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Matter. III.

The plain philosophical and scientific proofs by which we have established the actio in distans, although sufficient, in our judgment, to convince every unbiassed reader of the truth of the view we have maintained, may nevertheless prove inadequate to remove the prejudice of those who regard the time-honored doctrine of action by material contact as axiomatic and unassailable. It is true that they cannot upset our arguments; but they oppose to us other arguments, which they confidently believe to be unanswerable. It is therefore necessary for us to supplement our previous demonstration by a careful analysis of the objections which can be made against it, and to show the intrinsic unsoundness of the reasonings by which they are supported. This is what we intend to do in the present article.

A first objection.—The first and chief argument advanced against the possibility of actio in distans without a material medium of communication is thus developed in the Popular Science Monthly for November, 1873 (p. 94), by J. B. Stallo:

“How is the mutual action of atoms existing by themselves in complete insulation, and wholly without contact, to be realized in thought? We are here in presence of the old difficulties respecting the possibility of actio in distans which presented themselves to the minds of the physicists in Newton's time, and constituted one of the topics of the famous discussion between Leibnitz and Clarke, in the course of which Clarke made the remarkable admission that ‘if one body attracted another without an intervening body, that would be not a miracle, but a contradiction; for it would be to suppose that a body acts where it is not’—otherwise [pg 002] expressed: Inasmuch as action is but a mode of being, the assertion that a body can act where it is not would be tantamount to the assertion that a body can be where it is not. This admission was entirely in consonance with Newton's own opinion; indeed, Clarke's words are but a paraphrase of the celebrated passage in one of Newton's letters to Bentley, cited by John Stuart Mill in his System of Logic, which runs as follows: ‘It is inconceivable that inanimate brute matter should, without the mediation of something else which is not material, operate upon and affect other matter without mutual contact.... That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, so that one body may act on another, at a distance, through a vacuum, without the mediation of anything else by and through which their action and force be conveyed from one to the other, is to me so great an absurdity that I believe no man, who in philosophical matters has a competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it.’ ”

Before we enter into the discussion of this objection we must remark that it is scarcely fair to allege Newton's view as contrary to actio in distans. For he neither requires a material contact of matter with matter nor a material medium of communication; he says, on the contrary, that the inanimate brute matter needs the mediation of something else which is not material; which amounts to saying that his inanimate brute matter must have all around a non-material sphere of power, without which it would never reach any distant matter. This assertion, far from being a denial of actio in distans, seems rather to be a remote endeavor towards its explanation; and it may be surmised that, had Newton been as well acquainted with the metaphysical doctrine about the essential constituents of substance as he was with the mathematical formulas of mechanics, he would have recognized in his “inanimate brute matter” the potential constituent of material substance, and in his “something else which is not material” the formal constituent of the same substance and the principle of its operation. The only objectionable phrase we find in the passage now under consideration is that in which he describes action and force as conveyed from matter to matter. But, as he explicitly maintains that this convection requires no material medium, the phrase, whatever may be its verbal inaccuracy, is not scientifically wrong, and cannot be brought to bear against the actio in distans. We therefore dismiss this part of the objection as preposterous, and shall at once turn our attention to Clarke's argument, which may be reduced to the syllogistic form thus:

“A body cannot act where it is not present either by itself or by its power. But actio in distans is an action which would be exerted where the body is not present by itself, as is evident; and where the body is not present by its power, as there is no medium of communication. Therefore the actio in distans is an impossibility.”

The objection, though extremely plausible, is based on a false assumption—that is, on the supposition that there can be distance from the active power of one element to the matter of another. The truth is that, however far matter may be distant from matter, no active power can ever be distant from it. For no distance in space is conceivable without two formal [pg 003] ubications. Now, a material element has undoubtedly a formal ubication in space by reason of its matter, which is the centre of its sphere of activity, but not by reason of its active power. Distances, in fact, are always measured from a point to a point, and never from a point to an active power, nor from an active power to a point. The matter of a primitive element marks out a point in space, and from this point we take the direction of its exertions; but the power of an element, as contradistinguished from its matter, is not a point in space, nor does it mark a point in space, nor is it conceivable as a term of distance. And therefore to suppose that there may be a distance from the active power of an element to the point where another element is ubicated, is to make a false supposition. The active power transcends the predicament ubi, and has no place within which we can confine it; it is not circumscribed like matter, and is not transmissible, as the objection supposes, from place to place through any material medium; it is ready, on the contrary, to act directly and immediately upon any matter existing in its indefinite1 sphere, while its own matter is circumscriptively ubicated in that single point2 which is the centre of the same sphere. Prof. Faraday explicitly affirmed that “each atom extends, so to say, throughout the whole of the solar system, yet always retains its own centre of force”;3 which, in metaphysical language, means that while the matter of a primitive element occupies a single point, the form constitutes around it an indefinite sphere of power. And for this reason it was Faraday's opinion that the words actio in distans should not be employed in science. For although the matter of one body is distant from the matter of another, yet the power that acts is not distant; and therefore, although there is no contact of matter with matter, there is a contactus virtutis, or a contact of power with matter, which alone is required for the production of the effect.

We are far from supposing that the adversaries of the actio in distans will be silenced by the preceding answer; as it is very probable that the answer itself will be to many of them a source of new difficulties. Still, many things are true which are difficult to be understood; and it would be against reason to deny truths sufficiently inferred from facts, only on account of the difficulty which we experience in giving a popular explanation of them. Those who, to avoid such a difficulty, deny action at a distance, expose themselves to other difficulties which are much more real, as admitting of no possible solution; and if they reject actions at a distance because their explanation appears to be difficult, they are also bound to reject even more decidedly all actions by material contact; for these indeed admit of no explanation whatever, as we have already shown.4

To understand and explain how material elements can act at any distance is difficult, for this one radical reason: that our intellectual work is never purely intellectual, [pg 004] but is always accompanied by the working of that other very useful, but sometimes mischievous, power which we call imagination; and because, when we are trying to understand something that transcends imagination, and of which no sensible image can be formed, our intellect finds itself under the necessity of working without the assistance of suitable sensible representations. Our imagination, however, cannot remain inactive, and therefore it strives continually to supply the intellect with new images; but as these, unhappily, are not calculated to afford any exact representation of intellectual things, the intellect, instead of receiving help from the imagination, is rather embarrassed and led astray by it. On the other hand, the words which we are generally obliged to use in speaking of intellectual objects are more or less immediately drawn from sensible things, and have still a certain connection with sensible images. With such words, our explanations must, of course, be metaphorical in some degree, and represent the intelligible through the sensible, even when the latter is incompatible with the former. This is one of the reasons why, in some cases, men fail to express intelligibly and in an unobjectionable manner their most intellectual thoughts. True it is that the metaphysicians, by the definite form of their terminology, have greatly diminished this last difficulty; but, as their language is little known outside of the philosophical world, our use of it will scarcely help the common reader to understand what it conveys. On the contrary, the greater the exactness of our expressions, the more strange and absurd our style will appear to him who knows of no other language than that of his senses, his imagination, and popular prejudice.

These general remarks apply most particularly to actio in distans. It is objected that a cause cannot act where it is not, and where its power is not conveyed through a material medium. Now, this proposition is to be ranked among those which nothing but popular prejudice, incompleteness of conception, and imperfection of language cause to be received as axiomatic. We have pointed out that no material medium exists through which power can be conveyed; but as the objection is presented in popular terms and appeals to imagination, whilst our answer has no such advantage, it is very probable that the objection will keep its ground as long as men will be led by imagination more than by intellect. To avoid this danger, Faraday preferred to say that “the atom [primitive element] of matter is everywhere present,” and therefore can act everywhere. But by this answer the learned professor, while trying to avoid Scylla, struck against Charybdis. For, if the element of matter is everywhere present, then Westminster Abbey, for instance, is everywhere present; which cannot be true in the ordinary sense of the words. In fact, we are accustomed to say that a body is present, not in that place where its action is felt, but in that from which the direction of the action proceeds, and since such a direction proceeds from the centres of power, to these centres alone we refer when we point out the place occupied by a body. Prof. Faraday, on the contrary, refers to the active powers when he says that matter is everywhere present; for he considers the elements as [pg 005] consisting of power alone.5 But this way of speaking is irreconcilable with the notions we have of determinate places, distances, etc., and creates a chaotic confusion in all our ideas of material things. He speaks more correctly in the passage which we have already mentioned, where he states that “each atom [element] extends, so to say, throughout the whole of the solar system, yet always retaining its own centre of force.” Here the words “so to say” tell us clearly that the author, having found no proper terms to express himself, makes use of a metaphor, and attributes extension to the material elements in a sense which is not yet adopted in common use. He clearly wishes to say that “each element extends virtually throughout space, though it materially occupies only the central point from which its action is directed.”

This latter answer is very good. But people are not likely to realize its full meaning; for in speaking of material substance men frequently confound that which belongs to it by reason of its matter with that which belongs to it by reason of its substantial form. It is evident, however, that if the substance had no matter, it would not mark out a point in space; it is, therefore, only on account of its matter that a substance is formally ubicated.

As to the substantial form (which is the principle of activity), although it is said to have a kind of ubication on account of the matter to which it is terminated, nevertheless, of itself, it has no capability of formal ubication, as we have already shown. Hence the extent to which the active power of an element can be applied is not to be measured by the ubication of its matter; and although no cause can act where it is not virtually by its power, yet a cause can act where it is not present by its matter.

The direct answer to the argument proposed would, therefore, be as follows:

“A body cannot act where it is not present either by itself or by its power.” Granted.

“But actio in distans is an action which would be exerted where the body is not present by itself, as is evident.” Granted. “And where the body is not present by its power.” False.

To the reason adduced, that “there is no medium of communication,” we simply reply that such a medium is not required, as the active power constitutes an indefinite sphere, and is already present after its own manner (that is, virtually) wherever it is to be exerted; and therefore it has no need of being transmitted through a medium.

This is the radical solution of the difficulty proposed. But the notion of an indefinite sphere of activity, on which this solution is grounded, is, in the eyes of our opponents, only a whimsical invention, inconsistent, as they think, with the received principles of philosophy. We must therefore vindicate our preceding answer against their other objections.

A second objection.—A sphere of power, they say, is a mere absurdity. [pg 006] For how can the active power be there, where its matter is not? The matter is the first subject of its form; and therefore the form must be in the matter, and not outside of it. But in a primitive substance the active power is entitatively the same thing with the substantial form; accordingly, the active power of a primitive substance must be entirely in its matter, and not outside of it. And the same conclusion is to be applied to the powers of all material compounds; for in all cases the form must be supported by the matter. How is it, then, possible to admit a sphere of power outside of its matter, and so distant from its matter as is the sun from the planets?

This objection, which we have often heard from men who should have known better, is wholly grounded on a false conception of the relation between the matter and the form of a primitive being. It is false, in fact, that the matter supports the substantial form, and it is false that the substantial form exists in the matter as in a subject. The accidental act requires a subject already existing; but the substantial act requires only a potential term to which it has to give the first existence. This is evident; because if the substantial act ought to be supported by a real subject, this real subject would be an actual substance before receiving the same substantial act; which is a contradiction in terms. And therefore the form is not supported by the matter, but only terminated to it; and the matter is not the subject of the form, though it is so called by many, but is only the substantial term, to which the substantial form gives existence. “Properly speaking,” says S. Thomas, “that which is potential in regard to some accidental actuality is called subject. For the subject gives actuality to the accident, as the accident has no actuality except through its subject; and for this reason we say that accidents are in a subject, whereas we do not say that the substantial form is in a subject. ‘Matter,’ therefore, and ‘subject,’ differ in this: that ‘subject’ means something which does not receive its actuality by the accession of anything else, but exists by itself and possesses a complete actuality (as, for example, a white man does not receive his being from his whiteness). ‘Matter,’ on the contrary, means something which receives its actuality from that which is given to it; because matter has, of itself, only an incomplete being, or rather no being at all, as the Commentator says. Hence, to speak properly, the form gives existence to the matter; whereas the accident gives no existence to the subject, as it is the subject that gives existence to the accident. Yet ‘matter’ is sometimes confounded with ‘subject,’ and vice versa.”6

From this doctrine it is manifest that the matter is not the subject of the substantial form, and consequently that the form, or the principle of activity, is in no need of being supported by its matter. It is rather the matter itself that needs to be supported—that is, kept in existence—by its form; as it has no being except from it. The matter is potency, and the form is act; now, all act is nobler than its corresponding potency. It is not, therefore, the potency that determines the conditions of existence of its act, but the act itself determines the conditions of existence [pg 007] of its potency. And thus it is not the matter that determines the range of its form, but it is the form that determines the being of its own matter, in the same manner as the form of a body determines its centre of gravity. These considerations, which will hereafter receive a greater development, suffice to show that the range of the elementary power is not determined or circumscribed by its material term. And thus the objection is substantially destroyed.

Those who make this objection suppose that the activity of a material element is entitatively enclosed, embedded, and merged in the matter as in a physical recipient by which it must be circumscribed. This supposition is a gross philosophical blunder. The matter of a primitive element is not a physical recipient of the substantial form; for it is nothing physically before it is actuated. The substantial form gives to the matter its first being; and therefore it cannot be related to it as the enclosed to the encloser or the supported to the supporter, but only as the determiner to the determinable. This is an obvious metaphysical truth that cannot be questioned. Moreover, the form can determine the existence of a material point in space without being itself confined to that point. This is very clearly inferred from the fact already established, viz., that a material point acts all around itself in accordance with the Newtonian law; for this fact compels the conception of a material element as a virtual sphere, of which the matter is the central point, while its virtual sphericity must be traced to the special character of the form. Now, although the centre of a sphere borrows all its centric reality from the sphericity of which it is the intrinsic term, yet the sphericity itself cannot be confined within its own centre; which shows that, although the matter of an element borrows all its reality from the substantial form of which it is the essential term, yet the substantial form itself, on account of its known spherical character, must virtually extend all around its matter, and constitute, so to say, an atmosphere of power expanding as far, at least, from the central point as is necessary for the production of the phenomena of universal gravitation.

Nor can this be a sufficient ground for inferring, as the objection does, that in such a case the form would be distant from its matter as much as the sun is from the planets. The form, as such, cannot be considered as a term of the relation of distance; for, as we have already remarked, there is no distance without two formal ubications. Now, the form, as such, has no formal ubication, but is reduced to the predicament ubi only by the ubication of its own matter. Hence it is impossible rationally to conceive a distance between the matter and its form, however great may be the sphere of activity of the material element. When the substantial form is regarded as a principle of accidental actions, we may indeed consider it, if not as composed of, at least as equivalent to, a continuous series of concentric spherical forms overlying one another throughout the whole range of activity; and we may thus conceive every one of them as virtually distant from the material centre, its virtual distance being measured by its radius. But, strictly speaking, the radius measures the distance between the agent and the [pg 008] patient, not between the agent and its own power; and, on the other hand, as the imagined series of concentric sphericities continues uninterruptedly up to the very centre of the sphere, we can easily perceive that the substantial form, even as a principle of action, is immediately and intrinsically terminated to its own matter.

A third objection.—What conception can we form of an indefinite sphere? For a sphere without a spherical surface is inconceivable. But an indefinite sphere is a sphere without a spherical surface; for if there were a surface, there would be a limit; and if there were a limit, the sphere would not extend indefinitely. It is therefore impossible to conceive an indefinite sphere of activity.

This objection is easily answered. A sphere without a spherical form is indeed inconceivable; but it is not necessary that the spherical form should be a limiting surface, as the objection assumes. We may imagine an indefinite sphere of matter; that is, a body having a density continually decreasing in the inverse ratio of the squared distances from a central point. Its sphericity would consist in the spherical decrease of its density; which means that the body would be a sphere, not on account of an exterior spherical limit, but on account of its interior constitution. Now, what we say of an indefinite sphere of matter applies, by strict analogy, to an indefinite sphere of power. Only, in passing from the former to the latter, the word density should be replaced by intensity; for intensity is to power what density is to matter. And thus an indefinite sphere of power may have its spherical character within itself without borrowing it from a limiting surface. We may, therefore, consider this third objection as solved.

Let us add that in our sphere of power not only all the conditions are fulfilled which the law of gravitation requires, but, what is still more satisfactory, all the conditions also which befit the metaphysical constitution of a primitive substance. We have a centre (matter), the existence of which essentially depends on the existence of a principle of activity (form) constituting a virtual sphere. Take away the substantial form, and the matter will cease to have existence. Take away the virtual sphericity, and the centre will be no more. But let the spherical form be created; the centre will immediately be called into existence as the essential and intrinsic term of sphericity, it being impossible for a real sphericity not to give existence to a real centre. And although this spherical form possesses an intensity of power decreasing in proportion as the sphere expands, still it has everywhere the same property of giving existence to its centre, since it has everywhere an intrinsic spherical character essentially connected with a central point as its indispensable term. Whence we see that the substantial form, though virtually extending into an indefinite sphere, is everywhere terminated to its own matter. Thus the Newtonian law and the actio in distans, far from being opposed to the known metaphysical law of the constitution of things, serve rather to make it more evident by affording us the means of representing to ourselves in an intelligible and almost tangible manner the ontologic relation of matter and form in the primitive substance.

A fourth objection.—A power [pg 009] which virtually extends throughout an indefinite sphere must possess an infinite intensity. But no material element possesses a power of infinite intensity. Therefore no element extends its power throughout an indefinite sphere. The major of this syllogism is proved thus: In an indefinite sphere we can conceive an infinite multitude of concentric spherical surfaces, to every one of which the active power of the element can be applied for the production of a finite effect. But the finite taken an infinite number of times gives infinity. Therefore the total action of an element in its sphere will be infinite; which requires a power of infinite intensity.

The answer to this objection is not difficult. From the fact that the active powers virtually extend through an indefinite sphere and act everywhere in accordance with the Newtonian law, it is impossible to prove that material elements possess a power of infinite intensity. We concede, of course, that in an indefinite sphere “an infinite multitude of concentric spherical surfaces can be conceived, to every one of which the active power of the element can be applied for the production of a finite effect.” We also concede that “the finite taken an infinite number of times gives infinity.” But when it is argued that therefore “the total action of an element in its sphere will be infinite,” we must distinguish. The total action will be infinite in this sense: that it would reach an infinite multitude of terms, if they existed in its sphere, and produce in each of them a determinate effect, according to their distance—this we concede. The total action will be infinite—that is, the total effort of the element will be infinitely intense; this we deny. The schoolmen would briefly answer that the action will be infinite terminative, but not intensive. This distinction, which entirely upsets the objection, needs a few words of explanation.

In the action of one element upon another the power of the agent, while exerted on the patient, is not prevented from exerting itself at the very same time upon any other element existing in its sphere of activity. This is a well-known physical law. Hence the same element can emit a thousand actions simultaneously, without possessing a thousand powers or a thousandfold power, by the simultaneous application of its single power to a thousand different terms. The actions of an agent are therefore indefinitely multiplied by the mere multiplication of the terms, with no multiplication of the active power; and accordingly an active power of finite intensity may have an infinite applicability. This is true of all created powers. Our intellect, for instance, is substantially finite, and yet it can investigate and understand any number of intelligible objects. This amounts to saying that, if there is no limit to possible intellectual conceptions, there is no limit to the number of intelligible terms; but from this fact it would be absurd to infer that a created intellect has a power of infinite intensity. In like manner, the motive power of a material element is substantially finite, and yet it can be applied to the production of a number of movements which has no limit but the number of the terms capable of receiving the motion. The infinity of the total action is therefore grounded on an assumed infinity of terms, not on an infinite intensity of the power.

Nor can this be a matter of surprise. For, as the motive power is not transmitted from the agent to the patient, it remains whole and entire in the agent, however much it may be exerted in all directions. It is not absorbed, or exhausted, or weakened by its exertions, and, while acting on any number of terms, is yet ready to act on any number of other terms as intensely as it would on each of them separately. If ten new planets were now created, the sun would need no increase of power to attract them all; its actual power would suffice to govern their course without the least interference with the gravitation of the other existing planets. And the reason of this is that the power of all material elements is naturally determined to act, and therefore needs no other condition for its exertion than the presence of the movable terms within the reach of its activity. The number of such terms is therefore at every instant the measure of the number of the real actions.

We have said that the active power is not weakened by its exertions. In fact, a cause is never weakened by the mere production of its connatural effects, but only because, while producing its effects, it is subjected to the action of other agents which tends to alter and break up its natural constitution. Now, to be altered and impaired may be the lot of those causes whose causality arises from the conspiration of many active principles, as is the case with all the physical compounds. But primitive causes, such as the first elements of matter, are altogether unalterable and incorruptible with respect to their substantial being, and can never be impaired. When we burn a piece of paper, the paper with its composition is destroyed, but we know that its first components remain unaltered, and preserve still the same active powers which they possessed when they were all united in the piece of paper.

This incontrovertible fact maybe confirmed à priori by reflecting that the active principle, or the substantial form, of a primitive element, is not exposed to the influence of any natural agent capable of impairing it. Everything that is impaired is impaired by its contrary. Now, the active principle has no contrary. The only thing which might be imagined to be contrary to a motive power would be a motive power of an opposite nature, such as the repulsive against the attractive. Motive powers, however, do not act on one another, but on their matter only, as matter alone is passive. On the other hand, even if one power could act on another, its motive action would only produce an accidental determination to local movement, which determination surely would not alter in the least the substance of a primitive being. Hence, although two opposite actions, when terminated to the same subject, can neutralize each other, yet two opposite motive powers can never exercise any influence on each other by their natural actions; and therefore, in spite of their finite entity, they are never impaired or weakened, and are applicable to the production of an unlimited number of actions.

A fifth objection.—An action of infinite intensity cannot but proceed from a power of infinite intensity. But, according to the Newtonian law, two elements, when their distance has become infinitely small, act on one another with an intensity infinitely great. Therefore, if the Newtonian law hold good even to the very centre of the element, the [pg 011] elementary power possesses infinite intensity.

To this we reply that the mathematical expression of the intensity of the action, in the case of infinitesimal distances, does not become infinite, except when the action is supposed to last for a finite unit of time. But the action continued for a finite unit of time is not the actual action of an element; it is the integral of all the actions exerted in the infinite series of infinitesimal instants which makes up the finite unit of time. To judge of the true intensity of the actual exertion, it is necessary to exclude from the calculation the whole of the past or future actions, and to take into account the only action which corresponds to the infinitesimal present. In other terms, the actual action is expressed, not by an integral, but by a differential. In fact, the elements act when they are, not when they have been, or when they will be; they act in their present, not in their future or in their past; and the present, the now, is only an instant, which, though connecting the past with the future, has in itself neither past nor future, and therefore has a rigorously infinitesimal duration. It is this instant, and not the finite unit of time, that measures the actual effort of the elements. Accordingly, the action as actually proceeding from the elements, when at infinitesimal distance, is infinitely less than the integral calculated for a finite unit of time; which shows that the argument proposed has no foundation.

This answer serves also to complete our solution of the preceding objection. It was there objected that the active power of an element can be applied to the production of an infinite multitude of finite effects; to which we answered that a finite power was competent to do this by being applied simultaneously to an infinite multitude of terms. But now we add that none of those effects acquire a finite intensity, except by the continuation of the action during a finite unit of time, and therefore that the true effect produced in every instant of time is infinitesimal. Hence the infinite multitude of such effects, as related to the instant of their actual production, is an infinite multitude of infinitesimals, and the total effort of a primitive element in every instant of time is therefore finite, not infinite.

A sixth objection.—If we admit that a material element has an indefinite sphere of power, we must also admit that the element has a kind of immensity. For the active power must evidently be present entitatively in all the parts of space where it is ready to act. Accordingly, as by the hypothesis it is ready to act everywhere, its sphere being unlimited, it must be present everywhere and extend without limit. In other words, the elementary power would share with God the attribute of immensity—which is impossible.

This objection, which, in spite of its apparent strength, contains only an appeal to imagination instead of intellect, might be answered from S. Thomas in two different ways. The first answer is suggested by the following passage: “The phrase, A thing is everywhere and in all times, can be understood in two manners: First, as meaning that the thing possesses in its entity the reason of its extending to every place and to every time; and in this manner it is proper of God to be everywhere and for ever. Secondly, as meaning that the thing has nothing in itself by which it be [pg 012] determined to a certain place or time.”7 According to this doctrine, a thing can be conceived to be everywhere, either by a positive intrinsic determination to fill all space, or by the absence of any determination implying a special relation to place. We might therefore admit that the elementary power is everywhere in this second manner; for although the matter of an element marks out a point in space, we have seen that its power, as such, has no determination by which it can be confined to a limited space. And yet nothing would oblige us to concede that the active power of an element, by its manner of being everywhere, “shares in God's immensity”; for it is evident that an absence of determination has nothing common with a positive determination, and is not a share of it.

The second answer is suggested by a passage in which the holy doctor inquires “whether to be everywhere be an attribute of God alone,” and in which he proposes to himself the objection that “universals are everywhere; so also the first matter, as existing in all bodies, is everywhere; and therefore something is everywhere besides God.” To which he very briefly replies: “Universals and the first matter are indeed everywhere, but they have not everywhere the same being.”8 This answer can be applied to the active power of primitive elements with as much reason, to say the least, as it is to the first matter. The active power may therefore be admitted to be everywhere, not indeed like God, who is everywhere formally, and “has everywhere the same being,” but in a quite different manner—that is, by extending everywhere virtually, and by possessing everywhere a different degree of virtual being. We know, in fact, that this is the case, as the exertions of such a power become weaker and weaker in proportion as the object acted on is more and more distant from the centre of activity.

Yet a third answer, which may prove to be the best, can be drawn from the direct comparison of the pretended immensity of the elementary power with the real immensity of the divine substance. God's immensity is an infinite attribute, which contains in itself the formal reason of the existence of space, and therefore eminently contains in itself all possible ubications. By his immensity God is essentially everywhere with his whole substance, and is as infinite and entire in any one point of space as he is in the whole of the universe and outside of it. On the other hand, what is the pretended immensity of the elementary power? It is unnecessary to remark that an indefinite sphere of power does not give existence to space, as it presupposes it; but it is important to notice that, however great may be the expansion of that virtual sphere, the essence and the substance of the element are absolutely confined to that single point, where its form is terminated to its matter. Both matter and form are included in the essence of an element; hence there only can the element be with its essence and substance where its matter and its form are together. [pg 013] But they are not together, except in a single point. Therefore the element, however great may be the virtual expansion of its sphere of power, is essentially and substantially present only in a single point.

From this every one will see that there is no danger of confounding the virtual ubiquity of created power with God's immensity. Divine immensity has been ingeniously, though somewhat strangely, defined by a philosopher to be “a sphere of which the centre is everywhere.” The power of an element, on the contrary, is “a sphere of which the centre is ubicated in a single point.” If this does not preclude the notion that the element “shares in God's immensity,” we fail to see why every creature should not share also in God's eternity, by its existence in each successive moment of time. The objection is therefore insignificant. As to the virtual sphere itself, we must bear in mind that its power loses continually in intensity as the virtual expansion is increased, till millions of millions of elements are required to produce the least appreciable effect. Hence the virtuality of elementary powers tends continually towards zero as its limit, although it never reaches it. And as a decreasing series, though implying an infinity of terms, may have a finite value, as mathematicians know, so the virtuality of the elementary powers, although extending after its own manner beyond any finite limit, represents only a finite property of a finite being.

From what we have said in these pages the intelligent reader will realize, we hope, that the much-maligned actio in distans, as explained by us according to Faraday's conception, can bear any amount of philosophical scrutiny. The principles which have formed the basis of our preceding answers are the three following:

1st. Motive powers have no other formal ubication than that from which their exertions proceed;

2d. Motive powers are never distant from any matter;

3d. Motive powers are not merged or embedded in the matter to which they belong, but constitute a virtual sphere around it.

That actio in distans not only is possible, but is the only action possible with the material agents, has been proved in our preceding article. The embarrassment we experience in its explanation arises, not from our reason, but from our habit of relying too much on our imagination. “Imagination,” says S. Thomas, “cannot rise above space and time.” We depict to ourselves intellectual relations as local relations. The idea that a material point situated on the earth can exert its power on the polar star suggests to us the thought that the active power of that element must share the ubication of the polar star, and be locally present to it. Yet the true relation of the power to the star is not a local relation, and the exertion of the power is not terminated to the place where the star is, but to the star itself as to its proper subject; and therefore the relation is a relation of act to potency, not a relation of local presence.

There is nothing local in the principle of activity, except the central point from which its action is directed; and there is nothing local in its action, except the direction from that central point to the subject to which the action is terminated. True it is that we speak of a sphere of power, which seems to imply local relations. But such a sphere [pg 014] is not locally determined by the power, which has no ubication, but by the matter to which that power is to be applied. For the necessity of admitting a sphere of power arises from the fact that all the matter placed at equal distance from the centre of activity is equally acted on. It is only from matter to matter that distance can be conceived; and thus it is only from matter to matter, and not from matter to power, that the radius of a sphere can be traced. Abstract geometry deals with imaginary points, but physical geometry requires real points of matter.

Power is above geometry, and therefore it transcends space; hence the difficulty of understanding its nature and of explaining the mode of its operation. Nevertheless, power and matter are made for one another, and must have a mutual co-ordination, since they necessarily conspire into unity of essence. Hence whatever can be predicated potentially of the matter can be virtually predicated of the power; and, as the matter of an element, though actuated in a single point of space, is everywhere potentially—viz., can be moved to any distant place—so also the principle of activity, though formally terminated to a single point, is everywhere virtually—that is, it can impart motion to matter at any distance. Thus actio in distans might directly be inferred, as a necessary result, from the ontological correlation of the essential principles of matter. But we have no need of à priori arguments, as, in questions of fact, the best arguments are those which arise from the analysis of the facts themselves. These arguments we have already given; and, so long as they are not refuted, we maintain that nothing but actio in distans offers a philosophical explanation of natural facts.

To Be Continued.

Hope.

The Veil Withdrawn.

Translated, By Permission, From The French Of Madame Craven, Author Of “A Sister's Story,” “Fleurange,” Etc.

September—Sabbath Rest.

The Present State Of Anglicanism.

A bill for the regulation of public worship, prepared by Dr. Tait, Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury, and which after certain modifications has passed through Parliament, is causing the state church to undergo another of those feverish crises which for about thirty years past have marked with a new feature its internal as well as its external disorganization.

Before that period it had been the chief boast of that church, in every section of her members, whether “High” or “Evangelical,” to have repudiated the “blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits” of the ancient faith from which she had apostatized, the ancient unity from which she had severed herself, and the ancient doctrines which she denounced.

Since that period, however, a change has come over a portion of the Establishment, by the formation in its bosom of a new party, differing from all its predecessors, and possessing, moreover, its own scale of belief, graduated ad libitum.

The thoughtful and earnest writers of the Tracts for the Times, becoming painfully conscious of the want of consistency of belief, and also of the need of a spiritual head or centre of authority in their own communion, sought anxiously into the details of its origin and history, and also into the past and present of the ancient church, from whose venerable features they removed the veil of obloquy and misrepresentation which had been thrown over them. Their search proved that to be a merely human institution which they had regarded as divine, and the unveiling of that long-hidden countenance revealed to them the divine lineaments of the one true Mother who for three weary centuries had been to England a “Mother out of sight.”11

Most of those men transferred their allegiance whither alone it was due; having dug to the foundations of their edifice to find them giving way at every corner, they took refuge in the city against which so often the “hail descended, and the wind blew, but it fell not; for it was built upon a rock.” But they did not fail to leave an abiding impression upon the communion they abandoned. Many who forbore to follow their example were yet unable to deny the truth of the principles which had found their ultimate resolution in this exodus, although they persuaded themselves and others that it was their duty to remain in order to solidify and adorn that structure which they designate the “church of their baptism,” slow to believe that it is a house “built on the sand.”

Thus, during the last thirty years or so, it has been the aim of a small but increasing number of Anglicans to claim consideration for their communion on higher grounds than its founders would by any means have approved, and, becoming suddenly shy of its state parentage, to declare it to be a “Branch” and a “Sister” of that [pg 042] church which the creators of their own moved heaven and earth, or rather the gates of hell, to destroy.

In order to support their claim, they find it necessary to distort the meaning of their formularies in the vain endeavor to coax or to force them into some resemblance to the teaching of the Council of Trent, those which are hopelessly irreconcilable being left out of the account as little differences which it is inconvenient to remember. In numerous cases they are practically set aside, or contradicted, notwithstanding the fact that at their “ordination” the ministers of the Church of England solemnly bind themselves to teach in accordance with these very formularies.

Moreover, finding their own mutilated communion service insufficient, and yet claiming and professing to “say Mass,” which they were never intended to say, and which in their present position they are utterly incapable of celebrating, the ritualistic ministers are in the habit of supplementing the deficiencies of their own liturgy by private interpolations from the Roman Missal, which, in case they are questioned on the subject, they designate as “prayers from ancient sources,” a statement less honest than true. One thing after another do they imitate or claim as their own, now a doctrine, now a practice, which for three hundred years their communion has emphatically disowned: vestments, lights, prayers for the dead, confession, transubstantiation, in some “extreme” quarters intercession of the saints; here a gesture and there a decoration, which only has its fitness and meaning in the ancient church and her venerable ritual, but which with them can claim no title but that of doctrinal, disciplinary, and decorative disobedience—however great may be the pains they take to force the false to simulate the true, and however pertinaciously they may dare, as they do, to appropriate to themselves and to their chaotic schism the very name of the Catholic Church, out of whose fold they are content to remain in hereditary apostasy.

Among the four principal sections of “High,” “Low,” “Broad,” and “No” church, into which the Anglican communion is divided, the “Low” or (so-called) “Evangelical” school is the sternest opponent of the new “Extreme” or “Ritualistic” party, which it very mistakenly honors with the name of Romanizers. We say mistakenly, because, however they may imitate according to their various shades of opinion the outward ceremonial of the church, or adopt, at choice, more or less of her doctrines, yet all this in their case is but a double development of Protestantism (to say nothing of the effect it produces of making them rest satisfied with the shadow instead of seeking the substance);12 for none are so bitter as they against the church they are so desirous to resemble, and also none are so practically disobedient to their own ecclesiastical superiors, in spite of reiterated professions to the contrary. It is this persistent disobedience which has brought about the present crisis.

In the Evangelical party there exists a society calling itself the [pg 043] “Church Association,” of which one principal object is to watch over the principles of the reformation,13 and to keep a jealous eye upon the movements of tractarianism in all its varied developments.

Chiefly in consequence of the representations of this society, and also of the determination of the High-Church clergy not to obey the decision that has been given against various of their practices in the “Purchas judgment,” until they should have obtained a redecision from another court to which they had appealed, Dr. Tait, Archbishop of Canterbury, laid before the Houses of Parliament a bill entitled the “Public Worship Regulation Bill,” of which the object is to secure the suppression of all the illegal practices in which Ritualists habitually indulge, and also to secure obedience to their legally and ecclesiastically constituted authorities. Rightly or wrongly, all the innovations or changes that have been gradually rousing “the Protestant feeling of the country,” and which are in fact, if not in intention, imitations of Catholic ritual, were to be put down. The bill requires that in each diocese a local court should be established, before which any church-warden, or three parishioners, “having cause of complaint against the incumbent, as failing to observe the directions contained in the Book of Common Prayer, relating to the performance of the services, rites, and ceremonies of the said book, or as having made or permitted unlawful addition to, alteration of, or omission from such services,” etc., etc., shall be empowered to lay their complaint against the said incumbent, who is to be allowed the space of fourteen days in which to give his answer. Should no answer be given, it will be considered that the charges laid against him are true, and proceedings will be taken accordingly. Should an unsatisfactory answer be given, “the bishop may, if he think fit, within six months after he has received a representation in the manner aforesaid, proceed to consider the same in public, with the assistance of the chancellor of the diocese or his substitute, ... and the bishop shall, after due consideration, pronounce judgment in regard to such representation.”

To this an amendment was suggested by Lord Shaftesbury, which was adopted, namely, that instead of a local bishop, a secular judge, to be selected by the two Archbishops of Canterbury and York, should be appointed, under the title of “Judge of Public Worship,” and whose office it should be to assist the bishop of any diocese where his services might be required for the hearing of cases, after which not the bishop, but the judge, should, in conclusion, pronounce sentence according to law.

Upon this, the Spectator, a leading periodical of the Broad Church party, observes: “So far as the bill is intended to ascertain and enforce the existing law of the church in relation to public worship, the change (namely, from a bishop to a secular judge) makes the whole difference between a tribunal which Englishmen will respect and trust and one which they would hardly have taken the trouble even to consult, so deep would have been, in general, their distrust of the oracle [pg 044] consulted.... Lord Shaftesbury having provided a genuine judge, the complainant who prefers a bishop will not often get his antagonist to agree with him, and such complainants will be few.”

Of this general mistrust of the Anglican bishops we have more to say, but for the present we keep to the consideration of the bill.

Lord Shaftesbury's suggestion was followed by one from Dr. Magee, Bishop of Peterborough, which, although not adopted, is too remarkable a specimen of Episcopal counsel to be unnoticed. (The Church Times respectfully designates it as “one of the prettiest bits of log-rolling ever seen”!) Bishop Magee proposed, and his proposal was “powerfully seconded by the Lord Chancellor,” that there should be “neutral regions of ritual laid down by the bill, within which a variety of usages as practised in many churches at the present time should all be admissible, even though the actual directions of the rubric against some of them be explicit.” Whereupon the Spectator goes on to suggest that a varied selection of “concessions” should be made, suitable to the divergent or opposite tastes of Extreme, High, Low, Broad, and No Churchmen; such as, for instance, the optional reading or omission of the words as to the regeneration of the child by the act of baptism, as a concession acceptable to the Evangelicals. For its own part it would like an optional reading or omission of the Athanasian Creed, and so on, and, “to make the compromise a thoroughly sound one,” the laity of each parish, it considers, ought to be consulted as to the usage to be adopted. It is hard to imagine anything better calculated to make “confusion worse confounded” than plans like these, at a time, too, when all the Anglican parties alike confess that “in no day has there been so wide a variety of tendency, opinion, and belief in the Church of England as now.”

One of the great features in the checkered progress of this bill has been the speech of the late premier, the negative and destructive character of which it is difficult adequately to estimate, and which, upon its delivery, to quote the words of the Westminster Gazette, “produced an ecclesiastical conflagration.” Even Mr. Gladstone's late colleagues hold aloof from his propositions, and the outcry that was raised soon indisposed his humbler followers to agree with him; yet he laid bare many real difficulties and told many plain truths which might make the friends of the archbishop's bill reasonably hesitate. But as it is, this speech has only fired the zealous determination of the great majority of the House, both liberal and conservative, to strike a blow at the external manifestations of ritualism, come what may, and has set the “Protestant feeling of the country” on horseback.

The bill is doubtless peculiarly vulnerable, and Mr. Gladstone did not spare its weak points, amply demonstrating its dangerous scope and character, and the extreme probability of its leading to convulsions far more serious to the welfare of the Established Church than what he termed any panic about Ritualism. It enforces the observation of the rubrics with a rigidity dependent only upon episcopal discretion in the use of a certain dispensing power. The bishops may protect whom they please, provided they are ready with written reasons for vetoing the proceedings against the accused, which is certainly [pg 045] an adroit expedient for catching obnoxious ritualists and letting offenders of another class escape. All might work well if only bishops will be discreet.14 Mr. Gladstone showed, however, that he entertained profound doubts of the discretion of twenty-seven or twenty-eight bishops. But, whether his fears are well grounded or not, many minds would agree with him in recoiling from such slippery legislation, although, on the other hand, he launches himself into a course of which it would be difficult to foresee the results. In his six remarkable resolutions he not only reduces the bill so that it should only effect its real objects, but he explicitly asserts the impolicy of uniformity in the matter of enforcing the rubrics. It is really little less than the repeal of the Act of Uniformity, and the six resolutions involve the abolition of that religious settlement which has prevailed in England for more than two centuries. Finding them rejected by an overwhelming majority, Mr. Gladstone withdrew them; “but they may yet furnish a fruitful contribution to the discussion of the position of the Church of England.”

But if, as we have seen, the Broad-Church section openly proclaims its deep mistrust of its ecclesiastical rulers, and one object of the Evangelical “Church Association” is declared to be “to teach them the law,” it is reserved for the organs of the extreme ritualistic party to treat their bishops, week after week, to an amount of supercilious insolence, which is occasionally varied by invective and abuse, unsurpassed in the annals of even Puritan polemics. In the Church Times for May 22 we find a lengthy monition, headed in double-sized capitals, “What the Bishops ought to do,” and which, in a tone of mock compassion, thus commences: “It has been a hard time lately for our Right Reverend Fathers-in-God.... According to their wont, their lordships have seemed, with one noble exception, to give their support to Dr. Tait's plan for stamping out ritualism.” “The gods have evidently a spite against the primate, or he would scarcely have committed such blunders, etc.” “The poor archbishop has, however, excuse enough for his peevishness.” “We have been compelled repeatedly, in the interests of truth, etc., to point out what their lordships ought not to do; unfortunately the occasions which necessarily call forth such remarks occur too frequently; it is therefore only right that we should also give the bishops the benefit of our own experience, and explain to them how they might hope to gain that respect which they certainly do not now possess.” And further on the same modest writer requests his ecclesiastical superiors to remember that they are immensely inferior to many of their clergy in natural gifts, mental culture, and parochial experience, adding: “Take, for instance, the question of confession. It is evident from their lordships' utterances respecting it that they are in the darkest ignorance both as to its principles and practice, ... and this though there are plenty of clergymen who, by [pg 046] long experience in the confessional, are well qualified to instruct their lordships about it.”

Now, this is too unreasonable! As if an Anglican bishop ought fairly to be expected to trouble himself about an obsolete custom that had practically disappeared from the Anglican Prayer-Book, of which there is no mention in the Catechism, and none in the communion service but one ambiguous phrase which may mean anything!15

But to return to the Church Times, which with its compeers of the “extreme” school seems to do its best to expose the Babel of confusion in which it dwells, and which its own voice does its little utmost to increase. From this we learn that “it is now decided by archiepiscopal authority, and illustrated by archiepiscopal example, that truth is not one, but two.”

Why only now, we should like to know, when no true successor of the archapostate Cranmer could consistently teach otherwise—Cranmer, of whom his biographer, Alexander Knox, writes as follows:

“To form a church by any sharply defined lines was scarcely Cranmer's object.... He looked more to extension than to exactness of periphery.” And this man, “whose life was the incarnation of theological and moral contradictions, and whose creed was only consistent in its gross Erastianism, left these as his double legacy to the national Establishment, of which he was the principal contriver.”16 The same writer (Knox) demonstrates the success of Cranmer's idea in another place, where he describes the constitution of the Anglican communion in the following remarkable words: “In England, as I have already been endeavoring to show, all is peculiar. In the Establishment, the theology common to Luther and Melanchthon was adopted in the Articles, but the unmixed piety of the primitive church was retained in the daily liturgy and occasional offices. Thus our church, by a most singular arrangement of Providence, has, as it were, a Catholic soul united to a Lutheran body of best and mildest temperament.... May we not discover traces of the All-wise Hand in these principles of liberality, which are implanted in the very bosom of our Establishment by the adoption of articles that are deemed by different men to countenance their different opinions?” And Bishop Burnet, in the Introduction to his Commentary on the Articles, declares that “when an article is conceived in such general terms that it can admit of different senses, yet even when the senses are plainly contrary one to another, both (i.e. persons of opposite opinions) may subscribe to the Articles with a good conscience, and without any equivocation.” [pg 047] Well indeed did Dr. Newman describe these articles as the “stammering lips of ambiguous formularies.” After these confessions of Anglicans themselves, what reason have they to be surprised if their present archiepiscopal authority decides that truth is not one, but two?

The same ritualistic organ we have been quoting speaks of a certain proposal as one which could only be made “by a madman or a bishop.” In the Church Times for June 12, under the title of “The Worship Bill in the Lords,” we find the following courteous, charitable, and refined observations: “The scheme devised by Archbishops Tait and Thompson for harrying the ritualists, and nearly pulling down the Church of England in order to do so, like that lord chief-justice in China who burnt down his town-house to roast a sucking-pig, is not going quite as its authors hoped,” etc. Again: “But Dr. Tait has been contented to remain to the present hour in entire ignorance of the laws, usages, and temper of the Church of England, and therefore it is impossible for the most charitable critic to give him credit for religious motives. The best that can be said of him is that he has a creed of some kind, which is Erastianism, and therefore prefers the English Establishment to the Scottish, as the wealthier and more dignified of the two. [The bishops] have collectively betrayed their trust, and convinced churchmen that the episcopal seats in the House of Lords are a weakness and not a strength to the church.” “This misconduct of the bishops will do much to destroy the unreal glamour which their official position has enabled them to throw over the eyes of the moderate High-Church clergy, who now learn that no considerations of faith, honor, and duty have the least weight with their lordships when any personal questions intervene, and therefore their wings will be clipped pretty closely when,” etc. “But there is, we are thankful to say, a deep-rooted distrust of the bishops,” and “even archiepiscopal mops and brooms cannot drive back the waters of ritualism!” With specimens such as these before us, we do not wonder that Dr. Pusey, who is a gentleman as well as a Christian, thought it advisable at the opening of his speech before the recent ritualistic meeting at S. James' Hall, against the archbishop's bill, to express his hope that the words of S. Paul would not be forgotten, “Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of my people.”

Before quitting this part of the subject there is one thing we wish to say. Let these men be content to settle their own quarrel with each other and with their bishops as best they may, but let them, if they will not hear S. Paul, remember a command that was given amid the thunders of Sinai: “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor”; and let them, if they can, refrain from “evil speaking, lying, and slandering” not only against the Catholic Church in general, but also against the noble church in France in particular, whose close union and devoted filial obedience to her Head, the Vicar of Jesus Christ, they appear to regard with a peculiar and malignant envy. Would that it were a holy emulation instead!

These men dare to say that the church in France has been “brought to ruin”: that it is “Rome and its agents who have [pg 048] procured that ruin,” and by means which they “will expose on a future occasion.” They aver that there is not a canonical authority, but “an absolute despotism,” “a hateful absolutism” exercised by “the bishops over the inferior clergy” (in which statement we cannot but perceive a reflection of the perpetual episcopal nightmare which troubles the ritualistic dreams at home); the said inferior clergy being described as “veritable pariahs, who from one day to another, at the caprice of a bishop, can be reduced to become crossing-sweepers or cab-drivers”—a “reduction” which we are allowed to suppose must be very common from the additional declaration that “it is a principle with the bishops to crush the wills of their clergy,” while they themselves, “being merely the prefects of the Pope, have in their turn to submit to a tyranny no less painful,” the Pope making himself “lord and master more and more”; in fact, “the only person who is free in the Roman Church, ever since the Council of Trent, is the Pope.”17

Elsewhere in this same exponent of reckless ritualism we find the following singular justification of the tone so habitually adopted by that party towards their spiritual superiors: “We hear a good deal about the reverence of the elder tractarians for bishops and dignitaries, but we fail to see the merit of their conduct when we reflect that it cost us a disastrous exodus Romewards.” An apparently unconscious testimony to the inevitable tendency and final result of respect for lawful authority.

But we will no longer detain the reader over specimens of High-Anglican journalism, further than to remark the admiring sympathy expressed by this party for the self-styled “Old Catholic” movement, and especially for the apostate Reinkens—a sympathy to be expected from men who, instead of escaping from schism, seek to justify it, and, feeling themselves strengthened by the rebellion of others, applaud each fresh example of revolt.

Thus a long and laudatory notice on the new German schismatics commences as follows: “The text of the Old Catholic Declaration at Bonn, on reform in general, ... is published, and is, on the whole, extremely satisfactory. At present the movement bears a remarkable resemblance to the ideal English Reformation; and we pray that it may keep a great deal nearer to its theory than we have been able to do.”

As a pendant to the above we will mention two “resolutions” moved at a meeting of the “Society for the Reunion of Christendom,” recently held in S. George's Hall, the first of which was as follows: “That the only adequate solution for the internal distractions of the English Church, as of Christendom generally, is to be found in the restoration of corporate unity in the great Christianity commonwealth.”

The second stood thus: “That the marriage of H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh to the daughter of the Czar affords hope of such mutual understanding between the English and Russian churches as may facilitate future intercommunion.”

Alas, poor Church of England! Within the breast of many of her [pg 049] more earnest members is lovingly cherished the delusive dream of the “corporate reunion” of what they are pleased to call the “three branches of the church.” Wearied of their long isolation, they stretch out their hands—to whom? On the one side, to a schism about double the age of their own, but too free from many of their errors and too devoted to the Ever Blessed Mother of God to give easy welcome to so dubious an ally as the creation of Cranmer and his king; and, on the other side, to a schism of a few months old, to which they equally look forward to join hand in hand, and thus, by adding schism to schism, fondly expect Catholic unity as the result!

But what, then, is their attitude with regard to the ancient church? Opposition, strengthened by jealous fear. There is in the Church of England an hereditary antipathy to the Catholic Church, which is evinced in its Articles, more fully developed in its Homilies, and sustained in the writings not only of the first reformers, but of all the succession of Anglican divines, with scarcely an exception, no matter how much they may have differed among themselves in their several schools of religious opinion. Nor is the spirit dead within it now. For instance, was there ever a more gigantic commotion than that which was raised all over England, in every corner of the land, and among clergy and laity alike, than that which followed upon the simple act of Pope Pius IX., when, within the memory of the present generation, he exchanged the government of the Catholic Church in England by vicars-apostolic for that of a regular and established hierarchy?

“The same animus exists even among the less Protestant and more eminent of its champions in the present day, among whom we need only mention the names of Dr. Wordsworth, Mr. Palmer, and the Dean of Canterbury among moderate High Churchmen.” It manifests itself also quite as plainly in the Tractarian, Ritualistic, and “Extreme” schools of High-Church development; for instance, F. Harper quotes a letter published and signed by an “Old Tractarian,” in which the Catholic bishops are described as “the present managers of the Roman schism in England,” and a clergyman of the same school, well known at Oxford, on one occasion observed to the writer of the present notice: “We are the Catholics; you are simply Romanists; that is to say, Roman schismatics.”

Dr. Pusey, in his recent speech before the meeting at St. James' Hall against the archbishop's bill, expresses as emphatically as ever his assured conviction of the Catholicity of his own communion, in spite of the many difficulties to be overcome before that view can be accepted by ordinary minds. After speaking of the “undivided church of Christ,” he goes on to say: “We are perfectly convinced ... that we are standing within her own recorded limits, and are exponents of her own recorded principles,” adding, “The Church of England is Catholic” (great cheering), “and no power on earth can make the Church of England to-day a Protestant society.... Her limits we claim to be those of the Catholic Church.” And, wonderful as it may seem, the venerable doctor is convinced of the truth of these affirmations, his nature being too noble and sincere wilfully to exaggerate. His speech, which is in condemnation of the archbishop's bill as being aimed against those charged with making [pg 050] unlawful additions to their church's ritual, while those who make unlawful omissions from it are likely to be left unmolested, concludes with these words: “If dark days do come, ... I mean to stand just where I am, within the Church of England” (loud and prolonged cheering).... “I mean to resist the voices from without and from within that will call on me to go to Rome; but still to endeavor, by active toil, by patient well-doing, and by fervent charity, to defend and maintain the catholic nature of the Church of England.”18

There is one Voice which may yet will to be heard “within,” and which may at the same time confer grace, that he who has taught so many souls the way to their true and only home may himself also find his own true Mother and his Home at last.

Meanwhile, what is the condition of this “Catholic” Church of England! Never was there a “house” more notoriously “divided against itself;” and every effort of the Tractarian party to force sound doctrine upon her or elicit it from her has resulted in a more deliberate annihilation of truth on her part, by the formal declaration that on fundamental doctrines her ministers, according to their respective tastes, are free to teach two opposite beliefs. It was thus when the “Gorham judgment” ruled that baptismal regeneration was “an open question” in the church of England. Her ministers are equally allowed to teach that it is a true doctrine or that it is a false one. Truth is made not only “two,” but antagonistic to itself. A subsequent judgment did the same thing with regard to the doctrine of the Real Presence in the Eucharist, which is taught in a variety of ways by the clergy of the Tractarian schools, sometimes as consubstantiation, and by some as transubstantiation itself, although this doctrine is explicitly repudiated by the Anglican formularies. By the decision pronounced in the case of Mr. Bennett of Froome Selwood, the Real Presence in the Eucharist was, equally with the doctrine of its opposite, which might be truly designated as the “real absence,” authorized to be believed and taught.

It thus not unfrequently happens that the adoration of the consecrated elements practised and inculcated in one parish by the Rev. Mr. A. is in the very next parish denounced as idolatry by his neighbor the Rev. Mr. B.;19 and in cases where the one gentleman happens to be [pg 051] appointed to succeed the other in either parish, what must be the confusion of ideas produced in the minds of the hapless parishioners with regard to the only two sacraments which their catechism teaches them are “generally necessary to salvation”?

Every judgment given by the authorized tribunals of the Establishment on matters of doctrine recognizes by implication that the real strength of the Church of England lies in the indifference of the English people to dogmatic truth. We quote the words of Mr. Wilberforce: That which dishonors the Church of England in the judgment of all other Christians, whether Catholic or Protestant, is its great merit in the eyes of its own members. They want to profess their various religions, from Calvinism to semi-popery, without impediment, and the Church of England is the only community in the world in which they can do it. Even professed unbelievers desire to maintain that institution for the same reason. A church which teaches nothing is in their judgment the next best thing to no church at all; thus the Pall Mall Gazette often writes against Christianity, but never against the Church of England. What unbelievers fear is a church which claims to be divine and which teaches only one religion. “We have a regard,” says the rationalistic Saturday Review, “selfish it may be, but very sincere, for the Church of England as an eminently useful institution. If the Liberation Society chuckles over the revelation of a ‘divided church,’ the only way to check-mate it is to make all varieties of doctrine equally lawful, though they are mutually contradictory.”

Again: when such a man as Lord Selborne says that the opposition to the archbishop's bill is based on the idea that “every clergyman is to be his own pope,” and Lord Hatherley that “every one was determined to have his own way,” and the Bishop of Peterborough that “those clergymen who were so loud in crying out against the tyranny of the bishops arrogated to themselves a right to do exactly what they pleased”; “every clergyman wishing that there should be excipienda in favor of the practices in which he himself indulged, but objected to include those of his neighbor in the list,” and that “every one was equally anxious to be himself exempted from prosecution, and equally jealous of the power of prosecuting his neighbor”—the real character of the so-called “Catholic revival” in the Protestant Church of England was acknowledged by the most eminent partisans of that institution. Ritualism, they perceive, is simply Protestantism and the right of private judgment in their extremest form. How vain it is to exorcise such a spirit in a sect founded on the right of revolt, and so utterly indifferent to positive truth that, as the Bishop of Peterborough frankly confessed, the word compromise is written all over the pages of the Anglican Prayer-Book, was undesignedly admitted by Lord Salisbury. “There were,” he said, “three parties in the church, which might be described as the Sacramental, the Emotional, and the Philosophical, and the great problem to be solved was how to reconcile their views.” The problem, he knows, is insoluble. The very men who profess to revive Catholic dogma can only suggest a “considerate disagreement,” [pg 052] which in plain words is an arrangement to betray God's revealed truth by an impious compromise with error.

Before closing this rapid and imperfect notice of the present state of the Anglican Communion, a reflection suggests itself upon which we must say a few words. It may reasonably be asked, What is the authority which the ritualistic party professes to obey? They refuse the right of the state, to which their community owes its being, to rule them in matters ecclesiastical; they refuse obedience practically, whether professedly or not, to their bishops, for whom they appear to have neither affection, confidence, nor respect; and they not only refuse submission to her whom they themselves acknowledge to be the “Mother and Mistress of all churches,” but they openly express their sympathy and admiration for those who rebel against her authority, invariably taking the part of the revolted against the Catholic Church. “Is there, then, any authority upon earth to which they allow themselves responsible, and if so, where is it to be found?”

We give the answer in the words of the able writer quoted above:20

“Anglicans having destroyed, as far as their influence extends, the whole authority of the living church, they affect, since they must obey something, to reserve all their obedience for what they call the primitive church. The late Dean Mansel tells us that some of the worst enemies of revealed truth employed the same pretext. ‘The earlier deists,’ he says (naming five notorious ones), ‘carried on their attack under cover of a reverence for primitive Christianity;’ and he goes on to ask, ‘Has such a supposition ever been made, except by wicked men desirous to find an excuse for their transgression of the law?’ Now, this is exactly the attitude of Anglicans towards the authority of the church. They exalt her prerogatives, and admit that she is ‘infallible’; but they deny in the same breath that she has the power to teach or to ‘pass decrees,’ because that would imply the obligation of obedience, and they are resolved to obey nothing but themselves, and therefore they have invented the theory of the Christian Church which may be enunciated in the following terms:

Such is the Anglican theory, ... in the face of which the Anglican prophets go to their temples, and loudly proclaim, “I believe in One, Holy, Catholic Church.” The natural result of such teaching is that a majority of Englishmen have long ceased to believe in anything of the kind.

Nor is the Anglican theory about the Catholic Church a more impossible absurdity than what they profess to believe, and apparently do believe, about their own, although they do not state their belief in the bare and unambiguous manner in which we will state it for them.

That sect “existed,” they tell us, “before the so-called Reformation, which was only a trivial episode in its history. It left the Church of England exactly what it was before, and only made it a little more Catholic. If its founders called the Mass a ‘blasphemous fable,’ they must have intended that it was the most sacred rite of the Christian religion. If, whenever they altered their new Prayer-Book (which they did very often), it was always to make it less Catholic, this was probably in the hope that its doctrine would improve in quality as it lessened in quantity. If its bishops for many generations persecuted Catholics to death or tortured them as ‘idolaters’ this was only a quarrel of brothers, and they were as deeply enamored of the Catholic faith as those whom they murdered for professing it. If for more than a hundred years they gave the highest dignities to men who had never received episcopal ordination, that fact proved nothing against their reverence for the apostolic succession, or their conviction that they possessed it themselves. In like manner their casting down altars (in some cases making them into paving-stones), and substituting a ‘wooden table,’ in no way affect our constant declaration that the doctrine of the Christian sacrifice was always most firmly held and taught in the Anglican Church. That they allowed their clergy every variety of creed may have been one way of testifying their conviction that truth is one. Their constant execration of the Catholic faith must be interpreted as meaning something quite opposite; in the same way, if you suppress the Homilies and reverse the Articles, which for some sagacious reason were written as they are, you will find the genuine theology of our founders.

“Finally, if the Church of England pretended to be fiercely Protestant for three centuries, this was only to take the world by surprise about the year 1870, and thus secure the ‘Catholic revival’ which will hasten the time when Dr. Tait [pg 054] will be universally recognized as the legitimate successor of S. Anselm—particularly in his religious views—and the Anglican reformation justly appreciated as a noble protest against the noxious errors of Protestantism, with which it accidentally coincided in point of time, but had nothing in common in point of doctrine.”

But of what avail is all this? Ritualists succeed in revealing the disorganization of their sect, only to show that it is incurable, and yet are able to persuade themselves that such a sect as this, which exists only to “neutralize” the revelation of the Most High, is an integral part of that majestic and inflexible “Church of the living God,” upon which he has lavished all the highest gifts which even divine munificence could bestow.

Speaking of some recent conversions to the Catholic Church, the Church Herald says: “From what we hear from quarters which are well informed, there can be little doubt that another large and influential exodus in the same direction is imminent.” If Anglicans are not converted now, the case does indeed seem hopeless. But they need more than ever at this moment a solemn warning. They may begin to desire reconciliation, and to flee from the house of bondage; but, if they think they can criticise the church as they have been in the habit of criticising their own sect; if they propose to teach instead of to learn; to command instead of to obey; if they do not seek her pardon and blessing in the loving spirit of penance, humility, and submission, let them remember that the church of God is no home for the lawless and self-sufficient.

But to all those who in humility and sincerity are seeking the truth, We would say with all possible intensity of entreaty: “Let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely,” for “the Spirit and the Bride say, Come.”

Antar And Zara; Or, “The Only True Lovers.”

An Eastern Romance Narrated In SONGS.

By Aubrey De Vere.

Part VI.

They Sang.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

X.

XI.

XII.

XIII.

XIV.

Assunta Howard. III. In Extremis.

How slowly and drearily the time drags on, through all the weary length of hours and days, in a household where one has suddenly been stricken down from full life and health to the unconscious delirium of fever—when in hushed silence and with folded hands the watchers surround the sufferer with a loving anxiety; whose agony is in their helplessness to stay for one moment the progress of the disease, which seems possessed of a fiend-like consciousness of its own fatal power to destroy; when life and death hang in the balance, and at any moment the scale may turn, and in its turning may gladden loving hearts or break them; and, oh! above and beyond all, when through the clouding of the intellect no ray from the clear light of faith penetrates the soul, and the prostrate body, stretched upon its cross, fails to discern the nearness of that other cross upon this Calvary of suffering, from which flows in perennial streams the fountain of salvation! Oh! if in the ears, heedless of earthly sounds and words, there could be whispered those blessed words from Divine lips, “This day thou shalt be with me,” what heart that loves would not rejoice even in its anguish, and unselfishly exclaim, “Depart, O Christian soul! I will even crush down my poor human love, lest its great longing should turn thy happy soul away from the contemplation of its reward, exceeding great—to be in Paradise, to be with Christ”? But, alas! there were two crucified within reach of those precious, saving drops, and one alone said, “Lord, remember me.”

When the family of Mr. Carlisle first realized that the master of the house had indeed been prostrated by the fever which had proved so fatal in its ravages, they were stunned with surprise and grief. It was just the calamity, of all others the least expected, the heaviest to endure.

Mrs. Grey's affection for her brother was the deepest sentiment of her superficial nature, and for the time she was bowed down with sorrow; which, however, constantly found vent in words and tears. She would rise from it soon, but not until the emergency had passed. She lived only in the sunshine; she lost herself when the clouds gathered. Assunta was the first to recover her calmness and presence of mind. Necessity made her strong; not so much for the sake of the sick man—that might come by and by—but for his sister, who clung to the young girl as to the last plank from the shipwreck of her bright, happy life. The physician was in constant attendance, and at the first he had proposed sending a nurse. But the faithful Giovanni had pleaded with so much earnestness to be allowed the [pg 063] privilege of attending his master that he was installed in the sick-room. And truly no better choice could have been made, for he combined the physical strength of the man with the gentleness of woman, and every service was rendered with the tenderness of that love which Mr. Carlisle had the rare power of inspiring and retaining in dependents. But only Assunta was able to quiet his wandering mind, and control the wild vagaries of delirium. It was a painful duty to strive to still the ringing of those bells, once so full of harmony, now “jangled, out of tune, and harsh.” But, once recognizing where her duty lay, she would have performed it at any cost to herself.

Her good and devoted friend, F. du Pont, came to see her the second day of the illness, and brought sympathy and consolation in his very presence. She had so longed for him that his coming seemed an echo of her earnest wish—his words of comfort an answer to her prayers.

“Father,” she said at length, “you know all—the past and the present circumstances. May I not, in the present necessity, and in spite of the past, forget all but the debt of gratitude I owe, and devote myself to my dear friend and guardian? You know,” she added, as if there were pain in the remembrance, “it was Mr. Carlisle's care for me that exposed him to the fever. I would nurse him as a sister, if I might.”

“My dear child,” replied the priest, “I do not see how you could do less. From my knowledge of Mrs. Grey, I should consider her entirely unfit for the services of a sick-room. It seems, therefore, your plain duty to perform this act of charity. I think, my child, that the possible nearness of death will calm all merely human emotion. Give that obedient little heart of yours into God's keeping, and then go to your duty as in his sight, and I am not afraid. The world will probably look upon what it may consider a breach of propriety with much less leniency than the angels. But human respect, always bad enough as a motive, is never so wholly bad as when it destroys the purity of our intention, and consequently the merit of our charity, at a time when, bending beneath the burden of some heavy trial, we are the more closely surrounded by God's love and protection. Follow the pillar of the cloud, my child. It is leading you away from the world.”

“Father,” said Assunta, and her voice trembled, while tears filled her eyes, “do you think he will die? Indeed, it is not for my own sake that I plead for his life. He is not prepared to go. Will you not pray for him, father? Oh! how gladly would I give my life as the price of his soul, and trust myself to the mercy of God!”

“And it is to that mercy you must trust him, my poor child. Do you, then, think that his soul is dearer to you than to Him who died to save it? You must have more confidence. But I have not yet told you the condition I must impose upon your position as nurse. It is implicit obedience to the physician, and a faithful use of all the precautions he recommends. While charity does sometimes demand the risk or even the sacrifice of life, we have no right to take the matter into our own hands. I do not apprehend any danger for you, if you will follow the good doctor's directions. I will try to see him on my way home. Do you promise?”

“Yes, father,” said Assunta, with a faint smile; “you leave me no alternative.”

“But I have not yet put a limit to your obedience. You are excited and worn out this afternoon, and I will give you a prescription. It is a lovely day, almost spring-like; and you are now, this very moment, to go down into the garden for half an hour—and the time must be measured by your watch, and not by your feelings. Take your rosary with you, and as you walk up and down the orange avenue let no more serious thoughts enter your mind than the sweet companionship of the Blessed Mother may suggest. You will come back stronger, I promise you.”

“You are so kind, father,” said Assunta gratefully. “If you knew what a blessing you bring with you, you would take compassion on me, and come soon again.”

“I shall come very soon, my child; and meanwhile I shall pray for you, and for all, most fervently. But, come, we will walk together as far as the garden.” And summoning the priest who had accompanied him, and who had been looking at the books in the library during this conversation, they were about to descend the stairs, when Mrs. Grey came forward to meet them.

“O F. du Pont!” she exclaimed impetuously, “will you not come and look at my poor brother, and tell me what you think of him? They say priests know so much.” And then she burst into tears.

F. Joseph tried to soothe her with hopeful words, and, when they reached the door of the darkened chamber, she was again calm. The good priest's face expressed the sympathy he felt as they entered softly, and stood where they would not attract the attention of those restless eyes. Mr. Carlisle was wakeful and watchful, but comparatively quiet. It was pitiful to see with what rapid strides the fever was undermining that manly strength, and hurrying on towards the terrible moment of suspense when life and death confront each other in momentary combat. With an earnest prayer to God, the priest again raised the heavy damask curtain, and softly retired, followed by Mrs. Grey.

“Will he recover?” was her eager question.

“Dear madam,” replied he, “I think there is much room for hope, though I cannot deny that he is a very sick man. For your encouragement, I can tell you that I have seen many patients recover in such cases when it seemed little short of miraculous. It will be many days yet before you must think of giving up good hope. And remember that all your strength will be needed.”

“Oh!” said Mrs. Grey impulsively, “I could not live if it were not for Assunta. She is an angel.”

“Yes, she is a good child,” said the priest kindly; “and she is now going to obey some orders that I have given her, that she may return to you more angelic than ever. Dear madam, you have my deepest sympathy. I wish that I could serve you otherwise than by words.”

The two priests bade Assunta good-by at the garden gate. F. Joseph's heart was full of pity for the young girl, whose act of sacrifice in surrendering human happiness for conscience' sake had been followed by so severe a trial. But, remembering the blessed mission [pg 065] of suffering to a soul like hers, he prayed—not that her chalice might be less bitter, but that strength might be given her to accept it as from the hand of a loving Father.

And so Assunta, putting aside every thought of self, took her place in the sick-room. She had a double motive in hanging her picture of St. Catherine, from which she was never separated, at the foot of the bed. It was a favorite with Mr. Carlisle, and often in his delirium his eyes would rest upon it, in almost conscious recognition; while to Assunta it was a talisman—a constant reminder of her mother, and of those dying words which now seemed stamped in burning letters on her heart and brain.

Mrs. Grey often visited the room; but she controlled her own agitation so little, and was so unreasonable in the number of her suggestions, that she generally left the patient worse than she found him. Assunta recognized her right to come and go as she pleased, but she could not regret her absence when her presence was almost invariably productive of evil consequences.

The first Sunday, Assunta thought she might venture to assist at Mass at the nearest church; it would be strength to her body as well as her soul. She was not absent from the house an hour, yet she was met on her return by Clara, in a state of great excitement.

“Assunta, we have had a dreadful time,” she said. “Severn woke up just after you left, and literally screamed for help, because, he said, a great black cross had fallen on you, and you would be crushed to death unless some one would assist him to raise it. In his efforts, he was almost out of bed. I reasoned with him, and told him it was all nonsense; that there was no cross, and that you had gone to church. But the more I talked and explained, the worse he got; until I was perfectly disheartened, and came to meet you.” And with the ready tears streaming down her pretty face, she did look the very picture of discouragement.

“Poor Clara,” said Assunta, gently embracing her, “it is hard for you to bear all this, you are so little accustomed to sickness. But you ought not to contradict Mr. Carlisle, for it is all real to him, and opposition only excites him. I can never soothe him except by agreeing with him.”

“But where does he get such strange ideas?” asked the sobbing Clara.

“Where do our dreams come from?” said Assunta. “I think, however, that this fancy can be traced to the night when we visited the Colosseum, and sat for a long time on the steps of the cross in the centre. You know it is a black one,” she added, smiling, to reassure her friend. “And now, Clara, I really think you ought to order the close carriage, and take a drive this morning. It would do you good, and you will not be needed at all for the next two or three hours.”

Mrs. Grey's face brightened perceptibly. It was the very thing for which she was longing, but she would not propose it herself for fear it would seem heartless. To seem, and not to be, was her motto.

“But would not people think it very strange,” she asked, “and Severn so sick?”

“I do not believe that people will know or think anything about it,” answered Assunta patiently. “You can take Amalie with you for company, and drive out on the Campagna.” And having lightened one [pg 066] load, she turned towards her guardian's room.

“Are you not coming to breakfast?” said Mrs. Grey.

“Presently.” And Assunta hastened to the bedside. Giovanni had been entirely unable to control the panic which seemed to have taken possession of Mr. Carlisle. He continued his cries for assistance, and the suffering he evidently endured showed how real the fancy was to him.

“Dear friend,” said the young girl, pushing back the hair from his burning forehead, “look at me. Do you not see that I am safe?”

Mr. Carlisle turned towards her, and, in sudden revulsion of feeling, burst into a wild laugh.

“I knew,” he said, “that, if they would only come and help me, I should succeed. But it was very heavy; it has made me very tired.”

“Yes, you have had hard work, and it was very kind in you to undertake it for me. But now you must rest. It would make me very unhappy if I thought that my safety had caused any injury to you.”

And while she was talking, Assunta had motioned to Giovanni to bring the soothing medicine the doctor had left, and she succeeded in administering it to her patient, almost without his knowledge, so engrossed was he in his present vagary.

“But there was a cross?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered, in a meaning tone, “a very heavy one; but it did not crush me.”

“Who lifted it?” he asked eagerly.

“A powerful hand raised its weight from my shoulders, and I have the promise of His help always, if I should ever be in trouble again, and only will cry to Him.”

“Well, whoever he is,” said Mr. Carlisle, “he did not hurry much when I called—and now I am so tired. And Clara said there was no cross; that I was mistaken. I am never mistaken,” he answered, in something of his old, proud voice. “She ought to know that.”

Assunta did not answer, but she sat patiently soothing her guardian into quiet at least, if not sleep. Once he looked at her, and said, “My precious child is safe;” but, as she smiled, he laughed aloud, and then shut his eyes again.

An hour she remained beside the bed, and then she crept softly from the room, to take what little breakfast she could find an appetite for, and to assist Mrs. Grey in preparing for her drive.

With such constant demands upon her sympathy and strength, it is not strange that Assunta's courage sometimes failed. But, when the physician assured her that her guardian's life was, humanly speaking, in her hands, she determined that no thought or care for herself should interfere with the performance of her duty.

Mrs. Grey's drive having proved an excellent tonic, she was tempted to repeat it often—always with a protest and with some misgivings of conscience, which were, however, set aside without difficulty.

It was a singular coincidence that Mr. Sinclair should so often be found riding on horseback in the same direction. A few words only would be exchanged—of enquiry for the sufferer, of sympathy for his sister. But somehow, as the days went by, the tone in which the words of sympathy were expressed grew more tender, and conveyed the impression of something held back out of respect and by an effort. The manner, too—which [pg 067] showed so little, and yet seemed to repress so much—began to have the effect of heightening the color in Mrs. Grey's pretty face, and softening a little the innocent piquancy of her youthful ways. It was no wonder that, loving the brightness and sunshine of life, and regarding with a sort of dread the hush and solemnity which pervade the house of sickness, and which may at any moment become the house of mourning, she should have allowed her anxiety for her brother to diminish a little under the influence of the new thought and feeling which were gaining possession now, in the absence of all other excitement. And yet she loved her brother as much as such hearts can love—as deeply as any love can penetrate in which there is no spirit of sacrifice—love's foundation and its crown. If the illness had lasted but a day, or at the most two, she could have devoted herself with apparent unselfishness and tender assiduity to the duties of nursing. But, as day after day went on without much perceptible change in Mr. Carlisle, her first emotion subsided into a sort of graceful perplexity at finding herself out of her element. And by the time the second week was drawing towards its close—with the new influence of Mr. Sinclair's sympathy seconding the demands of her own nature—she began to act like any other sunflower, when it “turns to the god that it loves.” And yet she continued to be very regular in her visits to the sick-room, and very affectionate to Assunta; but it may be greatly doubted whether she lost many hours' sleep. Surely it would be most unjust to judge Clara Grey and Assunta Howard by the same standard. Undine, before and after the possession of a human soul, could hardly have been more dissimilar.

It was the fifteenth day of Mr. Carlisle's illness when Assunta was summoned from his bedside by Mrs. Grey, who desired to see her for a few moments in her own room. As the young girl entered, she found her sitting before a bright wood-fire; on her lap was an exquisite bouquet fresh from fairy-land, or—what is almost the same thing—an Italian garden. In her hand she held a card, at which she was looking with a somewhat perturbed expression.

“Assunta, love,” she exclaimed, “I want you to tell me what to do. See these lovely flowers that Mr. Sinclair has just sent me, with this card. Read it.” And as she handed her the dainty card, whose perfume seemed to rival that of the flowers, the color mounted becomingly into her cheeks. There were only these words written:

“I have brought a close carriage, and hope to persuade you to drive a little while this afternoon. I will anxiously await your reply in the garden. Yours, S——.”

“Well?” questioned Clara, a little impatiently, for Assunta's face was very grave.

“Dear Clara,” she replied, “I have no right to advise you, and I certainly shall not question the propriety of anything you do. I was only thinking whether I had not better tell you that I see a change in your brother this afternoon, and I fear it is for the worse. I am longing for the doctor's visit.”

“Do you really think he is worse?” exclaimed Clara. “He looks to me just the same. But perhaps I had better not go out. I had a little headache, and thought a drive might do me good. But, [pg 068] poor Severn! of course I ought not to leave him.”

“You must not be influenced by what I say,” said Assunta. “I may be entirely mistaken, and so I should not alarm you. God knows, I hope it may be so!”

“Then you think I might go for an hour or two, just to get a breath of air,” said Mrs. Grey. “Mr. Sinclair will certainly think I have found it necessary to call a papal consistory, if I keep him much longer on the promenade.”

Poor Assunta, worn out with her two weeks of watching and anxiety, looked for a moment with a sort of incredulous wonder at the incarnation of unconscious selfishness before her. For one moment she looked “upon this picture and on that”—the noble, devoted brother, sick unto death; and that man, the acquaintance of a few days, now walking impatiently up and down the orange avenue. The flush of indignation changed her pale cheeks to scarlet, and an almost pharisaical thanksgiving to God that she was not like some women swept across her heart, while a most unwonted sarcasm trembled on her lips. She instantly checked the unworthy feeling and its expression; but she was so unstrung by care and fatigue that she could not so easily control her emotion, and, before the object of unusual indignation had time to wonder at the delay of her reply, she had thrown herself upon the sofa, and was sobbing violently. Mrs. Grey was really alarmed, so much so that she dropped both card and flowers upon the floor, and forgot entirely her waiting cavalier, as she knelt beside the excited girl, and put her arms about her.

“Assunta dear, what is the matter? Are you ill? Oh! what have I done?” she exclaimed.

“My poor guardian—my dear, kind friend, he is dying! May God have mercy on him and on me!” were the words that escaped Assunta's lips between the sobs.

A shudder passed through Mrs. Grey at this unexpected putting into words of the one thought she had so carefully kept from her mind; and her own tears began to flow. Just at this moment the physician's step sounded in the hall, and she went hastily to summon him. He took in the whole scene at a glance, and, seating himself at once upon the sofa beside Assunta, he put his hand gently and soothingly upon her head, as a father might have done.

“Poor child!” said he kindly, “I have been expecting this.”

The action expressing sympathy just when she needed it so much caused her tears to flow afresh, but less tumultuously than before. The remains of Mrs. Grey's lunch were standing on a side-table, and the good doctor poured out a glass of wine, which Assunta took obediently. Then, making an effort at self-control, she said:

“Please do not waste a moment on me. Do go to Mr. Carlisle; he seems very ill. I have been weak and foolish, but I will control myself better next time.”

“I have just left Mr. Carlisle's room,” replied the doctor. “I will not deceive you. He is, as you say, very ill; but I hope we may save him yet. You must call up all your courage, for you will be much needed to-night.”

He knew by the effect that he had touched the right chord, so he continued: “And now, Miss Howard, I am going to ask of you the favor to send one of your servants [pg 069] to my house, to notify my wife that I shall not return to-night. I will not leave you until the crisis is passed—successfully, I hope,” he added with a smile.

Assunta went at once to give the desired order, relieved and grateful that they would have the support of the physician's presence and skill; and yet the very fact of his remaining discouraged the hope he had tried to inspire. When she had gone, he turned to address a few comforting words to Mrs. Grey, when, suddenly recollecting himself, he said:

“By the way, Mrs. Grey, I forgot to tell you that I met Mr. Sinclair down-stairs, and he begged me to inquire if you had received a message from him. Can I be of service in taking him your reply?”

“O poor man! I quite forgot him,” exclaimed the easily diverted Clara, as she stooped to pick up the neglected flowers. “Thank you for your kind offer, but I had better run down myself, and apologize for my apparent rudeness.” And, hastily wiping her eyes, she threw a shawl over her shoulders and a becoming white rigolette about her head, and with a graceful bow of apology she left the room.

“Extraordinary woman!” thought the doctor. “One would suppose that a dying brother would be an excuse, even to that puppy Sinclair. I wish he had had to wait longer—it wouldn't have hurt him a bit—he has never had half enough of it to do. And what the devil is he coming here for now, anyhow?” he added to his former charitable reflections, as he went to join Assunta in her faithful vigil beside the unconscious and apparently dying man.

Mr. Sinclair met Mrs. Grey at the foot of the stairs with an assumption of interest and anxiety which successfully concealed his inward impatience. But truly it would have been difficult to resist that appealing face, with its traces of recent tears and the flush caused by excited feeling.

As a general thing, with all due deference to poetic opinion, “love is (not) loveliest when embalmed in tears.” But Mrs. Grey was an exception to many rules. Her emotion was usually of the April-shower sort, gentle, refreshing, even beautifying. Very little she knew of the storm of suffering which desolates the heart, and whose ravages leave a lasting impression upon the features. Such emotions also sometimes, but rarely, leave a beauty behind them; but it is a beauty not of this world, the beauty of holiness; not of Mrs. Grey's kind, for it never would have touched Mr. Sinclair as hers did now.

“My dear Mrs. Grey,” he said, taking her hand in both his, “how grieved I am to see you showing so plainly the results of care and watching! Privileged as he must be who is the recipient of such angelic ministrations, I must yet protest—as a friend, I trust I have a right to do so—against such over-exertion on your part. You will be ill yourself; and then who or what will console me?”

Mr. Sinclair knew this was a fiction. He knew well enough that Mrs. Grey had never looked fresher or prettier in her life. But the rôle he had assigned to himself was the dangerously tender one of sympathy; and where a sufficient occasion for displaying his part was not supplied, he must needs invent one.

Clara was not altogether deceived, for, as she put her lace-bordered [pg 070] handkerchief to her eyes, from which the tears began again to flow, she replied:

“You are mistaken, Mr. Sinclair. I am quite well, and not at all fatigued; while dear Assunta is thin and pale, and thoroughly worn out with all she has done. I can never be grateful enough to her.”

Had the lady raised her eyes, she might have been astonished at the expression of contempt which curled Mr. Sinclair's somewhat hard mouth, as he rejoined:

“Yes; I quite understand Miss Howard's motive in her devotion to her guardian, and it is not strange that she should be pale. How do you suppose I should look and feel if the dearest friend I have in the world were at this moment lying in her brother's place?”

Mrs. Grey might have received a new light about the young girl had she not been rendered obtuse to the first part of this speech by the very pointed allusion to herself afterwards, that was accompanied by a searching look, which she would not see, for she still kept her handkerchief before her eyes. Mr. Sinclair placed her disengaged hand upon his arm, and gently drew her towards the garden. Had she been able to look down into the heart of the man who walked so protectingly beside her, she would doubtless have been surprised to find a disappointment lurking in the place where she had begun to feel her image was enshrined. She would have seen that Assunta's face had occupied a niche in the inner sanctuary of the heart of this man of the world, before which he would have been content to bow; that pique at her entire indifference to his pretensions, and the reserve behind which she always retreated in his presence, had led him to transfer his attentions to the older lady and the smaller fortune; and that his jealous observation had brought to his notice, what was apparent to no one else, the relations between Assunta and her guardian.

All this would not have been very flattering to Mrs. Grey, so it was perhaps as well that the gift of clairvoyance was not hers; though it is a sad thought for men and angels how few hearts there are that would bear to have thrown on them the clear light of unveiled truth. The day is to come when the secrets of all hearts are to be revealed. But Mr. Sinclair, even if he knew this startling fact, would not have considered it worth while to anticipate that dread hour by revealing to the lovely lady at his side any of those uncomfortable circumstances which would inevitably stand in the way of the consummation of his present wish. So he bravely undertook the noble enterprise of deceiving a trusting heart into believing in a love which did not exist, but which it was not so very difficult to imagine just at that moment, with the little hand resting confidingly on his arm, and the tearful eyes raised to meet his.

In a broken voice, Mrs. Grey said: “Mr. Sinclair, I came down myself to thank you for the beautiful flowers you sent me, and to excuse myself from driving with you this afternoon. Poor Severn is worse, they think. Oh! if he should not recover, what will become of me?” And as she spoke, she burst into renewed weeping, and threw herself upon a seat beneath a group of orange-trees, whose perfume stole upon the senses with a subtle yet bewildering influence. Mr. Sinclair sat down beside her, saying gently:

“I hope, dear Mrs. Grey, it is not so serious as that. I am confident that you have been needlessly alarmed.”

The world will, no doubt, pardon him—seeing that Mammon was his chosen master—if the thought was not altogether unpleasing that, should Mr. Carlisle die now, before Assunta could have a claim upon him, it would make an almost princely addition to the dowry of his sister. Nor on this account were his words less tender as he added:

“But, even so, do you not know of one heart waiting, longing to devote itself to you, and only with difficulty restrained from placing itself at your feet by the iron fetters of propriety? Tell me, Clara, may I break these odious chains, and say what is in my heart?”

“Mr. Sinclair, you must not speak such words to me now, and my poor brother so ill. Indeed, I cannot stay to hear you. Thank you very much for your kind sympathy, but I must leave you now.”

“Without one word of hope? Do I deserve this?” And truly the pathos he put into his voice was calculated to melt a heart of stone; and Clara's was much more impressible. She paused beside him, and, allowing him still to retain in his the hand he had taken, continued:

“I think you take an unfair advantage of my lonely position. I cannot give you a favorable answer this afternoon, for I am so bewildered. I begin to think that I ought not to have come down at all; but I wanted to tell you how much I appreciated the bouquet.”

“I hope you read its meaning,” said Mr. Sinclair, rising. “And do you not see a happy omen in your present position, under a bower of orange blossoms? It needs but little imagination to lower them until they encircle the head of the most lovely of brides. Will you accept this as a pledge of that bright future which I have dared to picture to myself?” And as he spoke he put up his hand to break off a cluster of the white blossoms and dark-green leaves, when Giovanni appeared at the gate.

“Signora,” he said, “will you please to come up-stairs? The Signorina is very anxious to see you.”

“I am coming,” she replied. “Pardon me, Mr. Sinclair, and forget what has been said.” And she walked towards the house.

“Do you refuse the pledge?” he asked, placing the flowers in her hand, after raising them to his lips.

“Really,” answered Clara, almost petulantly, “I am so perplexed, I do not know what to say. Yes, I will take the flowers, if that will please you.” Saying which, she began to ascend the stairs.

“And I take hope with me,” said Mr. Sinclair, in a tender tone. But as he turned to go he mentally cursed Giovanni for the interruption; “for,” thought he, “in one minute more I would have had her promise, and who knows but now that brother of hers may recover and interfere?”

Assunta met Mrs. Grey just outside the door of Mr. Carlisle's room, and drew her into the library, where she sat down beside her on the sofa, and, putting her arm affectionately about her, began to speak to her with a calmness which, under the circumstances, could only come from the presence of God.

“I thought, dear Clara, that I had better ask you to come here, while I talk to you a little about your brother, and what the doctor says. We must both of us try to [pg 072] prepare.” Here her voice broke, and Mrs. Grey interrupted her with,

“Tell me, Assunta, quickly, is he worse?”

“I fear so, dear,” replied Assunta; “but we must help each other to keep up what courage and hope we may. It is a common sorrow, Clara, for he has been more than a brother to me.”

“But, Assunta, I do not understand. You are so calm, and yet you say such dreadful things. Does the doctor think he will die?” And once again she shuddered at that word, to her so fearful and so incomprehensible.

“I dare not deceive you, dear—I dare not deceive myself. The crisis has come, and he seems to be sinking fast. O Clara, pray for him!”

“I cannot pray; I do not know how. I have never prayed in my life. But let me go to him—my poor, dear Severn!” And Mrs. Grey was rushing from the room, when Assunta begged her to wait one moment, while she besought her to be calm. Life hung upon a thread, which the least agitation might snap in a moment. She could not give up that one last hope. Mrs. Grey of course promised; but the instant she approached the bed, and saw the change that a few hours had made, she shrieked aloud; and Assunta, in answer to the doctor's look of despair, summoned her maid, and she was carried to her own room in violent hysterics, the orange blossoms still in her hand. Truly they seemed an omen of death rather than of a bridal. The doctor followed to administer an opiate, and then Assunta and himself again took up their watch by Mr. Carlisle. Hour after hour passed.

Everything that skill could suggest was done. Once only Assunta left the room for a moment to inquire for Mrs. Grey, and, finding that she was sleeping under the influence of the anodyne, she instantly returned. She dared not trust herself to think how different was this death from that other she remembered. She could not have borne to entertain for one moment the thought that this soul was going forth without prayer, without sacrament, to meet its God. She did everything the doctor wished, quietly and calmly. The hours did not seem long, for she had almost lost her sense of time, so near the confines of eternity. She did not even feel now—she only waited.

It was nearly twelve when the doctor said in a low voice:

“We can do nothing more now; we must leave the rest to nature.”

“And to God,” whispered Assunta, as she sank on her knees beside the bed; and, taking in both hers her guardian's thin, out-stretched hand, she bowed her head, and from the very depths of her soul went up a prayer for his life—if it might be—followed by a fervent but agonized act of resignation to the sweet will of God.

She was so absorbed that she did not notice a sudden brightening of the doctor's face as he bent over his patient. But in a moment more she felt a motion, and the slightest possible pressure of her hand. She raised her head, and her eyes met those of her guardian, while a faint smile—one of his own peculiar, winning smiles—told her that he was conscious of her presence. At last, rousing himself a little more, he said:

“Petite, no matter where I am, it is so sweet to have you here.” And, with an expression of entire [pg 073] content, he closed his eyes again, and fell into a refreshing sleep.

“Thank God!” murmured Assunta, and her head dropped upon her folded hands.

The doctor came to her, and whispered the joyful words, “He will live!” but, receiving no answer, he tried to lift the young girl from her knees, and found that she had fainted. Poor child! like Mary, the Blessed Mother of Sorrows, she had stood beneath her cross until it was lightened of its burden, She had nerved herself to bear her sorrow; she had not counted on the strength which would be needed for the reaction of joy.

“Better so,” said the doctor, as he placed her upon the couch, “She would never have taken rest in any other way.”

To Be Continued.

A Discussion With An Infidel.

A Legend Of Alsace.

From The French Of M. Le Vicomte De Bussierre.

Fac-Similes Of Irish National Manuscripts.

Few of our readers are probably aware that the English government, for the last ten years, has been making fac-similes of the most important national MSS., for publication and sale, by the process of photo-zincography. The Domesday Book was the first work taken in hand. This wonderful record, without a peer in the world, is a general survey of the land of England, ordered by William the Conqueror in the year of our Lord 1085. It is the undisputed testimony of the relations existing at that period between the landlords and their tenants; and it describes the state of society which existed in England under the Anglo-Saxon kings up to the conquest of the kingdom by the Duke of Normandy. So successfully was the printing of the fac-similes of the Domesday Book accomplished, [pg 103] and so acceptable to historical students of every degree was its publication, that, in the spring of 1864, the Lords of H. M. Treasury unanimously endorsed the proposal by the late Master of the Rolls (Lord Romilly) that the same process of photo-zincography should be applied to the reproduction and perpetuation of some of the “National Records.” Three volumes of English manuscripts and three volumes of Scottish manuscripts have been followed by the preparation for three volumes of Irish national MSS., which will rank (says Mr. William Basevi Sanders, the Assistant Keeper of Her Majesty's Records, in his Annual Report, printed in the year 1873, on the fac-similes photo-zincographed at the Ordnance Survey Office, Southampton) among the first of the many valuable publications which Sir Henry James (the military engineer officer in charge) has been the means of laying before the public.

Let us look over Mr. Sanders's description of the Irish MSS. He has gathered his information from the best sources, having consulted and freely used O'Donovan's edition of the Annals of the Four Masters, the accessible works of Dr. Petrie, Dr. Todd, Dr. Reeves, and Prof. Westwood, and more particularly from the elaborate investigations of Prof. O'Curry, published in his Lectures on the MS. Materials of Ancient Irish History.

The first of these MSS., both in point of age and on account of the remarkable history that attaches to it, is the volume known as Domhnach Airgid, or Silver Shrine. This is a volume of the Gospels—perhaps the oldest in the world—of the Vth century, and traditionally believed to have been the private book of devotion of S. Patrick himself, and to have been given by him to S. Mac Carthainn when he placed him over the See of Clogher. The legend in which this curious story is narrated appears in the Tripartite Life of S. Patrick, and O'Curry in his lectures gives the following literal translation of it:

“S. Patrick, having gone into the territory of Ui Cremthainn, founded many churches there. As he was on his way from the North, and coming to the place now called Clochar, he was carried over a stream by his strong man, Bishop Mac Carthainn, who, while bearing the saint, groaned aloud, exclaiming ‘Uch! uch!’

“ ‘Upon my good word,’ said the saint, ‘it was not usual with you to speak that word.’

“ ‘I am now old and infirm,’ said Bishop Mac Carthainn, ‘and all my early companions on the mission you have set down in their respective churches, while I am still on my travels.’

“ ‘Found you a church, then,’ said the saint, ‘that shall not be too near for us for familiarity, nor too far from us for intercourse.’

“And the saint then left Bishop Mac Carthainn at Clochar, and bestowed on him the Domhnach Airgid, which had been given to him from heaven when he was on the sea coming from Erinn.”

The shrine which held this relic is composed of three distinct covers, of different dates—of wood, of copper plated with silver, and the most modern of silver plated with gold, richly ornamented with figures of the Saviour, the Blessed Virgin, and saints, and with representations of animals, and traceries, among which is a mounted figure, sword in hand, and displaying with minute accuracy all the dress and [pg 104] accoutrements of an Irish noble of the XIVth century.

The MS. itself is in such a state from age and damp as to make inspection of its contents impossible, the leaves being all stuck together, and the whole of about the consistency and appearance of a piece of brick. The portions of which facsimiles will be given present a good example of the better parts of it. It was originally the property of the monastery of Clones, and was procured in the county Monaghan by Mr. George Smith, from whom it was purchased for £300 (say $1,500) by Lord Rossmore, who presented it to the Royal Irish Academy, where it remains at present.

The next MS. is as curious—the Cathach, or Book of Battles—a copy of the Psalms, supposed to have been written by S. Columba. It consists of fifty-eight leaves of vellum, and appears to be perfect from the xxxist to the cvith Psalm, all prior to which are gone, and is enclosed in a handsome shrine. Why it was called the Book of Battles is told by O'Curry, from the Life of S. Columba, by Magnus O'Dohmnaill. S. Columba, when on a visit to S. Finnen of Drom Finn, being very anxious to have a copy of S. Finnen's Book of the Psalms, made one surreptitiously by borrowing the book, and copying it in the church after every one else had left. S. Finnen had notice of this underhand proceeding of his brother saint from one of his pupils, and accordingly, as soon as the copy was finished, demanded possession of it. S. Columba refusing to comply with this demand, the matter was referred to Diarmaid Mac Ferghusa Cerrbheaill, King of Erinn, who pronounced against him in a judgment which to this day remains a proverb in Ireland—Le gach bóin a boinin (“To every cow its calf”), and so, by analogy, “to every book its copy.” This adverse judgment, closely followed by the accidental death of the son of Diarmaid's chief steward while engaged in a game of hurling with the son of the King of Connaught—at that time a hostage at Tara—who was torn from S. Columba's arms, into which he had thrown himself for sanctuary, and put to death, so enraged the saint that he stirred up his relatives in Tirconnel and Tyrone to revenge the insult, and a bloody battle was fought in Connaught, which ended in the rout of the king's army: and this was how the book obtained its name.

For thirteen hundred years the book was preserved as an heirloom by the O'Donnells, having been handed down by S. Columba himself, who belonged to that clan. It is now preserved in the Royal Irish Academy. Four pages have been selected for copying, containing severally the first twelve verses of Psalm lxxx., the last three of lxxxix., and the first seven of xc., the whole of xciv., and the first eleven of xcv. The condition in which these pages remain is wonderful, and reflects great honor upon the family who have for so many ages and through so many national troubles and disturbances preserved this relic with sacred care.

The next is the Book of Durrow, or Gospels of S. Columba, a volume containing 248 leaves of vellum, written in columns by the hand of S. Columba himself, as asserted in the following inscription on the fly-leaf: “Liber autem hic scriptus est a manu ipsius B. Columbkille per spatium 12 dierum anno 500”; and again, “Rogo beatitudinem tuam, [pg 105] sancte presbiter Patrici, ut quicunque, hunc libellum manu tenuerit, meminerit Columbæ scriptoris, qui hoc scripsi ipsemet evangelium per xii. dierum spatium gratiâ Domini nostri.” This last inscription is quoted by Dr. Petrie as conclusive evidence of the date of the volume, which is considered by Dr. Reeves to be either as old as S. Columba's day, or nearly so (a somewhat curious hypothesis if the volume were written by S. Columba).

Until its presentation to Trinity College by Dr. Jones, Bishop of Meath, this book was kept at Durrow, in King's County, the monastery and church of which were founded by S. Columba about the year 550, where the tradition of its having belonged to their patron saint was preserved and believed in by the monks. It was originally enclosed in a silver-mounted cuhmdach, or shrine, made for it by order of Flann, King of Ireland, who reigned from 879 to 916, which was lost, as Mr. Westwood conjectures, in 1007, when the volume was stolen.

The portions selected for copying are pages 12b, 14a 118a, and 173a. The first contains the prayer of the writer above quoted, under which is also written, “Ora pro me, frater mi; Dominus tecum sit”; the second is the first page of S. Matthew's Gospel, the third the first page of S. Luke's Gospel, and the fourth the concluding page of the same Gospel, at the bottom of which is written, “+ Miserere Domine Naemani + filii Neth +” names which O'Curry states had not been identified at the time of his lectures, though the surname seems to be very like that of the scribe after whom another of the MSS. contained in this volume is called—Mac Nathi.

The next MS. in order is the famous Book of Kells, a copy of the Gospels, also traditionally ascribed to S. Columba—a tradition doubted by some, but which Dr. Todd saw no reason to mistrust, as the book is undoubtedly a MS. of that age. About the same time as that when the Book of Durrow was sacrilegiously deprived of its shrine, the Book of Kells was also stolen out of the church from which it takes its name. The circumstance is thus narrated in the Four Masters: “The age of Christ 1006.... The great Gospel of Colum Cille was stolen at night from the Western Erdomh [sacristy] of the great church of Ceandrrus. This was the principal relic of the Western World on account of its singular cover, and it was found after twenty nights and two months, its gold having been stolen off it, and a sod over it.”

It continued in the possession of the Church of Kells till the time of Archbishop Usher, after whose death it was granted with the rest of that prelate's library, in which it was then found, by King Charles II., to the university of Dublin, and has been preserved in the library of Trinity College ever since.

Of the pages chosen for copying, 6b, 7a, and 27a are entries concerning lands, believed to be the only existing specimens, of pre-Anglo and Norman date, of deeds written in the Irish language. They are written in a rude, rough hand, that looks unsightly in contrast with the character of the contents of the volume proper. 34a is the beginning of S. Matthew's Gospel, and is entirely filled with the initial of “Liber generationis.” 123a, 124a, and 126b contain S. Matthew's story of the crucifixion, 124a being all taken up by the words, “Tunc [pg 106] crucifixerant Christum et duos latrones,” written in a very singular fashion, and enclosed in a framework profusely decorated. 200b contains a portion of the genealogy in the third chapter of S. John, and 19b displays a collection of fantastic symbols, with a very handsome capital Z, and the first two syllables of Zacharias embellished with spirited figures of a dog pursuing a wolf.

It is impossible to exaggerate the elaborate ornamentation of this remarkable volume, or the quaintness of the grotesque subjects introduced into it. The gigantic initial letter, which is given as an example in this volume, is filled in with an almost incredible interlacing of extravagant impossibilities: Serpentine figures with human heads; intertwined sketches of men spotted like leopards in attitude of earnest conversation; rats sitting on the backs of cats, who are holding other rats by the tails, the rats being engaged in eating a cake; human figures with impossible combinations of their own and other creature's limbs; strange shapes of birds and fishes, geometrical designs and intricate arabesque traceries, all woven together in the wildest dreamlike way, and having an effect that charms the eye, and fills the mind with amazement at the fancy that designed and the hand that executed them.

The next is another copy of the Gospels, known as the Book of Dimma Mac Nathi, made, it is said, at the express desire of S. Cronan of Roscrea, who died in the beginning of the VIIth century. The drawings in this book are very rude, and the writing of some parts of it difficult to read, though the scribe Dimma is supposed to have belonged to a family of saints, one of whom, at any rate, was greatly distinguished as a penman. It was purchased from Sir William Betham, its original place of deposit having been the Abbey of Roscrea, and is now in the library of Trinity College, Dublin.

Four pages have been chosen for copying. The first contains portions of chapters 27 and 28 of S. Matthew's Gospel, and has this note at the foot: “Finit. Oroit do Dimma rodscrib pro Deo et benedictione” (“A prayer for Dimma, who has written for God, and a benediction”). Between the 49th and 50th verses of the 27th chapter there is this other verse, the substance of which only appears in the Gospel of S. John: “Alius vero, acceptâ lanceâ pupugit latus ejus et exivit aqua et sanguis.” Here, however, the piercing is made to take place before the death. The second is the illuminated page preceding S. John. In it is depicted a bird, probably intended for that saint's symbol, an eagle, carrying a book in its talons, surrounded by a border of arabesque design. The last two pages contain the first thirty-eight verses of the 1st chapter of S. John, the first written along the full breadth of the page and with a handsome initial “In,” the second written in columns.

The next MS. is another copy of the Gospels, known as the Book of Moling, and supposed to have been written about the year 690 by S. Moling, Bishop of Ferns. It was presented to Trinity College, Dublin, by a member of the family of Kavanagh, by whom it had been preserved for many generations in its metal cumhdach, or covering.

Four pages have been selected. The first is a figure of one of the Evangelists, with a book in his [pg 107] left hand, and a pen, which he is dipping into an ink-horn, in his right. The second contains the 18th chapter of S. Matthew, from the 8th verse to the 27th; the third, from the 27th verse to the 16th verse of the 19th chapter of S. Matthew; and the fourth, the concluding verses of the last chapter of S. John.

The Book of Armagh has also been selected. This volume, a transcript of one still older, supposed to have been the holograph of S. Patrick, was ascribed by Sir W. Betham to Bishop Aedh of Stetty, whose death is recorded in the Four Masters in 698; and O'Curry conceived it to be as old as 724, but Mr. Graves seems to have proved that it was written by the scribe Ferdomnach in 807. It is a small quarto volume, consisting of 221 leaves of vellum, and containing an extract from the Tripartite Life of S. Patrick, annotations on that saint's life by Tirechan and others, his confession or epistle to the Irish, the Epistle of S. Jerome to Pope Damasus, the ten Eusebian canons, an explanation of Hebrew names used in the Gospels, with various prefaces and arguments, the four Gospels and remaining books of the New Testament, the life of S. Martin of Tours by Sulpicius, with two epistles by Sulpicius and Severus, and concludes with a prayer. It belonged to the Church of Armagh, being, as Prof. Westwood relates, held in such veneration that the family of Mac Mayre held lands from the See of Armagh by the tenure of its safe keeping; and in 1846 it was presented to Trinity College, Dublin, by the Rev. Francis Brownlow, into whose family it had passed in the XVIIth century.

Six pages have been selected, the first three of which contain the extract from the Tripartite Life of S. Patrick. On the first column of page 18b is the following account of a miracle performed by S. Patrick: “Sechnall went afterwards to rebuke Patrick on account of a chariot he had. Then Patrick sent the chariot to Sechnall without a charioteer in it, but it was an angel that directed it. Sechnall sent it, when it had stopped three nights there with him, to Manchan, and it remained three nights with him. He sent it to Fiacc. Fiacc rejected it. After that where they went to was round the church three times, when the angel said, ‘It is to you they have been given from Patrick when he came to know your disease.’ ” The miracle as here related is, as O'Curry very truly observes, not quite intelligible, but the key to it is to be found in the Tripartite Life, from which it had probably been taken. The story there is that once, when Sechnall was at Armagh, he remarked that two chariot horses which he saw there would be a fitting gift to Bishop Fiacc. Patrick was not at home at the time, but as soon as he returned and heard this he had the horses harnessed to a chariot, and sent them off, without a coach-man, to Fiacc at Stetty, where they arrived safely. The reason of S. Patrick making him this present was to enable him to go to his cave on the hill of Drom Coblai, where he used to repair on Shrove Saturday with five loaves, and remain till Easter Saturday; and because “chafers had gnawed his legs so that death was near him.”

Then come The Gospels of Maelbride Mac Durnan, Archbishop of Armagh from 885 to 927, a small and beautifully-written copy of the Gospels, made apparently by the [pg 108] same scribe, Ferdomnach, who wrote the Book of Armagh, and at about the same period. The initial page of each Gospel is very gracefully illuminated, and to each is prefixed a page bearing the figure of its writer, surrounded by a border of delicate tracery. The pages selected are the first four, comprising the “Liber generationis” and the inscription in capitals, the face of folio 5 being the beginning of S. Matthew's narrative; the dorse of folio 65, which contains his account of the scourging and mocking, and at the foot this note by the scribe: Mór assársa for Coimdid nime agus talman (“Great this violence upon the God of heaven and earth”); the dorse of folio 69, containing the following letter, written in Saxon, is probably the earliest known contemporary copy of a petition for restitution of temporalities to an English bishop:

“Wulfstan, Archbishop, greets Cnut his Lord and Aelfgyfe the Queen humbly, and I make known to you two, liege, that we have done as the certificate came to us from you with regard to the Bishop Aethelnoth, that we have now consecrated him. Now pray I for God's love, and in the name of all God's saints, that ye will have respect to God and to the holy order. That he may be admitted to the possessions that others before him were: namely, Dunstan the good and many another: that he may be likewise admitted to rights and honors. In which case it shall be for both of you meritorious before God, and eke honorable before the world.”

At the end of S. Matthew's Gospel there is, in addition to Archbishop Wulfstan's (of York) letter, this memorandum in Latin: “Cnud, King of the Angles, has given to Christ's Church an arm of S. Bartholomew the Apostle, with the great pall and the golden crown of his head; and the port of Sandwich and all issues of the water of the same from either side of the river; so that a ship floating in the stream when the water shall be high, at the distance of the cast of a very small hatchet from the shore, the droits of the ship are to be received by the servants of Christ's Church. And no man whatsoever has custom in the same port except the monks of Christ's Church. Theirs also is the ferry over the port, and the boats and toll of boats and of all ships which come to Sandwich from Peperness as far as Northmouth. If, however, anything be found on the high sea, being brought to Sandwich, Christ's Church shall take half, and the remaining part shall rest with the finders.”

The volume is preserved in the library of Lambeth Palace, but it is a singular fact that it finds no place either in the catalogue of that library published in 1812, or in the catalogue of the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where Archbishop Parker's collection of MSS. is preserved.

To Be Concluded Next Month.

Congress Of The Catholic Germans At Mayence.

On the 16th and 17th days of June the Second Congress of the Catholic Germans assembled at Mayence. This congress must be distinguished from the regular annual congress of all the Catholic societies of Germany. The constitution of the latter was formed during the stormy times of 1848. It treats only upon religious questions, and excludes on principle the discussion of politics during its deliberations; whereas the Congress of Catholic Germans, which held its first session two years ago, has for its object, according to its statutes, the defence of the liberty and the rights of the Catholic Church, and the maintenance of Christian principles in all the spheres of public life by all moral and lawful means, especially by the use of constitutionally-recognized and guaranteed civil rights; and it therefore desires to be considered a political organization. It is already in operation throughout Germany, in Prussia particularly. Its sessions are held in Mayence—in that city which, owing to its advantageous position in Middle Germany, opposite the confluence of the river Mayence with the Rhine, was chosen by the Romans as a boundary, and by S. Boniface as the central point for the Christianization of the Teutons. It is true that “Golden Mayence,” the special and true daughter of the Roman Church (Aurea Moguntia sanctæ Romanæ Ecclesiæ specialis vera filia), as the inscription reads upon the old city seal, has, since the beginning of this century, fallen greatly from its former splendor. In it once resided an archbishop, who was the legate of the apostolic chair for Germany, and metropolitan over twenty-four bishoprics, which extended from Brandenburg to Chur in Switzerland, and from Metz to Prague and Olmütz, and which comprised the largest part of the old German empire; so that next to the Pope he was called the greatest prince of the church (Post Papam secundus, says Marianus Scotus (+ 1086) in his Chron. Aet. VI., ad a. 750), and in his temporal position as elector and hereditary chancellor of the empire ranked next to the emperor, and was called the Prince of princes (Moguntius post imperatorem princeps est principum—Vita Arnoldi). Mayence is now only a provincial city belonging to little Hessia, and the boundaries of its bishopric are inconsiderable. Nevertheless, in the present combat for the liberty of the church, it occupies, and has for years occupied, an important place by reason of a succession of great men, Bishop Von Ketteler at the head, and it cannot be doubted that the city will in future be of great importance to the Catholic interests of Germany.

The centrum of the Catholic party in Mayence is the Casino zum Frankfurter-hof (Casino of the court of Frankfort), whose spacious and imposing hall has not its equal in the city. In former times this hall was used when a blow was to be struck at the interest of the [pg 110] Catholic Church; but things are changed, and the Frankfurter-hof is now the stronghold in which the defenders of the Catholic Church meet together. Not until the use of this hall was acquired, owing to the determined efforts of Falk III., the people's champion, so well known throughout all Germany, did the Catholic party in Mayence begin to feel its own importance. For the past twenty years its members have appeared regularly at every election upon the battle-field, to be as regularly defeated; but they were finally successful in securing Canon Dr. Moufang as their deputy at the last election for the Reichstag.

In the above-named hall the Congress of Catholic Germans held its late sessions. It was appropriately decorated for the occasion. In a prominent place, surrounded by beautiful flowers, was seen the bust of our Holy Father, Pius IX. Above, in golden letters, were written the words, “For God and Fatherland,” and over this the sign of redemption with the inscription, “In this sign thou shalt conquer.” Upon the pillars of the hall were placed the coats-of-arms of the different bishoprics of Germany. The crape hanging over those of the Archbishops of Cologne and Posen and Gnesen, and that of the Bishop of Treves, was emblematic of the grief which fills the heart of every Catholic when he remembers the three venerable prelates who, forcibly removed from their episcopal sees, now testify in prison to the divinity of Christianity and the inalienable right of the church to that liberty in matters of faith and religion left her by her Founder. The evening before the opening of the Congress many members of the society met from all parts of Germany to greet one another. Even the United States was represented in the person of the learned F. Hecker. A superficial glance was enough to convince any one that the nobility in particular desired by their presence to show their love and affection for our persecuted mother, the church. For years the majority of the Catholic nobles of Westphalia and the Rhine have been animated with a deep religious feeling. The best names among the aristocracy are generally found at the head of the numerous appeals in behalf of religion; and in their own homes (a fact which is of great importance) these nobles do not strive to emulate by outward splendor those “capitalists” whose lives are spent in acquiring riches, but they rather seek to uphold the honor of their names by the simplicity of their mode of life, in their daily actions, by educating their children as Catholics should, and instilling into them principles of honesty, morality, and every Christian virtue. It makes a lasting impression upon whomsoever is admitted to familiar intercourse with any of these noble families to see all the members of the household devoutly assembled in the private chapel of the mansion, for the adornment of whose altars no expense has been spared, there to attend the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; and in the evening to behold the father of the family, by ringing a bell, again summons them into the chapel for evening prayer and examen of conscience, at which the chaplain, but oftener the head of the house, be he old or young, performs the duty of reading the prayers. Fathers and mothers should imitate the example of these noblemen, and when priests, on account of their faith, are imprisoned or exiled, they themselves should take the place of the priests in their [pg 111] own homes. Then will the zeal of priests grow stronger and Catholic faith take deeper root. Would to God that we could see the same state of things in many castles in Middle Germany, in Silesia, Bavaria, and in Brisgau (Baden), as is now seen in Westphalia and on the Rhine!

But let us return, after this digression, to our Congress in the Frankfurter-hof. Its president, Baron von Loë, representative in the Reichstag, who last year with manly courage defended the organization against intrigues of all kinds, was received with universal applause when he ascended the rostrum and opened Congress with the salutation, “Praise be to Jesus Christ!” In a few but convincing words he explained why, despite the serious aspect of the times, they had met in “Golden Mayence,” where liberty of speech is yet permitted. (A short time ago a meeting at Treves was dissolved because Herr Majunke, a representative in the Reichstag, had said in the course of his remarks that Bismarck was only mortal, and while lying upon his sick-bed suffered as much as any beggar who lies ill in his hut. Another meeting was broken up by the Prussian police because the speaker had announced his intention of discoursing upon one particular theme. Who knows what terrible things the police understood by the word “theme”?) Then followed a long succession of congratulations which the guests, coming from all parts of Germany, had personally to offer. As space does not permit us to give a lengthened sketch of all these speeches, we must content ourselves with simply giving the title of the address and the name of the speaker.

Dr. Evels of Bonn spoke concerning the latest cultivated plant, which grows only in Germany, and there sporadically, notwithstanding the most careful attention from high quarters—that is, Old Catholicism. With this exception, no dangers threaten the Catholic Church in Germany. Count Bassenheim was the bearer of greetings from the Bishop of Basel, who asked the prayers of the members for the persecuted friends of religion in Switzerland. Baron Stillfried of Vienna assured the Congress that the Catholics of Austria were united, and expected the salvation of Austria only from intimate union with the church. Dr. Lingens of Aix-la-Chapelle invited all present to attend the exposition of relics in the venerable electoral city of the old German emperors, which exposition takes place this year, and not again until 1881. Baron von Frankenstein of Bavaria spoke on the state of affairs in his country, declaring his belief that they would soon change for the better. Count Kageneck of Freiburg in Baden looked confidently forward to a happy future, relying upon the just rights of the Catholics and upon the powerful protection of God. Count Bissingen of Würtemberg (Swabia) asserted that the fable of the Catholics hating the empire finds no believers among the honest people of Swabia. Herr Baudri of Cologne, the brother of the coadjutor-bishop, an old, faithful warrior, proclaimed in words of burning eloquence the earnestness with which the enemies of the Catholic Church publicly declare that the destruction of the church is the order of the day, and he denounced the corruption of public opinion by the state, and the manner in which it subsidized the press by means of [pg 112] the funds stolen from the church. He thanked divine Providence for giving Germany such a united episcopate, and the present affliction of the church only demonstrated the fact that not only in Germany, but through the whole world, Catholics form only one family. While our enemies, he continued, raise on high the torch of discord, which has so frequently brought our fatherland to the verge of ruin, our Congress should use every effort to build a new great and united Germany upon the foundations of a Christianity similar to that upon which old Germany became great and powerful. Herr Stroebel of Charlottenburg made the next speech, and he was followed by the Rev. F. Altheimer, Curate of Amorbach in Odenwald, Hellwich of Deidesheim in Palatine, Herr Wiese, merchant of Werden, Baron von Schorlemer of Overhagen, Herr Busch, contractor of Neuss, and finally by the junior editor of the Germania, Herr Cremer of Berlin.

While the hall reverberated to the hearty cheers of the members, letters and telegrams were constantly arriving from the interior and from foreign countries, thus making perfect the picture of Catholic unity presented by this assembly. Despatches from Austria were especially numerous, showing thereby that in that country also the Catholics are keeping watch in the struggle that has begun. The old imperial city of Vienna gladdened our hearts with two telegrams. In the one the Prince von Fürstenberg salutes us in the name of the Catholic societies of Vienna; in the other the president of the Catholic people's associations of Lower Austria sends his best wishes that “the heroic battle which Germany's bishops, priests, and laymen wage with such sublime courage may find its end in a speedy victory for the holy cause of the church,” and adds the assurance: “We Catholics of Austria are firmly determined, confiding in God's protection, to offer the same resistance if the same attacks are made upon the church.” Six telegrams from “green Styria” reached us, four of which were sent by the Catholics of Grätz, and two by the Catholic societies of Marburg and Wildon. “They desire to oppress you and us,” telegraphed Senator Karlon of Grätz, “but we will yet be the victors; for Christ lives, Christ reigns, Christ commands, and Christ will triumph.” To these were added a telegram from the Catholic Society of Klagenfurth in Carinthia, and two others from ever-faithful Tyrol, from the society in Botzen, which numbers more than 3,000 members, and from the society of Innsbrück. The president of the last society, Julius von Riccabona, sent us the following characteristic Tyrolese wish: “As the snow melts on the high mountain beneath the rays of the sun, so also may the intrigues against our holy church disappear before the power of truth.” Charles Count of Schoenbrunn and George Prince of Lobkowitz expressed in telegrams their respect, sympathy, and good wishes, while from far-distant Hungary the Catholic Political Society of Presburg sent assurances of their love and affection. From Munich, Bavaria, came telegrams, from the diocesan clergy of Eichstaedt, from the Centrum member Lang of Kelheim, and from the society of Catholic men in Wasserburg on the Inn. From Noerdlingen the society of Catholic men in Riesa, numbering over 1,400 members, writes among [pg 113] other things: “We feel in our hearts the afflictions which the Catholics of Prussia endure; we pray for the bishops, priests, and laity who are imprisoned on account of their religious convictions; we approve of the conduct and praise the fidelity of our Catholic brethren; yes, we are edified by their unity in faith and by their firmness, and we congratulate them on their perseverance and courage, which, because it comes from God, will conquer the world.... We shall never consent to give to Cæsar the things that belong to God; if it should be demanded of us, we shall obey God rather than man, and imitate the example of the Prussian Catholics.” From the south came greetings from the society of men in Constance and from the president of the Helvetian Pius Society, Count M. Scherer-Bouard of Lucerne, and finally from Hunfeld, Viersen, München-Gladbach, Bochum, Luedinghausen, Kluesedoerpen, Prussia, two from the city of Hanover, one from the northern missionaries of New Münster in Holstein, and the last from remote Dantzic. Among other despatches, there is worthy of special mention the telegram of Prince Salvati, in the name of the Congress of the Catholic Societies of Italy, which met at Venice, and the following from London: “The Catholic Union of Great Britain extends to you a brother's hand to encourage you in the struggle with the evil spirit, and at the same time it deplores the death of your champion, Malinckrodt. (Signed) Duke of Norfolk, President of the Catholic Union of Great Britain.”

The greatest interest was shown when the mammoth address from the United States was exhibited. It contained upon a roll of paper one thousand feet long 30,000 signatures of Catholic men whose own or whose fathers' cradle had rested upon German soil. (A few days after this address was again exposed in the great hall, and the endless roll of paper was drawn from the table of the president up to the glass cupola, and from there letting it fall down again upon the president's table, it was taken up for the second time to the chandelier, and from thence to the roof.) The fearless expressions contained in this document, which, thanks to “our freedom of speech,” could not be dwelt upon at length, and the grandeur of this manifestation, showed the imprint of the youthful and vigorous mind of men who glory in being citizens of the greatest republic in the world—the United States. Not long ago we finished a great war in a great manner. It was then the pride of Germans to be German. Since then, however, the little banners of religious narrow-mindedness have been everywhere unfurled, and the so-called liberal party has sacrificed not only its principles, but the most important articles of the Prussian constitution—the idea of a great Germany and peace and liberty. With the exception of a huge military power, everything has dwindled away. The men who won renown in 1870 and 1871 are no longer heard of. The men of the Centrum are our real consolation, for by their prudent and fearless defence of truth, liberty, and justice they have obtained great merit and are entitled to enduring praise.

To place their labors under the protection of God, the Catholic Congress of Germany assembled early on the morning of June 16 in the venerable Cathedral of Mayence, where they assisted at the [pg 114] Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and received holy communion from the hands of the Rt. Rev. Bishop Herr von Ketteler.

The devotion of these men, gathered from all parts of Germany, was greatly increased by the music, which was executed in a most masterly manner by the cathedral choir, who gave selections from the following composers: Vechi, Aichinger, Orlando Lasso, Palestrina, Croce, Vittoria, and Piadana.

In the session which was held with closed doors the president first spoke of the sadness which filled the hearts of all the Catholics of Germany on account of the untimely death of Herman von Malinckrodt, deputy to the Reichstag. The memory of this wonderful man, like a mourning accord, seemed to permeate all the transactions, whether in writing or in words, and made itself felt even in the banquet-hall. We shall not, however, dwell any longer upon this theme, as we intend to give a short sketch of the life of this faithful champion of the church.

Of the business transacted in the private session we shall make brief mention. That which, as a general rule, is last thought of in all great Catholic undertakings, was in this instance the first to receive attention—we mean the finances. In this regard, however, the Congress is deserving of no reproach, as it attached too little instead of too much importance to money—a prince seemingly so insignificant, but yet one who rules the world. The Catholic Congress, organized as it is throughout Germany, stands in need of certain pecuniary means, which want will be felt in future even more than now. For this reason every member is obliged to give six Silbergroschen (about fifteen cents). It must, however, be understood that the collection of this money is not made without some difficulty, since the organization is only in its infancy, and the number of members constantly increasing.

We learn from the report of Herr Racke, High Treasurer of Darmstadt, owing to whose self-sacrificing labors the finances of our Union are in a very prosperous condition, that the collections of last year amounted to 17,883 thalers, 14,000 of which were put out on interest, including 7,000 loaned to different Catholic newspapers. Another question came up regarding the existence of the Union. According to the law of Prussia in reference to societies, a political society cannot act as a union or central society, nor form branches depending upon the union; on the other hand, however, it is lawful for one society to exist over all Germany, and it can have its affairs conducted by authorized agents. Our union was from the very beginning most anxious to correspond with this law. Notwithstanding this, however, the Prussian authorities have pretended to discover the existence of local branches, in consequence of which many of them have been suppressed. The reason for this proceeding, which called into question the existence of the Union itself, was Section 10 of the statutes, which has reference to meetings held in different parts of the empire. To avoid further vexations, this paragraph was stricken out, and at the same time it was expressly said that Mayence was to be the headquarters of the Union, and that there the annual general meetings were to take place.

Herr Racke, merchant of Mayence, and secretary of the Union, who had taken upon his youthful and strong shoulders the principal burden of the pecuniary affairs of [pg 115] the Union, then introduced a series of propositions, for the examination of which three committees were appointed, viz., one upon the social question of the day, another upon science, and a third on the influence of the press; and finally he submitted certain rules of proceeding.

The short address to the bishops assembled in Fulda, which was received with enthusiasm, and which was now read, deserves a place in this periodical. It is as follows:

At one o'clock a banquet was held in the same great hall, at which 300 members of the Union were present, among whom was the Rt. Rev. Bishop Ketteler of Mayence. It was he who proposed the first toast to the Holy Father, which was received with enthusiasm, as it was the twenty-eighth anniversary of his appointment to the chair of Peter. The speaker reviewed the long series of years of combat between light and darkness, and in the increasing enthusiasm and affection of the Catholic people for Pius IX., the representative of unity, appointed by Almighty God, he saw an increase of the unity which the church, like an impregnable fortress in the midst of combats, exhibits, while the world threatens to split asunder. Baron von Frankenstein proposed, as the second toast, the Grand Duke of Hessia and all the German princes belonging to the Union, and made a few remarks appropriate to the occasion.

The president, Baron von Loë, proposed the health of the leaders given us by Almighty God, the Rt. Rev. Bishops of Germany, under whose guidance we some years ago saved the thrones from the whirl of revolution, and under whose direction we now hope to conquer the revolution which is preached by the government. Among the other toasts given, we will only mention that of the Rt. Rev. Bishop of Mayence, who paid a high tribute of praise to the men of the Centrum who had in Berlin defended with such courage and skill the [pg 116] cause of truth, justice, and liberty. After the banquet the different committees of the Union entered upon the discussion of the proposed resolutions, while the presiding officers of the Congress consulted upon the drawing up of these resolutions.

The same resolutions formed also the theme for the speakers in the public evening sessions, to which such a great number of persons were attracted that the hall of the Frankfurter-hof, large as it is, was not sufficient to contain all.

The first speaker, Baron von Wendt of Westphalia, passed in review the public events that had transpired in Europe for the last year, and he demonstrated in a convincing manner that hostility to the church had everywhere appeared simultaneously, and was therefore the result of preconcerted action. The explanation of this fact the speaker found in the activity of modern liberalism, which had determined upon the complete denial of Christianity, and which boldly avows that by adhering to the principles of what its advocates are pleased to call humanity all those inestimable blessings would be obtained which the Saviour has left us in his sublime teachings upon the obligations and morality of a Christian life. Like the work of redemption, so also would the church become superfluous, and the state, to which liberalism gives the preference over everything else, would then enter upon its inheritance, and, as in the days of the pagan Cæsars, assert its ascendency even over the spirit.

Herr Cremer, the editor of a Berlin journal, next proceeded to point out the imperfections to be found in the constitution of the German Empire, which gave security only to material interests and military power, while there was not an article which had reference to the moral problem of state life and the fundamental rights of civil liberty. In the course of his speech he with much humor and sarcasm drew attention to the fatal avowal of Bismarck in regard to his own policy. When the question was proposed in the Reichstag as to whether Catholics had forfeited their rights to citizenship and were dangerous to the state, the prince answered in the affirmative. This “yes,” remarked the speaker, “was the most absolute condemnation of his own policy which could have ever been pronounced by any one; for no state was ever so powerful that it could dispense even for a time with the co-operation of one-third of its inhabitants. This policy must be changed, for nine millions of Catholics could not be forced to emigrate or be declared outlaws like helots. This policy was in every respect to be rejected as rotten and false, even if it did rest upon the shoulders of this modern Atlas.” The vigor and readiness of expression displayed by the youthful speaker caused him to be warmly applauded.

The V. Rev. Dr. Monfang, deputy to the Reichstag, delivered an admirable speech upon the present state of society. The great change, he argued, took place in the beginning of our century, and he attributed it to the following causes: First, the French Revolution, which overturned the laws of commerce and labor without regulating them anew; second, the wonderful use to which machinery can be put, particularly by the application of steam-power, which, in union with the development of capital, directed industry into entirely new channels; [pg 117] third, the exemption from taxation brought about by the increase and facility of the means of commerce, which keeps a certain class of labor in constant demand, and in a measure takes it from the business men and the farmers; and, fourth, most especially to that pseudo-liberalism whose national economy regulates the relations between employers and employed, between rich and poor, not in accordance with true Christian principles, but according to the dictates of egotism. The social question, the orator declared, resolves itself into this: that a man, to be really happy, needs but three things—that is, a competency, a respectable position in society, and inward peace of soul. After applying this true remark to the condition of the working-men, the speaker finally passed to the solution of the social question, and said that as this problem affects all the relations of human life, a general co-operation was necessary for its explication. The laborer himself must co-operate as well as the family, the parish, the state, the church. Without religion, without prudent legislation for the protection of labor, without Christian marriages among the laborers, without public spirit and united effort, it is not possible to avert the evils which every day threaten the laboring class more and more.

Herr Racke, the indefatigable secretary of the Union, spoke upon the difficult subject of passive resistance to laws which are in direct opposition to conscience. He adduced particularly from the best authors upon state rights the evidence that the state has no right to demand from its citizens absolute obedience to all its laws and regulations. Laws which are in opposition to conscience, morality, and religion, be they ever so formally enacted, are not laws in the sight of God, but are in defiance of those of all law-givers, of the only absolute Lord who is above all states, all rulers, and all men, and from whose authority alone even the state laws derive their power and obligation. The animated speech of Herr Racke was also loudly applauded.

At the request of the president the Rt. Rev. Bishop of Mayence gave the episcopal blessing, whereupon the public session was adjourned. The second day also began with prayer, a High Mass of Requiem being sung for all the members of the Union who had died during the last year. Then in a private session followed the discussion and approval of resolutions. The resolutions proposed by the officers of the Congress, and received by all with acclamation, surpassed in importance all others which had yet passed. We give them, therefore, a prominent place; they are a sign that the Catholics of Germany have not lost their courage as yet, and they deserve to be published verbatim. They are as follows:

The other resolutions had reference to the adoption of a short prayer to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, under whose protection the Union is placed; then the appointing of a committee charged with the erection of a monument to the memory of Herman von Malinckrodt; with the foundation of a fund for exiled clergymen; to send an address to the oppressed Catholics of Switzerland; with the making out of a list of the priests who have been punished in defending the rights of the church; with the establishment of an intelligence office for young Catholic merchants; with the recommendation of the Christian Blaetter, published in Aix-la-Chapelle; and finally with the recommending of various institutions for the removal of social evils. All of these motions were not adopted, others were laid upon the table, in order to concentrate the strength of the young Union upon the momentous question to the Catholic Germans as to the best means of ending the conflict now in progress against the church. No one will deny the wisdom and prudence of this proceeding.

In the afternoon a pilgrimage to Mount Roch was determined upon; it is four German, or about twenty-four American, miles from Mayence, and is one of the most charming places on the Rhine. The congress could not have closed its labors in a more appropriate manner. Soon after twelve o'clock the steamer Loreley, which was hardly large enough to accommodate the vast crowd of pilgrims, commenced to move its engines. Inspired by the pious sentiments which filled their hearts, the pilgrims made the air resound with songs which charmed the ear, while the beautiful views, as seen from the deck of the steamer, of the country lying between the Taunus Mountains and the Rhine, captivated the eye. This little spot has justly been called the garden of Germany. The whole shore is lined with villages, rich in monumental reminiscences of past ages, handsome residences and ancient abbeys, modern and mediæval castles. But the greatest pride of the Rhineland are the luscious grapes which ripen upon these sunny hills. Who has not heard of the Marcobrunner, the Steinberger, the Johannisberger, the Ruedesheimer, and many other species of Rhine wine? The vine-dresser of the Rhineland is firmly convinced that in the whole world there is no wine which in delicacy is equal to his. But let us proceed. The good Catholic inhabitants of these vine-clad shores saluted our steamer by discharging cannons. The Prussian authorities had prohibited in some places such signs of joy and sympathy to be shown “the enemies of the state” who were passengers on the Loreley. The banner of the Chapel of S. Roch, which is built upon a high mountain, had from a long distance been seen waving, and we could also descry the great crowd which had already taken possession of the top of the mountain. When we approached the city of Bingen, situated at the foot of the mountain, nearly the whole population awaited us on the banks of the river. A special deputation saluted the Rt. Rev. Bishop of Mayence, who had come to address the pilgrims. The immense crowd, praying and singing, then marched through the city, which was ornamented with flags, and soon all the streets and paths leading to the mountain were filled with men, so that it was very difficult for the marshals to form a regular line of procession in order to reach the top of the mountain. From this eminence only was it possible to obtain a good view of the multitude, which was greater, perhaps, than Mount Roch had ever before carried on its back. It was a splendid spectacle, and the effect was greatly enhanced by the beauty of the surroundings—the majestic river, whose course the eye could follow for miles, the green islands that now and then appeared in the channel of the river, the blooming vineyards, and the ever-fertile valleys.

As the chapel could contain only a small portion of the assemblage, the Rt. Rev. Bishop made his address while standing under the blue canopy of heaven. We will only give a few extracts from his admirable discourse. In his introduction he said: “We are here to-day assembled upon this mountain from all parts of Germany. Without knowing each other, we yet feel that we are all united by the common bond of faith, a miniature picture of the Catholic Church. We stand upon a venerable spot. Here lived S. Hildegardis, that [pg 121] great prophetess of the middle ages, whom S. Bernard visited to examine her prophecies. Long before her advent S. Rupert and his saintly mother Bertha, whose relics are exposed for veneration in this chapel, dwelt here. At our feet flows the river Rhine, in whose waters the most beautiful cathedrals of Germany are reflected, and upon whose shores, from the earliest ages, faithful and honest Catholics have lived. There (pointing to Niederlingen, with its palace of Carlovingian date) stood the cradle of Charles the Great, the founder of the old German power and glory; there that great emperor spent his youth, who never unsheathed his sword except for the protection of truth, and never lent it to an unrighteous cause.”

In the course of his speech he made mention of a fact which he had observed when provost of Berlin and delegate for the few Catholic congregations in Brandenburg and Pomerania. “In the last century King Frederick II. had determined to drain the marshes along the river Oder, and had for this end summoned laborers from the Rhine and from the Palatinate. Those from the last-named place began their long journey after they had received assurances that ample provision had been made for their religious wants, and that lands would be given them for cultivation. These promises, however, were not fulfilled. When the work was finished, the poor people were distributed among the different Protestant cities in Pomerania, in order to force the inhabitants, as it were, to cede to them some territory. Some of them received as their portion the sandy plains near Pasewalk. Here wooden sheds were erected, the best of which was reserved for a chapel. Without a priest, these good people met together every Sunday for divine service, sang their hymns as if for High Mass, and an altar-boy rang the bell at certain parts, just as it was done in their former homes. Fifty years passed in this way without their ever having seen a priest, and in the course of these fifty years not one Catholic became an apostate. This congregation was afterwards visited once a year by a priest, and this state of things continued for another fifty years; but during this whole time not a Catholic left his faith—a proof that our Lord and Saviour, when the priests are expelled, has other means to keep his own in the true fold. When in our own times institutions are destroyed, priests are exiled, and bishops are cast into prison, we have more reason than ever before to impress deeply upon our hearts the words of Christ: Confidite in me; ego vinci mundum—‘Have confidence; I have overcome the world’ (S. John xvi. 33). If all else perishes, at least one divine institution remains which the state cannot destroy—we mean the Christian family. In proportion as the other representatives of God are prevented from fulfilling their duty, Christian fathers and mothers must, following the example of S. Bertha, fill their vacancies. What obstacles did not this saintly woman overcome! Her husband, who ruled over all this part of Germany, was a heathen, and was killed in a battle with the Christians; but notwithstanding this, she has given in her son a saint to the church.”

Turning then to the subject of the schools, the Rt. Rev. Bishop reminded them of a resolution passed about ten years ago by the Grand Lodge of Belgium, which [pg 122] commanded the sister lodges to give their written opinions as to the question in what manner they could best exercise a decided influence over the public schools. They all agreed on this point: that the schools should be separated from the church, and that it was not sufficient to keep the children in school until they were fourteen years of age, but that compulsory education should be continued up to their eighteenth year, in order to thoroughly uproot from the minds of the children the prejudices which they had received from their families and from the church. To this the objection was raised that such a law would be in direct opposition to the rights of parents; but in the reply, which was afterwards published, it was expressly maintained that, if the state had the right to cut off the heads of men, it could also set them right again. In view of the present aspect of affairs in respect to the school question, it is very easy to draw parallels.

At the conclusion of his address the Rt. Rev. speaker again returned to the text of his discourse: “ ‘Have confidence in Jesus.’ Place not your hope in princes, who cannot help you. The Holy Ghost has said it; they also must die. Make no calculations, therefore, as from what earthly source or from what earthly prince the salvation of the church may be expected. Confide in me, says Christ. Fear not the power of falsehood, for I have overcome the world. Be watchful and firm. While the world is worshipping Mammon it is our duty to imitate the example of those Catholics who have never bowed their knees before Baal, and who were found worthy to make any sacrifice for their convictions. Be courageous and of good cheer! At this time the church needs men of determination. Let every one, then, do his duty, and God will strengthen us and lead us to victory.”

These significant words, the truly apostolic appearance of the Bishop of Mayence, the place, and the feeling exhibited by the vast audience, all contributed to leave a deep impression upon their hearts. After some short devotions in the chapel of grace, the pilgrims returned in a seemingly endless procession, with song and prayer, through the beautiful vineyards to Bingen. We were told that those in the rear of the procession were yet upon the top of the mountain when the first had entered already the parochial church of Bingen, where the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament was given by the Rt. Rev. Bishop, which ended the festive celebration of the Second Congress of the Catholic German Union.

The Congress has given testimony that the Catholic people of Germany in these our days will not be misled or permit violence to be offered to them; it gave testimony also to the truth which Malinckrodt had expressed one month before in the Reichstag, and eight days before his death, when he said: “If they imagine that we will bow ourselves before their Protestant ideas, which they clothe in the garment of the state, they are greatly mistaken. They can trample us under foot, but we reserve to ourselves the liberty not to become unfaithful to our convictions.”

The Union has many and powerful enemies; but an old German proverb says: “Many enemies, many honors.” May Almighty God continue to protect it as before! Then it will show by its success that, true to its motto, it has worked for truth, justice, and liberty, and that it has excelled all other organizations in patriotism.

Switzerland In 1873. Lucerne.

It sounds like a platitude when any one nowadays ventures to lament returning to the prose from the poetry of travel, so universal is this feeling, and so constantly is it expressed; yet it is impossible to avoid noticing it when recalling a railway journey that followed abruptly on weeks of Alpine rambles. My friend and I had been gradually gathering discontent, it is true, from the causes I have already stated, and yesterday, at Berne, had felt that a complete change was necessary; but further than this we had not stopped to reflect. No sooner, however, had we started in the train than the scream of the engine-whistle, the jerking of the carriages at the stations, the rush of passengers and hoarse cries of the fruit-sellers, grated discordantly on our nerves, and a sudden pining for the grand mountains, with their quiet, simple life and its elevating tone, took possession of us. Had we carried out our intention of going to Lyons, it would speedily have grown into a real Swiss mal du pays. Heartily, therefore, did we thank Mrs. C—— for having appeared so opportunely, and acted the part of a good angel in saving us from a species of suicide; for we felt that our spirits would have completely evaporated long before we could have reached Notre Dame de Fourvières or any other such congenial haven.

“Well, yes,” she answered; “the flat plains of France would assuredly have proved too harsh a contrast. Now you will still have mountains, besides so many other matters that must deeply interest you.”

These reflections having restored us to good-humor, we fully enjoyed the approach to Lucerne, as the train wound round the wooded hills alongside the green Reuss, rushing on in full-grown vigor from the lake, and past the mediæval walls and towers that still guard the sturdy old town. The sun was setting as we entered the station, just as happened a few nights previously when we drove into Interlachen; but in other respects everything was different. Here, the train was rapidly emptied of its hundreds of Northerners, still brimful of their city ways, or ill at ease in some faultless Alpine costume fresh from a London shop; while there, though one could detect many season-loungers, effort at display was not thought of, especially amongst tourists, for dress and such externals had long since lost their importance in the wear and tear of real mountaineering. And what a noise and bustle and clatter steam, and everything belonging to it, entails! Enough to drive one wild, after many weeks of leisurely excursion habits—the tinkling bells of the steamboats waiting at the pier to carry off impatient tourists to fifty different destinations, the crowd of omnibuses, the [pg 124] jostling of porters, and, to complete the trouble, the announcement that no rooms could be had at the Schweizerhof or Lucernerhof, or various other hofs; although we had telegraphed from Berne, and expected to find all ready. If we would try, it was said, at the Beau Rivage—the hotel furthest off—there was just a chance. Worn out by the noise and fuss, we two begged to walk, the remainder of our party offering to drive on in a carriage without delay, in order to secure any vacant places there might be before the omnibus and its load of new-comers should reach the hotel.

No arrangement could have been happier; for as we crossed the handsome new bridge, on issuing from the station, the scene at once restored our shattered nerves. The sun had just sunk behind the wood-clad hills, dotted all over with pretty villas and pensions, that rise to the northwest above the town, and whose sharp, dark outline every instant became blacker against the clear sky above, which, on its part, was rapidly changing from one tint to another, each more delicate than the preceding one. Below, the river moved like a mass of molten gold, whilst the covered bridge close by and the old tower at the corner wore a dark, warm brown hue, all the richer from the reflection of the waters beneath. Turning round towards the lake, on whose margin we stood, the magnificent panorama of snow-tipped mountains which encircle its upper end transfixed us with admiration. Every peak, every line, was visible in the clear atmosphere, from Mount Pilatus, bathed in a flood of purple, right in front, to the most distant of the long line rising beyond. In a few minutes the colors in the west grew faint and fainter, but a fresh after-glow lit up the mountain-crests opposite, fading gradually into the tenderest pink, until one by one they sank into the approaching night. How wonderfully beautiful it was! Impossible to be surpassed! And for an instant we felt half tempted to become unfaithful to the glorious Jungfrau and lovely Interlachen. But the abiding impression of all such scenes in this favored land is, without doubt, one of marvel at the varieties of God's creation, and nowhere does one more cordially echo that inspired voice which of old cried: “Let every spirit praise the Lord!”

Lost in admiration at this effect of color on water, wood, and mountain, we grew deaf to the clatter of the passing crowd across the bridge, when suddenly the sound of bells aroused our attention. It seemed as if every church-bell in the place had been set a-ringing; and so it really was! We listened; but, unaccustomed as we had now so long been to the beautiful practice, some minutes elapsed before we recognized the true mark of a Catholic country—the Ave Maria or Angelus bell! A learned divine has written lately that it would simplify matters very much if the world were classed in two divisions only—namely, those who say the Angelus, and those who do not; or, in other words, those who, believing in the Incarnation and Redemption, boldly and lovingly profess it before God and men, and those Christians whose faith in the mystery is so feeble or their piety so lukewarm that it gives them no happiness to acknowledge it, and who are therefore worse than the heathens, who know not of it. No happier welcome could have been [pg 125] given to us, who had been suffering from a spiritual famine for the last few weeks. Calmed by the sweet sounds, which were even softened by the gurgling waters at our feet, we followed our guide along the quay, unmindful of its white dust, fussy tourists, and the general unæsthetic aspect of its many monster hotels, our eyes fixed, as we proceeded, on the Hofkirche, or principal church, which towers above it at one end.

It was late when we emerged after dinner from the glare of lights and hot, crowded table-d'hôte rooms of the Beau Rivage on to the balcony of the hotel, and the same moon which had entranced us so recently when shining on the Jungfrau was beginning to climb up the heavens, right behind Mount Pilatus. The stern mountain stood opposite to us on the other shore, his rugged form showing dark and unfriendly against the silvered background, but a tremulous path of light came dancing towards us straight across the placid waters. Tiny boats, that were hitherto indistinguishable in the surrounding gloom, shot in numbers, freighted with mysterious figures, across the luminous, quivering pathway; the green and red lights of steamers were seen advancing gradually from out the distant darkness of the lake, like wicked monsters rising from the deep to devour the elves and nymphs gambolling peacefully in our midst, while close to us, round the near curve of the bay, the town, still busy with life and movement, shone in a perfect blaze of illumination, the lamps along its quay glittering like stars reflected in the still waters underneath. Poet or painter never imagined in their highest flights of fancy a more fairy-like, suggestive scene, and again we felt and acknowledged the truth that no art or science of man can approach God's own handiwork in its exquisite variety and beauty.

It was impossible to sit indoors on such an evening, so we wandered down to the walk beside the water's edge, an impulse evidently shared by all the inhabitants; for, as we passed on, it seemed as though every one, including tradesmen with their wives and families, had come forth to refresh mind and body after their busy day's work. The promenade was alive with people, either sitting or quietly sauntering up and down in apparently happy groups, but without noise or boisterous sound, in perfect harmony with the beautiful surroundings.

“This scenery surely must have a powerful effect on the inhabitants,” I remarked to Mrs. C——, as we too at length sat down on a bench in front of the hotel. “I can't conceive living constantly within view of all this beauty without having one's mind raised to a higher tone by its influence.”

“No doubt,” she replied; “and now you can understand the full meaning of Swiss Heimweh, or mal du pays; how, when these people once begin to pine for their mountains, it becomes a true malady. It does not follow, however, that scenery, as a matter of course, produces admiration or appreciation of its charms. You know the world-old observation of this lack in ancient Greek poetry. Nor have the modern Greeks any more feeling for natural beauty than their ancestors; in fact, they positively dislike the country. The Turks are different; but, generally speaking, southerners never give it a thought. It seems to be more a matter of race than of locality, and the Swiss, especially in these cantons, [pg 126] being Teutonic, have the true German love of nature, which makes them so worthy of living in this favored land! That accounts, too, for their love of the supernatural, to which their lively faith has always given a religious form. The very name of this Mt. Pilatus and its story show this tendency at once.”

“What is the story?” I inquired. “I remember reading about it, but have quite forgotten. At this moment one might fancy anything—dragons, concealed in caverns, swooping down on forlorn maidens, knights rescuing Hildegardes and Kunigundes, or any other thing you like, on an evening of this sort.”

“Oh! no,” she answered: “the homely, burgher lives of the Swiss rarely led them to the romantic, but their simple piety, as I have said, clothed their tales with a religious coloring. This, for instance, is where they believe that Pilate committed suicide; that, having been banished to Gaul by the Emperor Tiberius for failure in the administration of his province when governor, he could no longer bear living in public, and his uneasy conscience drove him from one wild district to another until he stopped here; but even then he continued miserable, and finally threw himself into the small lake near the summit yonder, over which his spirit still hovers. He is the author of all the storms hereabouts. He cannot bear strangers, but, especially if they disturb him maliciously by throwing stones into this lake, he avenges himself by thunder and lightning and a general confusion of the elements. They were so persuaded of this in the middle ages that the Lucerners actually made a statute forbidding any one to explore the mountains, and there are records of several persons being severely punished for venturing up in defiance of the order. He regulates the weather even now; for you can always tell by Pilatus what kind of day it is likely to be. Have you never heard the lines?

“The Hut, or Hood, is a little cloud which settles on the summit only, but the sword is a long streak across the centre of the mountain, which bodes rain and all manner of bad weather. There are ominous stories, besides, of dragons and winged serpents, which were formerly seen to fly from Pilatus to the Rigi at night, leaving fiery tracks behind them, and tormenting the shepherds and their flocks.”

“Well! if ever there were an excuse for pantheism and belief in a spirit-world animating nature, it certainly would be in Switzerland! Everywhere I go the mountains, cloudy sunsets, the whole moving face of nature, speak a language ever varying in one sense, but uniform in leading one's thoughts upwards.”

“Yes; and even in bad weather you would not tire of it! Pilatus is never so grand as when the storm-clouds gather round his brow and roll down pitilessly on this very spot.”

“I should very much like to know whether the people keep up their piety now, and how they are likely to act in the coming religious storm,” I remarked.

“I have just had an interesting conversation on that very point with an old Lucerner,” said Mr. [pg 127] C——, who now rejoined us, and who, we noticed, had stopped to speak to some acquaintance on the promenade when we first started. “That was old H——, whom we met at Kissingen three years ago,” he continued, addressing his wife. “He has retired from his appointment, and returned to this his native town. He was rejoiced to see me, and offered his services; and, thinking he might be useful as a guide, I have begged him to call at our hotel in the morning. He gave me a most interesting account of matters here. They are all staunch Catholics, he says, except a few, who are lukewarm and seduced by the rationalism and liberalism of Olten and Berne. From these alone do they fear dissension. But they are not numerous. However, they tried last winter to get one of the churches given up to them. Fortunately, the town council is orthodox and firm, and Herr H—— is certain that Lucerne will be true to her name, and continue a light to her neighbors.”

“What a happy play on the word!” I remarked—“a genuine jeu de mot. She certainly merits the title in a material sense already, with that girdle of brilliant lamps shining like jewels along the quay.”

“It is not a jeu de mot of my invention,” answered Mr. C——. “The name is said to take its origin from the fact itself. Some of the Swiss towns, such as Chur and Geneva, date from the Roman times of Switzerland; but there are no traces of Roman buildings or settlements here. It is said, however, that even then there was a lantern or kind of light-house at this spot for the boats on the lake, which was dignified by the Latin name of Lucerna, or light; and this, amidst the vicissitudes of centuries, has clung to it, and, as you say, is as suitable as ever. The town itself, like so many others, is the offspring of a monastery somewhere about the same time as St. Gall and Einsiedeln. But those old walls, with the quaint towers which still encircle it, are only from the XIIIth or XIVth century. The barbarians, you may remember, overran the continent several times in the IXth, Xth, and XIth centuries, pillaging and burning on all sides; but it was noticed that the walled towns escaped, for they did not understand the art of besieging them. One of the German emperors, therefore, issued orders that all the towns should erect fortifications, and that, in times of war, the rural population should take refuge within them. Basel was one of the first that was enclosed in Switzerland, being on the frontier. Then St. Gall, which had sprung up round the great monastery, and was also near the frontier; Zurich and Lucerne followed later. Lucerne has kept up the old Swiss character better than almost any other town, from its position near these forest cantons, which have more or less imbued it with their spirit. The forest cantons,” he continued, as if in answer to my inquiring look, “are those which border this lake, and give it the name of the ‘Lake of the Four Cantons!’ They are Schwytz, Uri, Unterwalden; and now Lucerne makes the fourth—the cradle of Switzerland and the noblest portion of its people. Lucerne has hitherto been a sort of outpost for them—their point of connection with the political world beyond; and so far it has always held stoutly by its old friends. I remember the religious civil war and the Sonderbund, between 1842 and 1848, and Lucerne was the head and front of all [pg 128] that movement. Those old towns, amongst their various tales, could tell many even of that period; for within their walls, as well as in some of the churches, 1,800 prisoners were confined after the first victorious resistance Lucerne offered the Protestant Volunteers. Amongst the number was a certain Dr. Steiger, said to be the leader of the Protestants. He lay in one of the towers, condemned to banishment and imprisonment by the tribunals of Lucerne, when one night he escaped, aided by three countrymen who were devoted to him, and finally fled to America. I well recollect what a sensation it made, especially when, a few days afterwards the great champion of the Catholics—a peasant—was found murdered in his cottage! Then these Catholics made a defensive league amongst themselves to resist the interference of the Protestant cantons in their religious affairs, and which they therefore called the Sonderbund. On this the opposite faction took their stand, asserting that its principle was contrary to the spirit of the Confederacy. It was a good watchword in any case wherewith to rouse their partisans, and they succeeded in this so completely that the Diet soon voted that the league ought to be put down by force. A large army was at once collected, and, surrounding these Catholic cantons as with a cordon, they very soon crushed them. How well I remember it all! Whether the experience is recollected here it is hard to say; but Herr H—— muttered something about their all being determined to stand up manfully for their faith, even if it should ultimately be necessary to fight for it.”

“Fighting for one's faith is sublime, and stirs one's deepest feelings,” I replied, “and that the spirit which induces it still exists, despite our prosaic, material age, we have seen by the Papal Zouaves, and also, united with love of country, in the Bretons, Vendêans, and others during the French and Prussian war. But it is impossible to combine the idea of fighting of any kind with this poetic scene, and I would rather go to sleep to-night dreaming of nymphs and sprites than of war and prisons, or even of Pilate himself or any other gloomy visions in this fairyland. I fear I am ungrateful for all your information, in feeling almost sorry that we touched on these topics,” I said, laughing, as we reluctantly turned homewards late that evening.

I had spoken wisely. Most difficult it is to pacify one's mind after such a conversation, and, between reflections on the past and speculations on the future of these Swiss Catholics, the night was far advanced before my eyes closed in sleep. Suddenly I was awakened by a full-toned church-bell booming across the waters. It might again be the Angelus; but looking at my watch, it was only a quarter before five o'clock, and moreover it was still dark. Then it must be some convent-bell summoning the community to Matins and Prime. It was an uncharitable proceeding on their part, thought I, to waken up a whole town; and the peal kept on for the entire quarter of an hour. At half-past five came another similar bell; and then, soon after, a chorus of full tones, like that which had greeted our arrival on the previous evening, rang out the Angelus from every church-tower in the place, followed at six and half-past six by others in our immediate vicinity. It was quite impossible to sleep; yet, tired though we were, the joyful [pg 129] sensation of awakening in a Catholic land reconciled us to the penalty it thus imposed. Up and out we should at once go in search of the Masses which these bells indicated. But there be no such hurry, said the hotel servants; for there would be eight o'clock Mass in the Hofkirche close by. Then we discovered that, so far from the quarter to five bell belonging to any convent, it was in truth rung in order to rouse the towns-people to Mass at the S. Peterskirche—the first each day of the series which ended at eight o'clock at the Hofkirche. And then we recollected how the same custom prevails in Germany, according to the early habits of all German races; how hopeless it seems ever to be up and out before the inhabitants of a small German town; and how, in the Rhenish provinces for instance, the five o'clock Mass in summer, and the six o'clock in winter, are the most fully attended, even in the severe seasons of frost and snow.

We felt, therefore, like sluggards as we ascended the paved hill and mounted the steps leading up to the Hofkirche. It was a bright morning, and pleasant, good-humored faces met us, as we paused to notice the exterior, so plain and unadorned compared to the beautiful Cathedral of Berne. But this seemed all the more suitable to the simple life of Lucerne, with which the fact of the church standing, as it does, in the midst of its cemetery, is in perfect harmony. A curious piece of mediæval sculpture, representing the Garden of Olives, is let into the wall of one of the towers, and we were examining it when to our surprise sounds of music from the inside reached us. But a greater surprise awaited us when, on entering the church, we found it perfectly full. A most devout congregation occupied every seat in the nave. On one side knelt the men, on the opposite the women. Whilst High Mass for the dead was being sung at an altar outside the choir-screen, in front of which was placed the bier, Low Masses were going on at side altars near, and another at the high altar behind. Everywhere earnestness and devotion were perceptible; and a more striking contrast to our previous day's experience in the Cathedral of Berne, where daily services were unknown, it would be utterly impossible to imagine. Yet what must such a morning have been there in the olden days; for even now external advantages are in its favor. The Lucerne church has far fewer claims to architectural beauty, and its general ornamentation is in the bad taste of the last century. But these faults were at the moment imperceptible to us, who had eyes only for the life and spirit pervading the crowd of worshippers that filled it. It is a fine church, however, in its own way, and quite in keeping with the character of the inhabitants. The choir is imposing, and the metal-work of its screen excellent. There are old stained-glass windows too; and a wood carving of the Death of Our Lady over a side altar would be perfect, were it not for the amount of gilding and gaudy coloring with which it has been loaded.

But the benches are the most characteristic point in the building. At one period they must all have been appropriated, though they are now free; for each division still retains a shield, on which is painted a coat-of-arms and the name of a citizen, or of his wife or widow, with the date of the year, going back in [pg 130] some cases to the beginning of the last century. When High Mass was over, the women in going out passed round by the bier, on which they sprinkled holy-water, followed by the men, who seriously and piously performed the same act of fraternal charity. Thence we followed them to the small mortuary chapel outside, but so filled was it by a weeping group that we turned back and sauntered round the covered gallery, or cloister, which borders this beautiful Gottesacker, or “God's acre,” as the Germans so truly call their cemeteries. Sauntering it certainly was; for it was difficult to move quickly, so many were the inscriptions, so well tended the hundreds of pretty graves. Marks of affection and remembrance were visible at every step in fresh wreaths and baskets of beautiful flowers, arranged with a taste and art that told what loving hearts must have guided the skilful hands that made them. Some good oil-paintings and handsome monuments also adorn this gallery; but the most attractive part of the whole burial-ground is its eastern end. This is appropriated to diminutive graves and crosses, hung with white bows of ribbon and white flowers. We knew that in the Catholic Church there is a special service for infants—one of pure joy without a word of grief; but never before had we seen any particular spot set apart for these baptized little angels. Later, we found that it is a custom universal in the burial-grounds of these Catholic cantons; but none that we afterwards saw ever struck us so much as this one of Lucerne.

The whole place, too, was full of stone stoups, provided with water and branches of blessed box, wherewith to sprinkle the graves. Foot-passengers have a right of way from an upper road through this churchyard, and we saw many stop, as they passed, to perform this work of charity over a tomb, with a pious aspiration for the repose of the souls. “Have pity on me, my friends,” is a prayer well responded to in this touching Gottesacker, where the dead still dwell in the hearts of the living, truly under the shadow and protecting influence of the church and of the cross. The doctrines of the Catholic faith in the communion of saints and intercession for the holy souls in purgatory are here so practically carried out, that they must get intertwined with the tenderest feelings of each Lucerner, and developed in their best sense from childhood upwards, becoming their comfort and mainstay from the cradle to the grave.

And then in what a beautiful position this old church stands—at the head of the town, guarding its flock, and a beacon to the weary-minded! From our guide-book we learned that originally it had formed part of a Benedictine convent, and is dedicated to S. Leodegarius, or S. Leger. The very name of this saint takes us back to the furthest antiquity, to the earliest days of Christianity in these parts; for he was the great Bishop of Autun in the VIIth century whose sanctity and courage shone conspicuously during sixty years in the stormy times of the Clovis and Clotaire kings and of their maires du palais, until he was at last cruelly put to death by order of Ebroin, one of the most wicked of that tribe, and who governed in the name of the Frankish king, Theodoric. It tells, too, of those days when the present Switzerland, having been included in Charlemagne's empire, was still fluttering between his successors in Burgundy and those in Germany; and how [pg 131] far the fame of saints and martyrs spread and made their mark on countries which, in those days of slow communication, were distant from their own. The convent itself must have been an old foundation, for the church was formed into a collegiate chapter in 1456, and the two existing towers belong to that period. The remainder, destroyed by fire in 1633, was rebuilt soon after in the unarchitectural style of that century. Probably we owe the cloisters round the cemetery and the massive parochial house near, also to the monastic period. Quite worthy, in any case, of Benedictine refinement was the view obtained from the open arches on one side of the cloisters. But alas for modern innovations! My friends remembered this as one of the most lovely points of view in Switzerland some fifteen years ago; but now the roof of that huge caravansary, the International Hotel, rises just high enough close in front to shut out, from all but two openings, everything save the sight of its own ungainliness. From these two, however, it is possible to judge what the world has lost, looking out over the lake and surrounding mountains; and we lingered long, drinking in the charms of this matchless landscape, which again presented itself under an aspect quite different from that of the preceding evening.

On returning to the hotel we found Mr. and Mrs. C—— deep in conversation with Herr H——, who had come according to appointment. He was a shrivelled-up, active, little old man of about seventy, formerly professor in a gymnasium in the north of Germany, but the aim of whose life had been to save a certain sum, in order to return and end his days in his own beloved Switzerland. This he had accomplished within the last two years. The C——s had taken a great fancy to the old man when they made his acquaintance at Kissingen, and he was now burning to be of some use to them. And a great help he proved in planning the next week's excursions, so as to make them finish off at Einsiedeln on the 14th, the chief feast of that monastery. The day was perfectly lovely, and the atmosphere so clear that he pleaded hard to take us up to the Linden Avenue, a terrace walk, twenty-five minutes off, and commanding a magnificent panorama. But we should see the mountains during the rest of our travels, we argued in reply, and our minds were so full of Wordsworth and Longfellow, and, through them, of the covered bridges of Lucerne, that we could hear of nothing else. Our party consisted of Mr. and Mrs. C——, their two daughters, and a good-humored, boyish son of eighteen, besides my friend and myself; so at last a compromise was effected by dividing our forces. One daughter went with Mr. and Mrs. C—— to the Linden walk, while our new Swiss acquaintance politely offered to conduct our division over his native place.

Our first visit, as a matter of course, was to “the Lion,” the pride and glory of modern Lucerne! Turning off from the fussy, bustling quay, leaving excitement and noise behind, we wandered through quiet, winding streets that led to the former Zurich road, until, in a leafy recess containing a large basin filled by trickling water, on which the sun played through the foliage of the overhanging beech-trees, this grand king of animals lay right before us, hewn out of the perpendicular [pg 132] face of the living rock. Overhead is carved the inscription, Helvetiorum fidei ac virtuti.32 This monument, erected in memory of the Swiss guards who fell whilst defending Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette at Versailles, and on the 2d and 3d of September, 1792, was designed by the great Thorwaldsen, and executed by a Zurich sculptor, the expenses being defrayed by subscriptions from all parts of Switzerland. The lion is dying, the spear still in his side, a bundle of spears under him, but one paw still firmly clasping the Bourbon shield. It is colossal; the whole attitude full of strength, firmness, and sorrow—a sorrow inspiring such sympathy that the longer one looks the more human it appears. Yet it is not that hopelessly sad expression of his grand Chæronean prototype, which once having had the good-fortune to see on the spot, I never can forget. But then what different events they commemorate! The Greek, the defeat of an over-glorious nation, crushed to despair; this of Lucerne, the loss, but also the noble heroism, of a few of Switzerland's sons only, who, if they could be so faithful in the cause of strangers, what might not be expected from them and their brethren in defence of their own hearths and homes! And as we stood transfixed to the spot, unwilling to stir, it was pleasant to hear from Herr H—— that foreign service of this sort has now ceased. At least no body of Swiss serve abroad together, except as the Pope's guards, whose picturesque Michael-Angelesque costumes must be remembered by every one that visited Rome in its palmy days. Formerly, not only did they serve as mercenaries in various countries, but there were regular treaties in force between the Swiss government and foreign sovereigns, authorizing the latter to recruit throughout the cantons. These, however, have been swept away, and this “Lion” is now the only link with those times. Close by is a chapel where, according to pious custom, Mass is now and then said for the departed heroes, and the altar cloth of which has been worked by the Duchesse d'Angoulême, one of Marie Antoinette's two children, protected and saved by those very soldiers.

We had not prepared ourselves for this beautiful, poetic work of art, and hence it was perhaps doubly difficult to leave it; but time pressed, and Herr H—— led the way back to the brilliant quay. He was eloquent on its palatial hotels, and proud that in this particular Lucerne is so far ahead of all other Swiss towns, except perhaps Geneva. But still, he said, this did not compensate him for olden days. How different it had been in his boyhood, in the years prior to 1820, when the present Schweizerhof Quay did not exist! A long, covered wooden bridge, 1,300 feet in length, ran, in its stead, from the middle of the town, near the Swan Hotel, right across here to the foot of the Hofkirche. And then, to our intense regret, we discovered that this was the chief bridge mentioned by Wordsworth in his continental tour. He first speaks of the Hafellbrücke, still existing, and then goes on to say:

Then in a note he goes on to relate that the pictures on the “cathedral bridge amounted to 240, all from Scripture history; subjects from the Old Testament faced the passenger going to the cathedral, and those from the New as he returns.” What would he have said could he have foreseen such a speedy annihilation of his aspirations for their long maintenance, and especially when replaced by all that drives away remembrance of that “history” and tends to keep men's thoughts fastened to earth instead of raised to heaven!

When our first disappointment was over, we learned from Herr H—— that this quay, now so venerable-looking from its shady chestnuts, has been won from the lake, like the Thames embankment, within the last forty years. It has one advantage, namely: that the whole tourist-life which brings such gain to Lucerne has been added on to it, without in any way interfering with the ordinary life of its inhabitants. Happily, it would be impossible to change the old part without sweeping it entirely away—a summary proceeding that no one would think of. The original town lies on a strip of land between the lake and encircling hills, and is composed of solidly-built old houses in narrow streets, that are thoroughly sheltered, but without any view, and consequently unfit for tourist requirements. Air and landscape—the two essentials for the wealth-bringing strangers—were fortunately found available in the large space gained from the lake, while the neighboring hills seemed as if especially created for the countless pensions that now cover them in every direction. “Travellers,” said Herr H——, “—travellers are the great desire of Lucerne. They supply the place of trade and manufactures, which we do not possess, except in a small way in the Krienz valley yonder. Both here and throughout all these forest cantons, the whole energies of the population are of late years directed to this object. You will find them building hotels in all directions as you travel through that district,” pointing to the upper end of the lake, which we were lingering to admire from the promenade. “It sometimes seems like over-building, but the larger the houses, the more quickly they seem to fill. The crowds that swarm here from June to October, from every quarter of the globe, are quite marvellous. Since the French war, especially, the Germans come in shoals. It is becoming like another invasion of the northerners! I suppose we dare not call them Huns and Vandals,” he continued, laughing. “But I confess I fear their influence in the long run, for they are chiefly the population of the manufacturing and commercial towns of Prussia and the North, and even when they are not decidedly infidel, they are not overburdened with religion, and are perfectly indifferent to its observances. I was stopping up at the Kaltbad for a month this summer, and only a few out of 420 guests ever thought about Sundays. ‘Who does, when at a watering-place?’ said some. [pg 134] There was no Protestant service, it is true, except the English, but still there might have been some difference made between it and other days; but, except amongst the Catholics, one could notice none, unless that the dinner was sometimes rather better than on week-days. And even the foreign Catholics were often very lukewarm. It is a very bad example, to say the least, for the natives. Fortunately, however, the strangers mix with them very little, and they fall back into their customary life when these crowds go home about the end of September. Then all is changed. The country hotels shut up, and even here they dismiss their large staff of servants, and only keep a small portion of each house open. But they are looking forward to a great increase of winter business in Lucerne later, when the St. Gothard tunnel, which is now begun, shall be finished; though, of course, it will be nothing compared to the summer influx.”

“And what becomes of the poor servants?” I asked. “Are they turned adrift on the world?”

“Oh! dear, no. They are engaged for the hotels at Nice and Mentone, and all along the Riviera, in bodies of a hundred at a time. If you happen to go south in November, you will doubtless fall in with many a Kellner or a house-maid you met up here in the summer. That is the form the Swiss foreign service has taken in our days of steam and easy communication. And very much they distinguish themselves. Both men and women are considered more honest and active than those of any other nation, and consequently are at a premium. That wonderful race of ‘Kellners’—a race apart—which goes by the generic name of German waiter, is largely composed of the Swiss element. Strangely enough, however, every waitress you meet, even in these districts, is certain to come from the canton of Berne. The women there have a spécialité in that line. The peasants of the Catholic cantons keep to the housemaid department, as a rule, and our Lucerne maidens become ladies' maids or governesses in English families. And very well they turn out, too. Both in this town and in the rural cantons they are a solidly good, pious population. Very conservative also; in fact, most conservative, in spite of our staunch republicanism, and most united at the same time.”

It suddenly occurred to us to ask whose funeral we had seen that morning. “No doubt of some distinguished citizen?”

“No,” replied Herr H——, “not particularly distinguished; only an old and highly-respected tradesman. Oh! no; that is an every-day occurrence. All the neighbors consider it a duty to attend the High Mass and to pray for each other. I was there, amongst others, just before I went to the Beau Rivage Hotel; for, although I have spent so many years away from Lucerne, I knew this man from my earliest childhood, and he has been working all his life for every one you saw there this morning, so that the least we might do was to go and pray for the repose of his soul, poor fellow! They will do the same for each one of us in turn. Here is a column of advertisements, composed of nothing but ‘Thanks’ from relatives,” he said, drawing a Lucerne daily paper from out of his pocket, and amongst the number we read the following touching one:

“The widow and children of [pg 135] —— return their heartfelt thanks to all the kind friends who spontaneously attended the High Mass for, and the funeral of, their lamented husband and father on ——. They are not only grateful for this mark of respect, but they wish to assure these good neighbors that the loving sympathy and the kind manner in which it was offered by each, have done more to soften their grief than they can now express.”

“We are a small community,” continued Herr H——,“ only 14,500 inhabitants—simple folk, working our way on through life without any rich manufacturers or overgrown proprietors, as at Zurich, Berne, and Geneva, so there cannot be much rivalry or pretension. You will not find private villas or large châteaus round this lake—nothing, for instance, even like those handsome ones on the Lake of Thun; but we all hold together, and I only hope the young generation will continue to walk in the footsteps of their fathers.”

Roger The Rich.33

A Ballad.

Dedicated, Without Permission, To Victor Emanuel.

The Poem Of Izdubar.

M. François Lenormant, in continuing the publication of his Essay on the Propagation of the Phœnician Alphabet in the Ancient World, and in editing a Selection of Cuneiform Texts, has just issued two volumes of important and interesting studies on Primitive Civilizations.34

The steps of this learned writer in the almost unknown regions which he explores so fearlessly, and usually with so much success, are not always perfectly sure; but, with a good faith so natural to him that it does not seem to cost him even an effort, he knows how to retrace his path and correct whatever may require rectification.

Les Premières Civilisations, several portions of which have been published in various collections, reappears developed and raised to the present level attained by scientific discovery. The work opens by a notice of prehistoric archæology and fossil man, the monuments of the neolithic period, and the invention of the use of metals and its introduction into the West. Studies on Egypt follow, including the Poem of Pentaour and the Romance of the Two Brothers. The second volume, with the exception of the “Legend of Cadmus, and the Phœnician Establishments in Greece,” is entirely devoted to Chaldæa, presenting us with a Chaldæan Vêda, or collection of liturgical and devotional hymns in honor of the principal gods worshipped on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates; the biography of a Babylonian prince of the VIIIth century before our era, Merodach Baladan, with whose name the Bible has already made us acquainted;35 and, lastly, the Babylonian epic poem of Izdubar. It is this last work of which the range is the most general and the value the greatest in connection with the comparative history of the Semitic races, their national genius, and their religious ideas. It touches, amongst other things, upon three points which it is important to put particularly in relief, on account of the manner in which the inferences resulting from them strengthen the ground of Christian apologists—namely, the myths of one of the most important branches of the race of Sem (or, to speak accurately, the race that was equally descended from Sem and Cham), the Assyrio-Chaldæan belief in the immortality of the soul, and the origin of the signs of the Zodiac. There is also a fourth point—that of the tradition of the Deluge.

It has been repeatedly maintained by the sceptic, M. Renan, and is in fact one of his favorite ideas, that the Semites were radically incapable of producing an epic poem. He refuses everything to this race—imagination, the power of invention, the knowledge of the experimental method, philosophy, and science. One thing alone he accords to them—the monotheistic instinct. Now, the cuneiform tablets demonstrate that the sciences, especially those of astronomy and mathematics, held a very considerable place in the intellectual pursuits of the Babylonians [pg 139] and Assyrians. The poem of Erech, published by Mr. G. Smith, is sufficient of itself alone, by means of the fragments which are known to us, to reduce to nothing all the assertions in his history of the Semitic languages, in which M. Renan affirms that “the imagination of the Semitic races has never gone beyond the narrow circle traced around it by the exclusive idea of the divine greatness. God and man, in presence of each other, in the bosom of the desert—behold the summary, or, as it is termed in the present day, the formula, of all their poetry.”36 Assuredly one never found one's self less in the desert in presence of God alone and of man alone than in the Semitic poems of Chaldæa.

The veritable name of the hero on the banks of the Euphrates, sung by Homer, has remained unknown to this day. It is constantly found written in ideographic characters, which, pronounced phonetically, give the three syllables Iz-du-bar; but we know that they were pronounced in quite a different manner by the Assyrio-Chaldæans. We are equally certain, from the testimony of other cuneiform inscriptions, that this Izdubar was one of the gods of Chaldæa. Nevertheless, he figures here as a simple hero, and, according to M. Lenormant, is probably Nemrod, “the mighty hunter,” as he is called in the Book of Genesis, alluding to a popular saying, of which the remembrance is still preserved in Assyria, as well as in Palestine, and also in the Egyptian tradition. The historical inscriptions of Assurbanipal name Resen, one of the cities of Assyria, “the town of the hunter.”37

The Izdubar of the Babylonian inscription, like the Nemrod of the Bible, reigns over four cities,38 three of which, named in Genesis, are certainly identical with those mentioned on the tablet, and which therefore furnish an argument in favor of the supposition. But however that may be, Izdubar, whose name signifies “God of fire,” “God of the body or mass of fire,” is without doubt the ancient Arcadian God of fire whose worship had so great an importance in the primitive epochs; and this idea throws much light on the Babylonian poem, to which it, in some sort, furnishes the key. This poem is divided into twelve cantos, if we may so call them, each forming a distinct episode and inscribed in a separate tablet. Sir Henry Rawlinson has proved that each canto relates to one of the twelve signs of the zodiac, and to one of the twelve months of the year. The god of fire is thus represented as being one with the sun, and the entire epic consists of a poetical history of the annual revolution of that luminary, and its accomplishment in the course of twelve months, around which revolution various incidental episodes have been grouped, amongst others the narrative of the Deluge. The dénouement of the poem is the cure of Izdubar, who, at the instigation of the man saved from the Deluge, plunges into the sea, from whence he issues delivered from a sort of leprosy which had threatened his life. M. Gubernatis remarks that this is identical with the Vedic myth of Indra, and also the Hellenic one of Tithonus. Leprosy is invariably the malady of kingly heroes, and signifies old age, which, according to popular belief, could [pg 140] only be cured either by the waters of youth or by the blood of a child. The old solar hero, the dying sun, sprang forth with renewed youth in the morning, after traversing the sea of night—a symbol which would naturally possess an additional force to the nations who beheld the departing sun-god sink beneath the Western sea. The Chaldæan epic presents us, therefore, with the same mythological groundwork as the other polytheistic religions with regard to the worship of fire and of the sun—a groundwork presenting a point of contact among the Semitic, Aryan, and Egyptian races which it is necessary to bear in mind in tracing the comparative histories of the descendants of the sons of Noe.

The details of the Babylonian poem exhibit a mythology as multitudinous as that of India or of Greece; the adventures also of Izdubar for the most part closely resemble those of the classic heroes. He is a great conqueror, who wins immortality by his splendid exploits and his mighty labors, some of which remind one of those of Hercules. We see him successively capture the winged ox, and put an end to the ravages of a sea monster to which is given the name of Boul—two exploits almost identical with those of Perseus. As in Egypt the sun, under the name of Osiris, is the husband of Isis, the personification of the productive power, and sometimes the moon, so in Chaldæa the sun, Izdubar, espouses Istar, the moon, who is also the Assyrian Venus, and daughter of the god Sin. Istar is, however, at this period, already a widow, having lost her first spouse, whose name signifies “Son of Life.”

In the poem of Erech a great number of other deities appear, together with Istar. Besides her father, Sin, who is god of the months, we have firstly Anou, the Oannes of the Greeks, and the first personage of the supreme triad; then the second member of this triad, Bel, the demiurge; and lastly the third, Ao, Nesroch,39 or Nouah. Around these great divinities are grouped Adar, the god of the planet Saturn; Samas, god of the sun; Nabo,40 god of the planet Mercury, and his companion, Sarou; Bin, god of the atmosphere and tempest; Nergal, of the planet Mars; besides a vast army of Annunaki, or secondary genii; of Guzalu, or destroying spirits, and others of inferior race and power. These deities did not agree among themselves any better than did the gods of the Greek Olympus. Their heaven appears to have been anything but an abode of peace or love; and in heaven or hell they quarrelled alike. Istar seems especially to have distinguished herself by her unaccommodating disposition.

It is believed that the account of the journey of Istar into hell (for the story of such a journey in the Odyssey and the Æneid had also its precursor in Chaldæa) formed one of the episodes of the poem of Izdubar, although the tablet containing it has not yet been discovered; but we possess it on another fragment, and one which is of great value, as it furnishes an incontestable proof of the belief of the Assyrio-Chaldæans in the immortality of the soul. The abode of the dead is called the “immutable land,”41 and corresponds to [pg 141] the Hades of the ancient Greek poets. It is divided into seven circles, after the model of the celestial spheres, and is depicted as follows by the Chaldæan poet: “Towards the unchangeable land; the region [from whence none return]; Istar, the daughter of Sin, her ear—has turned: the daughter of Sin [has turned] her ear,—towards the dwelling of the dead, the throne of the god Ir ...,—towards the abode into which he has entered, and whence he has not come forth,—towards the way of his own descent, by which none return:—towards the dwelling whereinto he has entered, the prison,—the place where [the dead] have naught but dust wherewith [to appease] their hunger; and mud for nourishment:—from whence the light is not seen, and in darkness they dwell where shades (ghosts), like birds, fill the vaulted space,—where, above the uprights and lintel of the portal the earth is upheaped.”42 Allusion is also made several times to this “unchangeable land” in other poems in the collection of Assurbanipal, as well as to spirits who wander back to earth, and dead who return to torment the living. In a note on the religious belief of the Assyrians Mr. Fox Talbot publishes two prayers composed to ask for eternal life to be granted to the king. The meaning of the first is not perfectly clear, but of the second, which is very explicit, we give the most important passage: “After the gift of the present days, in the festivals of the land of the silver sky, in the shining courts, in the abode of benedictions, in the light of the fields of felicity, may he live an eternal life, sacred in the presence of the gods of Assyria.”43 Also, in a hymn to the god Marduk, are traces of a belief in the resurrection of the dead. This deity is repeatedly called “the merciful, who restores the dead to life.”

Thus, then, the Semites believed in the immortality of the soul; but monotheism was far from being a privilege of their race, by which it would be possible to explain the origin of the Judaic religion without providential intervention and regulation; and thus we see the Chaldæan poets combat along the whole line the assertions of M. Renan respecting their belief and genius alike. Never did facts with more pitiless emphasis give the lie to the learned; and it seems as if the historian of the Semetic languages had had a secret presentiment of humiliations which would result to him from a more generally extended study of Assyriology, when at its outset, about fifteen years ago, he attacked it with a determination which has not been forgotten.44

Another historical fact which may be gathered from the Babylonian epic is the mythological signification of the signs of the zodiac. The cuneiform inscriptions have already shown us that not only was Asia the [pg 142] cradle of the human race, but that it was also the primitive nursery of civilization. It can no longer be doubted that it was from thence, instead of, as has been supposed, from Egypt, that Greece herself received indirectly her first lessons in the arts, as it was also from thence that she received her metals. It is equally in Chaldæa that we find the origin of astronomy and of the zodiacal signs; the nomenclature of the latter, as it remains at the present day, differing in no essential point from that established by the Babylonian astronomers, although its value and signification have hitherto been very obscure. This obscurity has been dissipated by The Poem of Izdubar, which shows that the ancient Assyrian mythology bestowed on the signs their figures and their names. The myths relating to each of the months formed the subjects of the twelve episodes of the poem. Thus, for instance, the second narrated the capture of the winged bull; and the second month is designated as “the month of the propitious bull,” and has Taurus for its sign. Again, the sixth song related the marriage of Istar with Izdubar, and began with the goddess' message to the hero: the sixth month is called “the month of the message of Istar,” and has for its sign the archeress, of which we have made Virgo, the virgin, who, according to the attestation of the prism of Assurbanipal, was the goddess Istar herself. The eleventh tablet is consecrated to the god Bin, “the inundator—he who pours abroad the rain,” and the sign of that month is the shedder of water, or the vase pouring it forth. Thus crumbles away the whole chronological scaffolding raised by the school of Dupuis, according to whom the zodiacal signs were only to be explained as having direct relation to agricultural labors, and the phases of the seasons to be regarded in reference to the productions of the earth—an interpretation which made it necessary to withdraw the origin of man to an enormously distant period of the past, in order to reach a time in which, owing to the precession of the equinoxes, the presence of the sun in the sign Taurus should coincide with the season of ploughing. All these calculations were equally fanciful with those founded on the famous zodiac of Denderah, and it is now ascertained beyond all reasonable doubt that the zodiacal signs have a religious or rather mythological, and not an agricultural, origin.

—The above is in great part translated from an article by M. Gregoire in the Revue des Questions Historiques, for April, 1874.

New Publications.

Many of our readers must have read that part of the record of Catharine Emmerich's visions by Clement Brentano which has been translated into English. Those who have been pleased and edified by them will be delighted with this life of the holy and highly favored ecstatic virgin. It is a charming and wonderful [pg 143] life, especially that portion which relates the history of Anne Catharine's miraculous infancy and childhood. The volume makes one of F. Coleridge's series, which we have frequently had occasion to praise. We have been surprised to see in the pages of a book issued under the supervision of so accurate and careful an editor a number of inaccuracies in style and typographical errors.

These recollections and anecdotes of the two favorite English writers of fiction are very readable, and those which relate to Thackeray especially interesting.

Every effort which is likely, in any way, to help on the great work of Catholic education, has of course our entire sympathy. Humanly speaking, the destiny of the church in the United States is to be determined by the education which we give to our children, and the almost universal recognition of this truth by the Catholics of America is, we are persuaded, the most certain evidence that we have really made progress. It is only within a comparatively recent time that we have come to fully realize the inevitable and fatal results of allowing our children to frequent the public schools, and to thoroughly understand that the common-school system of education, based, as it is, upon the implied assumption of the untruth of positive religion, logically and in fact leads to infidelity or to what is scarcely less an evil—religious indifference. The church without the school-house is incomplete, and can at best do but half work; and we consequently find that almost all of our bishops are now beginning to demand that every parish shall have its parochial school.

We have been at some pains to examine the returns made by the different diocesan authorities to the publishers of the Catholic Almanac, and we find that last year there were in the whole country about three hundred and eighty thousand children attending our Catholic schools. This is probably less than half the number of Catholic children of school age in the United States; still, we are already doing enough to show that Catholic primary education must be recognized as one of the institutions of the country, and that those who have control of it should set to work without delay to give it a thorough organization. It is well to teach our people that the public schools are dangerous to the faith and morals of their children; it is far better to render them useless by bringing our own up to the standard of excellence which the more abundant means and opportunities of the state have enabled it to give to its educational establishments. There are, we know, many parochial schools which are in every respect equal to those of the state; but under the present system everything is left to the zeal and energy of the pastor. What we want is a system which will cause every parochial school to come up to the requirements of a prescribed standard of excellence. In a word, the necessity of the times demands the organization of Catholic education.

Each diocese should have its school boards and its official examiners and visitors. Annual diocesan school reports should be published, accompanied by remarks on the defects observed in the practical management of the schools and in the methods of teaching.

Out of these diocesan school boards and school reports in due time a national Catholic school system would grow into vigorous life. More of this another time; at present we are glad to take note of the greater desire for excellence in our elementary schools, shown by the demand for improved class-books.

As our system of education is distinctively Catholic, it of course requires Catholic text-books—books composed with a special view to the principles which underlie the Catholic theory of pedagogy.

This truth has been recognized by the bishops of the United States, who, both in the First and Second Plenary Councils of Baltimore, made this one of the subjects of their thought.

That The Catholic Publication Society, which has done so much to elevate the tone of our literature, has felt authorized to begin the issue of a complete series of such works, is undoubtedly an indication of the general feeling among Catholics of [pg 144] the want of improved class-books, especially for our elementary schools, which are by far the most important, since they more directly concern the welfare of the masses of our people.

Whilst we are grateful for what has been done in this matter, we cannot shut our eyes to the many defects of most of the text-books now in use. We have before us the Young Catholic's Illustrated Primer, Speller, First, Second, Third, and Fourth Readers; and we have read and examined them with conscientious care, and we have at the same time compared them with similar publications of other houses, and we therefore feel competent to speak of their merits, if not with authority, at least with knowledge. That they should be superior to any other books of the kind is only what we had the right both to expect and to demand, and that they are has already been generally recognized by the Catholic press of the country.

In the choice and arrangement of the matter we discern admirable good sense and tact; in the illustrations, which are very numerous and nearly all original, being explanatory of the text, excellent taste; whilst in the mechanical execution we perceive the skilful workmanship that usually characterizes the books of The Catholic Publication Society.

The series is graded in strict accordance with scientific principles of education, and combines all that is important in the word and phonic methods of teaching, without, however, excluding the a, b, c drill. Books must always remain the indispensable instruments for imparting instruction in school, and hence it is of the greatest moment that the pupil should from the very start be attracted to them. Most children enter school eager to learn; the craving for knowledge is a divine instinct implanted in their hearts by the Author of their being, which they have already in a thousand ways sought to satisfy by their fruitless efforts to penetrate the mystery of beauty with which Nature surrounds them. When they enter school this intellectual activity should be stimulated, not repressed. The books first placed in their hands should be simple, offering many attractions and few difficulties, presenting to their minds under new forms the objects with which observation has already rendered them familiar, and which they now first learn to associate with printed words. These truths have been felt and acted upon by the compilers of the “Young Catholic's Series,” which, in simplicity, in correct gradation, in beauty and attractiveness, far surpasses anything of the kind that has yet been offered to the Catholic English-speaking public.

Another truth which can never be lost sight of in Catholic education is that religion should be the vital element of the whole process of instruction.

“Give me a lesson in geography,” said Mr. Arnold, “and I will make it religious.” This is what Catholics desire: that the light of religion should burnish as with fine gold all human knowledge. Indeed, in primary education religion is almost the only subject of real thought, the only power able to touch the heart, to raise the mind, and to evoke from brutish apathy the elements of humanity, and more especially the reason. As religion is the widest and deepest of all the elements of civilization, it ought to be the substratum and groundwork of all popular education.

“Popular education,” says Guizot, “to be truly good and socially useful, must be fundamentally religious.”

In the compilation of text-books this is precisely the point which demands the greatest amount of good sense and the most consummate tact. Religion must run through the whole fabric like a thread of gold. It must form the atmosphere in which the pupil breathes; it must give coloring to everything, and everything must in one way or another be made to prove and explain its dogmas, and yet there must be no cant, no attempt at preaching, no dull moralizing, and above all no stupidity.

To accomplish all this, our readers will readily believe, is not an easy task, and yet we have no hesitation in saying that if they will take the trouble to examine thoroughly the “Young Catholic's Series,” they will agree with us in the opinion that it can stand the test of even this standard of excellence.

We learn that the Holy Father has sent a letter of commendation to the writer of “Italian Confiscation Laws” in The Catholic World for Oct., 1873, and ordered a translation of the article.

Church Chant Versus Church Music.

An interesting colloquy took place in our mind as we finished the perusal of the paper entitled “Church Music” which appeared in the August and September numbers of The Catholic World. We transcribe it as faithfully as our memory serves us.

Scene—The cloister of a Benedictine monastery. Time, Anno Domini 1000. A number of monks rehearsing for a festival.

Gregorius, the choir-master dictating from an open Gradual. “Listen, my brothers all. To-morrow is the festival of S. Polycarp the martyr and the name-day of our good father, the abbot. On such a joyous festival we must not fail to make his heart right glad with our chanting. Let us begin the Introit. (Sings.) ‘Gaudeamus omnes in Domino, diem festum celebrantes.’ ”

(All the monks repeating in chorus) “Gaudeamus omnes in Domino, diem—”

(They are interrupted by a loud knocking at the floor leading from the cloister. Brother Gregorius, on opening it, is confronted by an aged stranger with a long, white, flowing beard, bearing in his hand a roll of printed music, on which the words “Boston,” “Ditson” and the date “1874” can be discerned.)

Gregorius. “Salve, frater.”

Aged stranger. “Prof. Hubanus, at your service; and having come from a great distance, and happily being born at a much later date, I guess you will find my services on this eve of your joyous festival of some value, for I am well acquainted with all the best Masses published. By the way, is one of the brethren lately departed this life?”

Gregorius (with astonishment). “No, God be praised! Brother Augustine yonder did leave the infirmary vacant this morning, thanks to Our Blessed Lady, that no voice might be wanting in the choir on the morrow; but wherefore the question, good domne Hubanus?”

Hubanus. “Because I heard you but just now rehearsing such a sorrowful, in fact, so lugubrious, a morceau—an Offertory piece, I presume, for a Requiem Mass—that I supposed you were getting up the music for some such occasion.”

(The monks regard the aged stranger with no little surprise, mingled with curiosity.)

Gregorius. “We must have made indeed sad work of it in our rehearsing. Worthy Hubanus, it was the Gaudeamus you heard.”

Hubanus. “The Gaudeamus, eh? (Aside. I don't remember seeing that in Ditson's catalogue. I wonder what it is. To Gregorius.) Would you mind repeating it once more?”

Gregorius. “With pleasure. Sing, my brothers.” (They sing the whole Introit.)

Hubanus. “Ah! fine; quite solemn! A Gregorian chant, I perceive. A very plaintive movement. The finale has an exceedingly mournful effect. In D minor, is it not? Still, for a Requiem Offertory I think Rossini's Pro Peccatis, or Gounod's Ave Maria, or ‘Angels ever Bright and Fair,’ for a change, would please the congregation better.”

All the monks. “Plaintive! Our Gaudeamus mournful! Calls an Introit an Offertory piece! Like a Requiem Offertory indeed! An Ave Maria for that too! What does he mean by D minor? (Blessing themselves.) Ab omni malo, libera nos, Domine!”

Hubanus. “Oh! beg pardon. That is an Introit, is it? Indeed! But, as I said, I have the honor to be born at a much later date than yourselves, and we don't bother ourselves with singing those things in my day and country. We bring out the finest music, however, in our choir of the Church of S. Botolph, in the United States, that you can hear. I'm the organist and director.”

Gregorius. “Not sing the Introit! Why, good domne Hubanus, our grand and joyous festival on the morrow would be robbed of one of its chief features if we failed to sing the Gaudeamus—I mean the Gaudeamus that you have just heard.”

Hubanus. “ ‘De gustibus non est disputandum.’ Hem! excuse my indulging in the classics; those old Latin fellows say a good deal in a few words, you know. But you don't seriously mean to say that such monotonous stuff—excuse my plain speaking on your plain singing—is fit for a joyous festival? As my friend, Dr. ——, says in his late paper on ‘Church Music,’ ‘to hear Gregorian chant for a long time, and nothing else, becomes extremely monotonous, and burdens the ear with a dull weight of sound not always tolerable.’ He says, moreover, that ‘this is admitted by all who in seminaries and monasteries have been most accustomed to hear it.’ ”

Gregorius. “Your learned friend did not seek our judgment, I assure you, and I am at a loss to know who could have made so silly an admission to him.”

Hubanus. “But do you not ‘resort to every device,’ as he says again, ‘to escape its monotony on festival days, by harmonies on the chant which are out of all keeping with it,’ and so forth?”

Gregorius. “We do not, I trust. What little harmony we sing is in strict keeping with the mode of the chant; and as to escaping anything, we know the rubrics, domne Hubanus, and respect them, and, what is more, we observe them.”

Hubanus. “On that score I have the advantage of you; for it doesn't require much knowledge of what you call rubrics to bring out a Mass and grand Vespers with us. However, this question of plain chant is settled long ago. It ought to have been settled long before you were born. For, as Dr. —— continues in his paper, ‘No one will deny the appropriateness and impressiveness of plain chant on certain solemn occasions, especially those of sorrow; but it is confessedly unequal to the task of evoking and expressing the feelings of Christian joy and triumph.’ Ah! Brother Gregorius, you should have been born later.”

Gregorius. “Then we monks, and the generations of the faithful throughout the world, have for the past thousand years been shut out from the feelings of Christian joy and triumph, have we? Verily, either we or you can have known very little of one or of the other, as the observation of your learned doctor may happen to be true or not. Did the church put a lie into the mouths of her cantors when she bade them sing, ‘Repleatur os meum laude tua, alleluia; ut possim cantare, alleluia; gaudebunt labia mea, dum cantavero tibi, alleluia, alleluia’?”45

Hubanus. “You are a trifle sarcastic, Brother Gregorius; but I willingly pardon it, for I'm a plain-spoken man myself, and call a spade a spade. Besides, you know, you can always fall back on the ‘De gustibus’—a quotation I often find very convenient; but I warrant me your prima donna doesn't find much satisfaction in exhibiting her fine soprano on your dull chant, which you must confess, with Dr. ——, ‘is of limited, very limited, range,’ and in my opinion as poor in expression as a kettle-drum.”

Gregorius. “I crave your pardon, worthy sir. You are a stranger and quite aged—”

Hubanus (interrupting). “Eighteen hundred and seventy-four.”

Gregorius (continuing)—“as the length and whiteness of your beard proclaim, while we have only the experience of one thousand years, the lessons of the church, and the taste as well as the examples of the saints to profit by; but we must confess that of a prima donna we have never yet heard.”

All the monks (very decidedly). “Never!”

Hubanus. “Never heard of a prima donna! Why, when were you born? I mean, of course, the chief lady soprano who sings in the choir.”

(Here all the monks burst out laughing.)

Gregorius (having got his breath). “Come, come, my ancient stranger, that explains all. We knew you must be ‘chaffing’ us, from the very first, with your ‘mournful Gaudeamus’ and your never singing Introits or obeying the rubrics and the rest. Ha! ha! Truly, a ‘chief lady in the choir’—prima donna, I think you named such a mythical personage—was only needed to cap the climax of your excellent joke.”

Hubanus. “Joke! I'm not joking at all. We have ladies in our choir—(aside) and it's no joke to manage them either—(to Gregorius) and pay them good salaries, as you must; for without that, you know, you never can have good music.”

(Here the laughing of the monks suddenly subsided, followed by loud and angry whispers, of which the [pg 148]word “heretic” was unmistakably heard. Brother Gregorius interposed.) “Judge not too hastily, good brothers. True, no church which oweth obedience to our Holy Father; the Pope, and which hath a right therefore to call itself Catholic, did ever yet permit women to sing in church choirs; but what she might have done in this matter in the country from which this aged stranger comes—be it ever so contrary to all the rubrics and traditions known unto us—we will the better learn from his own lips. Women, then, good domne Hubanus, do sing in the choir in the Catholic churches of your strange land, standing, perchance, beside the men-singers?”

Hubanus. “Where else would they stand? You see we put the sopranos and tenors on one side, and the altos and basses on the other.”

Gregorius (scratching his shaven crown in great perplexity). “We have yet to learn many wonderful things! Canst tell me, worthy Hubanus, how comes it? Does your learned friend, Dr. ——, speak of this matter in his celebrated ‘paper’? Doubtless he mentions some decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites which hath allowed this—this (another scratch) unheard-of novelty?”

Hubanus. “I cannot remember that he made any allusion to it. In fact, I fancy that he would rather not, and I am glad he didn't. But where's the use of making a fuss over it? Haven't women got voices as well as men, and what did the Lord give them voices for, if he did not intend them for use?”

Gregorius. “In the choir?”

Hubanus. “In the choir, or out of the choir, what's the difference?”

Gregorius. “Do the rubrics allow it?”

Hubanus. “Ma foi! I do not know. (Aside.) I hope they do, if old fogies like you are going to stir up that question. (To Gregorius.) No lady-singers! If that were to happen, my occupation, as well as theirs, would be like Othello's—gone. For hark you, Brother Gregorius, although I know but little of your old-fashioned, barbarous chant—can't read a note of it, to tell the truth—if women-singers are banished from the choir, music goes with them. The music I like requires the female voice. I wouldn't waste my time with a parcel of boys and on such music as they can sing.”

Gregorius. “What music is this of which you speak so often? Hath the church adopted a new style of melody which is not chant?”

Hubanus. “No, not adopted precisely, but there is a new music—everybody knows it—written by Mozart, Haydn, Mercadante, Peters, and several others, which organists and choirs make use of in our day. Some prefer one, some another, according to taste. ‘De gustibus,’ you know.”

Gregorius. “Yet tell me—for here the strangeness of your news almost surpasses belief—how dare the organists and choirs make use of any melody in accompanying the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and absolving the Divine Office which has not been adopted, or at least distinctly sanctioned, by holy church, to whom it appertains to dispose the ordering even of the most minute rubric in these important matters concerning the due praise of God and the sure edification of the people?”

Hubanus. “All I can say is, we do it. It is tolerated in some places, and my friend in his paper quotes some ‘Instructions’ which the [pg 149] cardinal vicar in Rome issued to his own clergy to prove the toleration; but, to my thinking, they sound very much like the careful mother's permission to her boy who asked leave to learn to swim—‘Certainly, my child, but don't you never go near the water, leastways any water that is over your ankles.’ ”

Gregorius. “I think I understand, for I have heard our good father, the abbot, say that ‘he who would be well carried must not drive with too stiff a rein’; and my holy novice-master, Father Ambrose—to whose soul may God grant rest!—did oft chide my hasty judgment upon my fellow-novices, saying in his sweet way, and after the manner of his wise speech, ‘Thou wouldst reform monks, good Brother Gregorius, before they are formed. All they need is a little instruction.’ At present every one is well pleased with your music?”

Hubanus. “Oh! that is quite another question. Dr. —— himself does not seem to think so, for he says in his paper: ‘In consequence of the failure of modern composers to meet the requirements of Catholic devotion, though their music has been introduced into our churches and given every chance of trial, complaints against it are heard on every side. We grumble about it in our conversations; we write against its excesses in the public journals; bishops complain of it in pastoral letters; provincial councils are forced to issue decrees about it; the Sovereign Pontiffs themselves not unfrequently raise their voices, sometimes in warning, sometimes in threats—in a word, the evil seems to have attracted a good deal of attention.’ ”

All the monks. “Ab omni malo, libera nos, Domine!”

Gregorius. “His account of your music—which you seem, nevertheless, to prize so much more highly than our dear holy chant, which hath the undoubted sanction of the church—gives pretty plain evidence that the church hath not adopted it in any wise. It rather suggests the thought that she would gladly be rid of it altogether, abstaining, however, like Father Ambrose, from reforming musicians before they are formed, and resolving, as he did often pleasantly say, to my comfort, ‘Thou shalt see, Brother Gregorius, that I shall make no change in our holy Rule.’ ”

Hubanus. “One would think you were born later, after all; for it would appear that our Holy Father, Pius the Ninth—pity you haven't lived to know him, Brother Gregorius, for he is the dearest pope that has ruled the church since the days of S. Peter—is in the van among the leaders of the ‘Gregorian movement,’ since a little while ago he made a decree that the Gregorian chant should be taught in all the ecclesiastical schools of the states of the church, to the exclusion of every other kind of music—‘Cantus Gregorianus, omni alio rejecto, tradetur.’ You see he wishes to get the Roman priests educated up to it—Rome rules the world—and the thing is done. ‘Othello's occupation is gone!’ But how in the world we shall ever get up a Christmas or an Easter Mass that is fit to listen to when that day comes is more than I can tell.”

Gregorius. “Despair not, good Hubanus. Remain with us past the morrow, and thou shalt hear a holy Mass and solemn Vespers which will warm the cockles of thy heart, [pg 150] chanted in strains of melody that belie neither the sentences of joyful praise which are uttered nor the exultation which doth lift the hearts of the brethren to heaven, and fill the festival hours with a divine gladness. (To the monks.) Brothers, let us rehearse the Gloria in Excelsis.”

As the curtains of our memory dropped upon the scene we have just been present at, our eyes caught sight again of the sentence quoted by Prof. Hubanus: “In consequence of the failure of modern composers to meet the requirements of Catholic devotion”—which failure is so utter that, in the judgment of the same writer, he “thinks it no exaggeration to say that, if all their compositions, except a very few, were burned, or should otherwise perish, the church would suffer no loss.”

But what of the figured musical compositions of those musicians who may in our time be honored with the title of “ancient,” such as Palestrina and his imitators? The music of this style forms, we are told, the staple of what is commonly heard in S. Peter's. The writer of the article we allude to evidently believes any attempt to make such music popular would be no less a failure. The intricacy of the style, the exceeding difficulties attendant upon its artistic execution, and its restricted vocal character, are “fatal” objections.

We fully agree with him. In our former articles on this subject (The Catholic World, December, 1869, and February and March, 1870) we not only pronounced modern figured music to be in practice a failure as church music, but intended also to be understood as asserting that the cause of this failure lay chiefly in the melodious form of such music—the necessary result of a tonality essentially sensuous, which renders it, despite every effort of the artist, intrinsically unsuitable for the expression of the “prayer of the church.” That there is prayerful music we do not deny, but it will never obtain any more positive sanction from the church than she gives to the hundred and one sentimental “prayers” and turgid “litanies” which fill the pages of our “largest books of devotion” ad nauseam, and are equally supposed by the uneducated Catholic and the ignorant Protestant to be the masterpieces of Catholic musical and liturgical art.

We did not think it necessary, writing as we did for a special class of readers, to explain the distinguishing characteristics of the church's “prayer,” being, as our learned friend says, fourfold—latreutic, impetratory, propitiatory, and eucharistic. To us the church was not wanting in wisdom in the adoption alone of plain chant to express her divine prayer, whether it happen to be latreutic, impetratory, propitiatory, or eucharistic. She never made any distinction that we know of. But our learned friend, while he cannot help but admit that for the purposes of adoration, propitiation, and supplication it is not only all that could be desired, but is also better than any other melody, denies, with an ipse dixit, its capability of expressing praise and thanksgiving. Argument does not seem to be worth seeking. “Plain chant,” he says, “is confessedly unequal to the task of evoking and expressing the feelings [pg 151] of Christian joy and triumph.” And again: “It certainly must borrow from figured music the triumphant strains of praise and thanksgiving.”

Neither one nor the other. We confess to nothing of the kind. And although, by the rule of argumentation, we are not called upon to prove a negative, we refer to the response good Brother Gregorius has already made, and would furthermore ask if the Te Deum, the Exultet, the Preface for Easter Sunday, the Alleluia of Holy Saturday, or the Lauda Sion, are confessedly unequal to the task assigned them?

As far as the question has any practical importance, we feel that not another word need be said. Plain chant is in lawful possession, and cannot be ousted by personal caprice or taste, nor by gratuitous assumptions of its inability to answer the end proposed by the wise authority of the church; still less by a proposed substitution of a system which, after three centuries of vain efforts to supplant the rightful possessor, is declared, even by its own friends, to be “a failure,” and the majority of its painfully-produced works fit only to be consigned to the flames.

We have, however, a question of more merit to discuss. If modern music has failed to meet the requirements of Catholic devotion, it will be not a little interesting to examine into the true cause of this failure. It will be found to lie in its melodic form (not in the use of harmony), which came into being with the introduction of the chord of the diminished seventh and the substitution of the instrumental, factitious scales called major and minor for the four natural vocal, authentic scales and their four correlative plagal scales. Like seeks like, and as this chord of the seventh was an inspiration of sentimental, languishing, passional feeling, the new music sought its language in poetry, and chiefly in lyric poetry, in which every sort of human passion finds smooth expression; and as this latter is divided into regular feet, with recurring emphasis and cadence, music soon found itself set to time. Its melody became measured. Pegasus found himself in harness. To express the sublime, [pg 152] the heroic, was only possible now by knocking down the bars, putting it all ad libitum, and calling the phrase recitative; and as the passage from the sublime to the ridiculous is proverbially short, the composition of many of these recitatives, in their leaping intervals and startling contrasts, vividly remind one of Pegasus let loose to scamper and roll unbridled in the open fields.

The invention and perfection of musical instruments are coincident with the rise and progress of the system of melody known as “modern music,” the organ and piano holding the mastery. To these are due, in great measure, the universal cultivation of the modern tonality, and the consequent loss of appreciation of the tonality of the ecclesiastical modes. It is heard in the lullaby at the cradle's side, whistled by boys in the streets, sung by children in popular melodies and hymns at school, confirmed by all the concerts given by orchestras in halls, theatres, and public meetings; every young lady strums it forth from her piano, every organist modulates it in church, while all bells, from thousands upon thousands of churches, jangle it forth from one end of Christendom to the other. That the church has been able to withstand the pressure of all this, and still dares to command her priests to chant “per omnia sæcula sæculorum” to her own ancient mode, is, even in that simple and significant sentence, a proof of her divine strength to resist the most alluring seductions and powerful onslaughts of the world, and a note of calm defiance to its “fashion which passeth away.”

We are now prepared to enter into a critical examination of the essential character of music as distinguished from plain chant. In the first place, we find, as we have already noted, that it is measured in its melody—that is, it is written, as it is said, in time; and, as a consequence of its lyrical movement, it became equally subjected to certain laws of versification and of phraseology corresponding to the stanza. When musicians began to write for the language of the church, and to set the sublime prose of her Gloria in Excelsis, Credo, etc., to its form of melody, this supposed necessity of making musical stanzas compelled the application of what is known in music as the theme, on which certain fanciful variations were built, shorter or longer, as the musician deemed necessary to complete his “work,” altogether forming a sort of Procrustean bed, on which the sacred words of the Liturgy were either dismembered or stretched by repetition in order to make them fit the melody. To make the “work” fit the words was not to be thought of; whence we judge it well for the peace of Mr. Richardson that Mozart and Haydn have departed this life. We remember, when a boy, long before we had made more [pg 153] than a child's acquaintance with the modern “Masses,” squeezing the Kyrie Eleison after this fashion on the framework of one of De Beriot's celebrated airs for violin and piano, and gave ourselves as much credit for the originality of the “adaptation” as we are willing to give to the man who first of all (to the misfortune of true church chant) tried to compose a musical theme for the same words of prayer. We refer our readers to the late paper on “Church Music” in the August and September numbers of this magazine, and to the translation of the Gloria in Excelsis of Mozart's Twelfth Mass, as given in one of our former articles, as proofs of the perfectly outrageous extent to which this “adaptation” has already been carried.

Now, we affirm, as a principle, that the expression of the “Prayer of sacrifice and of praise,” as we may term the Holy Mass and the recitation of the Divine Office, should be consonant with, and conformed to, the manner in which the church directs the celebration of the acts of the same. The celebrant and his ministers, the acolytes and the chorus, do not march, halt, turn about, or otherwise conduct themselves like soldiers or like puppets on wires, neither do they hop and glide and go through set figures like dancers. Melody in measure is therefore wholly unsuited to the character and spirit of the acts of the performers.

In connection with the acts of Catholic worship, melody in measure is therefore incongruous, unmeaning, and absurd. For, to put the question plainly, if neither celebrant, ministers, chorus, nor people are to march—to do which, even in her sacred processions, would be shocking and profane—why sing a march? If they are not to waltz, why sing one? If the church does not want to

then, in the name of common sense, why shall Master Haydn be permitted to offer the church singers a musical jig? The truth of the matter is that such measured movements, added to the gymnastic feats of melody which characterize the phrasing of the greater number of modern “Masses,” are ignorantly supposed to faithfully express that Christian joy and triumph which plain chant is quite as ignorantly supposed to be unable to inspire.

Let any one examine the church's chant, and especially its movement, and he will not fail to be struck with its remarkable consonance with, and the sense of exact propriety of, its accompaniment to the movements and demeanor of the sacred ministers and of all who are appointed to assist them in carrying out the sacred functions of divine worship. How majestic and dignified, how modest and devout, are its measures! A sort of continuous procession of sound, resembling now the deep murmurings of the waves of the ocean, now the gentle breathings of the wind, now the prolonged echoes of distant thunder, now the soft whispering of the woods in summer! Always grave and decorous in its phrasing. Never indulging in trivial antics or in meretricious languishing and voluptuous undulations. Time and arithmetical measures do not straiten and confine its heavenly inspirations, for the thoughts of the soul, and chiefly the thoughts of prayer, do not move like clockwork. One does not adore five minutes, propitiate two minutes, supplicate half a minute, and give [pg 154] thanks ten seconds; and to do either in 2/4 3/4 or 6/8 time would be the height of the ridiculous. A friend tells us that the only time he ever had to do either at High Mass was during the performance of that part of the score called “point d'orgue.” Is it any wonder that music for the church is a failure, and that plain chant still holds its own?

Secondly. The melody of modern music is essentially mechanical. Formed as it has been upon improved instrumentation, it is neither more nor less than a musical performance. The melody is therefore the chief thing; the words and their expression are only secondary. From which, as a necessary result—if the music be worth listening to—the most accomplished vocalists that the pecuniary resources of the church can procure are called in to render the selections. Hence, also, the introduction of women into the choir, contrary to the laws and traditions of the church, the banishment of the chorus from the sanctuary, and the erection of the detestable Protestant singing-gallery over the doorway of the church. This latter flagrant innovation on the proper rubrical disposition of the choir has been lately specially condemned in the “Instructions” of the cardinal vicar at Rome. No one surely will have the hardihood to call modern music an “ecclesiastical song,” as it should be called or it has no place in the church. It is the song of professional singers, distinctly a mechanical performance, and open, without the possibility of reform, to the most shocking abuses. What organist cannot recall instances in which the male and female singers carried on and perfected their courtship in the choir, and where in the same holy (?) place eating and drinking were indulged in during the sermon, and the daily newspapers read? The drinking of water or the chewing of tobacco—well, we would like to see the priest who has been able to banish either from his singing-gallery. These and other numerous irregularities we think ourselves fully justified in adducing as argument in this connection, simply because they exist, are common, notorious, and are a tolerated incumbrance with the mechanism; and, if effectually banished, would leave the said mechanism subject to no little friction and the production of tones of complaint which, whether they proceed from unoiled hinges or choirs, are not agreeable, considered as music.

Compare, again, the character and movement of those upon whom the ceremonies devolve. They are not at all mechanical, but strictly personal. In the first place, the actors are of a restricted class. They must be either men or boys. Women and girls are not permitted to celebrate or serve in any capacity at the sacred functions. The services of a graceful and intelligent acolyte are exceedingly pleasant and edifying to behold, but the stupidest and most awkward, blundering and unkempt boy would be preferable, and must be preferred, before any number of the brightest, most beautiful and quick-witted girls, because he alone possesses the one personal qualification requisite for that office—he is of the male sex. Intelligence, beauty, and graceful manners are not employed by the church for their own sake.

Again, the celebrant must be a priest, the deacon must have received deacon's orders, and all others who, although laymen, may, [pg 155] as acolytes and choristers, aid the consecrated personages in their duties, are invested with a quasi-ecclesiastical character while in office. No one should ever dream of engaging the services of Jews, Protestants, or infidels, or even of Catholics whose lives were notoriously bad, or who scandalously neglected receiving the sacraments, as our “gallery-choirs” are constituted in many a church in this country.

In the event of the priest not been able to sing, through any infirmity, no layman of the congregation could take his place, although he were the finest singer in the world, the very prince of cæremoniarii, and a greater saint than S. Peter himself.

From which considerations it will readily be seen how unsuited music is for the use of such persons acting in such a capacity.

Practically, music is the song of women. We shall show further on that it is essentially effeminate. There is music which men and boys can perform, it is true, but it is not the genuine article. The want of the female voice for the soprano is always felt; and in some countries where women are not yet admitted as church singers, and “church music” is highly prized, this want is supplied by castrati. It is not the song of ecclesiastics. That the use of it is tolerated, we know; that the singing of women and castrati in church is also tolerated, we know; but the “Instructions” (we guarantee that nineteen out of twenty would agree with us in saying that “Restrictions” would be their better title) of the cardinal vicar on “church music,” referred to by the writer of the late articles on that subject in The Catholic World, remind us of the probable “instructions” that would be given if the abuse of female acolytes were to creep in to any great extent. We would find, without doubt, prohibitions against the wearing of the hair in curls, or frisée, or à la Pompadour, short sleeves, low necks, and crinoline. They would be instructed also, without doubt, to wear a plain black cassock and linen surplice, be shod like men, and let not their courtesies savor of the débût of actresses upon the stage of a theatre. If these instructions would be faithfully observed ex animo, and boys were not extinct as a sex in the congregation, we do not think they would very long have any practical application.

Contrast now the character of plain chant with music as a suitable song for the duly-qualified church singers, from the priest down to the humblest cantor. That it is the only song fit for the consecrated priest needs no argument. Thank God, there is no “toleration” of “priests' music,” “sacerdotal solos,” “Prefaces,” and “Pater Nosters,” à la Mozart, Haydn, Cherubini, or Peters! It is distinguished especially by that gravity of movement, that modestie ecclesiastique, in its intonation, which becomes the sacerdotal character. Any other melody from the mouth of a priest at the altar would scandalize not only the least ones of the brethren of Christ, but the greatest also; and however terrible the “woe” our Lord would pronounce upon those who might scandalize the latter, we are not left in ignorance of what is reserved for those who fall under his judgment for scandalizing the former. Any one who has had the good fortune of assisting at a Mass chanted by a properly vested chorus, in strict Gregorian melody, with organ accompaniment, [pg 156] if you will—that is, nothing more than an accompaniment, as the cardinal vicar desires—will assuredly bear testimony that it was not a musical performance—that is, a melodious concert performed for its own sake in any degree—but a religious performance, a chant of priests and the “likes of them,” suggesting nothing of this world's vanities or luxury, and as unlike modern music and its mechanism as the melodious whisperings of an æolian harp are unlike a hand-organ with monkey obbligato.

What is, to say the least, astonishing, if not lamentable, is to see so many priests devoted with ardor to the study of music, and so many more sanctioning and furthering its inroads upon the domain which it behooves them to cultivate, whilst remaining wholly ignorant of the chant, and unable to intone the Gloria in Excelsis or to sing a Collect or Gospel without blundering at every inflection. We see no impropriety in pressing these facts home upon those who are bound by the laws of their profession to interest themselves in the claims which Gregorian chant makes upon them, in order that they may decently perform the sacred functions committed to their care—how sacred one single reflection will show. For what is the song of the priest? It is not a private performance of his own, but rather an inspired expression of the mind of the church, herself the divine voice of God. When she prays and sings, she prays a divine prayer, and sings a divine song. God prays and sings within the walls of the church, the New Jerusalem, which has come down like a bride out of heaven upon the earth. True, it is the priest who prays and sings; but let him not forget that there is a Voice of supplication which ascends to the throne of the Almighty and Eternal Majesty that is not his, and a song which sounds sweetly in the ears of the Divine Mercy, and celebrates the praises of the Most High, whose melody is not the inspiration of his soul.

The Divine, Incarnate Victim of Calvary is the Suppliant, and the Son of David and of Mary is the Singer. And we are told—do our senses not deceive us?—that his song is become extremely monotonous, and burdens the ear with a weight of sound not always tolerable! No, we will not allow in excuse that this sneer of disdain and expression of contempt is only for the chorus, and is not meant for the consecrated priest. There is a divine unity and faultless harmony in the “prayer” of Jesus Christ as the church utters it. It is the seamless garment which clothes his mystic body; who shall dare to rend it?

What master-mind conceived and executed the magnificent and inimitable spectacle which that prayer presents in a solemn Mass and Vespers to the minds and hearts of devout worshippers? What cunning artificer devised the harmony of a composition so complete? Who breathed into all those prayers and anthems, hymns and psalms, Epistles and Gospels from Holy Writ, that spirit of devotion and piety, and informed them with those lessons of the purest morality and professions of the universal faith of Christendom? What more than angelic Artist knew how to dye the martyr's chasuble in blood, and transfer the spotless purity of the lily to the stole of the confessor and the virgin; to weave the robes of penance with the violet's [pg 157] mournful hue, and paint the verdure of the grass upon the ferial vesture? Who is that heavenly Musician whose soul gave birth to that sweet, intellectual, majestic melody espoused so happily to those chosen words of devout contemplation, of lofty praise, of innocent joy, of dolorous compassion, and of sanctified sorrow? We must look to other sources than mere human science or artistic skill for a solution of these questions. The mind and hand of a divine Artist must be in that work whose unity and harmony the hand of man will not sooner or later disfigure, mutilate, reject, or destroy. That artist is the Holy Ghost, who is the Lord and Life-giver of the church, in whom the mystic life of Jesus Christ is perpetuated by the like ineffable overshadowing which wrought his conception in the womb of the Immaculate Virgin—that Spirit of wisdom, from whom come all those inspirations of genius whose matchless productions and marvellous power are the wonder of the world, the envy of the flesh, and the hate of the devil.

But, no; we must believe that the divine Artist has failed, “confessedly” failed, in this one of his masterpieces. Its noblest, highest purpose found no adequate expression. Jesus Christ has been unable to manifest the joy and triumph of his Sacred Heart, the sublimest purpose of his eucharistic life, and his song is fit only to be chanted as a wail over the dead or as groans of penance in sackcloth and ashes!

Do you believe it? We don't.

To Be Concluded Next Month.

A Vision.

On The Wing. A Southern Flight. VII. Concluded.

“I wish you and Mary would go down to the Vernons, Jane,” said Frank, coming into our room one morning about three weeks after my engagement with Don Emidio. “I did not see Ida; but Elizabeth tells me she is not well, and I believe it all arises from the annoyances to which they have been exposed through the conduct of the Casinelli. It has grown into a complete persecution, for people never forgive those they have injured.”

“What are they doing now to vex Ida?” asked Mary.

“I do not understand all the pros and cons of the matter; but I found Elizabeth rather anxious about Ida, and she could not leave her to walk with me, as she had promised last night.”

That, of course, was a very serious affair, and one which demanded immediate rectification, at least in Frank's opinion—as any similar event would have done in the estimation of the other gentleman who so often formed one of our small circle; for I had long since found out that I was not to be allowed the privilege of a headache, or any other excuse for solitude, without a rigorous investigation of the merits of the case being set on foot by Don Emidio.

Of course Mary and I lost no time in going to Villa Casinelli. We took the path that had been cleared through the vineyard, on purpose to save Mary the fatigue of the longer way by the road. The vigneroli had taken great pains to make this little approach for the “padre's friends,” as we were always called; and they had thrown a plank with a fragile hand-rail across the little, rocky stream where they washed the clothes, and which stream formed the boundary between the property of the Casinelli and that of their neighbors. For a short walk it was nevertheless rather a fatiguing one; for it was up and down all the way, and included one or two short flights of stone steps.

In the early spring the yellow oxalis had covered the ground like a carpet embroidered in gold and green. Now the beans had taken the place of the gayer blossoms, and filled the air with their sweet perfume.

The donkey that took the cart full of clean linen twice a week to Naples had his al fresco stable beneath the shade of a venerable fig-tree close by—a blessing promised to his betters in Biblical times, and one which I am sure he too merited in his degree, and I have no doubt considered the fig-tree as his own. Being noisy and loquacious, like all other two or four legged creatures in Naples, he always greeted us with a loud bray when we passed by.

I do not believe any donkey was [pg 159] ever so fond of expressing his opinions as that particular animal. I had for some time tried to discover whether his utterances predicted rain, according to the general belief that asses bray when it is going to be wet. But not a cloud could be seen, and no rain fell for weeks; and certainly this particular ass was by no means barometrical in his utterances.

I sometimes had my fears that, as formerly it had been Paolino's duty to feed the poor beast, and that now the lad was in our service, perhaps the fodder was sometimes forgotten by his young master's younger sisters, and that the loud, inharmonious greeting he gave us was meant as a perpetual protest against the injustice of which we were indirectly the cause.

We found Ida suffering from nervous reaction occasioned by the effort to appear cheerful and composed under the various annoyances, and by the feeling that a good work had been put an end to by the malice of designing people. In addition to which, her mother was exposed to a variety of irritating insults which it was hard for her daughters to bear in patience. Mrs. Vernon was exceedingly fond of flowers, and thoroughly understood the cultivation of a garden. She had taken great pains with the very small enclosure which was allotted to their apartment, and from it the altar and their own rooms had been supplied in abundance. But now, no matter how early in the morning she visited her garden, the Casinelli's gardener had always the advantage of her, and had picked not only the best flowers, but even the strawberries, which she had been watching with the kind intention of giving them to us. He plainly told her one day, when he met her as he came out of her garden with a basketful of her flowers on his arm, that he had gathered them by his mistress' special desire. These things were trifles in themselves; but they were a severe trial when they came to be repeated day by day, in one form or another of petty insult and daring impertinence, and generally directed either against Padre Cataldo, who could not revenge his own cause, or against an aged lady in the enjoyment of her few pleasures, or, lastly, in attacking the moral character of the servants, and trying to spread about unfounded accusations. Ida's strong sense of justice, which amounted to a passion, and which made it intolerable to her to see the weak “put upon,” had worked her up into a state of nerves injurious to her health. Mary and I spent the day with the Vernons, trying to divert their thoughts, and preaching that patience which we were far from feeling ourselves.

About the time that these troublesome events were occurring we made an excursion to the Carthusian church and monastery of San Martino, which stands on the same summit as the Castle of St. Elmo, a little in front of it, and facing the bay. It commands a glorious view of the city and all the surrounding country; and the delight of visiting so beautiful a place tempered my indignation at the robbery of the government in depriving the monks of their home. Few things of the kind can be more beautiful than the church, where formerly no woman entered. The walls, floor, and roof are entirely composed of marbles of many colors. The altar-rails, or rather the low screen which cuts off the sanctuary—for rails there are none—is sculptured à jour in white marble, and looks [pg 160] like some exquisite lace-work. The choir behind the altar has also a marble screen of the same wonderful open work. There are pictures by Spagnoletto of Moses and Elias and the prophets. Nothing could be more appropriate to the austere life of a Carthusian monk than that the chapel of his monastery should be decorated by such an artist as Spagnoletto. Nor is the choice of subjects less appropriate. Strength and depth of coloring; the expression of masculine force in all the forms; bold outlines, deep shadows, and strong lights, seem all in harmony with the condition of mind likely to be eliminated by a life of silence and real, though not apparent, solitude; for the monks, though many, dwelt alone in separate cells. It was a life which called to mind the stern grandeur of Old Testament prophecies and the ascetic life of the Old Testament prophets; while the richness of the decoration; the elaborate carving—not in a friable material, such as wood, but in enduring marble; the extraordinarily lavish use of precious stones; the minuteness of detail, combined with the unity of plan, are just the characteristics that we should expect to grow out of the leisure of perpetual silence, and the digging deep down into the mines of thought consequent on all but unbroken solitude. It was impossible not to be struck with the whole as the outward growth of the peculiar inner life of the remarkable order to which it had once belonged; and one marvels to find that the extraordinary degree and nature of the beauty it possesses had not addressed itself to the common sense of even a godless government as a plea for its continued existence in the hands of those for whom it had been reared. It should also be remembered that connected with this life of leisurely meditation there were great opportunities for deep and continued study; for the Carthusians are a learned order.

I may perhaps be fanciful in thus tracing the character of the edifice to the tendencies of the order, for it must be owned that the present building dates no further back than the middle of the XVIIth century, and that S. Bruno, the founder of the order, probably never foresaw so magnificent an abode for his silent disciples. But those who have observed how, unless thwarted by unfavorable circumstances, every religious order in the church stamps its character upon all that pertains to it, will feel that there must have existed a synthesis between the inhabitants of San Martino and the place itself, and that the white-robed Carthusians were in the very home which was specially appropriate to them, and in all ways suited their devotional and intellectual tendencies. And in proof of the above reflections it is well to remark that the beautiful pavement of the church was designed by a Carthusian. We had of course been acquainted with many of the valuable paintings in the monastery, so far as engravings could make us so, and thus we hailed the Deposition from the Cross, by Spagnoletto, which is in the sacristy, as an old friend, also the Baptism of our Lord, by Carlo Maratta, and many of Vaccaro's and Cesari's paintings. The sacristy and the chapter-house are equally full of valuable pictures. It is impossible to exaggerate what must ever be the refining and elevating influence of such treasures of art, and such harmony and beauty, combined with a religious vocation of the highest order, [pg 161] heightened by the practice of silence and fostered by solitude.

The cloister breathes the very spirit of peace. The white-marble Doric columns gleam in the sunshine, and cut the tessellated pavement with the black shadows of their shafts, carrying them up the white wall with the arches of intense light between. I can imagine the monks learning to know the exact hour of the day by the fall of those shadows without needing to consult the old clock, also with a glaring white face, which is just below the little belfry with its two bells, one large, one small, that the deep-toned toll of one or the sharp, quick tinkle of the other might denote the various offices and duties to which they summoned the inmates. The cloister court is laid out with formal box-hedges enclosing little plots of garden ground, and one garden more precious than the others, Gottesacker,46 where are sown the mortal remains of the departed brethren, awaiting in the midst of their survivors and successors the day-dawn of immortality. There is an iron cross in the centre on a twisted white-marble pilaster. And the oblong square of this interesting cemetery is surrounded by a white-marble balustrade, with skulls carved at intervals. In the centre of the court is a marble well of singularly graceful proportions. Around it is a pavement of bricks symmetrically arranged, but now with the blades of grass and tiny weeds intruding their innocent familiarity where they have no right. Statues of saints, vases and balls alternating, run along the entablature of the cloister. We longed for a vision of the old, white-robed inhabitants of this white marble dwelling; and for once I felt not the lack of color, but, on the contrary, perceived a harmony in the white and subdued gray tints, relieved only by the blue sky and green grass. But when we looked out from the loggia on the wide view beneath us, it was not color that was wanting. There lay Naples, with its motley buildings, backed by purple Vesuvius, and the rose-colored cliffs of Sorrento beyond. Nature had used all the pigments of her pallet when she painted that lovely scene.

We paid another visit to a suppressed monastery—that of the Camaldoli—before leaving Naples. There is nothing very remarkable in the building itself or in the chapel. But the view is at once one of the most beautiful and the most singular I have ever beheld. We had above an hour's ride on donkey-back to get there; the carriage taking us no further than the picturesque village of Antignano. The lane up which we wound amid young chestnut-trees, the remains of what was once a magnificent forest, was at that time in all the verdant beauty of early spring. It was a glorious day, and I ought to have enjoyed the ride. But, in the first place, I have a feeling amounting to animosity against a donkey the moment I have the misfortune to find myself on his back. I rather like him than otherwise when cropping thistles by the roadside or in a huckster's cart. I appreciate his patient nature and long-enduring powers when they are unconnected with myself. But from the moment I find myself condemned to be carried by him—that I feel his horrid little jogging pace under me, and his utterly insensible mouth within the influence, or I should rather say not [pg 162] within the influence, of my reins—a feeling of antipathy to the beast seizes me, and is rendered all the more painful to me that his resignation and the long history of his habitual ill-usage fill me with an emotion of compassion painfully at variance with my intense dislike of him in the character of a steed.

I do not think I ever suffered more in this way than during our ride to the Camaldoli. I was escorted by a half-drunken donkey-boy, of the most brutal disposition towards the unfortunate animal, whom I at once hated and pitied. I was furious at the way he behaved to my donkey; while he, not supposing I knew enough Italian to understand his abominable patois, kept turning all my complaints and reproaches into ridicule to the other donkey men or boys accompanying him. I would gladly have taken the stick out of his hands with which he belabored my poor donkey. Indeed, at last I succeeded in doing so; but nothing short of having Emidio with me to apply the stick to the boy instead of the other animal would have sufficed to soothe my irritation. Unfortunately, my future protector, who I felt certain would punch any head I might wish submitted to that process, had been called away to Rome on business.

The lane was very narrow, and, even had it been as wide as Piccadilly or Broad Street, no doubt our donkeys would equally have considered themselves bound to go in single file. Consequently we were not always within reach of each other for any mutual assistance; and Frank, whom I longed to call to my aid, was altogether absorbed in taking care of Mrs. Vernon, to whom this donkey-climbing of a steep mountain-path amounted to a perilous adventure.

Not many days after, we heard that two or three foreign gentlemen, making the same ascent as ourselves, had been attacked and robbed by these most obnoxious donkey-men. I am afraid the observance of law and the moral condition generally of little, out-of-the-way villages like Antignano, in the vicinity of Naples, is as bad as it well can be at the present time.

When we reached the summit, on which stands the monastery, we went at once to the ridge of the hill to see the view; and I have seldom been more struck by anything of the kind. Naples lay before us, about fifteen hundred feet below; but what was so unexpected was the aspect of Mount Vesuvius, right in front of us, and that of the Monte Somma and a series of other mountainous heights of volcanic origin; and far away to the Apennines, with the wide plains and cities lying in the bright sunshine, Caserta, Capua, and all the Campania Felix. On the spot where we stood a line straight from the eye would have hit about one-third of the height of Mount Vesuvius. To the right we could see all the range of mountains to Salerno and Amalfi. On the other side were Pozzuoli, Nisita, Ischia, and Baiæ. I will not multiply names, nor will I heap up epithets in the attempt to describe what words cannot tell. In short, I forgot all I had said in favor of the position formerly occupied by the Carthusians at San Martino in my enthusiasm for the superior view once enjoyed by the Camaldoli; and had the question been open to me, I believe my vocation to the latter order would have been decided on the spot.

My donkey-boy had sobered down [pg 163] by the time I had again to trust myself and my steed to his tender mercies, and nothing occurred to mar the enjoyment of our long but interesting excursion. It must, however, have been a far more beautiful place before the present government of Italy, by permitting the wholesale destruction of the magnificent trees which formerly clothed the mountain's sides, had done so much to impair the climate as well as to destroy the beauty of the country. It is a fact in natural history that trees emit warmth in winter as they produce coolness in summer; and consequently that in a latitude like that of Italy they are specially beneficial, as tending to equalize the temperature. It is notorious that the climate of Italy has become hotter in the summer, while it is colder in the winter than was the case formerly. The country has also been subject to terrible ravages from mountain torrents, the downward course of which was formerly intercepted by the grand old trees of immense forests. Their impetuosity was broken and their waters partially absorbed. Now they tear down the barren sides of the mountains unchecked, and devastate the plains below, to the ruin of the crops and consequent impoverishment of the country. It is the short-sighted custom of the government to let whole tracts of mountainous forest-lands, leaving the lessee the liberty of cutting down as it may seem good to him; and generally he is a greedy man, in a hurry to make a fortune before the present régime shall have come to an end, as it must do some day.

I must not leave my readers to suppose that all our excursions and daily drives were on the grandly æsthetic plan of those I have described. We were not always mythological, classical, or even early-Christian in our researches, our walks or drives. We went shopping about the streets of Naples in a thoroughly womanly fashion, and condescended to red and pink coral, amber and tortoise-shell ornaments, with a full appreciation of their prettiness. The bracelets, earrings, and brooches made out of lava never appeared to me otherwise than as remains of barbarism. Much of the coral-work, though very ingenious, is also in bad taste. But a string of pink coral beads is always a beautiful ornament, and also always an expensive one. Amber abounds, not of course as a native product, but imported from the East. The tortoise-shell is very delicately carved, and inlaid with gold, and some of it is extremely pretty. There is also a great deal of alabaster-work in figures and vases, white and colored. Neither Mary nor I could bear it, though we did our best to try and be tempted by a shop in the Toledo47 which was filled with it. It is always connected in my mind with shell ornaments and wool mats. They are things that generally seem to go together, and equally impress me with their uselessness and ugliness. I must include in my list of horrors the lava and even the terracotta figures of lazzaroni and Neapolitan peasants. Mary was rather disappointed at not finding shops of old furniture and rococo. She had collected a variety of pretty and even valuable objects when she was here many years ago; but now she was told by the Neapolitans that the English and Americans had bought up all there was to be had of that nature. No doubt, however, we might still have found treasures [pg 164] had we known where to look for them. But the days are over when bargains could be picked up in Continental towns. All those things have now a real marketable value, and no vendors are ignorant of what that value is. Of course there are occasional exceptions.

We went once to a flower-show held in the Villa Reale, the beautiful public promenade which runs by the sea-shore and the Chiaia. I believe it was the first of the kind which had been attempted, and as such was worthy of all praise. But, apart from that consideration, it was inferior to most of the numerous flower-shows held in the rural districts of England. We often drove up and down the Chiaia, which is the name of the fashionable street of Naples, and along which there is a tan road for the sake of horsemen, who ride backwards and forwards at a furious rate. It is neither very long nor very broad; but the gentlemen who frequent it are evidently greatly impressed with their manly bearing and distinguished horsemanship. For my own part, I prefer a Neapolitan on the driving-box to one in the saddle. They are excellent coachmen and but indifferent horsemen, as all men must be who are deficient in phlegm and in external calm. The horse is a dignified animal, and demands corresponding dignity in his rider. We used often to stop at the caffe in the Via Reale, and refresh ourselves with “granite”—that is, a glass of snow sweetened, and with the juice of fresh lemons squeezed into it.

As a rule, I cannot say that the shops in Naples are particularly good, and certainly they are very dear. The same may be said of provisions. And as the taxes are every year on the increase, this misfortune is not likely to be remedied. I frequently used to walk through the generally narrow and always crowded streets of Naples accompanied by Frank, and as often Emidio, who had arranged some point of meeting with my brother, would come down from the heights of Capo di Monte, where his lovely villa stood, and join us in our saunter through the busy city. I have seen him stop where a piece of rope was hung near a tobacconist's shop-door, or at the corner of the street, and light his cigar from the smouldering end which had been set fire to for that purpose. I have never seen a burning rope in the streets in England or in France for the accommodation of smokers.

We visited most of the churches, but they were as nothing to me after the churches in Rome. The flower-boys soon got to know us as we walked and drove about, and the most lovely roses and bunches of orange-blossoms would be pressed upon us for a few pence. The boys would sometimes cling to the carriage-door with one hand, while the horses were going fast, imploring us to buy the bouquets they held in the other, till I used to think they must fall and be run over. But they are so lithe and supple, and they seemed to bound about so much as if they were made of india-rubber, that at last I got hardened, and would stand to my bargain half-way down a street without any apprehension for the safety of my dark-eyed, jabbering flower-boys. They generally addressed us in a jargon of Italian, French, and English, and as generally sold their flowers for half the price first named.

I greatly enjoyed the freedom and absence of restraint in these our rambles; for, having my brother with me, I was not afraid of [pg 165] gratifying my curiosity about the manners and customs of the humbler classes. I frequently stood by the fountains in the streets, where the women washed the linen, and entered into conversation with them; or I would buy fritture of various kinds (which is, in fact, fried batter, sometimes sweet, sometimes savory). I did not find it always to my taste, because it was made with rancid olive-oil quite as often as with fat. But the piles of light-brown fritters lying on the little tables in the open streets, or being tossed about, smoking hot, in iron pans, had a very inviting appearance. Then I would get Frank to let me have a glass of lemonade from the pretty little booths that are so numerous for the sale of that delightful beverage, with festoons of fresh lemons hanging from the gayly-painted poles. I delighted all the more in my freedom that I knew, when I should be Emidio's wife, and drive about Naples as the Contessa Gandolfi, I could no longer expect to enjoy these privileges. I said so one day to Emidio, when I was taking my second glass of lemonade in a peculiarly dingy and out-of-the-way street in Naples. He laughed at the assertion, though he did not for a moment attempt to deny it; and meanwhile he enjoyed as much as I did the absence of all form and ceremony, which as foreigners we could allow ourselves. It was then that jestingly he asked me whether it should be put in my marriage-settlements that he was to take me, at least once, to the Festa di Monte Vergine. I could not understand what he could possibly mean, until he explained that so much is thought of this feast by the Neapolitan peasantry that if a girl has a good dot, it is generally inserted in the marriage-deeds that her husband is bound to give her this gratification. The feast takes place on Whit-Monday, and Emidio assured me that my marriage-portion was enough to entitle me to more than one excursion to the sanctuary of the Madonna, if such was my desire. It is held at Monte Vergine, near Avellino; and as we had not been able to attend it during our stay at Posilippo, I declared that I should expect to be taken some day, though I declined to puzzle our family lawyer by the introduction of so strange an article in my marriage-settlements.

We had reserved Pompeii for the close of our stay at Naples, because from thence we meant to go on to Sorrento. We entered Pompeii by the “Sea Gate,” having left our travelling-bags and shawls at the little hotel Diomède—such a grand name for such a mean, vulgar little place! How full of flies it was! How bad was the food! How miserable the accommodations, with advertisements of Bass' pale ale adorning the walls! Nothing, however, of the kind could diminish the interest with which we were about to enter the dead city of the dead. Mary remembered having come to this same little public-house five-and-twenty years before. It has been added to since then. At that time it afforded very little refreshment for either man or beast. She had taken some tea with her, and they accommodated her with hot water. Milk was not to be had, so she floated a slice of lemon in the tea-cup, after the Russian fashion. And all the time a handsome youth, indifferently clad, and with the red Phrygian cap covering his crisp black curls, sang a native song to the accompaniment of a small guitar, and danced the while. The cotton-plants were ready to give up [pg 166] their bursting pods of snow-white fluff in the fields around, and the heat was extreme. The scene had been much less invaded in those days by ordinary sight-seers; but also, it must be owned, there was less to see, as many of the most important excavations have been made since that date. As the heat was very great, and as, even without seeing anything like all that is worth seeing, we could not possibly devote less than two or three hours to walking in those shadeless streets, it was decided Mary and I should be carried by the guides in open sedan-chairs. The guides are appointed by government, and are thoroughly well informed on the subject, and are able to answer most questions.

We first visited the Forum. It is, even in its utter ruin, very imposing, for it stands on rising ground, and all the principal streets lead to it. Several Doric columns, arches or gateways, and the pedestals which formerly supported statues, remain. The Temple of Venus is close to the Forum; the entrance steps are intact, and the altar stands in front of them. Words fail me to express the intense melancholy of the scene, as we wandered from Temple to Baths, and from house to house, down the narrow streets—for all the streets are narrow—whose flag-stones are dented by the wheels of the chariots, and have a raised path for foot-passengers, so high that there are stones placed at intervals to enable one to step across the road, with a space left for the wheels of the chariot to pass between. This was to keep the passengers from having to step into the water which in rainy weather must have poured down these gutterless streets. From the houses being now all reduced to the ground floor, with the exception of a few in which the stairs leading to the first story and some portions of the wall remain, it cannot be said that any of the streets produce at all an imposing effect. Perhaps the absence of this, except in the ruins of the temples and public buildings, rather adds to the pathetic sadness of the scene, by bringing all the more vividly before us the fact of the utter and sudden destruction which swept away a vast city of crowded human beings, leading the daily life of all of us, in a few short hours! We saw the casts of several dead bodies that had been found—one, of a man making his escape with a sack of money; another, of a matron with her young daughter. What masses of hair, what round and slender limbs, what beautiful teeth! It is ghastly, and yet fascinating; for it seems to bridge over so wide a gulf of time, and by one touch of nature makes us akin to the ancient dead. I felt this specially as we went down the “Street of Abundance,” as it was named—mere dwelling-houses and shops on either side; a long, ordinary street, where men came and went in their round of every-day life, buying and selling and paying visits. The green lizards ran over the whitened walls and the small, brown-red bricks. The sun poured down his relentless rays from a perfectly cloudless sky. Except ourselves and the guides, no footsteps were heard, no sound broke the death-like silence. And at the far end of the “Street of Abundance,” just beyond the limits of the doomed city, a solitary pine-tree, looking like a black spot in the white shimmer of the mid-day heat, alone indicated a world of nature and of life and growth beyond. Here is an oil-shop, full of [pg 167] the beautifully-shaped, huge jars in which the oil was kept. There, on that slab of marble, are the stains of wine. You see the oven, with what once was soft white bread—the real bread; and you feel that it might have happened a few years ago, and that somewhere or other, perhaps even at Naples, it might happen again to-morrow. And two thoughts rush in upon us, one full of yearning pity, and one of awful inquiry—they were our brethren, and where are they now?

The first eruption of Mount Vesuvius occurred in the reign of the Emperor Titus, a.d. 79. Pompeii, Herculaneum, and even Naples itself, had suffered before them from earthquakes, and a portion of the two first-named towns had been laid low. But nothing had ever happened to prepare the inhabitants for the terrible calamity which was about to befall them, when, in their villa at Misenum, the younger Pliny's mother called the attention of Pliny the elder to the cloud, in the form of a pine-tree, which she saw rising up into the heavens. When she did so, she did not even know that it was from Vesuvius that the cloud ascended. Pliny the elder invited his nephew, then only eighteen, to accompany him in his galley to Retinæ, a town on the coast, whither he intended to go, with the idea that the people might be in distress. But so little was any one prepared for what was really about to occur that young Pliny did not even lay aside his volume of Livy which he was reading; while his uncle took his tablets in his hand, that he might note down the curious phenomena he was about to investigate, and left the house to go on board. It was with great difficulty and at immense risk that he effected a landing and made his way to Stabiæ, near Pompeii, where dwelt his friend Pomponianus. In attempting to escape from thence in the night, he was suffocated by the noxious vapors that accompanied the eruption. It would seem that young Pliny continued his study for some hours, never realizing what an awful tragedy was going on beyond the Bay of Naples. There had been shocks of earthquake for some days previous, but these were not unusual occurrences, and therefore excited but little alarm, until they became so violent as to threaten utter destruction through the night. He seems to have been seriously frightened about the same time as his mother; for each had risen with the intention of calling the other. By this time the air was black with falling ashes, and the morning light could scarcely penetrate the gloom. Pliny would not leave his mother, while she, being aged and very heavy, feared she should not be able to follow him, and implored him to go away without her, which he would not do. They escaped together into the country, in danger of being trodden down by the crowds of flying people, and of being smothered by the falling ashes. The day was spent in agony and terror, and all but total darkness. But that night they were able to return to Misenum, though not to enjoy much repose, as the shocks of earthquake still continued. Then the young Pliny learnt that his uncle, whom he had, happily for himself, declined to accompany, had perished. This eruption did not resemble the more recent ones, inasmuch as no lava poured from the mountain, but burning stones of enormous size, and ashes, together with volumes of steam, which [pg 168] poured down in torrents of water, filled with ashes, upon the earth beneath. The shape of the mountain was altered entirely by this eruption, as it has been in a much less degree by that which occurred in April, 1872, and which our friends, the Vernons, had witnessed. The Neapolitans firmly believe that their city will ultimately perish as Pompeii has perished; and probably science is still unable to prognosticate whether the awful mountain has or has not too far exhausted its volcanic powers to produce a second destruction as terrible as that which Pliny has described with such accurate detail, and yet in so calm and unimpassioned a style.

Sensational writing is a discovery of modern times. We exhaust our subject in describing it diffusely and minutely. But nevertheless the scene Pliny's letters call up before our imagination—the young lad poring over his book in company with his devoted mother, and the brave and learned elder Pliny calmly setting sail, tablets in hand, to study the scene, and to assist those in danger, and then perishing in the attempt—is as replete with pathos and human feeling as language can make it. It is full of a language not put into words.

On the afternoon of the day we visited Pompeii we drove to Sorrento, and took up our abode at a quiet little pension recently established, and literally hidden amongst orange-groves. There was a small chapel close by. Our rooms were bright and clean, and the greater part of the time we had the house entirely to ourselves.

Let no one presume he knows the beauty of Italy who has not visited Sorrento. Can anything be more lovely than the approach to Vico, Meta, and Sant' Angelo, and the aspect of these little towns nestling amid gardens, with their feet in the blue ripples of that tideless sea?

The Sorrentines are a different race from the Neapolitans, and no love is lost between them. They are a more reserved and more dignified people. They make less noise, and are not so excitable. The land they live on is not volcanic, the vegetation is more luxuriant, and the people are more pastoral in their habits. The air is softer and less exciting than at Naples. Mary and I felt as if we had drifted into the land “where it is always afternoon,” and a lotos-eating calm and serenity seemed to come over us—a pleasant change after the nervous tension which Naples produces, and which is singularly inimical to sleep.

Every description of food is better at Sorrento than it is at Naples. Sorrento beef is excellent, and Sorrento pigs have a world-wide reputation for making good pork, though they are ugly animals to look at, having large, flabby, white bodies on tall, thin, greyhound legs, and very large, pink ears. Naples seems never at any time to have been well famed for producing good food.

Nearly all Cicero's letters to Papirius Pætus contain allusions to eating and drinking, and in one he says: “It is a better thing, let me tell you, to be sick with good eating at Rome, than for want of victuals at Naples.”

When he was thinking of buying Sylla's house at Naples, he asks Pætus to take some workmen to survey it for him, saying: “If the walls and roof are in good repair, I shall perfectly well approve of the rest.” “If I can procure a house at Naples, it is my purpose to live so abstemiously that what our late sumptuary [pg 169] law allows for one day's expense shall suffice me ten.” This last sentence, when coupled with that quoted from the other letter, looks rather like making a virtue of necessity. The marvel is that the Naples market is not more abundantly provided with Sorrento produce. The fruit is very good; and we all agreed we had never known the real merit of cherries until we had eaten them at Sorrento, and even better still at Capri. In our own land, in France, and even in cherry-loving Germany, I had always considered them as a very poor fruit, unless cooked or preserved. But I entertained a very different opinion of them when I had feasted on them in the South of Italy. They are as different as the fresh oranges, picked from the tree, are from those that have been plucked while green, and have ripened in a box during a long voyage.

I never cared for cherries in England. I used to believe in oranges as I found them in the fruiterers' shops. But now they appear to me a snare and a delusion when eaten in the north.

When we arrived at Sorrento, the Empress of Russia and her daughter, the grand duchess, were still there. We met them driving just as we entered the town, and of course looked eagerly at her who was so soon to become our own Duchess of Edinburgh, and were charmed with her amiable and youthful expression, and with the pretty smile with which she returned our bow. They were to leave Sorrento in a very few days. The yacht was already moored close to the cliffs, awaiting them. The empress shed tears, as the people crowded round to see her embark and wished her farewell in their own graceful way and soft language. She said she had grown to love Sorrento and its inhabitants more than she could express, and that she should always hope some day to return amongst them.

The house in which Tasso was born is now converted into a hotel, much to the detriment of all poetic sentiment.

Nothing can be more lovely than the neighborhood of Sorrento, though a great deal is unapproachable, except on horseback, donkeys, or mules; and much more is equally so for all but very vigorous pedestrians. We went more than once to the small, picturesque town of Massa, at the extreme point of the Peninsula. We visited Il Deserto, the name given to a Franciscan monastery situated on the top of a somewhat barren hill, and which commands a magnificent view. We found only a few lay brothers at home, and about half a dozen orphan boys, who were there by way of learning the art of agriculture. The land around the monastery was mostly barren, and to the left was covered with brushwood. No agriculture was there, at any rate. There was a large garden enclosed within walls; and as the small agricultural were in it, I hoped to see some evidence of their labors. I am bound, however, to speak the truth, much as it tells against the expectations of Sorrento with regard to the future tillers of the soil, as also, which is worse, against the efficiency of the Franciscan instructors in this particular case. The garden was quite full of weeds. I scarcely saw a vegetable or plant of any kind likely to prove edible to anybody except our donkeys; but for them there was hope, as thistles abounded. The juvenile agriculturists were by no means [pg 170] usefully engaged, but were listlessly roving about, doing nothing in particular. They looked bored; and I could not wonder at it. Certainly, the orphans learned no agriculture, and I doubt if either the fathers or lay brothers can teach it. It is to be hoped that at least they learn something else.

One bright morning we resolved on a trip to Capri. We chartered a boat, a man, and two boys, the party consisting of Ida and Elizabeth Vernon, Mary, and me. The wind was not altogether in our favor, and our three sailors had hard work to row us. Nothing can well be more beautiful than the line of coast, with picturesque ruins, deep sea-caves, varied rocks, and green slopes down to the water's edge. We had resolved to spend one night at Capri, and intended visiting the Blue Grotto the next day. But the wind was blowing fresh, and it seemed but too probable that, if we did not accomplish our visit at once, we might miss it altogether. Our boatmen made no objection to this addition to our original bargain, and we soon found ourselves rowing up to an entrance into the rock that did not present a different appearance to many other such small, slit-like fissures and holes, some of which had been pointed out to us as the sirens' caves. We found two boats moored to the rock; one was empty, and in the other was a lad.

We were given to understand that only two of us at a time could enter the mysterious cave, and that our boat was a great deal too large to pass through that low, dark hole in the rock which the restless blue sea was lapping incessantly with a rapidity of motion that seemed to be momentarily on the increase. We were moreover told that il vecchio48 was inside—a piece of information which, conveying no express ideas to my mind, awoke a vague apprehension that perhaps I might have touched on the abode of the Old Man of the Sea—a prospect not altogether desirable. There was a great question who was to enter the little boat and first encounter the passage and the old man. Ida and Elizabeth refused to be separated, and Mary, with an exclamation—something about being responsible to their mother for their safety—saw them embark with a pang. In an instant, obedient to the sailor lad's injunctions, they both disappeared, lying flat down at the bottom of the boat. The sailor gave one vigorous stroke of his oar, ducked down himself, and the boat was sucked into the awful cavern between the heaving sea and the low arch. Mary and I sat silent. Of course we knew there was no danger. It was what everybody did, and there could be nothing to apprehend; nevertheless, I am free to acknowledge that those twenty minutes, during which we were as much shut out from all sight and sound of them as if they were gone to the bottom, while the treacherous waves slapped and lapped the rock like some hungry live thing, and in so doing almost closed the orifice through which the boat had disappeared, were not by any means minutes of absolute serenity to our nerves. Presently, however, the prow of the little boat reappeared, and in a second up jumped Ida and Elizabeth like Jack in the box.

“Well!” we both exclaimed.

“Oh! it is beautiful. Make haste!”

“And the old man?” said I dubiously.

“Oh! yes, he is there,” was the only reply, and no more satisfactory than my previous information.

Of course Mary and I, on getting into the boat, made ourselves as flat as we could at the bottom of it; and suddenly a heaving of the sea shot us into the grotto. Instantly I forgot the old man and everything else in the marvellous beauty of the scene around me. The sides of the cave, one or two large shelving rocks, and the roof were perfectly blue. The very air seemed blue. The water itself was ultramarine. I dipped in my hand, and instantly it shone and flashed like brilliant silver. We approached one of the large rocks where there is a landing-place. On it I beheld some strange, dark object. Suddenly the object leaped into the blue water, and was transfigured before my eyes into a huge silver frog, swimming about in all directions with a white head above the water. It was my much-dreaded old man; and certainly the result, in point of color and brilliancy, of the disporting of this venerable individual in the blue water, which converted him into sparkling silver, was very remarkable. But it is not often given, to female eyes at least, to behold a mortal swimming close to her, and to notice the peculiarly frog-like and ungraceful action which swimming necessitates, and which is heightened by the apparent foreshortening of the limbs from the refraction of the light in the water. It suddenly flashed upon me: was it thus that Hero saw Leander?—minus the silver of course. Poor Hero! The silver frog croaked an indescribable patois, calling our attention vociferously to his own extraordinary brilliancy. At length we entreated him to spare his aged limbs any more aquatic gymnastics, and to return to his rock; which he did, resuming his garments in some niche of a darker blue than the rest.

Meanwhile, our lad had rowed the boat close up to the other large rock on the opposite side of the grotto, telling us that he would gather some coral for us. It was getting dark, and, as we sat alone in the boat, we could neither see nor hear him. A deep-violet hue began to spread over the grotto and the water. Evening was drawing near, and I began to conjure our sole protector to leave his coral reefs and return to the boat. Then we ducked down once more, and, with the edge of the boat absolutely grating against the mouth of the cave, we emerged into the open sea and the fair white light of heaven.

It happened once upon a time that some one, perhaps an ordinary traveller, perhaps another professional and belated old man, went into the blue grotto alone, and stayed too long. The wind blew hard, and the sea rose. For three days no boat could pass through the closed mouth of the cave. Happily, his friends succeeded in floating in a loaf of bread, which he devoured on his solitary blue rock. I have often wished to know the history of those three days. Did the sirens come and sing to him? Did no mermaid bear him company, or was he left a prey to “the blue devils”?

We had a stiff breeze as we steered our course to the Marina Piccola, one of the only two landing-places of the Island of Capri. We determined, as we were to be there for so short a time, to sleep at the small inn close by, called the “Little Tiberius,” and which we found [pg 172] comfortable, though very unassuming and not quite finished. We dined in the loggia, shaded by a vine, and they brought us cherries the size of plums that melted like a ripe peach, and beautiful oranges, gathered with the green leaves around them.

The only way to get about on the little Island of Capri is on donkeys or on foot. We chose the former, and directed our course to where stood the Palace of Tiberius. The village of Anacapri is very picturesque, with its narrow streets, sometimes raised a step or two, dark, wide doorways, and domed roofs. We went to the top of the precipitous rock called “Il salto di Tiberio,”49 which falls sheer and smooth down to the sea, without a break save a few tufts of wild flowers, and over which Tiberius is said to have flung his victims, whose bodies then floated away to the coast of Baiæ. When Augustus was dying, he said of his successor, “I pity the Romans. They are about to be ground between slow jaws.” Never was the cruelty of a coward better expressed than by these words.

I suppose the only history that will ever be correctly written will be that which will date from the day of judgment—that day which alone will clear up the falsehoods, misapprehensions, and delusions with which all history abounds, and will leave probably only the devil as black as he is painted, while it will also prove that many of our angels are fallen ones. It is always difficult, perhaps impossible, to arrive at the secret motives of a man who is a coward, is reserved, has a certain superficial refinement of taste and intellect, and is cursed with absolute power. Tiberius appreciated the extraordinary beauty of his favorite Capri; and yet he dwelt there only to commit the most hideous crimes in secret, while discoursing on the subtleties of grammar and the beauty of art, and writing elegies and love songs. He seemed to have no human affection save for the low-born Sejanus, whom nevertheless years afterwards he accused to the Roman Senate in a pitiful, whining letter, and who was torn to pieces in consequence. He always hated those who in any way belonged to him, whether by a natural tie or by that of a supposed intimacy. He hated Rome; but even the terror and dread he had of it, giving way to the longing to know how far his bloody orders were being carried out, he approached the gates. That day his pet serpent, the friend of his bosom, was killed and eaten by a million of midges.

“Multitudes are dangerous,” remarked the sententious emperor, and back he went to the top of his solitary rock at Capri.

The same type of man returns from time to time upon the face of the earth to show us the deep hell within itself of which, alas! the human heart is capable. Robespierre was a man of affable manners, who loved flowers and kept canaries. He had delicate white hands and a simper for ever on his thin lips. In early life he wrote a pamphlet against capital punishment. When his turn came to die on the guillotine, he showed no fraction of the courage of the youngest and weakest of his many victims. He too was soft and cruel. There are many such, but happily the outward circumstances are wanting which would develop them into the monsters to which, as a race, they belong.

We spent only a few hours at Salerno, just time enough to visit [pg 173] the tomb of the great Hildebrand, S. Gregory VII., the little man with a great soul, the spiritual Alexander of the church, who, as he said himself, “without being allowed the liberty of speech or deliberation, had been violently carried away and placed on the pontifical throne”; and through volumes of intimate and interesting letters relates his sorrows, his anxieties, and his efforts to the friend of his soul, Cardinal Didier, the Abbot of Monte-Casino. In the crypt we visited the altar and relics of S. Matthew. The same evening we drove along the coast to Amalfi. It was growing dark before we got there, and I think, though no one said a word about it till we were safe in the Hotel of the Capuchins, we were not altogether without some apprehension that the towering rocks, the dark caves, the mountain heights, and the thick woodlands which filled us with admiration, did not also suggest an unpleasant suspicion of possible banditti. But here I stop. If Amalfi is not seen, it may be painted; but it cannot be described in any words I know of which will tell its beauty. The world has many jewels from nature's casket, but few more lovely and in more gorgeous setting than the little mediæval town of Amalfi.

I am writing these pages in an English village. I see a low line of pale, misty hills to my left. A venerable church tower peeps from amid large elms and red brick cottage chimneys. In front of my trim garden is a green meadow. The white butterflies are coursing each other in the noontide warmth, and the village children have crowned themselves with tall paper caps, and are holding some jubilee of their own, the mysteries of which are undiscernable to older minds. The clematis which climbs my porch breathes soft, perfumed sighs at my open window. It is pretty, simple, homely. But between this and the dreamlike beauty of Amalfi there lies far more than the distance of many hundreds of miles. There lie the yearning of the soul for the best of God's beautiful creation—for the warmth of the sun, that natural god of life and gladness—the thirst of the artist's eye for color, and the poet's love of the language of song; there lie the Catholic's hunger for the land of faith and the longing for the regions of old memories and heroic sanctities.

Yes, I love my own pale land, with her brief, scarce summer smiles, her windy autumns, and her long, fireside, wintry evenings. But while I write it and feel it, there comes up before my mind the rose-tints and blue and silver sparkle, the golden rocks and emerald verdure, of the land with the “fatal gift of beauty,” and I feel my heart sink as I recall Amalfi.

A few more days, and we had looked our last on Southern Italy. There were other reasons besides the thirst for sunshine and beauty why our leaving Naples should prove so sad. There was the close friendship with the Vernons and Padre Cataldo; and as regarded four hearts, there was something more, I suppose, than friendship.

On leaving Amalfi we only slept one night at Naples (for Posilippo we saw no more), and that was a dream-tost, tearful night. We would not suffer any of our friends to accompany us to the station. Public farewells would be unbearable.

The last thing I remember, as I drove through the hot, bright streets teeming with life, was two young girls with naked feet gayly [pg 174] dancing the tarantella on the burning pavement. Lightly, trippingly, daintily they danced—these two supple-limbed daughters of the sunny south. How joyous, how free from care, from afterthought or forethought, did they seem! A few figs (they were just ripe) in summer, a few chestnuts and some yellow bread of Indian corn, are all they need for food; and one scant frock, that hides neither arms nor ankles, is all that decency demands. The sun does the rest, pouring rich color into their veins, bright sparkles into their eyes. And so at mid-day shall they dance, on flags which would scorch my northern skin, singing the while to their own steps, unchallenged by police, unreproached by man, and know no harm, while we go back to our mists and showers amidst our “advanced civilization.”

While writing this my eyes rest upon these lines: “Many take root in this soil, and find themselves unable to leave it again. A species of contemplative epicurism takes possession of them—a life freed from all vain desires and sterile agitation; an ideal existence which is shocked by no inconvenient reality. Others return to their hyperborean country, bringing with them a luminous remembrance to light up the gray twilight of their frozen sky for evermore; others still have quaffed the enchantress' charmed potion, and can no longer resist the gentle desires which draw them periodically back to her.”

May I also be numbered with those who return to the southern shores of beautiful Italy!

The Three Edens.

A Discussion With An Infidel.

Destiny.

From The French Of Louis Veuillot.

The Veil Withdrawn.

Translated, By Permission, From The French Of Mme. Craven, Author Of A “A Sister's Story,” “Fleurange,” Etc.

Fac-Similes Of Irish National Manuscripts. Concluded.

The Liber Hymnorum is the next selected. It is believed to be more than one thousand years old, and one of the most remarkable of the sacred tracts among the MSS. in Trinity College, Dublin. It is a collection of hymns on S. Patrick and other Irish saints, which has been published by the Irish Archæological and Celtic Society, under the superintendence of Dr. Todd. The three pages selected contain the hymn written by S. Fiach of Stetty, between the years 538 and 558, in honor of S. Patrick. The hymn is furnished with an interlinear gloss.

The tenth of these MSS. is The Saltair of S. Ricemarch, Bishop of St. David's between the years 1085 and 1096, a small copy of the Psalter containing also a copy of the Roman Martyrology.

Of the four pages of this volume which have been selected for copying, two are a portion of the Martyrology and two of the Psalter. The first of these last contains the first two verses of the 101st Psalm, surrounded by an elaborate border formed by the intertwinings of four serpentine monsters. The initial D of Domine is also expressed by a coiled snake, with its head in an attitude to strike; the object of its attack being a creature which it is impossible to designate, but which bears some resemblance to the hippocampus, or sea-horse. The second page of the Psalter contains the 115th, 116th, and 117th Psalms, in which the same serpentine form is woven into shapes to represent the initial letters. The version of the Psalms given in this volume differs from that used in England in Bishop Ricemarch's time. It is written in Latin in Gaelic characters. The volume belongs to Trinity College, Dublin.

Next in order appears the Leabhar na h-Uidhré, or Book of the Dark Gray Cow, a fragment of one hundred and thirty-eight folio pages, which is thought to be a copy made about the year 1100 of a more ancient MS. of the same name written in S. Ciaran's time. It derived its name from the following curious legend, taken from the Book of Leinster, and the ancient tale called Im thecht na trom daimhé, or Adventures of the Great Company, told in the Book of Lismore. About the year 598, soon after the election of Senchan Torpeist to the post of chief filé (professor of philosophy and literature) in Erinn, he paid a visit to Guairè, the Hospitable, [pg 214] King of Connaught, accompanied by such a tremendous retinue, including a hundred and fifty professors, a hundred and fifty students, a hundred and fifty hounds, a hundred and fifty male attendants, and a hundred and fifty female relatives, that even King Guairè's hospitality was grievously taxed; for he not only had to provide a separate meal and separate bed for each, but to minister to their daily craving for things that were extraordinary, wonderful, rare, and difficult of procurement. The mansion which contained the learned association was a special source of annoyance to King Guairè, and at last the “longing desires” for unattainable things of Muireann, daughter of Cun Culli and wife of Dallan, the foster-mother of the literati, became so unendurable that Guairè, tired of life, proposed to pay a visit to Fulachtach Mac Owen, a person whom he thought especially likely to rid him of that burden, as he had killed his father, his six sons, and his three brothers. Happily for him, however, he falls in with his brother Marbhan, “the prime prophet of heaven and earth,” who had adopted the position of royal swineherd in order that he might the more advantageously indulge his passion for religion and devotion among the woods and desert places; and Marbhan eventually revenges the trouble and ingratitude shown to his brother by imposing upon Senchan and the great Bardic Association the task of recovering the lost tale of the Táin Bó Chuailgné, or Great Cattle Spoil of Cuailgne. After a vain search for it in Scotland, Senchan returned home and invited the following distinguished saints, S. Colum Cille, S. Caillin of Fiodhnacha, S. Ciaran, S. Brendan of Birra, and S. Brendan the son of Finnlogha, to meet him at the grave of the great Ulster chief, Feargus Mac Roigh—who had led the Connaught men against the Ulster men during the spoil, of which also he appears to have been the historian—to try by prayer and fasting to induce his spirit to relate the tale. After they had fasted three days and three nights, the apparition of Feargus rose before them, clad in a green cloak with a collared, gold-ribbed shirt and bronze sandals, and carrying a golden hilted sword, and recited the whole from beginning to end. And S. Ciaran then and there wrote it down on the hide of his pet cow, which he had had made for the purpose into a book, which has ever since borne this name.

The volume contains matter of a very miscellaneous character: A fragment of Genesis; a fragment of Nennius' History of the Britons, done into Gaelic by Gilla Caomhain, who died before 1072; an amhra or elegy on S. Colum Cille, written by Dallan Forgail, the poet, in 592; fragments of the historic tale of the Mesca Uladh, or Inebriety of the Ulstermen; fragments of the cattle-spoils Táin Bo Dartadha and Táin Bo Flidais; the navigation of Madduin about the Atlantic for three years and seven months; imperfect copies of the Táin Bó Chuailgné, the destruction of the Bruighean da Dearga, or Court of Da Dearga, and murder of King Conairé Mór; a history of the great pagan cemeteries of Erinn and of the various old books from which this and other pieces were compiled; poems by Flann of Monasterboice and others; together with various other pieces of history and historic romance chiefly referring to the ante-Christian period, and especially that of the Tuatha Dé Danann. Three [pg 215] pages, containing curious prayers and the legend of The Withering of Cuchulain and the Birds of Emer, extracted from the Leabhar buidh Slaine, or Yellow Book of Slane, one of the ancient lost books of Ireland from which the Leabhar na h-Uidhré was compiled, have been selected.

The Book of Leinster, a folio of over four hundred pages, appears as the next. It was compiled in the first half of the XIIth century by Finn Mac Gorman, Bishop of Kildare, by order of Aedh Mac Crimhthainn, the tutor of Dermot, King of Leinster. Among other pieces of internal evidence pointing to this conclusion are the following entries, the first in the original hand, the second by one strange but ancient, translated and quoted by O'Curry:

“Benedictions and health from Finn, the Bishop of Kildare, to Aedh Mac Crimhtain, the tutor of the chief King of Leth Mogha Nuadut (or of Leinster and Munster), successor of Colaim Mic Crumtaind of, and chief historian of, Leinster, in wisdom, intelligence, and the cultivation of books, knowledge, and learning. And I write the conclusion of this little tale for thee, O acute Aedh! thou possessor of the sparkling intellect. May it be long before we are without thee! It is my desire that thou shouldst always be with us. Let Mac Loran's book of poems be given to me, that I may understand the sense of the poems that are in it; and farewell in Christ.

“O Mary! it is a great deed that has been done in Erinn this day, the Kalends of August—Diarmait Mac Donnchadda Mic Murchada, King of Leinster and of the Danes (of Dublin), to have been banished over the sea eastwards by the men of Erinn! Uch, uch, O Lord! what shall I do?”

The more important of the vast number of subjects treated of in this MS. are mentioned as being: The usual book of invasions; ancient poems; a plan and explanation of the banqueting-hall of Tara; a copy of The Battle of Ross na Righ in the beginning of the Christian era; a copy of the Mesca Uladh, and one of the origin of the Borromean Tribute, and the battle that ensued; a fragment of the battle of Ceannabrat, with the defeat of Mac Con by Oilioll Olium, his flight into, and return from, Scotland with Scottish and British adventurers, his landing in Galway Bay, and the defeat of Art, monarch of Erinn, and slaughter of Olium's seven sons at the battle of Magh Mucruimhé; a fragment of Cormac's Glossary; another of the wars between the Danes and Irish; a copy of the Dinnsenchus; genealogies of Milesian families; and an ample list of the early saints of Erinn, with their pedigrees and affinities, and with copious references to the situation of their churches. The volume belongs to Trinity College, Dublin.

Three pages have been selected. The first contains a copy of the poem on the Teach Miodhchuarta of Tara—a poem so ancient that of its date and author no record remains—and of the ground-plan of the banqueting-hall by which the poem was illustrated, published by Dr. Petrie in his History and Antiquities of Tara Hill. The ground-plan, which in this copy is nearly square, is divided into five compartments lengthwise, the centre and broadest of which contains the door, a rudely-drawn figure of a daul or waiter turning a gigantic spit, furnished with a joint of meat, before a fire, the lamps, and a huge double-handed vase or amphora for the cup-bearer to distribute. [pg 216] This great spit, called Bir Nechin, or the spit of Nechin, the chief smith of Tara, which in the drawing is half the length of the hall, appears to have been so mechanically contrived as to be able to be coiled up after use; and the instrument is thus described in another MS. belonging to Trinity College, Dublin, quoted by Dr. Petrie: “A stick at each end of it, and its axle was wood, and its wheel was wood, and its body was iron; and there were twice nine wheels on its axle, that it might turn the faster; and there were thirty spits out of it, and thirty hooks and thirty spindles, and it was as rapid as the rapidity of a stream in turning; and thrice nine spits and thrice nine cavities (or pots) and one spit for roasting, and one wing used to set it in motion.”

In the two compartments on either side are enumerated in order of precedence the various officers and retainers of the king's household, together with their tables and the particular portions of meat served out to each, forming a very curious and instructive illustration of the social condition and habits of the early Irish. The description of the rations that were considered specially adapted to the several ranks of consumers is very amusing. For the distinguished men of literature, “the soft, clean, smooth entrails,” and a steak cut from the choicest part of the animal, were set aside; the poet had a “good smooth” piece of the leg; the historian, “a crooked bone,” probably a rib; the artificers, “a pig's shoulder”; the Druids and aire dessa, a “fair foot.” These last are said to decline to drink; not so the trumpeters and cooks, who are to be allowed “cheering mead in abundance, not of a flatulent kind.” The doorkeeper, “the noisy, humorous fool and the fierce, active kerne” had the chine; while to the satirists and the braigitore, a class of buffoons whose peculiar function was to amuse the company after a fashion which will not only not bear description, but almost defies belief—licensed and paid Aethons of the court—“the fat of the shoulder was divided to them pleasantly.”

The selection is continued by the Leabhar Breac, or Speckled Book, probably named from the color of its cover, or, as it was formerly called, Leabhar Mór Duna Doighré, the Great Book of Dun Doighré, a place on the Galway side of the Shannon not far from Athlone. It is a compilation from various ancient books belonging chiefly to churches and monasteries in Conaught, Munster, and Leinster, beautifully written on vellum, as is supposed about the close of the XIVth century, by one of the Mac Ogans, a literary family of great repute belonging to Dun Doighré.

Its contents are of an extremely miscellaneous character, and they are all, with the exception of a copy of The Life of Alexander the Great from the VIIth century, MS. of S. Berchan of Clonsost, of a religious nature, comprising Biblical narratives, homilies, hymns; pedigrees of saints, litanies and liturgies, monastic rules, the Martyrology of Aengus Céulé Dé, or the Culdee, the ancient rules of discipline of the order of the Culdees, etc., etc. When the Abbé Mac Geoghegan wrote his History of Ancient Erinn in Paris, in the year 1758, this volume, his principal MS. of reference, was in Paris. It is now in the Royal Irish Academy.

Three pages have been selected for fac-similes, giving a description of the nature and arrangement of the [pg 217] Féliré, or Festology of Aengus the Culdee, and the date and object of its composition, which was made between the years 793 and 817, when Aedh Oirdnidhe was monarch of Erinn.

Then comes the Leabhar Buidhe Lecain, or Yellow Book of Lecain, a large quarto volume of about five hundred pages, which was written by Donnoch and Gilla Isa Mac Firbis in the year 1390, with the exception of a few tracts of a somewhat later date. O'Curry, in his ninth lecture, supposes it to have been originally a collection of ancient historical pieces, civil and ecclesiastical, in prose and verse. In its present imperfect state it contains a number of family and political poems; some monastic rules; a description of Tara and its banqueting-hall; a translation of part of the Book of Genesis; the Feast of Dun-na-n Gedh and the battle of Magh Rath; an account of the reign of Muirchertach Mac Erca, and his death at the palace of Cleitech in the year 527; copies of cattle-spoils, of the Bruighean Da Dearga, and death of the king; the tale of Maelduin's three years' wanderings in the Atlantic; tracts concerning the banishment of an ancient tribe from East Meath, and their discovery in the Northern Ocean by some Irish ecclesiastics; accounts of battles in the years 594, 634, and 718, and many other curious and valuable pieces and tracts. It is preserved in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin.

Two pages have been selected. The first contains the plan of the Teach Miodchuarta of ancient Tara, with a portion of the prose preface to the poem, which the plan is intended to illustrate. This ground-plan differs somewhat in the shape of the hall and the arrangement of the tables from that given in the Book of Leinster, an earlier copy of a different original. It is also very much superior to it, both as regards the drawing and writing. The daul and his spit are unrepresented here, but there is the door, the common hall, the swinging lamp and candles, the great double-handed vase, called the dabhach or vat, and three places marked out for the fires. The arrangement of the hall appears to have been this: Each of the two outside compartments contained twelve seats, and each seat three sitters; the two airidins or divisions on either side of the centre of the hall held each eight seats and sixteen sitters. There were eight distributors, cup-bearers, and herdsmen at the upper end of the hall, and two sat in each of the two seats on either side of the door, being the two door-keepers and two of the royal fools. The daily allowance for dinner was two cows, two salted hogs, and two pigs. The quantity of liquor consumed is not specified, but the poem states that there were one hundred drinkings in the vat, and that the vat was supplied with fifty grooved golden horns and fifty pewter vessels. The order of precedence seems to have ranged from the top of the external division to the left on entering the hall; then to the top of the external division to the right; then the two internal divisions beginning with the left; then the iarthar or back part of the hall, the upper end opposite the door; and last the seats on either side of the door itself. There is no seat marked for the king, but it is stated in the poem that a fourth part of the hall was at his back and three-fourths before him, and he is supposed to have sat about a quarter of the way down the centre of [pg 218] the hall with his face toward the door, which would place him between two of the great fires, with the artisans on his right and the braziers and fools on his left hand. It is probable, however, from no mention being made of the king's seat, and no provision being made for him in the appropriation of the daily allowance of food, which is specified in as many rations as there are persons mentioned in the plan, that this is not the plan of the royal banqueting-hall, but of a portion of it only—the common dining-hall for the officers and retainers of the palace; the monarch himself and his princes and nobles, none of whom are even alluded to in the plan, dining in another and superior apartment.

The second page contains a portion of the sorrowful tale of the loves of fair Deirdré and Naoisi, the son of Uisneach, one of the class of Irish legends called Aithidhé, or elopements. An outline of this story, in the commencement of which the reader will recognize that of one of his early nursery favorites, “Little Snow White,” is given by Keating in his General History of Ireland.

The Book of Lecain Mac Firbisigh, a folio of more than six hundred pages, was compiled in the year 1418 by Gilla Isa Môr Mac Firbis, Adam O'Cuirnin, and Morogh Riabhac O'Cuindlis. Its contents are nearly the same as those of The Book of Ballymote, to some of which it furnishes valuable additions, among the most important of which is a tract on the families and subdivisions of the territory of Tir Fiachrach in the present county of Sligo. The volume is preserved in the Royal Irish Academy.

Four pages have been selected, being a portion of a copy of the Leabhar na g-Ceart, or Book of Rights, a metrical work attributed in the work itself to S. Benean or Benignus, S. Patrick's earliest convert, and his successor in the Archbishopric of Armagh in the middle of the Vth century. These four pages, which are written in columnar form, contain the concluding ten verses of the stipends due to the chieftainries of Connacht from the supreme King of Cruachain; the metrical accounts, with their preceding prose abstracts, of the privileges of the King of Aileach; the payment and stipends of the same king to his chieftainries and tribes for refection and escort; the privileges of the King of the Oirghialla with the stipends due to him from the King of Erinn, and by him to his chieftainries; the rights, wages, stipends, refections, and tributes of the King of Eamhain and Uladh; and almost all the prose abstract of the rights of the King of Tara.

The Book of Ballymote, a large folio volume of five hundred and two pages of vellum, was written, as stated on the dorse of folio 62, at Ballymote, in the house of Tomaltach oig Mac Donogh, Lord of Corann, during the reign of Torlogh oig, the son of Hugh O'Conor, King of Connaught. It appears to be the work of different hands, but the principal scribes employed in writing it were Solomon O'Droma and Manus O'Duigenann, and it was written at the end of the XIVth century.

It contains an imperfect copy of the Leabhar Gabhala, or Book of Invasions, a series of ancient chronological, historical, and genealogical pieces in prose and verse; the pedigrees of Irish saints, and the histories and pedigrees of all the great families of the Milesian race, [pg 219] with their collateral branches, so that, as O'Curry remarks, there is scarcely any one whose name begins with “O'” or “Mac” who could not find out all about his origin and family in this book; then follow stories and adventures, lists of famous Irish names, a Gaelic translation of Nennius' History of the Britons, an ancient grammar and prosody, and various other tracts.

Six pages have been selected. The first four contain the dissertation on the Ogham characters, and the last two the genealogy of the Hy Nialls, showing their descent from Eremon, one of the sons of Milesius. The volume belongs to the Irish Academy.

The last in Mr. Sanders' list of the great volumes of Irish History is the Book of M'Carthy Riabhac, a compilation of the XIVth century—in language of a much earlier date—now also known as the Book of Lismore, to which a very curious story attaches. It was first discovered in the year 1814, enclosed in a wooden box together with a fine old crosier, built into the masonry of a closed-up doorway which was reopened during some repairs that were being made in the old Castle of Lismore. Of course the account of its discovery soon got abroad and became a matter of great interest, especially to the antiquarian class of scholars. Among these there happened to be then living in Shandon Street, Cork, one Mr. Dennis O'Flinn, a professed Irish scholar. O'Curry says that he was a “professed but a very indifferent” one; but at any rate his reputation was sufficiently well grounded to induce Colonel Curry, the Duke of Devonshire's agent, to send him the MS. According to O'Flinn's own account, the book remained in his hands for one year, during which time it was copied by Michael O'Longan, of Carrignavan, near Cork; after which O'Flinn bound it in boards, and returned it to Colonel Curry. From that time it remained locked up and unexamined until 1839, when the duke lent it to the Royal Irish Academy to be copied by O'Curry, and O'Curry's practised eye and acumen soon discovered that much harm had come to the volume during its sojourn in Shandon Street. The book had been mutilated, and, what was worse, mutilated in so cunning a way that what remained was rendered valueless by the abstraction, no doubt with the view of enhancing the value of the stolen portions as soon as it should become safe to pretend a discovery of them. Every search was made, especially by O'Curry, about Cork, to see if any of the missing pages could be found; but it was not till seven or eight years afterwards that a communication was made that a large portion of the original MS. was actually in the possession of some person in Cork, but who the person was, or how he became possessed of it, the informant could not tell. This clue seems to have failed; but soon afterwards the late Sir William Betham's collection of MSS. passed into the library of the Royal Irish Academy by sale, and among these were copies of the lost portions, and all made, as the scribe himself states at the end of one of them, by himself, Michael O'Longan, at the house of Dennis Ban O'Flinn, in Cork, in 1816, from the Book of Lismore. The missing portions of the MS. were at length traced, and the £50 asked for them was offered by the Royal Irish Academy; but the negotiation [pg 220] ultimately broke down, and they were purchased by Mr. Hewitt, of Summerhill, near Cork. Since that time, however, they have been restored, and the whole volume excellently repaired and handsomely bound by the Duke of Devonshire, who has most liberally allowed it to remain in Mr. Sanders' possession for the purpose of copying. Whether O'Flinn actually mutilated the volume or not, there can be no doubt that pages and pages of it have been ruined and will eventually be rendered illegible by the most reckless use of that pernicious chemical agent, infusion of galls. Besides this, Mr. O'Flinn has written his name in several places of the book, among others all over the colored initial letter of one of the tracts, which he has entirely spoiled by filling in the open spaces with the letters of his name and the date of the outrage. But perhaps the most characteristic act performed by him is the interpolation of an eulogistic ode upon himself in Gaelic, of which the following is a literal translation:

“Upon the dressing of this book by D. O'F., he said (or sang) as follows:

The book contains ancient lives of Irish saints, written in very pure Gaelic; the conquests of Charlemagne, translated from Archbishop Turpin's celebrated romance of the VIIIth century; the conversion of the Pantheon into a Christian church; the stories of David, son of Jesse, the two children, Samhain, the three sons of Cleirac; the Imtheacht na trom daimhé; the story of S. Peter's daughter Petronilla and the discovery of the Sibylline Oracle; an account of S. Gregory the Great; the Empress Justina's heresy; modifications of minor ceremonies of the Mass; accounts of the successors of Charlemagne, and of the correspondence between Lanfranc and the clergy of Rome; extracts from Marco Polo's Travels; accounts of Irish battles and sieges; and a dialogue between S. Patrick, Caoilté, Mac Ronain, and Oisin (Ossian), the son of Fionn Mac Cumhaill, in which many hills, rivers, caverns, etc., in Ireland, are described, and the etymology of their names recorded. This last is preluded by an account of the departure of Oisin and Caoilté on a hunting expedition, during which their gillie sees and is much troubled by a very strange spectacle. As this tale furnishes a good example of the contents of these ancient books, we subjoin a translation of the commencement of it.58

“On a certain time it happened that Oisin and Cailte were in Dun Clithar (the sheltered or shady Dun) at Slieve Crott. It was the time [pg 221] that Patrick came to Ireland. It is there dwelt a remnant of the Fenians, namely, Oisin and Cailte and three times nine persons in their company. They followed this custom: about nine persons went out hunting daily. On a certain day it chanced that Cailte Mac Ronain set out with eight persons (big men) and a boy (gilla), the ninth. The way they went was northward to the twelve mountains of Eibhlinné and to the head of the ancient Moy Breogan. On their returning from the chase at the cheerless close of the day they came from the north to Corroda Cnamhchoill. Then was Fear Gair Cailte's gilla loaded with the choice parts of the chase in charge, because he had no care beyond that of Cailte himself, from whom he took wages. The gilla comes to the stream, and takes Cailte's cup from his back and drinks a drink of the stream. Whilst the gilla was thus drinking the eight great men went their way southward, mistaking the road, and the gilla following afterwards. Then was heard the noise of the large host, and the gilla proceeds to observe the multitude; bushes and a bank between them. He saw in the fore front of the crowd a strange band; it seemed to him one hundred and fifty were in this band. They appeared thus: robes of pure white linen upon them, a head chief with them, and bent standards in their hands; shields, broad-streaked with gold and silver, bright shining on their breasts; their faces pale, pitiably feminine, and having masculine voices, and every man of them humming a march. The gilla followed his people, and did not overtake them till he came to the hunting-booth, and he came possessed, as he thinks, with the news of the strange troop he had seen, and casts his burden on the ground, goes round it, places his elbows under, and groans very loudly. It was then that Cailte Mac Ronain said: ‘Well, gilla, is it the weight of your burden affects you?’ ‘Not so,’ replied the gilla; ‘when is large the burden, so great is the wages you give to me. This does not affect me; but that wonderful multitude I saw at the hut of Cnamhchoill. The first band that I saw of that strange crowd filled me with the pestilent, heavy complaint of the news of this band.’ ‘Give its description,’ said Cailte. ‘There seemed to me an advanced guard of one hundred and fifty-six men, pure white robes upon them, a head leader to them, bent standards in their hands, broad shields on their breasts, having feminine faces and masculine voices, and every single man of them humming a march.’ Wonder seized the old Fenian on hearing this. ‘These are they,’ said Oisin—‘the Tailginn (holy race), foretold by our Druids and Fionn to us, and what can be done with them? Unless they be slain, they shall ascend over us altogether.’ ‘Uch!’ said Oisin, ‘who amongst us can molest them? For we are the last of the Fenii, and not with ourselves is the power in Erinn, nor the greatness, nor pleasure but in the chase, and as ancient exiles asserting the right,’ said he; and they remained so till came the next morning, and there was nothing on their minds that night but these (things). Cailte rose early the fore front of the day, being the oldest of them, and came out on the assembly-mound. The sun cleared the fog from the plains, and Cailte said: ...”

The procession thus described as having been seen by the gillie was probably one of ecclesiastics, with [pg 222] S. Patrick himself at their head, on the saint's first arrival in Ireland.

The foregoing sketches of certain of the MSS., extracts from which are intended to appear in the series of fac-similes, may serve to convey an idea of how rich Ireland is in such national records, what an immense mass of historical and romantic literature her libraries contain, and how great is their antiquity. Besides the evidence afforded by these books, both as to the ancient social, political, and ecclesiastical history of Ireland, and its topography, the books themselves are found to be full of illustrations of the customs, mode of life, manners, and costume of her early Celtic inhabitants; often conveyed through the medium of charming legends and fairy tales.

Annals Of The Moss-Troopers.

Outlawry was never carried to a greater degree of systematic organization, or practised on a larger and more dignified scale, than during the centuries of Border warfare between the English and Scottish chieftains. The only parallel to this warfare was furnished by the raids of the Free Companions in mediæval Italy; but the mercenary element in the organization of those formidable bodies of professional marauders destroys the interest which we might otherwise have felt in their daring feats of arms. The warfare of the Border was essentially a national outburst; the “moss-troopers,” although trained soldiers, were also householders and patriarchs. Their stake in the country they alternately plundered and defended was a substantial one. The field of their prowess was never far from home. Each retainer, insignificant as he might be, humble as his position in the troop might be, had yet a personal interest in the raid; and revenge, as well as plunder, was the avowed object of an expedition. There was never any changing of allegiance from one side to the other; the tie of blood and clanship welded the whole troop into one family. The Border, or debatable land between the rival kingdoms of England and Scotland, bristled with strongholds, all of historical name and fame: Newark and Branxholm (which Sir Walter Scott in his Lay of the Last Minstrel has euphonized into Branksome), held by the all-powerful Scotts of Buccleugh; Crichtoun Castle, the successive property of the Crichtouns, the Bothwells, and the Buccleughs, and, while in the hands of its original owners, the haughty defier of King James III. of Scotland; Gifford or Yester (it bears either name indifferently), famous for its Hobgoblin Hall, or, as the people call it, “Bo-Hall,” a large cavern formed by magical art; Tantallon Hold, the retreat of the Douglas, in which the family held out manfully against James V. until its chief, the Earl of Angus, was recalled from exile. Of this expedition it is related that the king marched in person upon the castle, and, to reduce it, borrowed from the neighboring Castle of [pg 223] Dunbar two great cannons whose names were “Thrawn-mouthed Meg and her Marrow”; also two great bolcards, and two moyan, two double falcons and two quarter-falcons, for the safe guiding and redelivery of which “three lords were laid in pawn at Dunbar.” Notwithstanding all this mighty preparation, the king was forced to raise the siege. The ruin of Tantallon was reserved for the Covenanters, and now there remains nothing of it save a few walls standing on a high rock overlooking the German Ocean and the neighboring town of Berwick-upon-Tweed. Ford Castle, the patrimony of the Herons, had a better fate, and stands in altered and modernized guise, the centre of civilizing and peaceful influences, the residence of a model Lady of the Manor, overlooking, not the wild ocean, but a pretty village, faultlessly neat, and a Gothic school filled with frescos of Bible subjects, executed by the Lady Bountiful, the benefactress of the neighborhood. Yet Ford Castle had a stormy, stirring past, and stands not far from the historic field of Flodden, where tradition says that, but for the tardiness of the king's movements—an effect due to the siren charms of Lady Ford—James IV. might have been victorious. In the castle is still shown the room where the king slept the night before the battle, and only five or six miles away lies the fatal field, on which, Marmion in hand the curious traveller may still make out each knoll, the Bridge of Twisel, by which the English under Surrey crossed the Till, the hillock commanding the rear of the English right wing, which was defeated, and in conflict with whom Scott's imaginary hero, Marmion, is supposed to have fallen.

Very curious are the accounts of the various fights and forays given by the chroniclers of the middle ages, especially in their utter unconsciousness of anything unusual or derogatory in this almost internecine warfare. Their simplicity in itself presents the key to the situation. In reading their graphic, matter-of-fact descriptions, one needs to transport one's self into a totally different atmosphere. We must read these racy accounts in the same spirit in which they were written, if we would understand aright the age in which our forefathers lived. We are not called upon to sit in judgment over the irrevocable past, but to study it as a fact not to be overlooked, and a useful storehouse of warning or example. The possession of the king's person was sometimes the origin of terrible clan-feuds among the warlike Scottish imitators of the Frankish “Maires du Palais.” Thus, on one occasion, in 1526, the chronicler Pitscottie informs us that James V., then a minor, had fallen under the self-assumed guardianship of the Earl of Angus, backed by his own clan of Douglas and his allies, the Lairds of Hume, Cessfoord, and Fernyhirst, the chiefs of the clan of Kerr.59 “The Earl of Angus and the rest of the Douglases ruled all which they liked, and no man durst say the contrary.” The king, who wished to get out of their hands, sent a secret letter to Scott of Buccleugh, warden of the West Marches of Scotland, praying him to gather his kin and friends, meet the Douglas at Melrose, and deliver him (James) from his vassal's power. The loyal Scot gathered about six hundred spears, and came to the tryst. When the Douglases and [pg 224] Kerrs saw whom they had to deal with, they said to the king, “Sir, yonder is Buccleugh, and thieves of Annandale with him, to unbeset your grace from the gate (i.e., interrupt your passage). I vow to God they shall either fight or flee, and ye shall tarry here on this know (knoll), and I shall pass and put yon thieves off the ground, and rid the gate unto your grace, or else die for it.” Scant courtesy in speech used those Border heroes towards one another! So an escort tarried to guard the king, and the rest of the clans went forward to the field of Darnelinver now Darnick, near Melrose. The place of conflict is still called Skinner's Field, a corruption of Skirmish Field. The chronicler tells us that Buccleugh “joyned and countered cruelly both the said parties ... with uncertain victory. But at the last the Lord Hume, hearing word of that matter, how it stood, returned again to the king in all possible haste, with him the Lairds of Cessfoord and Fernyhirst, to the number of fourscore spears, and set freshly on the lap and wing of the Laird of Buccleugh's field, and shortly bare them backward to the ground, which caused the Laird of Buccleugh and the rest of his friends to go back and flee, whom they followed and chased; and especially the Lairds of Cessfoord and Fernyhirst followed furiouslie, till at the foot of a path the Laird of Cessfoord was slain by the stroke of a spear by one Elliott, who was then servant to the Laird of Buccleugh. But when the Laird of Cessfoord was slain, the chase ceased.” The Borders were infested for many long years afterwards by marauders of both sides, who kept up a deadly hereditary feud between the names of Scott and Kerr, and finally, after having been imprisoned and had his estates forfeited nine years later for levying war against the Kerrs, the bold Buccleugh was slain by his foes in the streets of Edinburgh in 1552, twenty-six years after the disastrous fight in which he had failed to rescue his sovereign. It was seventy years before this Border feud was finally quelled.

On the English side of the Marches the same dare-devilry existed, the same speed in gathering large bodies of men was used, the same quickness in warning and rousing the neighborhood. Equal enthusiasm was displayed whether the case were one of “lynch law” or of political intrigue, as in the fight at Darnelinver. Sir Robert Carey, in his Memoirs, describes his duties as deputy warden for his brother-in-law, Lord Scroop. The castle was near Carlisle. “We had a stirring time of it,” he says, “and few days passed over my head but I was on horseback, either to prevent mischief or take malefactors, and to bring the Border in better quiet than it had been in times past.” Hearing that two Scotchmen had killed a churchman in Scotland, and were dwelling five miles from Carlisle on the English side of the Border, under the protection of the Graemes, Carey took about twenty-five horsemen with him, and invested the Graeme's house and tower. As they did so, a boy rode from the house at full speed, and one of his retainers, better versed in Border warfare than the chief, told him that in half an hour that boy would be in Scotland to let the people know of the danger of their countrymen and the small number of those who had come from Carlisle to arrest them. “Hereupon,” says our author, “we took advice what was best to be [pg 225] done. We sent notice presently to all parts to raise the country, and to come to us with all the speed they could; and withal we sent to Carlisle to raise the townsmen, for without foot we could do no good against the tower. There we stayed some hours, expecting more company, and within a short time after the country came in on all sides, so that we were quickly between three and four hundred horse; and after some longer stay, the foot of Carlisle came to us, to the number of three or four hundred men, whom we presently set to work to get to the top of the tower, and to uncover the roof, and then some twenty of them to fall down together, and by that means to win the tower. The Scots, seeing their present danger, offered to parley, and yielded themselves to my mercy.” But the victorious Carlisleans had reckoned without their host. From the hills and defiles around came pouring wild-looking mountaineers on rough, wiry ponies, farm-horses, etc., to the number of four hundred. The prisoners ceased their pleading, and looked eagerly towards their deliverers. Meanwhile, the men of “merry Carlisle”60 gave their perplexed chief more trouble than his enemies, who “stood at gaze” a quarter of a mile from him; for, says he, “all our Borderers came crying with full mouths, ‘Sir, give us leave to set upon them; for these are they that have killed our fathers, our brothers and uncles, and our cousins, and they are coming, thinking to surprise you with weak grass nags, such as they could get on a sudden; and God hath put them into your hands, that we may take revenge of them for much blood that they have spilt of ours.’ ” The warden was a conscientious man, and had come here to execute justice against two malefactors, not to encourage indiscriminate private revenge; but even with his rank and vested authority he did not dare sternly to forbid a faction fight. He only told them that, had he not been there, they might have done as best pleased them; but that, since he was present, he should feel that all the blood spilt that day would be upon his own head, and for his sake he entreated them to forbear. “They were ill-satisfied,” he adds, “but durst not disobey.” So he sent word to the Scots to disperse, which they did, probably because they were unprepared to fight such a large and well-disciplined force, having expected to find but a handful of men. The necessity for delicate handling of this armed mob of English Borderers points sufficiently to the curious standard of personal justice which prevailed in those wild times. And yet, strange to say, while a Border “ride” (alias foray) was a thing of such ordinary occurrence that a saying is recorded of a mother to her son which soon became proverbial: “Ride, Rowley, hough's i' the pot”—that is, the last piece of beef is in the pot, and it is high time to go and fetch more—still it would sometimes happen, as it did to James V. of Scotland, that when an invasion of England was in contemplation, and the royal lances gathered at the place where the king's lieges were to meet him, only one baron would declare himself willing to go wherever the sovereign might lead. This faithful knight was another of the loyal race of Scott—John Scott of Thirlestane, to whom James, in memory of his fidelity, granted the privilege set forth in the following curious and rare charter:

“... Ffor the quhilk (which) cause, it is our will, and we do straitlie command and charg our lion herauld, ... to give and to graunt to the said John Scott ane border of ffleure de lises about his coatte of armes, sic as is on our royal banner, and alsua ane bundle of lances above his helmet, with thir words, Readdy ay, Readdy, that he and all his after-cummers may bruik (carry?) the samine as a pledge and taiken of our guid will and kyndnes for his true worthiness.”

The list of the damages done in some of these Border rides sounds strange in modern ears. Each country was a match for the other, though the strong castles of Wark, Norham, and Berwick in English hands were thorns in the side of the Scottish Borderers. Rowland Foster of Wark, on the 16th of May, 1570, harried the barony of Blythe in Lauderdale, the property of Sir Richard Maitland, a blind knight of seventy-four years of age. None of that country “lippened” (expected) such a thing, as it was in time of peace; and despite what may have been said—and truly—as to their lawlessness, the Borderers had a code by which to regulate their actions. The old man wrote a poetical account of the harrying, calling the poem the Blind Baron's Comfort, and in the introduction he enumerates his losses: five thousand sheep, two hundred nolt, thirty horses and mares, and the whole furniture of his house, worth £8 6s. 8d., and everything else that was portable. The sum represents some forty dollars.

In these narratives one feels it impossible to be very sorry for either party, each was so thoroughly unable to take care of itself! Those who to-day seem down-trodden victims of lawlessness will figure again a year hence as “stark moss-troopers [moss for marsh] and arrant thieves; both to England and Scotland outlawed, yet sometimes connived at because they gave intelligence forth to Scotland, and would raise four hundred horse at any time upon a raid of the English into Scotland.” This was said of the Graemes, Earls of Monteith, but was applicable, mutatis mutandis, to most of the Borderers on both sides. An old Northumbrian ballad, that survived in the North of England till within a hundred years, and was commonly sung at merry-makings till the roof rang again, gives forcible and rather coarse details as to the personal results of these forays. It celebrates the ride of the Thirlwalls and Ridleys in the reign of Henry VIII. against the Featherstons of Featherston Castle, a few miles south of the Tyne. Here is one of the rude stanzas:

In later days Sir Walter Scott wove the annals of the Border into more tuneful rhyme, and sang of the exploits of his bold countrymen with an enthusiasm worthy of his moss-trooping ancestors. These old ballads, and the recollections of ancient dames in whose youthful days the exploits celebrated in these ballads were not yet quite obsolete, furnished him with much of his romantic materials. The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, a collection of many such traditions, is a storehouse of information upon these subjects. We find descriptions of the caves and morasses [pg 227] which were the usual refuge of the marauders; the banks of the Teviot, the Ale, the Jed, the Esk, were full of these caverns, but even these hiding-places were not always safe. Patten's Account of Somerset's Expedition into Scotland tells how “George Ferres, a gentleman of my Lord Protector, happened on a cave” the entrance to which showed signs of the interior being tenanted. “He wente doune to trie, and was readilie receyved with a hakebut or two,” and when he found the foe determined to hold out, “he wente to my lorde's grace, and, upon utterance of the thinge, gat license to deale with them as he coulde”—which significantly simple statement meant that he was perfectly at liberty to do as he eventually did, i.e., smother them by stopping up the three ventes of the cave with burning faggots of damp wood.

The next case is one of national jealousy and instant reprisals. The English Earl of Northumberland gives a graphic account of the double raid in a letter to King Henry VIII. He says that some Scottish barons had threatened to come and give him “light to put on his clothes at midnight,” and moreover that Marke Carr (one of the same clan whose prowess was exercised against Buccleugh) said that, “seying they had a governor on the Marches of Scotland as well as they had in England, he shulde kepe your highness' instructions, gyffyn unto your garyson, for making of any day-forey; for he and his friends wolde burne enough on the nyght....” Then follows a detailed account of the inroad of thirty horsemen on the hamlet of Whitell, which they did not burn, because “there was no fyre to get there, and they forgat to brynge any withe theyme!” But they killed a woman, under circumstances of peculiar atrocity, and departed. The reprisals, however, were far worse. The Earl of Murray, who had winked at all this, was chosen by the English as a scape-goat, and a hundred of the best horsemen of Glendaill “dyd mar the Earl of Murreis provisions at Coldingham, for they did not only burn the said town of Coldingham, with all the corne thereunto belonging, but also burned twa townes nye adjoining thereunto, called Branerdergest and the Black Hill and took xxiii. persons, lx. horse, with cc. head of cataill, which nowe, as I am informed, hathe not only been a staye of the said Erle of Murreis not coming to the Bordure as yet, but alsoo that none inlande will adventure theyrself uppon the Marches.... And also I have devysed that within this iii. nyghts, Godde willing, Kelsey, in like case, shall be brent with all the corn in the said town, and then they shall have noo place to lye any garyson nygh unto the Borders.”

The physical strength and rude cunning required for this daring life of perpetual warfare are well described in the stanza of The Lay of the Last Minstrel referring to one of the Border heroes of the clan of Buccleugh:

We have already alluded to the origin of the name of the Border [pg 228] riders. Fuller, in his Worthies of England, says they are called moss-troopers “because dwelling in the mosses (marshes or morasses), and riding in troops together; they dwell in the bounds or meeting of the two kingdoms, but obey the laws of neither. They come to church as seldom as the 29th of February comes in the calendar.” Their customs and laws are even more interesting than the details of their forays. Loyalty to each other was their first principle, and on occasions when money could purchase the freedom of one of their number they invariably cast in their lots, and made up a large common purse. They were scrupulous in keeping their word of honor when passed to a traveller, and Fuller likens their dogged fidelity in these cases to that of a “Turkish janizary”; but otherwise, woe to him that fell into their hands! Their own self-imposed laws they observed for the most part faithfully, and a breach of them was punished far more summarily than modern crimes in modern courts of law. Several species of offences peculiar to the Border constituted what was called March-treason. Among others was the crime of riding or causing to ride against the opposite country (or clan) during the time of truce. Such was the offence committed by Rowland Foster in his raid on the “Blind Baron,” though in his case the criminal was probably too powerful to be punished. In one of the many truces signed in the olden time is one of 1334 between the Percys and the Douglases, in which it is accorded: “Gif ony stellis (steals) anthir on the ta part or on the tothyr, that he shall be hanget or beofdit (beheaded); and gif ony company stellis any gudes within the trieux (truce) beforesayd, are of that company shall be hanget or beofdit, and the remanant sail restore the gudys stolen in the dubble.”61 In doubtful cases the innocence of Border criminals was often referred to their own oath. The same work that quotes the above agreement also gives us the form of excusing bills by Border oaths: “You shall swear by the heaven above you, hell beneath you, by your part of paradise, by all that God made in six days and seven nights, and by God himself, you are whart out sackless of art, part, way, witting, ridd kenning, having, or recetting of any of the goods and cattels named in the bill. So help you God.” It seems almost as if the Borderers had consulted the catechism as to the nine ways of being accessory to another's sin, so minute is the nomenclature of treasonable possibilities.

Trial by single combat was also a favorite mode of clearing one's self from a criminal charge. This was common in feudal times and throughout the XVIth century; but time stood still in the Borders, as far as civilizing changes were concerned, and even in the XVIIth century a ceremonious indenture was signed between two champions of name and position, binding them to fight to prove the truth or falsity of a charge of high treason made by one against the other.

The most ancient known collection of regulations for the Border sets forth that in 1468, on the 18th day of December, Earl William Douglas assembled the whole lords, freeholders, and eldest Borderers, that best knowledge had, at the College of Linclouden, “where he had them bodily sworn, the Holy Gospel touched, that they justlie and [pg 229] trulie after their cunning should decrete ... the statutes, ordinances, and uses of the marche.” The earl further on is said to have thought these “right speedful and profitable to the Borders.”

During the truces it was not unusual to have merry-makings and fairs, to which, however, both Scotch and English came fully armed. Foot-ball was from time immemorial a favorite Border game, but the national rivalry was such that the play often ended in bloodshed. Still, there was no personal ill-feeling, and a rough sort of good-fellowship was kept up, which was strengthened by intermarriages, and was not supposed to debar either party from the right of prosecuting private vengeance, even to death. When, however, this revenge had been taken, it would have been against Border etiquette to retain any further ill-will. Patten, in his Account of Somerset's Expedition into Scotland, remarks on the disorderly conduct of the English Borderers who followed the Lord Protector. He describes the camp as full of “troublous and dangerous noyses all the nyghte longe, ... more like the outrage of a dissolute huntynge than the quiet of a well-ordered armye.” The Borderers, like masterless hounds, howling, whooping, whistling, crying out “A Berwick, a Berwick! a Fenwick, a Fenwick! a Bulmer, a Bulmer!” paraded the camp, creating confusion wherever they went, and disturbing the more sober southern troops; they used their own slogan or battle-cry out of pure mischief and recklessness, and totally disregarded all camp discipline. Yet in this land of defiles, caverns, and marshes their aid was too precious to be dispensed with, and remonstrance was practically useless.

The pursuit of Border marauders was often followed by the injured party and his friends with bloodhounds and bugle-horn, and was called the hot-trod. If his dog could trace the scent, he was entitled to follow the invaders into the opposite kingdom, which practice often led to further bloodshed. A sure way of stopping the dog was to spill blood on the track; and a legend of Wallace's adventurous life relates a terrible instance of this. An Irishman in Wallace's train was slain by the Scottish fugitive, and when the English came up with their hounds their pursuit was baffled. But poetical justice required some counterbalancing doom, and accordingly the legend tells us that, when Wallace took refuge in the lonely tower of Gask, and fancied himself safe, he was speedily disturbed by the blast of a horn. It was midnight. He sent out attendants, cautiously to reconnoitre, but they could see nothing. When he was left alone again, the summons was repeated, and, sword in hand, he went down to face the unknown. At the gate of the tower stood the headless spectre of Fawdoim, the murdered man. Wallace, in unearthly terror, fled up into the tower, tore open a window, and leaped down fifteen feet to the ground to continue his flight as best he could. Looking back to Gask, he saw the tower on fire, and the form of his victim, dilated to an immense size, standing on the battlements, holding in his hand a blazing rafter.

The system of signals by beacon-fires was common on the Borders. Smugglers and their friends have now become the only remaining heirs to this practice, which was once that in use by the noblest warriors of Gaelic race in either island. The [pg 230] origin of this custom was perfectly lawful; indeed, the Scottish Parliament, in 1445, directed that one bale or beacon-fagot should be warning of the approach of the English in any manner; two bales, that they are coming indeed; four bales blazing beside each other, that the enemy are in great force. A Scotch historian tells us that in later times these beacons consisted of a long and strong tree set up, with a long iron pole across the head of it, and an iron brander fixed on a stalk in the middle of it for holding a tar-barrel.

It was a custom on the Border, and indeed in the Highlands also, for those passing through a great chieftain's domains to repair to the castle in acknowledgment of the chief's authority, explain the purpose of their journey, and receive the hospitality due to their rank. To neglect this was held discourtesy in the great and insolence in the inferior traveller; indeed, so strictly was this etiquette insisted upon by some feudal lords that Lord Oliphaunt is said to have planted guns at his Castle of Newtyle in Angus, so as to command the high-road, and compel all passengers to perform this act of homage. Sir Walter Scott, in his Provincial Antiquities, has hunted up a curious instance of the non fulfilment of this custom. The Lord of Crichtoun Castle, on the Tyne, heard that Scott of Buccleugh was to pass his dwelling on his return from court. A splendid banquet was prepared for the expected guest, who nevertheless rode past the castle, neglecting to pay his duty-visit. Crichtoun was terribly incensed, and pursued the discourteous traveller with a body of horse, made him prisoner, and confined him for the night in the castle dungeon. He and his retainers, meanwhile, feasted on the good cheer that had been provided, and doubtless made many valiant boasts against the imprisoned lord. But with morning cometh prudence. A desperate feud with a powerful clan was not desirable, and such would infallibly have been the result of so rough a proceeding. Indeed, it would have justified the Buccleugh in biting his glove or his thumb—a gesture indicative on the Border of a resolution of mortal revenge for a serious insult. So, to put matters right, Crichtoun not only delivered his prisoner and set him in the place of honor at his board the following day, but himself retired into his own dungeon, where he remained as many hours as his guest had done. This satisfaction was accepted and the feud averted.

The Borderers had a rough, practical kind of symbolism in vogue among them; and, though they were not afraid of calling a spade a spade, yet loved a significant allegory. It is told of one of the marauding chiefs, whose castle was a very robber's den, that his mode of intimating to his retainers that the larder was bare, and that they must ride for a supply of provisions, was the appearance on the table of a pair of clean spurs in a covered dish. Like many brigand chiefs, this Scott of Harden had a wife of surpassing beauty, famed in song as the “Flower of Yarrow.” Some very beautiful pastoral songs are attributed to a young captive, said to have been carried as an infant to this eagle's nest, built on the brink of a dark and precipitous dell. He himself tells the story of how “beauteous Mary, Yarrow's fairest flower, rescued him from the rough troopers who brought him into the courtyard of the castle.”

Work and pleasure were sometimes mingled in those royal expeditions called a chase, which had so little to distinguish them from regular Border forays. Law and no law were so curiously tangled together that each bore nearly the same outward features as the other—features especially romantic, which both have now equally lost. Ettrick Forest, now a mountainous range of sheep-walks, was anciently a royal pleasure-ground. The hunting was an affair of national importance, and in 1528 James V. of Scotland “made proclamation to all lords, barons, gentlemen, landward-men, and freeholders to pass with the king where he pleased, to danton the thieves of Teviotdale, Annandale, and Liddesdale (we have heard this expression before in another mouth), and other parts of that country, and also warned all gentlemen that had good dogs to bring them, that he might hunt in the said country as he pleased.”

A very interesting account is given by one Taylor, a poet, of the mode in which these huntings were conducted in the Highlands. This, however, is a sketch of a later day than that in which the moss-troopers were at their best, but many of the characteristics of the scene suggest the earlier and hardly yet forgotten time of the true Borderers. He begins by enumerating the many “truly noble and right honorable lords” who were present, and gives a detailed description of the dress which they wore in common with the peasantry, “as if Lycurgus had been there and made laws of equality.” The dress is the Highland costume of to-day—a dress that has never changed since at least the beginning of this century. The English poet evidently finds it very primitive, and takes no notice of the difference of color or of mixing of color that distinguishes the various tartans. He says: “As for their attire, any man of what degree so-ever who comes amongst them must not disdain to wear it; for if they do, then they will disdain to hunt or willingly to bring in their dogs; but if men be kind to them and be in their habit, then they are conquered with kindness, and the sport will be plentiful.” The gathering is of some fourteen or fifteen hundred or more men—a little city or camp. Small cottages built on purpose to lodge in, and called lonquhards, are here for the chiefs, the kitchens whereof are always on the side of a bank. A formidable list of provisions follows; there are “many kettles and pots boiling, and many spits turning and winding, with great variety of cheer, as venison baked, sodden, rost, and stewed beef, mutton, goats, kids, hares, fresh salmon, pigeons, hens, capons, chickens, partridges, muir-coots (water-fowl), heath-cocks, capercailzies and ptarmigans, good ale, sacke, white and claret (red) tent, or allegant, with the most potent aqua-vitæ. All these, and more than these, we had continually in superfluous abundance, caught by falconers, fowlers, fishers, and brought by my lord's tenants and purveyors to victual our camp, which consisteth of fourteen or fifteen hundred men and horses. The manner of the hunting is this: Five or six hundred men do rise early in the morning, [pg 232] and they do disperse themselves divers ways, and seven, eight, or ten miles compass; they do bring or chase in the deer, in many herds (two, three, or four hundred in a herd), to such or such a place as the noblemen shall appoint them; then, when day is come, the lords and gentlemen of their companies do ride or go to the said places, sometimes wading up to the middles through burns (streams) and rivers, and then they, being come to the place, do lie down upon the ground till those foresaid scouts, which are called the tinkhell, do bring down the deer. But as the proverb says of a bad cook, so these tinkhell men do lick their own fingers; for, besides their bows and arrows, which they carry with them, we can hear now and then a harquebuss or a musket go off, which they do seldom discharge in vain. Then after we had stayed there three hours or thereabouts, we might perceive the deer appear on the hills round about us (their heads making a show like a wood), which, being followed close by the tinkhell, are chased down into the valley where we lay; then all the valley, on each side, being waylaid with a hundred couple of strong Irish greyhounds, they are all let loose, as occasion serves, upon the herd of deer, that with dogs, guns, arrows, durks, and daggers, in the space of two hours, fourscore fat deer were slain, which after are disposed of, some one way and some another, twenty and thirty miles, and more than enough left for us, to make merry withal at our rendezvous.”

Doubtless the scene must have been very picturesque before the battue began; but as sport what could be more unsatisfactory? For once modern customs seem to excel ancient ones, and the Scotch deer-stalker of to-day, in his arduous, solitary walk over the moors and through the forests, is a much more enviable personage than the high and mighty huntsman of King James' train. The best sport recorded in this curious narrative was the result of the unauthorized shots heard in the distance, when the tinkhell men could not resist the temptation of “licking their own fingers.”

It was the result of all these centuries of wild life and romantic lawlessness that made Scotland so safe a retreat for the unfortunate Prince Charlie after the last stand had been so loyally and unsuccessfully made at Culloden in 1745. Personal fidelity to a beloved chieftain, and an habitual disregard of all laws of the “Southron” that clashed with their own immemorial customs, made of the Scottish people the most perfect partisans in the world. Even at this day, when they are famed for their thriftiness, their amenableness to law, their eminently peaceful qualities, a strong undercurrent of romance lies at the bottom of their surface tranquillity. The organization of clanship has disappeared, but the feeling that put life into that system is itself living yet. The humblest Scotsman is a born genealogist, and privately considers the blood of the laird under whose protection or in whose service he lives as immeasurably bluer than that of the German royal family that sits in the high places of England; and a characteristic instance of the clinging affection with which the national nomenclature of rank is still looked upon by the Scottish peasantry was afforded not many years ago, when the tenants of Lord Breadalbane were required to conform to modern usage, and address [pg 233] their master as “my lord.” “What!” they exclaimed, “call the Breadalbane my lord, like any paltry Southron chiel (fellow)?” They thought—and rightly, as it seems to us—that the old appellation, “the Breadalbane,” as if he were sovereign on his own lands, and the only one of the name who needed no title to distinguish him from others of his kin, was the only fitting one for their chief. The English title of marquis was nothing to that.

The superstitions of the Border, those of early times and those whose traces remain even to this day, are another interesting phase in the annals of the moss-troopers, but they would occupy more space than we have now at command. We will close this sketch by quoting an old saying that shows that some at least of the Border chieftains, doubtless through the influence of their wives, had not relinquished all reverent belief in the things of the world to come. They may not always have acted up to what they believed; and indeed so wise a maxim as the following, if carried out in practice to its furthest limit, would have caused the pious Borderer to retire altogether from his adventurous “profession,” unless, indeed, the obscure sentence in the second line of the couplet, “Keep well the rod,” could have been twisted into an injunction to him to become an embodiment of poetical justice in the eyes of less discriminating moss-troopers. The inscription is found over an arched door at Branxholm or Branksome Castle, and is in old black-letter type:

Assunta Howard. IV. Convalescence.

“I have almost made up my mind to go back to bed again, and play possum. Truly, I find but little encouragement in my tremendous efforts to get well, in the marked neglect which I am suffering from the feminine portion of my family. Clara is making herself ridiculous by returning to the days of her first folly, against which I protest to unheeding ears, and of which I wash my hands. Come here, Assunta; leave that everlasting writing of yours, and enliven the ‘winter of my discontent’ by the ‘glorious summer’ of your presence, of mind as well as of body.”

Mr. Carlisle certainly looked very unlike the neglected personage he described himself to be. He was sitting in a luxurious chair near the open window; and he had but to raise his eyes to feast them upon the ever-changing, never-tiring beauties of the Alban hills, while the soft spring air was laden with the fragrance of many gardens. Beside him were books, flowers, and cigars—everything, in short, which could charm away the tediousness of a prolonged convalescence. And it must be said, to his credit, that he bore the monotony very well for a man—which, it is to be feared, is after all damning his patience with very faint praise.

Assunta raised her eyes from her letter, and, smiling, said:

“Ingratitude, thy name is Severn Carlisle! I wish Clara were here to give you the benefit of one of her very womanly disquisitions on man. You would be so effectually silenced that I should have a hope of finishing my letter in time for the steamer.”

“Never mind the letter,” said Mr. Carlisle. “Come here, child; I am pining to have you near me.”

Assunta laughed, as she replied:

“Would it not do just as well if I should give you the opera-glass, and let you amuse yourself by making believe bring me to you?”

“Pshaw! Assunta, I want you. Put away your writing. You know very well that it is two days before the steamer leaves, and you will have plenty of time.” And Mr. Carlisle drew a chair beside his own.

Assunta did know all about it; but, now that the invalid was so much better, she was trying to withdraw a little from any special attentions. She felt that, under the circumstances, it would not be right to make herself necessary to his comfort; she did not realize how necessary he thought her to his very life. However, though she would skirmish with and contradict him, she had never yet been able sufficiently to forget how near he had been to death to actually oppose him. Besides, she had not thought him looking quite as strong this morning; so she put the unfinished letter back in the desk, and, taking her work-basket, sat down [pg 235] beside her guardian, and tried to divert him from herself by pointing out the wonderful loveliness of the view. His face did have a weary expression, which his quondam nurse did not fail to perceive. She at once poured out a glass of wine, and, handing it to him, said:

“Tell me the truth, my friend; you do not feel very well to-day?”

“I do not feel quite as strong as Samson,” he replied; “but you forget, Dalila, how you and the barber have shorn off the few locks the fever left me. Of course my strength went too.”

“Well, fortunately,” said Assunta, “there are no gates of Gaza which require immediate removal, and no Philistines to be overcome.”

“I am not so sure of that,” said Mr. Carlisle, putting down the wine-glass. “There are some things harder to overcome than Philistines, and some citadels so strong as to bid defiance to Samson, even in the full glory of his wavy curls. What chance is there, then, for him now, cruel Dalila?”

Assunta wilfully misunderstood him, and, taking her work from her pretty basket, she answered, laughing:

“Well, one thing is very certain: your illness has not left you in the least subdued. Clara and I must begin a course of discipline, or by the time your brown curls have attained their usual length you will have become a regular tyrant.”

“Give me your work, petite,” said Mr. Carlisle, gently disengaging it from her hand. “I want this morning all to myself. And please do not mention Clara again. I cannot hear her name without thinking of that miserable Sinclair business. It is well for him that I am as I am, until I have had time to cool. I am not very patient, and I have an irresistible longing to give him a horse-whipping. It is a singular psychological fact that Clara has been gifted with every womanly attraction but common sense. But I believe that even you Catholics allow to benighted heretics the plea of invincible ignorance as an escape from condemnation; so we must not be too severe in our judgment of my foolish sister.”

“Hardly a parallel case,” said Assunta, smiling.

“I grant it,” replied her guardian; “for in my illustration the acceptance of the plea, so you hold, renders happiness possible to the heretic, to whom a ‘little knowledge’ would have been so ‘dangerous a thing’ as to lose him even a chance among the elect; whereas Clara's invincible ignorance of the world, of human nature, and in particular of the nature of George Sinclair, serves only to explain her folly, but does not prevent the inevitable evil consequences of such a marriage. But enough of the subject. Will you not read to me a little while? Get Mrs. Browning, and let us have ‘Lady Geraldine,’ if you will so far compassionate a man as to make him forget that he is at sword's points with himself and all the world, the exception being his fair consoler. Thank you, petite,” he continued, as Assunta brought the book. “There is plenty of trash and an incomprehensible expression or two in the poem; but, as a whole, I like it, and the end, the vision, would redeem it, were it ten times as bad. Well, I too have had a vision! Do you know, Assunta, that the only thing I can recall of those weeks of illness is your dear form flitting in and out of the darkness? But—may I dare say it?—the vision had in it a certain tenderness I do not find [pg 236] in the reality. I could almost believe in your doctrine of guardian angels, having myself experienced what their ministry might be.”

“I am afraid,” interrupted Assunta, “that your doctrine would hardly stand, if it has no other basis than such very human evidence. Shall I begin?”

“No, wait a minute longer,” said Mr. Carlisle. “ ‘Lady Geraldine’ will keep. I wish to put a question to your sense of justice. When I was sick, and almost unconscious, and entirely unappreciative, there was a person—so the doctor tells me—who lavished attentions upon me, counted nothing too great a sacrifice to be wasted upon me. But now that I am myself again, and longing to prove myself the most grateful of men, on the principle that ‘gratitude is a lively sense of favors to come,’ that person suddenly retires into the solitude of her own original indifference (to misquote somewhat grandiloquently), and leaves me wondering on what hidden rock my bark struck when I thought the sea all smooth and shining, shivering my reanimated hopes to atoms. But,” he added, turning abruptly towards her, and taking in his the hand which rested on the table beside him, “you saved my life. Bless you, child, and remember that the life you have saved is yours, now and always.”

The color had rushed painfully into Assunta's face, but her guardian instantly released her hand, and she answered quietly:

“It really troubles me, Mr. Carlisle, that you should attach so much importance to a mere service of duty and common humanity. I did no more than any friend so situated would have had a right to claim at my hands. Your thanks have far outweighed your indebtedness.”

“Duty again!” exclaimed Mr. Carlisle bitterly. “I wish you had let me die. I want no duty service from you; and you shall be gratified, for I do not thank you for my life on those conditions. You spare no opportunity to let me understand that I am no more to you than all the rest of the world. Be it so.” And he impatiently snatched the Galignani from the table, and settled himself as if to read.

Assunta's temper was always roused by the unjust remarks her guardian sometimes made, and she would probably have answered with a spirit which would have belied the angel had she not happened to glance at the paper, and seen that it was upside down; and then at Mr. Carlisle's pale and troubled features, to which even the crimson facings of his rich dressing-gown hardly lent the faintest glow. The same sentiment of common humanity which had prompted those days of care and nights of watching now checked the reproach she would have uttered. She turned over the leaves of Mrs. Browning, until her eye lighted upon that exquisite valediction, “God be with thee, my beloved.” This she read through to herself; and then, laying the book upon the table, she said with the tone and manner of a subdued child:

“May I finish my letter, please?”

Mr. Carlisle scarcely raised his eyes, as he replied:

“Certainly, Assunta. I have no wish to detain you.”

It was with a very womanly dignity that Assunta left her seat; but, instead of returning to her writing-desk, she went to the piano. For nearly an hour she played, now passages from different sonatas, [pg 237] and then selections from the grander music of the church. Without seeming to notice, she saw that the paper at last fell from her guardian's hand; and understanding, as she did, every change in his expressive face, she knew from the smoothing of the brow and the restful look of the eyes that peace was restored by the charm she wrought. When she was sure that the evil spirit had been quite exorcised by the power of music, she rose from the piano, and rang the bell. When Giovanni appeared, she said:

“I think that Mrs. Grey will not return until quite late, as she has gone to Tivoli; so you may serve dinner here for me as well as for Mr. Carlisle. If any one calls, I do not receive this afternoon.”

“Very well, signorina,” replied Giovanni. “I will bring in the small table from the library.” And he left the room.

“It will be much pleasanter than for each of us to dine separately in solitary state,” said Assunta, going towards her guardian, and speaking as if there had been no cloud between them; “though I know that dining in the drawing-room must, of necessity, be exceptional.”

“It was a very bright thought of yours,” answered Mr. Carlisle, “and a very appetizing one to me, I can assure you. Will you read ‘Lady Geraldine’ now? There will be just time before dinner.”

Without a word Assunta took the book, and began to read. She had nothing of the dramatic in her style, but her voice was sweet, her enunciation very clear and distinct, and she showed a thorough apprehension of the author's meaning; so her reading always gave pleasure, and Mr. Carlisle had come to depend upon it daily. The vision to which he had referred was robbed, perhaps fortunately, of some of its sentiment, by Giovanni's table preparations; and his presence prevented all but very general comment.

When they were once more by themselves—Giovanni having left them to linger over the fruit and wine—Mr. Carlisle said:

“By the way, Assunta, you have not told me yet what your friend Miss Percival had to say for herself in her last letter. You know I am always interested in her; though I fear it is an interest which partakes largely of the nature of jealousy.”

“Well,” replied Assunta, “she tells me that she is going to be married.”

“Sensible girl! What more?”

“She regrets very much that her brother, whom she dearly loves, will not return from his year's exile in time for the ceremony.”

“So much the better,” exclaimed Mr. Carlisle with unusual energy. “I hope he may lose himself in the deserts of Arabia, or wander off to further India, and there remain.”

Assunta laughed. “Truly, my guardian is most charitable! I should not be surprised if he did, one of these days, follow in the footsteps of S. Francis Xavier. But what has he done to merit sentence of banishment from you?”

“You know I am a student of human nature,” rejoined her guardian, “and I have always observed that where a young girl has a brother and a friend, she cannot conceive of any other destiny for the two objects of her affection than to make of them one united object in the holy bonds of matrimony; and, in order to bring about the desired consummation, she devotes herself to intrigue in a [pg 238] manner and with a zeal truly feminine. Mary Percival has a brother and a friend; ergo, may her brother be—induced to become an Oriental; that is all.”

“In this case,” replied the young girl with a merry laugh, “your observations are quite at fault. I am truly grieved to be compelled to spoil such a pretty romance. But, seriously, Mary has a far higher choice for her brother than her most unworthy friend. She has but one desire and prayer for him, and that is that he may enter the holy priesthood. I believe she will not be disappointed. Did you ever see Mr. Percival?”

“No, I have never had the pleasure,” replied Mr. Carlisle.

“I wish you might know him,” said Assunta enthusiastically. “I am sure you would like him. He is not what would generally be considered handsome, but I think his face beautiful, it is so very spiritual. It is the beauty of a remarkable soul, which literally shines in his eyes. He has taken the highest honors at college, and, if his health is only re-established, I think his sister's very laudable ambition will be more than gratified.”

“He certainly has a most ardent admirer. I did not know you could be so enthusiastic about any member of the genus homo,” said Mr. Carlisle. Assunta was not to be daunted by the perceptible sneer, and she at once added:

“I can hardly be said to admire him, but rather the power of grace in him. I have so great a reverence for Augustine Percival that I could not imagine it possible for any human affection to turn him from what I firmly believe to be his great vocation. So my guardian may see him return to the West with equanimity, and may perhaps even be induced to look with favor upon another part of the letter.”

“And what is that?” asked Mr. Carlisle.

“Mary invites me very urgently to pass next winter with her in Baltimore. Her husband-elect is a naval officer, and his leave of absence expires in October. She wishes me as a substitute, you understand.”

“Is it your wish to go, my child?” said her guardian, looking at her earnestly.

“I never like to make any definite plan so long beforehand; but it seemed to me a very suitable arrangement. You remember,” added Assunta, “that Clara will probably be married before then.”

“I do not wish Clara to be mentioned; she has nothing to do with it,” said Mr. Carlisle imperiously; and then he added more gently, “May I ask, petite, what answer you have given her?”

“None, as yet; you remember you interrupted my letter. But I think I will tell her that my guardian is such an ogre that I dare not reply to her invitation until after August. Will that do?”

“Tell her what you will,” said Mr. Carlisle; “only, for heaven's sake, say no more to me upon the subject. I am not Augustine Percival, and consequently not elevated above the power of human feeling.”

Poor Assunta! she too was not above human feeling, and sometimes it was very hard for her to keep her heart from being rebellious; but she had learned to put God before every earthly consideration, and to find her strength in his presence. But it required constant watchfulness and untiring patience to conquer herself. Therefore she could not but feel great [pg 239] compassion for her friend, who must bear his disappointment with no help outside of his own strong nature. She rose from the table, and moved it a little to one side, in order that she might arrange the cushions for her guardian, who looked unusually weary to-night.

“Are you angry with me, Mr. Carlisle?” said she softly, as he sank back in his chair.

“Angry, petite?” he repeated, looking steadily in her face. “Yes, I am angry, but not with you, or with anything you have said to-night, but rather with that accursed barrier. Go, child, ring for Giovanni, or I shall say what you will not like to hear.” As she turned away, he caught her hand, saying:

“One moment. I have been very rude, and yet I would die for you! There, I will not say another word. Please ring for Giovanni, since I am compelled to be so ungallant as to request the favor of you; and then let us talk a little about the Sienna plans. I must try and put myself into a good-humor before Clara comes; for she will have something to say about her handsome Sinclair, and then I would not give much for my temper.”

The table having been removed, and the wood which had been laid ready in the fire-place kindled into a blaze—for the evenings were still cool enough to admit of its cheery influence—the two, whose lives seemed so united, and yet were, in reality, so far apart, drew towards the fire. The heavy curtains, which had been put aside to admit the warm, genial air and sunshine of mid-day, were now closely drawn, in order to shut out the chilling dampness of evening. A hanging lamp cast a soft, mellow light through its porcelain shade upon an exquisite basket of roses and carnations adorning the centre of the table, which was covered elsewhere with books, arranged with studied negligence, and numberless little suggestions of refinement and feminine occupation. Everything seemed favorable to a most harmonious conversation, except that inevitable something which, like a malicious sprite, awakens us from our dreams just when they are brightest; breaks the spell of our illusions at the moment when we are clinging to them most persistently; ruthlessly crosses, with its fatal track, our promised pleasures; and unfeelingly interrupts us in some hour of complete rest and satisfaction. Ah! we may fret in our impatience, and wonder at the fatality which seems to pursue us. It is no mischief-loving Puck, no evil-minded genie, but a good angel, who thus thwarts us. This is no time to dream and cherish illusions which can but deceive. It is no time for repose. To detach ourselves from all these things which would make this world a satisfaction to us is the labor we must all perform, more or less generously and heroically, if we would one day enjoy the reality of the one dream that never fades—the vision of the Apocalypse; the one repose that never palls—the rest that remaineth for the people of God. Welcome, then, those misnamed “juggling fiends” that “keep the word of promise to our ear, and break it to our hope.” Welcome the many disappointments, trifling in themselves, the daily crossings of our will and pleasure, which seem so petty; they perform a great mission if they succeed in loosening ever so little the cords which bind down to [pg 240] earth the souls that were meant for heaven. Thrice welcome whatever helps to turn the sweetness of this world to bitterness!

Poor Mrs. Grey! it had never occurred to her that she had a mission, still less such an one as we have now assigned to her. For it was her voice which caused Mr. Carlisle to sigh so profoundly that Assunta could not but smile, in spite of the regretful feeling in her own heart. It was better—and she knew it—that the softening influence of the hour should be thus rudely interrupted; but nature will not be crushed without an occasional protest. The expression of annoyance still lingered on Mr. Carlisle's face when Clara entered the room, exclaiming:

“Come, caro mio, they have had the livelong day to themselves, and must have talked out by this time, even if they had the whole encyclopædia in their brains.” And as Mr. Sinclair followed with an apologetic bow, she continued:

“This ridiculous man has conscientious objections to interrupting your tête-à-tête. I am sure, Severn, if Assunta is not tired to death of you by this time, she ought to be, particularly if you have been as solemn all day as you look now. I would much rather spend the whole day in church—and that is the most gloomy thing I can think of—than be condemned to the company of a man in a mood. Make a note of that, George.

“I think, Clara,” said her brother, somewhat coldly, “that Mr. Sinclair was judging others by himself, and in doing so he judged kindly in my regard and gallantly in yours; but this is not always the true criterion. Mr. Sinclair, I beg you will be seated, and excuse me if I do not rise. I am still obliged to claim the invalid's cloak of charity. No doubt a cup of tea will be acceptable after your long drive; and it will soon be served.”

The eyes of the two men met. They had measured each other before now, and understood each other well; and each knew that he was most cordially disliked by the other. Their ceremonious politeness was all the more marked on that account. Assunta's tact came to the rescue, and made a diversion. As she assisted Mrs. Grey in removing her shawl and hat, she said:

“And how have you enjoyed the day, Clara? You must be very tired!”

“Oh! I am nearly dead with fatigue,” replied the lady, looking very bright and very much alive for a moribund; “but we have had a delicious time. You should have seen George trying to support his dignity on a donkey which he could easily have assisted in walking, as his feet touched the ground on both sides; and which started with a spasmodic jerk every two or three minutes when the donkey boy brought down a small club on its back. I laughed so much at Mr. Sinclair's gravity and the ludicrous figure he cut that I narrowly escaped falling off my own donkey down a precipice.”

“ ‘Now, what a thing it is to be an ass,’ ” quoted Mr. Carlisle. “My lovely sister visits a spot whose present beauty is hardly surpassed by the richness of its classic associations; where romance lurks, scarcely hidden, in the memory of Zenobia; where the olives that cover the hillsides have a primeval look; and, like a very Titania under the love-spell, she wakes from her dream of the past, and, behold! her vision is—a donkey!—no, I beg pardon—two donkeys; one that [pg 241] nearly lost its burden; and the other that its burden nearly lost!”

“How foolish you are, Severn!” said Clara, pouting very becomingly, while the others laughed heartily. “Besides, you need not expect me to get up any sentiment about Zenobia. The mistake of her life was that she did not die at the proper time, instead of retiring to a country town—of all places in the world—living a comfortable life, and dying a commonplace death in her bed, for all I know. It was just stupid in her!”

Her brother smiled. “I think you are right, Clara. Zenobia should never have survived her chains and the Roman triumph, if she had wished to leave a perfect picture of herself to posterity. However, I doubt if we have the right to exact the sacrifice of her merely to gratify our ideas of romantic propriety. By living she only proved herself less heroine, more woman. But, Clara, what did you see?—besides the donkeys, I mean.”

Mr. Carlisle felt so keenly the antagonism of Mr. Sinclair's presence, that he must either leave the room or find some vent; and therefore his sister was compelled to be safety-valve, and submit to his teasing mood. Perhaps she was not altogether an innocent victim, since she it was who had somewhat wilfully introduced the discordant element into the family.

“We saw ruins and waterfalls, of course,” she replied to the last question—a little petulance in her tone, which soon, however, disappeared. “But the most enjoyable thing of the whole day was the dinner. I usually cannot see any pleasure in eating out of doors, but today we were obliged to do so, for the hotel was not at all inviting; and then it is the proper thing to do to have the table spread in the portico of the Temple of Vesta. Gagiati had put up a delicious dinner at Mr. Sinclair's order, so we were not dependent upon country fries and macaroni. Just as we were sitting down Lady Gertrude came up with her mother and lover, and we joined forces. I assure you we were not silent. I never enjoyed a meal more in my life.”

“O Tivoli! ancient Tibur, how art thou fallen! Donkeys and dinner!” exclaimed Mr. Carlisle. “Well, fair Titania, did you supply your gentle animal with the honey-bag of the ‘red-hipped humble-bee,’ or was his appetite more plebeian, so that ‘a peck of provender’ was more acceptable?”

“Assunta, do you allow your patient to talk so much?” said Mrs. Grey, her amiability still proof against attack. “If he excites his imagination in this way, he can hardly hope to sleep without a powerful anodyne.”

“My patient, as you call him,” replied Assunta, smiling, “is not quite so submissive, I find, as when obedience was a necessity, and not a virtue. Still, if he would allow me a very humble suggestion, I would remind him that he has not been quite as well to-day, and that it is some time past his usual hour for retiring.”

There was no irritation in Mr. Carlisle's face as he looked at Assunta with one of his rare smiles. The very tones of her voice seemed to give him a feeling of rest. “A very broad hint on the part of my tyrant,” he replied, “which I will be wise enough to take, in its present form, lest it should become more emphatic. Good-night, Mr. Sinclair. I feel that there is the less need of an apology for excusing myself, as I leave you in good hands [pg 242] Clara, when Giovanni has served the tea, please send him to me.”

In leaving the room Mr. Carlisle dropped his cigar-case, which Assunta perceived, and hastened with it to the library, where she knew she should find him awaiting Giovanni.

“Petite,” he exclaimed, as she entered, “kill that man for me, and make me everlastingly your debtor.”

“I am sure,” she answered, laughing, “you have had it all your own way to-night. I began to think he must have taken a vow of silence.”

“Still waters!” said her guardian. “He can afford to be silent; he is biding his time.”

“Are you not the least bit unjust and uncharitable?” asked Assunta. “But never mind, you shall not have a lecture to-night, for you look very weary. Promise me that you will take the medicine I send you.”

“I will take it, if you bring it yourself.”

“But I cannot do that. I have your enemy to entertain, you know.”

“And much joy do I wish you,” said Mr. Carlisle. “I intend to study up affinities and repulsions psychologically; and then I shall perhaps be able to understand why one person, without any assignable cause, should act as a perpetual blister—genuine Spanish flies—and another, a certain dear little friend of mine for instance, should be ever a soothing balm.”

“Cold cream!” suggested Assunta, “since you will use such pharmaceutical comparisons. And now, if I have shocked your sense of refinement sufficiently, I must say good-night.”

“Good-night, dear child,” returned her guardian cordially, but his next thought was a bitter one, and an almost prophetic feeling of loneliness came over him, as he watched the smoke curling up from his cigar.

As soon as the incubus of Mr. Carlisle's presence was removed, Mr. Sinclair threw off the silence which was so unnatural to him, and became at once the attentive, gallant man of the world. Even Assunta, had she met him then for the first time, would not have received that impression of insincerity which had repelled her formerly. She could hardly wonder to-night that Clara Grey, who never looked below the surface, or cared, so long as peace reigned on the outside, what elements of disturbance might be working in the depths, should have suffered her heart to confide itself to the keeping of one apparently so devoted. She had never before imagined that they were so well suited to each other; and as Mr. Sinclair, after an hour, arose to take his leave, she was surprised into most unusual cordiality, as she bade him good-night. But, unfortunately for the impression he had been at such pains to produce, the glamour of fascination disappeared with his retreating footsteps; so that even while Mr. Sinclair was congratulating himself upon his success, Assunta found herself wondering at the almost painful revulsion of feeling which followed his departure.

Mrs. Grey's bright face indicated no such change. She was perfectly satisfied with her lover, and no less so with herself. She checked a movement of Assunta's to retire by saying:

“Do you mind waiting a little longer, dear? I want so much to have a quiet chat. Come, let us draw our chairs up to the fire, the blaze is so cheering.”

“You do not look as if you needed [pg 243] any help from outside influences,” said Assunta, and there was a shade of sadness in her tone. “But I am all ready for a talk.”

A cloud—a light summer one—overspread Mrs. Grey's clear sky and shadowed her face, as she said, after a pause: “Assunta, why does Severn dislike George so much?”

Assunta was too truthful to deny the fact, so she simply said:

“We cannot always control our feelings, Clara; but, as a general thing, I do not find Mr. Carlisle unreasonable.”

“He certainly is very unreasonable in this case,” returned Mrs. Grey quickly, “and I am sorry it is so, for I love Severn very much. Still, I shall not allow an unfounded prejudice to stand in the way of my happiness. Assunta, I have promised Mr. Sinclair that I will marry him in September, when we shall be in Paris, on our way to America.”

“I supposed,” said Assunta, “that it would come soon, and I hope, dear Clara, that you will be very, very happy.” Doubt was in her mind, but she had not the heart to let it appear in her manner.

“And,” Mrs. Grey continued, “I want you to understand, dear, that with us you will always have a home at your disposal, where you will be welcomed as a sister. George wished me to tell you that this is his desire as well as mine.”

“You are both too kind,” replied Assunta, touched by this thoughtfulness of her at a time when selfishness is regarded as a special privilege. “My arrangements can easily be made afterwards; but I do very much appreciate your kindness.”

“Nonsense!” said Mrs. Grey, “you belong to us; and the difficulty will probably be that we shall not be able to keep such an attractive bit of property.”

“You are setting me the example,” said Assunta, laughing.

“Ah! yes,” returned Mrs. Grey; “but then, there is only one George Sinclair, you know, as a temptation.”

Assunta fancied she could hear Mr. Carlisle exclaim, “God be praised!” to that natural expression of womanly pride, and she herself wondered if it would be possible for her to fall under such a delusion.

But Mrs. Grey had not yet reached the point of the conversation; what had been said was only preliminary. The truth was, she dreaded her brother's reception of the news, and she wished to avoid being present at the first outbreak.

“You have so much influence with Severn,” she said at last, “I wish you would tell him about it, and try to make him feel differently towards George. I am sure you can. We are going to the Villa Doria to-morrow, and this will give you an opportunity. I hope the storm will be over before we return,” she added, laughing; “at any rate, the lightning will not strike you.”

It was like Mrs. Grey to make this request—so like her that Assunta did not think it either strange or selfish. She promised to break the news, which she knew would be unwelcome. But she could not conscientiously promise to use an influence in overcoming a prejudice she entirely shared. An affectionate good-night was exchanged, and then Assunta retired to her room. It was not often that she indulged herself in a revery—in those waking dreams which are so unprofitable, and from which one is usually aroused with the [pg 244] spiritual tone lowered, and the heart discontented and dissatisfied. But this had been a trying day; and now, as she reviewed it, and came at last to its close, she found herself envying her friend the joy which seemed so complete, and wondering why her lot should be so different. Happiness had come to Mrs. Grey as to a natural resting-place; while she, to whom a bright vision of it had been presented, must thrust it from her as if it were a curse and not a blessing. And here she paused, and better thoughts came to replace the unworthy ones. This lot which she was envying—was it not all of the earth, earthy? Would she change, if she could? Had she not in her blessed faith a treasure which she would not give for all the human happiness this world has power to bestow? And here was the key to the difference at which she had for the moment wondered. Much, very much, had been given to her; was it strange that much should be required? Had she, then, made her sacrifice only to play the Indian giver towards her God, and wish back the offering he had accepted at her hands? No, she would not be so ungenerous. In the light of faith the brightness which had illuminated the life of her friend grew dim and faded, while the shadow of what had seemed so heavy a cross resting upon her own no longer darkened her soul. And soon, kneeling before her crucifix, she could fervently thank the dear Lord that he had granted her the privilege of suffering something for his love; and she prayed for strength to take up her cross daily, and bear it with courage and generosity.

To Be Continued.

Inscription For The Bell “Gabriel,”At S. Mary's Of The Lake, Lake George.

Switzerland In 1873. Lucerne. Concluded.

At this point we reached the first of the existing covered bridges. What a transition! Like going back suddenly from the levelling monotony of steam and the feverish present-day life to the individuality and repose of the middle ages! “It dates,” said Herr H——, “from the year 1300—just seven years before William Tell and the Rüti, eight before the battle of Morgarten, and eighty-six before our great Sempach victory!”

“William Tell! What nonsense! Who believes now in William Tell?” muttered the young school-boy C—— to his sister; but the old man fortunately did not hear him, and, his eyes beaming with affection for the old relic, he went on: “Some modern improvers”—laying contemptuous emphasis on these words—“talk of ‘clearing it away.’ But you see what a pleasant, cool walk it still is for foot-passengers, with the green Reuss swirling beneath, and the lovely view from its open sides. I tell them that it would not only be an act of vandalism, but, as there are so few antiquities to show in Lucerne, it would be like ‘killing the goose with the golden eggs.’ ” And so it would! It is in no one's way, and is, with the other bridge, the only remnant of antiquity worth looking at. On opening our Wordsworth we found that this is the one first mentioned by him after leaving Sarnen:

And we found it still as he describes it. The triangle of the rafters of each arch is painted, and though as works of art they are of little value, still they are clever and quaint representations of the scenes, certain to make an impression on young minds in particular, and easily discernible to an observant passer-by. Going from the right bank of the river, reminders of events in Swiss and local history meet the eye, and, returning from the other side, the deeds of the two patron saints of the town, S. Leodegarius and S. Maurice. Both lives were most striking, and equally belonged to the earliest ages of the Christian era. S. Maurice especially is a favorite Swiss patron. He was the commander of the Theban Christian Legion in the time of the Emperor Diocletian, which is said to have consisted of sixty-six hundred men. This legion had been raised in the Thebaïs or Upper Egypt amongst the Christians there, and, officered by Christians, was marching with the rest of the Roman army against Gaul, under the command of Maximian, when the latter ordered the army to offer sacrifices for the success of the expedition. All encamped at the place called Octodurus, represented nowadays by the modest Martigny in the Valais; but the Theban legion, refusing to join in the pagan worship, retired to the spot where now stands S. Maurice, and day by day they were killed by orders of Maximian, until none remained. The Monastery of S. [pg 246] Maurice, built on the spot of their martyrdom, is one of the oldest in the world, said to have been first erected in a.d. 250, although the present edifice only dates from 1489. Switzerland and Savoy formerly disputed the honor of keeping the relics, but at last settled the matter by a small portion being handed over to Piedmont, the abbey retaining the principal treasures. It is therefore to this day one of the favorite places of pilgrimage in Switzerland. A special connection seems to have occurred with Lucerne, for two hundred bodies of S. Maurice's companions are said to have been found at the village of Schoz, about two leagues distant, where there was an old chapel renowned for its privileges and indulgences. And this seems in no way unlikely, for we read in Butler's Lives of the Saints and elsewhere that several smaller corps of soldiers belonging to the legion were scattered here and there in Switzerland, and were put to death for the same reason. Most interesting it is, in any case, to trace on this bridge the union of two such heroic, manly saints in the affections and sympathies of the Lucerne citizens from olden times.

The bridge is five hundred feet long, and makes two sharp bends to suit the current of the river, flowing swiftly and vigorously from the lake close by through the old-fashioned posts on towards old Father Rhine, which it joins between Schaffhausen and Basel. This irregularity adds to the picturesque effect, and at one of these corners stands a tower, mentioned in some old documents of the year 1367. Possibly it may have existed as part of the fortifications even before the bridge itself. It is called the Water Tower, and has four stories of one room each, which formerly served as treasury, prison, and record-office; but at present it is used only for the latter purpose, and contains the archives of the city. What tales it might tell had we moderns the time to spare for listening!

But we moved on along the left bank of the river, and turned into the church, still called the “Jesuits' Church.” It is large and unmistakably in their well-known style. Here Herr H—— explained how the order had been introduced into Lucerne in 1574 by S. Charles Borromeo, who was such an ally of these cantons. In less than four years they had founded a college and increased rapidly. Within one hundred more they erected this church, and the large buildings adjoining for their college, now used as government offices—the post and telegraph departments. Everything went on satisfactorily for a second hundred years, until the suppression of the order by Clement XIV., in 1773, when it was also abolished in Lucerne. But the towns-people held their memory in grateful remembrance, and one of the first acts of the Sonderbund in 1845 was to call back seven Jesuit fathers. When the Protestant cantons, however, finally succeeded in crushing this League, they at once passed a law forbidding any Jesuit to remain on Swiss territory; so again the order had to leave Lucerne, and also Schwytz, where they also had a large house.

“And now,” continued Herr H——, “the liberals are clamoring for another revision of our constitution—a constitution which needs no revising, except in their sense of doing away with all faith, and meddling in our religious affairs. But the people now will not bear that,” he added grimly. “They [pg 247] will resist calmly at first, but I know many who will rather fight than submit tamely to have their religion or their pastors interfered with.”

It was sad to hear these forebodings in such an apparently peaceful atmosphere, and gladly we turned to watch the water-hens, which abound in this corner of the river. Herr H—— knew them all, for they are public property, like the bears at Berne, and protected by statutes as far back as 1678. Nothing could be more graceful, gliding up and down the stream in numbers, nor prettier than the friendly terms they are on with all the inhabitants. The origin of the custom and cause of the protection, however, seems lost in obscurity; at least he could tell us nothing but the mere fact itself. A narrow footway runs along this side between the houses and the river, up and down steps, and following the windings of the rapid stream, while the massive, unadorned senate-house is seen opposite, and all the dwellings on that bank rise straight above the water. A true mediæval picture it is—high and low gables intermixed; quaint old balconies filled with flowers above; comely housewives busy washing the household linen in the fresh waters below; merry young faces peeping through upper windows or leaning out over the red-cushioned sills to gossip with a laughing neighbor—a locality made for a Walter Scott, and another world of thought and association from the butterfly existence that now borders the lake at only a few yards' distance.

And by this ancient pathway we soon came to the second bridge, at the furthest end of the town—the “Spreuner” or Mill Bridge, or, more truly, the “Dance of Death” Bridge, celebrated by Longfellow in his Golden Legend.

We took out the poem, and read that passage on the spot, and most perfectly it answers his beautiful description. Prince Henry's words were uttered by us where he begins:

This one is shorter than the Hafellbrücke, being only three hundred feet in length, and making a sharp bend in the centre, and was built a century later—in 1408—but somehow it is not venerable-looking, and its grim paintings give it a more sombre character. Elsie was quite right in exclaiming: “How dark it grows!” It required many minutes to get accustomed to the darkness after the brilliant light we had left, and she must have been thankful when Prince Henry proceeded with his explanation, saying that it was

By his aid we too followed the renowned pictures copied from those at Basel. There we saw:

The

Here he

There,

And under it is written,

In another division is seen

Underneath the inscription reads,

And in this strain the paintings continue, until, what between the objects and the general gloom, the effect becomes most melancholy, and we heartily sympathized in Prince Henry's cry—his cri du cœur:

It led us straight into the heart of the old town, and with the poet we exclaimed:

The streets were narrow, clean, and well paved, however, and everything looked so bright and cheerful—perhaps doubly so after that gloomy bridge—that our spirits at once revived. The shops were small, and all on a homely, simple scale. But there were no signs of poverty or neglect in any direction, and a general air of contentment was perceptible on all sides.

The schools were just breaking up for their mid-day hour's rest as we passed on, and the crowds of boys and girls flocking homewards made a bright contrast to the gloomy bridge. Troops of neatly-dressed little maidens were especially pleasant to look at, with their books slung in diminutive knapsacks across their shoulders. A happy-faced, merry-looking juvenile population they all were.

Some fine religious prints in a small shop-window next attracted our attention, and, going in, we found it to be the principal bookseller's of Lucerne. Numberless pamphlets on all the leading topics of the day lay on the counter, of which one caught my eye from its peculiarly local title: Festreden an der Schlachtfeier, or Speeches at the Festival, held on the anniversary of the battle of Sempach, on the 8th of July, 1873.

“What is this?” I asked.

“The celebration of our glorious victory over the Austrians!—the Marathon of Swiss history, as its hero, Arnold von Winkelried, may be called our Leonidas,” replied Herr H——. “It took place in 1386. You passed near the site yesterday, for the railway runs beside the Lake of Sempach, if you remember.”

“Oh! this, then, is a celebration, I suppose, in the style of the twelve hundredth commemoration of Ely Cathedral which they are going to hold in England next month. We might as well celebrate Agincourt or Crécy. But this cannot be called a ‘centenary’ or any name of that kind, as it will not be five hundred years since the battle until 1886!”

“No, it is nothing of the kind,” he replied, “but is an anniversary religiously kept every year. The town council of Lucerne, and the mayor at their head, with all the authorities and a vast multitude of people, go to the battle-field every 8th of July. We go there for two purposes: first, to pray for the dead who lie buried there, and then in order to keep the memory of the heroism of that day and of those who gained us our freedom fresh in our own minds, and to transmit it to our children, as it has been transmitted to us by our fathers. Allow me to present you with this pamphlet. It contains the sermon [pg 249] preached on the last occasion by Herr Pfarrer Haas of Hitzkirch, and the speech made at the Winkelried monument by Herr Regierungrath Gehrig, and they have been printed by order of our government here. You will find them interesting, and also these,” giving me another bundle, “and they will show you that, next to love of our holy faith, ‘love of fatherland’ and of ‘liberty’ are deep-seated in the heart of every man belonging to these Catholic cantons.”

“Do tell us about the festival!” we cried. “Is it a pretty sight?”

“You have no idea how pretty,” he answered—“pretty even if only as a sight; for so many priests come that they have to erect altars in the open air, and Masses are going on and congregations praying round them in all directions over the ground the whole morning. This sermon,” he continued, opening the pamphlet, and reading from it as he spoke, “opens poetically by allusions to 'the green fields, the singing of the birds, and the peaceful landscape, which alone form the decorations to the quiet prayer of the priests—the ‘Stilles Priestergebet—which had been going on uninterruptedly from the first rosy dawn of morning up to that hour’; while the speech equally begins by a reference to the ‘lovely lake of the forest cantons, whence came the men who achieved the victory, and whose descendants are as patriotic now as in those far-off days.’ You will seldom hear a sermon, by the way, in these parts, without allusion to the magnificence of our nation, and to the great deeds of our forefathers. Old and young, clergy and laity, we are always exhorting each other to imitate them. And is it not right? We feel the deep truth of the principle I have lately seen so beautifully expressed by a Catholic writer that I learned it by heart at the time. ‘Nations,’ he says, ‘live by traditions, more even than individuals. By them the past extends its influence over the present, illumines it with the reflection of its glory, and animates it with its spirit. Traditions bind together the successive periods in a nation's existence, and preserve amongst its children the unity produced by a long community of dangers and struggles, of triumphs and reverses.’ Revolutionists alone wish to break with the past, which, in this country at least, is in direct opposition to their godless theories, and at variance with all their passions. And long may it continue so! The last passage of Herr Gehrig's speech, by which he winds up, is very fine on that point,” he said, again reading: “ ‘The Swiss, says an old proverb of the XVIth century, have a noble land, good laws, and a wise Confederacy—a Confederacy that is firm and strong, because it is not dictated by passion. Comrades! let us keep this legacy of our fathers sacred. The fatherland before all! God protect the fatherland!’ ”

As he spoke these words we came to the senate-house square, in sight of the glaring frescos of this same battle of Sempach, and the list of all other Swiss victories, with which its tower has been recently covered.

“It is not by badly-painted representations such as these,” he continued, smiling, “that we try to keep up the old spirit, but by that true eloquence which touches the heart and convinces the reason. These two addresses were most soul-stirring—the sermon and speech equally fine—and made the greatest impression. The speech is a short [pg 250] summary of our history and of Arnold von Winkelried, opening, as I said, by allusion to that ‘pearl of creation,’ that lake of the forest cantons, which is bordered by the Urschweiz.”

“What does that mean?” asked Caroline C——. “I so often have noticed the word without understanding it.”

“It simply means, ‘The original Switzerland.’ The particle ur means in German something very ancient, or the origin or root of anything. It is the proudest title of these forest cantons, and therefore you will constantly find it used, varied now and then as the Urcantone. They are truly the cradle, not only of Switzerland, but of our freedom, and so far preserve the same spirit of independence and of courage up to this hour.”

“And the sermon—what was that like?” asked young C——, whose interest, notwithstanding his scepticism about William Tell, was now thoroughly roused.

“The sermon was most suitable to the times,” replied Herr H——. “The subject was concord or harmony; and its aim, to show how we ought to copy those virtues of our ancestors which caused true harmony. It was divided, as you may see here, into four points; First, Fidelity, when the preacher drew a beautiful picture of Swiss fidelity from the earliest ages—a fertile theme. Next, Justice—Christian justice, for he averred that real justice never existed in the pagan world, and he again goes back to the XIVth century to show how the men of that age acted, so that the historian Zschokke calls it ‘the golden age’ of Switzerland! And he fortifies his assertions by quotations from old annals. Here is one from the celebrated oath of the Rüti, in 1307: ‘Every man must protect the innocent and oppressed people in his valley, and preserve to them their old rights and freedom. On the other hand, we do not wish to deprive the Counts of Habsburg of the smallest portion of their property, of their rights, or of their vassals. Their governors, followers, servants, and hirelings shall not lose a drop of blood.’ Then, again, how the same men in 1332 gave an order to the judges ‘not to favor any one in a partisan spirit, but to deal justice according to their oaths.’ Again, in 1334, they answer a proposition made to them by the emperor by proudly telling him that ‘there are laws which even princes should not transgress.’ Of their own government they require ‘that the citizens shall receive security for honor, life, and property; that the magistrates shall listen to the complaints of the poor, and not answer them sharply; that they shall not pronounce judgment imperiously, nor, above all, condemn capriciously.’ This was in 1335. He continues then to prove how scrupulously they forbid feuds and lawless plundering; and the high respect our ancestors showed for churches and ecclesiastical institutions is supported by a quotation from a league that was sworn to at Zurich immediately after this very battle of Sempach, called, in consequence, the Sempacher Brief, where this remarkable passage occurs: ‘As the Almighty has chosen the churches for his dwelling, so it is our wish that none of us shall dare to break into, plunder, or destroy any convent or chapel whatsoever.’ This took place in 1393, and Herr Pfarrer Haas ends this part by an appeal to the present generation: ‘Do you wish to imitate your ancestors? Then give weight [pg 251] in the council-chamber, in the tribunals, in the framing of laws, in their execution and administration, to that Christian justice which gives and leaves to each man that which by right belongs to him. By that means you will preserve harmony in the land—the foundation-stone of national prosperity, and the strength of the Confederacy. States grow old and pass away, but Christianity has eternal youth and freshness. When a nation reposes on the rock of Christian justice, she never suffers from the changes of childhood, youth, manhood, or old age, but flourishes for ever in perpetual freshness and vigor.’ ”

“That is very fine!” all exclaimed. “But it is the more striking when one finds it was only spoken the other day. It sounds so like an old middle-age sermon addressed to men of the ‘ages of faith.’ ”

“You are right,” returned Herr H——; “but I assure you the tone is the ordinary one of sermons in these districts, and elicited no astonishment, though a great deal of sympathy. It will tire you, however, to hear more, so we had better go on!” We had been lingering on the promenade while listening to him, under the shady chestnuts facing the lake; but now all unanimously begged he would continue, merely moving to a bench nearer our hotel.

“Well, as you wish it, I shall obey!” he said, making us a bow, with a smile of pleasure at our increasing interest in his country. “The next division of the sermon, on virtue and morality, was ably argued, as you will perceive whenever you read this pamphlet; especially in reference to the modern doctrines on these subjects now propounded in other parts of Switzerland.” (We thought here of our recent experience at the book-stall at Berne!) “And the preacher complimented the inhabitants of the rural cantons on the Christian faith and simple, virtuous manners they still retain, ending by quotations from our Lord's words in the New Testament, and saying that ‘enlightenment is not unbelief, but the true and proper use of belief.’' The fourth and last essential to harmony he shows to be that interior peace which can be produced by the Christian faith alone. No one can be a good citizen who does not conquer the passions of his own nature, and obtain that inner tranquillity of mind which is the growth of true religion. Amongst other proofs of his argument he quotes from Blessed Nicholas von der Flüe. I presume you know who he was?”

Each of us in turn was obliged to answer “No,” although the name was not unfamiliar to some. But the more we heard, the greater did our humiliation gradually become at finding how slightly we were acquainted with this Swiss life; and every one rejoiced when Herr H—— replied:

“Blessed Nicholas was a hermit, but as great a patriot as he was a saint.” However, you will hear enough about him when you visit Stanz and Sarnen. His words carried immense weight in his day, and he is still very much revered, and is perpetually quoted. He lived in the XVth century, and our Herr Pfarrer Haas here gives a long extract from one of his letters to the Mayor of Berne in those years. After this he goes on to say: “Such was the faith of your forefathers! The prayers which the combatants said on this very spot amidst the scoffs [pg 252] of their enemies; the Sacred Host which the priest carried at Lauffen; the anniversaries they founded; the Holy Sacrifice they ordered should be offered on those days of commemoration; the crosses they erected over the graves of all who fell in the combat, prove where their souls sought and obtained rest and peace.” “Fidelity, justice, virtue, and faith form the groundwork of the union and harmony of a people. Let each one of us, in his circle, and amongst those whom he can influence, strengthen these pillars of the edifice, and in this manner we can best help to secure the happiness and solidity of our dearly-loved Swiss fatherland.” Then he winds up by a beautiful peroration, thus: “We stand here on graves. Simple stone crosses rise above these tombs, where for the last four hundred and eighty-seven years the heroes of Sempach, friends and enemies, repose after their hard day's work. Sleep in peace, ye dead! I envy ye your rest! There may be fighting and storm o'erhead, but what matters that to the sleepers? Your eyes are closed! Ye do not watch the troubles and sorrows of mankind, the cares and burdens of life, the battle of the spirits, the play of passions. Once, too, your hearts beat high in the decisive hour. Each Swiss and Austrian believed that he defended the right. On both sides stood great men and great heroes. Death, brave hearts, has united you in peace; and over your graves, for nearly five hundred years, has stood the cross in token of conciliation—the symbol of peace, the badge of the confederates; indicating that Switzerland will still stand firm in harmony when the hotly-contested opinions surging in her midst at this day shall long since have sunk into dust and ashes.

“Magnificent!” all again exclaimed, “in language and sentiment! How we should like to have heard it!”

“There was a great crowd this year,” continued Herr H——, “though numbers never fail on any occasion. But a musical festival had taken place in Lucerne the day before, so for that reason there were more than usual. The majority now go by rail, but in my youth the procession of carriages was much more imposing. And Lucerne then was a Vorort, or capital of the Confederacy alternately with Zurich and Berne—a system long since done away with; so that when the year came for its turn, all the deputies and the diplomatic representatives were invited, and came too—all except an old Austrian, whom nothing could move. I well remember hearing that his colleagues used to laugh at him for keeping up the feeling after so many hundred years; but it was so strong that he never could hear William Tell's name mentioned without calling him an ‘assassin’; and you may imagine how the others amused themselves by always bringing up the subject. The feeling against the Austrians is very strong, too, amongst the Swiss.”

“I never understand it,” remarked Caroline C——. “I have always been taught to look on Rudolph von Habsburg as a perfect character; and yet the moment one comes to this country, one hears nothing but abuse of the Habsburgs. Do explain it.”

“I should have to give you a lecture on Swiss history, dear young lady, I fear, before you could understand [pg 253] it; and there is no time for that now.”

“Oh! do tell us something. There is still half an hour before the table-d'hôte, and it is so pleasant sitting here. We should all like to have a clearer view of the reason of this dislike. I am always much puzzled, too, in Schiller's William Tell, at the conspirators always wanting to be under the empire alone, and not through the Habsburgs; and it is so troublesome to wade through a history when travelling,” she replied.

“But I should go back to the very beginning for that purpose,” he answered. “However, if you insist, I shall give you a few leading facts that you can find amplified whenever you feel inclined to read a Swiss history right through. May I presume, then, that you know,” he continued, laughing, “that the first inhabitants of Switzerland are supposed to have been offshoots of Northern tribes—men driven from their homes by famine? There were a few settlers before these, said to be refugees from Italy, but only in a wild corner of the mountains, hence called Rhœtia; and they were so few and so isolated that they are not worth mentioning. The stream of inhabitants poured down by the Lake of Constance. Some say that the same names are found to this day in Sweden as in the valleys of these cantons. In any case, the tradition is that two brothers, Switer and Swin, arrived with their families and followers, and settled at the upper end of this lake, and from them the territory they occupied was called Schwytz. It is quite certain that this was the first part occupied; therefore the title it claims of ‘Urschweiz,’ or ‘original Switzerland,’ is most appropriate. They spread all round this lake and through these forest cantons, on from one valley to another, to the foot of the great snowy Alp region, but not further. Other races came later, and settled at Geneva and elsewhere, and, coming into collision with Rome, then mistress of the world, were finally made part of the Roman Empire. Then came the inroad of other barbarians on the downfall of Rome, and everything was in utter confusion until the light of Christianity shone over the land. It was introduced here, as in Germany, by missionaries who came from all parts, and a bishopric even was founded at Chur in the earliest Frankish times. Convents, too, rose on all sides. You will find remains of them in the most remote valleys and out-of-the-way corners of the country. S. Sigebert, for instance, came from France, and built Disentis in the wilds of Rhœtia, now the Grisons. S. Columba and S. Maughold preached along the Reuss and the Aar, and the great S. Gall evangelized the wild district round the Lake of Constance, girt by forests filled with all manner of wild beasts. The celebrated convent of his name was built on the site of his hermitage, and gave rise to the town of St. Gall. Einsiedeln, too, the famous monastery which you are going to visit, dates also from that period, over the cell of the hermit Meinrad, and so on in every direction. Even Zurich and our own Lucerne owe their origin to convents. As in so many other countries, so here likewise the monks spread civilization, opened schools, and taught the people agriculture. Then came another period of confusion after Charlemagne's reign, which ended by the greater portion of Switzerland falling to the share of his [pg 254] successors in the German Empire. There were numberless dukes and counts all over the land who already held large possessions, but had been vassals of the Dukes of Swabia. Now, however, they set him at defiance, and would obey no one but the emperor. Many of the monasteries, too, had acquired considerable property by this time, and their abbots were often powerful lords. They followed the example of the counts and dukes, and also assumed independence. But, on the other hand, the towns equally rose in importance, and often set the nobles and abbots at naught. These then, in order not to lose their influence, strove to increase the number of their vassals by making clearances in their forests, promoting the establishment of villages, and granting privileges to their inhabitants, in all which you will find the origin of the extraordinary number of rural communes for which Switzerland has always been so noted. The nobles, who had no occupation but war, were engaged in constant feuds amongst themselves or with the towns of which they were most jealous, and, leading lawless lives, wasted their inheritance little by little. The Crusades also contributed to diminish them, for all the knights in the country flocked thither. In the course of time their numbers dwindled considerably by these means, or by the sale of their property and feudal rights to the towns and even to the villages. At the period we are talking of, however, they were amongst the heroes of the land, and often fought bravely and made themselves respected.

“In one district, however, there were neither nobles, nor castles, nor towns, nor monasteries, nor any inhabitants, except the descendants of the first settlers. That was in the wild region of Rhœtia, and in what now constitutes these forest cantons, or Vierwaldstätter, as they are called in German. The latter all sprang from one common stock, and for a long time had only one head and one church. This was in the Muotta Valley, and thither came the entire population of Schwytz, Unterwalden, and Uri. At last, when they increased and multiplied, they divided into these three districts, built their own churches, and elected their own Landamman, or chief magistrate, and their own council. No one claimed sovereignty over this mountain district but the emperor. To him the people never objected; on the contrary, they were rather glad to enjoy his powerful protection, and willingly accepted, nay, often chose, the imperial judges to act as arbitrators in cases of their own internal disputes. Now, these judges were called governors, or Vogts, and, in order to distinguish them from inferior governors, were entitled Reichsvögte, or governors of the empire. It is well to bear this in mind, for on this point turned the whole dispute with the Habsburgs, and it was the cause of the conspiracy of the Rüti and of our subsequent freedom. It must also be remembered that the object of every community in the country at that period was to free itself from the yoke of the local laws, whether nobles or abbots, and to place themselves directly under the empire. And in this almost every town succeeded by slow degrees. The advantages were very great. First of all, they were not liable to the constant petty exactions of near neighbors, and the imperial government was [pg 255] so far away that they were allowed to administer their own property and to choose their own authorities, being only asked in exchange to pay some light taxes to the imperial treasury, and to accept a Reichsvögt, or governor. His office was merely to uphold the emperor's rights, and to act as judge in matters of life and death—a condition never refused; for it was held that, being a stranger, he would be more impartial than one of their community.

“Amongst the nobles who had gradually grown powerful at this time were the Counts of Habsburg, who lived in the Aargau, and, instead of diminishing, had been daily extending, their possessions and influence. Suddenly and unexpectedly Count Rudolph was chosen Emperor of Germany. There were great disputes between the German princes on the death of the late emperor, and the story runs that they elected him simply on the assurance of the Elector of Cologne, who declared that Rudolph von Habsburg was upright and wise, beloved by God and man.

“This, as you know, proved true, and you were perfectly right in believing him to have been a ‘perfect character.’ Moreover, he never forgot his old fellow-countrymen, and showered favors on them as long as he lived. Many places were made direct fiefs of the empire by him, amongst others our town of Lucerne, but more especially these forest cantons; and he raised the Bishop of Lausanne and the Abbot of Einsiedeln to the rank of princes of the empire. As a natural result, the whole country grew devoted to him, and came forward with gifts of money and assistance of every kind whenever he required it.

“But with his successor, his son Albrecht, comes the reverse of the medal. It was soon seen that he thought of nothing but increasing his own family possessions, and had no respect for the privileges of the towns or rural populations. Foreseeing evil times, therefore, Uri, Schwytz, and Unterwalden met together, and made a defensive league, binding themselves by oath to stand by each other and to defend themselves against all enemies. Hence the origin of their name, ‘Eidgenossen,’ which in German means ‘oath-participators.’ The Bishop of Constance and Duke of Savoy made a separate agreement, and so did various others. At last the princes of Germany also became so discontented with Albrecht that they elected a Prince Adolf of Nassau in his stead. The whole country was soon divided into two parties, one for and the other against Albrecht of Austria, as he had then become. Down he marched with a large army, devastated the territory of the Bishop of Constance, and Adolf of Nassau lost life and crown in a desperate battle. The confederates had taken no part against Albrecht openly as yet, and sent ambassadors to beg he would respect their ancient rights, as his father of glorious memory had always done. But he only answered ‘that he would soon change their condition.’ Meantime, the majority of the nobles joined his side; but the towns resisted him, and Berne gained such a great victory that he got alarmed and made peace with Zurich, confirming all its privileges. He then sent word to the Waldstätter cantons that he wished to treat them as the beloved children of his own family, and that they had better at once place themselves under Austrian protection. [pg 256] But the sturdy, free-hearted mountaineers replied that they preferred the old rights they had inherited from their fathers, and desired to continue direct vassals of the empire. Albrecht was not prepared to enforce their submission, so he resorted to the expedient of sending them Reichsvögte who were wicked and cruel men, that were ordered, besides, to oppress and torment them in such a manner that they should at last desire in preference to place themselves under Austro-Habsburg protection. Chief of these was the now far-famed Gessler, and also Landerberg, whose castle at Sarnen was the first destroyed later. Not only were they cruel, but they insisted on living in the country, although all previous Reichsvögte, or governors, had only come there occasionally, and had allowed the people to govern themselves. Unable to bear it, the celebrated ‘three,’ Stauffacher, Fürst, and Melchthal, whom you now know through Schiller, if from no other source, met together. Stauffacher came from Schwytz, Walther Fürst from Uri, and Arnold von Melchthal represented Unterwalden, and they chose for their meeting the central spot of the meadow, called the Rüti, which you will pass when sailing up the lake. Each brought ten others with them, and in their name and that of all their fellow-countrymen they took that oath which was quoted in the sermon as I read it just now. This union of the three cantons was the foundation of the Swiss Confederation. Lucerne joined it in 1332, and then it became the League of the Four Forest Cantons, all surrounding this lake. Some say that Tell was one of the ten from his canton, but others deny this. It does not much matter, for one fact is certain: that the whole country was discontented, and Gessler grew alarmed without knowing of the conspiracy, which alarm was the cause of his conduct towards Tell.”

“Oh! William Tell is all a myth,” exclaimed young C——, who never could conceal his sentiments on this point. “No one believes in him nowadays.”

“My dear young gentleman,” answered Herr H—— quietly, “it is easy for modern critics to say this. They may laugh and sneer as they like. Nothing is more easy than to argue against anything. I remember often hearing that Archbishop Whately—your own archbishop—was so convinced of this that he once undertook to write a pamphlet in this style, disproving the existence of the First Napoleon, and succeeded triumphantly. But I hold with Buckle—your own Buckle too!” he said, laughing—“who declares that he relies more on the strength of local traditions and on native bards than on anything else. The great argument against William Tell, I know perfectly well, is that the same story is to be found in Saxo-Grammaticus, and also in Sanscrit; but that does not disturb me, for there is no reason why the same sort of thing may not have happened in many a place. These mountaineers certainly had no means of studying either the one or the other in what you, no doubt, will call the 'dark ages'! Just have patience until you see the Tell chapels and hear a little more on the subject, and I hope you will change your mind. One thing is certain, namely, that Tell was not the cause of the conspiracy, and that his treatment did not make the confederates depart from their original plan, which was [pg 257] to rise on the New Year's night of 1308. In my humble opinion, Schiller has done poor William Tell no good, for between him and the opera the story has been so much popularized that this alone has raised all the doubts about it. People fancy it was Schiller's creation more or less, altogether forgetting that the chapels and the veneration for Tell have existed on the spot these hundreds of years. It is fortunate Arnold von Winkelried has not been treated in the same way, or we should doubt his existence too.”

“You have not told us anything about Sempach yet,” broke in Caroline C——, anxious to stop the discussion, which seemed likely to vex the old gentleman, especially as she well knew her brother's school-boy disposition for argument.

“Morgarten and much more occurred before that, mademoiselle,” answered Herr H——, “all tending to increase the national hatred of Austria. As a natural consequence of the Rüti and its uprising, Albrecht became enraged against the forest cantons, and marched at once to Switzerland with a large force. But a most unexpected, startling event happened. He had a nephew, Duke John of Swabia, who was his ward, but from whom he continued to withhold his patrimony on one pretext or another. The young man at length grew furious, and, as they were crossing this very same river Reuss at Windisch, Duke John stabbed his uncle, whilst a noble, a conspirator of John's, struck him on the head. There were a few others present, but in a panic they all fled, and left the Emperor of Germany to die in the arms of a poor woman who happened to be passing.

“The deed was so fearful that even Albrecht's worst enemies were horrified, and it is said that the murderers wandered over the world, and ultimately died as outcasts. Zurich shut its gates against them, and the forest cantons refused them all shelter. But Albrecht's family not only pursued them, but behaved inhumanly. His widow and two children, Duke Leopold and Agnes, Queen of Hungary, came at once to Switzerland, and seized innocent and guilty right and left, destroying without scruple the castle of any noble whom they suspected in the slightest degree, and executing all without mercy. Agnes in particular was cruel beyond measure. One story related of her by Swiss historians is that, after having witnessed the execution of sixty-three innocent knights, and whilst their blood was flowing at her feet, she exclaimed: ‘Now I am bathing in May-dew!’ Whether literally true or not, it shows what she must have been to have given cause for such a tale. In fact, the stories of her merciless character are too numerous and terrible to repeat now. At last she and her mother, the widow, built a magnificent convent on the site of the murder, which you may have heard of as Königsfelder, or the King's Field. There she subsequently retired to ‘end her days in piety’; but the people detested her, and Zschokke says that once when she was passing through the convent, and bowed to one of the monks, he turned round and boldly addressed her thus: ‘Woman! it is a bad way to serve God, first to shed innocent blood, and then to found convents from the spoils of the victims.’ She died there, and we have a piece of silk in the arsenal in Lucerne which formed part of her funeral apparel.”

“Oh! how horrible,” exclaimed [pg 258] Caroline C——. “But I would give anything to see it! How could we manage it?”

“Very easily,” replied Herr H——. “If you only have time, we might go there after dinner. It is close to the Spreuner Brücke, and I can get you in. There are many trophies also from Sempach, and other victories besides.”

“Do tell us about Sempach,” I interposed. “It is getting late, and I fear the dinner-bell will soon ring.”

“First came the battle of Morgarten, of which you will see the site from the top of the Rigi. Albrecht's son Leopold followed up his father's grudge against the forest cantons, and gave them battle there in 1308, when he was signally defeated. It was a glorious victory by a handful of peasants. But you will read about it on your journey. Sempach is our Lucerne property. It did not take place for sixty-nine years after Morgarten, but in the interval there had been constant fighting with the house of Austria, which still kept its possessions in Switzerland, and also with the nobles, who hated the towns-people, and clung to the Habsburgs more or less. It was about this time that a castle belonging to the latter, on this lake, just round the projecting corner to our left, was destroyed by the people. It was called here Habsburg, and has lately been restored by a foreigner. On all sides the worst feelings were kept alive, and it only required a spark to set all in a blaze. This eventually happened by some angry Lucerners levelling to the ground the castle of a knight who had imposed undue taxes upon them. He, on his side, appealed to the Habsburg of the day, who, by a curious coincidence, was also a Duke Leopold, son of the Leopold who was defeated at Morgarten. Full of anger, he gathered all his forces, and marched in hot haste against Lucerne. But on the heights near the Lake of Sempach he encountered the confederates. They had come from Lucerne, with contingents, though in small force, from all the forest cantons. It was hilly ground, most unfitted for cavalry; but Leopold would not wait for his infantry, and, making his heavily-armed knights dismount, he ordered them to rush with their pointed lances in close ranks on the enemy. It was like a wall of iron, and at first the confederates could make no impression upon it. They fell in numbers, and were just beginning to despair when a voice cried out, ‘I will open a path to freedom! Faithful, dearly-loved confederates, take care of my wife and child!’ and a man, rushing forward, seized as many lances as he could clasp, buried them in his own body, and fell dead. This was Arnold von Winkelried, an inhabitant of Stanz, about whom little else is known. Over his corpse his comrades pressed forward through the opening he had thus made, and they never again yielded the dear-bought advantage. The struggle became fearful on both sides; prodigies of valor were performed, and it is said that three standard-bearers were killed before the flag of Austria could be captured. Eventually the knights turned in order to retreat; but their heavy armor impeded them, and their men, sure of victory, had led their horses far away. So they were cut down by hundreds. Duke Leopold was killed by a man from Schwytz; but they all fought bravely, and defended their banners with such tenacity that one was found torn into small shreds, in order that the enemy [pg 259] might not get it, while its pole was firmly clenched between the teeth of the dead man who had been carrying it. That was the glorious battle of Sempach, which finally crushed the power of the Habsburgs in Switzerland, and after which our liberty was firmly established. Is it any wonder, then, that we celebrate it so religiously, or that the antipathy to Austria was so deeply rooted in the nation? The whole aim of the Habsburgs after Rudolph's reign, and of the nobles who were their vassals, was to crush our privileges and freedom. In consequence, they were so hated that no one could even venture to wear a peacock's feather, merely because it was the favorite ornament of the Austrian dukes. In fact, peacocks were forbidden in Switzerland; and a story is told, to show how far the feeling went, of a man having broken his wine-glass at a public tavern, merely because he fancied that he saw the colors of a peacock's tail in the play of the sun's rays on the glass.”

As Herr H—— pronounced these words the first dinner-bell rang, and we all rose, thanking him cordially for his most interesting lecture. Caroline C—— in particular was most grateful, declaring that she never could understand anything of Swiss history before, but now had the clearest view of its general bearings.

After dinner all except myself and Mrs. C—— started off at once for the arsenal to see the “relics,” as they now called them; but we two adjourned to the Hofkirche at four o'clock to listen to the organ, played there daily for strangers, as at Berne and Freyburg. The Lucerne instrument is not so well known as those two, but it is equally fine, if not finer. It was admirably played, too, and we sat entranced by its tones, especially by its heavenly Vox Angelica, fully sympathizing with Wordsworth when standing on the old Hofbridge that came up to the church hill in his day, and writing:

We had arranged to sleep that night at Vitznau, at the foot of the Rigi, in order to ascend by the first train next morning, and for this purpose were to leave in a six o'clock steamer. It seemed difficult to tear ourselves so quickly away from Lucerne, and the hurry was considerable. The remainder of our party, however, returned just in time, full of all they had seen—“Agnes' shroud,” a dreadful title for a piece of heavy silk used at her funeral, striped yellow and black, the Habsburg colors; Duke Leopold's coat-of-mail, in which he was killed at Sempach, and a dozen others; a heap of lances taken there; numbers of trophies from Grandson and Morat, the battles with Charles the Bold; but, what interested them most, the great standard of Habsburg, of yellow silk with a red lion on it, taken at Sempach, and another, a white flag, covered, they said, with blood, also captured there. Young C—— was most struck besides with a very old vase decorated with the meeting at the Rüti.

It was a lovely evening, but, though the sail promised to be delightful, we left Lucerne and its worthy citizen with regret, thanking him cordially, over and over again, for the interest he had given us in his country, and at last persuaded him to come and meet us in a day or two, and act as our cicerone in part of the forest cantons, which by his means already assumed a place in our affections.

A Legend Of Alsace. Concluded.

From The French Of M. Le Vicomte De Bussierre.

Wind And Tide.

Matter. IV.

To complete our investigation about the essential properties of matter, one great question remains to be answered, viz.: Is the matter of which bodies are made up intrinsically extended so as to fill a portion of space, or does it ultimately consist of unextended points? We call this a great question, not indeed because of any great difficulty to be encountered in its solution, but because it has a great importance in metaphysics, and because it has been at all times much ventilated by great philosophers.

That bodies do not fill with their matter the dimensions of their volume is conceded by all, as porosity is a general property of bodies. That the molecules, or chemical atoms, of which the mass of a body is composed, do not touch one another with their matter, but are separated by appreciable intervals of space, is also admitted by our best scientists, though many of them are of opinion that those intervals are filled with a subtle medium, by which calorific and luminous vibrations are supposed to be propagated. But with regard to the molecules themselves, the question, whether their constitution is continuous or discrete, has not yet been settled. Some teach, with the old physicists, that bodies are ultimately made up of particles materially continuous, filling with their mass the whole space occupied by their volume. These last particles they call atoms, because their mass is not susceptible of physical division, although their volume is infinitely divisible in a mathematical sense. Others, on the contrary, deny the material continuity of matter, and hold with Boscovich that, as all bodies are composed of discrete molecules, so are all molecules composed of discrete elements wholly destitute of material extension, occupying distinct mathematical points in space, and bound by mutual action in mechanical systems differently constituted, according to the different nature of the substances to which they belong.

Which of these two opinions is right? Although scientists more generally incline to the second, metaphysicians are still in favor of the first. Yet we do not hesitate to say, though it may appear presumptuous on our part, that it is not difficult to decide the question. Let the reader follow our reasoning upon the subject, and we confidently predict that he will soon be satisfied of the truth of our assertion.

Groundless assumption of continuous matter.—As the true metaphysics of matter must be grounded on real facts, we may first inquire what facts, if any, can be adduced in favor of the intrinsic extension and material continuity of molecules. Is there any sensible fact which directly or indirectly proves such a continuity?

We must answer in the negative. For sensible facts are perceived by us in consequence of the impressions [pg 273] which objects make on our senses; if, therefore, such impressions are not calculated to reveal anything concerning the question of material continuity, no sensible fact can be adduced as a proof of the continuity of matter. Now, the impressions made on our senses cannot reveal anything about our question. For we know that bodies contain not only millions of pores, which are invisible to the naked eye, but also millions of movable and separate particles, which are so minute that no microscope can make them visible, and which, though so extremely minute, are composed of millions of other particles still more minute, which have independent movements, and therefore possess an independent existence. There are many species of animalcules (infusoria) so small that millions together would not equal the bulk of a grain of sand, and thousands might swim at once through the eye of a needle. These almost infinitesimal animals are as well adapted to life as the largest beasts, and their movements display all the phenomena of life, sense, and instinct. They have nerves and muscles, organs of digestion and of propagation, liquids and solids of different kinds, etc. It is impossible to form a conception of the minute dimensions of these organic structures; and yet each separate organ of every animalcule is a compound of several organic substances, each in its turn comprising numberless atoms of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. It is plain from this and other examples that the actual magnitude of the ultimate molecules of any body is something completely beyond the reach of our senses to perceive or of our intellect to comprehend.73 We must therefore concede that no impression received by our senses is calculated to make us perceive anything like a molecule or to give us a clue to its constitution. To say that molecules are so many pieces of continuous matter is therefore to assert what no sensible fact can ever reveal.

Moreover, we know of no sensible phenomenon which has any necessary connection with the continuity of matter. Physicists and chemists, in their scientific explanation of phenomena, have no need of assuming the existence of continuous matter, and acknowledge that there are no facts from which the theory of simple and unextended elements can be refuted. And the reason of this is clear; for the phenomena can be made the ground of experimental proofs only so far as they are perceived by our senses; and since our perception of them is confined within the narrow limits above described, it is impossible to draw from sensible phenomena any distinct conclusion regarding the constitution of molecules. Hence it is plain that no sensible fact exists which directly or indirectly proves the continuity of matter.

Secondly, we may ask, Can the intrinsic extension and continuity of matter be proved from the essence of material substance?

The answer must again be negative. For nothing can in any manner be involved in, or result from, the essence of material substance, unless it be required either by the matter, or by the substantial form, or by the relation and proportion which must exist between the form and the matter. But neither the matter, nor the substantial form, nor their mutual relation requires [pg 274] material continuity or material extension. Therefore the essence of material substance cannot supply us with any valid argument in favor of the extension and continuity of matter.

In this syllogism the major proposition needs no proof, as it is evident that material substance, like all other created things, essentially consists of act and potency; and it is known that its act is called the substantial form, while its potency is called the matter.74 It is therefore manifest that, if anything has a necessary connection with the essence of material substance, it must be of such a nature as to be needed either by the matter or by the substantial form, or by both together.

The minor proposition can be demonstrated as follows: In the first place, continuous quantity is not needed by the matter, whether actuated or actuable. For, as actuable, the matter is a “mere potency” (pura potentia) which has yet to receive its “first actuality” (primum esse), as philosophers agree; and accordingly it has no actual quantity or continuous extension, nor is it potential with respect to it, as its potency regards only existence (primum esse), and evidently existence is not dimensive quantity. Hence the schoolmen unanimously maintain with Aristotle that the first matter has “no quiddity, no quality, and no quantity” (nec quid, nec quale, nec quantum)—a truth which we hope fully to explain in some future article. As actuated, the matter is nothing else than a substantial term susceptible of local motion; for we know from physics that material substance receives no other determination than to local movement, and for this reason, as we remarked in another place, it has been defined Ens mobile, or a movable thing. Now, a term, to be susceptible of local motion, needs no dimensions, as is evident. And therefore the matter, whether actuated or not, has nothing in its nature which requires continuous extension.

In the second place, material continuity is not required by the nature of the substantial form. This form may, in fact, be considered either as a principle of being or as a principle of operation. As a principle of being, it gives the first existence to its matter; and it is plain that to give the first existence is not to give bulk. Our adversaries teach that what gives bulk to the bodies is quantity; and yet, surely, they will not pretend that quantity is the substantial form. On the other hand, it is evident that to be and to have bulk are not the same thing; and since the substantial form merely causes the matter to be, it would be absurd to infer that it must also cause it to be extended. As a principle of operation, the form needs matter only as a centre from which its exertions are directed. Now, the direction [pg 275] of the exertion, as well as that of the movement, must be taken from a point to a point, not from a bulk to a bulk; and therefore the form, as a principle of operation, needs only one point of matter. Thus it is clear that no material extension is required to suit the wants of the substantial form.

In the third place, material extension is not required to make the matter proportionate to its substantial form. We shall see later that no form which requires a determinate quantity of mass can be a substantial form in the strict sense of the expression; at present it will suffice to keep in mind that the substantial form must give the first being to its matter, and that the matter is therefore perfectly proportioned to its substantial form by merely being in potency to receive its first being. Now, such a potency implies no extension; for if it did, the accident would precede the substance. Besides, the matter before its first actuation is a nonentity, and, as such, is incapable of any positive disposition, as we shall more fully explain in the sequel. But a determinate bulk would be a positive disposition. Hence the matter which receives its first actuation is proportionate to its form independently of material extension. We can therefore safely conclude that the essence of material substance supplies no proof whatever of the continuity of matter.

Thirdly, we ask, Can the continuity of matter be proved from mechanics?

Here also our answer must be negative. For the theorems of mechanics are each and all demonstrated quite independently of the question of material continuity. The old writers of mechanical works (or rather the old metaphysicians, from whom these writers borrowed their notion of matter) admitted the continuity of matter on two grounds: first, because they thought that nature abhorred a vacuum; and, secondly, because they rejected the actio in distans as impossible. But we have already shown that no action of matter upon matter is possible, except on the condition that the matter of the agent be distant from the matter of the patient; which implies that all the material particles, to act on their immediate neighbors, must be separately ubicated, with intervening vacuum. And thus the only reasons by which the ancients could plausibly support the continuity of matter have lost all weight in the light of modern mechanics.

Fourthly: Can the continuity of matter be inferred from geometrical considerations?

We reply that it cannot. For geometric quantity is not a quantity of matter, but a quantity of volume—that is, the quantity of space mensurable within certain limits. Hence it is evident that the continuity of the geometric quantity has nothing to do with the continuity of matter, and is not dependent on it, but wholly depends on the possibility of a continuous movement within the limits of the geometric space. In fact, we have in geometry three dimensions—length, breadth, and depth, which are simple lines. Now, a line is not conceived as made up of material points touching and continuing one another, but as the track of a point moving between certain limits; so that the continuity of the geometric dimensions is not grounded on any extension or continuation of material particles, but on the possibility of continuous movement, on which the continuity of time also depends. [pg 276] We must therefore remain satisfied that no geometrical consideration can lend the least support to the hypothesis of material continuity.

We have thus exhausted all the sources from which any à priori or à posteriori argument in favor of material continuity might have been drawn, if any had been possible; and the result of our investigation authorizes the conclusion that the hypothesis of continuous matter is both scientifically and philosophically gratuitous.

False reasonings in behalf of continuous matter.—But some philosophers, who are afraid that the denial of material continuity may subvert all the scholastic doctrines (to which they most laudably, but perhaps too exclusively, adhere in questions of natural science), contend that the existence of continuous matter can be established by good philosophical reasons. It is therefore our duty, before we proceed further, to acquaint our reader with such reasons, and with our answers to them.

The first reason is the following: Geometry is a real, not a chimerical, science; and therefore it has to deal with real bodies—not indeed inasmuch as they are substances, but inasmuch as they have a quantity which can be considered in the abstract. Hence we must admit that the geometric quantity is a quantity of matter considered in the abstract; and accordingly, if the geometric quantity is continuous and infinitely divisible, as no one doubts, the quantity of matter in the bodies must also be continuous and infinitely divisible.

We reply that bodies have two very different kinds of quantity—the quantity of the mass and the quantity of the volume—and that geometry deals indeed with the latter, but has nothing to do with the former. Hence the geometric quantity is a quantity of volume or bulk, not a quantity of matter; and therefore to argue that, because the geometric quantity is continuous and infinitely divisible, the same must be true of the quantity of matter, is to make an inexcusable confusion of matter with space. The argument might have some value, if the quantity of the volume could be measured by the quantity of the mass; but no one who has studied the first elements of physics can be ignorant that such is not the case. Equal masses are found under unequal volumes, and unequal masses under equal volumes. Volumes preserve the same geometric nature and the same geometric quantity, be they filled with matter or not. A cubic inch of platinum and a cubic inch of water contain different amounts of matter, since the former weighs twenty-one times as much as the latter; and yet they are geometrically equal. Geometry is not concerned with the density of bodies; and therefore geometrical quantities are altogether independent of the quantity of matter, and cannot be altered except by altering the relative position of the extreme terms between which their three dimensions are measured. These dimensions are not made up of matter, but are mere relations in space, with or without interjacent matter, representing, as we have already observed, the quantity of continuous movement which is possible between the correlated terms; and their continuity depends on the continuity of space, not of matter.

The author from whom we have taken this objection pretends also that the geometric quantity possesses no other attributes than those which belong to all quantity, and are [pg 277] essential to it; whence he concludes that whatever is predicated of geometric quantity must also be predicated of the quantity of matter. But the assumption is evidently false; for it is not of the essence of all quantity to be continuous as the geometric quantity, it being manifest that discrete quantity is a true quantity, although it has no continuity. The general notion of quantity extends to everything which admits of more or less; hence there is intensive quantity, extensive quantity, and numeric quantity. The first is measured by arbitrary degrees of intensity; the second is measured by arbitrary intervals of space and time; the third is measured by natural units—that is, by individual realities as they exist in nature. It is therefore absurd to pretend that whatever can be predicated of geometric quantity must be predicated of all kinds of quantity.

The second reason adduced in behalf of material continuity is as follows: To deny the continuity of matter is to destroy all real extension. For how can real extension arise from simple unextended points arranged in a certain manner, and acting upon one another? The notions of simplicity, order, and activity transcend the attributions of matter, and are applicable to all spiritual beings. If, then, extension could arise from simple unextended elements by their arrangement and actions, why could not angels, by meeting in a sufficient number and acting on one another, give rise to extension, and form, say, a watermelon?

This argument has no weight whatever; but, as it appeared not many years ago in a Catholic periodical of great reputation, we have thought it best to give it a place among other arguments of the same sort. Our answer is that to deny the continuity of matter is not to deny real extension, but only to maintain that no real extension is made up of continuous matter. And we are by no means embarrassed to explain “how real extension can arise from simple unextended points.” The thing is very plain. Two points, A and B, being given in space, the interval of space between them is a real interval, really determined by the real points A and B, and really determining the extension of the real movement possible between the same points. Such an interval is therefore a real extension. This is the way in which real extension arises from unextended points.

Nor can it be objected that nothing extended can be made up of unextended points. This is true, of course, but has nothing to do with the question. For we do not pretend that extension is made up by composition of points—which would be a very gross error—but we say that extension results from the simple position of real points in space, and that it results not in them, but between them. It is the mass of the body that is made up of its components; and thus the sum A + B represents a mass, not an extension. The geometric dimensions, on the contrary, consist entirely of relations between distinct points intercepting mensurable space. The distinct points are the terms of the relation, while the extent of the space mensurable between them by continuous movement is the formal reason of their relativity. And since this continuous movement may extend more or less, according as the terms are variously situated, hence the resulting relation has the nature of continuous [pg 278] quantity. This suffices to show that to deny the continuity of matter is not to destroy all real extension.

And now, what shall we say of those angels freely uniting to form a watermelon? It is hardly necessary to say that this bright idea is only a dream. There is no volume without dimensions, no dimension without distance, and no distance without terms distinctly ubicated in space and marking out the point where the distance begins, and the point where it ends. Now, nothing marks out a point in space but matter. Angels, as destitute of matter, mark no points in space, and accordingly cannot terminate distances nor give rise to dimensions. Had they matter, they would, like the simple elements, possess a formal ubication in space, and determine dimensions; but, owing to their spiritual nature, they transcend all local determinations, and have no formal ubication except in the intellectual sphere of their spiritual operation. It is therefore owing to their spirituality, and not to their simplicity, that they cannot form themselves into a volume. Lastly, we must not forget that the “angelic” watermelon should have not only volume, but mass also. Such a mass would, of course, be made up without matter. How a mass can be conceived without matter is a profound secret, which the author of the argument very prudently avoided to reveal. But let us come to another objection.

A third reason adduced in favor of continuous matter is that we cannot, without employing a vicious circle, account for the extension of bodies by the notion either of space, distance, or movement. For these notions already presuppose extension, and cannot be formed without a previous knowledge of what extension is. To think of space is, in fact, to think of extension. So also distance cannot be conceived except by imagining something extended, which lies, or can lie, between the distant terms. Hence, to avoid the vicious circle, it is necessary to trace the origin of our notion of extension to the matter we see in the bodies. And therefore our very notion of extension is a sufficient proof of the existence of continuous matter.

We reply that this reason is even less plausible than the preceding one. To form the abstract notion of extension, we must first directly perceive some extension in the concrete, in the same manner as we must perceive concrete humanity in individual men before we conceive humanity in the abstract. But in all sensible movements we directly perceive extension through space and time. Therefore from sensible movements, without a previous knowledge of extension, we can form the notion of extension in general. Is there any one who can find in this a vicious circle?

This answer might suffice. But we will further remark that the argument may be retorted against its author. For if we cannot conceive movement as extending in space without a previous knowledge of extension, how can we conceive matter as extending in space without a previous knowledge of extension? And how can we conceive matter as continuous without a previous knowledge of continuity, or time as enduring without a previous knowledge of duration? To these questions the author of the argument can give no satisfactory answer without solving his own objection. Space, distance, and [pg 279] movement, says he, involve extension; and therefore they cannot be known “without a previous knowledge of what extension is.” It is evident that this conclusion is illogical; for if space, distance, and movement imply extension, we cannot perceive space, distance, and movement without directly perceiving extension; and, since the direct perception of a thing does not require a previous knowledge of it, the logical conclusion should have been that, to perceive space, distance, and movement, no previous knowledge of extension is needed.

On the other hand, while our senses perceive the extension of continuous movement in space, they are not competent to perceive material continuity in natural bodies. Hence it is from movement, and not from matter, that our notion of continuous extension is derived. In fact, to form a conception of the dimensions of a body, we survey it by a continuous movement of our eyes from one end of it to the other. In this movement the eye glides over innumerable pores, by which the material particles of the body are separated. If our conception of the geometric extension of the body depended on the continuity of its matter, these pores, as not consisting of continuous matter, should all be thrown away in the measurement of the body. Why, then, do we consider them as contributing with their own dimensions to form the total dimensions of the body? Merely because the geometric dimensions are estimated by movement, and not by matter.

Nor is it in the least strange that we should know extension from movement, and not from matter. For no one can perceive extension between two terms, unless he measures by continuous movement the space intercepted between them. The local relation between two terms cannot, in fact, be perceived otherwise than by referring the one term to the other through space; hence no one ever perceives a distance between two given terms otherwise than by drawing, at least mentally, a line from the one to the other—that is, otherwise than by measuring by some movement the extent of the movement which can take place between the two given terms. And this is what the very word extension conveys. For this word is composed of the preposition ex, which connotes the term from which the movement begins, and of the verb tendere, which is a verb of motion. And thus everything shows that it is from motion, and not from continuous matter, that our first notion of extension proceeds.

A sharp opponent, however, might still object that before we can perceive any movement we need to perceive something movable—that is, visible matter. But no matter is visible unless it be extended. Therefore extension must be perceived in matter itself before we can perceive it in local movement.

But we answer, first, that although nothing can be perceived by our senses unless it be extended, nevertheless we can see extended things without perceiving their extension. Thus we see many stars as mere points in space, and yet we can perceive their movement from the east to the west. Hence, although matter is not visible unless it be extended, it does not follow that extension must be first perceived in matter itself.

Secondly, we answer that when we perceive the movable matter as extended, we do not judge of its [pg 280] extension by its movement, but by the movement which we ourselves have to make in going from one of its extremities to the other. This is the only way of perceiving extension in space. For how could we conceive anything as extended, if we could not see that it has parts outside of parts? And how could we pronounce that anything has parts outside of parts, if we did not see that between one part and another there is a possibility of local movement? On the other hand, as soon as we perceive the possibility of local movement between distinct parts, we have sufficient evidence of geometric extension. And thus we have no need of continuous matter in order to perceive the volume of bodies.

Before we dismiss this subject, we must add that the advocates of continuous matter, while fighting against us, shield themselves with two other arguments. If matter is not continuous, they say, bodies will consist of mere mathematical points acting at a distance; but actio in distans is the extreme of absurdity, and therefore bodies cannot consist of mathematical points. They also allege that nature abhors a vacuum, and therefore all space must be filled up with matter; which would be impossible, were not matter continuous. That nature abhors a vacuum was once considered a physical axiom; but, since science has destroyed the physical grounds on which the pretended axiom rested, metaphysics has in its turn been appealed to, that the time-honored dictum may not be consigned to complete oblivion. It has therefore been pretended that space without matter is a mere delusion, and consequently that to make extension dependent on empty intervals of space imagined to intervene between material points is to give a chimerical solution of the question of material extension.

The first of these two arguments we have fully answered in our last article, and we shall not again detain our readers with it. Let us notice, however, that when the elements of matter are called “mathematical” points, the sense is not that they are not physical, but only that those physical points are mathematically, or rigorously, unextended.

The second argument assumes that space void of matter is nothing. As we cannot enter here into a detailed examination of the nature of absolute space, we shall content ourselves with the following answer: 1st. All real relations require a real foundation. Real distances are real relations. Therefore real distances have a real foundation. But their foundation is nothing else than absolute space; and therefore absolute space is a reality. 2d. If empty space is nothing, then bodies were created in nothing, occupy nothing, and all spaces actually occupied are nothing. To say, as so many have said, that empty space is nothing, and that space occupied by matter is a reality, is to say that the absolute is nothing until it becomes relative—a proposition which is the main support of German pantheism, and which every man of sense must reject. 3d. Of two different recipients, the greater has a greater capacity independently of the matter which it may contain; for, whether it be filled with the rarest gas or with the densest metal, its capacity does not vary. It is therefore manifest that its capacity is not determined by the matter it contains, but only by the space intercepted between its [pg 281] limits. In the same manner the smaller recipient has less capacity, irrespective of the matter it may contain, and only in consequence of the space intercepted. If, therefore, space, prescinding from the matter occupying it, is nothing, the greater capacity will be a greater nothing, and the less capacity a less nothing. But greater and less imply quantity, and quantity is something. Therefore nothing will be something.

We hope we shall hereafter have a better opportunity of developing these and other considerations on space; but the little we have said is sufficient, we believe, to show that the assumption of the unreality of space unoccupied by matter is a philosophical absurdity.

We conclude that the existence of continuous matter cannot be proved, and that those philosophers who still admit it cannot account for it by anything like a good argument. They can only shelter themselves behind the prejudices of their infancy, which they have been unable to discard, or behind the venerable authority of the ancients, who, though deserving our admiration in other respects, were led astray by the same popular prejudices, owing to their limited knowledge of natural science. We may be allowed to add that if the ancient philosophers are not to be blamed for admitting continuous matter, the same cannot be said of those among our contemporaries who, in the present state of science, are still satisfied with their authority on the subject.

Mysterious attributes of continuous matter.—Now, let us suppose that bodies, or their molecules, are made up of continuous matter, just as our opponents maintain; and let us see what must necessarily follow from such a gratuitous assumption. In the first place, it follows that a piece of continuous matter cannot be actuated by a single substantial act. This is easily proved.

For a single act gives a single actual being; which is inconsistent with the nature of continuous matter. Matter, to be continuous, must actually contain distinct parts, united indeed, but having distinct ubications in space. Now, with a single substantial act there cannot be distinct actual parts; for all actual distinction, according to the axiom of the schools, implies distinct acts: Actus est qui distinguit. Therefore continuous matter cannot be actuated by a single substantial act.

Again, a piece of continuous matter has dimensions, of which the beginning and the end must be quite distinct, the existence of the one not being the existence of the other. But it is impossible for two things which have a distinct existence to be under the same substantial act; for there cannot be two existences without two formal principles. Hence, if there were any continuous matter, the beginning and the end of its dimensions should be actuated by distinct acts; and the same would be true of any two distinct points throughout the same dimensions. Nor does it matter that the dimensions are supposed to be formed of one unbroken piece; for, before we conceive distinct parts, or terms, as forming the continuation of one another, we must admit the substance of such parts, as their continuation presupposes their being. Hence, however intimately the parts may be united, they always remain substantially distinct; which implies that each one of them must have its own substantial act.

Moreover, continuous extension is divisible. If, then, there is anywhere a piece of continuous matter, it may be divided into two, by God at least. But as division is not a magical operation, and does not give the first existence to the things which are divided, it is plain that the parts which after the division exist separately must have had their own distinct existence before the division; and, evidently, they could not have a distinct existence without being actuated by distinct substantial acts. What we say of these two parts applies to whatever other parts are obtainable by continuing the division. Whence it is manifest that continuous matter needs as many substantial acts as it has divisible parts.

The advocates of continuous matter try to decline this consequence by pretending that matter, so long as it is undivided, is one matter and needs only one form; but this form, according to them, is divisible; hence when the matter is divided, each part of the matter retains its own portion of the substantial form, and thus the same form which gives existence to the whole gives existence to the separate parts. This is, however, a mere subterfuge; for the undivided matter is indeed one accidentally, inasmuch as it has no division of parts; but it is not one substantially, because it has distinction of parts. This distinction exists before the division is made, and we have already seen that no actual distinction is possible without distinct acts. And again, the hypothesis that substantial forms are divisible, is a ridiculous fiction, to say the least. For nothing is divisible which has no multiplicity of parts and consequently a multiplicity of acts. How, then, can a substantial act, which is a single act, be conceived as divisible?

They also argue that as the soul, which is a simple form, actuates the whole matter of the body, so can the material form actuate continuous matter. This comparison may have some weight with those who confound the essential with the substantial forms, and believe that the soul gives the first being to the matter of the body. But the truth is that the substance of the soul is the essential form of the living organism, and not the substantial form giving the first being to matter. The organism and its matter must have their being in nature before being animated by the soul; each part of matter in the body has therefore its own distinct material form and its own distinct existence. The soul is a principle of life, and gives nothing but life.75 Hence the aforesaid comparison is faulty, and leads to no conclusion.

In the second place it follows that no continuous matter can be styled a single substance.

For within the dimensions of continuous matter there must be as many distinct substantial acts as there are material points distinct from one another; it being clear that distinct points cannot have the same substantial actuation, and accordingly require distinct substantial acts and constitute distinct substances. Against this some will object that a mere point of matter is incapable of supporting the substantial form. But we have already shown that the substantial form is not supported by its matter, as the objection assumes, but only terminated to it, the matter being the substantial term, not the subject, of the substantial form.76 On the [pg 283] other hand, it is manifest that a form naturally destined to act in a sphere, by actuating a single point of matter, actuates just as much matter as its nature requires. For it is from a single point, not from many, that the action must be directed. Hence nothing more than a point of matter is required to terminate the substantial form and to constitute a perfect substance. Additional proofs of this truth will be found in our next article, where we shall rigorously demonstrate the impossibility of continuous matter. Meanwhile, nothing withstands our conclusion that there must be as many distinct substances in continuous matter as there are distinct points within its dimensions.

In the third place, it follows that this multitude of distinct substances is not merely potential, but actual.

This conclusion is very clear. For every multitude of actual parts is an actual multitude, or, as they say, a multitude in act. But in continuous matter all the parts are actual, although they are not actually separated. Therefore the multitude of such parts is an actual multitude.

The upholders of continuous matter do not admit that this multitude is actual; they contend that it is only potential. For were they to concede that it is actual, they would be compelled to admit either that it is actually finite, or that it is actually infinite. Now, they cannot say that it is actually finite, because this would be against the well-known nature of continuum, which admits of an endless division, and therefore contains a multitude of parts which has no end. On the other hand, they cannot say that it is actually infinite; because, even admitting the absolute possibility of a multitude actually infinite, it would still be absurd to assert that such is the case with a piece of matter having finite dimensions. Indeed, Leibnitz and Descartes did not hesitate to teach this latter absurdity; but they could not make it fashionable, and were soon abandoned even by their own disciples. Thus the difficulty remained; and philosophers, being unable to solve it, tried to decline it by denying that there can be in the continuum an actual multitude of parts. This was, in fact, the view of the old advocates of continuous matter, who uniformly admitted that the parts of an unbroken continuum are merely potential, and form a potential multitude. For, they say, the actual multitude results from actual division, and therefore has no existence in the undivided continuum.

This last view would be very good, if the continuum in question were successive—as is the case with movement and time, which are always in fieri, and exist only by infinitesimals in an infinitesimal present, or if the continuum in question were virtual, as is the case with any mensurable interval of space; for evidently in these continuums no actual multitude is to be found. But the case is quite different with continuous matter. For he who asserts the existence of continuous matter asserts the existence of a thing having parts formally distinct and simultaneous. He therefore affirms the actual existence of a formal multitude of distinct parts, or, in other terms, an actual multitude. To deny the actual multitude of the parts, on the plea that there is no actual division, is to take refuge in a miserable sophism, which consists in denying the substantial distinction of the parts on the ground that [pg 284] they are not divided, and in ignoring their actual being solely because they have not a certain special mode of being.

As to the axiom that “Number results from division,” two things are to be noticed. The first is that the term “division” here means mensuration, not separation. Thus we divide the day into twenty-four hours, without discontinuing time for all that; and in like manner we divide the length of a journey into miles without discontinuing space. This shows that the numbers obtained by the division of the continuum are only artificially or virtually discrete, and that the continuum remains unbroken. The second is that a number is not merely a multitude, but a multitude measured by a certain unit, as S. Thomas aptly defines it: Numerus est multitudo mensurata per unum. Hence, if the unit of measure is arbitrary (as is the case with all continuous quantities), the same quantity can be expressed by different numbers, according as a different unit is employed in measuring it. But so long as the unit is not determined, the quantity cannot be expressed by any definite number. And if the unit employed be less than any given finite quantity, the thing which is measured will contain a multitude of such units greater than any given number. All such units exist in the thing measured prior to its mensuration; and as such units are actual and distinct, there can be no doubt that they constitute an actual multitude.

Some modern advocates of continuous matter have imagined another means of evading the difficulty. Tongiorgi admits extended atoms of continuous matter, but denies that their parts are actually distinct. As, however, he confesses that extension requires parts outside of parts (Cosmol., n. 143), we may ask him: Are not such parts actually distinct? Distinction is a negation of identity; and surely parts existing actually outside of one another are not actually identical. They are therefore actually distinct. Now, to use the very words of the author, “where there are distinct parts there is a plurality of units, that is, a multitude, although the parts which are distinct be united in a common term, as is the case with the parts of continuum”;77 and therefore it is manifest that the continuous atom involves actual multitude.

Liberatore does not entirely deny the actual distinction of the parts in continuous matter, but maintains that the distinction is incomplete, and accordingly cannot give rise to an actual multitude. The parts of a continuum, says he, are united in a common term; hence they are incompletely distinct, and make no number, but are all one. They are outside of one another, yet in such a manner as to be also inside of one another. They do not subsist in themselves, but in the whole. The whole displays many parts, but it is one, and its parts are so indeterminate that they cannot be measured except by an arbitrary measure.78

This view scarcely deserves to be discussed, as the author himself owns that it makes continuous matter seem somewhat contradictory—Contradictoriis quodammodo notis subditur—though he attributes this kind of contradiction to the opposition which exists between the matter [pg 285] and the form—an explanation which we do not admit for reasons which we shall give in our next article. But as to the assertion that the parts of a continuum, on account of their having a common term, are only incompletely distinct, we can show at once that the author is much mistaken. Incomplete distinction is a distinction which does not completely exclude identity. Hence where there is incomplete distinction there is also incomplete identity. Now, not a shadow of identity is to be found between any two parts of continuum. Therefore any two parts of continuum are completely distinct. Thus each of the twenty-four hours into which we divide the day is completely distinct from every other, although the one is united with the other in a common term; for it is evident that the common term, having no extension, is no part of extension, and therefore cannot originate identity between any two parts of extension. To say that there is some identity, and therefore an incomplete distinction, between two extensions, because they have a common term which has no extension, is to pretend that the unextended has some identity with the extended; and this pretension is absurd. We conclude that, in spite of all the efforts of our opponents, it is manifest that continuous matter would be an actual multitude of distinct, though not separated, substances.

Lastly, it follows that actual continuous matter would be an actual infinite multitude of substances.

This conclusion is fully warranted by the infinite divisibility of the continuum. But here again the advocates of material continuity contend that this divisibility is potential, and can never be reduced to act; whence they infer that the multitude of the parts is not actual, but potential. We, however, repeat that if the division is potential, the divisible matter is certainly actual; and therefore the potency of an infinite division presupposes an infinite multitude of distinct terms actually existing in the divisible matter. And as we have already shown that each distinct term must have a distinct substantial act, we must conclude that the least piece of continuous matter would consist of an infinite actual multitude of substances—a consequence whose monstrosity needs no demonstration.

Hence we are not surprised to see that Goudin, one of the great champions of the old physics, considers continuous matter as “a philosophic mystery, about which reason teaches more than it can understand, and objects more than it can answer.”79 He tries, however, to explain the mystery in some manner, by adding that “when the continuum is said to be infinitely divisible, this must be understood mathematically, not physically—that is, by considering the quantity as it is in itself, not as it is the property of a corporeal form. For in the process of the division we might finally reach a part so small that, if smaller, it would be insufficient to bear any natural form. Nevertheless, mathematically speaking, in that smallest physical part there would still be two halves, and in these halves other halves, and so on without end.”80

This explanation is taken from S. Thomas (I Phys., lect. I.), and shows philosophical thought; but, far from solving the difficulty, it rather proves that it is insoluble. For if, mathematically speaking, in the smallest bit of continuous matter there are still halves, and halves of halves, clearly there are in it distinct parts of matter, and therefore distinct forms actuating each of them distinctly, as the being of each part is not the being of any other part. It is therefore false that nothing smaller is sufficient to bear any natural form. And hence the difficulty is not solved. On the other hand, the necessity of resorting to purely mathematical (geometric) quantity clearly shows that it is the space inclosed in the volume of the body (of which alone geometry treats), and not the matter (of which geometry has nothing to say), that is infinitely divisible; and this amounts to a confession that continuous matter has no existence.

While making these remarks, we willingly acknowledge that S. Thomas and all the ancients who considered air, water, fire, and earth as the first elements of all things, were perfectly consistent in teaching that natural forms require a definite amount of matter. For by “natural forms” they meant those forms from which the specific properties of sensible things emanate. Now, all things that are sensible are materially compounded in a greater or less degree, and possess properties which cannot be ascribed to a single material point. So far, then, these ancient philosophers were right. But they should have considered that the required amount of matter ought to consist of distinct parts, having their own distinct being, and therefore their own distinct substantial acts. This would have led them to the conclusion that the natural form of air, water, etc., was not a form giving the first being to the material parts, but a form of natural composition giving the first being to the compound nature. But let us stop here for the present. We have shown that continuous matter cannot be proved to exist, and is, at best, a “philosophic mystery.” In our next article we shall go a step further, and prove that material continuity is a metaphysical impossibility.

To Be Continued.

New Publications.

This manual for ecclesiastical students is confessedly the best extant. Dr. Pabisch, the chief translator and editor, is well known for his vast erudition, and his associate, the Rev. Mr. Byrne, has paid careful attention to the style of rendering the German into English. The publishers have made the exterior of the work worthy of its contents. We need not say any more to recommend a work which speaks for itself and has received the sanction of names the highest in ecclesiastical rank and theological repute in this country.

This is a valuable work, because it is the only one of its kind, and, even were there others, it would stand on its own merits and still be valuable.

Scotland being so closely united in its history and destinies, and having so much in common with the sister countries, the history of the Scottish Church must necessarily have a close affinity and throw much light upon the ecclesiastical annals of England and Ireland; so that the interest and importance of this work is greatly heightened by the fact that it supplies an integral part of the history of Christianity in the British Isles. Hitherto that history was not complete. It may be said to be completed now. If those among our separated brethren who pretend to seek so diligently after truth in the teachings and practices of the early church will deign to glance at these pages, they will find that Scotland too was evangelized by the popes, and that its first Christians professed, not a mutilated Christianity, but the whole cycle of Catholic doctrine. They will learn, moreover, that the so-called Reformation in Scotland was entirely a political job, and that there, as elsewhere, the Protestantism in which they pride themselves was tinkered up by a herd of fanatics and foisted upon the people by a rapacious, profligate, unprincipled nobility. Never was there a more truthful page of history written than this. The author, though he modestly claims for himself nothing more than the title of compiler, has many of the qualifications of an historian; his research has been long and laborious, and he notices only the most authentic documents and records of the past. In no instance do we discover any attempt to color or gloss over any of his statements, and he is never betrayed into exaggerating the virtues or concealing the faults of his countrymen.

As a manual of mythology this seems to be as concise, complete, and accurate as such a book can be made. As a specimen of art it is remarkable. The author is apparently one of our modern, cultivated pagans, very much at home among the heathen religions he describes. The very brief exposition of his own theological opinions contained in his introduction ignores the true and primitive religion revealed from heaven altogether, and propounds the utterly unhistorical, pernicious, and false notion that monotheism is a development from polytheism produced by intellectual progress. The author does not, however, put forth anti-Christian views in an offensive or obtrusive manner, and indeed all he says is included in a few sentences. We cannot, certainly, recommend the study [pg 288] of pagan mythology to young pupils, or consider the present volume as suitable for indiscriminate perusal. Those who are fit for such studies, and for whom they are necessary or proper, will find it a very satisfactory compendium of information and a work of truly classical taste and elegance.

This volume completes the work of Dr. Curtius. We have already given it the high commendation which it deserves in our notices of previous volumes. It is one of the first-class historical works of German scholarship, and this is the highest praise that can be given to any work in those departments in which German scholars excel, so far as learning and ability are concerned.

Looking through this treatise of Prof. Torrey, whose intellectual head, stamped in gold on the cover, leads the reader to expect a thoughtful work on the most attractive subject of æsthetics, our impression is decidedly favorable. The University of Vermont used to be considered as quite remarkable for an elevated, philosophical tone. Such seems to be the character of this condensed summary of the retired professor's lectures on art, evidently the result of much study and observation, and given to the reader in that pleasing style which best suits such a very pleasant branch of knowledge.

It is enough to name the author of this collection of short, lively essays—Dr. Marshall. It is the cream of the London Tablet's articles, during the author's active connection with that journal, on the most living and interesting topics of the day in regard to the warfare between the Catholic Church and her enemies. We recommend it to universal reading and circulation in the warmest possible manner, and with the most sincere desire that the author may long be spared to continue his admirable and useful career as a champion of religion and truth.

This romance does not belie its name in its contents. Its plot and incidents are romantic and tragic in the highest degree. Bordering, at least, on the improbable, as they are, they are nevertheless managed with a very considerable degree of skill and power by the author, who has improved very much on her last story, In Six Months. The characters are drawn with free and bold strokes, and have dramatic individuality. The plot excites even a painful interest all through, and there is no mawkish sentimentalism anywhere. Some scenes are remarkably well drawn. There are no lectures on religion or morals, but the purity of a true Catholic woman's faith and morality shines through the whole story. We may congratulate the fair author on her success.

An interesting story, beautifully illustrated and neatly bound.

In this little book the authoress relates some of the wonderful miracles of Lourdes. Its style is simple and chaste, and, we should say, particularly suited for children.

The Persecution Of The Church In The German Empire.

The Catholics are suffering today, in the very heart of Europe, a persecution which, if less bloody, is not less cruel or unjust, than that which afflicted the Christian Church in the beginning of the IVth century, under the reign of the brutal old emperor, Diocletian. The prisons of Germany are filled with confessors of the faith, who, in the midst of every indignity and outrage, bear themselves with a constancy and heroism not unworthy of the early martyrs. And it is strange, too, that this struggle should be only a renewal of the old conflict between Christ and Cæsar, between the Son of Man and the prince of this world. In fact, anti-Christian Europe is using every exertion to re-create society on the model of Grecian and Roman paganism. This tendency is manifest in all the various realms of thought and action.

We perceive it—and we speak now more particularly of Germany—in literature, in science, in the manner of dealing with all the great problems which concern man in his relations with both the visible and the unseen world; and it looms up before us, in palpable form and gigantic proportions, in the whole attitude of the state toward the church. There has never lived on this earth a more thorough pagan than Goethe, the great idol of German literature, to whom the very sign of the cross was so hateful that in his notorious Venetian Epigram he put it side by side with garlic and vermin. The thought of self-sacrifice and self-denial was so odious to his lustful and all-indulgent nature that he turned from its great emblem with uncontrollable disgust, and openly proclaimed himself a “decidirter Nichtchrist.” “Das Ewig Weibliche”—sensualism and sexualism—were the gods of his heart, in whose praise alone he attuned his lyre. And Schiller, in his Gods of Greece, complained sorrowingly that all the fair world of gods and goddesses [pg 290] should have vanished, that one (the God of the Christian) might be enriched; and with tender longing he prayed that “nature's sweet morn” might again return.

Both the religion and the philosophy of paganism were based upon the deification of nature, and were consequently pantheistic. Now, this pagan pantheism recrudescent is the one permanent type amid the endless variations of modern German sophistry. It underlies the theorizing of Schelling, Fichte, and Hegel, as well as that of Feuerbach, Büchner, and Strauss. They all assume the non-existence of a personal God, and transfer his attributes to nature, which is, in their eyes, the mother of all, the sole existence, and the supreme good. This pantheism, which confuses all things in extricable chaos, spirit with matter, thought with sensation, the infinite with the finite, destroying the very elements of reason, and taking from language its essential meaning, has infected all non-Catholic thought in Germany. When we descend from the misty heights of speculation, we find pantheistic paganism in the idolatry of science and culture, which have taken the place of dogma and morality. It is held to be an axiom that man is simply a product of nature, who knows herself in him as she feels herself in the animal.

The formulas in which the thought is clothed are of minor importance. In the ultimate analysis we find in all the conflicting schools of German infidelity this sentiment, however widely its expression may vary: that nature is supreme, and there is no God beside. The cosmos, instead of a personal God, is the ultimate fact beyond which science professes to be unable to proceed; and therefore the duality of ends, aims, and results which underlies the Christian conception of the universe must necessarily disappear. There is no longer God and the world, spirit and matter, good and evil, heaven and hell; there is not even man and the brute. There is only the cosmos, which is one; and from this it necessarily follows that the distinction between the spiritual and the temporal power is unreal and should cease to be recognized.

Now, here we have discovered the very germ from which the whole Prussian persecution has sprung. In the last analysis it rests upon the assumption that the spiritual power has no right to exist, since the truths upon which it was supposed to be based—as God, the soul, and a future life—are proven to be myths. Hence the state is the only autonomy, and to claim authority not derived from it is treason. Thus the struggle now going on in Prussia is for life or death. It rages around the very central citadel of the soul and of all religion. The Catholics of Germany are to-day contending for what the Christians of the first centuries died—the right to live. To understand this better it will be well to consider for a moment the attributes of the state in pagan Greece and Rome.

Hellenic religion, in its distinctive forms, had its origin in the deification of nature and of man as her crowning work, and both were identified with the state. Hence religion was hero-worship; the good man was the good citizen, the saint was the successful warrior who struck terror into the enemies of his country, and thus the religious feeling was confounded with the patriotic spirit. To be a true citizen of the state, it was necessary [pg 291] to profess the national religion; and to be loyal to the state was to be true to its protecting gods. The highest act of religion was to beat back the invader or to die gloriously on the battle-field. Indeed, in paganism we find no idea of a non-national religion. The pagan state, whether imperial, monarchical, or republican, was essentially tyrannical, wholly incompatible with freedom as understood in Christian society. To be free was to be, soul and body, the slave of the state. Plato gives to his ideal Republic unlimited power to control the will of the individual, to direct all his thoughts and actions, to model and shape his whole life. He merges the family and its privileges into the state and its rights, gives the government absolute authority in the education of its subjects, and even places the propagation of the race under state supervision.

The pagan state was also essentially military, recognizing no rights except those which it had not the power to violate. Now, the preaching of Christ was in direct contradiction to this whole theory of government. He declared that God and the soul have rights as well as Cæsar, and proclaimed the higher law which affirms that man has a destiny superior to that of being a citizen of any state, however glorious; which imposes upon him duties that transcend the sphere of all human authority. Thus religion became the supreme law of life, and the recognition of the indefeasible rights of conscience gave to man citizenship in a kingdom not of this world. It, in consequence, became his duty as well as his privilege to obey first the laws of this supernatural kingdom, and to insist upon this divine obligation, even though the whole world should oppose him.

This teaching of Christ at once lifted religion above the control of the state, and, cutting loose the bonds of servitude which had made it national and narrow, declared it catholic, of the whole earth and for all men. He sent his apostles, not to the Jew, or the Greek, or the Gentile, but to all the nations, and in his church he recognized no distinction of race or social condition—the slave was like the freeman, the beggar like the king.

This doctrine, the most beneficent and humanitarian that the world has ever heard, brought forth from the oblivion of ages the all-forgotten truth of the brotherhood of the race, and raised man to a level on which paganism was not able even to contemplate him; proclaiming that man, for being simply man, irrespective of race, nationality, or condition, is worthy of honor and reverence. Now, it was precisely this catholic and non-national character of the religion of Christ which brought it into conflict with the pagan state. The Christians, it was held, could not be loyal citizens of the empire, because they did not profess the religion of the empire, and refused to sacrifice to the divinity of Cæsar. They were traitors, because in those things which concerned faith they were resolved not to recognize on the part of the state any right to interfere; and therefore were they cast into prison, thrown to the wild beasts in the Amphitheatre, and devoured under the approving eyes of the worshippers of the emperor's divinity. This history is repeating itself in Prussia to-day.

Many causes have, within the present century, helped to strengthen the national feeling in Germany. [pg 292] The terrible outrages and humiliations inflicted upon her by the pitiless soldiers of the first Napoleon made it evident that the common safety required that the bonds of brotherhood among the peoples of the different German states should be drawn tighter. The development of a national literature also helped to foster a longing for national unity. In the XVIIth, and even down to nearly the end of the XVIIIth, century, French influence, extending from the courts of princes to the closets of the learned, gave tone to both literature and politics.

Leibnitz wrote in French or Latin, and Frederick the Great strove to forget his own tongue, that he might learn to speak French with idiomatic purity—an accomplishment which he never acquired.

As there was no German literature, the national feeling lacked one of its most powerful stimulants. But in the latter half of the XVIIIth century, and during the first half of the XIXth, a literature rich, profound, thoroughly German, the creation of some of the highest names in the world of letters, came into existence, and was both a cause and an effect of the national awakening. Goethe especially did much, by the absolute ascendency which he acquired in the literature of his country, to unify and harmonize the national mind.

Still, a thousand interests and jealousies, local and dynastic, old prescriptive rights, and a constitutional slowness and sluggishness in the Germanic temperament, stood in the way of a united fatherland, and had to be got rid of or overcome by force before the dream of the nationalists could become a reality.

Prussia, founded by rapine, built up and strengthened by war and conquest, has always been a heartless, self-seeking state. The youngest of the great European states, and for a long time one of the most inconsiderable, she has gradually grown to be the first military power of the world. Already, in the time of Frederick the Great, she was the formidable rival of Austria in the contest for the hegemony of the other German states. This struggle ended, in 1866, in the utter defeat of Austria on the field of Sadowa. Hanover, Saxony, Hesse-Cassel, and other minor principalities were at once absorbed by Prussia, who, besides greatly increasing her strength, thus became the champion of German unity. But German unity was a menace to France, who could not possibly maintain her preponderance in European affairs in the presence of a united Germany. Hence the irrepressible conflict between France and Prussia, which ended in the catastrophe of Sedan.

The King of Prussia became the Emperor of Germany, and German national pride and enthusiasm reached a degree bordering on frenzy.

By a remarkable coincidence the Franco-Prussian war broke out at the very moment when the dogma of Papal infallibility was defined, and immediately after the capitulation of Sedan, Victor Emanuel took possession of Rome. The Pope was without temporal power—a prisoner indeed. The feeling against the newly-defined dogma was especially strong in Germany, where the systematic warfare carried on by the Janus party against the Vatican Council had warped the public mind. France, the eldest daughter of the church, was lying, bleeding and crushed, at the feet of [pg 293] the conqueror. The time seemed to have arrived when the bond which united the Catholics of Germany with the Pope, and through him with the church universal, might easily be broken.

The defection of Döllinger and other rationalistic professors, as well as the attitude of many of the German bishops in the council, and the views which they had expressed with regard to the probable results of a definition of the infallibility of the Pope, tended to confirm those who controlled the policy of the new empire in the opinion that there would be no great difficulty in forming the Catholics of Germany into a kind of national religious body wholly subject to the state, even in matters of faith. If we add to this the fact that the infidels of our day have a kind of superstition which leads them to think that all religious faith has grown weak, and that those who believe are for the most part hypocritical, insincere, and by no means anxious to suffer for conscience's sake, we shall be able to understand how Bismarck, who is utterly indifferent to all religion, and who believes in nothing except the omnipotence of the state, should have persuaded himself to destroy the religious freedom which had come to be considered the common property of Christendom. Already, in the month of August immediately following the close of the war with France, we find the Northern German press, which obsequiously obeys his orders, beginning to throw out hints that Rome had always been the enemy of Germany; that her claims were incompatible with the rights of the state and hurtful to the national development; and that, in presence of the newly-defined dogma of Papal infallibility, the necessity of resisting her ever-increasing encroachments upon the domain of the civil authority had become imperative. The watchword given by the official press was everywhere re-echoed by the organs of both infidel and Protestant opinion, and it at once became evident that the German Empire intended to make war on the Catholic Church.

There was yet another end to be subserved by the persecution of the church. Bismarck made no secret of his fears of a democratic movement in Germany after the excitement of the French campaign had died away, and he hoped to avert this danger by inflaming the religious prejudices of the infidel and Protestant population.

On the 8th of July, 1871, the Catholic department in the Ministry of Public Worship was abolished, and the government openly lent its influence to the Old Catholic movement.

According to the Prussian constitution, religious instruction in the gymnasia is obligatory; but where a portion or all of the students were Catholics, the state recognized that their religious instructors should not be appointed until they had received the approbation of the bishop. Dr. Wollmann, who had for a long time held the office of teacher of religion in the Catholic gymnasium of Braunsberg, apostatized after the Vatican Council, and was, in consequence, suspended from the exercise of the priestly office by his bishop, who declared that, since Wollmann had left the church, he could no longer be considered a suitable religious instructor of Catholic youth. Von Mühler, the Minister of Public Worship, refused to remove Wollmann; and since religious instruction is compulsory, the pupils who could not in [pg 294] conscience attend his classes were forced to leave the school.

This act of Von Mühler was in open violation of the Prussian constitution, which expressly recognized in the Catholic Church the right of directing the religious instruction of its members.

To require that Catholics should send their children to the lessons of an excommunicated priest was to trample upon the most sacred rights of conscience. By declaring, as in this case, that those who rejected the dogma of infallibility were true Catholics, the German government plainly showed that it intended to assume the competency of deciding in all matters of faith, and consequently to wholly ignore the existence of any religious authority distinct from that of the state.

Bismarck's next move was not less arbitrary or tyrannical. He proposed to the Federal Council and Reichstag a law against what was termed the abuse of the pulpit, by which the office of preaching should be placed under the supervision of the police.

This law, which was passed by a feeble majority, was simply a renewal of the attempt to suppress Christianity made by the Jewish Council in Jerusalem when the apostles first began to preach in the name of Jesus, without asking permission of the rulers of the people: “But that it may be no further spread among the people, let us threaten them, that they speak no more in this name to any man. And calling them, they charged them not to speak at all, nor teach in the name of Jesus” (Acts iv. 17, 18).

The injustice of this law was very well shown by the Saxon member of the Federal Council, who pointed out the fact that, whilst liberty of speech was denied to Catholic priests, socialists and infidels were permitted every day to attack the very foundations of all government and civilization.

This, however, is but the necessary consequence of the theory of the state-God. To preach in the name of any other God is treason; whereas atheism is the correlative of the omnipotence of the government. That the present tendency in Germany is to put the nation in the place of God is expressly recognized by the Allgemeine Evang. Luth. Kirchenzeitung, which is the organ of orthodox Lutheranism. These are its words: “For the dogmatic teaching of Christianity they hope to substitute the national element. The national idea will form the germ of the new religion of the empire. We have already seen the emblems which foreshadow the manner in which this new worship is to be organized. Instead of the Christian festivals, they will celebrate the national memories, and will call to the churches the masses to whom the road is no longer known. Have we not seen, on the anniversary of Sedan, the eidolon of the emperor placed upon the altar, whilst the pulpit was surrounded with the busts of the heroes of the war?

“During eight days they wove crowns of oak-leaves and the church was filled; whilst out of ten thousand parishioners, scarcely a dozen can be got together to listen to the word of God. Such is the religion of the future church of the empire. Little more is needed to revive the ancient worship of the Roman emperors; and if the history of Germany is to be reduced to this duel between the church of the emperor and that of the Pope, we must see [pg 295] on which side the Lutherans will stand.”

The next attack on the church was made under cover of an enactment on the inspection of public schools. A project of law was presented to the House of Deputies, excluding all priests from the inspection of schools, and at the same time obliging them to undertake this office whenever asked to do so by the state authorities. This latter clause was, however, so openly unjust that it was rejected by the House. But the law, even as it stands, is a virtual denial that Catholic schools have any right to exist at all, and is an evidence that the German Empire intends to destroy Christian faith by establishing an atheistic system of popular education.

And now war was declared against the Jesuits. The Congress of the Old Catholics, which met at Munich in September, 1871, had passed violent resolutions against the order; and later the Old Catholic Committee at Cologne presented a petition against the Jesuits to the imperial Parliament.

The debate was opened in the month of May, 1872. A project of law, restricting the liberties of religious orders, and especially directed against the Society of Jesus, was brought before the Federal Council and accepted by a large majority. When it came before the imperial Parliament, amendments were added rendering it still more harsh and tyrannical. The order was to be shut out from the empire, its houses to be closed, foreign Jesuits were to be expelled, and the German members of the society were to be confined to certain districts; and the execution of these measures was to be entrusted to the Federal Council.

On the 4th of July the law received the approval of the emperor, and on the 5th it was promulgated.

Thus in the most arbitrary manner, without any legal proceedings, hundreds of German citizens, against whom there was not the slightest proof of guilt, were deprived of all rights and expelled from their country. Besides, the measure was based upon the most ignorant misconception of the real condition of the church, and was therefore necessarily ineffective. The religious orders and the secular priesthood do not represent opposite tendencies in the church; their aims are identical, and, in our day at least, the secular priests are as zealous, as active, and as efficient as the members of the religious orders.

What end, then, was to be gained by expelling the Jesuits, whilst devoted and faithful priests were left to minister to the Catholic people, whose faith had been roused by this scandalous persecution of men whom they knew to be guilty of no crime except that of loving Jesus Christ and his church? The blow struck at the Jesuits was, in truth, aimed at the church, and this the bishops, priests, and entire Catholic people of Germany at once recognized. They saw now, since even the possibility of doubting was no longer left to them, that the German Empire had declared open war against the church; and Bismarck, seeing that his half-way measures had deceived no one, resolved to adopt a policy of open violence. With this view a new minister of Public Worship was appointed in the person of Dr. Falk, who drew up the plan of the famous Four Church Laws to which he has given his name, and which was adopted on the 11th of May, 1873.

In virtue of these laws—which it is unnecessary to transcribe in [pg 296] full—the state arrogates the right of appointing to all ecclesiastical offices, since the government claims authority to approve or annul all nominations made by the bishops; and the President of the Province (Oberpraesident) is bound to interdict the exercise of any religious function to ecclesiastics appointed without his consent. The bishop who makes an appointment to the cure of souls without the consent of the civil authority is fined from two hundred to one thousand thalers; and the priest who, appointed in this way, exercises spiritual functions, is visited with a proportionate fine. This is an attempt to change the very nature of the church; it is a denial of its right to exist at all.

The third of these laws creates the “Royal Court of Justice for Ecclesiastical Affairs,” which claims and possesses by act of Parliament the right to reform all disciplinary decisions made by the bishops in relation to the ecclesiastics under their jurisdiction. This same court has by law the right to depose any ecclesiastic whose conduct the government may see fit to consider incompatible with public order.

The Pope is interdicted from the exercise of disciplinary power within the territory of the Prussian monarchy.

The state takes control of the education of the young men destined to the priesthood. It requires them to pass the arbiturienten-examen in a German gymnasium, and then to devote three years to the study of theology in a German university, during which time they are not to be permitted to live in an episcopal seminary; and thereafter they are to pass a public examination before the state officials. All educational establishments for the clergy, especially all kinds of seminaries, are placed under the superintendence of the government, and those which refuse to submit to this supervision are to be closed. The education of priests, the fitness of candidates for holy orders, appointments to the cure of souls, the infliction of ecclesiastical censures, the soundness of the faith of the clergy, are, in the new German Empire, matters to be regulated by the police.

This is not a struggle between Catholicity and Protestantism; it is a battle between the Atheist State and the Kingdom of God. The Protestant Church in Germany does not alarm Bismarck, because it is feeble and has no independent organization, since its ministers are appointed and ruled by the emperor, and it is also well understood that very few of them have any faith in positive religion.

But the orthodox Protestants of Germany thoroughly understand that the attempt to crush the Catholic Church is meant to be a fatal blow at the vital principle of all religion. This is recognized by the Allgemeine Evang. Luth. Kirchenzeitung in the article from which we have already quoted. “It is a common remark,” says this organ of orthodox Lutheranism, “that the blows struck at the Church of Rome will tell with redoubled force against the evangelical church. But what is meant to injure, only helps the Roman Church. There she stands, more compact than ever, and the world is amazed at beholding her strength. Once the word of the Monk of Wittenberg made her tremble, but to-day the blows of power make her stronger. Let us beware of illusion; it is certain that in the Protestant North of Germany there has grown up a [pg 297] public opinion on the Church of Rome which provokes the respect even of the liberals. We have enough to do, they say, to fight the socialists; it is time to leave the Catholic bishops in peace.”

To Be Concluded Next Month.

The Veil Withdrawn.

Translated, By Permission, From The French Of Mme. Craven, Author Of “A Sister's Story,” “Fleurange,” Etc.