To return to our lakes. We had seen all the great ones, and driven across

the country in all directions—through mountain passes where the bare crags

and bowlders lay heaped together, as if the Titans had flung them there to

bar the passage to their fastnesses; through smiling pastoral valleys

where the summer stream bubbled peacefully enough, hiding its secrets of

roads washed away and trees uprooted by its anger in early spring; by

Esthwaite Lake with its solitary yew‐tree celebrated by Wordsworth; out

into a bleak region of gray stone walls and hungry‐looking pastures to

Westdale (valley) and Wastwater. Lonely and silent lies the black mere

under its frowning cliffs; no house, no inn, near it; tourists seldom pass

it, and tradition says that its depths have never been plumbed. We got a

boat at a fisherman’s hut; it was not often he used it for anything but

the necessities of his craft. And yet, in spite—or rather because—of this

desolation, Wastwater has made a more lasting impression on us than the

show‐lakes with their pretty activity and cheerful bustle of tourist‐life.

Westdale would be just the place to live in if the mind needed bracing and

restoring; few places within the pale of civilization can so truly boast

of being absolute solitudes. We trust it is not changed even yet. Quite

close, but you would not suspect it from the grim, rocky aspect of the

scenery, is a little waterfall. It is in a narrow gully, a mere cleft in

the rock, but alive with a thousand varying shades of green—ferns in

abundance and in every stage of development, broad, dark, glossy leaves of

water‐plants, and waxy spikes of rockwort. The incline of the waterfall is

so gentle, and so many bowlders jut out from the stream, that you could

almost climb up this natural staircase; the snow‐white spray dashes all

over the banks, turning to diamonds in the hearts of the tiny flowers, and

to rainbows on the broad surface of leaves; and the noise of the

waters—their plash, their gurgle, or their trickle, as they strike moss,

pebble, or little hollows round the big bowlders—seems like a living

voice.

Our week was nearly up, and we were to meet the noonday train at a station

several miles beyond Wastwater. The road lay through rocky passes, and was

reckoned a bad one. Our car‐driver was doubtful as to whether we could

make the distance in the time that remained; for we had been tempted, by

the rugged beauty of the lovely vale, to overstay our appointed time for

exploration and natural‐history collections. The drive was sufficiently

exciting, a last bit of “fun” to end our holiday, and we jolted over the

rough road, crossing the worn channels of mountain streams, and noticing

on the steep sides of the hills what looked like moving bowlders, but what

were in reality small, sure‐footed sheep, white, brown, and black. The

country grew bleaker as we went on, till at last we reached the primitive

railway station just in time. We were very sorry to part with our North‐

Country driver and his car, and return to the civilized mode of rapid

locomotion; the more so as the scenery through which we flew for two or

three hours was as barren and as desolate as the shores of the Dead Sea.

Gray stone walls made a sort of magnified chess‐board of the level

country, enclosing small fields of forlorn‐looking stubble or bits of

dark‐red ploughed land. It was inexpressibly dreary, and a marvellous

contrast to the beautiful region, bold and rocky, or wooded and smiling,

which we had left behind us.

At last we reached Furness, our last halting‐place. Here there was a

coquettish little station, gay with ornamental wood and wire‐work, and

with autumn flowers and late climbing roses, while beyond the trim lawn

stood an inviting hotel—modern, it is true, but decked out in villa style,

full of bay‐windows and gables, with green Venetian blinds and long French

windows opening into a garden. There was no trace of a village near, or of

any human dwelling but these two buildings. The reason was that both of

these were subservient to the ruins of S. Mary’s Abbey, which stood, as it

were, within the hotel‐garden. S. Mary’s, Furness, is one of the three

most stately and most perfect ruined abbeys in England; the others are

Fountain’s Abbey in Yorkshire, and Tintern on the Wye, Monmouthshire. It

is built of red sandstone, the warm hue contrasting beautifully with the

luxurious growth of evergreens all round and inside its arches and

cloisters. The tracery of the great pointed windows is almost intact, but

here and there the tracery of delicate climbing plants is so interwoven

with it that the marvel of carving is lost in the wealth of each summer’s

renewed growth. The church is built in the shape of a cross. The walls and

windows of the nave are untouched, and down the centre are the two rows of

columns that divided it from the aisles—round Saxon pillars, alternating

with clustered Gothic shafts, a sheaf of _colonnettes_ forming one

support. The bases of all of them remain, though every one is broken more

or less near the base, none being more than two or three feet high. Of

course the roof is gone, and everywhere around shaft and pillar grow tall

flowering grasses, shrubs with bright berries and spear‐like leaves, while

a carpet of grass as green as an emerald covers the stone floor. There

were seven altars in the church, and the steps to the smaller ones are

even now marked by the gradual ascent of the turf. Poking into the earth

with a walking‐stick, we soon came to the stone steps, not more than three

inches under ground. The chancel and _sedilia_ are very perfect, and

everywhere the _piscinæ_ are visible in the walls. The chapter‐room

preserved its stone groined roof up to twenty or thirty years ago, when it

fell in. On the walls are the remains of lovely, intricate diaper‐work.

The refectory is a long hall with a row of columns (only the bases exist

now) down the centre, and the principal dormitory is said to have been

exactly above this. The whole is now open to the sky. The quiet cloister,

with some of the old graves of dead and gone Cistercian monks, is still

traceable, and beyond is a little enclosed and railed‐in stone chamber,

contrived out of the ruined walls, but carefully roofed in, and used to

stow away such fragments of sculpture as have been found within the

precincts of the abbey. They are thus preserved from the rapacity of

tourists. There are bones and skulls among them, too. The North of England

was once called the garden‐land of the Cistercians; their abbeys abounded

in that region, and their power, temporal and spiritual, was paramount.

The abbots at the head of those religious corporations of early days had

episcopal jurisdiction and claimed episcopal privileges, and were far more

powerful than the wandering bishops who had no abbey to back their

authority. They had tracts of land and many serfs. In many respects the

“villeins” of the church were a happy and a privileged set of people. They

were not obliged to serve in the king’s armies, as were the serfs of

secular lords, and they could not be sued for debt or trespass, or any

other local offence. They were immediately and solely under the

jurisdiction of the abbot, which superseded, in their case, that of the

common law. In return for their service, agricultural and otherwise, the

abbot gave them shelter, food, clothing, and protection—not an unequal

bargain, even for our days; but when we transport ourselves into the

conditions of life in the middle ages, it will be easily seen how

desirable a fate it was to be “made over to the church.” In those days

protection was a greater boon than even food, lodging, or clothing; it was

then what “habeas corpus” and the right of inviolability of domicile are

now; and so long as the substance existed, it is idle to quarrel with the

garb in which it was clothed.

The ruins were thronged all day; that was the only drawback to our

enjoyment, but we remedied that at night. Every train came laden with

tourists to see Furness Abbey; they walked about with guide‐books and

luncheon‐baskets, and popped champagne‐corks in the cloisters, and strewed

chicken‐bones among the bases of the great Saxon pillars, chatting,

laughing, and joking, and evidently enjoying themselves as they would at a

country fair or a cattle‐show. This went on all day long; but towards

night, after a late dinner at the hotel, they subsided, and scarcely a

soul was to be seen in the garden. The men were in the billiard‐room, and

the women probably packing their things for the morrow’s journey; so we

slipped out, two of us, and went over to the deserted ruins. The moon was

up, not quite at her full, but bright enough to make the scene very

beautiful, and there were many stars as well. It is not easy to describe

the impression this night‐view of the old Catholic abbey made on us; one

might as well try to catch a moonbeam, and examine it and find out what it

is made of. Every one can sketch the picture for himself; every one with a

love of the beautiful, the spiritualized, will understand what was its

solemn charm. We roamed about in silence from nave to cloisters, from

refectory to chapel‐room, and then, hand‐in‐hand, went with something of

awe in our hearts into the old chancel, where in the days of the monks

none ever went but the cowled, white‐robed Cistercians themselves—an angel

and virgin choir meet to sing the praises of the Lamb. By the _sedilia_,

in the beautiful carved recesses of which scarcely a stone is out of place

or an ornament broken off, we knelt down and said the rosary together for

the conversion of England.

Presently a strange green light flashed before our eyes, right above the

place where the high altar had stood of old; it was gone in a minute, and

the calm radiance of the moon was still undisturbed. Seen, as it was, in

this dim, silent place of song and worship, it was very impressive; and

had it been nothing but what we first took it for—_i.e._, a railway

signal—even then it would have remained in our imagination, idealized into

something symbolic. Green is the color of hope, and where is there more

room for hope than under the arches of a ruined abbey, once the pride of a

Catholic country, the home of learning and charity, the representative of

a nation’s civilization? We stayed a long while yet, lingering about the

dusky arches, catching sight of the starry sky through the Gothic tracery

of the windows, repeopling the place in fancy with its silent, prayerful

denizens in their white robes and hoods, and wondering what that fitful

flash might have been. Next morning we saw in the newspaper that just at

that very hour a meteor of greenish hue had appeared and been observed in

many places all over England. You may imagine how glad we were to find

that it had been no railway signal that had cleft the white moonlight

while we were praying in the chancel. It was a beautiful remembrance to

carry away from the Abbey of S. Mary at Furness. God does not forget the

places where his feet have rested, and there are heavenly, undying flowers

yet in the gardens of Paradise which the angels fling down on those

consecrated spots which princes once endowed, because they humbly

acknowledged that “the roses and flowers of kings, emperors, and dukes,

and the crowns and palms of all the great, wither and decay, and that all

things, with an uninterrupted course, tend to dissolution and death.”(175)

So we took leave of the beautiful North Country, its lakes, its solemn

mountains, its abbeys, and its hardy, independent people, whose character

has in it yet all the elements out of which God, infusing into them his

grace, moulded the great Northumbrian saint, Wilfrid of York, the Thomas à

Becket of the VIth century.

On The Wing. A Southern Flight. VI.

“An evil spirit swept the land,

Of ruin and unrest.”

Not far from the villa we occupied there stood an uninviting house, as it

appeared to me, the _loggia_ of which was surrounded on three sides with

green trellis‐work, and commanded a fine view of Naples and the bay.

Outside the door I had noticed barrels of oysters, as indicative of what

we might find inside. This was the Caffe Frisio, renowned in Naples, spite

of its unattractive appearance. I was somewhat surprised when, a few days

after our engagement, Don Emidio suggested to Mary that we should all dine

there, including, of course, the Vernons. I remonstrated. I did not see

the fun of leaving our own quiet, cool house, with a modest but

sufficiently well‐cooked dinner prepared by Monica and served with the

honest awkwardness of our unpretending Paolino, for the hurry of noisy

waiters and the click‐clack of other people’s plates and glasses. I stood

up for my point with my usual undiscerning obstinacy until I thought I saw

a puzzled and half‐pained expression come over the usually serene brow of

my future master. Of course I yielded instantly, and, before I had

stammered out a dozen words, found I had gone the length of declaring that

my appetite for that day would fail me unless I dined at the Caffe Frisio.

That point gained, Don Emidio hurried off (no! I am wrong there; I never

as yet have seen him hurry about anything) to press the Vernons to be of

our party. From thence he went, no doubt in his usually leisurely style,

to order dinner for us. He was no sooner gone out of the room than I

turned to Mary a bewildered face of inquiry, and asked her if she could at

all understand Emidio’s being so anxious we should dine at a _caffe_.

Mary’s reply was an indirect one. She look my hand in hers, and said with

a smile:

“I sometimes wonder, my dear girl, whether you will quite easily take to

the foreign ways of your intended husband.”

“Do you doubt it, Mary? I think, on the contrary, there is something so

charming in that strange mixture of childlike simplicity and manly

generosity which is so remarkable in the really good and noble Italians.

Emidio always reminds me of a high‐bred school‐boy.”

“That is even more the characteristic, perhaps, of a thoroughly consistent

Catholic life from childhood upwards than of any particular nation; though

I agree with you that it is generally evident amongst Italians. Joy is the

attribute of childhood, as distinct from any other period of life; and a

joyful spirit is one of the marks of hidden sanctity. But I was not

thinking of anything so serious as this. I mean that I wonder whether you

will take easily to the out‐of‐door, unprivate life which is engendered

amongst Italians by their beautiful climate, and which makes it not only a

simple, but almost a necessary, thing that Don Emidio should immediately

think of celebrating your engagement by dining at the celebrated Caffe

Frisio.”

“I certainly wondered why he wished it, but I suppose it is the custom,

and I am quite content.”

“You will doubtless, as you go on, find many customs which you will have

to comply with. At Capo di Monte you will sit in the open _loggia_ of your

husband’s house, instead of in your drawing‐room with closed doors, as you

would do in England. When you want your man‐servant, you will call for him

at the top of the stairs at least quite as often as you will ring a rare

and occasional bell. You will order your dinner, from the balcony, of the

cook below, just starting for his marketing. And I am afraid you may very

possibly see your maid surreptitiously laying out your fine linen to dry

on the trim‐cut box hedge which surrounds the geometrical divisions of

your garden. Of course in your _palazzo_ in Rome you may succeed in

keeping up a little more state. But even there, and certainly in

Villegiatura(176) at Naples, you may have to make up your mind to your

_chef_ calling your attention to an unusually fine piece of beef in its

uncooked state which he designs for your dinner that day.”

“Do you remember, Mary,” I replied, laughing, “the man‐servant one day in

Rome bringing you in a beautiful pigeon with an ever‐varying purple breast

that reminded me of the shot silks or stuffs in Raphael’s pictures? You

asked the man if he supposed you could by any possibility eat it an hour

after you had fondled it.”

“I had to go without meat for luncheon that day, and the pigeon’s life was

spared. I fed it with rice, and it used to sit on my chest and pick the

grains from between my lips.”

“At last it got too bold, and, mistaking your teeth for grains of rice,

pecked at your lips till they bled.”

What a mischievous bird it was! When we came home, after leaving it at

liberty in the house, we found all the heads of a bouquet of violets that

stood in water picked off and strewed on the table, and all the pens taken

from the pen‐tray and laid on the floor. Finally one day the pins had been

extracted out of the pin‐cushion and put on the table, and the long, black

hair‐pins taken out of Mary’s silver toilet‐box and laid on the bed. At

last we noticed a black pigeon that used to come often and sit on the

water‐pipe of the house opposite. We never closed the windows on account

of our purple pigeon, as it had shown no disposition to leave its human

friends for others of its own kind. But blood is stronger than water; and

no doubt the black pigeon had wonderful tales to tell of the many roofs of

Rome as presenting eligible habitations, and of the daily markets in the

Piazza Navona and beneath the shadow of the Pantheon as affording an

easily‐obtained repast among the refuse. So one day, when we came home,

the window was open, and the pigeon nowhere to be found. Nor did we ever

again see the black seducer sitting on the neighboring water‐spouts.

After all we were very much amused at our dinner at Frisio. We ate _frutti

di mare_,(177) and macaroni dressed with _pomi d’oro_.(178) Of the meat

the less said the better. I rarely thought any of it good at Naples;

though no further off than Sorrento the beef is excellent. All provisions

are, in fact, better there than at Naples. Our supply of butter came from

Sorrento, and was obtained for us by Pascarillo, our coachman’s master; so

that frequently, as we passed his door returning home from our drive, his

wife would hail us, and hand into the carriage the fresh butter wrapt up

in green vine‐leaves.

When dinner was over, and we sat looking out on the sea, I remembered that

Emidio had promised to tell us the story of Padre Cataldo’s escape at the

time of the Italian revolution in 1860, and I asked him to give us the

particulars.

“This will be a very good time to do so, Miss Jane,” was his reply,

“because we are quite safe at Frisio from the father’s presence. He does

not like talking of it. You very probably have heard of the earthquake in

Italy that took place in 1857; though I dare say the devastation it caused

was hardly noticed in the English papers. The Jesuit Fathers had a college

at Potenza which was partly thrown down at the time, and consequently the

boys had been sent home to their parents and most of the fathers

dispersed. Padre Cataldo and one other alone remained. You are aware that

Potenza is the principal town of the Basilicata, and is the see of a

bishop. There were forty villages in the same province destroyed at the

same time. The king (of course I mean Francis II.) had obtained that Padre

Cataldo should be sent on a mission to the inhabitants of these

unfortunate villages, not only to preach in the different places, but to

carry relief to the inhabitants, and to organize the proper burial of the

dead, who lay neglected among the ruins at the imminent risk of breeding a

pestilence. He was also to encourage the poor people to rebuild their

habitations, and to aid them once again to gain their livelihood and

resume the cultivation of the land. He was engaged in this arduous labor

for a period of about fifteen months, during which he lived amongst the

people with the affection of a father and almost the authority of a ruler;

for there was nothing they would not do at his bidding.”

“The work accomplished, he returned to the half‐ruined college at Potenza.

There was but one other priest in residence with him there, and Padre

Cataldo had hardly joined him when the revolution broke out. The Jesuits

were far from apprehending any violence at first from the inhabitants of

Potenza, a great many of whom were much attached to them. But at that time

they had not had personal experience of the insidious ways by means of

which the revolutionists instil their doctrines into the minds of the

unsuspecting. They soon, however, began to notice that the _caffes_ were

thronged with noisier guests than usual, and who remained till late into

the night discussing and disputing over their wine or coffee. The few

shops where books or newspapers could be found in the not highly‐educated

or literary town of Potenza began to display pamphlets with brilliant‐

colored covers and dubious titles. The men frequenting the churches were

fewer, and those that came were less respectful in their demeanor. At

night the young men wandered about in file, arm‐in‐arm, walking rapidly

with what no doubt they thought a military step, a flower stuck behind the

ear, the hat on one side, and singing revolutionary songs in a loud and

often inebriated voice. The symptoms were all bad. And the fathers were

not surprised when one morning, having noticed an unusual agitation in the

streets and the piazza, they received a secret message to the effect that

they would do well to leave the town as quickly and as quietly as

possible, for the one simple reason that where there is a Jesuit the

revolutionist is his enemy. The persons sending this message to the

fathers added that if their advice were not forthwith taken, acts of

violence might follow.

“Not very far from the Jesuit college there lived a priest who had known

Padre Cataldo for many years, and who, though himself corrupted by

revolutionary principles, and not in any way an honor to his sacred

calling, maintained a great friendship and regard for the father. He had

gone on from one thing to another in his own downward course until at this

time he was actually one of the leaders of revolutionary principles in the

Basilicata. He had nevertheless always told Padre Cataldo that in case of

need he would befriend him. And he kept his word; for one night, when

Potenza was getting too hot for a Jesuit to remain in safety, and the only

question seemed to be what kind of violence against the college would be

attempted, the apostate priest arrived in his own carriage, to fulfil his

old promise, and safely conveyed Padre Cataldo to a house at some distance

where he could lie hidden for the night. The flight had been so sudden

that Padre Cataldo, who was not likely at any time to be cumbered with

wealth, had come away without a franc in his possession. The next morning

he despatched three messengers to various friends in the neighborhood to

say where and in what condition he was; and they, in return, sent him the

money he needed. With this he procured for himself the disguise of lay

clothes, and set out to join the Jesuits residing at Bari. When he

arrived, he found the Jesuits had already left; and the condition of the

country was such that he was unable to proceed with any hope of safety to

Noci, his native place, where his parents lived.

“For many days he had to fly from place to place disguised as a layman,

and with a false beard. But even so there was something in his whole

appearance which betrayed him. One day he was walking along the street,

swinging a walking‐stick, when he heard one man say to another, as they

passed him, ‘There goes a Jesuit in disguise.’

“A lady residing at Bitonto concealed him in her house for one night. He

left the house before dawn; but already the rumor had spread that a Jesuit

was in hiding there, and early in the morning the brother of the lady, who

was a liberal and the syndic of the town, came to tell her the people were

in such a state of excitement that if she did not give up the father, they

would burn the house to the ground. And it was not till she had taken him

into every hole and corner of the place that she could persuade him there

was no one concealed there, and that his assertions to that effect calmed

the mob. ‘The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air nests,’ but, like

their Master, the priests of the Son of man had not where to lay their

heads. Thus driven from place to place, and hunted down like a wild beast,

Padre Cataldo at length reached Venosa, where, as he had once preached a

very successful mission, he was well known and much respected. He took up

his abode at the house of some friends, and the next morning, which was

the Feast of S. Ignatius, the founder of his order, he went to the church

to say Mass. While he was vesting in the sacristy he received a message

that the _intendente_ or governor of the place wanted to speak with him.

It so happened that the _intendente_ was the brother‐in‐law of a man who

had been condemned to death for murder a short time previous. Padre

Cataldo had been acquainted with the case; and as he considered it had

been attended with extenuating circumstances, and that the crime was not

premeditated, he had used his influence with success to get the sentence

commuted to a term of years’ imprisonment at the galleys. He also obtained

permission for the man, who was a jeweller, to work at his trade during

his incarceration. Padre Cataldo had not happened to see any members of

the family since that event, in which he had saved them from so great a

calamity. Very naturally, therefore, on hearing that the brother‐in‐law of

the criminal wanted to see him, he thought he had come to thank him for

saving his relative from the guillotine. But on going to the door to

receive him he found the governor surrounded by soldiers, who, at a word

from him, seized the father as their prisoner. He was at that time

suffering from fever brought on by exposure to all weathers in his

endeavor to elude his enemies; creeping into some sheltering house late at

night, when the evening damp, so fatal in Italy, was falling; making his

way over fields and mountains in the noon‐tide heat, and getting from

place to place through by‐ways, as he dared not take the frequented road;

and of course often without sufficient food. He was put upon a horse, and

conducted by a guard of soldiers to a small place called Rionero. It was a

long day’s journey, and his sufferings were intense. Having been seized

before he had begun his Mass, he had not tasted food. When they reached

Rionero in the evening, they found a terrible scene. The revolutionists

had entire possession of the town. It is said that the piazza—the large

open place in the centre of every Italian town—literally ran with blood.

Strange to say, many persons connected by family ties with the

_intendente_ who had so cruelly betrayed Padre Cataldo perished in the

massacres of that night. I know a man who saw the father brought into the

town in the midst of the guard. The insane fury of the mob at the sight of

a Jesuit knew no bounds. It was the _Ecce Homo_ over again in the person

of one of his servants. He was taken through the piazza on horseback, and

the soldiers did nothing to restrain the people. They flung at him every

missile they could lay their hands on; and as it was evening, a band of

masons were returning from their work, and, transported with rage,

actually threw their tools at him, and beat him with them as he passed. To

all this ill‐usage he made no other reply than by blessing them. Some of

the most violent cried out, ‘Here is the King of the Basilicata.’ Did they

know they were parodying the cry of ‘the King of the Jews’? At length the

prison‐doors shut him in from his persecutors; and as he lay there,

bruised all over, and severely cut about the head and face, he could hear

them crying out that they would yet get at him to burn him alive, while

actually they began building up a pile in the centre of the piazza for

that purpose.

“The liberal priest who had been his friend in the first instance, and had

brought him away from Potenza, had by this time heard of his arrest, and

immediately came to the rescue. This, however, was no easy matter. He was

himself one of their leaders; and, lest they should accuse him of

infidelity to their cause, he was obliged to begin by pretending that he

shared their views with respect to Padre Cataldo. It was only in this way

that he could succeed in getting himself heard. By degrees he induced them

to consider whether, on the whole, the burning alive of a well‐known

Jesuit priest in their piazza would be altogether a wise proceeding. It

might get them into trouble at some future day. It might be considered an

extreme measure. At length he gained sufficient influence for them to

propose that the question should be decided by an appeal to the people.

The general inhabitants of the town were not a bad set of people. They

were probably not very courageous in a good cause, and they were

overwhelmed by the noisy and daring wickedness of the revolutionists. But

when thus appealed to, their real sentiments found expression; and Padre

Cataldo, whose prison‐cell overlooked the piazza, could hear the shouts of

_Noi lo vogliamo salvo_.(179) Soon after his prison‐door was unlocked, and

in the dead of the night he was conducted by two guards to a distance from

the town, where they left him. Faint with loss of blood, bruised, and

weary, he managed to reach the house of some friends. He lay there for a

fortnight, ill from fever and the cruel treatment he had received. And it

was not till some time after, when the troubles had calmed down, that he

was able to return to Naples in safety.”

We sat silent for a few seconds at the end of Don Emidio’s account. It

seemed to bring the nature and qualities of revolution keenly before us

when we thus heard of what it had done to one so well known and so beloved

by us all. Ida was the first to speak; and she told us that not long after

they had settled at Posilippo with Padre Cataldo, a gentleman had called

to see him on some business, accompanied by a young man. Ida remarked that

when the latter came into the room, as soon as his eyes fell on Padre

Cataldo, he turned deadly pale. As he was only in attendance on the other

gentleman, he sat a little back, and no one paid much attention to him,

while she watched him. She saw he was greatly overcome and trembled very

much. She tried to enter into conversation with him, but he seemed too

absent to talk. When at length the gentleman had concluded what he came to

tell Padre Cataldo, the latter turned towards the younger man, who got up

and approached him, exclaiming, “O father! how is it I find you here? I

thought you had died at Rionero. I witnessed the treatment you received

there, and I and many others believed you were dead. By what miracle did

you escape?” When the conversation became more general, the young man, who

could hardly recover from his emotion, told Ida that he should never

forget the father’s countenance, as he sat silent and calm on his horse,

with stones, sticks, and missives of all sorts flung at him. The blood

poured from his head; but there seemed to be a celestial light beaming

from his face which reminded him of the pictures he had seen of the

martyred saints.

We finished our evening on our own _loggia_. It was a lovely night, and we

felt we could never weary of watching the moonbeams on the sea, and, when

the moon had gone down, the fishermen’s little boats, noiselessly sailing

one by one from the dense, dark shadow of the caves where they are moored,

and then, each with a burning torch at the prow, casting anchor and

waiting for the fish to rise to the light. From time to time the fishermen

utter a soft, monotonous cry to each other in a minor key, which comes

floating through the darkness on the still night‐air like an echo from

another world. There must be a strange fascination in this life of the

fisherman, whose occupation begins as other men are laying aside theirs,

and is continued through the silence of the night on the vast solitude of

the ocean.

Don Emidio drew his chair near to where I was sitting, leaning on the low

wall of the _loggia_ and looking down upon the plain of waters, which so

mysteriously appear to flash an unreal light from their dark bosom, as if

the sea itself gave out sparks. Presently I heard a voice asking me if I

thought I could learn to love the world‐famous beauty of the Bay of

Naples.

“I have learnt to love it from the first moment I saw it; for I love all

that is beautiful. And when the beauty of this glorious land comes to be

wound up with the duties of my life, I shall love it doubly.”

“Say with life’s affections too, dear Jane.”

“Why should I not say it? Of course I mean it.”

“Will you never tire of this unmitigated beauty? Will you never, _cara

mia_, have a pining for a soft, gray day, with the perfumed damp that

comes up from the velvet moss and dense greenery of an English copse? Will

you heave no sigh for the pale but varied and most abundant wild flowers

of your chilly springs, a lapful of primroses, a wealth of cowslips? Shall

I have you longing after a narrow lane of yellow sand, the trees meeting

overhead, the meadow‐sweet growing lavishly in the moist hedge, and the

ripe nuts hanging just within reach, crisp and sweet in their slippery

brown shells? Shall I hear you reproaching me that the mushrooms are

dotting the Sussex downs all round the fairy rings, and that you long to

tread the close, fine grass where the sheep are browsing, with the little

hillocks of purple thyme scenting the breeze with its aromatic breath?

When your nerves are overstrung by the continuous dry heat and the brisk

air of our joyous land, will not your Saxon nature long for one of the

short autumn days of old England, when you might walk through the fields

to the edge of the western hill, and watch the sun sink amidst yellow and

red clouds painted on a pale blue sky, and then, returning in the soft

wind of evening redolent with nameless perfumes, feel the damp like a

creamy balm uncurl your locks and bathe your cheek as if with moist

kisses? It will be almost dark when you reach home; there is a low wood‐

fire flickering on the hearth, and the steam of the urn curling up with a

scent of new‐made tea. Papers, pamphlets, magazines, and new volumes by

the dozen from the London library are there to greet you. And day by day,

hour by hour, in that land of rapid thought and universal intelligence,

the latest news from pole to pole finds its way with every post into the

remotest depths of the I country. _Cara mia_, it will not be so here.”

There had been a choking sensation in my throat as Emidio described the

dear old land of my birth, and brought so vividly before me exactly those

little touches of home and country life which I should most certainly not

find in my future Roman _palazzo_ or in the villa at Capo di Monte, beyond

the garden of which I could not stray into any wild woods and barren but

ever‐beautiful heaths, as in England. But there was something in the close

of the vision he called up before me which turned the current of feeling

and made me smile. Strange as it may seem, I felt it was the newspapers

and the I rapid intelligence that I could spare the more easily.

“There are good old books I have never read, Emidio, and which you have in

your library. From time to time we will get a few new ones from the

teeming British press. I am none the happier in England for tracing day by

day the progress of modern ideas. I will turn my thoughts upon the past. I

may sometimes sigh for the shady lanes and breezy downs of England; but I

think the imperious beauty of Italy will hold quite as much sway over my

heart in time. Are you satisfied?”

“I am satisfied as much as my jealous Italian nature will allow me to be.”

“Are all Italians jealous?”

“Nearly all, especially husbands.”

“But I shall never give you cause.”

“I am quite sure of that. But it will not prevent my being jealous. Do not

look frightened, _carissima_.(180) I am not going to prove a regular

Bluebeard, like some of my countrymen. But it would sound strange to your

English ears to know the intense sense of appropriation which an Italian

has with regard to his wife. It is true he adores her; but it is an

adoration which would exclude the remotest homage of the merest stranger.

He waits upon her, watches her, serves her. But it is possible to have too

much of that, particularly when it is done with an evident intention to

prevent the approach of any other human being. I had an acquaintance—for I

cannot exactly call him a friend; he was too great a fool for that—who

would not allow his wife to set her foot outside the door unless he

accompanied her. She was not permitted to look out of the window, if he

could prevent it; and he actually one day consulted me on the possibility

of running a railing in front of his windows inside the rooms to prevent

her getting near enough to look out.”

“And they did not shut him up as a madman?”

“Not at all; though I think the generality allowed he was eccentric. The

poor woman had a melancholy time of it; for of course, if he would not

allow her to look out, neither would he allow any one else to look in.”

“Well! and how did it end?”

“The only way any man of sense could expect it to end. She got out of the

window and over the wall one fine night, and left him. The poor thing went

no further and to no other place than her father’s house. But nothing

would ever persuade her to return to her husband, who grew yellower and

greener every day until he finally died—of jealousy.”

“Serve him right,” was all I deigned to reply, being too indignant to be

grammatical.

“I knew a young girl,” continued Don Emidio, “who had made up her mind she

would marry a certain Neapolitan duke of immense wealth. Her parents did

not object (which they ought to have done). But her confessor, that Padre

Cristoforo whom you heard preaching through the month of May at Santa

Catarina, did everything he could to dissuade her. The only answer she

would ever make to his remonstrances was that she should have a carriage.

All life seemed to résumé itself in her mind in the possession of that one

luxury, with just the addition of gowns from Paris. She was married to the

old duke, and very soon after came to Padre Cristoforo to complain of her

hard lot. He could only repeat that he had warned her how it would be, and

recommend her to take a drive in her carriage, and ever more and more to

drive in her carriage, reminding her that it was for that she had married.

Alas! she had to confess that even that consolation was denied her, as her

husband was too jealous of the passers‐by to allow of her being seen

driving out, and that for the most part she was kept to the house. It is

true he was constantly making her magnificent presents of that other great

object of her ambition—dresses from Paris; but, as she represented to him,

they were quite useless to her, as she could not wear them shut up alone

with him in the house. Now, are you not frightened by this peculiarity in

us Italians, _carina_, or are you prepared for it?”

Emidio was laughing, and so was I, when he more gravely added:

“The other day we were talking of the reverse of the medal, as regards the

good or bad qualities of different people and nations. And I think I can

promise you, _cara mia_, that as my respect for you, and I hope my own

good sense, will always preserve me from this ludicrous excess of a

national characteristic, so the only form which it will take will be in

making me more observant that you should receive from my hands alone those

little attentions, and what the French call _petits soins_,(181) which are

so necessary to a woman, and which make up so large a share in the lesser

enjoyments of her life. I hope never to bore you. But I hope always to

wait upon you.”

I looked over my shoulder as we came to this point in our discourse. Frank

and Elizabeth were discussing their future also in another part of the

_loggia_. And I thought to myself, if we could have compared notes, we

should no doubt have traced many differences characteristic of English and

Italian future husbands. But I am convinced that both English maidens were

equally content with their prospects.

We paid more than one visit to the great museum of Naples, now called the

Museo Nazionale, but which Mary and Frank remembered as the Museo

Borbonico. Since they were last here, the dynasty being changed, the name

of the collection and the arrangement of the objects have also changed.

Mary, who is very decided in her artistic preferences, had her favorites

here, as I have always found she had in every collection of pictures or

statues she had once visited; and faithful to her old loves, she never

could rest or look at other objects till she had revisited those that had

already struck her imagination. I do not know whether it may arise from

the fact that in Rome the attention is naturally more turned, in the

collections at the Vatican, to those which have reference to the life and

customs of the early Christians, in preference to the indications of pagan

life; but certainly the objects in the museum at Naples brought before me,

with a vividness I had never felt elsewhere, the very minutest details of

old Roman existence. And I believe, in point of fact, no collection equals

that at Naples, enriched as it is by the treasure‐trove of Pompeii and

Herculaneum. It would be quite easy to furnish a house with every

requirement of life from roof to kitchen out of the abundance of these

interesting relics of the long ago past. And as I wandered about the large

chambers filled with kitchen utensils, lamps, vases, and female ornaments,

and then passed into the halls where are the frescos that decorated the

walls of their dwellings, I felt I could realize to myself the many

differences in the external forms of their life and our own.

The first conclusion I arrive at is that there was more sameness and less

multiplicity. For instance, there was a certain received form for lamps.

You had your choice, in the ornamental parts, of the heads of lions or of

griffins, but the shape was the same. In the kitchen the like shape

reigned as in the _triclinium_ or the _œci_—the dining‐room and drawing‐

rooms of the ancients—minus the ornaments.(182) The same absence of

diversity is observable among the jewels. There could be very little

difference, except in size and weight, between one lady’s necklace and

another’s. The houses, judging from the discoveries at Pompeii, and borne

out by the classic writers, were all built on the same model, some large

and magnificent, others small and mean, but alike in structure. I pause,

and ask myself how life went on without modern china in the houses of the

great. Though much of their glass was beautiful, yet what a difference

between their earthenware pots and our Sèvres and Dresden, Worcester and

Minton! Everywhere the tables and seats and chairs were alike. The

difference lay in the draperies and the cushions, never in the shape. It

sounds bald and trite to register these remarks; but if we carry out the

thought, and try and place ourselves where the men and women of Rome and

its subject provinces stood, and in imagination sleep in a

_cubiculum_(183) six feet long and four wide, sit on a marble

representation of a camp‐stool, and lay our work or our book—which latter

will be in the inconvenient shape of a long roll of papyrus—on a round

marble table with three lion’s paws for legs; if we fancy our rooms

divided one from the other by _portières_, or hangings, instead of doors,

artistically draped in longitudinal folds, and fastened with cords by the

fashionable upholsterer of the day; if to this we add an almost entire

absence of washing‐basins, and, instead, a lavishness in the article of

marble baths, all more or less taken in public; if from vestibule and

_atrium_,(184) from _hospitium_(185) and _exedra_,(186) we dismiss all

notion of knicknacks, all glass‐fronted cabinets, all buhl and

_marqueterie_, all enamelled snuff‐boxes, china pug‐dogs, and filigree;

with no Berlin‐wool work and no miniatures; a few severely beautiful

bronze figures, some busts, some heathen goddesses in tinted marble,

standing cold and naked in a niche; an ever‐plashing fountain like the

pattering of incessant rain—if we bring all this vividly before us, we

shall soon feel that the minute yet all but infinite circumstances of

external life having been so different from our own, the whole flow of

thought and fancy must have been different.

We owe more than we are aware, both for good and evil, to the way we

furnish our houses. And if we decorate them according to our own ideas, we

must remember that those decorations are for ever throwing back our ideas

upon ourselves in a perpetual reflection until a sort of moral identity is

established.

My impression is that the greater simplicity of form, combined, as was the

case with the ancients, with a very high though but slightly varied style

of decorative art, may have left a greater solidity, unity, and intensity

in the old‐world characters, as compared with what we find in modern

minds, distributed amongst such an endless variety of objects.

It is a great thing to be elevated by noble desires and high Christian

aims above the trivialities of modern life. But if those high aspirations

are absent, it is perhaps a safeguard to take to old china, old lace, and

Louis Quinze furniture. It breaks up the thoughts into a kaleidoscope of

fancies; and that, on the whole, is decidedly preferable to the

restlessness of youth, health, and idleness, leading to a craving for

gladiatorial fights and scenes of bloodshed and cruelty. In those days the

virtuous were nobly virtuous, and were very rare. The vicious were

horribly vicious, and formed the generality. It always struck me that an

old Roman house must have been a dull home. And _ennui_ is the mother of

naughtiness quite as surely as the devil is the father of lies. There are

minds which cannot be great, as there are lives which never are much more

than harmless. Surely for these the multiplicities of modern times, the

toys of fashion, the novelties of the day, in dress, furniture, and

ornament, are safety‐valves and almost godsends! At least they are better

than the arena, with its brutalizing scenes of blood and horror, where a

vestal had but to turn her thumb to take the life of the victim bleeding

before her eyes!

These results of modern civilization are not Christianity; and I am taking

a very low standard in all I am now saying. But they are the dross of a

civilization leavened by Christianity, and they are very different from

the poison that found its way into the daily life of Roman men and women

from the seething wickedness of the great heathen empire.

Nothing can exceed the interest of the paintings taken from Pompeii. Of

course I was intimately acquainted with them from engravings, and had been

all my life. One of the early impressions of my childhood was the delight

of finding that the grave old Romans (and therefore the Greeks before

them), for whom I had a very pagan admiration, were capable of

appreciating humor as expressed in the movements and attitudes of animals.

I was overjoyed at this touch of sympathy with a dead past; and I

recommend all visitors to Naples to look out for certain cocks and hens

and other creatures among the lesser mural decorations taken from Pompeii.

The well‐known dancing girls I had never properly admired until I saw them

being copied by a Neapolitan artist in the Museum. He had not deviated one

hair’s breadth from the original outline; but the mere restoration of

vivid coloring had imparted to them an airy, floating grace which I had

failed fully to detect in the scratched and faded originals, but which I

at once felt must have belonged to them when they decorated some rich

Pompeian’s house.

While I was wandering about, trying to live for an hour the inner homespun

life of a Roman maiden by gazing long on the walls she must have looked

on, Mary had gone in search of the Farnese Bull and the exquisite half‐

head and figure of the Psyche, that wonderful embodiment of virginal grace

and feminine delicacy which makes one long to have seen the statue in its

unmutilated condition. She had stood for a good quarter of an hour before

the Aristides (for we insist on believing it is Aristides), and was, as

she told me afterwards, growing more and more in the consoling belief that

many of the old pagans will have found a place among the thrones of the

blest through the mercy of Him who never asks for more than he has given,

and who since the creation has never left the world without a witness of

himself. Then she visited the Farnese Flora, that wonderful triumph of art

over matter, where in a statue of above twelve feet such floating grace is

expressed that she seems to be skimming along the ground, while the light

wind plays in the drapery.

I found Mary lost in thought before a beautiful bronze statue of Mercury

in repose. The lithe figure has just sat down to rest on the edge of a

rock. The tension of the muscles is gradually relaxing. One foot as yet

only touches the ground with the heel. Wait a moment, and the foot will

yield and rest. Never was fatigue gradually giving way to repose more

exquisitely depicted. Then Mary turned to the dead Amazon with the death‐

wound beneath her breast, and finally declared that having satisfied

herself by revisiting these, that for one reason or another had haunted

her for twenty years, she was ready to admire the others. It is curious

how the long lines of statues and busts seem to give out cold. The same

stone walls covered with pictures could never be so severely cold. The old

gods and heroes seem to breathe upon you with an icy breath from out of

the grave of the old classic world.

The best pictures in the Naples Museum are not very numerous, but are

admirable specimens of the Italian schools. They are collected into one or

two rooms, deserving time and study. A cursory view of the others will be

sufficient to satisfy most people. There is much more to be seen besides

the relics from Pompeii and Herculaneum, the statues and pictures. It is

all worth visiting, and, to be fully appreciated, requires many hours to

be spent on each different class of objects.

I had a very distinct and not altogether a pleasant recollection of the

mysterious grotto of Pozzuoli, which had haunted my imagination ever since

I was here as a child. Ida and I had made an engagement to visit Astroni,

Victor Emanuel’s happy hunting‐grounds, one day when we were to have the

carriage to ourselves; and accordingly we were to pass through the grotto.

You approach it by a deep cutting in the rock, the sides of which are

draped with ivy and hanging plants, with bright tufts of wild flowers

wherever a few grains of earth give them a roothold. There is a small

oratory to the right as you enter, of a most simple and rustic kind, and

kept by a Capuchin, whom I cannot call a venerable hermit, as he happened

to be of rather youthful appearance. On _festas_ his little altar was

covered with flowers, and a few votive candles burnt before the obscure

picture of the Madonna within the dark recesses of the cave. When the poor

Capuchin heard a carriage approaching, he would hurry forth with a little

tin box, which he held up to us for an alms. We seldom failed to give him

some, and from time to time it would be silver instead of the more

frequent copper; and then his gratitude became eloquent, and many a

blessing followed us down the murky gloom of the long, unsavory grotto.

Certainly, this strange road, which it appears dates from the middle of

the first Christian century, is not calculated to leave a pleasant

impression, though in many ways it presents picturesque bits which

reminded me of some of Salvator Rosa’s pictures. It would be quite dark

but for the yellow, faint light of gas‐lamps, not sufficient in number to

dispel the gloom, which is greatly increased by the clouds of dust the

numerous carts, carriages, and herds of goats are constantly raising, the

latter adding thereto their own peculiarly suffocating odor. It is paved

in the same way as the Neapolitan streets, and the noise reverberates from

the roof. It has a curious effect when you lean forward to see the bearded

goats just visible through the dusty air, and further on, perhaps, a

cabriolet laden with people—six inside, four out, and one boy at least,

after the Neapolitan fashion, hanging in a net beneath the vehicle—drawn

by one horse, always equal to his load, no matter how starved and

miserable he may be. On it comes, the merry inmates singing, shouting,

piercing the darkness, but compelled thereby to slacken their pace a

little, lest there should be a collision in this Erebus. We were always

silent and a little uncomfortable in the din, the dust, and the darkness.

Yet it had to be passed through again and again, as being the only road

out into the country, unless we went all round by the Strada Nuova and

Nisida. At the entrance of the grotto from Naples is the supposed tomb of

Virgil, hidden beneath ivy and acanthus leaves‐just as a poet would have

wished! We came out from the grotto on the busy, picturesque village of

Fiorigrotta, where the whole population seem to live out in the one long

street. Astroni is an extinct volcanic crater, the sides of which are

clothed with ilex and other trees. It is circular, and a wall runs along

the upper rim to prevent the escape of the deer and wild boar that are

kept there for the king’s pleasure. There are two carriage‐roads through

the dense forest. At the bottom of the basin there are a few open spaces,

marshy land, and water. The solitude and silence are intense; for, as

usual in Italy, there are not many singing birds, and what there are do

not give song during the heat of the day any more than in our northern

climes. I never shall forget the silence that reigned, nor the feeling of

solitude induced by peering through the trees, looking down on the small

lakes of intensely blue water below, and knowing that in those dense

thickets myriads of wild animals were hiding in their lair, while we were

the only human beings. The gates are kept locked, and it requires a

special order to penetrate this sylvan scene. It does not seem to me a

very satisfactory way of sporting. You are too sure of your game, walled

in as it is all round. After visiting the extinct crater, we saw the

emptied lake of Agnano, once notorious for malaria, now drained off and

leaving a wide plain more or less adapted for agriculture. At present it

seems in a rather neglected state, of which nature has taken advantage to

cast her unsolicited gifts of flaunting bright wild flowers broadcast over

the whole space.

One of our most interesting excursions was to the Solfatara, not far from

the Lago Agnano. This also is an extinct crater; and yet so barely extinct

that we feel, as we tread the sulphur‐checkered soil, and hear the hollow

reverberation if we stamp on the ground, as if at any moment it might

again burst forth.

From time to time our nostrils were disagreeably met by a puff of steam

redolent of sulphur; and occasionally these puffs grow stronger and more

threatening. The stones you pick up are tinged with yellow. The vegetation

is sparse and dwarfed. At the further end of the plain is a cave, from

whence at regular intervals rush clouds of hot steam, while a roaring,

boiling sound surges within. The aperture is large enough for a person to

enter by stooping a little. Most of our party peeped in, but instantly

retired from the suffocating and horrible stench and great heat.

The rocks are covered with sulphur and alum; and in my eagerness that we

should all equally benefit by the sight, I wanted to persuade Ida just to

take one peep. It would, however, have been a risk to do anything which

even for a second might embarrass the action of her delicate lungs and

weak heart. She tried to approach, but turned back with the feeling that

one puff more would have suffocated her.

I think we all felt as if we were standing in one of the outer halls of a

region never to be mentioned “to ears polite,” and almost too “Dantesque”

to be pleasant. We gladly breathed a purer atmosphere as we passed out of

the gate (inside which is a fabric of sulphur‐works), and bent our steps

between white walls on which the green lizards basked, and between fields

of unripe corn and mulberry‐trees, till we reached an open space

commanding a fine view of the Gulf of Pozzuoli and the hills beyond. From

thence we turned into the Capuchin church dedicated to S. Januarius, and

said to be built over the spot where he suffered martyrdom in 305. There

is a stone, on which he is believed to have been beheaded, let into the

wall, and protected with an iron grating. It is seamed with red marks as

of blood. It is very probably a stone on which he knelt and on which the

blood fell. But a block, whether of stone or wood, for the purposes of

beheading, is a modern invention. The Romans used a sword—as the Turks use

a scymitar for that ghastly purpose to this day—and the patient knelt

upright.

It was pleasant to rest in the cool church, which, humble as it is, is not

without its quota of beautiful marbles, and is kept exquisitely clean,

with fresh flowers on the altar, and all care taken of it as if the

community were still there. We found only a lay brother left in charge. I

think he said he had a companion. All the poor fathers were dispersed by

Victor Emanuel’s government, and Mass is only said on feast‐days; though

it seemed to be the only church in that immediate neighborhood, and the

poor of the district must greatly miss the presence of the Capuchin

fathers, those special friends of the poor.

As we came down the hill, we were met by peasant lads, who wanted us to

buy lumps of sulphur and the skeletons of the pretty little fish called

the sea‐horse, which abound in this part of the Mediterranean, and which

are just like the knights among chessmen. They may be seen alive in

quantities in the aquarium at Brighton. They twist the tapering end of

their tails round a fragment of sea‐weed, or indeed, as the buoyancy of

the water keeps them up, they need but to touch something stationary. And

there they stand in groups, motionless, and looking for all the world like

a grave assembly of horses’ heads of the most delicate race, and with

noses slightly turned up. Nothing can be more graceful than the way they

hold themselves. Their heads are not bigger than those of ordinary‐sized

chessmen.

As the Vernons had been at Posilippo all through the eruption of Mount

Vesuvius in April, 1872, they were naturally anxious we should see

something of the devastation it had occasioned. We determined, therefore,

to drive to San Sebastiano, a village which was almost entirely destroyed.

As we approached the spot, it seemed as if we were driving into the

kingdom of chaos, where “the earth was void and empty.” On either side lay

wide plains of gray‐black lava, looking as if a dead, unfertile earth had

been furrowed with the burning shares of some gigantic and infernal

plough, and had remained calcined and sterile for ever after. We left the

carriage and climbed up a large mound of lava. I found myself nearly on a

level with the low roof of the small church, round which the lava had

crept, but had spared it. I looked down into the basement of a house below

me. The lava had poured in and filled what once were rooms, but had left

the walls and the roof standing. There was part of a street left, the lava

having, with seeming caprice, turned off to the left, as it poured down

the mountain, just in that spot. Our friends told us that as they used to

sit by the hour and watch the progress of the burning stream through

glasses, they could see the small white houses, with the fiery flood

approaching, when suddenly each house seemed to leap into the air like a

lighted straw, and then was seen no more. A cat ran past me, in haste to

save her paws. We could not stand still long, for, though more than a year

had elapsed, the land was still too hot to be pleasant; and when we

reached home, we found our feet were blistered. The poor creatures whose

homes have thus perished approach you timidly with bits of lava to sell.

They still have a scared look in their faces. But nothing will persuade

them to shift their quarters and leave their grand but dangerous neighbor.

They are trying to rebuild their village, and are deaf to all the

remonstrances of the great scientific philosopher(187) who lives a

hermit’s life in the observatory half‐way up the mountain. He has a

Capuchin priest as a companion; and the latter was able to give the last

rites of the church to about forty of the unfortunate people, who,

actuated by curiosity, had attempted to climb the mountain during the

eruption. It seems they had never calculated upon the effect of the

burning heat from a distance. They thought if there were a certain space

between them and the lava, they should be safe. They forgot that actual

contact was not needed; and they were scorched to death long before the

stream reached the spot where they stood. Not one of those thus licked up

by the breath of the volcano ever recovered, or even lived long enough to

quit the place.

Signor Palmier and the Capuchin saw a carriage full of people, coachman

and two horses, advancing up the mountain. Suddenly the whole was

submerged. They could only tell where it had been arrested by the carrion

birds hovering over a certain spot for many days after!

A Discussion With An Infidel.

VIII. Laws Of Nature And Miracles.

_Büchner._ We differ very widely in many points, sir; but there is one

point about which we shall have no difficulty in agreeing—the immutability

of natural laws. In fact, you have already conceded that the laws of

nature are unchangeable.

_Reader._ Yes, I admit the unchangeability of the laws of nature; but I

most strongly protest against your rash inference that therefore miracles

are impossible.

_Büchner._ Yet my reasoning is very plain. “The law of nature, observes

Moleschott, is a stringent expression of necessity. There exists in it

neither exception nor limitation; and no imaginable power can disregard

this necessity. A stone not supported will in all eternity fall towards

the centre of the earth; and there never was, and never will be, a command

for the sun to stand still” (p. 33).

_Reader._ Is this what you call “reasoning”?

_Büchner._ Yes. “The experience of thousands of years has impressed upon

the investigator the firmest conviction of the immutability of the laws of

nature, so that there cannot remain the least doubt in respect to this

great truth” (p. 34).

_Reader._ This I grant.

_Büchner._ “Science has gradually taken all the positions of the childish

belief of the peoples; it has snatched thunder and lightning from the

hands of the gods ...” (_ibid._)

_Reader._ It was Christianity, not science, that conquered the gods.

_Büchner._ “The eclipse of the stars and the stupendous powers of the

Titans of the olden times have been grasped by the fingers of man”

(_ibid._)

_Reader._ How can the _fingers_ of man grasp the eclipses and the Titans?

_Büchner._ “That which appeared inexplicably miraculous, and the work of a

supernatural power, has, by the torch of science, proved to be the effect

of hitherto unknown natural forces” (_ibid._)

_Reader._ You dream, doctor. Has “the torch of science” made known those

hitherto unknown forces? No scientific work has yet explained how, by an

act of the will, water can be changed into wine, how the deaf and dumb can

be instantaneously cured, how the blind can be made to see, the paralytic

to walk, and the dead to rise, at the sound of a voice, four days after

burial, and when already in a state of advanced putrefaction. You may of

course deny these facts, as you deny that the sun ever received a command

to stand still; but to say that “the torch of science” has shown these

facts to be the effect of unknown natural forces is to tell us the most

stupid lie that can be uttered. Lies, you know, should at least be

credible.

_Büchner._ “We have the fullest right, and are scientifically correct, in

asserting that there is no such thing as a miracle. Everything that

happens does so in a natural way—_i.e._, in a mode determined only by

accidental or necessary coalition of existing materials and their immanent

natural forces. No revolution on earth or in heaven, however stupendous,

could occur in any other manner” (p. 34).

_Reader._ These are mere words. I deny that science gives you the least

right to suppress miracles. How can you establish such a right?

_Büchner._ “Wherever fire and water meet, vapors must arise and exert

their irresistible power. Where the seed falls in the ground, there it

will grow; where the thunderbolt is attracted, there it will strike. Can

there exist any doubt as to these truths?” (p. 35).

_Reader._ Please, doctor, come to the point.

_Büchner._ “How is it possible that the unalterable order in which things

move should ever be disturbed without producing an irremediable gap in the

world, without delivering us and everything up to arbitrary power, without

reducing all science, every earthly endeavor, to a vain and childish

effort?” (p. 36).

_Reader._ All this rhetoric is most absurd, doctor. “The order in which

things move” is not unalterable; and He whom you call an “arbitrary power”

can alter it when he pleases without asking your permission, or without

reducing science to a childish effort.

_Büchner._ What? You contradict yourself, sir. For, if the order in which

things move is changeable, the laws of nature cannot be unchangeable.

_Reader._ Not at all. You sophistically confound two things entirely

different—the _law_ of nature, and the _course_ of nature. The first is

unchangeable, because it is connected with the essence of things; but the

second is changeable, as a constant and universal experience compels us to

admit. However much you may hate “arbitrary power,” you cannot deny that,

besides necessary causes, there are others which are free in their

exertions. Can you deny, for instance, that a stone may be thrown upwards

in spite of gravitation, or that we can catch hold of the stone from the

window, and, in spite of gravitation, we can prevent it from falling back

to the ground? Now, if we do this, we do not change the _law_ of nature,

and nevertheless we modify the _course_ of nature by freely producing a

phenomenon which nature would not produce.

_Büchner._ Would you call this a miracle?

_Reader._ The question is impertinent. I call it a change in the course of

nature. Now, if the course of nature can be modified without the law of

nature being altered, it is absurd to pretend that there is contradiction

in holding the unchangeableness of the latter and the changeableness of

the former. This being evident, let us go a step further, and draw an

obvious conclusion. We can, when we please, catch the stone from the

window, and prevent it from falling; and cannot God do the same? We are

free to exert our power; but is not God free, or has he less power than we

have? If you are honest, you will own that what can be done by us can be

done by our Creator and Lord. Now, if he stops the stone in the air, a

miracle will be wrought, and no law of nature violated. You cannot deny

the possibility of miracles without denying God.

_Büchner._ “A spirit independent of nature cannot exist; for never has an

unprejudiced mind cultivated by science perceived its manifestation” (p.

36).

_Reader._ Are you not ashamed, doctor, to repeat such a nonsensical

assertion? You have already failed to prove it, and I have shown its

absurdity in a preceding discussion. Must I answer it anew? The only

answer you now deserve is that “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is

no God.’ ” Fools, in fact, deny God in their hearts, but cannot deny him

in their minds, because atheism is not the result of intellectual

knowledge, but of moral depravity. Our present question, however, is not

theism or atheism, but the possibility of miracles without any breach of

natural laws. Surely, if there were no God, no miracle would be possible;

but your argument was that if the laws of nature are unchangeable, no

miracle is possible; and this I have shown to be false. If there is a God,

as we must now assume, miracles are possible. In the same manner, if a

single true miracle has ever been wrought, there is a God.

_Büchner._ “Apparent exceptions from the natural order have been called

_miracles_, of which there have been many at all times” (p. 36).

_Reader._ You should know better, doctor. The church is not satisfied with

“apparent” exceptions from the natural order; the exception must be

rigorously proved.

_Büchner._ “We should only waste words in our endeavor to prove the

natural impossibility of a miracle. No educated, much less a scientific,

person who is convinced of the immutable order of things can nowadays

believe in miracles. We find it rather wonderful that so clear and acute a

thinker as Ludwig Feuerbach should have expended so much logic in refuting

the Christian miracles. What founder of religion did not deem it

necessary, in order to introduce himself to the world, to perform

miracles? And has not his success proved that he was right? What prophet,

what saint, is there who has not performed miracles? The miracle‐seeker

sees them daily and hourly. Do not the table‐spirits belong to the order

of miracles? All such miracles are equal in the eye of science; they are

the result of a diseased fancy” (pp. 36, 37).

_Reader._ This is miserable logic, doctor. Why do you speak of the

_natural_ impossibility of miracles? Have we ever taught that miracles are

_naturally_ possible? We know that nature works no miracles, and that all

miracles are supernatural. It is therefore either a mean trick or a

logical blunder on your part to pretend that the _natural_ possibility of

miracles is the point in question. That no educated or scientific man can

nowadays believe in miracles is not only an empty boast, but also a

disgraceful calumny. We Christians believe in miracles, and yet, I venture

to say, we need not resort to you for lessons in science or education. As

a reason for not believing in miracles, you allege “the immutable order of

things”; that is, you assume what is to be proved. The order of things is

so far from being immutable that we see it modified at every moment. It is

the laws of nature, not the order of things, that are immutable. That

Feuerbach “expended so much of logic in refuting Christian miracles” I

will not deny; I only say that his logic, like your own, is mere sophism

and cavil. Of course you call him “so clear and acute a thinker”; but we

know what this means on the lips of Freemasons. If he was “so clear and

acute a thinker,” why did he not furnish you with at least one good

argument against Christian miracles?

Besides, you pretend that all founders of religion deemed it necessary to

perform miracles. What then? Were it true, the fact would scarcely help

your cause; for it would only prove that there have ever been impostors,

as there have been quacks and coin‐forgers. Now, who would think of

selling counterfeited articles, if there had existed none genuine? Would

there be quacks, had there been no doctors? And yet your reasoning leads

to the conclusion that, because there are so many quacks, there can be no

doctors. Are you, then, a mere quack yourself?

You say with a malicious sneer that all prophets and saints performed

miracles. Yes; they performed miracles, or rather, to speak more

correctly, God wrought miracles through them. Yet, in the teeth of sacred

and ecclesiastical history which testifies to an infinite number of

unquestionable miracles, you are shameless enough to conclude that no

miracle has ever been performed, on the plea that miracle‐seekers, table‐

spirits, and diseased fancy must have conspired to deceive the world. Is

it necessary to refute such a silly assertion? Was Elymas the magician a

miracle‐seeker when S. Paul, to punish him for his opposition to

Christianity, struck him blind with a word in the presence of the Roman

centurion? Was it a trick of table‐spirits that made the blind see, the

lame walk, or the dumb speak? Was it diseased fancy that impressed on an

immense crowd the belief that they had been miraculously fed by Christ in

the desert, where no provisions were at hand? No, doctor, you are not

silly enough to believe anything of the sort.

_Büchner._ But what do you answer to the following difficulties? First, if

we admit miracles, “science will be reduced to a vain and childish effort”

(p. 36). Secondly, how can we conceive “a supreme legislator who allows

himself to be moved by prayers and sobs to reverse the immutable order

which he himself has created, to violate his own laws, and with his own

hand to destroy the action of natural forces?” (p. 38). Thirdly, “every

miracle, if it existed, says Cotta, would lead to the conviction that the

creation is not deserving the respect which all pay to it, and the mystics

would necessarily be obliged to deduce from the imperfection of the

created world the imperfection of the Creator” (p. 38). Fourthly, “is it a

view worthy of God to represent him as a power which now and then gives a

new impulse to the world in its course, and puts on a screw, etc., like

the regulator of a watch? If the world has been created by God perfect,

how can it require any repairs?” (p. 39). Fifthly, we see that nature

works without superior control; “its action is frequently quite

independent of the rules of a higher reason, now constructing, now

destroying, now full of design, then again perfectly blind and in

contradiction with all moral and rational laws. That in the formation of

organic and inorganic bodies, which are constantly being renewed, there

can be no direct governing reason at work is proved by the most striking

facts. The _nisus formativus_ inherent in nature is so blind and so

dependent on external circumstances that the most senseless forms are

frequently engendered, that it is often incapable of obviating or

overcoming the slightest obstructions, and that frequently the contrary of

what according to reason should happen is effected” (pp. 41, 42). These

are serious difficulties, sir.

_Reader._ I hardly think them to be serious, doctor. The first entirely

disappears when you reflect that the conclusions of physical science are

_all hypothetic_, inasmuch as they regard phenomena which must take place

under the action of given powers, to the exclusion of any other power

extraneous to those taken into account. Such conclusions, therefore, imply

the condition that no extraneous agent and no disturbing cause interferes

with the production of the phenomena. If an extraneous power interferes,

the conditions are changed, and with them the phenomena; but science is

not upset. A stone not supported must fall. _Not supported_; such is the

condition. Now, whether you, or I, or the roof, or God, or an angel

support it, the consequence will be that the stone will not fall. Now, I

ask you, is science “reduced to a vain and childish effort” because you or

I or the roof prevent the stone from falling? I presume, doctor, that if

such were the case, science would long since have disappeared from this

world. Why, then, should science become a vain and childish effort as soon

as God would do himself what we can freely do without destroying science?

Take another example. Nature builds no stately palaces, no fine steamers,

no locomotives, no railroads. All such things are our free creations. Yet

surely you will not maintain that by building palaces or by boring

mountains we destroy science, although we may interfere very materially

with the works of nature.

Now, if our free action upon nature does not destroy science, why should

God’s free action destroy it? Answer me in the name of reason: What theory

of natural science would be falsified were God to send angels to build you

a palace, or devils to dig you a grave?

And now I come to your second difficulty. You assume that the supreme

legislator cannot work a miracle without destroying the action of natural

forces and violating his own laws, thus reversing the immutable order

which he himself has created. But you are mistaken. The order of things is

not immutable; this I have already shown. On the other hand, we have just

seen that no law of nature is ever violated by a miracle. Lastly, God’s

action does not destroy the action of natural forces, but produces an

effect superior to and independent of them. Nor is this strange; for we

ourselves can do the like within the range of our limited powers. When we

go up‐stairs, do we destroy the action of gravity that urges us downwards?

By no means. The action of gravity continues its work, but our contrary

exertion prevails; and thus our body obeys the resultant of the two

opposite actions, both of which obtain their effect. You see, therefore,

that there is no need of destroying the action of natural forces in order

to produce an effect which natural forces cannot produce. After these

remarks, nothing remains of your second difficulty but “the prayers and

sobs” which you cruelly ridicule as useless and superstitious. But our

Father who is in heaven listens to such prayers and is moved by those

sobs. This is abundantly proved by innumerable authentic facts; and this

suffices for us.

Your third difficulty is based on Cotta’s notion that the creation

deserves respect on account of its perfection. Cotta may be one of your

great men, but surely he does not know what he is speaking about. What

“respect” do we owe to creation? Benighted barbarians thought, indeed,

that the sun, the earth, and the stars deserved respect; but how can a man

who pretends to be a philosopher, and who professes himself an enemy of

superstition, adopt such a stale pagan view, unless he blinds himself and

renounces reason by bestowing upon matter the worship which he refuses to

the living God? To say that the world is “perfect” is a mere equivocation.

The world is perfect after its own manner, inasmuch as it serves all the

purposes for which it has been made; it is perfect in the same sense in

which we say that a thermometer, a telescope, or an engine is perfect; it

is a perfect instrument in God’s hand for the attainment of a determinate

end; and therefore its perfection is _relative_ only, and might be greater

and greater without end. Now, Cotta’s argument overlooks this obvious

restriction, and presents the world as _absolutely_ perfect. If the world

is imperfect, says he, God is imperfect; but miracles would show that the

world is imperfect; and therefore miracles would show that God is

imperfect. Now, is not this, doctor, asinine logic? We might as well argue

thus: If an engine is imperfect, its maker is imperfect; but the opening

of a turning‐cock for admitting more steam shows that the engine is

imperfect; and therefore that opening shows that the engine‐maker is

imperfect. And this leads me to your fourth difficulty, which is nothing

but a repetition of the third.

You ask: “Is it a view worthy of God to represent him as a power which now

and then gives a new impulse to the world in its course?” I answer, _Yes_;

it is quite worthy of God to exercise his power in the world in the way he

thinks fit. Shall we say, then, that God, “like the regulator of a watch,

puts a screw on the world”? Why not? The watchmaker is not degraded by

regulating his work. But, then, “the world requires repairs”? I say,

_Yes_. And if you conclude that the world “has not been created perfect,”

I reply that although it came out relatively perfect from the hands of the

Creator, it has gradually and most sadly deteriorated by the malice of

man. Moreover, the world, whether more or less perfect in itself, without

a constant active intervention of its Creator can neither work nor last

for a moment. The world is, therefore, constantly “repaired,” to use your

expression, and has “screws put on it,” as history testifies; and other

“screws” are undoubtedly ready for further “repairs” when they will be

wanted.

Your last difficulty arises from your assumption that nature works without

being controlled by a superior power. But how do you know that nature is

not controlled? What are the “striking facts” which prove that “there is

no direct governing reason at work” in the formation of organic and

inorganic bodies? Your _nisus formativus_ proves nothing. You say that the

_nisus_ is “blind.” You may well call it blind, inasmuch as it is a work

of secondary causes; but you cannot deny that it is ruled by a superior

reason. What does it matter if “most senseless forms are frequently

engendered”? You yourself admit that the _nisus formativus_ depends very

much “on external circumstances,” which may mar or spoil the work of

organization, and which nothing obliges the superior reason to alter or

improve. On the other hand, such senseless forms are not so “frequently”

engendered as you pretend; and if a few such senseless or monstrous forms

can move you to doubt whether their formation is controlled by a superior

reason, I do not see why the immensely greater number of other forms

perfectly constituted should not constrain you to banish the doubt, and to

recognize that matter not controlled and not directed by reason cannot co‐

ordinate its efforts towards the formation of an organism of which it

knows neither the plan nor the object.

I trust, doctor, that these remarks suffice to solve your difficulties,

and to show that the world is governed by a superior reason.

_Büchner._ It may be; yet “what this or that man may understand by a

governing reason, an absolute power, a universal soul, a personal God,

etc., is his own affair. The theologians, with their articles of faith,

must be left to themselves; so the naturalists with their science. They

both proceed by different routes” (p. 43).

_Reader._ This is no reply, doctor, and your remark is misplaced. The

existence of a personal God, the possibility of miracles, and many other

such truths, are proved by natural reason. Had I refuted your objections

by quoting “theologians” and “articles of faith,” your reply might have

some meaning. But since your allegations have been answered by reason,

what does it avail to say that “theologians, with their articles of faith,

must be left to themselves”? Moreover, you unwittingly condemn your own

tactics. For if theologians are to be left to themselves, why do you,

then, who are no theologian, and not even a philosopher, invade the

province of theology, and fight against faith?

If you have any desire to know the truth about the reality of miracles, I

will tell you what you have to do. M. Artus, a Frenchman, on the 23d of

July, 1871, publicly challenged all the free‐thinkers of the world to show

the falsity of any two out of the many miracles registered in M.

Lasserre’s book entitled _Notre Dame de Lourdes_, and staked 10,000 francs

upon the issue of the contest. This money was safely deposited by him in

the hands of a notary‐public in Paris; and fifty judges were appointed,

some of whom were members of the French Institute, and others fellows of

other celebrated institutions and academies, or members of the bar,

including even a Protestant; so that there could be no suspicion of

fanaticism, ultramontanism, or mysticism about them. Now, incredible as it

may appear to you, none of your great braggarts has dared from that day

till now to accept the challenge. It is for you, who are so peremptory in

denouncing miracles, to come forward, and to blot out by an act of

philosophical valor the stain which the cowardice of your enlightened

friends has left on the glory of free‐thinkerism. It is for you, I repeat;

for if a man of your standing and reputation quails before the challenge,

the world will most reasonably conclude that you have no faith whatever in

your own doctrines.

IX. The Heavens.

_Reader._ The laws of nature are universal. Such is the subject of the

seventh chapter of your _Force and Matter_. I need hardly say that, while

admitting with you the universality of the natural laws, I cannot but

condemn the materialistic spirit which disgraces your explanation of that

obvious truth. But in the chapter which follows you speak of the heavens

in a most objectionable style.

_Büchner._ “Every school‐boy knows that the sky is not a glass shade

covering the earth, but that, in contemplating it, we behold an immense

space interrupted by infinitely distant and scattered groups of worlds”

(p. 51).

_Reader._ This I grant; but I am at a loss to understand how the

contemplation of the heavens can furnish you an argument against the

existence of God. Is it not strange that what has hitherto been considered

to proclaim most loudly the existence, and magnify the power, of God, has

become, in your hands, an evidence in support of atheism?

_Büchner._ The heavenly masses “are in constant motion—a motion singularly

combined and complicated, yet in all its modifications merely the result

of a single universal law of nature—_the law of attraction_.... All these

motions may be determined and predicted with mathematical exactness. As

far as the telescope of man reaches, the same law, the same mechanical

arrangement, according to the same calculated mechanical formula, is

found. Nowhere is there a trace of an arbitrary finger which has ordered

the heavens or pointed out the path of comets. ‘I have searched the

heavens,’ says Lalande, ‘but have nowhere found the traces of God.’ And

when the Emperor Napoleon asked the celebrated astronomer Laplace why

there was no mention of God in his _Mécanique Céleste_, he replied,

‘_Sire, je n’avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse_.’ The more astronomy

progressed in its knowledge of the laws and motions in the heavens, the

more it repudiated the idea of a supernatural influence, and the easier it

became to deduce the origin, grouping, and motions of the heavenly bodies

from the properties inherent in matter itself. The attraction of atoms

rendered the bodies compact, whilst the law of attraction, in combination

with their primary motion, produced the mode of their reciprocal rotation

which we now observe” (pp. 51, 52).

_Reader._ Waiving the more than problematic plausibility of your premises,

and setting aside the blasphemies which you have diligently copied from

the books of the French unbelievers, and which are too stolid to need an

answer, I reply, doctor, that you are always too hasty in drawing your

conclusions. Why did you not reflect that the matter of which the

celestial bodies are formed must have had an origin, that the revolutions

of those bodies cannot be ruled by an abstract law, and that their

enormous distances, as well as the expanse of their orbits through the

immensity of space, compel the admission of an infinite being ranging

infinitely above matter and necessarily prior to it? You should not have

overlooked the fact that the heavens proclaim God’s existence by their

immensity far more eloquently than by the revolutions of the celestial

bodies. You speak of movements ruled by a law. I admit the movements and

the law which rules our calculation of the movements. But without space

there is no movement, and without God there is no space; therefore without

God there is no movement. Extricate yourself, if you can. Do you concede

that without space there is no movement?

_Büchner._ It is evident.

_Reader._ Do you admit that without God there is no space?

_Büchner._ This I deny.

_Reader._ Then what do you mean by “space”?

_Büchner._ I fancy that space is nothing but the volume of bodies.

_Reader._ How is this possible? A body moves through space. Now, does a

body move through its own volume, or does it move through the volume of

other bodies? On the contrary, the body cannot move without pushing away

before it all other bodies and volumes whatever from the space they

occupy. It is therefore evident that space, as such, is not the volume of

bodies.

_Büchner._ Then I shall say that space is the capability of bodies and

motion.

_Reader._ This definition of space may be admitted if properly understood.

But what is such a capability? Is it, in your opinion, a real and positive

entity?

_Büchner._ I should not think so, unless, indeed, it be occupied by

bodies.

_Reader._ I know that many are of this opinion, that the reality of space

depends on the presence of bodies; but I say that, if such were the case,

then empty space would be mere nothing. Now, if you admit this, you will

be compelled to admit also the absurdity that a mere nothing can be

greater or smaller. For between two neighboring atoms there may be a

greater or smaller interval of space; and such an interval, by the

hypothesis, would be nothing. Hence it is evident that space, no matter

whether occupied or unoccupied, must be something real.

_Büchner._ Then I say that space is a mere relation of material objects.

_Reader._ There are relations of bodies in space; but all such relations

_presuppose_ the existence of absolute space, and therefore space itself

is none of those relations. Moreover, since all real relations have their

reason in something real, which is the foundation of the relativity, it

follows that space, as that through which one body is really related to

another, is in itself a reality, independently of the relations which may

result from the existence of bodies in it. And again, before bodies can be

considered as related through space, they must be each located in space.

But, evidently, they cannot be located in space if there is no space. And

therefore there must be space before any local relation of bodies can be

imagined as possible. Hence you cannot maintain that space is a mere

relation.

_Büchner._ Perhaps I shall be obliged to say with Kant that space is only

a subjective form of the mind.

_Reader._ Then you will entangle yourself still more. The assumption would

imply the denial of all real distances, of all real volumes, of all real

movements, of all real phenomena, and of all natural laws. For if space is

only a subjective form of our mind, then there is no space out of the

mind; and consequently there are no real distances and no real movements

in the outside world, and science becomes an array of lies.

_Büchner._ What is, then, your notion of space?

_Reader._ Space is the region of all possible ubications and movements. Do

you accept this definition?

_Büchner._ Why not? It is substantially the same as that which I have

given by saying that space is the capability of bodies and motion.

_Reader._ Very well. Then, since I have shown that this capability of

bodies and motion is a positive reality, space is a positive reality.

Moreover, space is neither matter nor any of the forces of matter, nor

dependent on matter, but prior to it, and is prerequired as a necessary

condition for the existence of matter. Lastly, space is independent of

time and motion, and therefore is absolutely and strictly eternal and

unchangeable. Do you object to these conclusions?

_Büchner._ No, sir.

_Reader._ Then you concede that space is an infinite, eternal,

unchangeable, independent reality, prior to matter and above matter, and

therefore, according to your own theory, prior to the world and above it.

Now, to concede so much, and then to deny God, would be an evident

contradiction. For you must admit that absolute space is either a

substance or not. If it is a substance, then it is an infinite, eternal,

independent, unchangeable substance, embracing and transcending with its

immensity all imaginable worlds; and a substance having such attributes is

what we call GOD. If space is not a substance, it must still have the

reason of its reality in a substance from which it borrows its infinity,

its eternity, its immutability, and of which it is the extrinsic

manifestation. Hence the contemplation of the heavens and of “the immense

space interrupted by infinitely distant and scattered groups of worlds”

affords an irresistible proof of God’s existence, and leaves no room for

your pretended “scientific” objections. If there is no God, there is no

space; and if there is no space, science is a dream and scientists mere

visionaries.(188)

_Büchner._ I cannot fight on this ground, sir. Space is a mystery which

our reason has no power to explain; and I decline to argue about anything

that transcends reason. The strongest argument in favor of the existence

of a personal God was ever drawn from the necessity of a first mover, in

order to account for the movement of the celestial bodies. But such a

necessity has never been proved; and therefore “even in this remote

position a personal creative power cannot hold its ground” (p. 52).

_Reader._ You cannot cover your retreat by pretending that space is a

mystery; for if space is a mystery, then science also is a mystery—a

conclusion which you do not accept. But while you thus implicitly

acknowledge your defeat, you try to secure a safer position by alleging

that the movement of the heavenly bodies may have originated in the powers

of matter itself without any exterior impulse from a first mover. I wish

you to remark that the words “first mover” can be understood in two

manners; for not he only who directly imparts the first movement, but he

also who governs the exertions and establishes the conditions on which the

first movements depend, can be called “first mover.” The old philosophers,

who did not know the fact of universal gravitation, proved the existence

of God by affirming the necessity of a first mover—that is, of a first

cause—giving the first impetus to the heavens, and governing their

revolutions. But since gravitation became known philosophers have

acknowledged that all matter could receive motion through the action of

other matter, and therefore that the first movements in the material world

could arise from matter itself, with no need of a special impulse from

without. This, however, does not mean that we can dispense with a “first

mover.” However great your effort to convince yourself that “matter is

eternal, and the motion of matter as eternal as matter itself” (p. 53),

you will not succeed. Matter is created; and He who created it placed it

in definite conditions, that it could exert its powers in a definite

manner and give rise to definite effects. To him, therefore, as to a first

cause, are to be traced all the movements arising from his production and

arrangement of all the proximate causes. Now, the first cause of all

movements is a “first mover.” What can science object against this evident

truth?

_Büchner._ “Why matter assumed a definite motion at a definite time is as

yet unknown to us; but the investigations of science are as yet

incomplete, nor is it impossible that we may get some clue as to the

period of the first origin of individual worlds. Even at this day

astronomers give cogent reasons that some of the nebular spots are worlds

in embryo, which, by gradual condensation and rotation, will become worlds

and solar systems. We have, therefore, concluding from analogy, a right to

say that those processes through which the existing solar systems have

arisen can have formed no exception to the general laws inherent in

matter, and that the cause of the first definite motion must have existed

in matter itself” (p. 53).

_Reader._ This is possible; but is it true?

_Büchner._ “We are the more justified in asserting this, as the many

irregularities, contingencies, etc., in the economy of the universe and

individual bodies, exclude the thought of an external personal activity”

(_ibid._)

_Reader._ What? Are you serious?

_Büchner._ “If it were the object of a personal creative power to create

worlds and dwelling‐places for men and animals, why, we may ask, these

enormous, waste, useless spaces, in which but here and there suns and

planets swim, floating about as imperceptible points? Why are not all

planets of our system so formed as to be inhabited by man? Why is the moon

without water and atmosphere, and consequently adverse to every organic

development? Wherefore the irregularities and enormous differences in the

size and distances of the planets of our solar system? Why the deficiency

in order, symmetry, and beauty? Why have all comparisons, analogies,

speculations, in regard to the number and forms of the planets, proved

idle fancies? Why, asks Hudson Tuttle, did the Creator give rings to

Saturn, which, surrounded by its eight moons, can have little need of

them, while Mars is left in total darkness? And again, the moon’s rotation

round its axis is, in relation to that of the earth, such that it always

presents to it the same surface. What is the reason of this? If there be

design in this arrangement, it must be admitted that it is very imperfect.

Why did the Creator not impart to the celestial bodies that order from

which the intention and the design could irresistibly be inferred?” (pp.

53, 54).

_Reader._ Unfortunate man that you are! You have already received the just

punishment of your rebellion against truth; you have been struck with

blindness. The thing is evident, say what you will. You make a fool of

yourself, as your preposterous queries prove nothing but your arrogance,

ignorance, and malice. You will never be cured of your blindness till you

lower your tone and humble your pride before the God whose works you

disregard, and whose wisdom you call in question. You are a smoky little

candle challenging the sun thus: “Why these enormous, waste, useless

spaces?” Is it necessary to inform you that those spaces are not waste and

useless? We have just seen that the expanse of the heavens reveals the

infinity of the Creator; accordingly, the enormous spaces which you

arrogantly call waste and useless proclaim most eloquently the highest

truth, the necessary truth, the source of all truths. “Why are not all

planets of our system so formed as to be inhabited by man?” In return let

me ask you, Why is not the atmosphere so formed as to be inhabited by

fishes? Indeed, if God has no need of peopling the air with fishes, it

would be hard to say on what principle he can be obliged to people the

planets with beings exactly similar to us in their organization. It is

plain that man, though the best creature on earth, is not the last effort

of Omnipotence; there can be rational beings made according to other

patterns, having a different organization and different needs. But whether

there are or not, it is not for you to ask why the planets are not so made

as to be inhabited by man. It is no less preposterous to ask, “Wherefore

the irregularities and enormous differences in the size and distances of

the planets of our solar system?” If the planets were all alike, and their

distances equal, would you not pronounce the world monotonous, and the

plan of creation a limited conception of an unintelligent mind? But now it

is variety that offends your æsthetics; and you denounce it as being

“irregularity.” Did you never hear that variety is a source of beauty? To

me, the musician who always harps on the same chord is a nuisance; and I

am sure that you too would prefer a full orchestra, with all the

“irregularities and enormous differences in the size, etc.,” of the

instruments employed. You find in the heavens “a deficiency in order,

symmetry, and beauty.” This only shows your bad taste. Do you think that

symmetry is indispensable for beauty? An oak is beautiful, though its

branches are not symmetrical. The sea‐shore, the hill, the valley, the

mountain, would lose much of their beauty, were they to be reduced to

symmetrical forms. Then you speak of a want of “order.” What do you

imagine order to be? Look on a chess‐board when the game is going on. Is

there any order? If you are no chess‐player, you will not perceive order,

but confusion; and yet there is order. Order is a suitable disposition of

things in pursuance of an end, and must be different when it has to lead

to a different end. He who has no knowledge of the end pursued cannot

judge of the suitableness or deficiency of the arrangements made in view

of such an end. When you think that the pieces are most disorderly mixed

up on the chess‐board, then perhaps they are in the most perfect order,

and the intelligent player already knows that he is about to checkmate his

adversary. So do not speak again of the order of the heavens until you are

called into the secret council of Divinity. I thought, doctor, that you

had some ability; yet how dull that man must be who asks “why all

comparisons, analogies, speculations, in regard to the number and forms of

the planets, have proved idle fancies”! The _why_ is evident. It is

because men are ignorant, and yet presumptuous. But does our ignorance

show that there is a deficiency of order in the heavens? No; our ignorance

only shows that the best thing we can do is to hold our tongue. As to the

rings of Saturn, what do you know besides their existence? And how could

you show that, because Saturn has eight moons, the rings can have no duty

to perform? But then, you say, “Mars is left in total darkness.” I reply

that twelve hours of darkness are not a _total_ darkness. Moreover, the

dense atmosphere and the small diameter of Mars are calculated to afford

it a long crepuscle, which may shorten very sensibly the length of its

night. And, after all, what need is there that Mars should have a moon?

Could we not do on earth without our moon? But you are scandalized that

our moon “always presents to us the same surface,” and never deigns to

show its other side. What a disorder! What an evidence of a want of

design! This it is that causes you to exclaim that “if there be design in

this arrangement, it must be admitted that it is very imperfect.” I remark

that you here admit with Tuttle that there may be design in this

arrangement. But if there is a design, there is a designer. Who is he? Is

he not the Omnipotent? For how can he fulfil his design if he does not

hold the heavens in his hand? The design, however, in your judgment, is

imperfect. Why? Only because your ignorance can put a question to which it

cannot make an answer. You say: “Why did the Creator not impart to the

celestial bodies that order from which the intention and the design could

irresistibly be inferred”" Your curiosity, doctor, lacks modesty. What

right have you to be instructed in detail of the intentions of the

Creator? Is he not the Master? Is he obliged to discover his secrets to

you, rebel and arrogant being, who disregard the most clear evidence of

his very existence? Would you be able to understand his plan if he were

willing to reveal it? The heavens proclaim God’s existence and attributes;

they glorify him by their beauty, variety, and harmony; they reveal the

general scope of creation; but they withhold the secrets which God has

reserved for himself. God’s providence and his government of the world are

infinitely wise, but they are inscrutable.

_Büchner._ Although you treat me with little regard, and apply to me very

hard epithets, I wish to make a short remark on what you call

“providence”: “Some perceive in the position and relations of the earth to

the sun, moon, and stars a designing providence; but they do not consider

that they confound cause and effect, and that we should be differently

organized if the inclination of the ecliptic were different or not

existing” (p. 55).

_Reader._ I think that you would have done better if you had withheld your

remark. That I treat you with little regard I do not deny; but, in truth,

I believe that if you deserve respect as a doctor, you deserve only

contempt as the author of _Force and Matter_. Freemasons praise your

person and extol your book; be satisfied with this. To us you are nothing

but a blind and obstinate sophist. If we apply to you some hard epithet,

you gave us the fullest right to do so; for remember that you have called

our great men “charlatans.” We, at least, when we call you ignorant,

arrogant, presumptuous, take care to prove that such epithets are well

applied; whilst you make denunciations, and give no proofs.

And now as to your remark about Providence. “Some,” you say, “perceive in

the position and relations of the earth to the sun, moon, and stars, a

designing providence.” Indeed, all great philosophers, nay, all mankind,

perceive that designing providence; but, from your words, it would seem

that this is only a peculiar bias of a few obscure and eccentric thinkers.

Hence those words, “_some_ perceive,” are calculated to conceal or

disguise a great historical truth—the testimony of mankind in favor of

divine providence. This may be called a trick. But what follows is a real

blunder. Those who recognize a providential order “do not consider,”

according to you, “that they confound cause and effect.” Where is there

confusion? Do you mean that what we call “Providence” is an effect of

natural laws?

_Büchner._ Exactly so.

_Reader._ Natural laws are abstractions, and abstractions can produce

nothing. Did you ever imagine that a law of geometry could make a circle,

or that a law of harmony could write a _quartetto_? Laws do not produce

facts, but are gathered from facts of which they exhibit the general

expression. Thus the natural laws are not natural causes, but abstract

formulas, and do not rule the world, as scientists too often assert, but

only our calculations and scientific inductions. Your blunder is evident.

But is it true, at least, that “we should be differently organized if the

inclination of the ecliptic were different or not existing”? No, doctor,

you are not happy in your illustration. A change of inclination of the

ecliptic would only alter the _distribution_ of heat on the terrestrial

surface without altering its _amount_; and as now men can live under

different latitudes and in different climes without being differently

organized, so also they would live and thrive under some different

inclination of the ecliptic without acquiring a different organization.

And if so, it would appear that your physical knowledge is as limited as

your philosophical attainments.

_Büchner._ Of course I am a doctor in medicine, not in physics or in

philosophy; but this I know: “that empirical philosophy, wherever it may

search for it, is nowhere able to find a trace of a supernatural

influence, either in time or space” (p. 55).

_Reader._ Quite true. Your “empirical philosophy” is unable to find

anything supernatural, wherever it may search for it. But are you so

simple as to believe that, if there is a God, you should be able to reach

him with the telescope, or to detect him by the microscope, or to get by

the balance an indication of his presence, or to find him in a retort, as

a residue after some chemical manipulation? Shame! shame! Is this your

method of convincing yourself that there is no God? Then, by shutting

yourself in a dark cellar, you should be able also to convince yourself

that the sun does not exist. Is it not a mockery to pretend that there is

nothing supersensible, _because_ it cannot be reached by experimentation

upon sensible things? I cannot but repeat that you have received the

punishment of your rebellion against truth. A man of your ability would

never fall into such absurdities from want of light; it is your hatred of

truth that distorts your reason and instigates you to heap sophism upon

sophism, and blasphemy upon blasphemy. You need not search for God; you

know him, and try in vain, like Cain, to fly from his face.

_Büchner._ You make a sermon rather than a discussion.

_Reader._ But whose fault is it if your assertions are so openly

incongruous as not to bear discussion? Even your “empirical philosophy” is

a myth. Are you not ashamed to appeal to a science which has no existence?

Chemistry is empirical, and other parts of physics may be empirical; but

empirical philosophy is nothing but a bombastic word without meaning, a

fit conclusion to a chapter wherein you try to make the heavens bear

witness against their Maker.

X. The Earth.

_Reader._ After the heavens you try to enlist the earth also among your

witnesses against God. But what can the earth say in your favor?

_Büchner._ “The investigations of geology have thrown a highly interesting

and important light on the history of the origin and gradual development

of the earth. It was in the rocks and strata of the crust of the earth,

and in the organic remains, that geologists read, as in an old chronicle,

the history of the earth. In this history they found the plainest

indications of several stupendous successive revolutions, now produced by

fire, now by water, now by their combined action. These revolutions

afforded, by the apparent suddenness and violence of their occurrence, a

welcome pretext to orthodoxy to appeal to the existence of supernatural

powers, which were to have caused these revolutions in order to render, by

gradual transitions, the earth fit for certain purposes. This successive

periodical creation is said to have been attended with a successive

creation of new organic beings and species. The Bible, then, was right in

relating that God had sent a deluge over the world to destroy a sinful

generation. God with his own hands is said to have piled up mountains,

planed the sea, created organisms, etc.” (p. 56).

_Reader._ And so he did. But mark that these Biblical expressions are

metaphorical.

_Büchner._ “All these notions concerning a direct influence of

supernatural or inexplicable forces have melted away before the age of

modern science” (p. 57).

_Reader._ Melted away? Indeed? And how?

_Büchner._ “Like astronomy, which with mathematical certainty has measured

the spaces of the heavens, so does modern geology, by taking a

retrospective view of the millions of years which have passed, lift the

veil which has so long concealed the history of the earth, and has given

rise to all kinds of religious and mysterious dreams” (_ibid._)

_Reader._ To call our views “religious and mysterious dreams” is no

argument, doctor. We have a history of the earth far more certain than all

your modern geology; and that portion of geology which is not fiction and

charlatanism not only does not contradict, but rather completes and

confirms, the Mosaic history.

_Büchner._ This is what I cannot admit. “It is now known that there can be

no discussion about those periodic creations of the earth of which so much

was said, and which to this day an erroneous conception of nature tries to

identify with the so‐called days of creation of the Bible; but that the

whole _past_ of the earth is nothing but an unfolded _present_” (_ibid._)

_Reader._ You say, “It is known.” No, sir, it is not known; it is only

wished. You infidels pretend to know a great many things of which you are

ignorant. If you _know_ that geology refutes the Bible, how does it happen

that you cannot impart to us such a knowledge in a rational manner—that

is, by proving what you assert?

_Büchner._ “Geology, supported by the knowledge of surrounding nature and

its governing forces, is enabled to trace the history of what has happened

in infinite periods of time with approximating exactness, frequently with

certainty. It has proved that everywhere and at all times only those

material and natural forces were in activity by which we are at present

surrounded” (p. 59).

_Reader._ This cannot be proved by geology.

_Büchner._ “Nowhere was a point reached when it was necessary to stop

scientific investigation, and to substitute the influence of unknown

forces” (_ibid._)

_Reader._ Not even for the origin of life?

_Büchner._ “Everywhere it was possible to indicate or to conceive the

possibility of visible effects from the combination of natural conditions;

everywhere existed the same law and the same matter” (_ibid._)

_Reader._ Of course. But this does not exclude the intervention of a

superior cause.

_Büchner._ “An enlightened intellect no longer requires the aid of that

powerful hand which, acting from without, excites the burning spirits of

the interior of the earth to a sudden rebellion, which pours the waters as

a deluge over the earth, and shapes for its designs the whole structure

like soft clay” (p. 60.)

_Reader._ This is openly false. All enlightened intellects acknowledge

that He who declared his intention of desolating Sodom by fire and the

world by the Deluge must have had a hand in the fulfilment of his menace.

_Büchner._ This is your Bible history, which we reject.

_Reader._ But can you refute it?

_Büchner._ “How curious and whimsical is not the conception of a creative

power, which conducts the earth and its inhabitants through various

transitions and immense periods of time to a more developed form, in order

to make it finally a fit dwelling‐place for the most organized animal—man!

Can an arbitrary and almighty power require such efforts to attain its

object? Can it not immediately and without delay do and create what seems

good to it? Why these roundabouts? The natural difficulties alone which

matter meets with in the gradual combinations and formations of its parts

can explain to us the peculiarity of the origin of the organic and

inorganic world” (p. 60).

_Reader._ It is ridiculous to speak of “efforts” of the Almighty; for no

one but a fool could dream of such an absurdity. Moreover, you confound

_creation_ with _formation_. By creation matter received existence

immediately, without “roundabouts”; for creation is not movement, and

therefore needs no time. This creation of matter was the work of God

alone; but the formation of the earth was successively brought about,

according to God’s plan, through the exertion of the natural powers, which

were not created to remain idle, but to carry on the objects intended by

their Creator. Now, the exertion of natural powers could not give rise to

a perfect order of things “immediately and without roundabouts.” Hence

your argument is worthless; and it is worthless precisely on account of

the “difficulties which matter meets with in the gradual combinations and

formations” of complex things. But matter meets with a much greater

difficulty, which you omit to mention. The difficulty is that matter does

not know how to form a molecule of hydrogen; and yet there is hydrogen.

_Büchner._ It chanced to be formed by nature.

_Reader._ Indeed? Chance might form _one_ molecule, or _two_, but could

not form millions of millions of them _all perfectly equal_ to one

another, for chance excludes uniformity. Nor does it avail to say that

their formation is the work of nature; for nature, according to you, is

only matter, and consequently it cannot do more than matter itself is

capable of doing.

_Büchner._ Science is still imperfect; we cannot as yet explain

everything. But geologists refute the Bible as to the six days of

creation. “The so‐called coal formation alone required, according to

Bischof, 1,004,177; according to Chevandier’s calculation, 672,788 years.

The tertiary strata, about 1,000 feet in thickness, required for their

development about 350,000 years; and before the originally incandescent

earth could cool down from a temperature of 2,000 degrees to 200, there

must, according to Bischof’s calculation, have elapsed a period of 350

millions of years. Volger finally calculates that the time requisite for

the deposit of the strata known to us must at least have amounted to 648

millions of years! From these numbers we may form some notion as to the

extent of these periods of time. They give us, moreover, another hint. The

enormous distances in the universe which stagger our imagination, in

combination with these almost unlimited periods of time, lead us to

acknowledge that both time and space are infinite and eternal” (p. 61).

_Reader._ You are always the same. Your conclusion that time is _infinite_

is pinned on the statement that the periods of geology are _almost_

unlimited—that is, not altogether without limit. I need not show that such

a rash conclusion is contradicted by your very calculations. And again, as

to the geological periods themselves, their length does not clash with the

six days of creation as described by the Bible. The word “day” is often

used in the Bible to express a great interval of time, and may be

interpreted as an “epoch,” or, as you say, a “period.” This is, in fact,

the interpretation of the word now accepted by our writers when explaining

the days of creation. Only our writers, more prudent than you, do not

pretend to determine the length of those epochs or periods; for they do

not indulge in wild calculations or imaginary data. When we see a

difference of 331,389 years between the results of two calculations

regarding the period of the coal formation, we may well suspend our

judgment, and not commit ourselves by the premature choice of either

opinion. But we admit the periods, nor are we afraid of identifying them

with the days of creation. The Bible has nothing to fear from geology or

any other science. We might, on the contrary, prove from geology the truth

and divine inspiration of the Mosaic narrative. Moses was no geologist,

and could not know the order of the events which took place before the

creation of man, except by supernatural revelation. Now, in his cosmogony

we observe not only the description of an order of events like that

deduced from modern geology, but “a system in the arrangement, and a far‐

reaching prophecy,” as Prof. Dana well remarks,(189) “to which philosophy

could not have attained, however instructed.” You see, doctor, that your

geological periods, instead of refuting the Bible, furnish us with a new

argument in support of its divine origin. Have you anything to reply?

_Büchner._ Your explanation of the Bible is quite new.

_Reader._ Be it so. Our ancient doctors, however, knew very well that the

word “day” in the Bible frequently means a great length of time. Had they

known geology, they would have unanimously interpreted the six days as six

great geological periods, just as we do.

_Büchner._ But I have still other arguments deduced from the primeval

generations.

_Reader._ I am ready to meet them. But I really think it is scarcely worth

the trouble to continue the discussion, as you have hitherto uniformly

failed in every point you have tried to establish.

(To Be Continued).