CHAPTER XVIII.

CHOOSING THE PATH.

“Now that the priest is gone, we have peace,” said the Seaton paper.

In fact, having driven the priest away, so that these poor souls were

deprived of their consolations and restraints of religion, having

destroyed their school-house, so that there seemed no possibility that

the school could continue after the cold weather should set in, there

appeared no more mischief to do. Catholicism was, apparently, dead in

Seaton. The Catholics did not raise their voices. Those who mourned 312

their deserted altar, mourned in silence; the rest went back to their

whiskey-drinking, their quarrelling and stealing. That was what the

atheists meant by peace. “The lion and the lamb had lain down

together,” but the lamb was inside the lion.

On the surface of these halcyon circumstances, Carl Yorke found his

lotos-flower growing. Everybody was smiling and conciliatory.

Congratulations, not always overdelicate, on his accession to fortune

met him at every hand, and callers became more frequent, in spite of a

reception as cool as politeness would allow. In fine, the Yorkes,

having suffered a temporary eclipse, shone out again with dazzling

lustre, regilt by their new prosperity. If they bore themselves rather

haughtily in the face of this subservience, we can scarcely blame

them. We can forgive, we may not care for, the frowns that darken with

our adversity; but the smiles that brighten when fortune brightens,

must, in a noble nature, awaken a feeling of involuntary disgust.

Dr. Martin and his wife called a few days after Carl came home. It was

rather an embarrassing call, for there was scarcely a non-explosive

subject on which they could speak, but by dint of careful management

on the part of the ladies, and a determination on the part of each

gentleman that he would not be the aggressor, no accident happened.

Mr. Yorke and the minister exchanged a few remarks on agriculture,

Clara hovering between them, and volubly smoothing the asperities of

their uphill talk. Mrs. Martin and Melicent were kindred souls on the

subject of worsted work, and grew quite intimate over a new pattern

and a rainbow package of wools. Mrs. Yorke acted as presiding deity,

and dropped a smile or a word at the right time, and Carl was somewhat

cynically amused by the situation, and therefore amusing. The visitors

had asked for Edith, but she declined to come down. When they had

gone, however, she spoke kindly of Dr. Martin.

“He asked me once,” she said, “if, when I came to die, I should need

any one but Christ. I could not answer him, for I did not understand

then that he was attacking the doctrine of extreme unction, and

intimating his belief that Catholics think only of the priest, and not

at all of God. But I noticed that he showed a great deal of feeling,

and when he said, ‘If you have Christ, you need no one else,’ there

were tears in his eyes. Since then, I have liked him. I think he is

mistaken, rather than malicious.”

Mr. Yorke looked gravely at his niece. “I sometimes think,” he said,

“with Pope, ‘that there is nothing needed to make all rational and

disinterested people in the world of one religion, but that they

should talk together every day.’ If people would ask what you believe,

and listen to you, instead of telling you what you believe, and

abusing you, much strife might be avoided.”

“I think that Dr. Martin’s motive in coming here was good,” Mrs. Yorke

said. “He knows that we are going away, and wishes to part in peace.”

“Carl, have you settled what you are going to be?” Edith ventured to

ask when he joined her afterward in the garden.

“No,” he answered, with hesitation. “Something depends. I am at the

north pole, and all roads lead south. Meantime, I am not idle.”

She waited for him to continue, but he said no more, and she felt 313

chilled, and mortified at having questioned him. No one in the world

was less curious concerning the private affairs of others than Edith,

and she never asked a question, except from a feeling of tender

interest. Therefore she considered herself repulsed.

“What are you studying now?” Carl asked, after a moment, the silence

becoming awkward.

“I have almost given up books,” she replied quietly, and the hands

with which she was weaving a morning-glory vine into its trellis were

not quite steady.

Oh! if he would only question her, and insist on knowing everything.

She was in deep waters, and she longed to tell him all, and ask the

solution of her doubts. With a fine, unerring instinct which she felt,

but did not understand, Edith could tolerate the thought of no other

confidant. Yet a great barrier stood between them. She could go

frankly to Dick, if she had anything to say to him, but Carl was

different. She could tell him nothing, unless he asked her. Besides,

he never told her anything. Now she thought of it, except these silent

motions of sympathy, their intercourse had been very exterior. She

knew nothing of his real life; and yet he, too, was at the point of

choice in some things, and must have much to say to one he cared for

and trusted. She waited a moment, then walked toward the house, and

they separated rather coldly.

Edith had, indeed, dropped the study of physical science, but she had

taken up another, and it perplexed her sorely. Within the last year

she had been striving, with but little help, to learn something of the

science of the heart. What was this love that had started up in her

path, and demanded to be listened to, and returned? She had written

as frankly as she could to Father Rasle, telling him of her promise to

Dick Rowan, and his answer had disappointed her. She read some of the

moralists, and her soul recoiled. If that was love, why were the

stories of Jacob and Rachel, and Esther and Assuerus, told without

sign of reprobation? She went to the novelists, and they pleased her

but little better. In despair, then, she went to the poets. Eureka!

Here was what she wanted: the affection at once pure and impassioned,

heroic and tender, demanding all, yet sacrificing all, proud yet

humble, inexplicable save by the poet and the lover. It was fitting

that the poets should be its interpreters, for it was above common

life, as song is above speech. Grapes were not sour because they grew

high, nor things impossible because rare.

“Dear Mrs. Browning!” she whispered, as she read _Aurora Leigh_.

“What a pity she had not faith! Her nature is glorious. How she spurns

the low!”

She read Tennyson, and sighed with delight over the faithful Enid, and

wept for Elaine dead, and floating down the river to Launcelot, her

letter to him in her hand.

So, with the help of the poets, Edith escaped the danger of being

contaminated by the efforts made to save her from harm. With her

intuitive beliefs confirmed by these prophetic singers, she refused to

let that yet unfolded blossom of her life trail in the mire, but held

it up with a proud, though trembling hand. To her, loving was a very

holy and beautiful thing.

But she longed to know what Carl thought of it.

Carl kept up his regular hours of study, and he set up his easel, and

made a crayon group of his father, mother, and sisters. Mrs. Yorke 314

insisted that he should paint his own portrait separately for her.

Being in a bitter mood one day, he sketched himself as Sisyphus

standing on the hill-top, and watching the great stone, which he had

just rolled painfully up hill, roll down again of itself. Edith sat by

him, saying a word now and then, and watching his work.

When his hand paused to let his imagination picture first the dull

misery in the face of the dazed and baffled giant, she said quietly,

“What great bovine creatures the Titans were, after all! I did not

admire them much, even when you read me the translation of the

_Prometheus_. All that splendor of soul was Æschylus, not the

fire-stealer. But wasn’t it a beautiful verse: ‘Stately and antique

were thy fallen race’?

“Still, the mastodon is stately and antique, too. The Titans were too

easily conquered. They cut like great melons. If their spirit had been

equal to their size, they would have snapped the Olympians like dry

twigs beneath their feet.”

Carl knew full well that she was talking _at_ him, but he was in

no mood to be either shamed or inspired. He wanted to be coaxed. The

manliest man has his time of not only wishing, but needing, to be

coaxed, if only he would own it.

She stretched her hand, and softly, inch by inch, drew the

porte-crayon from his yielding fingers. “Please, Carl! The picture

would haunt me, though it were out of sight.”

It was better than a wiser word. Carl’s face cleared.

“I am going to paint your portrait in oil,” he said, “and keep it

myself. Shall I?”

“I will be your rich patroness, and you a poor artist,” she said. “I

order my portrait of you, and will pay--let me think what! It shall

be a red gold medal of the Immaculate Conception, or a little ebony

crucifix, with the figure in gold, whichever you choose. Then I will

be a poor lady, and you a rich artist, and you shall buy the picture

back, and--what will you give me for it? I know what I like that you

have.”

“What do you like?” asks Carl, placing a large sheet of drawing-board

on his easel.

“A tiny brooch, that you never wear, with a carbuncle in it. I confess

to you that I have longed for it. It is like a coal of fire. It is

most beautiful. You know I have a passion for gems. Flowers make me

sad, but gems are like heavenly joys and hopes that never fade. There

is no object in nature that delights me like a beautiful gem. They are

the good acts of the earth. A ruby is an act of love, a sapphire an

act of faith, an emerald an act of hope, a diamond an act of joyful

adoration. Pearls are tears of sorrow for the dead, opals are tears of

sorrow for sin. The opal, you know, is the only gem that cannot be

imitated.”

“So you wanted the carbuncle,” Carl said, much pleased. “Why didn’t

you say so before?”

“I waited till I knew that you cared nothing about it,” Edith

answered.

“But I do value it very much now, young woman; and if you know where

it is, you will bring it to me at once. I am impatient to see it.”

She went out and got the brooch. It was a smooth, oval stone of a

deep-red color, with a tiny flame flickering in it. The lapidary had

been too true an artist to spoil the stone with facets, and the result

was a little crystallized poem. Edith laid it on black velvet, and

held it out for Carl to see. “There!” she said. It had never occurred

to him to look at it before, but now its beauty was apparent. 315

“I am delighted to give it to you, dear,” he said affectionately, and

pinned the velvet ribbon round her neck with it.

They smiled at each other, well pleased; then she sat down by him, and

watched while he began to sketch.

“Isn’t it odd, Carl,” she said, “that you and I should be rich people,

when we were so poor a short time ago? Only I did not know that we

were poor. I always felt rich after I came here.”

“I half remember a fairy story,” Carl said. “It is of a fairy who wove

pearls around a sunbeam, or a moonbeam, to prove to her lover her

miraculous power. I am going to paint you as that fairy. Shall it be a

sunbeam or a moonbeam, milady?”

“Make it a tropical full moonlight, Carl, and give me a palm-tree to

stand under. It would be refreshing to stand in the midst of such a

scene, even on canvas.”

The artist sketched lightly and swiftly. “Here, at the right, a troop

of fairies shall dance, only half seen. Near them, a thin arch of a

waterfall shall leap, and drop, and lose itself in spray, and gather

so slowly, and flow away so slowly, that the stream shall look like a

vein of amethyst damaskeened into the turf, not a ripple nor a bubble

to be seen. The orchestra, blowing on flower-trumpets, and shaking

campaniles of bluebells and lilies-of-the-valley, are hidden by their

instruments beside this waterfall, and their music makes the thin

sheet waver as it drops. The palm-tree lifts itself against the moon,

and seems to be on fire with it, and droops in a verdant cascade above

you, every feathery plume fire-fringed with light. But only one beam,

like a shaft of diamond, shall pierce that foliage, and there you

stand, with your arms uplifted, braiding pearls around it. You are

smiling softly, your hair is down, and filmy sleeves drop back to your

shoulders. As you braid, the light prisoned inside changes the pearls

to opals.”

“You will never be able to make me look like a fairy,” Edith said. “I

see a moral in everything. Fairy stories and myths always seem to me

Christian truths in masquerade; as though the truths, jealously

wishing us to prize them, put on dress after dress, to see if we would

recognize them in each. ‘If you really care for me, you will know me

through any disguise,’ that is what they say. Why, Carl, if you and I

were at a masquerade, and you did not know me, I should feel hurt.”

“We will try that some night in Venice,” Carl said, smiling to

himself.

“Yes. But this moonbeam hid in pearls--to me it is like a true thought

well spoken; or, no, it is the Immaculate Conception. And now,

good-by. I must go to my school.”

Since she could not be permitted to instruct Catholic children, Edith

went four times a week, and every Sunday, to the Pattens, and taught

them whatever they seemed to be most in need of. The town-schools were

far away, and the mother too hard-worked to do more than feed and

clothe her children, and these ministrations were thankfully received.

Edith held her school on a large flat rock near the house, so as not

to interfere with Mrs. Patten, and embarrass her in her work. Only on

Sundays did the young lady enter the house, and then there was a grand

dress parade, to which the family looked forward all the week. On

these occasions the children were all washed “within an inch of their

lives,” as Mrs. Yorke’s Betsey expressed it; their best clothes, 316

given by Mrs. Yorke, were donned; and their hair combed down so

smoothly that it seemed to be plastered to their heads. Woe to that

child who should rumple a hair or disturb a fold when all was done!

Since her accession to fortune, Edith had given the family, among

other things, a clock--they had formerly reckoned time by the

sun--and, at precisely half-past nine, Joe sat himself in the south

window to watch for the teacher. According to Mrs. Patten’s notions of

propriety, it would be indecorous for any of them to be seen outside

the door on Sunday till after the instruction. The house was as clean

and orderly as such a place could be made; the sacks of straw and dry

leaves that answered for beds were made into two piles, in opposite

corners, and used as sofas; the calico curtains that divided the

bedrooms were artistically looped; a vast armful of green boughs

concealed the rocks of the rough chimney, the sticks laid there to be

lighted to get dinner by, and the pots and pans in which that dinner

was cooked. Green vines and flowers and moss were placed here and

there, and the door by which Edith entered was always made into a sort

of triumphal arch, where she stood a moment to exchange her first

salutation with the family. They were drawn up in two lines, to right

and left, the girls headed by their mother, the boys by their father,

and as that pretty creature appeared in the door, with her air of

half-conscious shyness, and wholly unconscious stateliness, like a

young queen appearing to her subjects, the feminine line dropped a

short courtesy, and the masculine line achieved a simultaneous bow,

both so crisp that they gave a sensation of snapping. What a beautiful

salutation was that low, deliberate “Good-morning!” of hers; and what

could equal in grace that slight bending, half bow, half courtesy,

with which she greeted them! Opposite the door was a little stand,

with a chair behind it, and the whole company stood till Edith had

taken her seat there. She never did so without a blush of humility.

To one less earnest, and less preoccupied by the real work she had to

do, this ceremony would have seemed sufficiently ludicrous. Or,

perhaps, we should say, rather, to one less tender of heart. But Edith

Yorke saw only the eager gratitude and desire to do her honor, the

simple earnestness and good faith, and that mingling of poverty and

taste which silently showed all the misery of poor Mrs. Patten’s life.

For all that was done was hers. Without her, the children and their

father would have been almost as clods.

There is a certain arrogance of affability with which the rich

sometimes approach the poor, as though wealth and education

constituted an essential difference which they are elaborately anxious

should not too much humiliate their _protégés_. This the

intelligent poor are very quick to perceive, and inwardly, if not

outwardly, to resent. Others assume the rude manners of those whom

they would benefit, in order to set them at ease--a good-natured

mistake, but one which inspires contempt, and weakens their influence.

Edith Yorke’s quick sympathies and delicate intuitions rendered it

impossible for her even to make either of these missteps. She carried

herself with perfect dignity and simplicity, was kind, and even

affectionate, without lowering herself into a caressing familiarity,

and thus gave them a sample of exquisite demeanor, and, at the same

time, set them as much at their ease as it was well they should be. 317

If people of rude manners were always perfectly at ease, they would

never improve. Mrs. Patten, who was often on her guard with Melicent,

pronounced Edith to be a perfect lady; and when an intelligent poor

person gives such a verdict, without hope of favor from it, it is,

perhaps, about as good a patent of social nobility as a lady can

receive.

Paul and Sally were still at “the hall,” where Melicent considered

them her especial subjects, and taught them in season and out of

season; but, alas! there were still nine children at home. Polly, the

baby of six years ago, is now a stolid lassie of seven, and there are

two younger, the last only six months old.

One hot Sunday in July, Edith found the feminine procession without

its head. Everything else was in order, but Mrs. Patten sat in a

corner of the room, holding her sick baby. It had been sick all the

week, and Edith had visited it, and sent the doctor, but this morning

it was worse.

“We need not interrupt your discourse, though,” Mrs. Patten said. “He

doesn’t notice anything.”

In these Sunday lessons, usually consisting of Bible instructions,

histories of the saints, and explanation of Christian doctrine, Edith

had instilled a good deal of Catholic truth, without alarming her

hearers. She had even obtained permission to teach the children to

bless themselves, and say the Hail Mary; only Mrs. Patten had wished

that _Mother of Christ_ should be substituted for _Mother of

God_.

“But was not Christ God?” asked the young teacher.

“Yes, Miss Edith,” the woman replied. “But Mary was the mother of his

human nature only, not of his Godhead.”

“You cannot separate them,” Edith said. “He was not born a mere man,

and deified afterward: his birth was miraculous, and God was his

Father. She was the mother of all that he was. To be a mother is not

to create. You did not make that child’s soul, yet you are his mother.

You would not stop to say that you are the mother of his body, and

that his soul came from God. You are his mother, because you gave him

human life; so Mary did for Christ. Besides, you will always be your

child’s mother, though his body will turn to dust, and be regathered

again at the last day. But the body of Christ never was destroyed. It

sits now at the right hand of the Father, the same human form that

Mary cherished, as you do that child.”

Boadicea was silent “They shall say Mother of Christ, then, if you

prefer,” Edith said softly. But the next time she came, they said

Mother of God. She made no verbal comment on the amendment, but bent

and, for the first time, kissed the forehead of the child who gave the

title, tears of joy shining in her eyes.

On this July day, after taking her seat, and watching the family

arrange themselves to listen, Edith hesitated on what subject she

should speak. She had one prepared, but presently concluded to change

it.

“I will tell you what baptism is to-day,” she said; and then gave them

a clear and simple explanation of the sacrament.

Joe sat on a low stool, with a child in his arms, tears dropping down

his cheek now and then, as he glanced from the speaker to his sick

child. Mrs. Patten’s face showed only a quiet endurance.

“So necessary is baptism,” Edith concluded, her voice slightly

tremulous, “that even a baby must not die without it. If one should be

in danger of death, any person who knows how can baptize it.” 318

She said no more, but, after distributing some little presents to the

children, as her custom was, and sitting by the baby a few minutes,

went home. The mother was very pale. She sat looking at her child, and

seemed indisposed to speak. There was even a sort of coldness in her

manner when she took leave of her visitor.

The children went out, and looked after the lady as long as they could

see her, then gathered in a whispering group about the door. They

felt, rather than knew, the impending sorrow. Joe went, stool in hand,

and sat down by his wife. Her lips began to tremble. She was only a

woman, poor soul! and wanted comfort, not only for the grief before

her, but for the new and terrible fear that had risen up in her heart

while Edith Yorke spoke.

“Joe,” she said unsteadily, “that girl is very learned. Dr. Martin

can’t equal her. She makes everything awfully clear. She leaves no

hole for you to crawl out. If baptism isn’t what she says, then there

isn’t any sense in baptism.”

“Yes,” sighed Joe, “she’s a mighty smart gal.”

“Then,” the mother whispered sharply, “if what she says is true,

what’s become of our other children, Joe?”

He looked up with startled eyes. He had been thinking of their present

sorrow, not of the past. It is only the mother who for ever carries

her children in her heart.

“There are three children gone, Joe,” she said imploringly.

He dropped his eyes, and considered anxiously, not so much the fate of

his lost children as the fact that Sally looked to him for help. A

shallow head goes with a shallow heart, and his first thought was

merely how he should evade the weight of his wife’s dependence.

“Oh! you broken reed!” she exclaimed, with suppressed passion.

Thus apostrophized, Joe became desperate, and that desperation

imparted to him an air of unwonted decision and authority.

“I tell you what it is, Sally,” he said, “these rules and regulations

are very well for learned folks, and they’re to blame if they don’t

keep ‘em. But I don’t believe that the Lord is going to punish us nor

our young ones for what we don’t know nothing about. He knows well

enough that we’d a had ‘em, every soul of ‘em, baptized, if we’d a

thought he wanted us to. I’m sure I don’t begrudge the young ones

being baptized. So don’t you believe, Sally, but he’ll sly ‘em in

somehow, poor little creters! Why, do you s’pose that, while we were

sitting here and crying over our dead babies, and saying, ‘The Lord

gave, and the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord,’

that just at that time he’d got ‘em out of sight somewhere, and was

pinching on ‘em and hurting on ‘em for his own amusement, with their

scared little faces looking up at him? It don’t stand to reason,

Sally.”

The first tears she had shed started from the mother’s eyes and ran

down her cheeks. “Joe,” she said gratefully, “you’ve got some gumption

in you, after all.”

Edith went home that day with a troubled heart. Two or three times on

the way she stopped, having half a mind to turn back, but did not. She

was too agitated to keep quiet or to eat. One thought filled her mind:

a soul just slipping away from earth waited on the threshold till she

should open for it the gate of heaven. The thought was overpowering.

In the afternoon, Mrs. Yorke and Melicent went to see the sick child, 319

carrying everything they thought might be needed. Edith had sent for

the doctor again, and he came while they were there, and accompanied

them home. She listened to their talk, and heard them say that the

child could not live more than twenty-four hours longer. They spoke

kindly, and they had acted kindly, yet it all jarred terribly on her.

Of the highest interest at stake, of the miraculous possibility that

she saw, they knew nothing. Dared she wait?

After tea her resolution was taken. She came down-stairs, and found

Carl pacing to and fro at the foot of the terrace. He threw the end of

his cigar away as she approached him, but did not take any further

notice of her till it became evident that she wanted him.

“Carl,” she said, “I want you to go over to the Pattens’ with me.”

“Certainly!”

He did not annoy her with questions, nor exclamations, nor

expostulations; he simply and promptly started. They avoided the

family in going. When one is in suspense, it is distressing to have to

explain to those who cannot help and do not understand the need.

“I am going to baptize the baby, if they will let me,” Edith said,

when they entered the wood.

He only answered, “Yes!” He knew enough of Catholic doctrine to

understand the importance which she attached to the ceremony.

The sun had gone down in a splendor of rose-color, and all the forest

was steeped with it. The silver stems of the birches flickered like

rubies, and all the streams and springs blushed as if they had newly

been changed to wine for some great marriage feast. A brook ran toward

them all the way beside their path, like a breathless messenger bidding

them hasten at every step. Then that airy flood of light ebbed down

the west, and left a new moon stranded there, and stars sprinkled all

through the blue. When they came out into the clearing, it was deep

twilight. The cabin window shone out red through the dusk, and from

the open door a lurid path of light stretched across the garden-plot

and plunged into the woods opposite.

Like most people who live in the woods, the family kept early hours,

but to-night none of them had gone to bed, nor were the beds prepared

for them. The children were huddled together near the fireplace,

whispering, and casting frightened glances to where their father and

mother crouched on the floor beside the cradle, in which lay their

dying babe. They had no lamps nor candles, but a pine-knot, fixed in

the fireplace, sent a volume of inky smoke up chimney, and made a

crimson illumination in the room. In that light every face shone like

a torch.

The sick child lay in a stupor, sometimes holding its breath so long

that the mother started and caught it up. Thus partially recalled, it

breathed slowly again. There was no sound in the room but that low

breathing, and the hissing of the flame in the chimney.

But presently there was a sound outside of steps coming nearer, and as

they looked at the door Edith appeared on the threshold, all her

whiteness of face, dress, and hands changed to pink in the light, as

Charity might look hastening on her errand. Her eyes were wide-open

and startled; her hair, which had fallen, caught in the low bough of a

tree as they came, was drawn over her left shoulder, and twisted about

her arm.

After the pause of an instant, she came swiftly in, and knelt by the 320

cradle, leaving Carl standing in the doorway.

“Thank God! I am in time,” she exclaimed. “I have come, you dear

parents, to baptize this child, if you will permit me. You were not to

blame for the others, because you did not know. But now you know.

Consent quickly; for it is almost gone!”

“Yes, yes!” said the mother. “Make haste!”

Edith called the children, and made them kneel about the cradle, with

their hands folded, palm to palm, and she scarcely noticed that Carl

came in and knelt behind them.

“I am so anxious to do it rightly,” she said, with one swift glance

round the circle. “I never did it before, but it is very simple. I am

very unworthy, and am afraid. All of you must say an Our Father for

me.”

Edith put a crucifix in the father’s hands, and, as he held it up,

bowed herself, and kissed the floor before it. Then she lighted a wax

candle she had brought, and gave it to the mother to hold. Lastly, she

knelt by the head of the cradle, and poured out a little vase of holy

water.

“What is the child’s name?” she asked, quite calm by this time.

Mr. and Mrs. Patten looked at each other. There had been many

discussions between them on the subject, and at this moment neither of

them could call to mind a single desirable name which had not been

appropriated by their children, living or dead.

“I would like to name him for my father,” Edith said. And they

consented.

The words were spoken, then Edith leaned quickly, with a triumphant

smile, and kissed the new-made saint, and whispered something to it.

The child had been lying in that stupor for several hours, but at her

whisper he opened his eyes, and fixed them in a solemn and steady gaze

on her face. There was something in the look significant and

unchildlike; and, so looking at her, he calmly died. Only a sigh, and

the lids half-drooped, that was all on earth. But who shall say what

it was in heaven?

It was quite dark when the two went home again. The sultry air was

still, and perfumed with sweet fern and wild violets, and the brook

ran along with them now with a sound like a child talking to itself.

They walked hand in hand, guided by that sound.

“I am very, very happy!” said Edith.

Carl said nothing, but stopped short.

“Have you lost the track?” she asked.

There was still a moment of silence, then he said in a stifled voice,

“I have found it again.”

Poor Carl! his finding of that path was heroic. For an instant, a

flower-wreathed wicket had seemed to swing across his way, and a path

of delight to lead from it. He closed it, and walked on.

After a minute, Edith recollected that she had brought a second

candle. They stopped and lighted it, then resumed their walk. She held

the candle in her right hand, her left she placed in Carl’s again. The

air was so still that the yellow flame waved only with their motion,

and the light of it made a halo about them, and brought out leaves and

flowers, and drooping branches, that shone a moment, then disappeared.

That ancient forest had arched over many a human group during the

unknown centuries of its life, dusky hunters in the chase or on the

war-trail, pale-faced pioneers, glancing right and left for the savage 321

foe, the Catholic missionary, armed only with the crucifix, yet with

that weapon and with his pleading tongue conquering the hatchet and

the tomahawk, children and youths going a-maying, yet never did it

overshadow a fairer group than this.

Looking down at Edith, Carl renounced the thought of painting her as a

fairy; he would paint her walking through a dark forest, with a candle

in her hand. “Perish civilization!” he said suddenly. “I wish there

was not a house between here and Massachusetts Bay!”

Edith smiled, but said nothing. She did not speak till, too soon, they

reached the house. There she stopped to enter by the side door. “I

will go in this way,” she said. “I do not wish to speak to any one

else to-night. Please tell them what I have done.”

He was going, when she softly called him back. “After he was

baptized,” she said hurriedly, “I whispered, and told him to pray for

you and me when he reached heaven. Good-night, Carl!”

The next forenoon Edith went up to her chamber to dress before dinner.

She braided her hair, put on a rose-colored lawn, and fastened a

velvet ribbon around her throat with the precious carbuncle. She was

blissfully happy, she scarce knew why. Never had she been conscious of

such delight. “How sweet, how beautiful is life!” she said to herself.

“Thanks, dear Lord! I am so happy!”

She looked smilingly over her shoulder toward the door, for Clara had

come running up the stairs and burst into her room.

“Edith,” she said breathlessly, “he has come! Mr. Rowan has come! He

is down in the parlor with papa, and mamma, and Melicent.”

Edith did not change her position nor say a word. She looked steadily

at Clara, and waited.

“He is as handsome as a prince,” her cousin went on with enthusiasm.

“He gave me this slip of paper for you. Will you be right down?”

“Go and tell him that I will come down in a minute,” Edith said

quietly, and still looked at her cousin till she went out of the room

and shut the door. Then, overcome by a sudden weakness, she dropped on

her knees.

“I am very glad,” she said solemnly, and lifted her eyes. “I thank

thee for bringing him safe home again. Help me!”

She unfolded the slip of paper, and read the line it contained: “Don’t

come down, Edith, if you are going to say no to me.”

She had never thought of saying no to him.

A minute later she stood in the door of the parlor, where they all

were. She was very white, but her lips wore a sweet and resolute

smile.

Dick came to meet her, his face in a fine flame, and she placed her

hand in his. “It is yours, with their consent,” she said.

For a moment he was unable to speak. He looked at her searchingly, his

eyes full of tears. “Are you willing, Edith?” he asked.

“I am more than willing,” she replied.

He led her to Mr. and Mrs. Yorke. “I would not dare to ask you for

such a precious gift,” he said, “if God and herself had not already

bestowed it.”

TO BE CONTINUED.

----------

AN ENGLISHMAN IN CHINA.[78] 322

In November, 1867, Mr. T. T. Cooper, an English gentleman who

describes himself as a “pioneer of commerce,” undertook an overland

journey from Shanghai to Calcutta with the hope of discovering some

shorter and more direct line of communication between India and China

than that lying through the province of Su-tchuen and Eastern Thibet,

the only route at present open. The undertaking was not a successful

one, Mr. Cooper having been stopped and imprisoned at Weisee-foo, in

the province of Yunnan, in July of the following year. This detention

was the work of the Thibetan lamas, who have no desire for a free

trade which will interfere with their monopolies, and who are, as a

matter of course, violently opposed to the introduction of a religion

which will weaken their own hold upon the people. Mr. Cooper, although

an English Protestant who was contented to describe himself on his

travels as a disciple of Confucius, and who took pains to inform the

lamas that he could readily sympathize with their dislike of foreign

innovations in religious matters, did not fail to share the effects of

that distrust of foreigners which is so carefully kept alive in China

by the governing classes, the literati, and the priests. While

imprisoned at Weisee-foo, his interpreter, a Chinese Catholic,

overheard the following conversation between two Mandarins, one of

whom was Mr. Cooper’s jailer, which was, to say the least of it, not

reassuring:

“Just as Philip took his place under the window, Tien asked the Atenze

Mandarin if he had seen the foreigner who had passed through Atenze on

his way to Tali-foo, adding, ‘We have him here in the Yamun.’ His

guest replied, ‘No; the cursed barbarian! what is he? I heard he was

writing all the time he was in my town, and drawing the country. The

son of a dog, too, writes with a pen that requires no ink. I suppose

he has come to see the country; and his people will come to take it

by-and-by. You have got him here; why don’t you kill him?’ To this my

friend Tien replied, ‘Why, it’s no use to kill him; he has no money.

We have searched him; he has nothing; and now we are considering what

to do with him.’ When Philip had got thus far, he was so completely

overwhelmed that it was several minutes before he could proceed: when

he had recovered a little, he went on to relate what the Atenze

Mandarin said in reply. The ruffian evidently hated foreigners, for he

said, ‘Oh! kill him. You dispose of him; and when I return from the

fight, I will kill those sons of dogs, the missionaries on the

Lan-tsan-kiang: they are fast converting the Lu-tsu, and they will

very soon be masters of the country, and we shall be killed; so kill

them all, I say.’”

A day or two later, our traveller, who seems to be very plucky and

full of courage, managed to effect his escape, but only to retrace his

steps to Shanghai. His account of his travels is most entertaining, 323

and as it contains a great deal which will be interesting to the

general reader, as well as much which is especially so to Catholics,

we propose to make copious extracts from it. The book itself has not

been reprinted here, and the English edition is so expensive that it

is hardly likely to be as generally read as its merits deserve.

The project of undertaking this long and perilous journey had

suggested itself to our traveller’s mind so long ago as 1862, but

various circumstances rendered it impracticable to begin it until

1867, when the promised support of influential Shanghai merchants made

Mr. Cooper again cast about him for ways of surmounting the still

remaining difficulties. These were the well-known jealousy manifested

by Chinese officials toward strangers; the wild tribes dwelling in the

mountains; utter ignorance of the language of the country; and the

danger of carrying so large a sum of money as would be necessary for

the expenses of the journey. After a month of perplexity, Mr. Cooper

concluded to address himself to M. Lamonier, the procurator of the

Catholic missions at Shanghai. “I knew,” he says, “that the posts of

the French missionaries extended in an unbroken chain to beyond the

western border of China; and I felt convinced that only by their help

could I hope to pass through the empire. M. Lamonier, ever ready, as

are all the Catholic missionaries, to forward all useful projects,

soon dispelled my anxiety about the carriage of specie, for he

arranged to give me a letter of credit for six hundred taels (£180,

the sum he considered sufficient for travelling expenses), addressed

to the mission stations in Yunnan, Sz-chuan, and Eastern Thibet; so

that it would not be needful to carry a large sum in silver, until

after passing beyond their posts. He also proposed a feasible plan for

surmounting the difficulty of the language. A party of young

missionaries were expected to arrive from France toward the end of the

year; if I accompanied them to Sz-chuan, I could hire a house in some

village containing a mission station, and, under the protection of the

missionaries, set to work and acquire a sufficient mastery of the

language. This arrangement would prolong my journey by six months; but

the delay was unimportant, so long as the difficulty of the language

was got over. And thus, before leaving M. Lamonier, the two great

obstacles which seemed for a time to render my journey impossible were

disposed of.”

A part of this plan, however, was not destined to fulfilment. The

French consul at Hankou, whose dignity had been touched by some

remarks made upon him in the Hankou _Times_ by its English editor,

resolved to avenge himself by preventing our Englishman from availing

himself of the services of the missionaries, and compelled them to

leave Hankou without him. The French consul-general at Shanghai,

Vicomte Brenier de Montmorend, on being appealed to, found means to

soothe his subordinate’s ruffled temper, and although he lost the

promised escort of the young missionaries, Father de Carli, the head

of the missions at Hankou, obviated this difficulty by providing him

with two native Christians to serve as interpreter and guide. These

were both trustworthy men, who joined him rather for the sake of the

missionaries than for any liking for the journey, but who, for that

reason, served him so much the more faithfully. One of them, George

Phillips, whose name Mr. Cooper contracted into Philip, for 324

convenience’s sake, was the eldest son of a family which had been

Christians for several generations. “His superior education rendered

him, save in dress and manner, quite different to ordinary Chinamen,

whose natural superstition and prejudice were replaced by

intelligence, strengthened by the study of European philosophy and

theology, while a knowledge of the Latin, English, and Chinese

languages made the term of interpreter in his case no empty title.

Such was my interpreter, who proved, as I expected, a useful servant

and intelligent companion.”

Having procured the services of these men, however, Mr. Cooper found

it impossible to induce them to start from home until after the

Christmas holidays were over; so that it was not until the 4th of

January, 1868, that he finally left Hankou for the interior. He had

previously taken the advice of the English secretary of legation at

Pekin to conform himself in all respects to the line of conduct

pursued by the missionaries, and had, during his month of enforced

inaction, been trying to accustom himself to the pigtail and

petticoats in which he was to introduce himself to the Chinese public.

He had also been obliged to relinquish the idea of making scientific

observations while on his journey, in order to avoid shocking the

inveterate prejudices of the people against the use of instruments for

that purpose. Even in keeping a daily record of his travels, he found

it necessary to be constantly on his guard against their suspicious

curiosity. One amusing instance of his caution in this respect,

characteristic alike of our traveller and of his friendly enemy, is

worth quoting:

“Round the fire of the little courier hut where we put up for the

night, we were joined by a lama, who was, he said, _en route_ for

Bathang. Since the unwelcome addition of the soldier spies to our

party, it had become necessary for me to wait till all were asleep, to

write up my journal. I was hard at work about midnight, when the lama

returned to the room, pretending to have left his prayer-book behind;

and seeing me engaged in writing, he became very curious to know what

I was doing. Had I owned to recording a simple narrative of the day’s

journey, he would have reported that I was taking notes of the country

for some sinister purpose, so I replied that I was writing my prayers,

a ceremony which I performed every night. This is a very common

occupation of the lamas themselves, but he was surprised that a

merchant should write prayers; so I told him that I always recited

them after they were written, and would commence as soon as I had

finished. He waited, and I soon commenced to read my journal over in a

monotone like that in which the lamas recite their litanies. After

reading thus for nearly half an hour, I stopped and asked my friend to

recite his prayers for my benefit, promising to pay him for the

service--and off he started and kept it up without ceasing until

daylight next morning, when he awoke me, and received his fee of one

rupee. He declared that I must belong to the Yellow religion, but I

assured him to the contrary, merely saying that my religion much

resembled his own. He was evidently puzzled, but pleased at my having

made use of his services as a priest, and begged me to allow him to

keep under my escort to Bathang.”

His inability to serve the interests of science was perhaps not a

trouble of a nature to be very seriously felt by our traveller, whose

chief object in undertaking his journey was a commercial one, and 325

whose quick perceptions and readiness to adapt himself to

circumstances were a fair guarantee that he would neither run

unnecessary risks nor let any available source of information pass

unexplored. His book, which is very free from anything like unpleasant

self-consciousness, shows him, notwithstanding, to have plenty of

English pluck and determination, accompanied by a very un-English

freedom from prejudice. One could find it in one’s heart to wish that

in passing through scenery so impressive as that of Eastern Thibet, he

might have added to his other good qualities as a narrator something

more nearly approaching artistic perception than he anywhere exhibits.

The absence of anything of the kind has, however, the effect of making

his narrative singularly free from any appearance of conventional

book-making--a result which is very like a perfect compensation.

At Sha-su, which he reached toward the middle of January, after a week

or more of rather unpleasant boating experience, Mr. Cooper made his

first acquaintance with real Chinese society, which he describes very

well, and with some characteristic reflections:

“After breakfast, I paid a visit to the Catholic mission agent,

Cheesien-sin by name, a wealthy merchant engaged in an extensive trade

with Sz-chuan, with whom I had to arrange about funds for our journey

to Chung Ching. We were shown into a little room next the

counting-house, where we found several Christians, merchants from

Chung Ching, smoking their pipes, each with his cup of tea on a small

table before him. As soon as I seated myself, a little boy placed a

tea-cup before me, and, throwing in a pinch of fragrant tea, poured

in boiling water from a large kettle, which he took from a little

stand over a charcoal fire burning in an iron brazier in the centre of

the room; having thus helped me to tea, he took my long Chinese pipe,

and, filling it with tobacco, handed it to me with a light, and then

took up his place behind my chair. Nothing could exceed the quiet

politeness and quickness with which this little fellow served me; to

every one in the room I was a perfect stranger and a foreigner, yet,

being in a house of business, no distinction was made between me and

any of the Chinese present.... After waiting about half an hour, the

merchant came from the counting-house, and, saluting me very

courteously, apologized for having kept me waiting, and after a few

remarks on the crops and weather, inquired my business. On learning

the object of my visit, he appeared quite pleased, and expressed

himself delighted to be able to do anything for a friend of the

fathers, and, leading me into his office, he paid me over the sum I

required, merely taking from me a receipt for the amount. We then went

back to the waiting-room, where he introduced me to several of the

Chung Ching merchants, and explained to his guests that I was a

foreign merchant undertaking a great journey to open up commerce, and

complimented me on my courage in starting alone on so great an

enterprise. We all sat smoking and drinking tea for nearly two hours,

when I rose to go; but my host said that dinner was just ready, and he

would be glad if I would join himself and guests, apologizing at the

same time for his homely fare, saying that, if he had known I was

coming, I should have had a proper dinner.

“I was so charmed with the manner of this Chinese gentleman--for such

in bearing he really was--that I accepted his invitation, and sat down 326

again; and in a few minutes all the other merchants, except two young

men, who were permanent guests, left, and a serving-man then laid out

the table, placing a pair of ivory chop-sticks, tipped with silver,

for each of us, and brought in the dinner, consisting of fish-soup,

boiled and fried fish, stewed ducks, mutton, and fowl. We took our

seats--the host last--and were then handed cups (about the size of a

large breakfast-cup) of rice, and in the interval before the soup and

fish were brought in, baked melon-seeds were placed before us on small

plates; these we nibbled at for a few minutes, until our host, taking

his chop-sticks up, put their points into a plate of fish, and,

looking round the table, bowed to us, whereupon we simultaneously

helped ourselves, and commenced our meal. I kept up a lively

conversation on the subject of foreigners and their wonderful

inventions during the dinner, which I thoroughly enjoyed. When we had

finished, we all stood up, holding our chop-sticks by the tips with

both hands horizontally in front of our foreheads as a sign of

thankfulness, and also respect to our host. We then sat down again,

and little kettles of hot Samshu were brought in, and we commenced to

drink wine with each other. The two young merchants soon became very

loud in my praise, saying that I was quite different to the foreigners

in Hankou, I was more like a Chinaman; but were very anxious to know

if I was of the same religion as themselves; and when I told that I

was a Christian, repeatedly embraced me, calling me a brother. We sat

over our Samshu and smoked for a long time, the absence of anything

like constraint among us, and the genuine hospitality of our host,

making the hours pass quickly. I felt that I was seeing Chinese life

from a standpoint hitherto unknown to most Europeans, especially

Englishmen; and I felt much gratified with this my first admission

into the private life of the people whose manners and customs I had

adopted. During the time I was in the house I saw no females with the

exception of a servant, nor did I ever in the house of any respectable

Chinaman meet the womankind during the greater part of a year spent

among this people.... As I was going toward the hotel, I could not

help reflecting on the scene I had just left, so different in all

respects from any previous idea I had formed of the Chinese character,

of which, though I had dwelt for years in their country, I confess

with shame, I had until now known nothing. I could not help

contrasting the reception my host had given me, a total stranger and a

foreigner, with that which he would probably have received at my hands

had he visited me in Shanghai, when, as is usual with us Englishmen,

he would very likely have had to come into my office without the least

polite encouragement from me, and have transacted his business

standing, after which I should probably have dismissed him with a

gesture of impatience. It seems a great pity that we Englishmen, being

such a great commercial people, do not associate ourselves more with

the people amongst whom we trade. In China, we would do wisely to

remember the old adage which tells us to ‘do in Rome as the Romans

do,’ and to meet the Chinese more on a footing of equality; in fact,

adopt as much as possible their ways of business, and by this means do

away with that system of go-betweens which is so detrimental to us in

all our dealings with the people, of whom we really know nothing. By 327

being brought more in contact with them, we should pick up their

language, and instead of being at the mercy of that villanous thing

known under the name of compradore, we should at once preserve our

dignity, and enter into more pleasant and profitable relations with a

people whose closer acquaintance is better worth cultivating than we

in our national insularity are prone to believe.”

Such pleasant experiences, which were often repeated, were not always,

however, the order of the day when our traveller met the individual

popularly known as the “heathen Chinee.” At the mission-stations, or

wherever he encountered isolated Christians, he received always the

most cordial hospitality, since even the jealous Chinaman, in becoming

Catholic, becomes also cosmopolitan.

At Chung Ching, where Monseigneur Desfleches sent a swell Chinese

merchant to be his escort about the city, Mr. Cooper visited a

newly-built and very beautiful Taouist temple, belonging to a sect

differing widely from the Buddhists, and which he describes as

representing the ancient polytheism of the country, as reformed and

engrafted with a peculiar theosophy of Laotse, the great rival of

Confucius. Here also he assisted at daybreak on a Sunday morning at

the sacrifice of the Mass, served by a Chinese priest and Chinese

acolytes, and listened to a Chinese sermon. The devout behavior of the

congregation, many of whom gathered around him after the Mass was

over, and, on learning that he was not a Catholic, naturally expressed

fervent hopes that he might soon become one, made a great impression

upon our traveller’s mind. He could not, he says, avoid being

influenced by them, nor help offering up a silent prayer for the

success of the Catholic missions in China. He finds the present power

of these missions a “most striking instance of the inutility of

coercion directed to restrain freedom of mind in religion. The fearful

persecutions that assailed the missionaries and their converts during

the eighteenth century, failed altogether to arrest the spread of

Catholic Christianity, which now, but a hundred years later, numbers

its adherents by hundreds of thousands, to be found in all the

provinces of the empire.”

Apparently both the missions and the missionaries impressed him much;

and he gives a lengthy account of them, prefacing it with the remark

that whoever deems it irrelevant is at liberty to skip it. In his

judgment, as in that of every intelligent observer, it is the literati

and the governing classes who are the promoters of all the

persecutions of the converts--the people themselves are neither so

jealous of foreigners nor so attached to paganism as is often

supposed.

The converts are principally recruited from the well-to-do middle

classes, although there are in the villages many Christian communities

composed of the industrious peasantry. When Mr. Cooper was in China,

the missions were enjoying perfect toleration, but from his

observation of the marked dislike of the Christians displayed by the

officials and the literati, he was apprehensive that this apparent

peace might be at any moment exchanged for all the perils of

persecution--an apprehension which, as all the world knows, has since

been most fearfully realized. We extract a few passages from his

account of the missions, as recording the impressions of a candid

observer as to the success of a work of which he was yet capable of

lamenting that the devoted men who labor in it “are not the apostles

of a simpler and purer faith.” Yet when he meets “apostles” of what 328

he supposes to be a “simpler and purer faith,” he can hardly preserve

a decent gravity in contemplating either their methods or their

results. “By their fruits ye shall know them” is naturally the last

reflection suggested to the mind of a Protestant when he considers

missionary work. The application of the text would be so speedily

fatal to his Protestantism that the instinct of self-preservation

keeps him from making it:

“The _Société des Missions Etrangères_, which from its headquarters in

Paris directs the affairs of this mission, is most careful in the

selection and training of the candidates for missionary life. As their

work lies much among the wealthy and educated, though the poor and

ignorant are by no means neglected, every missionary sent to Sz-chuan

is specially educated for the purpose of meeting the Chinese literati

on equal terms. They land in China generally as young and

newly-ordained priests, under vows by which the rest of their lives is

dedicated to the Sz-chuan Mission. Once having entered upon their

work, they never abandon it, nor return to their native country;

indeed, it is impossible for them to do so, for I have good reasons

for stating that any recreant who may seek, in violation of his

engagements, to quit the country, is certain to be apprehended by the

Mandarins and sent back to the jurisdiction of the mission. This has

an apparent connection with the edict of Khang-hi, which accorded

toleration to those missionaries only who would swear never to return

to Europe. The young missionary on entering China strips himself of

his nationality; he shaves his head, and adopts the Chinese costume,

and conforms in all respects to the Chinese mode of life. His first

two years are spent either at one of the principal mission stations or

at some out-station, in close attendance on an old and experienced

father, under whose care he systematically studies the language and

the manners of the people to whose service he has devoted his life. He

is also trained in the working of the mission, and, as soon as he is a

proficient in the language, is appointed to a permanent post under

general orders from the bishop of the district to which he has been

sent from Paris. It can easily be imagined that a mission numbering

its converts by tens of thousands, and carrying its labors over such a

vast extent of country as Western China and Eastern Thibet, must be a

well-organized institution systematically administered. Taking

advantage of the division of all the provinces into districts, each

district is worked by the mission with more or less activity, as the

disposition of the people will allow. The apostolic bishop resident at

Chung Ching exercises a metropolitan authority over four other

bishops, who reside at Cheutu and Swi-foo, in Sz-chuan, Yunnan-foo in

Yunnan, and in Kwei-cheu, and Bishop Chauveau at Ta-tsian-loo. The

latter has charge of the mission stations of Eastern Thibet

established at Bathang, Yengin, and Tz-coo, on the western banks of

the Lan-tsan-kiang. I was informed that there were, in 1868, three

hundred French missionaries, besides native priests and catechists,

engaged in the missions working in the above provinces. The pay of a

missionary varies from one hundred taels[79] per mensem--the salary of

a bishop--to twenty taels, the scanty stipend of the simple fathers.

Out of this they provide themselves with everything. At small

out-stations, of course, the people give many presents of food, but 329

even then the pay is so trifling, compared with the salaries drawn by

Protestant missionaries, that one can only wonder how these French

missionaries manage to exist, and it is only when their self-denying

and abstemious mode of life is witnessed that an adequate idea can be

formed of real missionary work.

“By a strict system of reports, coming from every missionary in charge

of a district through his bishop to the metropolitan bishop at Chung

Ching, the affairs of the mission are administered with the regularity

of a well-organized government. Closely observing the Chinese customs,

the bishops assume the title of Tajen, ‘Excellency,’ and the fathers,

according to their precedence in the mission, Ta-low-ya, ‘Great

Elder,’ and Low-ya, ‘Elder.’ Every convert coming into the presence of

a father is obliged to bend the knee, a custom which a recent able

French writer declares he has himself heard the Christians complain of

as unbecoming. In exacting this apparently slavish mark of homage from

their flock, the fathers imitate the magistrates, and by this means,

as well as by the influence they naturally acquire in the direction of

civil affairs among their converts, they very probably excite the

jealousy and hatred of the governing classes. As an illustration of

this, I may quote the words of an old and experienced father: ‘We are

not persecuted on religious grounds, but on political, because they

fear our influence over the people.’ From my own experience of the

Chinese, I must say that (however repugnant to our Western ideas) the

exaction of the utmost respect from their converts is absolutely

necessary to the maintenance of the religious authority of the clergy,

for the Chinese, as yet, know no intermediate step between servile

submission and insolent independence; and, when compared with that of

any Protestant mission in the world, their success is so wonderfully

great, that I feel inclined to give them the full credit of knowing

from experience what is best for the interest of their mission.... The

education of the young is a special object of care; at all the

principal mission stations there are separate schools for boys and

girls. The boys are taught to read and write Chinese and Latin,

besides geography and other useful information, which tends to dispel

their Chinese prejudices. Promising candidates for the priesthood are

usually sent to Macao and Hong-Kong, and occasionally to Rome, to

receive their professional education. The girls are taught to read and

write Chinese, and are instructed in sewing, etc. At Chung Ching and

Cheutu there are boarding-schools, where young girls are educated till

they are marriageable. These pupils are eagerly sought for by the

converts in marriage, and are reputed to make excellent wives. The

native Christians, as a rule, are remarkable for their good character;

their houses are distinguished by their superior cleanliness and

order.... I cannot but record how forcibly I was impressed by their

devout attention to the offices of their religion, and this is not

merely superficial--they are staunch adherents of their faith, but few

being ever found to apostatize even under the pressure of persecution;

and having myself witnessed the beneficial effects of their labors, I

conclude with wishing the utmost success to the pious and laborious

agents whose self-denial has been rewarded by such extraordinary

results.”

On reaching Ta-tsian-loo, at that time the headquarters of Bishop

Chauveau, to whom Mr. Cooper gratefully records his many obligations, 330

and whom he calls the ablest man and kindest friend he found in

Western China, he made acquaintance with some of the Thibetan lamas,

and visited their lamasery, of which he gives an interesting account.

The chief lama paid him a visit at his hotel, and, as he showed a good

deal of curiosity concerning his intentions, Mr. Cooper proceeded to

define his position by remarking that he had heard that the lamas were

averse to French missionaries entering their central kingdom, and

added that he was not surprised that a great religious country like

Thibet should object to the introduction of a new religion. The lama,

unused to the easy way in which a travelled Englishman can carry his

religion, was amazed, but on learning that Mr. Cooper was not a

Frenchman, but professed a different faith from theirs, being in fact

a simple disciple of Confucius, quite indifferent to new creeds, and

disposed to look with friendly eyes upon all religions whatsoever, he

became at once more cordial, invited him to the lamasery, warned him

of a conspiracy against his liberty, and cautioned him to avoid

identifying himself in any way with the Catholic missionaries. Mr.

Cooper’s return call upon his new friend was not in all respects

pleasant:

“Crossing the courtyard, the lama led me up a flight of stairs into

his room, which differed from those occupied by the other lamas only

in its furniture and superior cleanliness. The other rooms were dirty,

and contained nothing save a small stove in the centre of the floor,

and a large wooden bucket, somewhat like an attenuated churn, and

containing the everlasting butter-tea of the Thibetans. My host’s

room, however, had in it several chairs of Chinese make, and round

the stove was spread a thick woollen carpet, on which I was invited to

squat. Having comfortably seated myself, a youth attired in lama robes

brought in silver cups, one of which my host filled with butter-tea,

and, as an especial mark of hospitality, broke off from a huge pat of

rancid butter a piece as large as his fist, and put it into my cup,

which he politely handed to me; then, filling his cup in the same way,

he invited me to drink with him. Good manners obliged me to drink, and

I succeeded in swallowing a mouthful of the greasy mess with

well-feigned pleasure, which, my host observing, nodded his head, and,

bending gracefully forward with a flourish, stirred round the piece of

butter in my cup with his little finger, and again pressed me to

drink. I would have given worlds to have been spared this second

trial; but, calling up all my resolution, I made another gulp, and

hastily relighted my pipe, while my hospitable host sipped his melted

butter with as much gusto as an alderman would his full-bodied port.

“Expressing a wish to view the lamasery, I was shown over it by the

lama, and visited the chapel or temple, where he daily offered his

prayers to the Grand Lama, as he said; meaning, I presume, Buddha. It

was a superb little place. At one end a railing, richly ornamented and

gilded, fenced off intruders from a gilded image of Buddha, about five

feet high, sitting in a contemplative posture, enveloped in a white

drapery of silk gauze. Round the four walls were rows of niches, like

pigeon-holes, about a foot square, in each of which was a small Buddha

of solid gold, about two inches high. There could not have been less

than a hundred of these images, and my first impression was that they 331

were only gilt; but the lama pointed them out to me as gold, and

several of them which I handled were made of the precious metal.... I

learned from Bishop Chauveau that before the Chinese conquest the

lamas used to marry, but that the Chinese, fearing the power of the

sacerdotal caste, procured an order from Lhássa enforcing celibacy on

all lamas. Notwithstanding this, at the present time, out of the

population of the three kingdoms of Thibet, more than one-third are

lamas. It may be imagined, therefore, what a power the priesthood has

over the people. In almost every family one or more of the sons are

lamas from compulsion. In a family of, say, four sons, the chief lama

of the district will generally insist upon two becoming lamas, and, at

the age of between twelve and fourteen, the boys are taken to the

lamasery, where they are educated, and, when grown up, admitted into

the priesthood. If the parents object to give up their sons to the

priesthood, the threat of an anathema from the lips of the chief lama

or the grand lama at Lhássa, is sufficient to overcome all opposition;

thus the ranks of the priesthood are constantly recruited and their

power strengthened. The population, owing to this, is gradually

lessening, and the lay people are the mere slaves of the lamas, who

live in luxurious idleness, for each lamasery possesses enormous

estates, as well as the revenues drawn from the lay population in the

shape of tithes on produce, both of cattle and grain.”

At Bathang, which our traveller visited in May, 1868, he made still

further acquaintance with the lamas, but seems to have found no cause

to form a more favorable opinion of them. The lamasery which he

describes, and the town of Bathang itself, have since been destroyed,

as readers of the _Annals of the Propagation of the Faith_ will

remember, by an earthquake which occurred on the 11th of April, 1870.

The valley of Bathang seemed to Mr. Cooper a sort of little Eden, by

reason of its great fertility and beauty. The town contained,

according to him, some 6,000 inhabitants, including the lamas, who

lived just outside it. Bishop Chauveau, however, whose information is

of course more accurate, rates them at 8,000 or 9,000. Of these at

least 3,000 were killed by the earthquake, including 430 of the lamas.

One of these men had for some time been prophesying some fearful

calamity as a judgment from the gods upon the frequent conversions

from lamanism, and he induced the people to renew some of their

heathenish practices, and it was during these performances that the

town was destroyed, and the prophet himself killed. None of our

missionaries were injured, and the ill fate of the lamas and their

lamasery has had the fortunate effect of making the people look with

still greater disfavor upon them. The gods, they say, seem to be

getting tired of the lamas. Mr. Cooper being admitted as witness

against them, such a disposition on the part of their deities would

appear to be only natural:

“My arrival at the gates of the lamasery caused a great hubbub.

Hundreds of lamas swarmed on the flat roof of the buildings which

composed the square block enclosed by a high wall, while numbers

hurried to and fro through the courts and passages in a state of great

excitement. Dismounting outside the gate, I left my pony in charge of

the gatekeeper, and entered. Scarcely, however, had I passed the inner

gate, when a lama, addressing me in Chinese, inquired my business. I

informed him that I was desirous of seeing the building, and, giving 332

him my card, desired him to present it to the chief lama, with a

request for permission to view the lamasery. He requested me to remain

at the gate until his return, and took my message to the chief

lama.... From where I stood I could see but little of the interior

building. As much, however, as was visible proved that the fame of the

Bathang Lamasery was justly deserved. In the centre of the block of

buildings, the roof of the sacred temple was plainly visible, its

massive gold covering flashing and gleaming in the sunlight with

dazzling brilliancy. On the roofs, and, indeed, everywhere, the place

was literally alive with roosters, which kept up an incessant crowing,

blending in a chorus with the chants of the lamas. These birds are

sacred to Buddha, and number, I was told, more than a thousand. None

are ever killed, and their ranks are constantly swelled by the

donations of the country people, who bring the chickens to the

lamasery as religious offerings. The birds are all capons, and, like

the lamas, live a life of celibacy. Not a single hen is allowed to

come within the building. Everything in the sacred edifice is

dedicated to the worship of Buddha, and supposed to be free from the

contamination of the outer world.

“I noticed several nuns about, with shaven heads, but dressed in the

ordinary garb of Thibetan women, with this difference, that the color

and material of their dress were the same as those of the priestly

robes of green stuff. These nuns are the abject slaves of the lamas,

performing all the drudgery of the house in common with youthful

novices or deacons. They, however, in the outer world enjoy, like the

lamas, a superior social position, and command considerable respect

from both sexes of the lay people. They do not shut themselves up

entirely in lamaseries, like cloistered nuns of the Romish religion,

but often live with their families, and work at the household duties

and in the fields. These nuns, like the priests, profess the strictest

chastity, dedicating themselves entirely to the worship and service of

Buddha. But, from my own observations, and from the openly expressed

opinion of the lay inhabitants of Thibet, which I had frequent

opportunities of hearing, virtue is a thing unknown among the

priesthood, and the lamaseries are little better than dens of

debauchery. Just as I had begun to be impatient at his long absence,

the lama returned with a message that my presence was not desired

within the building, as it would unsettle the priests at their

devotions, but if I wished to leave an offering in the shape of money

or anything else, it would be accepted. As this concession on the part

of the chief lama was meant as an expression of good-will, I gave the

messenger a tael of silver, and, with a feeling of disappointment,

returned home. I afterward found that I had reason to congratulate

myself on my exclusion from the lamasery, as many of its inmates were

suffering from small-pox. This fearful disease commits great ravages

among the Thibetan population; of whom almost every fourth person is

disfigured by its effects.... When cases occur in a town, the lamas

compel the families attacked to remove to the mountains, and seal up

their houses. Should the sick persons be unable to bear removal, they

are shut up in the house, all communication with them being

prohibited, and are left to die or recover, as the case may be.”

It was in a great measure to the lamas that Mr. Cooper owed the 333

non-success of his journey, although, the object of it becoming known,

the Chinese government also was interested in preventing its

accomplishment, since with a new trade route opened to foreign

enterprise, the existing monopolies would of course be destroyed.

“Nothing,” says Mr. Cooper, “is more contrary to the policy of the

Chinese government and lamas than the introduction of Assam tea. The

Chinese on their part dread the loss of their valuable wholesale

monopoly, to maintain which they give the lamas the monopoly of the

retail supply; who, by this means, hold in absolute subjection the

people, to whom tea is a prime necessary of life. The lamas, on their

part, fear that, with the introduction of British trade, the teachers

of the new religion would come, and free trade and free thought

combined would overthrow their spiritual sway.... I myself was

destined both now and in a subsequent journey to experience their

determination to prevent the intrusion of the detested Palin.”

Nothing would be easier than to extend our quotations from this

interesting traveller, every page of whose book is entertaining. On

leaving Bathang, the impossibility of inducing a male Thibetan to act

as a servant had made it necessary for his interpreter to hire an

elderly female as a cook; but Mr. Cooper, while supposing that he was

merely assisting at an impromptu picnic, found himself unexpectedly

married, with all due Thibetan form, to a pretty little maid, who, her

parents were persuaded, would be an excellent substitute for a

servant. He soon managed to return her to her relatives, but not until

after an amusing compliance with the religious customs of his new

bride, which we must let him relate. They were passing one of those

cairns of prayer-stones which the piety of the travelling Thibetans

erect along the road. No Buddhist passes them without adding a stone

and muttering a prayer:

“Lo-tzung, having contributed her quota of stones and prayers, gave me

to understand that, in order to secure our future happiness, she must

have a couple of Khatah cloths to attach to the flagstaffs, and there

was nothing for it but to unpack one of the baggage-animals and get

out the ‘scarves of felicity’(?) Having given them to the young lady,

I was inwardly congratulating myself that now, at least, we should be

able to continue our march, for the afternoon was wearing, and our

station for the night still distant. But my matrimonial embarrassments

had not yet ended. It was necessary for me to tie one of the ‘scarves

of felicity’ to the flagstaff, and kneel in prayer with my bride. This

I peremptorily refused to do; but poor Lo-tzung shed such a torrent of

tears, and informed me with such heart-broken accents that, if I did

not do this, we should not be happy, and that she especially would be

miserable, that there was nothing for it but to comply. And there, on

the summit of a Thibetan mountain, kneeling before a heap of stones,

my hand wet with the tears of a daughter of the country, I muttered

curses on the fate that had placed me in such a position.”

It had been Mr. Cooper’s intention to take this little girl along with

him to Calcutta, since to cast her off would have given dire offence

to the Thibetans, and there hand her over to the care of the Catholic

Sisters. The hatred of the lamas, however, pursued him on his journey,

and, by prohibiting the people from sheltering him or selling him

food, they so nearly reduced the party to starvation that Lo-tzung 334

was only too glad to leave him and take shelter with an uncle. Later

on, at Weisee-foo, as we have already related, he was imprisoned, and

narrowly escaped with his life, only to begin at once to retrace his

steps homeward. On reaching Kiating, on his return journey, he met for

the first time traces of Protestant missionary work, and tells an

amusing story about it:

“On the second day, a Chinese Christian called upon me, from whom I

learned that a Protestant missionary had visited the city in the early

part of the year, and had distributed a good many religious books; one

of which, in the possession of the landlord of the hotel, proved to be

a copy of the New Testament in Chinese. The owner produced the volume,

and, adjusting his spectacles with a solemn air of wisdom, turned up

the passage which runs as follows: ‘It is easier for a mule [the camel

in the English version] to pass through the eye of a needle than for a

rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.’ Having read these words, he

looked over his spectacles at me, and asked in a very contemptuous

voice if it was possible for any man to believe such a statement, and

if foreigners really did believe the statements made in this book? It

had been my invariable custom since commencing to travel in China to

avoid religious discussions, and always to proclaim myself a disciple

of Confucius, so I now replied that I was not a teacher of religion,

but only a humble disciple of Con-fu-dzu, but as to the statement

about the mule passing through the eye of a needle, I thought I could

explain that; and then proceeded to interpret the word ‘needle’ as

used in the passage referred to. This somewhat mollified mine host,

who remarked that he had no doubt that English teachers found

great difficulty in writing the flowery language, and it would perhaps

be as well if they did not write religious books for the Chinese under

such circumstances. When I was alone, I could not but regret that the

praiseworthy efforts of the missionary in Kiating had not been more

successful. However, as soon as it becomes safe for Europeans to

travel in China, there is little doubt but that the self-denying and

hard-working Protestant missionaries will enter upon a new and

extensive field of labor, in which their energy, devotedness, and

well-known _pacific_ influence will doubtless win for them, if

not success, at least admiration from their supporters at home.”

After leaving Hankou for Shanghai, he again came upon their

traces--apparently without great gratification:

“As we steamed past the city of Yang-chow, in the province of

Nganhoei, we saw the British fleet which had been sent up to demand

satisfaction for an outrage committed on some Protestant missionaries,

who had been beaten and otherwise maltreated. The sight of a British

fleet on the Yang-tsu for such a purpose was curious indeed, and must,

I have no doubt, have done much toward convincing the people of

Yang-chow of the force of Protestantism, if not of its pacific nature.

For myself, I remember the patient French missionaries, whose only

resource had been flight into mountain fastnesses, and then recall the

rebuke given by the Master to the disciple for drawing his sword

against the high-priest’s servant; and it seemed hard to reconcile the

presence of a fleet at Yang-chow for such a purpose with the doctrines

professed by his servants. Probably, however, times have changed since

Paul preached Christ crucified, and suffered martyrdom; and it may now 335

be found more expedient to proclaim the Gospel from the cannon’s

mouth, and summon gunboats to exact reparation for our modern

martyrs.”

Here we take leave of our traveller, whose unfortunate experiences did

not prevent him from undertaking a similar journey, though by a

different route, in the following year, and with a like unsuccessful

result. His book is very well worth reading, simply as an entertaining

record of travel in a little known country; although to a Catholic it

has the further interest of furnishing another of those involuntary

testimonies from Protestant pens, which record the unvarying failure

of their own missionary enterprises in producing any beneficial effect

upon the heathen, and the exceeding heroism and devotion and the

uniform and great success which as invariably characterize our own.

[78] _Travels of a Pioneer of Commerce in Pigtail and

Petticoats; or, An Overland Journey from China toward

India._ By T. T. Cooper, late Agent for the Chamber of

Commerce at Calcutta. With Map and Illustrations. London:

John Murray. 1871.

[79] Not quite $170.

----------

THE ISLAND OF SAINTS.

Nature has been lavish in her gifts to this lovely island, once so

famous as the nursing-school of the godly and learned. Though fallen

from her high estate, though no longer the unrivalled land of science,

she is still the

“Land of wild beauty and romantic shapes,

Of sheltered valleys and of stormy capes;

Of the bright garden and the tangled brake,

Of the dark mountain and the sunlit lake!”

Rugged, precipitous cliffs protect her coasts, while her shores are

indented by the most magnificent bays and harbors. Her bosom is stored

with precious metals, and the most fertile soil in the world crowns

her granite base. Her very geographical position is an advantageous

one, for she is placed, as it were, an advanced guard on the outskirts

of Europe--she opens the route to the great Western world, and she

offers the first eastern port to the American mariner.

“Moist, bright, and green, her landscape smiles around;” pellucid

lakes reflect as in a mirror the hills, rocks, and precipices on their

margins; here are undulating plains of unequalled verdure; there,

garden-like tracts where the myrtle, the rose, and the laurel need no

culture; where the evergreen arbutus, in wonderful luxuriance of

growth, appears to be indigenous; where every spot is enamelled with

flowers and fragrant herbs.

Beautiful Ireland! most picturesque land on the face of the globe!

Alas! why not also the richest and happiest?

Religion and learning early found a welcome home in this “emerald gem

of the ocean.” Even in the dark days of paganism, the priest-and-poet

Druid of Erin appears to have been superior in intelligence and

culture to his brethren of England and of the Continent; and when

Christianity was first preached in the land, no other people ever

welcomed it with such ardent enthusiasm as did the Irish; no other

people ever clung to their faith with such inviolable fidelity as

Irish Catholics have since done.

During the five centuries that followed the apostolic labors of Saint

Patrick, so great was the multitude of holy personages who trod in the

way which he traced out; so eminent the sanctity of their lives; so 336

illustrious their learning, that Ireland received the proud title of

“Island of Saints and Doctors.” The number of her churches was

infinite, and her monasteries and convents were at once the abodes of

piety and the sheltering homes of the poor and the stranger. Her

theological schools and colleges were the most renowned of Europe.

Their halls were open to the students of every clime, “who,” says

Moreri, “were there received with greater hospitality than in any

other country in the Christian world.” Hither, as to the “emporium of

literature,” the youth of France, Germany, and Switzerland repaired in

search of knowledge. But to the English nobility and gentry

especially, the Venerable Bede tells us “Ireland showed the most

cordial hospitality and generosity, for, great though their numbers,

they were _all_ most willingly received, maintained, supplied

with books, and instructed without fee or reward.”

And the tide of sanctity and learning overflowed the shores of the

holy isle; many were the pious missionaries who, in those days of

religious fervor, went forth to labor for the salvation of souls among

the nations of Europe. The memory of their works is still preserved in

the countries which reaped the fruits of their zeal. The Italian town,

San Columbano, still bears the name of the great Columbanus, a native

of Leinster; and St. Gall, in Switzerland, still reminds us of his

friend and disciple Gallus. The hermitage of Saint Fiacre, another

Irish saint, is still one of France’s consecrated spots; and the

memory of the Connaught man, Saint Fridolin, “the Traveller,” is still

blessed on the banks of the Rhine. The famous universities of Paris

and of Pavia owe their origin to the learning and industry of Clement

and John, both Irishmen. From Ireland the Anglo-Saxons derived their

first enlightenment, and till the thirteenth century the literature of

Scotland was the special province of the Irish clergy.

“When we look into the ecclesiastical life of this people,” says the

learned Görres, “we are almost tempted to believe that some potent

spirit had transported over the sea the cells of the Valley of the

Nile, with all their hermits, its monasteries with all their inmates,

and had settled them down in the Western isle--an isle which, in the

lapse of three centuries, gave eight hundred and fifty saints to the

church; won over to Christianity the north of Britain, and, soon

after, a large portion of the yet pagan Germany; and, while it devoted

the utmost attention to the sciences, cultivated with especial care

the mystical contemplation in her religious communities, as well as in

the saints whom they produced.”

Numerous vestiges are still to be found in Ireland of those days of

enthusiastic faith. Ivy-grown abbeys and churches, and the habitations

of saints; and the emblem of our holy creed, now rudely cut on pillar

stones, now exquisitely carved in fine proportions, are to be met with

scattered over the whole length and breadth of the land--“memorials,”

we are told “by a celebrated archæologist, “not only of the piety and

magnificence of a people whom ignorance and prejudice have too often

sneered at as barbarous, but also as the finest works of sculptured

art, of their period, now existing.”

In the wild and lonely valley of Glendalough, County Wicklow, are yet

to be seen the remains of the noble monastery, “once the luminary of

the Western world,” founded in the beginning of the sixth century by

Saint Kevin, around which a city rose, flourished, and decayed. Gloomy 337

mountains encompass the silent and now almost uninhabited glen, in

whose bosom lie the ruins of shrines which nearly thirteen centuries

ago were raised in honor of their God by men joyous and thankful in

the feeling of certain immortality--men whose fathers in their youth

reverenced the Druid as a more than human counsellor.

“Yes, peopled were once these silent shades

With saintly forms of days departed,

When holy men and votive maids

Lived humble here, and heavenly-hearted!”

Here are assembled dismantled churches, crumbling oratories, broken

crosses, shattered monumental stones, and tombs, no longer to be

distinguished, of bishops, abbots, and recluses. And near the wasted

remains of the holy piles, one of those mysterious edifices, a tall

and slender Round Tower, stands, still strong and straight, like a

sentinel guarding the wrecks of the past. It is impossible to imagine

a scene of sterner, more desolate grandeur. On the shore of one of the

two lakes that lie embosomed in the glen, rises a beetling rock, in a

cavity of which Saint Kevin is said to have lived while pursuing that

course of study and contemplation for which his name is even now

revered. In this same cavern, too, still known by the name of “Saint

Kevin’s Bed,” the illustrious saint and patriot Laurence O’Toole is

believed to have ofttimes mused and prayed when he was abbot of

Glendalough.

In the county of Meath we find the remains of Saint Columb’s

house--Saint Columbkille, the elegant poet, the pious founder of so

many monasteries--a high stone-roofed construction of singular

architecture, seeming to combine the purpose of an oratory with that

of a habitation.

On the celebrated Rock of Cashel stands a group of ruins unparalleled

for picturesque beauty and antiquarian interest. The most ancient

structure, with the exception of the Round Tower, is Cormac’s chapel,

built by Cormac MacCarthy, the pious king of “deep-valleyed Desmond,”

in the beginning of the twelfth century. It also is a stone-roofed

edifice, with Norman arches and an almost endless variety of Norman

decorations. Near it rise the magnificent cathedral founded by Donogh

O’Brien, King of Thomond, about 1152; and on the plain beside the

rock, Hoar Abbey, the ancient castle of the archbishops, a perfect

Round Tower, and numerous crosses.

And one of the grandest of these ancient holy piles, Newtown Abbey,

now lies a crumbling heap on the banks of the Boyne. What it once was

may, however, still be conceived, of from the exquisite beauty of some

of the remaining capitals, vaulting, and shafts, and from the many

fragments of its noble windows which are strewn about the neighboring

cemetery. This, alas! like many another of the magnificent ruins of

Ireland, has been used as a quarry; not by the unlettered peasant, who

is rarely found wanting in a devotional feeling that leads him to

regard antiquities, and especially those of an ecclesiastical origin,

with a sentiment of profound veneration; but by contractors for the

erection of new buildings, and sometimes even by men of station and

education, who seem to have forgotten that age and neglect cannot

deprive structures once consecrated to God, and applied to the service

of religion, of any portion of their sacred character.

Bective Abbey, not far from Newtown, is another wonderful wreck, which

seems to combine ecclesiastical with military and domestic architecture 338

in the most singular manner. It presents indeed a striking evidence of

the half-monk, half-soldier character of its founders. Battlemented

towers, cloister-arches, and rooms with great fire-places; the flues

carried up through the thickness of the walls, and continued through

tapering chimney-shafts, seem to have made the Abbey of Bective a kind

of monastic castle, and previous to the use of artillery it must have

been a place of great strength.

Perhaps one of the most beautiful edifices ever erected in Ireland was

the church of Killeshin, near Carlow, once decorated with richly

sculptured capitals representing human heads, the hair intertwined

with serpents. This magnificent building was more hardly treated by

the destructiveness of an individual who, about forty years since,

resided in the neighborhood, than by the storms and frosts and

thunderbolts of ages. The detestable vandal wantonly defaced the

exquisite capitals, and almost entirely obliterated an Irish

inscription which extended round the abacus!

On the romantic shores of the beautiful Lake of Killarney stands the

venerable ruins of Muckross Abbey. No vestige of its former grandeur

remains; “its antic pillars massy proof” are all ground into dust, and

a magnificent yew-tree that has grown in the very centre of the wreck

spreads its mighty, sombre branches like a funereal pall over the

fallen temple. And in the lake on the “holy island” of Innisfallen, on

a gentle verdant slope, surrounded by thick groves, are still to be

seen the few crumbling stones that mark where stood the abbey once so

renowned throughout Christendom for its learning and piety.

But it would be a vain task to attempt to enumerate all the beautiful

memorials of Ireland’s splendor whose ivy-grown ruins still adorn the

land they once made so famous.

“Her temples grew as grows the grass”--

and popular tradition tells us that numbers have been hidden from

mortal eye, ever since the pious monks who prayed within them were

barbarously driven forth or slain.

“In yonder dim and pathless wood

Strange sounds are heard at twilight hour,

And peals of solemn music swell

As from some minster’s lofty tower.

From age to age those sounds are heard,

Borne on the breeze at twilight hour--

From age to age no foot hath found

A pathway to the minster’s tower!”

Mingled among the mossy marbles of fallen altars; among the mouldering

stones and the rusted iron of crumbled cloisters; beneath the

“churchyard’s bowers”; by the bleak hillsides; on the margins of the

sunlit lakes, or under the shadow of the mysterious Round Towers, lie,

almost countless, the defaced, mutilated emblems of Ireland’s

heart-deep faith--broken crosses--innumerable broken crosses--eloquent

of the piety of those by-gone days, eloquent of the ruthlessness of

the devastator. They are found scattered over the whole island, and

are as various in their styles as in the perfection of their

workmanship--some, differing in nothing from the pillar-stones of the

pagans, save that they are rudely sculptured with a cross, to mark the

graves of the early Irish saints--others have the upper part of the

shaft hewn into the form of a circle, from which the arms and the top

extend. Crosses, highly sculptured, appear to date from the ninth and

twelfth centuries. In these the circle, instead of being simply cut

into the face of the stone, is represented by a ring, binding, as it

were, the shaft, arms, and upper portion of the cross together. There

are scores of these beautiful remains in Ireland, but the finest, 339

perhaps, are those at Monasterboice, near Drogheda; they are so

singularly symmetrical and artistic as to have excited the enthusiasm

of every learned archæologist who has seen them.

There were originally three crosses at Monasterboice; two still exist,

well preserved; the third was broken, tradition says, by Cromwell. The

larger of the two nearly perfect crosses measures twenty-seven feet in

height, and is composed of three stones. The shaft, at its junction

with the base, is two feet in breadth and one foot three inches in

thickness. It is divided upon the western side by fillets into seven

compartments, each of which contains two or more boldly-cut figures,

now much worn by the rain and wind of nine centuries. The sides of the

cross are ornamented with figures and scroll-work alternately.

“The smaller cross, fifteen feet high, is exquisitely beautiful,” says

Mr. Wakeman, in the _Archæologia Hibernica_, “and has suffered little

from the effects of time. It stands almost as perfect as when first

erected nine hundred years ago. The figures retain almost all their

original sharpness and beauty of execution. Within the circular head

of the cross, on its eastern face, our Saviour is represented sitting

in judgment. A choir of angels occupy the arm to the right of the

figure. Several hold musical instruments, among which is seen the

ancient small and triangular Irish harp. The space to the left of our

Saviour is crowded with figures, several of which are in an attitude

of despair; an armed fiend is driving them from before the throne. The

compartment immediately beneath bears a figure weighing in a pair of

huge scales a smaller figure, the balance seeming to preponderate in

his favor. One who appears to have been weighed and found wanting is

lying beneath the scales in an attitude of terror. The next

compartment beneath represents apparently the adoration of the wise

men. The star above the head of the infant Christ is distinctly

marked. The third compartment contains several figures, the action of

which we do not understand. The signification of the sculpture of the

next following compartment is also very obscure. A figure seated upon

a throne or chair is blowing a horn, and soldiers with conical

helmets, broad-bladed swords, and with small circular shields appear

crowding in. The fifth and lowest division illustrates the Temptation

and the Expulsion. An inscription in Irish, upon the lower part of the

shaft, desires “a prayer for Muiredach, by whom was made this cross.”

We can imagine how, when this masterpiece was pronounced finished by

the gifted artist, the chiefs and abbots, the bards and warriors, the

monks and priests, and may be many a rival sculptor, crowded around

it, full of wonder and admiration for what they must have considered a

truly glorious, nay, unequalled work. And Muiredach most certainly was

not refused the boon he craved.

We have mentioned pillar-stones, and though they do not belong to the

Christian vestiges of the Island of Saints, still they are so mingled

with the holier relics that they cannot be passed over in silence.

Obscure, mysterious in their origin, many hypotheses have been formed

respecting them by the learned, and they have been supposed by turns

to be landmarks, idols, or monumental stones. Some of the Irish

pillar-stones are inscribed with the Ogham character, a kind of

writing believed to have been in use in Ireland before the

introduction of Christianity. Stones very similar, but perforated, 340

are also found in Ireland, in Scotland, and even, it is said, in

India. What may have been their origin is completely unknown.

The most remarkable of the pillar-stones is found at the celebrated

hill of Tara, in the county of Meath. Dr. Petrie thinks that this

monument is the famous Lia Fail, or Stone of Destiny, upon which, for

many ages, the kings of Ireland were crowned, and which is generally

supposed to have been removed from Ireland to Scotland for the

coronation of Fergus Mac Eark, an Irish prince--a prophecy having

declared that in whatever country this stone was preserved, a king of

the Scotic (ancient Irish) race should reign. The learned Doctor

refers to some MSS., not earlier certainly than the tenth century, in

which the stone is mentioned as still existing at Tara. “If this

authority may be relied on,” says Mr. Wakeman, “the stone carried away

from Scotland by Edward the First, and now preserved in Westminster

Abbey, under the coronation chair, has long attracted a degree of

celebrity to which it was not entitled, while the veritable Lia Fail,

the stone which, according to the early bardic accounts, _roared_

beneath the ancient Irish monarchs at their inauguration, remained

forgotten and diregarded among the green raths of deserted Tara.”

Deserted Tara! thirteen centuries have passed away since the kings and

chiefs of Ireland were wont to assemble in the royal city--

“Tara, where the voice of music sung,

And many a harp and cruit responsive rung,

And many a bard, in high heroic verse,

The deeds of heroes gloried to rehearse.

And many a shell went round, and loud and long

Rose the full chorus of the festive song.

Ah! who can tell how beautiful were they--

The Fenian chiefs--how joyous, young, and gay!

Each stood a champion on the battle-field,

And but with life the victory would yield.”

Thirteen centuries have passed away since the work of decay began, and

nothing now remains of its ancient grandeur. All has been swept away,

save some faint indications of the site of the noble banqueting-hall,

whose magnificence was so vaunted in bardic song and story, and the

raths upon which the principal habitations stood.

These raths or duns, which are found in every part of Ireland, often

consist of only a circular intrenchment, but most frequently form a

steep mound, flat at the top and strongly intrenched. The works

usually enclosed a piece of ground upon which, it is presumed, the

houses of lesser importance stood, the mound being occupied by the

dwelling of the chief. The circular enclosures generally contain

excavations of a beehive form, lined with uncemented stones, and

connected by passages sufficiently large to admit a man. These

chambers or artificial caverns are supposed to have been store-houses

for food and treasure, and places of refuge for the women and children

in time of war.

In the centre of the principal mound of Tara, the Forradh, now stands

the Lia Fail--the great pillar-stone--the stone of destiny--moved from

its primitive site to its present in order to mark the grave--“the

croppies’ grave,” it is called--of some men killed in an encounter

with British troops during the rising in 1798.

By the side of the hoary ruins of the earlier monastic houses is

almost invariably seen one of those singular and, for many centuries,

mysterious edifices, the Round Towers. The question of the origin and

uses of these remarkable vestiges long occupied the attention of

antiquaries. They were supposed to have been built by the Danes, or to

have a Phœnician or Indo-Scythic origin, and to have contained the 341

sacred fire from whence all the fires in the kingdom were annually

rekindled. There were almost as many theories concerning them as there

were towers, and each succeeding theory appeared to involve the

subject in deeper mystery than ever--a mystery that was proverbial

until dispelled for ever by the learned Dr. Petrie. This gentleman has

decided that the towers are of Christian and of ecclesiastical origin,

and were erected at various periods between the fifth and thirteenth

centuries--that they were designed to answer, at least, a twofold use,

namely, to serve as belfries, and as keeps, or places of strength, in

which the sacred utensils, books, relics, and other valuables were

deposited, and into which the ecclesiastics to whom they belonged

could retire for security in cases of sudden attack; and that they

were probably also used, when occasion required, as beacons and

watch-towers. These conclusions were arrived at after a long and

patient investigation of the architectural peculiarities of the Round

Towers, and also of the religious structures generally found in

connection with them, and the vexed question is at rest.

The sites of a hundred and eighteen of these buildings have been

discovered, the greater number in ruins; indeed, of some only the

foundations remain; others are almost perfect in external shape. They

vary from eighty to a hundred and ten feet in height, tapering

gradually to the summit, and terminated by a high conical stone roof.

The Tower of Clondalkin, near Dublin, is nearly perfect; but perhaps

the most noble example is found at Monasterboice, where it combines,

with the magnificent crosses we have described, and the ivy-grown

ruined churches, to form a group of sacred antiquities unsurpassed in

interest and picturesque beauty.

Frightful as were the devastations of the Danes in Ireland--the

unhappy land bore the brunt of their fury--and frequent as was the

pillage of religious property, there have been found many beautiful

relics of sacred objects belonging to the sacked and ravaged abbeys

and churches. In newly-ploughed lands, in the beds of rivers, in the

heaps of crumbled stones around the ruins, in the bogs have been

discovered, among many other interesting evidences of early Irish

civilization, pastoral crooks and crosiers, chalices of stone and of

silver, and ancient quadrangular bells of bronze and of iron. These

last appear to have been in use in Ireland as early as the time of St.

Patrick. Some of them, we are told by Cambrensis, were so highly

reverenced that both clergy and laity were more afraid of swearing

falsely by them than by the Gospels--“because of some hidden and

miraculous power with which they were gifted, and by the vengeance of

the saint to whom they were particularly pleasing, their despisers and

transgressors were severely punished.”

The crooks and crosiers are in general of exquisite workmanship,

exhibiting a profusion of ornament of extreme beauty. Among these

relics has been found one which affords the most striking evidence of

the proficiency that Irish artificers had arrived at in many of the

arts previous to the arrival of the English. It is known as the Cross

of Cong, and was made at Roscommon, by native Irishmen, about the year

1123, in the reign of Turlogh O’Connor, father of Roderich, the last

king of Ireland. The form is most elegant, and it is completely

covered with minute and elaborate ornaments, a portion worked in pure 342

gold. The ornaments are, for the most part, tracery and grotesque

animals fancifully combined, and similar in character to the

decorations found upon crosses of stone of the same period. In the

centre, at the intersection, is set a large crystal, through which is

visible a piece of the true cross, as inscriptions in Irish and Latin

distinctly record.

The copies of the Gospels and of the sacred writings which had been

used by the saints of Erin were often preserved by their successors

enclosed in cases of yew, or some wood equally durable. Some of these

deeply-interesting evidences of Irish piety and learning have come

down to us, and are to be seen in the collection of the Royal Irish

Accademy at Dublin. One of them, the Caah, is a box about nine inches

long and eight broad, formed of brass plates riveted together, and

ornamented with gems and chasings of gold and silver. It contains a

rude wooden box enclosing a copy of the ancient Vulgate translation of

the Psalms in Latin, written on vellum, and, it is believed, by the

hand of Saint Columbkille, “the Apostle of the Picts.” It seems to

have been handed down in the O’Donnell family, to which the great

saint belonged.

Another most interesting relic, also in the collection of the Academy,

is the Domnach Airgid, which contains, beyond a doubt, a considerable

portion of the copy of the holy Gospels used by Saint Patrick, and

presented to him by Saint Macarthen. This MS. has three covers; the

first and most ancient, of yew; the second, of copper plated with

silver; and the third, of silver plated with gold.

Beautiful--sadly, solemnly beautiful--are the remains of Ireland’s

ancient grandeur; but though her splendor may have passed away;

though she be no longer “the school of Christendom”; though her abbeys

and monasteries, her churches and towers and sculptured crosses, lie

mostly heaps of wayside ruins, still her faith, her wondrous faith, is

fresh and strong as in those bygone ages. As it was in those days of

old when the fervent piety of her sons led them to distant lands,

apostles of religion and science, so is Ireland’s faith now, warm and

active as ever. In all her struggles, in all her sorrows, her faith

has stood by her side to minister consolation and to ward off despair.

O lovely, unhappy isle! “thou chief of reliquaries,” though thy

shamrock be watered with tears, still thou hast the better part!

“And if of every land the guest,

Thine exile back returning

Finds still one land unlike the rest,

Discrowned, disgraced, and mourning,

Give thanks! Thy flowers, to yonder skies

Transferred, pure airs are tasting;

And, stone by stone, thy temples rise

In regions everlasting!”

Will “the bound and suffering victim” ever again breathe freely?--will

religious freedom and political freedom ever again stand hand in hand

on the dewy turf of Erin?--will the Lia Fail ever again roar beneath

the seat of an independent Irish ruler?--these are questions which

Time alone can answer. But whatever fate may be reserved for

long-tried Ireland in the future, however disconsolate her present,

every Irishman’s heart should glow with pride and love when he

remembers the glory of her early days--glory such as no other country

ever possessed--glory of which no centuries of relentless tyranny can

deprive her--the glory of having been, when all was dark around, the

home of learning and the fatherland of saints!

----------

THE LEGENDS OF OISIN, BARD OF ERIN, 343

BY AUBREY DE VERE.

II.

THE DEATH OF OSCAR.[80]

“Sing us once more of Gahbra’s fight,

Old bard, that fight where fell thy son:”

Thus Patrick spake to vexed Oisin,

And the old man’s wrath was gone.

“Thou of the crosier white! whoe’er

Had seen that plain with carnage spread.

Or friend or foe, had wept for Eire,

And for her princes dead!

“There lay the arms of mighty chiefs:

There kings in death with helms unbound.

A field of doom it was; a place

By deadly spells girt round!

“Upon his left hand leaned my son:

His shield lay broken by his side:

His right hand clutched his sword: the blood

Rushed from him like a tide.

“I stayed my spear-shaft on the ground:

O’er him I stooped on bended knee:

On me my Oscar turned his eyes:

He stretched his hands to me.