Through the Pyrenees, the scenery grows wilder still and more

picturesque; the construction of the railway here is a marvel of

skill and enterprise. You are shot through tunnels bored through

the solid rock, numbers of them of considerable length. You skirt

dizzy precipices with scarce a straw between you and the dim

hollows or ominous pools that sleep hundreds of feet below. Quaint

little hamlets with quaint people are perched on mountain-tops or

buried in pastoral nooks far away down. Tiny streamlets start out

of the mountain and accompany you as you go. You can trace them

as they tumble and fall, and lose themselves, and reappear with

gathering volume and widening channel, till you cross them on a

bridge lower down, and find them broad and powerful rivers, turning

mills and humming onward to the sea. This is a great district for

paper mills; you see them on every side. San Sebastian is up here,

with its beautiful villas and pleasant strand at the foot of the

mountain, skirted by a town increasing in wealth and importance

every year. The favorite promenade is called the _Paseo de las

Conchas_, “The Walk of the Shells,” a very beautiful one. It is

becoming a very favorite and fashionable resort during the summer

months; so much so that gamblers tried to obtain permission from

the government to establish here the gambling-tables which have

been banished from their own Baden Baden. Fine hotels are springing

up, and there is no summer residence in Europe that would better

repay a visit than this, uniting as it does the air of the sea and

the mountains, where you may turn from the strand to the most

pastoral of scenery, from the conventionalities of life to the rude

simplicity of the Basque mountaineer.

This brings us to the frontier, and here we stop, with the

consciousness of having thrown but a very fleeting glance over

so vast a field, with its mines of historic wealth and troublous

problems of to-day. Our object has been to display in their

truer colors a people as little understood as it is studiously

misrepresented by a host of writers, who forget that the pen is the

handmaiden of truth.

FOOTNOTE:

[201] CATHOLIC WORLD, June, 1872.

AIX-LA-CHAPELLE.

Every summer the fashionable world must go to the baths, must drink

the waters, must be refreshed after the arduous winter campaign of

dining and wining, of dancing and talking, of matinées and soirées.

In America, we recover our strength at Saratoga and Newport, hunt

in the Adirondacks, freeze on top of the White Mountains, listen

to the roar of Niagara, drink sulphur at Sharon and the Virginia

Springs, and shortly, when the magnificent National Park, at the

headwaters of the Yellowstone, is fenced in, we will go to sleep

in a palace-car in New York, and wake up at the foot or on the top

of the Rocky Mountains. I believe the park, so generously voted to

a grateful country by our patriotic Congress, is in that charming

vicinity.

Human nature is the same everywhere; old Europe and young America

live, think, talk, have their being, in one and the same way.

London and Paris, Berlin and Vienna, get tired and worn out just

like Washington and New York, Boston and New Orleans. People must

travel, people must have somewhere to go. Some go to Brighton,

some go to Boulogne-sur-Mer, some to Ostend; lately, it is very

fashionable to go to Norway, the lakes are so blue, the trees are

so green, nature is so grand and beautiful; and if the trip is only

continued to Lapland, the midnight sun can be seen to the greatest

advantage.

But for its being a little too near Spain and its weekly--that is

to say, daily--revolutions, Biarritz is charming; so is Vichy, so

is Wiesbaden, so is Spa, so is Hombourg, so is Aix-la-Chapelle,

where there are the hottest of hot sulphur springs, as hot as when

Charlemagne loved to bathe and drink; and loved the place so well

that he made it the capital of his dominions north of the Alps,

raised it to the rank of second city of his empire, and built the

noble cathedral which Leo III. was kind enough to come all the way

from Rome to consecrate.

And in 804, when Leo III. dedicated it, according to the wish

of Charlemagne, to the Blessed Virgin, in the presence of many

cardinals, of 363 bishops, and numerous princes, travelling was

not made easy as nowadays. There was no tunnel through Mont Cenis,

but people climbed up and slid down mountains as best they could,

forded rivers, and jogged along on horses or mules, or any other

beast of burden that could be made to answer the purpose. Of

course, society was the same then as now; there were good and bad

men and women, just as now; but, judging by what we see and read

of the past, there was a strong living faith, that was fonder of

building up than of pulling down.

Charlemagne could invite the Pope to visit him, and consecrate his

cathedral; he could look the Pope honestly in the eyes, and ask

his blessing. Strong, mighty, powerful, he was an humble, obedient

son of the church; his strength and might and power were used in

support, in defence of that glorious Mother Church to whom he owed

all that was good and great in his life.

He gave to the Pope, that he might be independent of all human

control; he did not steal and insult, as a present reigning

sovereign delights in doing; he did not, like a modern emperor

of the French, use religion as an instrument for gaining

popularity--send soldiers to Rome one day, and order them back the

next, make a convention in September with a robber-king, and in

October hurry off Frenchmen to retrieve the day at Mentana; but he

believed and acted up to his belief. He had his faults, as all men

have, but he was true to his principles, and, like all true men,

died in the peace of God.

For him there was no Sedan, no Waterloo, but a glorious tomb in his

own grand cathedral, and grand it is--an octagon in the Byzantine

style, surrounded by numerous chapels. The rotunda is supported by

pillars of polished Ravenna marble, presented by Leo III., dividing

the galleries into arcades. The church was commenced in 796, and

finished in 804; the works were superintended by Eginhard, the

biographer of Charlemagne.

All that Rome and Ravenna could furnish of most beautiful in marble

was employed in the decoration. The dome was surmounted by a globe

of massive gold, the doors and balustrades were of bronze, the

vases and ornaments of unparalleled magnificence. The railings

of the eight arcades of the triforium, cast in bronze of four

different patterns, and the doors, adorned with lions’ heads of

the same material, which no longer occupy their original position,

but are attached to a porch of the seventeenth century, convey a

perfect idea of the state of art in the eighth century. On the

right of the porch is the figure of a she-wolf, which has served

as a foundation for many popular legends, but the real origin is

unknown.

The arches of the gallery are adorned with thirty-two pillars of

marble, granite, and porphyry, brought by Charlemagne from the

Exarch’s palace at Ravenna and from Rome. The finest of these,

removed by the French in 1794, were brought back in 1815, and

have been repolished and replaced at the expense of the Emperor

of Germany. The interior of the dome was originally adorned with

mosaics, remains of which may still be seen. The cathedral was

pillaged by the Normans in 881, restored by Otho III. in 983, but

in all essential respects is still the church of Charlemagne.

Eastward of the old apse, Otho III. built a chapel, in which he was

buried; both of these were pulled down in the fourteenth century,

when the present choir, which has preserved the plan of Otho’s

chapel, was erected; and his tomb is exactly beneath the present

high altar. The choir is Gothic, one hundred and fourteen feet

high; nothing can be more striking than the contrast between the

octagon nave and the Gothic choir--so totally unlike, and still

harmonizing. It is the Christian religion subduing and dominating

the proud Roman Empire.

Thirty-seven emperors and eleven empresses have been crowned in

this cathedral, from 831 to 1531. Ferdinand I., brother of Charles

V., was the last. Since then, they were crowned at Frankfort, where

the election was held. From the centre of the dome hangs a massive

Gothic lustre, presented by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in

souvenir of his coronation. The bases of the circles are engraved

with groups, representing the Annunciation, Nativity, Adoration of

the Magi, Crucifixion, Three Marys at the Tomb, Ascension, Descent

of the Holy Ghost, and the Last Judgment. The lustre is suspended

by four chains, richly chased, and united in a brass plate, on the

lower side of which is engraved a figure of St. Michael.

Immediately beneath the lustre a large slab of marble bears the

simple inscription, _Carolo Magno_, which covered the vault where

once reposed the remains of Charlemagne. The vault below was opened

by Otho III. in 997, and again by Frederick in 1165. Charlemagne,

who died at Aix-la-Chapelle in 814, did not designate his

burial-place, but it was thought there could be no more appropriate

spot than the magnificent church which he had built in his chosen

city.

His body was found seated on a throne as if alive, clothed in

the imperial robes; his crown on his head, his manuscript of the

Gospels on his knees, his sword, Joyeuse, was placed by his side,

and his pilgrim’s pouch, which he always wore on his journeys to

Rome, was suspended to his girdle. His sceptre and shield, which

were of gold, and had been blessed by Leo III., were at his feet.

Over all was thrown the imperial mantle, and above was erected a

superb triumphal arch, on which was this epitaph:

“Ici repose le corps de Charles, grand et orthodoxe empereur,

qui étendit glorieusement le royaume des Francs, et le gouverna

heureusement pendant 47 ans.”

The body of Charlemagne was enshrined by order of Frederick, and

the throne of white marble on which he was seated is now kept in

the upper gallery of the nave, directly facing the choir; the

other relics were carefully preserved, and used in the coronation

of succeeding emperors of Germany. Towards the end of the last

century, at the approach of the French army, they were removed

to Paderborn, and returned in 1804, but not complete, as the

Emperor of Germany had kept three articles which were regarded as

indispensable at a coronation.

These articles were a shrine, enclosing some of the earth watered

by the blood of the proto-martyr St. Stephen; the book of Gospels,

found on the knees of Charlemagne, which is written on bluish bark,

in characters of gold. It was with the hand on this book, and upon

the shrine of St. Stephen, that the emperor made his coronation

oath. The third article was the sword of Charlemagne, Joyeuse, a

present from Haroun-al-Raschid, which was the sword of coronation.

It was presented to the emperor by the Elector of Trèves, who

invested him with it with these word: “Accipe gladium per manus

Episcoporum.” At the words, “Accingere gladio tuo,” the Elector of

Saxe placed it in the scabbard, and, assisted by the Elector of

Cologne, girded it around the new emperor.

The emperor was by right a canon of the chapter of the cathedral,

whose members obtained from Gregory V., when he visited

Aix-la-Chapelle in 997, the title of cardinal-priests. In the ages

of faith, the imperial dignity was semi-priestly; the emperor

was considered as having charge of souls. Before the emblems of

sovereign dignity were placed in his hands, he swore, with his hand

upon the Gospels, fidelity to the church which had just consecrated

him.

The archbishop gave him the sword “to combat the enemies of

Christ”--the imperial purple symbolized “the zeal with which he

should endeavor to consolidate in the empire the reign of faith

and of peace”--and with the sceptre he was exhorted to become “the

father of his people, the protector of the ministers of God, the

defender of the widow and the orphan.” And, last of all, to seal

the alliance contracted with the Holy Church, he received a portion

of the sacred Host, consecrated in the pontifical Mass, the other

half of which was consumed by the priest of God.

After the election of the emperor at Frankfort, the electors

and the emperor elect proceeded to Aix-la-Chapelle, where the

coronation took place. The emperor heard Mass in the choir of

the cathedral, surrounded by his court; the people were in the

nave--the octagon, built by Charlemagne; after the Mass, he was

conducted up the staircase, temporarily erected from directly

beneath the lustre in the centre, to the throne of Charlemagne. The

electors and their suites occupied the arcades in the gallery; and

there, surrounded by priests, princes, and people, the Christian

emperor swore to maintain the laws of God and man.

Before signing the act of his election, the emperor confirmed all

the privileges given by his predecessors to the Cathedral of

Notre Dame; and then the cortége proceeded to the Hôtel de Ville,

where the coronation banquet was held in the splendid hall, so

beautifully restored by the King of Prussia--we beg pardon, Emperor

of Germany. The Cathedral of Notre Dame was formerly exempt from

ordinary episcopal jurisdiction, and from its foundation was

directly under the Holy See, which privilege was confirmed in 1157

by Pope Adrian IV.

Aix-la-Chapelle is very old; it was known to the Romans under the

name of Aquis Granum, and is said to have been founded in the

second century. Remains of Roman baths have been discovered near

the cathedral and the _Elisenbrunnen_. Burnt by the Huns in 451, it

was rebuilt, and became a favorite residence of the Frankish kings.

Here was Charlemagne born, April 2, 742, and here he died, January

28, 814. In 881, the town was sacked by the Normans, and at the end

of the tenth century restored and enlarged by Otho III., who died

here in 1002. Charlemagne surrounded the city with a wall, pierced

by ten gates, which Frederick Barbarossa rebuilt and strengthened

in 1187.

The good old city has seen stormy days, as in 1198 it was besieged

by Otho of Brunswick, and in 1247 by William of Holland, to whom it

surrendered after a siege of six months. During the middle ages,

it attained great wealth by its manufacture of cloth; agencies

for the sale of which were established at Venice and Antwerp in

the fourteenth century. Many diets of the empire were held here;

and three times, in 1668, 1748, and 1818, the diplomats of Europe

met in the Hôtel de Ville to settle terms of peace and heal the

wounds of war. The conferences of the congress were held in the

_Krönungsaal_, a spacious saloon occupying the whole of the third

floor; the former banqueting-hall after the coronations.

The Hôtel de Ville was erected on the site of the palace of the

Frankish kings, in which Charlemagne was born, and the famous

banqueting-hall has been adorned with splendid frescoes, done

by the best artists of the Düsseldorf school, depicting scenes

in the life of Charlemagne. They were painted at the command of

the Emperor of Germany, and the nine frescoes represent: The

Destruction of the Saxon Idols; The Battle of Cordova; The Baptism

of Witikind; A Diet of the Empire; The Coronation of Charlemagne;

The Coronation of his son Louis; The Taking of Pavia; The Opening

of the Tomb of Charlemagne; The Foundation of the Cathedral.

Since the time of the Romans, Aix-la-Chapelle has been celebrated

as a watering-place; and modern Europe fully appreciates the

delicious baths and bubbling springs. Every seven years the

Exposition of the Great Relics takes place; and then the pilgrims,

drawn by faith, are added to the thousands of votaries at the

shrine of fashion who annually flock to the dear old city.

The four Great Relics, which are exposed every seven years, from

the 10th to the 24th of July, are: The dress of the Blessed

Virgin; The swaddling-clothes of the Infant Jesus at Bethlehem;

The cloth that encircled the loins of our dear Lord on the cross;

The cloth in which the head of St. John the Baptist was enveloped

after his decapitation. Charlemagne obtained these relics from

Rome, Constantinople, and Jerusalem. His intimate relations with

the Popes Adrian, who died in 795, and Leo III., are well known:

his influence was unbounded with the Byzantine emperors, who sent

ambassadors with the relics as presents; and in the East he had

control over the holy places in Palestine. These sovereigns, who

contributed to enrich his church of Notre Dame with treasures from

their own sanctuaries, would not have dared incur the wrath of the

great warrior by sending him false relics.

In 408, the Empress Pulcheria, the sister of Theodosius and wife

of Marcian, built churches to contain the swaddling-clothes of the

Infant Jesus and the cincture of the Blessed Virgin. The septennial

exposition dates from the ninth century; and since then, historical

testimony abounds, public facts attest, without interruption to our

day, the authenticity of the relics venerated at Aix-la-Chapelle.

Among the lesser relics are the _cingulum_ or leathern belt of our

Lord, the extremities of which are united and stamped with the seal

of Constantine; a piece of the cord with which the hands of our

Lord were bound during his Passion; a piece of the sponge which was

dipped in vinegar and gall and presented to our Lord on the cross;

and a rib of St. Stephen, the first martyr.

The last exposition was in 1867, and the crowds that assisted

bore witness to the living faith that makes the people of the

Rhenish Provinces such admirable Catholics. Aix-la-Chapelle looked

beautifully; from the high towers and dome of the cathedral, from

every church and house, from the spires of the Hôtel de Ville, the

banners and flags were flying. The black and white flag of Prussia,

the red-and-white and blue-and-white banners of the churches,

mingled with the Papal colors.

Sixty thousand pilgrims came every day afoot to Aix; every avenue

leading to the cathedral was crowded, people standing in close file

waiting their turn to enter. But in those serried ranks there was

no noise, no confusion; profound, earnest devotion attested their

faith and piety. The Rosary was recited in bands; a man’s voice

would say alone the “Hail Mary,” and the “Holy Mary, Mother of God”

was taken up by all. From 1 to 8 P.M. the cathedral was opened

for the procession of pilgrims, but it was impossible to think of

entering during that time, as it was an affair of hours.

After 8 P.M., the canons allowed a few, some hundreds, to enter by

a private door; and then we first saw the interior of the superb

old cathedral. We passed along through the arches and vaults of

the basement story, ascended and descended staircases, and finally

reached a vestibule, leading directly to the octagon, the centre of

the cathedral. The grated doors were closed, as the pilgrims were

still in the body of the church; in the dim light, we could see

the glimmer of tapers in the choir; and the voices of the kneeling

crowd reciting the litanies rose to heaven, the very incense of

prayer.

Soon the doors were opened, and the favored ones passed slowly

through. How grand and majestic the cathedral looked! The octagon

in darkness, the choir illuminated. In single file, we made the

tour around the relics; then all knelt down--the priests who were

strangers in the stalls of the clergy, the laity outside. The

canons walked in procession, each holding one of the precious

relics, which we were allowed to kiss. After all was over, we

looked around; we were kneeling in the superb choir, said to be

the highest in Europe--higher than the choir in the cathedral of

Cologne, which is lower than the nave. As we gazed upwards, and

beheld the grand arches which rose so high above our heads, our

thoughts were raised to heaven, and made us glorify God, who gives

power to man to conceive and execute such works. The stained-glass

windows are exquisite, and in the dim, religious light all looked

bewilderingly beautiful.

The next morning, at 10 A.M., we took our position in front

of the cathedral, where benches were erected temporarily to

accommodate those who preferred sitting to standing. The crowds

were reverentially silent and recollected, reciting the Rosary and

the Litany of the Blessed Virgin. The relics were exposed from five

points. When the priests appeared in the tower opposite us, the

brass band in the gallery which connects the towers broke forth in

grand harmony; the people singing as one voice the superb German

choral music. It was overpowering! High up in the old gallery the

canons holding the precious relics, the cross glittering, the light

blazing around them, the splendid music resounding in triumph in

the open air! The ages of faith are not past, as we all felt that

day at Aix.

At 12 M. we joined the procession waiting for the doors of the

cathedral to open, that we might enter the golden chamber. This

was a select crowd, as we had to pay two francs for a card. The

Prussian cavalry rode up and down to keep the ranks straight; and

after we had been jammed outside, we received a final mash inside,

and, by the time we were jelly, we shoved ourselves into the golden

treasury, where a canon explained everything in German and French;

then the procession passed again through the choir, around the

octagon, and out another door.

The last day of the exposition was distinguished by a procession

in the streets: the first that had taken place since the French

Revolution. It was very solemn and grand; the Great Relics were

borne in their superb shrines by the canons of the cathedral,

the Archbishop of Cologne carried the reliquary containing the

_cingulum_ of our Lord, the Bishop of Luxembourg the cincture of

the Blessed Virgin.

Of course these great crowds, with the usual amount of dust and

dirt, rather fatigued us, even though we were immensely impressed;

so we sought the refreshing waters, and continued our meditations

in the Kaiserbad; or, rather, we would commence our morning

devotions by making ourselves comfortable. The Kaiserbad is the

finest in Europe; long corridors, arched roofs lighted from above,

encaustic-tiled floors, beautiful dressing-rooms, each one opening

into a delicious bath of white marble, into which you descend by

six white marble steps into the pure white sulphur water. Twenty

minutes is the time advised for well people; invalids stay in an

hour sometimes; after the twenty minutes, the attendants brought

in hot sheets, in which we were enveloped. It was Elysium--the

perfection of material enjoyment.

From the Kaiserbad we adjourned to the cathedral, heard Mass,

and then strolled through the _Elisengarten_, the grounds around

the spring; the Prussian military band played delightfully every

morning, and we listened, drank occasional glasses of hot sulphur

water, and then, refreshed and invigorated, were ready for any

performance. In the afternoon, people drive to the heights of

Louisberg, formerly a great fortress that commanded Aix, famous in

the wars of the middle ages, and demolished after some treaty, to

keep the peace of Europe.

The view from the height is superb. Aix-la-Chapelle was the

favorite resort of Pauline Bonaparte, and Louisberg her pet

promenade; so, after her death, the city of Aix erected a monument

to her memory. There is also a Belvidere, where they have musical

reunions and balls, and people drink coffee and Seltzer water,

in which we indulged. After Louisberg, we drove around the old

ramparts, visited the beautiful cemetery and the _Burtscheid_, the

hottest of the springs, where the water is boiling--cooks an egg in

a few seconds.

Besides the cathedral, there are several beautiful churches. The

Jesuit church of the Immaculate Conception is very fine, built

in the severest Gothic style, of solid stone. In the convent of

the Sisters of the Infant Jesus, they make the most magnificent

embroideries, one Gothic chasuble, just finished for an English

bishop, was worth 15,000 francs; and the benediction veils, stoles,

and capes were exquisite.

In the cathedral are preserved some fine chalices and vestments;

amongst the latter a chasuble said to have been used by St.

Bernard--it is of purple, adorned with pearls; a cape, with

small bells attached to the lower edge, worn by Leo III. at the

consecration of the church; a set of vestments of cloth-of-gold,

ornamented with pearls, presented by Charles V.; and a chasuble,

given in 1599 by Isabella, Infanta of Spain. Among the treasures of

the cathedral is a manuscript of the Gospels, beautifully written

in letters of gold on purple vellum; its binding is covered with

plates of silver-gilt, richly enamelled.

In addition to the pious crowd, there was more than the usual

influx of fashionable people. We had the pleasure of contemplating

the Prince and Princess Frederick Charles of Prussia while they

stood on the balcony of the Hôtel de Ville. Prince Frederick

Charles, the Red Prince, is one of the great Prussian captains, and

of course there was immense excitement. The place before the Hôtel

de Ville is the vegetable and flower market, and the peasants, in

their quaint caps and bonnets, were enchanted either with their

royal highnesses or with the soldiers, who strolled among them, and

bought up their wares.

Dremel’s, the hotel of Aix, was entirely devoted to the Sultan and

his suite, who were on their way from Paris to Constantinople,

after the Exposition. They were a splendid set of men. In the

morning, on our way to the Kaiserbad, we passed Dremel’s, and,

as they were always lounging around, we had a fine view of them.

The Sultan kept himself secluded from the vulgar gaze, and was

only seen the morning of his departure. Every one was on hand to

see the commander of the faithful; at last, a great lumbering

Prussian state carriage appeared, and there was the Sultan leaning

back, eyes half-closed, arms folded on his breast, as if he were

the sovereign of the world. His impassible face never changed

expression; he looked the miserable fatalist he is.

In our German hotel, the Belle Vue, there was no reading-room, no

drawing-room; everybody sat in the dining-room, chattering and

talking away. Frank, the jolly landlord, made merry with a chosen

band of friends, among whom was the Burgomaster, at the end of one

table; all smoking, each man’s bottle of wine standing before him.

A German friend assured us all Germany passed the evening in the

same way; the professors at the universities think it absolutely

necessary to drink as many bottles of wine in the evening as they

have studied hours during the day. We mildly suggested it was not

strange that German philosophy was rather cloudy sometimes, as the

smoke of the evening might befog the learned professors; but our

friend maintained it was healthy for mind and body.

Charming, delightful Aix! It was with regret we left it; we looked

with longing eyes at the dome of the grand cathedral as it receded

in the distance, and sighed for the delicious Kaiserbad as we were

whirled through the dust and smoke. However, we had the happiness

of making one person enjoy what we had so fully appreciated; on

our return home we had the pleasure of seeing once again one

whose name is dear to the heart of every American Catholic, the

late illustrious Archbishop of Baltimore. He was suffering from

rheumatism, and we told him such wonderful things of the baths at

Aix, he changed his mind, and, instead of going to Paris, went to

Aix; with what result, the following charming note will tell:

AIX-LA-CHAPELLE, August 4, 1867,

Hôtel de Belle Vue.

DEAR MADAME: I drop you a few lines, to return my sincere thanks

for having so effectually called my attention to the baths and

waters of this celebrated city. I find that all you said and

promised has been fully realized; and when, hereafter, any

one will dare tell me that your amiable sex is accustomed to

draw upon its imagination for its facts, or at least to color

extravagantly what has proved pleasing, I shall point to your

recommendation of these waters as a sufficient refutation, or at

any rate a most noted and brilliant exception to the remark.

The baths are all you said, and more; they are really superb,

and just what I needed. In fact, I consider it a special

providence that I met you in Brussels, or otherwise I should have

gone to Paris instead of Aix. Already I am quite relieved, and

in another week I expect to be as young and supple as ever. I am

at the Belle Vue, but, after taking one bath at the Kaiserbad,

I have taken the rest at the Rosebad; the latter are fully

equal to the former in sumptuousness, and the attendance is

probably better. I expect to return to Paris before or about the

15th inst., and if I can be of any service to you in Europe or

America, you may freely command me.

Though I have not yet taken any excursion to the country, I have

visited the relics and curiosities of the grand old cathedral,

and also the Hôtel de Ville. This is one of the oldest cities

in Europe, and its inhabitants say with pride, “After Rome,

Aix-la-Chapelle!” The city with its monuments carries us back a

thousand years to the brilliant days of Charlemagne, who was a

giant not only morally and intellectually, but physically, for he

was over seven feet two inches tall. Best regards and blessing to

your family, and compliments to the dean. Yours truly,

M. J. SPALDING,

Archbishop of Baltimore.

AMBROSIA

A LEGEND OF AUGSBURG.

We were talking of our travels, my friend Archer and I, and of the

lessons travelling brings to those who go a little out of Murray’s

beaten track. And especially, so we were pleased to think, these

lessons might be learnt in little out-of-the-way nooks, hidden

centres of ignored life, none the less busy for that, and none the

less full of exciting life-dramas. I was telling him of Pavia--for

my wanderings had led me chiefly through Italy--of the desolate,

enchanted look of the wall-enclosed court-yards round the gloomy

and picturesque palaces; of the lonely walk on the former ramparts,

now planted with fine horse-chestnuts; of the many tapestries of

romance I had woven in my mind about the silent-looking houses and

the dark-eyed maidens I occasionally met in the streets. It was

while Pavia was in Austrian hands that I passed through it, and

perhaps the military occupation tended to make the sleepy city

still more sombre and dull. Yet what additional elements of romance

that circumstance contributed! For it was not impossible that some

fair, mild German, with his dreamy sentimentality, yet fresh from

college, might have been drawn to feel a holy, wondering love for

the bright southern beauty whose childhood had been fostered in

indignant hatred of his land and race; and between these two how

many complications of pathetic interest might we not imagine,

how many shades of feeling and degrees of circumstances might we

not conjure up! “But,” said Archer, interrupting my fine flow of

language about the joys and sorrows of the town of the _Certosa_,

“you know Italy, strictly speaking, is rather the land of passion

than of romance. Could you think of an Italian ‘Gretchen’? The one

character most like her, the Cenci, is so different despite the

likeness! Religion seems more spiritual in Germany; in Italy they

do as the Greeks of old, put their own human feelings into heavenly

representatives and then pay homage to them, thinking unconsciously

that they are honoring supernatural attributes. There is too much

earthliness about their ideal--in fact, I do not believe they have

an ideal at all.”

“Come, come,” I answered, “you are too hard on the southern

temperament. You do not know Italy well enough to speak with

authority on the subject. After all, as long as their way of

feeling religion does them good, the Italians are quite as well

off, spiritually, as your Teutonic ideals. I am not sure but what I

prefer warmth and impulse to passive tenderness, however reliable

the latter may be throughout a lifetime. But this question of the

relative merits of various races will always be an open one, and

no one wishes to leave it so more than the church herself, for she

wisely sees how much the glory of God gains through this blending

of various natures in his service.”

“No doubt,” answered my enthusiastic Teutomane, “as far as that

side of the question is concerned. You have been saying something

equivalent to telling me that the orchestra is preferable to a

single violin or cornet, while _I_ was speaking of the intrinsic

merit of each of those individual instruments.”

“Well,” I said, “now tell me something about the tone of these

instruments. You know I have been very little in Germany, and

I should be glad to hear something worth hearing, something

that one would not find in the guide-book, nor in the volume of

self-important nonsense occasionally thrust upon the public by a

gushing sister or a city alderman.”

“You are very caustic,” said my friend with a laugh. “If I must

travel so far out of the beaten track to please you, why not plunge

at once into a volume of mediæval legends?”

“Is it in print? Because in that case I could see for myself, and

therefore would not care to hear it,” I answered teasingly.

“It is _not_ in print, Sir Doubter, and, what is more, it is not

even in manuscript.”

I began to feel interested. “A popular tradition, then?” I asked.

“Exactly. It is not worth much, only I happened to see the places

mentioned, the quaint house that is standing yet, though very much

disguised of course, and the dark street leading to the cathedral.

It happened in Augsburg, and the cathedral, as you know, is

Protestantized, though still very well kept. I was only in the town

for two days, so you may imagine I know little of it beyond what my

narrator told me.”

“And pray who was your narrator?”

The father of a girl in an old book-stall, where I had stopped

attracted by some rare copy of a Catholic work, of which she did

not seem to know the value. Equally surprised at seeing the book

there and at finding her ignorant of its worth, I asked her how

she got it. She lifted up her head, which had been bent on some

mysterious turning-point of her knitting, and said smilingly:

“_Mein Herr_ is a Catholic, then?”

I answered that I was, and repeated my former question.

“It must have been one of my great-uncle’s books,” she said, “he

was going to be a priest, but he died before being ordained. We

were always Catholics.”

“And how came you to keep this stall, child?” I asked, becoming

interested.

“It is my father’s,” she answered quickly; “and he has been ill for

two months, so I keep it for him. His uncle left him all his books.”

“And is your father so poor, then?”

“Very poor, _mein Herr_,” said the girl, with a longing glance at

the book I still held in my hand, as if she were thinking of the

price a connoisseur might be tempted to give for it. “His father

and grandfather were booksellers,” she continued, “but not like

him; they had large libraries and plenty of men working under them.

That was long before I was born, _mein Herr_.”

“And I suppose your father got into difficulties. But anything

would have paid better than this, my poor child.”

“My father would not go to work for any other bookseller, not if

he were the king,” laughed the girl, more merrily than I thought

the case warranted; “and he is a regular student. My mother used

to earn money in many ways, teaching, writing, sewing; and I did

the housework. She died two years ago, and we have nothing but

the book-stall now to keep my sick father and my little crippled

brother.”

I thought to myself, Why, here is a regular romance; perhaps the

inevitable lover of German stories is going to peep out next, from

the frank revelations of my new friend. At any rate, let us follow

it up. So I said aloud: “If your father is willing to part with

this book, I should like to buy it. But I should be very glad to

see him and chat with him about it. Do you think he could see me?”

“Oh! yes, of course,” answered the girl with a hearty smile; and

for the first time I noticed her features and expression. She

was not beautiful--I hope you did not expect the romance to be

perfect?--but there was a pure, calm steadiness in her look, and

an air of unconscious dignity about her that made her striking to

the eye. She seemed made for fidelity and helpfulness, and as to

external charms, if you admire hair, she simply had superabundant

masses of it. German-like, it was put up in broad plaits, tightly

coiled round the head, without a shadow of coquettishness, and

just as if she thought it no ornament at all. Now I have noticed

your Italian girls know how to make a good deal more of their

advantages. I have seen poor girls in Venice with as elaborate a

coiffure--ringlets, puffs, plaits, and wavings--as any Parisian

hair-dresser could exhibit on his waxen models.

“Libels again!” I answered. “I have seen the very contrary at

Naples, and there are women there like Grecian statues. Venice is

half Eastern, you know. But to go on with your impromptu romance.”

Well, when evening came, I went to the address the young girl

had given me, and as you may imagine, it was not a palace that

I entered. The neighborhood was as commonplace as any in an old

German city can be, that is, picturesqueness itself compared with

our modern “back slums.” Still, through the picturesqueness, there

stared the most unmistakable poverty. I went up a good many flights

of steep, narrow stairs, with curious balusters that would have

driven a dealer in old carving wild with delight, and knocked at

a door that I recognized by the rude cross and bit of palm over

the archway. There was just such another cross and sprig of green

inside the door, and a little holy-water vessel in stamped brass

hung at the side nearest the door-handle. There was nothing very

peculiar about the room, except that it had an air of freshness and

cleanliness, which, considering its sick inmates and its cramped

locality, was the more pleasant because it was a surprise. A great

German bed, with a feather-bed of traditional height, filled one

side of the room, and there was a stove in the middle. The remains

of the supper were on a side-table, and a lamp drawn close to the

father’s arm-chair stood on a centre-table laden with domestic

“mending.” The little crippled brother sat in a low easy-chair by

the stove, which chair was the only luxury in the room: My friend,

the young girl, came quickly forward and said:

“My father is so glad you have come, _mein Herr_.”

I sat down beside him, and soon got into conversation with the old

scholar. He was still very weak, but seemed to feel better when

excited. I found him a thorough bookworm, full of knowledge that,

in another man’s hands, would have made his fortune. I discovered,

or rather forced him to tell me, that in that press (pointing to

a common painted chest of drawers) were manuscripts ready to be

published, if a publisher could be found to undertake the risk,

but the author had no ambition, though he was full to the brim of

literary enthusiasm. His researches had lain chiefly among works

of mediæval ecclesiastical lore, legends and poems, etc. The

emblems borne by the various saints were a favorite subject of his.

His uncle’s theological collection and the libraries in which he

had spent his youth, had furnished him with means to prosecute

his studies even after his father’s reverses in fortune--the

public libraries had done the rest. His wife’s help had been very

important, and piles of her notes and references lay among his own

manuscripts. He spoke with pride of his little crippled son, whom

he said he had made as good a scholar as if the poor boy had been

to the universities; and as to his daughter, his looks said more

than his words, as he gazed at her across the table, she sitting

so calmly there amid her heap of “mending,” her dark-blue dress

reminding me of the coloring of a mediæval virgin martyr in the

stained-glass window of some old cathedral. She was more queenly

than slender in figure, and neither her face nor her hands were

small, though they were perfectly shaped; there was more majesty

than grace in her whole air, yet she was thoroughly girl-like. I

unconsciously invested her in my mind with royal robes, heavily

jewelled, like the Byzantine saints, or with the ample cloak of the

brave and learned Portia. Presently she went into a smaller room,

opening into the one where we were sitting, and during her absence

I ventured to hint to the father that for her sake he should try to

make those literary treasures of his more remunerative. He smiled;

I asked him if she were already provided for, or if he did not feel

it his duty to put by some kind of fortune for her.

“My child is watched over from heaven,” he said; “she will never

come to harm.”

“What is her name?” I asked. I had already ascertained his family

name to be Reinhold.

“Ambrosia,” he answered.

“Rather an uncommon name,” I remarked, well pleased, somehow, that

it should be so.

“Yes,” said the father, “and I dare say it will interest you

to hear the reason why she has that name. She was born on the

anniversary of the day that a young girl called Ambrosia came to

life here in the sixteenth century. This was how it happened. The

troubles of the Reformation were just beginning, and this young

girl, who was the burgomaster’s daughter, was famous through the

town for her holiness and modesty. She was betrothed to a young

merchant who had been her playmate in childhood. Did you notice

that great building on the corner of the street to the right of

the cathedral? That was her father’s house; it is a hotel now. Her

bridegroom lived two or three streets further off, on a corner

too; and under the corner window, which was beautifully carved

and painted, stood a wooden image of the Mother of God, with a

lamp before it which was never allowed to go out. It began to be

whispered about that Engelbrecht, the young lady’s betrothed, and a

very handsome, dashing young fellow, was rather inclined to the new

doctrines which Luther was then preaching all over Germany. Every

one wondered how Ambrosia would take this, but no one knew anything

positive until it became the talk of the city that one night

Engelbrecht and a few companions, heated with wine and singing

profane songs, had broken and extinguished the votive lamp before

the image under his window, and thrown the image itself into the

gutter. The next day it was known that Ambrosia was very ill, and

had sent for her lover. He came, and, as he really was very fond

of her, the sudden alteration in her looks frightened and subdued

him for the moment. She took off the betrothal ring he had put upon

her finger, and very gravely and sweetly told him that she could

never be his bride on earth, but that she fervently hoped that she

had indeed won his soul’s final salvation, through the joyful and

willing sacrifice of her own life. She said she should die on the

day that was fixed for their wedding, but that from the dead she

would speak to him yet, and in public. Then a year would go by,

and she told him that it was not given to her to know if he would

repent or not during that time, but that on the anniversary of her

death she would come to life again and walk from her tomb to the

cathedral and back; and she summoned him to meet her there. It was

her hope that, after that second call, he would surely be won back

to God. So when her wedding day came, although she seemed happy and

looked only very grave and pale, she called her father and mother

and her lover to her, and there, sitting by the window that looked

on the cathedral, she passed away without agony, and just as the

hour struck which should have seen her a new-made wife. She was not

buried for several days, for the scoffers said she was deceiving

the people and simulating death. Doctors and priests watched the

body for a week, and Mass was said in the room where she lay,

surrounded with flowers and tall tapers. Exorcisms were even read

over her, but the placid expression of her alabaster face seemed to

grow only more heavenly day by day. At last signs of decomposition

appeared, as if to make the marvel more certain, and those who

had watched the body drew up a legal declaration of her undoubted

death. She was brought to the churchyard, the family vault was

opened, and the coffin, which was still uncovered, was just going

to be finally closed, when she raised herself suddenly to a sitting

posture, and, seemingly transfigured into greater beauty than

had ever been hers in life, she gazed slowly round the crowd and

beckoned to her lover. He stood transfixed, and the people fell

back from him and left him face to face with his bride. She only

said in a clear, pitying voice that was heard by all, ‘Remember,

Engelbrecht, thy tryst with me one year from this day. God be with

thee until then.’

“She fell slowly backwards into her narrow couch, and when the

people had taken courage again, they came hurriedly and closed the

coffin in great awe. A year went by, and Engelbrecht, uneasy and

remorseful, plunged into worse excesses than ever, went heart and

soul, at least outwardly, into the Lutheran movement, and became

the head of a band of young men whose dissoluteness was spoken of

with disgust by the licentious reformers themselves. The day came,

and with it crowds flocked to the grave of Ambrosia. Those who had

gone at sunrise found a white-robed figure kneeling there, its face

hidden in its hands, and two long plaits of golden hair streaking

its drapery. Those who had watched all night and gone there the

evening previous after dusk, could tell nothing save that the grave

had been the same as ever, but they thought they must have slept

for a few minutes before midnight, since they had heard the quarter

strike from the cathedral, and had looked at their timepieces

directly after, and found it was half an hour _after_ midnight. The

radiant, silent figure was there then, and an odor as of incense

filled the night air. As soon as the cathedral doors were open

(it was in June), Ambrosia rose and turned towards the church.

Some sceptics who saw the strange procession, rushed at once to

the grave, and, hastily disinterring the coffin, found it empty.

Crowds joined the procession to the cathedral, which the young girl

reached during the first Mass, for the priests still had possession

of it then. Every one wondered if her lover would meet her, but no

sign of him appeared. Ambrosia looked incomparably more beautiful

than in life; her eyes were cast down, and she wore a golden

betrothal ring on her finger. She moved like a spirit, yet there

was no doubting the reality and substance of her presence. There

were many in the crowd who were scoffers and libertines, men whom

no virtuous maiden’s eye would as much as glance upon, yet even

they were silenced, and the marvellous beauty of Ambrosia seemed

to have no other effect upon them than one of awe and unconscious

restraint. The people followed her in and lined the aisles through

which they knew she would walk on leaving the cathedral. She knelt

for a moment before the high carved tabernacle, with a lovely

miniature spire, quite in a separate corner from the altar--you

have seen those tabernacles of ours in old Catholic churches in

other parts of Germany, _mein Herr_?--and then she turned slowly

back. There was no hurry, no anxiety nor expectancy, in her manner;

still Engelbrecht had not been seen. She had come to the middle of

the left aisle, still with her eyes persistently cast down, and

though the people had all asked her many questions as to their

future spiritual fate and that of others dear to them, yet she had

never answered a word. Now, she stopped deliberately, yet never

raising her eyes. A sob was heard in the crowd, and the serried

masses heaved to and fro as a young man forced his way violently

through. It was Engelbrecht, but he was unrecognizable. A cloak

covered him from head to foot--evidently a studied disguise--yet

what was more unlike him was his agitated, humble manner, the

look of passionate self-accusation in his drawn features, and his

impetuous disregard for appearances. As Ambrosia stopped, he rushed

forward with his arms extended, but some unseen power stayed his

progress, and though she was not a foot distant from him, he could

not touch her. For the first time she lifted her head, and a look

of love, pure as an angel’s over a repentant sinner, lighted up her

ethereal face and mingled with an expression of deepest gratitude.

She pointed to the betrothal ring on her finger, and then glanced

upward without uttering one word. This second warning from the

world of souls was of too solemn a nature to admit of even the holy

yet too human expression that her words had given to the first, but

it was unmistakably borne in upon the mind of her lover that as

long as he kept true to the faith, he might hope to claim her as

his spiritual bride in the kingdom of God. And, as she continued

her journey toward her grave, he did not even follow her, but

went straight to the Dominican convent and asked for the habit of

the order. Those who accompanied Ambrosia to the churchyard could

tell nothing as to the manner of her disappearance; all they knew

was that they saw her one moment, and the next they saw nothing.

Engelbrecht gave all his riches to the church to found a seminary

somewhere beyond the bounds of the heretical countries of Germany,

for the instruction of missionaries; the foundation eventually

became a house of his order. He wished his own dwelling to be used

for monastic or hospital purposes, should religion again revive in

Augsburg; but his wish was not fulfilled. The house was forfeited

to the state, and became successively a warehouse, a barrack, a

prison, and a factory. Now, it is a great printing-office, and

plenty of lies are coined into money within its walls, through the

partisan newspapers that issue from it. You can see the corner

window still, with its beautiful carving hardly injured by time,

and the empty niche beneath it where the image of the Mother of God

once stood. Have you noticed it, _mein Herr_?”

“No,” I said, hardly liking to answer, for fear of losing some

further detail. “But what of Engelbrecht?”

The old German looked surprised.

“Why, I have told you he became a monk.”

“But did he distinguish himself against the reformers?”

“Ah!” said Reinhold, reverentially, “God knows, and his bride, but

he left no record for the world to read. No doubt he worked out the

will of God.”

I was silent, for I was ashamed of myself in the presence of this

man, to whom the hidden life of the soul seemed so all-sufficient a

history.

Ambrosia, his daughter, had come back long before this story was

finished, and was sitting sewing diligently, and listening to it

with all her father’s pride and personal enthusiasm in the matter.

“So,” continued Reinhold, “the day of this wonder was remembered,

and among those who remained Catholics, it became a custom to

christen girls born on that day by the name of the holy maiden

Ambrosia. My child, thank God, was one of them.”

After listening to this peculiar and interesting legend, I led the

conversation to the book I wished to purchase, and which Ambrosia

had brought home with her on purpose. Reinhold knew the value of it

perfectly well, and firmly resisted my well-meant attempts to fix a

price upon it beyond what even its merits warranted. I was hardly

able to indulge in such extravagance, yet _bibliomania_ had always

been my besetting sin, and I had curtailed our little household

in many ways to feed my library. Besides, here was a charity as

well-deserved as it seemed well-placed; how else, with my limited

means, could I help my poor friends? But my fellow-bookworm was

proof against all such artifices, and I was reduced to ask him,

point-blank, was there anything which he would allow me to do for

him? Without the least show of fussy pride, but with a quiet, manly

gratitude that was immeasurably more dignified, he answered at

once, his voice shaking as he looked at his little son:

“A very little would make my child’s life happy and useful, and,

_lieber Herr_, that little I have it not.”

“How stupid of me!” I exclaimed. “I might have thought of that

myself. Is he to be a scholar, or an artist, or what?” I said,

stroking his hair, while his great eyes were fixed hungrily on mine.

“Books are his passion,” said his father, “and he knows all our

poets by heart. He should have a literary education, I think.”

“But,” said I, “he could not go alone to the university, and if

you do not mind leaving Augsburg, would it not be best for you all

to go together? I have some English friends at Bonn, Catholics

and rich people; they will do much for your child that I cannot

do, though my heart would rejoice to do it, so suppose we start

to-morrow?”

Reinhold looked up incredulously. Ambrosia laughed, and the poor

little cripple clapped his hands in ecstasy. I watched the girl

to see whether a shade of regret denoted ties of a tenderer or

more passionate nature than her strong, calm family affections;

but there was no sign of anything save quiet joy and a gratitude

that in its fulness made me feel quite ashamed. I kept thinking

of what could be done for her; whether my English friends at Bonn

could or would be kind to her in any practical way, and whether in

that case she and her father would ever submit to being provided

for by the kindness of strangers. She seemed too self-reliant for

that; and although she evidently longed for the same education

her brother was to have, and had, indeed, already amassed in the

intervals of her active work such miscellaneous knowledge as mere

reading could give her, yet I felt sure that she would insist on

earning her bread and helping to support her father. I decided on

introducing the old man to the notice of some great publisher,

with whom an arrangement about his manuscripts might perhaps be

made; but of this we did not speak just now. I left the room full

of our new projects, and spent the early part of the next day

in carefully visiting the scenes of Ambrosia’s life, death, and

marvellous resurrection. In the afternoon I went back to Reinhold’s

old-fashioned abode, and found everything nearly ready. The books

were packed in a curious old chest, which was certainly a quaint

contrast to the trunks and valises of modern tourists; this and

some of the old furniture, endeared to Reinhold and his daughter by

the associations of a lifetime, were to be forwarded to their new

destination through the care of the good “Pfarrer” (parish-priest),

and a few little necessaries (a very slender amount in the eyes of

our “girls of the period,” I fancy!) together with the precious

manuscripts, were to go with us in a large leather hand-bag, which

I volunteered to carry. I asked to be allowed to take charge of

the little brother too, as we were too near the railway to need

a carriage, but Ambrosia laughingly caught him up, and, with

gentle deftness, insisted on carrying him, telling me to give my

disengaged arm to her invalid father. As soon as we were seated in

the train, Ambrosia began to tell me that she had never been in one

before. I asked if she were sorry to leave the old town.

“Oh! no,” she said, “I know I shall go back there one day, when I

know more than I do now.”

I wondered if there were any hidden meaning in the words. Reinhold

and I talked “shop” all the way, till our fellow-passengers must

have been bored with our enthusiastic bibliomania. Ambrosia sat

chatting gayly to her little brother, whose glee and wonder were

sometimes gravely expressed in questions that made our neighbors

laugh. When we got to Bonn, and were comfortably settled at a

quiet, old-fashioned hotel, absolutely perfect in its appointments,

but as unobtrusive of its merits as its gaudy, noisy rivals were

shrilly eager about theirs, I set out to find my friends. They were

out of town. Without their influence I was powerless, so I had

to wait a few days for their return. They took up the matter as

warmly as I could have wished, and were particularly anxious to do

something for Ambrosia; the difficulty was to find something she

would accept. In the meantime, the crippled child was recommended

to the college authorities with plenty of guarantees, seen to

by the priest, who was my friend’s adviser and fellow-worker in

all his good schemes, and Reinhold was quietly put in the way of

good opportunities for the publication of some of his accumulated

writings. The little boy promised well, and I was more anxious

about Ambrosia, who wanted to support herself by needlework.

“You see,” she said to me, a week after our arrival, “some of the

work will be knitting, and I can read as I knit; then I will go to

school at night and on Sundays, and pick up what I can, and twice a

week I will make time for the singing-class. There is a very good

one, and so cheap, attached to our church here, and the master is a

really great artist, though he is old and very poor now. He and my

father will be friends, I know, so you see I shall be as well off

as it is possible.”

Nothing could move her from her resolve, and as I had to leave

Bonn shortly after, I was obliged to take things as they were.

I received monthly bulletins of my little _protégé’s_ conduct

and progress, and sometimes heard from Ambrosia and Reinhold,

through their rare but warm letters, though oftener from my

friends established at Bonn. After awhile, I heard that the girl

had consented to take music lessons twice a week, in the evening,

with Miss L., my friend’s niece, and sometimes to share her French

and Latin lessons. English she already knew. The needlework was

not abandoned, however, and Ambrosia, I was told, seemed to

gain new energy with each new pursuit she undertook. Reinhold’s

works were in a fair way of being successfully published, and

his circumstances were actually beginning to mend. I never heard

of such a lucky venture as that hurriedly made at the Augsburg

book-stall! Everything and everybody favored it, and my quiet old

sister at home used to make me tell the story over and over again,

as we turned over the pages of the book that had been the first

_deus ex machinâ_ of the romance. She was certainly disappointed

in the want of a lover for Ambrosia, and, to console herself, would

sometimes so arrange the little we knew as to make it the frame of

a possible love-story that we did not, and never might, know.

A year passed by in this way, when business called me up from

my cottage in the Isle of Wight to London. It was May, and the

exhibitions were just open. I went to Burlington House, and saw

very little that was worth seeing; then to Pall Mall, to some of

the minor galleries. The French collection of paintings was pretty

upon the whole, but suddenly I came upon a picture that was really

striking. An old German town and a cathedral painted to the very

life formed a most varied background, upon which a conventional

“crowd,” that is, a few picturesque groups of burghers and peasants

in the costume (accurate to the slightest detail) of the early part

of the sixteenth century, was represented, gazing at the central

figure, a maiden dressed in white, with two thick cords of golden

hair streaking the snowy robe. I looked at once for Mephistopheles

and his victim Faust, taking this for a novel and very artistic

representation of Goethe’s masterpiece; and turning to the

catalogue I looked for the name of the painter--“Franz Eichenthal.”

But the painting itself was marked “Ambrosia, a Legend of

Augsburg,” and in a few brief words beneath the story was told as

Reinhold had told it to me. Strangely interested, I looked at the

white figure; I saw the likeness which had before escaped me; it

was Ambrosia’s face, her abundant hair, her grand form; the repose,

the dignity that I so well remembered were there, but over the

whole was thrown an air of etherealized peace and beauty which was

a fitting tribute to the entirely spiritual essence of the story.

I looked to see if Engelbrecht were anywhere represented, and

thought I could discover him in a corner, half hidden by the shadow

from a buttress of the cathedral. There was a wonderfully energetic

expression about this face, which made me single it out from the

rest as being probably meant for the unhappy lover. There was

strength and nobility in the features, and an almost feminine grace

in the figure, while the look of horror and remorse struggling

with unbelief was in painful contrast with this courtly exterior.

Underneath, on the buttress, was carved, in antique characters, the

name of the painter, “Franciscus Eichenthal, pinxit.” It certainly

happened to be the most obvious place for this traditional

signature of the artist, yet I could not help fancying, almost

hoping, that there was more in it than a mere chance, and that

“Engelbrecht” was, in fact, the portrait of the painter himself.

Ambrosia’s face drew me to it again; the likeness was life itself,

yet such as an American authoress describes as “not the man that

we are, but the angel that we may be.” She says that “as to every

leaf and flower there is an ideal to which the growth of the plant

is constantly urging, so there is an ideal to every human being, a

perfect form in which it might appear, were every defect removed

and every characteristic excellence stimulated to the highest

point.” She likens this to the image of St. Augustine, as his

mother, with her spiritual prophetic sight, saw him all through

his reckless youth, and then says: “Could a mysterious foresight

unveil to us this resurrection form of the friends with whom we

daily walk, compassed about with mortal infirmity, we should follow

them with faith and reverence, through all the disguises of human

faults and weaknesses, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of

God.”[202]

The German artist seemed to have had some such revelation

vouchsafed to him concerning Ambrosia. The picture was unspeakably

beautiful, and I felt instinctively that in the future it would

become literally true. And yet the girl had never before struck

me as having so exalted a nature; perhaps it was that she was so

utterly unlike the usual ideal of a perfect woman.

I made inquiries as to whether the picture was an “order,” or

simply a speculation, and learned that it had been the latter, but

was now destined for the hall of the “Young Men’s Catholic Society”

at Augsburg. An English nobleman had been so struck with it abroad

that he had induced the artist to have it exhibited in London, and

had himself ordered engravings and photographs from it. I felt very

much inclined to go in for another extravagance, and have it copied

on a reduced scale for my library, but I thought it most prudent to

consult my sister first. I went home full of my discovery, and at

once wrote to Reinhold for an explanation.

I received a very happy letter from Ambrosia herself in return,

telling me of her engagement to the painter Eichenthal, who was an

Augsburg man, and had lived for many years quite close to their

old home, without either family having the remotest knowledge

of each other. At the singing-class these two had met, their

fellow-citizenship had first drawn them together, and the old

master, whose favorite pupil the artist was, had brought him to

see Reinhold. The result was natural, and my sister was innocently

enthusiastic over the ending in so pleasant a reality of the

romance she had begun in imagination many months before.

There was a quiet wedding at Bonn, and my friend’s niece,

Ambrosia’s companion in her studies, was bridesmaid. My sister

and I went over to be present, and the dear old father, now quite

strong again, gave his daughter a copy of his first published

work for a wedding gift. Next to the dedication leaf, which was

addressed to your humble servant, and overflowing with affectionate

expressions, there was a cheque for half the proceeds of the work

(and the sum was not to be sneered at, I can assure you).

Ambrosia and her husband then went to Rome, where Eichenthal

identified himself with the school of Overbeck, and became very

popular among the foreign visitors and patrons of art. The

Englishman who had taken such a fancy to his picture of the

Augsburg legend chanced to come across him again in Rome, and,

having succeeded to his father’s property, lavishly encouraged his

artist friend. A _replica_, full size, of the original “Ambrosia”

was painted for his chapel in England, and a large picture,

representing a group of the patron saints of his family clustering

round the throne of the Virgin and Child, was also ordered. The

painter’s wife was the model for a St. Catharine of Sienna, and the

Englishman himself, a thorough Saxon in build and features, made a

magnificent St. Edward the Confessor.

Several years later, the young couple settled in Augsburg, where

Eichenthal established a flourishing school of Christian art,

and used to give lectures on the subject in the very hall where

his first successful work was hung. Ambrosia’s brother got on so

wonderfully that at twenty he was made professor of belles-lettres

at Bonn, and was famous for writing the most beautiful religious

poetry that had been known for many years. Ambrosia’s children

gather round their young crippled uncle in the spacious,

old-fashioned house where Reinhold lives with his daughter, and

make him repeat wonderful mediæval legends clothed in verse of his

own. This is how he spends his vacation. Reinhold is always at his

manuscripts, and the same books that used to be his pitiful stock

in trade are now the cherished ornaments of his large library. The

Christmas-tree gathering in that house is a poem in itself. The

children of Ambrosia’s friend, the English girl of Bonn, are often

there playing with the artist’s beautiful boys, for there is no

Ambrosia the younger among Eichenthal’s children. The best society

of Augsburg, Protestant and Catholic alike, delight to honor the

successful artist; the musical soirées given in his house are as

perfect in their way as each of his own paintings, and never is

anything purely worldly allowed to appear under his roof.

“When I first saw my wife,” he says, “I was a Lutheran or rather

a so-called philosopher, but since I won her, I vowed to make her

my arbiter and my conscience; you see the result. ‘Seek first the

kingdom of God, and his justice, and all these things shall be

added unto you.’”

“And this is the end?” I said regretfully, as Archer paused.

“Not quite,” he answered with a peculiar smile; “the end will not

really come till Ambrosia has grown to be the counterpart of her

spiritual portrait. But she is growing towards that standard every

day. Would that you and I were, old friend!”

“There is time yet,” I said; “let us try.”

THE CHURCH.

It is of her womb that we are born; our nourishing is from her

milk; our quickening from her breath.... She it is who keeps us for

God, and appoints unto the kingdom the sons she has borne.... He

who leaves the church of Christ attains not to Christ’s rewards.

He is an alien, an outcast, an enemy. He can no longer have God

for a father who has not the church for a mother. If any man was

able to escape who remained without the ark of Noah, then will that

man escape who is out of doors beyond the church. The Lord warns

us, and says: “He who is not with me is against me; and he who

gathereth not with me scattereth.” ... He who gathereth elsewhere

but in the church, scatters the church of Christ.--_St. Cyprian._

THE NECESSITY OF PHILOSOPHY AS A BASIS OF HIGHER EDUCATION.

BY F. RAMIERE, S.J.

FROM THE ETUDES RELIGIEUSES.

CONCLUDED.

UTILITY OF PHILOSOPHY FOR THE FORMATION OF THE POET AND OF THE

ORATOR.

The foregoing considerations have borne us up to those luminous

heights where philosophy, poetry, and eloquence, separated in

their lower regions, mingle and become one. Would to God that the

poets frequented more assiduously these sublime regions! How their

inspirations would gain in nobleness as well as in purity; how much

ignominy would they spare themselves; how many scandals to society!

We should not then see them separate beauty from truth, as they too

often do, place all the perfection of art in an empty form, and

make their independence consist in placing themselves under the

hateful yoke of error and of vice.

Such is the ignoble theory which one is compelled to sustain if he

deny that the study of philosophy is of the greatest utility for

the poet. Unfortunately, this theory has found in our days only too

many defenders. How much more numerous still are those who put it

in practice!

It is in vain, I know, for me to endeavor to bring back to a

sounder and nobler conception of the most beautiful of all arts

those poets who debase it by their very idolatry. But, though they

may despise the voice of a Christian, let them listen at least to

a pagan--a poet like themselves. It is a disciple of Epicurus, it

is Horace who tells them to what a shameful barrenness they condemn

themselves in refusing to draw from those sources which philosophy

opens up to them.

This great master of the poetic art declares to them plainly enough

that “unless they first learn to think well, it is vain for them to

hope to write well; that it is from philosophy they must borrow the

subjects which it is for poetry to adorn with her rich ornaments;

that beauty of style can only be the result of beauty of things;

and that a work which contains solid truths under an inelegant

form, has far more legitimate titles to real success than verses

bare of thought and resonant with trifles.”

“Scribendi recte sapere est et principium et fons.

Rem tibi Socraticæ poterunt ostendere chartæ;

Verbaque provisam rem non invita sequentur....

Interdum speciosa locis morataque recte

Fabula, nullius veneris, sine pondere et arte,

Valdius oblectat populum meliusque moratur,

Quam versus inopes rerum nugæque canoræ.”

If Horace returned among us, he would have no cause to congratulate

us on our fidelity in following those precepts, which good sense

dictated to him, and which all of us have learned by heart from our

childhood. Modern poetry has something far different to do than

demand of wisdom the theme of its song. It drinks, generally at

least, at founts of beauty of quite another character; the ideal

is nothing to it; the living expression of reality in its every

imperfection, of the revolting, of the hideous, such is the task

which it imposes on itself; emotion, such its aim--a surprising

strangeness of imagery, novelty of expression, peculiarity of

character, harshness of pictures, harmony of rhyme replacing

harmony of thought--behold its means of success. Behold the merits

which an effete society looks for in those whose mission is to

amuse it, and to which these easy-going poets sacrifice the most

magnificent gifts of the Creator.

Dante places in one of the circles of his hell a lost one whose

crime consisted in having, by vileness of heart, made a great

abdication (_Che fece per viltade il gran rifiuto_). It is

difficult to recognize this criminal, on whose brow inexorable

justice or the political rancor of the Florentine poet branded this

burning stigma. But to whom can it be applied more justly than to

these kings of poetry whom we see in our own days making themselves

slaves of a vile popularity; to these prophets of the natural

order, who prostitute to error the power which was given them to

embellish truth, and who employ the creative force which makes them

participators of the most noble attribute of Almighty God, in order

to form the idols which draw away the crowd from the altars of

Jehovah? O traitor poets! veritable apostates of genius, what gain

is yours in debasing thus the most beautiful of arts! In place of

profaning your lyre by songs which awake in hearts nothing but the

lowest desires and most guilty passions, would it not be worthier

of you to avail yourselves of this irresistible power of seduction

which you exercise over your brothers, in drawing them in your

train to the pursuit of true beauty? Do you alone fail to perceive

the forfeiture which threatens your genius from the moment that

it denies to truth the glorious testimony which truth demands of

it? Do you not see that the beauty of forms fails you from the

time that you seek it outside of the beauty of thoughts? Can you

be astonished that your influence over souls is null, when you are

pleased to destroy it with your own hands? Is it not you who, in

denying the philosophy which would elevate your art to the height

of a priesthood, reduce it to nothing more than a frivolous pastime

for the idle, unless, indeed, you place it as an incendiary torch

in the hands of the factious?

Still less than poetry may eloquence consent to lower its dignity

to the botching up of incoherent images and the nice balancing of

periods as empty as they are sonorous. More serious in its aim,

more positive in the immediate results which it has in view, it

can still less dispense with the assistance of philosophy. Listen

to one of its princes, who is at the same time the chief of its

lawgivers, while he proclaims loudly this dependence. “Let us lay

down in the beginning,” says Cicero, in the book _De Oratore_,

“that the aid of philosophy is indispensable for the formation of

the perfect orator whom we seek. It alone can open up to him an

inexhaustible source of great thoughts and developments as large

as they are varied. It is to it that Pericles owed, according to

the testimony of Plato, his superiority over all his rivals. The

lessons of Anaxagoras developed the fecundity of his genius; they

taught him, among other things, the great secret of eloquence, the

art of discerning the proper incentives for moving the passions

and the different faculties of the soul. Plato rendered the same

service to Demosthenes. And how,” continues Cicero, “how can

we without philosophy know the properties of things, whether

generic or specific, how can we define them, divide them, discern

the true from the false, deduce consequences, refute that which

is repugnant, distinguish that which is ambiguous? How can we

penetrate into the nature of things, a knowledge of which imparts

its chief richness to the discourse? How can we speak pertinently

of the moral life, of duties, of virtues, if we have not searched

deeply into these truths, aided by the light of philosophy?”

In these words, Cicero displays admirably the superiority of the

philosophic orator over the one who depends for the guarantee

of success on the facility of his memory, the wealth of his

imagination, or the vehemence of his feeling. Such a one without

doubt can carry off triumphs; he may reap the applause of the

crowd, and drag the masses in his train. The masses, who live

much more by imagination than by intelligence, scarcely perceive

the want of depth, and allow themselves to be captivated by the

splendor of imagery and the rush of movements. But he who would

seek a success more real than passing applause, he who would

understand that the aim of eloquence is to render men better, and

that imagery and feelings are for it but the instruments destined

to make truth triumph--such a man will strive above all to place

himself in possession of that truth which he is called upon to

communicate to his fellows, to know the nature and extent of the

duties whose observance he must inculcate, to acquire, in order to

communicate it to them, the true science of good and evil. Besides

this, he will study the nature of the souls over whom God destines

him to hold sway, by the all-powerful sceptre of speech; he will

inquire into the conditions and the requirements of each one of

those faculties and passions, which he ought alternately to move

like an obedient army, and push forward to the conquest of good and

the banishment of evil. When philosophy shall have given him this

knowledge, when it shall have arranged it in his mind in luminous

order, then the orator will be a priest. He will have nothing more

to do than, following the circumstances, to give to each of his

teeming thoughts the form which befits it: on whatever subject he

has to speak, the great principles will offer themselves, his plan

will be all arranged beforehand, the framework of his discourse

all laid out; his march will be firm, his divisions clear, his

advance irresistible; and, while the orator of imagination will go

on groping, without order and without light, contenting himself

with flowering the surface of the soul, the philosophic orator will

penetrate into the depths of the intellect, and will establish

therein, on convictions which cannot be broken down, the motives of

which he will avail himself victoriously to persuade the will.

VI.

NECESSITY OF PHILOSOPHY FOR THE FORMATION OF THE THEOLOGIAN.

That we may comprehend in all its extent the utility of philosophy,

there remains still to be examined its relation with the divine

science--theology. A single glance will suffice to convince us that

there is no science with which it should be more intimately bound

up than with this queen of sciences, which occupies uncontested

the first place in the hierarchy of knowledge. This first rank

would have belonged of right to philosophy, had not God thought

it good to make us acquainted by his Word with the treasures of

his own science. But far from revelation having lowered our reason

by adding to its light a higher light; far from philosophy being

abased in receiving from the sovereign truth illuminations which

of itself it could never have attained, it has on the contrary

acquired thereby a wealth and an elevation incomparable; for, in

allying itself with the word of God, in uniting its gifts with the

gifts of faith, in applying its principles and processes to the

dogmas revealed, it has produced a science greater than itself,

though born in its bosom--a science divine in its object, like the

Word who is its father, although it remains human in form, like the

philosophy of which it has this form--the scholastic theology.

There is, then, between theology and philosophy a connection of

dependence, which renders the study of the first of these sciences

impossible without the preliminary study of the second. It is not

with theology as it is with faith: faith is entirely supernatural,

and consequently it cannot depend directly on any natural cause.

Thus we have established above that the utility of philosophy for

the acquirement and keeping of faith can only be a negative utility.

Theology, on the contrary, supernatural in its object, is natural

in its essence, since it consists in the rational analysis of the

data of faith. There is, then, nothing repugnant in admitting

the very direct and very positive influence which the study of

philosophy exercises over its acquisition.

This influence extends itself to every branch of theology--to

dogmatic theology first; for this branch of sacred science, as we

have shown in a preceding article, borrows from philosophy the

processes which it uses, the method which it follows, and the

greatest part of the definitions and axioms on which it depends.

God, having made use of human language in order to reveal to us his

mysteries, has laid us thereby under an obligation of applying, in

a just measure, to the supernatural order the ideas of the natural

order expressed by this language. We must therefore analyze with

the greatest care those ideas, under pain of comprehending nothing

of revelation, and of falling into the most fatal errors; and this

analysis ought to be proportionately more delicate when it applies

itself to ideas involved in the dogmas of faith, since it ought to

discern in those ideas that which is proper to the supernatural

order from that which belongs to the universal essence of things.

The study of dogmatic theology is then impossible if it does not

depend upon an exact and profound study of metaphysics. There is

not a single one of those general notions which the science of

metaphysics tries in its crucible that does not show itself again

in the different treatises of theology, and present itself before

us under all its forms. He who has not beforehand penetrated into

the depths of these notions will walk in darkness; he will hesitate

and be in constant doubt, and will have no means of protecting

himself from the grossest blunders save by imposing on himself the

rigorous task of studying philosophy in proportion as he advances

in the study of theology.

The same connection which exists between speculative philosophy

and dogmatic theology exists between practical philosophy, moral

theology, and canon law. Perhaps this latter connection is still

more intimate than the former; for in moral questions there is much

less of revealed truth than in dogmatic. The moral theologian,

then, will apply most often to reason for the principles which

ought to guide him. It is therefore by the aid of this torch that

he will solve the difficulties which present themselves in the

application of those principles. The greatest part of the duties

which man has to fulfil, whether towards God, towards his fellows,

or himself, pertain to the essential order, and are therefore under

the domain of philosophy. To it, in fine, belong those fundamental

theories on human actions and conscience which form as it were the

pivot of moral theology.

As for canon law, its study presupposes general notions on law and

on the conditions of social authority no less than the study of

civil jurisprudence. Natural right is the necessary preamble of

both; it establishes the base whereon is founded the legislation

of the church as well as of the state; it lays down the general

formulas which the positive laws apply to particular cases; it is

then to positive right, whether canonical or civil, what algebra is

to geometry. He who is possessed of it will have no difficulty in

generalizing particular data, and enlarging by simplifying them, as

he who ignores it will only acquire a far more imperfect knowledge

at the cost of a far greater amount of labor.

These considerations will aid us in comprehending the importance

which the church has attached from all time to the teachings of

philosophy in her universities, and the efforts she has made to

lift it up when she has seen it threatened by a disastrous decline.

If we have caught the straight line which connects this teaching

with that of sacred science, we shall no longer be astonished

at seeing a great Pope publish a bull in order to give to

philosophy the favor which the emoluments attached to the study

of jurisprudence tended to snatch from it. The church knew that

philosophy could not fall without theology falling with it. Would

that we could understand it thus, and apply to the restoration of

philosophy all the zeal which we ought to have for the resurrection

of the high ecclesiastical studies!

It is here--let us understand it well--that we must commence.

If you take St. Augustine or St. Thomas as the type of a great

theologian, you cannot fail to set upon his brow the aureola of

philosophy. A theology which, to the exposition of dogma, did

not unite its philosophic analysis, would be nothing more than a

catechism; it would have nothing in common with that magnificent

science, the materials of which the holy fathers have furnished,

and whose majestic edifice the scholastic doctors have built up.

Never will the priest be able to fulfil, in all its extent, the

function of doctor, unaided by a profound study of philosophy;

never, above all, will he be able to defend revealed truth against

the attacks of its enemies; for I ask, against what points are

these attacks directed to-day above all? Is it not against those

truths which belong at once to the natural and supernatural

order--to philosophy and theology? And of what arms do our enemies

avail themselves to effect a breach in these fundamental dogmas?

Are they not almost exclusively those with which a false philosophy

supplies them? What shall we do then, we, the defenders of truth?

What is our sacred, indispensable duty in the face of these

attacks, which day by day tear away one or other of the sheep from

the flock of the church? Are we to content ourselves with groaning

over the abuse of reason? Shall we give pretext to the ignorant

to conclude from our invectives that there is a contradiction

between our faith and true philosophy? No; we will mount the

breach boldly; we will capture the weapon which our enemy uses in

his attack. Our fathers in the faith have taught us how to wield

it. Let us demonstrate that true philosophy is on our side, and

that our adversaries can only attack our faith by denying their

own reason. Thus the ignorant will be enlightened; the wavering

minds strengthened; come what may, we shall have done our duty in

rendering to the Word of God the testimony which the necessities of

the time in which we live demand of us.

I trust I have said enough to disabuse those of their dangerous

error who believe that they glorify theology by vilifying with

all their power philosophy. Undoubtedly the philosophy which they

pursue with their invective is the philosophy which is separate

from faith, the philosophy of doubt, of revolt, that is to say,

the very opposite of true philosophy. But to hear them speak, one

would say, sometimes, that they recognized no other philosophy than

that, and conceded to their adversaries the absurd and insolent

pretension which they assume of being the representatives of

reason. Thank God, this pretension was never less defensible than

in our days; never has revolted reason done better the work of

faith by its monstrous excesses, and made more advantageous the

ground of the champions of the cause of God. Never was it more

manifest that there are no true defenders of human dignity except

the defenders of divine authority. Let us know how to profit by

our advantages. All of us who love the church and the doctrine of

heaven, whose depository is the church--we who groan under the

darkness which gathers round intelligence, and seems to thicken

day by day, let us unite our efforts, and employ every influence

we possess toward that restoration of true philosophy which is so

desirable. Thereby we render a service equally signal to society

and to the church: to society, which is being lost, because the

love of truth is extinguished in the hearts of men; to the church,

the mistress of truth, which has no longer a hold upon souls to

whom truth is nothing. Nay, more; to the divine Word himself we

render the greatest service he can expect from his creatures, by

re-establishing in their integrity the two channels whereby he

pours his light into our intelligence--the science of natural and

supernatural truths.

We must, in fact, lift ourselves up to the divine Word in order to

form an idea of the destination of philosophy, and to appreciate

exactly its dignity and importance. Is not he indeed the common

source of natural and supernatural truth? Different in their mode

of manifesting themselves to us, are they not identical in their

beginning? Whence comes it that, in perceiving the essential

properties of my soul, the laws of numbers and of figures, I am

absolutely certain that all minds which judge rightly must perceive

them in the same manner, and that never, at any moment of time or

eternity, can they perceive them otherwise? This necessity, this

immensity, this eternity, which our intelligence embraces, proves

to us manifestly that these essential laws which we perceive in

contingent beings are but the reproduction of a necessary and

infinite type. It is then the splendor of God, it is his Word, who

reveals himself to our reason, by the medium of his creatures,

before revealing himself to us by himself. Philosophy is, then,

truly a way which God has opened up for us of journeying to him,

and should we disdain to enter thereon? Should not we traverse it

with the same reverence with which Moses approached the burning

bush? And when, guided by Augustine and Thomas, we behold appear

before our eyes the great light of the idea of the infinite;

when that name Jehovah, He who is, graven in our soul by the

hand of God himself, and involved in the idea of being in all

our intellectual acts, shall unfold itself little by little and

grow in splendor, like the flame of the aurora, and reveal to

us at last in their infinite simplicity the multiplicity of the

divine attributes and the laws of all creation, shall we not bow

ourselves down before him with the prophet and intone a canticle

of acts of praise? And should we permit one to speak with contempt

of a science whereby God is manifested to us? Let one say all

the evil he wishes of that proud philosophy which seeks in the

natural light of reason a means of obscuring the supernatural

light of faith. Nothing, I acknowledge, is so revolting, nothing

so satanic, as this transformation of light into darkness which a

systematic incredulity effects in a rebellious intelligence. But,

in like manner, nothing is so beautiful, nothing so divine, as

the fusion of natural with supernatural light, of philosophy with

faith, which is effected in the intellect of a Christian. Read

the _Summa_ of St. Thomas, the _Confessions_ and the other works

of St. Augustine, the _Itinerarium of the Soul to God_ of St.

Bonaventure, and try, if you can, to separate one from another the

thoughts and the sentiments which these great doctors have borrowed

from faith, from those which they have borrowed from philosophy.

This separation you will find impossible--the rays of these two

torches are so intersected, united, and mingled in these splendid

intellects. Starting from the same focus, after traversing diverse

routes, they find themselves reunited in acting together on souls

as eager for science as they are docile to the teachings of faith;

and together they have worked in the soul to fulfil their common

mission, in producing in them the created image of the uncreated

Word. This union with the light of faith in the intellect of the

Christian is the end to which philosophy aspires, in the same way

as faith, penetrating into this intellect, seeks to unite itself

therein with science. “Faith seeking understanding.” Oh! how ill

do those understand the interests of philosophy who are ever

prating of its independence, and who by independence understand an

absolute separation between its teachings and those of revelation!

How can light tend to separate itself from light? No, not in this

separation does the dignity of philosophy consist; it consists,

on the contrary, in producing here below in the soul of its true

disciples a reflection and an outline of that splendor which the

clear vision of the divine essence produces in the intelligence of

the blessed, to make them comprehend what they believe in order to

make them love it the more.

VII.

But it is time to pause. However incomplete may have been the

development of the thesis I undertook to prove, I have said enough,

I think, to make obvious the capital importance of philosophy, its

necessity for the formation of the man and the Christian, of the

influential citizen and the defender of the church. Hence I have

a right to conclude that the far too narrow corner allotted by us

to this study in the framework of a liberal education is a very

great misfortune, and constitutes one of the gravest dangers of

the actual state of things. A society which neglects to form the

intellect of the new generation is evidently a society condemned to

an inevitable decay.

Independently of this common peril, very capable it seems of

awakening our solicitude, I have demonstrated that for the

unfortunate youth launched into the midst of the _mêlée_ of errors

without having been prepared by a deep study of truth, there was

a danger of disaster, from which he could only escape by miracle.

On whom, I ask, falls the responsibility of this disaster, save on

those who, with the power and obligation of giving this youth the

preparation whose necessity has been pointed out to them, shall

have neglected to acquit themselves of this duty?

It is not for me to say more. I know all the excuses that one

may justly allege to throw off this terrible responsibility. The

masters are hindered by the parents, the parents themselves are

hindered by social necessities. The anti-rational spirit of this

age of rationalism is like an impetuous wind which whirls away

youth far from serious reflection, and which neutralizes the best

directed teaching.

These excuses may quiet our consciences for the past, but they can

in no wise lessen our fears for the future. The evil exists in all

its gravity, and it is necessary at any cost to remedy it.

The first thing to do is clearly to use all our means of

persuasion, in order to make parents and youth themselves

comprehend the essential importance of philosophy. It is necessary

to accustom them from the earliest period of life to regard

this study as the indispensable completion of their education;

the most solid guarantee for their future success, the act of

emancipation of their manhood, the taking complete possession of

their dignity as men, and the most powerful instrument which they

are called upon to hold of influencing their fellows. If from

the moment of entering upon this laborious career of education,

we do not accustom them to consider the science of things as the

reward most to be desired of all the labors they undertake in

acquiring the science of words, we cannot expect that at the moment

when custom authorizes them to reclaim their liberty, they will

submit themselves willingly to bear two years longer the yoke of

dependence.

Here we have the first thing necessary to do in order to ward off

the immense danger with which the decline of philosophy threatens

us.

But there is a remedy still more efficacious and still more

necessary against this evil. If we wish philosophy to be esteemed

and studied, let us render it worthy of the esteem we claim for it,

and of the sacrifices at the cost of which it must be acquired.

Let us lift it up from its fall; let us prove, not by _a priori_

arguments, but by the very reality, that it is worthy of its

name. Let it appear in our books and in our hearts no longer as

we find it satirically represented in certain ancient pictures,

as the combat between a lizard and a scorpion, but like that bee

of which the church speaks to us in the beautiful Office of St.

Cecilia, which, reserving for the enemies of truth its piercing

sting, goes to place in the bottom of the chalice the most odorous

essence of all the flowers to compose for it its honey, _quasi

apis argumentosa_. Let us acknowledge, then, if philosophy is too

neglected and so profoundly despised in our days, it is above all

to those who have abused it that it ought to impute its disgrace.

Christianity had made philosophy divine, as it made divine

everything that it touched. It was a virgin as beautiful as she

was pure whose earthly form was surrounded by a halo of heaven.

Impure lovers of her human beauty have endeavored to force her to

apostasy, in order to be able to make her the toy of their swollen

pride. Alas! they have only been too successful. With its divine

beauty its very human form has passed away, and nothing is left in

their hands save a disfigured corpse. But God has made sciences

curable as well as nations. He only waits for us to lift up

philosophy from where she lies, and restore her to life and dignity.

Let us put an end to this senseless and fatal contest which during

two centuries reason has waged against faith; let us cease from

using against God the most noble gift with which he has endowed

our nature; let us cease to oppose light to light, natural to

supernatural truth; let us desist from converting the ray which

illumines our soul into a veil to hide us from the sun, and taking

the waters of the stream made turbid by our pride to trouble the

source. Let us, in a word, understand the true conditions of the

liberty and greatness of the creature: nothing of itself, it can

rise even to the infinite, to the condition of union with it, and

of leaning upon its strength.

Let reason understand this law which is so rational, and philosophy

by that same law take back the glorious place which God marked out

for it; it will remount the throne whence its revolt hurled it,

and acquire anew the right of dictating to the other sciences the

eternal principles and immutable laws on which the natural order

depends.

FOOTNOTE:

[202] Mrs. Beecher Stowe, _Minister’s Wooing_.

ON THE MISTY MOUNTAIN.

CONCLUDED.

ROUTE III.

One does not feel particularly festive starting out in the rain

and the dim uncertain light of the hour before day. The best thing

to be done under these circumstances is to go to sleep, if you can

sleep staging. The “front boot” affords a very comfortable berth,

of which the lieutenant took possession. I concluded to go inside,

and endeavor to snatch the shaky sleep of a coach. I felt as

though I could not keep awake if the road were picketed by hostile

redskins. The ladies--bless their kind souls!--sat close to make

room. I sank into a corner, and was soon jolted into a sleep.

I was aroused by a sudden stoppage. The day had dawned. I looked

out of the stage, and saw a wagon overturned in the road. Seeing

the conductor and the lieutenant alight, I alighted. The body of a

man lay by the upturned wagon.

“It’s poor Tommy!” said the lieutenant.

“I thought the thievin’, cowardly devils would git him at last,”

said the conductor. “Poor old Tommy! It will be an awful blow for

his wife and her six poor orphans.”

Yes! there lay poor Tommy in the early sunlight--dead, stripped,

and scalped. His clothes had been torn from his body, which was

gashed in every limb. Every gash, the lieutenant told me, was the

sign of a different tribe. The number on poor Tommy’s body showed

that representatives of seven tribes assisted at his murder. His

throat was cut across--the sign of the “Cut-throats.” His arms and

his thighs were crossed by deep transverse gashes. His abdomen was

scored by two long gashes meeting in a point. The lieutenant told

me the names of the tribes whose devilish signs-manual were written

in the blood and on the flesh of poor “Tommy John,” but I have

memory only of one in the horrid sight then before me.

The oxen lay with their throats cut and large pieces hacked out of

their still quivering flanks. The Indians had taken everything they

could use. What they did not take, with savage malignity they had

broken into atoms or torn into shreds. A baby’s crib and a child’s

chair which the poor fond father was taking to his little ones on

the “Sandy” were broken into very chips.

We remained for some time gazing on this horrid sight. No one

spoke. At length the lieutenant and sergeant decently covered the

mangled body with a blanket. As we were already behind time, the

conductor said he could not take back to the station the body of

the murdered man. We concluded to remain by it until the arrival of

the stage from the West, which was already due at that point.

It was a sad vigil--fortunately not a prolonged one. The stage

from the West arrived. It had no passengers. We wrapped poor Tommy

in an additional blanket, and the coach drove off, taking him away

for ever on this earth from his “old lady and his half-dozen babies

over on the Sandy.”

After having examined the “signs” about the place of the murder,

the lieutenant and the conductor estimated the number of Indians

engaged in the bloody deed at about fifty. Matters became critical.

I could not stay inside the stage any longer. I mounted the roof

once more, feeling that if I were to be killed by Indians--a fate

to which I did not in the least aspire--I wanted to see whence my

death-bolt came, and have plenty of room to die in.

The party on top of the stage seemed quite cool, but by no means

conversationally inclined. I could see their keen eyes continually

making the circuit of the horizon, which traced around us a perfect

circle unbroken by mound or shrub.

We reached the Lone Hollow Station, a “swing,” twenty-eight miles

from Artesian Wells, without seeing any more signs of Indians.

Here we found yesterday’s Western-bound stage. It had started at

the usual time, but when within a mile or so of Cypress Spring,

an abandoned intermediate or “swing” station, the driver saw the

buildings in flames. With a glass he could discern Indians about

the burning structures. He had wisely concluded to turn back to the

station he had left, and there we found him. He had no passengers.

Lone Hollow Station was kept by a solitary stock-tender--an old

fellow who received “$75 per month and found,” for offering himself

as a perpetual candidate for immolation by his red brethren.

When we arrived at the Lone Hollow, I felt an unaccountable

buoyancy and a rather humiliating craving for food--animal or

vegetable. Fortunately, the old stock-trader had some biscuit and

a large panful of dried apples. Tea was soon made, and I ate an

immense meal. I was not alone in this, however; the lieutenant,

the conductor, in short everybody, ate voraciously, except the

women, who still clung to the coach, and could not be prevailed

upon to change their position for a moment. The men were all in

high spirits, and there seemed to be no more trace of Tommy John’s

memory than if he had never been.

“How do you find it here now?” asked the lieutenant of the old

stock-tender. “Pretty lonely?”

“Well,” answered John, “rather. Before they sent away the hosses

and tuk to mules, things wuz more sociable-like. I got fond of

them hosses, and them hosses got fond of me. But a mule ain’t got

no feelin’ for nobody. You can’t trust ’em. They’re too tricky. I

didn’t feel near so lonesome last year. I had a big yellow dog that

was the best companion I ever had. But he got pisoned, by eatin’

wolf-bait most likely; and now I ain’t got nothin’ but two small

pups, and they ain’t no society for a man.”

“I should think not,” said the lieutenant.

With an abominable want of _savoir-faire_, I must strike in at this

point with the following:

“Being alone here, are you not afraid of Indians?”

The question was one which evidently disturbed the old fellow. I

saw it was a sore subject with him, and regretted having touched

upon it. It was plain he wished to keep it out of his thoughts.

“The Injuns won’t bother me,” he said nervously and impatiently,

as if hastily thrusting the skeleton out of sight.

The “dug-out” has its skeleton-closet as well as the palace.

“What do you do to pass the time, John?” asked the conductor.

“Well,” replied John, “I cook--look after the mules--_promenade_

up to the crest of the ridge. When all my work is done, and I want

something to keep my mind occupied, I mend old clothes.”

Our colloquy was cut short, by the warning cry of “All aboard!”

Both coaches were ready to start. The conductors had concluded to

unite their forces. This arrangement gave more room. We divided our

party; the lieutenant and I mounted the empty coach, which now took

the lead, followed at about fifty yards by the other.

The flash of good spirits which blazed momentarily at the station

soon died out. Everybody seemed disposed to silence. We were all

busy, straining our eyes, watching for Indians.

Ten miles passed thus without other conversation than monosyllabic

remarks. From the top of a “divide,” we now looked upon the

charred and smouldering relics of Cypress Station. We stopped and

reconnoitred carefully before descending. There were no Indians

to be seen. Having descended the Hollow in which the station

had stood, we found the tracks very fresh. The lieutenant, the

sergeant, and the conductor, attended by the writer (through

curiosity rather than bravery), alighted and examined the ground.

The Indians had destroyed everything they could lay hands on

outside of the redoubts or “dug-outs.” These they had not dared to

enter. The rough “bunks” of undressed timber used by the guards

were untouched. In one was found a water-keg, and in the other

a woollen blanket, left in the hurry of departure, but which no

Indian could have seen and not appropriated to his own use and

benefit.

“The Indians are afraid of those ‘dug-outs’ even when unoccupied,”

said the lieutenant. “They do not like to go near them--much less

enter them. They fear a trap of some kind. An Indian always strives

to keep his lines of retreat open; he wants a good chance to run

away. Indians have been known to watch about abandoned stations for

days before daring to go within rifle-range of the ‘dug-outs.’”

Within four miles of Sandy Station, a spur sweeping semicircularly

from a high bluff to the north nearly touches the road on that

side, while the great bend of the Big Dryasdust cuts into it on the

south. The lowland to the west of the spur is entirely concealed

from the view of the traveller. This was a favorite place for

Indian ambuscades, and we approached it with great caution. After

crossing the bridge the driver said to the conductor:

“Ain’t that Mac’s pony out yonder?”

“Let’s see!” said the conductor, taking the field-glass and

adjusting it. “Pull up a minute, Joe! I can’t see with this outfit

while the coach is moving. Now, then! By the law, sir, that there’s

Mac’s pony! He acts mighty strange, too. He is either lamed or

hobbled. No! by gracious! he’s not hobbled. He’s saddled, too! He’s

wounded, sir! You may bet your bottom dollar!”

“Drive over to him and see,” said the lieutenant.

The coaches were driven to where the pony was on the prairie, about

a mile from the road. The lieutenant jumped out.

“Gentlemen!” said he, “this is more Indian work.”

And so it was. The pony had one bullet-hole through the near

foreshoulder. A second ball had struck it on the lower jaw, and

turned a portion of it with the teeth over on the tongue, which was

held as in a vice. The poor animal seemed to suffer intensely. It

was proposed to shoot it to end its suffering, but the proposition

was not agreed to.

“Let’s try and prise back his teeth so that he can eat, and he’ll

find his way back to the station.”

With a “king-bolt” for a lever, by the united efforts of four men

the teeth with the portion of the lower jaw containing them were

turned back, and resumed their natural position with a snap like

that of a spring-lock. The poor animal, relieved, at once began

grazing.

“Come, gentlemen,” said the driver, “get aboard, and let’s make for

the station. There’s been trouble, sure.”

When we reached the road again the conductor of our coach said

he heard a shot in the direction of the station. The lieutenant

said he thought he had heard it, but it might be imagination, our

thoughts being occupied by such anticipations. All doubts were

soon at an end, however, for we all heard the next shot, and then

another and another.

You get within half a mile of Sandy Station before you see it. As

soon as we reached the point from which it is visible, we could

see that a pretty lively fight was going on between the men at the

station and a mounted party on the opposite bank of the stream.

The attacking party were about fifty in number, all mounted, some

having remounts which they led. They rode at full speed in single

file, at intervals of some paces, in a circle whose circumference

at the point opposite to the station nearly reached the stream.

Each horseman fired as he reached this point. The party at the

station were well covered by the roof of a “dug-out” stable cut

in the bank. The attacking party looked more like Mexicans than

Indians. They wore wide-brimmed straw hats, and their body-covering

was of a dark color.

The conductor, however, pronounced them Indians.

“They have,” said he, “the broad-brimmed straw hats, uniform coats,

and six-shooters given them by the Peace Commissioners last spring.”

The drivers now dashed on with all the speed of their animals, “to

have a little piece of the fight,” they said; but, no doubt, also

to escape being cut off by a party who were evidently preparing to

cross the creek for that purpose. Fortunately, though there was

very little water in the stream, it was very wide, and full of

soft, wet, treacherous sand. Half a dozen Indians galloped to the

bank when they saw us, and rode up and down seeking for a crossing.

One of them dashed in, and his pony soon went down to its flanks.

Two snap-shots from our stage as we dashed by grazed him pretty

closely. A third wounded him and caused him to abandon his pony.

He was helped up the bank by the others, put on a spare pony, and,

supported by an Indian on either side, was carried at full speed

out of range. Luckily for the other Indians, they succeeded in

doing this while we were getting out of the stage, which we did as

quickly as possible after getting the ladies’ coach under the lee

of the stable.

We were all anxious, of course, “to get a shot in the fight.” I was

in a state of intense excitement. I received a pretty lively shock

from the unexpected discharge of my gun while I was in the act of

cocking it. Its position was fortunately, however, a vertical one.

My friends, hearing the fire in the rear, swore, started, turned

round, as if each and every one of them had received a bullet.

Seeing the source of the firing, and finding nobody hurt, they

laughed, but insisted I should henceforth move in advance, as they

could not stand such firing as mine. After this little episode, I

“got in” a couple of shots; I cannot say with what success, as for

the life of me I could not tell where my bullets struck.

There were now on our side ten men and a non-commissioned

officer of regular infantry, two or three station men, and our

reinforcement of two drivers, two conductors, the lieutenant, the

sergeant, and myself. One or two good volleys from our party soon

put an end to the circus performances of the “friendly Indians.”

They scattered and disappeared as if by magic. They sent us their

P.P.C. compliments in some stray shots, the flash and smoke

revealing whence they came, not an Indian being in sight.

“Now, gentlemen!” said Mr. Bunter, the station-keeper, “I think we

can take a bite o’ dinner.”

The worthy landlady, Mrs. Bunter, furnished a notable instance of

the susceptibility and indifference to externals of the lovers

of the plains. She was known, I was informed, as the “widow,”

though her husband, a tall, broad-chested, intelligent-looking man

of about thirty-three or thirty-four, was “alive,” and probably

capable of a good deal of vigorous “kicking.” The _sobriquet_

had clung to the lady from her very general appearance in the

character indicated by it. Her present husband was the fourth or

fifth occupant of the position. Notwithstanding the number of her

husbands, her terms of wedded bliss were very brief. Widowhood

was the rule, connubial felicity the exception. Hence was it

that, though married, she was still universally spoken of as “the

widow,” and some not very intimate acquaintances already knew her

as the Widow Bunter. The stalwart husband did not appear to see any

unpleasant significance in the title given his fair spouse. He was

jovial, and seemed contented.

“The widow” did the service of the table, and very well served and

supplied it was. A good antelope stew, with cabbage and potatoes

(luxuries in the then uncultivated world of the plains), good bread

and butter, pies, and an excellent cup of tea, made us all feel,

as our driver expressed it, “mighty good.” Mrs. Bunter evidently

made pretensions to personal attractiveness. She was a woman of

thirty--perhaps past that proverbially captivating age--very tall,

lank, concave-chested, with great projecting teeth and bony,

clawlike fingers. Her long, thin visage was thickly coated with

rice powder (or flour), which stood out in bold ridges on her high

cheek-bones, while pools of rouge shone in the cavities of her

hollow cheeks. She had a clear, cold, steady eye, however, which

showed that, if she was devoid of heart, as was commonly supposed,

she was not without a will of her own. In her time, she had created

quite a flutter among the gentlemen of the stage-driving and

stock-tending professions. The dread of relicts which embittered

the maturer years of the elder Weller had no place in the bold

bosoms of the “whips” of the desert. More than one man (not

including her four dear departed) had died “for her sake.” The

shooting of one suitor only had the effect which hanging a British

admiral formerly was supposed to have--that of “encouraging the

others.”

Swift and ample justice was done to the “squarest meal,” as the

driver termed it, we had upon the road. A very few minutes sufficed

us to make a hearty dinner, and we were seated in the porch, pipes

were being filled and lighted, preparatory to a discussion of the

various incidents of the fight, when the wounded pony we had seen

upon the road limped into the station. His master had not been dead

more than a few hours, but he was completely forgotten until the

arrival of his wounded horse brought him to mind again. So ordinary

an event was the killing of a man by Indians, at that time, on the

Misty Mountain.

“Where’s Mac?” asked the driver.

“In yonder,” answered our host, nodding toward the granary.

“Hurt?”

“Killed.”

“How?”

“The fust we knew there wuz Injuns around wuz when Mac was

attacked. He rode down to the Butte to bring in a horse from the

herd. We heard shootin’ down that way. Jim and I and the blacksmith

took our arms and rode toward the firin’. When we got near the

Butte, we seen three our four Injuns circlin’ round Mac, whose

pony was wounded, firin’ at him from all directions. I think he

wuz already dead when we first seen him. We made all the haste we

could, and druv them from the body, but we wuz too late to stop

‘em from playin’ some o’ their usual tricks. We got the body on

to one of the horses, and started back for the station at an easy

pace, drivin’ in the loose stock afore us. When we’d come within

about three-quarters of a mile of the station, we seen the soldiers

runnin’ towards us with their muskets in their hands and makin’

signs to us. I looked back and seen the durned Injuns with twenty

or thirty more comin’ for us. I hollered to Jim and the smith to

light out for the station. We separated, to give the soldiers a

chance to git in their fire on ’em, which they did. This staggered

’em somewhat and saved us. They got two of our animals, though!”

Some one proposed going to the granary to look at poor Mac’s

remains. The body lay among corn-sacks and miscellaneous stores.

Mac was a tall, well-shaped young fellow of twenty-three or

twenty-four. He had evidently made the best fight he could. When

he left the station, his revolver had but two loads. He fired them

both at his savage foes. Bunter said, had it not been for the

wounding of his pony, “the Indians would not have got him.”

The Indians had raised Mac’s entire scalp, slitting it through the

centre and turning it down over his face. This sight was not beheld

unmoved by even the most hardened frontierman in the party. Had

one of those worthy and humane gentlemen, the Peace Commissioners,

unfortunately dropped in at that moment, I fear he might have been

the recipient of much personal indignity, if not of serious bodily

harm. The presence of a regular officer with the station-guard

would have saved him from falling a martyr to his humanitarian

convictions. Without the soldiers he might even attain the crown of

martyrdom.

“As we’re here, boys,” said the driver, with a view to economy of

time, “let’s fix him out like a Christian.”

Rough in speech, yet tender in action, they set to work to make

ready poor Mac’s remains for the grave. His scalp was returned

to its proper place and sewed together, his hair combed, and his

blood-stained face cleansed of its gory marks. He was shrouded

in a pair of soldier’s drawers and an under-shirt. Several empty

chests in the room were measured, but proved too short for a

coffin. A large arms-chest was furnished by the soldiers, which,

with a slight addition to its length, supplied the improvised bier

on which we laid “poor Mac.” Scarcely had these sad offices been

performed when the sentinel without shouted:

“Indians in sight!”

There was a rush for the outside. Every man picked up his gun. With

the glass the Indians could be seen crossing the stream near where

they had murdered MacSorley. The party was increased to a hundred

and fifty or two hundred. They moved to the top of the bluff, and

remained there for some time, apparently holding a council as to

their future movements. The lieutenant, after instructing the

commander of the station-guard to wake him as soon as the Indians

showed a disposition to move, spread out his blankets, lay down,

and fell asleep over a novel. The driver and conductor followed his

example; and the latter was soon in the arms of Morpheus. But I

could not sleep. I was too much excited by the unusual events I had

witnessed during the past twenty-four hours. So I fraternized with

the soldiers of the guard, and listened to their opinions on Indian

matters, and their tales of Indian adventure.

About sunset the Indians began to move. Unanimity of action was not

the result of their council; they separated into two parties, one

of which went due east, the other to the northwest, passing in rear

of the station, but at the respectful distance of three or four

miles from it.

Night fell at last. Sentinels having been properly posted, all

who were not on guard, except the lieutenant and the writer, went

to bed, or, rather, to a blanket on the floor. I sat up to write

some letters by a dirty, sputtering candle on a lame, old table,

the only furniture in the room, except a greasy, rickety chair. The

lieutenant read his novel by the better light of a civilized candle

which, knowing the customs of the region, he had had the good sense

to bring with him.

The savage stillness of night on the plains fell upon the place. No

sound was heard save the occasional wailing of the hungry wolves,

that thronged around the barn where the dead man lay.

“Confound that horrible noise!” said the lieutenant, at last

jumping up and shutting his novel with a bang. “It sets my teeth on

edge, and rasps every nerve in my body. Let us go out and smoke in

the open air before turning in!”