great measure the cause of this long procrastination

on the part of the government in the past, and have in the present

contributed their share in the rendering of the foregoing adverse

decision.

We have now, Mr. Editor, given a true report of the decision and

the ground upon which it is founded. We therefore present it to an

enlightened public in order that it may form its opinion upon the

merits and demerits of the case, and that it may know that all the

religious societies do not stand on the same footing of equality in

the eyes of the liberal government of the United States in the year

of grace 1872.

A CATHOLIC.

VANCOUVER, W. T., May 23,

Papers whose motto is “equal justice to all” are requested to

reproduce the above.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THE LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. By Ward H. Lamon. Illustrated.

Boston: James R. Osgood & Co. 1872. Pp. 547.

This newest biography of the late President, in which are

related all the incidents of his career “from his birth to his

inauguration,” is simply one of the multitudinous dull books of the

period, the design or necessity of which is far from obvious to

any person other than the author and bookseller. Compiled by “an

admirer” mainly from materials supplied by a quondam partner of the

deceased, it sadly realizes the truthfulness of the old saying that

an indiscreet friend is more dangerous than an avowed enemy. We

defy any one, no matter how charitable, who may have the patience

to wade through its exaggerated accounts of the family, friends,

boyhood, and manhood of Mr. Lincoln, not to feel, on closing

the book, a tinge of that self-abasement which usually follows

association with vulgar and commonplace characters. What has the

world got to do with the private history of the “Hanks” family or

the disgraceful bar-room and “lick” fights of a semi-barbarous

settlement, in which the young man was no doubt but an involuntary

and disgusted participant? Then, as to his religious views,

though important as an index to his mental and moral qualities,

we consider it bad taste and worse judgment to expatiate on his

unbelief with all the minuteness and unction which distinguish the

long chapter devoted to their discussion. A cloud of witnesses and

documents are brought up to prove what?--that he did not frequent

churches or meeting-houses, and that the expressions of devotion

and reverence in his speeches and public correspondence were used

only to gratify his supporters. This may be true or it may not be,

but we “hold it not well to be so set down,” particularly by a

friend. It is generally acknowledged that Lincoln was a temperate

and merciful man, a warm friend, patient, if not affectionate, in

his family relations, and devotedly attached to his children; but

having strong intuitive powers and a keen sense of the ridiculous,

he could not help despising and laughing at the narrow-minded and

ignorant “hard-shell” Baptist and Methodist preachers of his day

and neighborhood. Though by no means of a very profound mind, he

was too good a lawyer not to know that there was no logical medium

between implicit obedience to an infallible authority and a denial

of all revelation. Had he enjoyed in early life the advantages of

a proper religious training, there can be little doubt but that,

humanly speaking, he would have added to his domestic virtues those

cardinal ones which the church inculcates. We are sorry for his own

sake that he did not; and we regret, for the honor of the republic

whose chief magistrate he once was, that his memory should thus be

held up to the reprobation of his and our countrymen, without, so

far as we can see, any adequate resulting good.

* * * * *

THE RUSSIAN CLERGY. Translated from the French of F. Gagarin,

S.J. By C. D. Makepeace, M.A. London: Burns & Oates. 1872.

(New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

F. Gagarin is a Russian prince, and, of course, knows what he is

writing about. This book is a very curious one, and will make some

people open their eyes if they read it.

* * * * *

THE CHRISTIAN ÆSOP. Ancient Fables teaching Eternal Truths. By W.

H. Anderdon, D.D. London: Burns, Oates & Co. (New York: Sold

by The Catholic Publication Society.)

Dr. Anderdon in this little book teaches us spiritual truths by

means of the old and familiar fables that for years have been used

to teach the world natural truths; and it is a beautiful thought,

for truth cannot be presented in too many ways, and this mingling

of the homely lessons of the fables with spiritual instruction

gives a peculiar charm to the book that will not be found in other

spiritual writings. The many quotations from the Holy Scriptures,

too, give it a special interest.

The fables are all beautifully illustrated.

* * * * *

LIFE OF THE CURE D’ARS. From the French of the Abbé Monnin. New

York: P. O’Shea. 1872.

We welcome most kindly a new edition of the charming life of this

most wonderful man, and take occasion to recommend it again to all

our readers. Mr. O’Shea has purchased the plates from the former

publishers, and, we trust, will find a ready sale for his edition.

* * * * *

LEGENDS OF ST. JOSEPH. Translated by Mrs. Sadlier. D. & J.

Sadlier. 1872.

This collection of historical narratives and pious legends makes

a pleasing volume, and is published in a pretty style. It is a

book likely to be especially interesting to young people, for whom

the accomplished authoress has a particular gift of making her

instructive and pious writings entertaining.

* * * * *

SAUNTERINGS. By Charles D. Warner, author of _My Summer in a

Garden_. Boston: James R. Osgood & Co.

Time was, in the United States, and within the memory of man too,

that to have travelled in Europe entitled the American tourist to

set up for a lion in his native town. It was once something to have

seen London and Paris, which are now mere American starting-points

for the grand tour of to-day. England, France, Germany, and Italy

no longer count. Every one has seen them, and even little New York

and Boston boys and girls yet at school, or who ought to be there,

have their own discussions as to the relative merits of London and

Paris, Berlin and Vienna. In short, the old ordinary European tour

no longer counts. Its tracks are all beaten until they are dusty,

and one must now do Spain, Russia, Palestine, and Egypt, at least,

to obtain the smallest capital wherewith to set up as a tourist.

Mr. Warner’s _Saunterings_ take us among the well-known paths,

chatting and gossiping at random concerning what strikes him, and,

as the subject-matter is already an old story to every one, it is

merely a pleasant way of reviving pleasant reminiscences.

Saving and excepting a few of the usual Protestant misconceptions

repeated by the author, most probably without malice, the book

makes very agreeable summer reading.

* * * * *

NOTES ON ENGLAND. By H. Taine. Translated with an Introductory

Chapter by W. F. Rae. New York: Holt & Williams.

Mr. Rae’s introduction is a well-written chapter. Mr. Taine’s notes

are the recorded impressions of a traveller in England. They are

characteristically vivacious, picturesque, and frequently amusing,

with a tendency to be as often wrong as right in the judgments he

pronounces. The author discusses all the subjects that usually

fall under the observation of an intelligent visitor in a strange

country--government, religion, amusements, schools, universities,

homes, hospitals, manners, morals, the clubs, the family, etc.,

etc. Here is a passage which we can commend as being as applicable

to the latitude of Washington as that of Greenwich: “In Hyde

Park, on Sunday, the exaggeration of the dresses of the ladies or

young girls belonging to the wealthy middle class is offensive;

bonnets resembling piled-up bunches of rhododendrons, or as white

as snow, of extraordinary smallness, with baskets of red flowers

or of enormous ribbons; gowns of shiny violet silk with dazzling

reflections, or of starched tulle upon an expanse of petticoats

stiff with embroidery; immense shawls of black lace, reaching down

to the heels; gloves of immaculate whiteness or bright violet; gold

chains; golden zones with golden clasps; hair falling over the neck

in shining masses. The glare is terrible. They seem to have stepped

out of a wardrobe, and to march past to advertise a magazine of

novelties--not that even; for they do not know how to show off

their dresses.”

* * * * *

INDULGENCES, ABSOLUTIONS, TAX TABLES, ETC. By Rev. T. L. Green,

D.D. London: Longmans. 1872.

Some low, dirty fellow in London, named Collette, has been serving

up the disgusting mess of lies about the topics designated in the

title of Dr. Green’s book, of which even the most unscrupulous

enemies of the church in this country, who have any regard for

their reputation, are ashamed to avail themselves. Dr. Green has

exposed him and brought him to deep and inconsolable grief without

difficulty, and in an able and lively manner.

* * * * *

DIVINE LIFE OF THE MOST HOLY VIRGIN MARY. Being an Abridgment of

the Mystical City of God. By Mary of Jesus of Agreda. By F.

B. A. De Cæsare, N.M.C., Cons. Sac. Cong. Index. Translated

from the French of the Abbé J. A. Boullan, D.D. Philadelphia:

Cunningham. 1872. With the imprimatur of the Bishop of

Philadelphia.

At length we have this celebrated and remarkable book in English.

The abridgment is even preferable to the original, which is

tediously prolix in style. Among many Catholic books recently

published in very attractive style, this one is among the most

tasteful and beautiful. The work itself is both edifying and

delightful to those who have the spirit of Catholic devotion.

* * * * *

THE MERCHANT OF ANTWERP. A Tale from the Flemish of Hendrick

Conscience. Translated by Revin Lyle. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet

& Co. 1872.

The merits of Hendrick Conscience as a natural, graceful, and

original writer of fiction are so generally recognized, that

it is almost needless to say we welcome the appearance of this

book with great satisfaction. In design it is artistic, in moral

unexceptionable, and its characters have the rare merit of being

few, distinctly drawn, and lifelike. The book itself is well and

neatly bound, and the paper is excellent, but here its mechanical

attractions, we regret to be obliged to say, end. The type, the

printing, and the ink are simply execrable; and the presswork

seems to have been done on one of those old-fashioned cylinder

presses now generally devoted to “striking off” street ballads and

play-bills.

* * * * *

THE WITCH OF ROSENBURG. A drama in three acts. By His Eminence

Cardinal Wiseman. New York: P. O’Shea.

Long and favorably known, this charming drama requires no eulogy

from our pen. We merely note the appearance of this new edition to

chronicle the change of proprietorship from Kelly, Piet & Co. to

the present publisher.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XV., No. 90.--SEPTEMBER, 1872.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by Rev.

I. T. HECKER, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at

Washington, D. C.

INTELLECTUAL CENTRES.

A thought struck us the other day--a thought that was half a

memory--of the interest we should feel in Geneva at the present

moment were we to be there as long as the Treaty arbitration lasts.

This led us to reflect upon Geneva as we knew it--one of the most

delightful, intellectual, and interesting places we ever came

across. Thought, like art, has its centres, its headquarters, and,

like politics, its changes of dynasties and capitals. In these

centres, a person might live undisturbedly a whole generation,

and, never stirring ten miles beyond the city gates, not miss

any one novelty, person, discovery, or theory worth hearing or

seeing. All great personages, whether of royal birth or, what is

more important, of intellectual fame, will sooner or later pass

through this favored place; all new modes of thought, from theology

to unbelief, from Spiritism to Darwinism, will find there a ready

field of battle.

Of these centres of thought in modern times, Geneva is not the

least. We can speak from experience of the quiet, unpretending

old town, standing, in the pride of its antiquity and of its

superior taste, aloof from the more frivolous Parisian suburb

that commercial enterprise has caused to grow up beside it on the

opposite side of the Rhone. It has a population of _savants_ and

_dilettanti_; its _salons_ are “blue-stocking,” and its young

men not mere butterflies, but men with a work to do or perchance

already begun. Music has a home there, too--grave, classical,

instrumental music, such as you can fancy the _délassement_ of a

nation of sages should be. Conversation is hardly brilliant among

the Genevese (though the use of the French language renders it far

from heavy), but it is solid, and words are put for ideas, not

strung together to hide nonsense. Theatres are feebly patronized,

and are left to the summer visitors of foreign countries, whose

exclusive society creates another Geneva by the side of the old

historical town--a Geneva that has nothing Genevese about it

but the name. Lectures are very prominent, almost as much so as

in America, and they are generally upon scientific subjects. Men

of fortune give a course of them free, for the enlightenment of

the humbler classes, and young men of good family and position

spend their time in literary trials, hunting up references and

studying abstruse systems of forgotten philosophy. To be uneducated

in Geneva brands a man with a worse mark than to be poor among

mercantile communities. Frivolity in man or woman is equivalent

to dishonor. There is little display in Genevese society--a

simplicity far more republican than anything America can point

to reigns in domestic affairs; and the people do not court nor

take any pains to allure the _pot-pourri_ of foreign princes,

merchants, gentlemen, and gamblers that fill the gay quays on the

modern side of the river. It is told of one of the highest civil

dignitaries of Geneva in the last century--a man of good descent

and comfortable means--that he received the envoy of the King of

France (it was before the French Revolution), on some diplomatic

mission, with one maid-servant holding a lantern. The guest having

alighted from his state-coach, and groped his way into the modest

house, inquired in surprise: “_Mais, monsieur, où sont vos gens?_”

(“But, sir, where is your household?”) “_Mes gens!_” repeated the

Genevese, with undismayed good-nature; “_c’est Jeanne!_” (“My

household consists of Jane!”) The French magnifico, whose only idea

of power lay in profuse display, and who counted his lackeys by

the score, was dumfounded at these Spartan barbarians, whose chief

unblushingly declared that a kitchen-maid was all his retinue!

Yet the chief was probably a _savant_, while the Frenchman at

best was most likely nothing more than a wit. The writer of this

article, eager to see something of the home-life of the Genevese,

succeeded in making a few acquaintances among these most exclusive

of literati. On one occasion we were dining at the primitive hour

of five with a charming family, the De la Rives, people of the

most polished manners, quick perceptions, and inexhaustible fund

of interesting conversation. The meal was plain and frugal, well

cooked, yet without a trace of art--what one might have expected

at a farmer’s or tradesman’s table; but what in the most modest

of gentlemen’s houses in France, England, or Germany would have

been an impossibility. The governess and the little children

dined with us, the former joining heartily and cleverly in the

conversation, which never by any chance fell upon trivialities.

The knives and forks were not changed throughout dinner, to our

great perplexity; and for the purpose of keeping them from soiling

the table during the change of plates, there were provided little

glass rests, like thick, short bars. These quaint details seemed

quite matters of course, and, strange to say, there was nothing

vulgar or repulsive about them, the _personnel_ of the hosts being

enough to stamp all belonging to them with the hall-mark of true

and unostentatious refinement. There was no dressing for this

family dinner, as there would have been in England, nor, indeed,

is there much dressing at all among the Genevese women. To tell

the truth, they are rather what our fastidious taste would call

dowdy in their toilette and appearance; but then, what a solid

background of true and deep education lies behind their exterior

carelessness! It is the same with their parties, which are rather

like family gatherings, and where the old-fashioned habit is still

kept up of having the tea served on a large table, round which

the guests unceremoniously seat themselves. Men of mark in the

literary world are there; inventors of machines that have changed

the destiny of commerce, and originated or obliterated this or

that trade; botanists who have inherited their talent with their

fathers’ name and experience; women who have written treatises that

men of science read with approval--and all of them so unaffectedly

enjoying themselves, all of them so truly refined and so childlike

in their simple manners. Looking at this kind of assemblage, is

it wonderful that it should have made its native city a capital

of the world of thought? Bad men as well as good pass through

it; Mazzinist and International fraternize and plot; Legitimist

and Catholic meet, and hold congresses; outsiders from another

continent, as at this moment, agree to settle their disputes on its

neutral soil. All philosophies, from De Maistre and Cousin down

to Darwin and Renan, find their exponents there; their upholders

lecture there; their theories are more closely looked into if they

start from there. The church is more active at Geneva than almost

anywhere in Europe; unbelief is more rampant and more unblushing;

dissent more earnest, and, if blinded, yet more sincere. Thirty

or forty years ago, a body of Genevese ministers of the “National

Church” did what no other Protestant body corresponding in numbers

and influence has ever done in modern times--they voluntarily gave

up their benefices, and threw themselves with their families,

utterly destitute, on the generosity of such among their flocks as

would follow their conscience. And why? Because the National Church

was becoming more and more Socinian, and dechristianizing the

population of Geneva. These dissenters, headed by the Malan family,

persevered in their sacrifice, and succeeded in founding a “Free

Church,” which is now very prosperous, and counts among its members

all the best people of the town. Outside the Catholic Church, it

would be difficult to find a parallel to this act of renunciation

for the sake of principle. Speaking of Geneva from a religious

point of view, we do not know but what we might most decidedly call

it a centre of active religion, since its bishop, Mgr. Mermillod,

is one of its best known and most distinguished native citizens,

and the church under his guidance is making rapid conquests in the

former stronghold of Calvinism; but this is beside our subject,

which is simply to reckon Geneva as first and foremost in the

present tournament of restless intellect.

Rome naturally suggests itself as another of these centres. We put

it second in the intellectual scale and in the wide sense in which

we are speaking, although in religion it stands more than first,

that is, perfectly unequalled. Still, when Byron called it “city

of the soul,” he made that delicate shade of a distinction that

marked it as a spiritual capital more than an intellectual centre.

For the spirit of Rome is too calm for agitation, too conservative

for creation. Yet in a secondary sense to volcanic Geneva, and in

a contrasting sense too, Rome is a wonderful rendezvous of the

talent and thought of Europe. A life spent in Rome would include

a sight of almost all the distinguished men and women of both

hemispheres. Unbelievers go to Rome to scoff, and often remain to

pray; curious idlers go to see the old man of the Vatican, and

often stay to ask his blessing; antiquarians find enough work for a

lifetime in digging up a few square feet of ground; artists have a

range of subjects before them so vast that, if they had a thousand

lives to live, they could not exhaust it; men of science go to

meet their kin and discuss things in quiet congresses, which it is

impossible to end otherwise than peaceably, for the curious and

unique charm of Rome is its subtle power of harmonizing the minds

of its guests with the traditions of its own mysterious existence.

It has a faculty of spiritual alchemy, and changes the visitor for

the time being into a different creature. All its lessons seem to

be taught in silence, and for argument it has but little sympathy.

Intrinsically, it is a centre of love; accidentally, a centre of

thought. Men with wearied hearts are its “chosen few,” for its

power is rather recuperative than creative. It is most difficult

to say what we mean, and yet not to seem to speak in disparagement

of this wonderful “city of the soul”; and perhaps a description

of its society, though that would be the easiest way to make our

meaning clear, would be tedious, because so familiar. We all of us

seem to know Rome as if each one had been there; and so perhaps

after all we may trust to be better understood than we had hoped to

be at first. A short walk on the “Pincio” will show us the utmost

cosmopolitanism possible; the Polish exile secure while within a

few paces of the Russian official; the Anglican minister, with his

trained Oxford refinement, calmly discussing with the energetic,

passionate, and voluble Italian ecclesiastic; the Mazzinist bowing

involuntarily to the cardinal whose generosity raised him from

the poor-house; the French philosopher and the German artist; the

American sculptor, with his prejudiced yet not unkindly view of

Rome; the English convert, enthusiastic and interested; and the

languid Italian, taking everything as a matter of course--such

are a few of the common types one jostles against every minute.

These things, however, are too well known; and from this strange,

perplexing city, so dearly loved and so well hated, so prominent in

the world’s annals that no dark future can obscure her ever-real

and ever the same present--this city whose Christian fame overrides

even her glorious heathen past of unlimited power and unchecked

Cæsarism--we will go forward to the land of those “barbarians”

who regenerated Europe and materially helped to build the church.

But how changed is the brightest city of that land, Munich, the

undoubted centre of the highest intellect, but now also the unhappy

cradle of a new perversion of that very intellect!

Though we are less conversant with Munich than with the two

foregoing places, we shall yet attempt to say a few words on its

influence in modern times.